Datasets:

lytang

/

MeetingBank-transcript

like 14

LongBeachCC_05052020_20-0385

Speaker 0: Me thinking that I will do a final item. Just 24. Speaker 1: Communication from Councilwoman Zendejas. Councilmember Richardson. Recommendation to request city attorney to work with development services to amend location requirements and the municipal code for retail adult use cannabis. Speaker 0: Thank you. I think that council member Janine Pearce is going to recuse herself. Speaker 4: Yes, I'm going to recuse myself from this item from my previous work with from the Earth Cannabis. Thanks so much. Speaker 0: Thank you. Councilman's in Dallas. Speaker 2: Thank you. Yes. First and foremost, I just wanted to say that I'm really excited to just see this business coming into our paying street, especially now. I know that there is going to be. A lot of stress on rebuilding the economy right now. And so I know that I was working on this item before, you know, COVID 19 hit us. But now that COVID 19 has hit us, it's even more desirable to bring businesses in and help them survive, especially in the downtown area. With that being said, one of the things that we're trying to to establish here is a small change in the ordinance, the location of where cannabis can be distributed or sold. Retail wise. But before I go on, I would like to ask city staff if they could clarify some things for me. I feel like there's been a little miscommunication or I just feel like maybe by me asking this, you know, it'll help me and everybody else who's listening, you know, add some clarification to this item. First of all, the business that is applying at 240, 3433 Pine Avenue, and where are they in the process to getting their medical cannabis license? Speaker 5: Councilwoman Zendejas. And this is Jay Callery from the city manager's office. We we do have a business that has applied for a change of location to Pine Avenue. The address that you're referring to, and my understanding is the business that has applied for that location has submitted a business license or a change of location application to the city. They've been approved at that location for a medical dispensary business license. They've submitted architectural drawings to the city, and they're midway through that process to receive permits and initiate construction. Speaker 2: Thank you, Angie. And I know we've talked about this before, but I also wanted it to be clear to everyone as well. Another question that I had is, well, how? Do you see that there might be any obstacles from them actually getting the license, the medical license to do business there at this hospital? Speaker 5: Not from the city's end. Once a business is approved for a location, it's really at their discretion how quickly they move through the process, how quickly they can submit plans to the city that are up to code. If they initiate construction, how long it takes them to build the facility and complete inspections and obtain a license. So from from the city's end, there is no reason why a business would be held up in the process. Speaker 2: Okay. And another another question, AJ, is when they're going through the check, hindsight, you know, for lack of a better term, what is it that a medical marijuana licensing business is inquiring as far as like smell for, you know, a cannabis business? Speaker 5: During the application process. Cannabis businesses are aware that if your question is about odor, that ultimately when they receive a license, they're prohibited from having any odor detected from outside of of the facility. But our our building bureau staff have told us on multiple occasions that that is something that's very difficult to inspect for during the planning check process. And so that the odor control issue is one that we deal with after a license has been issued and the business is operating. And if we receive a complaint about odor, that's something that we enforce through our health department. Speaker 2: Okay. And one of the things that I know and maybe Councilwoman Price, you can you can chime in on this, but I know that we have a business like this business that's coming into to Pine Street. I know that. Have you gotten a lot of complaints as far as having a you know, it's in such close proximity to other businesses. I know that they share well walls with other businesses. I don't know. Councilmember Price, might you be able to answer that? Sure. So this particular business that's the subject of the agenda item tonight happens to be the owner and operator of the business that it's in my district on Second Street. I have I have a couple in my district, but this one particularly is on a business corridor that has close proximity to residences. I will say that he has perhaps presented an operating model that might not be realistic, because I'm not sure that most owners and operators would be as responsible as he is. So, you know, the biggest concerns I have is what happens when he's not the owner operator. But in regards to what's happened on Seventh Street is we've worked very closely with the owner operator, which is the same one as this agenda item in regards to any odors or practices that we've received complaints about. Honestly, I think I can count on one hand the number of complaints we've received regarding the specific business of this specific operation. What's the subject matter of the business and the general anxiety along with the business type? We've had a lot of those, but they're not unique to this particular business. We've had very, very little concerns from the public about it. And to the extent that there have been concerns, the business owner has worked with us very closely to make sure that. Things such as odor or you know, I always like to use the example of the security guards outside and how they're dressed. You know, I always like the security guards at all of our marijuana dispensaries in the third district to look more like greeters than police officers. And he's done a really good job of doing that. So they blend very well into the street and into the culture of that particular neighborhood. So I don't know if that answers your question, but the owner of this specific owner operator has been very responsible in regards to those issues. Thank you, Councilmember, for that. Yes. And then just answer my question. How long have they been there? That's one of the things they don't know. You know. Wow. That's a good question. I would say two years, that may not be exactly on point, but I would say about two years. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. I guess that's one of the things that I just wanted to clarify and for others that this this medical medical business, medical cannabis business is coming to Pine Street. Now, one of the things that we're trying to do with this ordinance is be able for them to have adult use and to be able to sell adult use cannabis as well. And that was the whole meaning of this motion and trying to see if we could do something like that. So I kind of wanted to hear from my colleagues and I'm hoping that they'll be supportive of this item. I know there's some miscommunications and stuff like that, so I wanted to kind of air it out and be able to come out with it, you know, with something good going forward because we really need it. One of the things that excites me about this business, this one, it would be the first one in our downtown Long Beach to to to be, you know, in the mix of downtown would be amazing for me to see that in our district, in the area, it would be bring foot traffic to a much, much needed corridor, business corridor right there, especially right now and then need a businesses flourishing. We really need that help right there. And, you know, I just want to make sure that we are open to helping businesses succeed. And just not too long ago, I had a business that was really, really trying to make something really spectacular in my district but was not able to stay. And we had to what I had to painfully watch them leave and and not become a business that would really would have changed my district for the positive. And so I can foresee that I have a vision for this business, you know, in the First District. And I want to see, you know, I want to see it come and enhance our our business corridor right there. Yes. This owner is very responsible. He is very, very willing to work with the community and has reached out, you know. And so I think that that if this was a huge, huge problem, I think I'd have a lot of residents that would be opposed to this. But I'm not getting a lot of that. So and that's probably because we've been, you know, trying to reach out and stuff and, you know, we want to make sure that we're moving forward together on this item. And I do understand that this would be a city wide change, and I do understand that. But I also understand that it's mostly affected in the first and second District by and the reason I say that is that it's here we have the most mixed use buildings with resident and commercial, and it seems that that's going to be the trend going forward. So just, you know, that's those are my thoughts and I'm looking forward to hearing from my colleagues. Thank you. Speaker 0: That's why Richardson. Speaker 3: No, thank you. I'm supportive of the motion I think they will make. That is the consideration that councilwoman they have mentioned about seeing if the ordinance can be amended for the downtown planning district, PD 29 or whatever it was. That way, you know, that that obviously the downtown is different than everywhere else in the city and it allows for the planning commission and the planners and city staff to sort of treat the downtown Pine Avenue experience differently than you might treat, let's say, Atlantic Avenue in Bixby Knolls or some other corridor, you know, across the city . So I would say I think that makes sense and I'm supportive of it. Thanks. Speaker 5: Mayor, Councilmember Richardson, that you the item that you just discussed is not reflective of what the agenda item says is that as an amendment to the motion by. Speaker 3: Uh, councilmembers. Speaker 5: I'm sorry. Speaker 3: I thought it was an amendment. Speaker 5: Was not. Speaker 0: So I think I think what what what the city attorney is asking is, is that was not Mary's motion. And so is is Mary accepting that change that we were asking Charlie? Speaker 5: Yes. I'm not sure on that motion. On on what if I understood Councilmember Richardson correctly? You talked about possibly limiting this to PD 30, I believe is the area it's in. And that is not what this motion asks us to do. Speaker 2: I'm listening. Speaker 3: But I thought. I thought that she closed her comments. Speaker 2: Oh, no. Maybe I was too misunderstood. Think I was saying a lot, but. But that's something that I can and that I will consider. But I really would like to hear from all of our colleagues on this matter first. Thank you. Councilmember Richardson. Speaker 0: City Councilman Price. Speaker 2: Yes. My and the seconder on the motion. Speaker 0: No shall. No. No. Speaker 4: Okay. Sorry. Speaker 2: You're just calling on me because I cued up. Speaker 0: Yes. Speaker 2: I think that Councilman Richardson just added the amendment that I was going to ask about. So I so can I just get some clarification on that? Is that part of the motion that Councilwoman Zendejas is bringing? Because because I would feel much more comfortable with this if there was that amendment. That's something I'm highly considering. Speaker 0: Okay. It just. Just for the record. Speaker 3: I like. Speaker 2: That. Well, if it makes it easier, I. I would like to accept that amendment. Speaker 3: Okay. Speaker 2: I'm. Yes. Speaker 0: Okay. So the amendment is is limited to PD 30. Is that what the amendment is? Speaker 2: Yes. Speaker 0: Okay. So I think I was about to say that your initial motion didn't have a second yet. So I think with this change, it does have a second. Speaker 2: Yes. Thank you. Speaker 3: Okay. Speaker 0: Let me go back. Councilman Pryce, do you have anything else? Speaker 2: You work very much. And thank you, Councilwoman Cindy Hess. Yes, thank you. Speaker 0: Councilman Mongo. Speaker 4: Yes. Are there any limits to the number of these that could pop up in PD 30? In the agenda item. Speaker 5: Um, there, there are a location requirements for dispensaries. Dispensaries cannot locate within 1000 feet of one another. So that would, in theory, limit the number of dispensaries. Unfortunately, I don't know how many that would be. It really depends on the number of of areas in PD 30 where they can locate where various other buffers are, and how far apart the different dispensaries could locate. Speaker 4: So all comment. This particular business owner also owns a business in my district and he's been great to work with. Not all dispensary owners are great to work with and not all dispensaries treat the community well. And so I have bigger concerns that one this could be. Taking over areas. I mean, a thousand feet is not very much. It's literally across the street. People in our district thought that a thousand feet was much more significant than it was. They voted yes on an item before them on the ballot and then just the community uproar. But they were across the street from a school, literally across the street just caused massive panic and pandemonium because people don't realize. Across the major street is is it? And so the kids were crossing the street right there, and it was just not great. So councilman's in the house, I would consider. I would urge you to consider that we've had extensive years, years of council discussion about dispensaries, and we're very fortunate to have Elliott as a business owner in this community. But as we've seen in the last hundred and 20 days, things can change dramatically. And Elliott might not be the owner of this business 60 days from now. And so I would strongly encourage a see you process. I know CEO fees are not required currently in our ordinance, but residential uses of these in residential districts are also not allowed. We require copies for restaurants and liquor stores and other high traffic. Huh? Businesses that you are going to want to protect yourself and future councilmembers from other potential owners that. Speaker 2: Honey undocumented aliens we. Speaker 4: Come from other things that could pop up. So I would request a friendly amendment to require a city to allow this business. Speaker 0: Councilwoman Sun has. Speaker 2: And I would like to wait in here for the other council members to chime in, please. Speaker 0: Okay. Right on. There's no other accounts numbers cued up, but I do have some comments and maybe some questions as well. So I've shared I've shared some of my my thoughts also with Councilman Zendejas previously, I wanted to ask staff that they think that Councilman Price and Councilmember Mongo are correct, that the that the operator has is actually actually running some really good operations as they relate to cannabis in the city. So that that's, I think, a really good sign there. Is there a requirement as far as the ability of. Of the operator to switch out to a different operator at any time. Speaker 5: Yes. Mayor Garcia, like all cannabis license holders, can sell their business. We have a transfer of ownership process. It's a matter of filling out a form and submitting that form to the city with signatures. And we will accept that and transfer allow for the transfer to take place. Speaker 0: Okay. So I have a I have a different perspective than in the motion. It's currently in print. So this is I wanted to share for the record some of my concerns. I have actually no comment or issues with the cannabis dispensary as it relates to the original motion that Councilman is putting forward. But I looking more broadly now that this motion has changed, which is not what I was expecting or, you know, initially to go to PD 30 only my assumption would be when we had this discussion in the past, Mr.. MODICA Correct me if I'm wrong, but doing PD 30 only would actually bring a large number of the same type of business to PD 30 because of how much PD 30 is is actually this designation, is that correct or am I wrong? Speaker 5: So I'm going to I'm going to have a J take a crack at that. As I understand it, you know, most of your mixed views are going to be within PD 30, but it's hard to predict how many would come or not come because you also are going to be buffering each other out. So it's hard to say that would equal six or seven or one. It really depends on the location. So AJ, can you talk to that? Speaker 0: I mean, and the only reason why I ask is because not that, it's not that it's actually a good or bad thing to have one. Q Or more. I think the issue is that when we've done these kind of speed specific maps in the past, it's taken us many months to actually analyze the data as to how many a certain type of business. Right. And this is and I'm going back this is really not a cannabis issue. This is a it's a me planning issue. When we put together the downtown plan, how we are very carefully mapped out where and how, what type of it is this would go where. And so I just want to make sure AJ as we move forward because I, I can, I have no issue with that with, with this business. I want to make sure from a planning perspective that we're not just quickly making a planning mistake here and not thinking about what the consequence of it is. That's my main question. And this and this is just coming up since this is a change of motion is happening. Speaker 2: There, this is linear. Speaker 0: So AJ can get the response from city staff. Speaker 2: This is Linda Tatum Development Services. And I just wanted to weigh in on a couple of the the comments that have been made regarding this from a land use perspective. And Mayor, thank you for your perspective. I I've heard several comments about mixed use and it being limited to the down to downtown or into the PD 30 area. But that's actually not at all true. I think if you drive down any quarter in the city, you will see a number of properties that had a residential use on top with a ground floor business, and that while most of the newer mixed use projects that I think everybody thinks about when we think about mixed use are located in the downtown area. There is mixed use throughout the city. And the one comment about the PD 30 is that everybody mentioned or several people mentioned the 1000 foot radius between cannabis dispensaries, but there are other criteria for the location and those include being 1000 feet away from a school, one 1000 feet away from a public beach, 600 feet away from a. Speaker 4: Park, a library. Speaker 2: Or daycare center. So consideration of all of those buffering criteria would go into any location where they're located, including PD 30. And just the final comment about it from the land use perspective. Speaker 4: I think while this may sound. Speaker 2: Like a simple change of wording to allow these a mixed use building and and put a couple on it, I think given the extensive research in the thought to the mayor's point about how much went into creating the maps and all of the criteria, changing that wording would require some assessment of the compatibility issues. And it's not a simple matter of just saying, yes, let's look at it in PD 30, but if you consider the city wide staff would just like to make sure we have. Speaker 1: Ample opportunity. Speaker 2: To assess those compatibility concerns, odors, potential nuisance, potential noise, the security and all of those kinds of considerations, and come back with a reasonable recommendation inclusive of whether it should be a conditional use permit or something that can address all all of those potential compatibility issues on a on a project by project basis. So again, we're just that's my feedback. And I just hope that. Speaker 1: If this motion passes. Speaker 2: We have ample time because we are we do have some short staffing issues right now. So I would hope that we have ample time to to do a full assessment of this proposal and bring something back to council in line with the direction that I'm that I'm, I'm assuming will come out of this discussion tonight. Speaker 0: Thank you. I appreciate that, Lynda. And I would agree with with all your points, I think that that any time we make a a project specific grade, a specific zone change, that is a huge, huge decision. And so I just want to make sure that if this, as the motion is is being read it contravenes and they have said Councilman Sun has would consider really a review with the planning department that's that's very thorough as it relates to PD 30 with recommendations. And I only say that because the the creation of the PD 30 map I know is very complicated. And so I just want to make sure that that's part of the discussion. But I appreciate all the conversation with I just wanted to raise those issues with with staff. So those are my. Comments. Councilman's in Dallas. Speaker 2: Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Linda Tatum. One of the questions I have is, is there a way to put a cap on how many businesses like that could come to. To downtown Long Beach. Like, I know we have a cap in the city already and I think we're. That's another question. Are we already asked the cap or dispensaries throughout the city? Speaker 5: Council members in dales is Charlie Morgan. There is the ordinance was established by a vote of the people. So to change the cap, you would need a vote of the people. Speaker 2: Okay to change the cap only in the downtown area. In the. Speaker 5: To change the cap at all on dispensaries. Speaker 2: Okay. And what is the cap right now on on dispensaries? And are we close to that or have we reached that cap already? Speaker 5: And the there's a cap of 32 dispensaries citywide at this time, I believe we've issued 21 licenses to dispensaries. However, we have 11 more in the pipeline. And so we will eventually have 32 licensed dispensaries out. Speaker 2: Okay. So we don't have to worry too much about it. Okay. Sounds good. I think that. This is. Speaker 3: A. Speaker 2: I'm on the. I'm sorry. I'm trying to think and talk at the same time. One of the things I think that the best thing would be to do right now is. You know, one one of the things, though, wouldn't we be able to kind of fast track some of the thought that's going into the cannabis because we already are giving this business a medical license and they're already going to be a business there. So it wouldn't be too much to ask because they're already going to be addressing. Right, the odor issues, security issue. One of the things that I wanted, you know, that I've been discussing with the business owner is the fact that we I would like to see something, like I said before, that's going to come into this neighborhood, into this business improvement district and really enhance it and give back to the community and and not stand out in a way that that's going to attract people that, you know, that might. Not be the kind of people we want to have on Pine Street. So. That's why I'm having you. Because I have my own vision for this for this business. And what am I correct in saying that, that, you know, they are already going to be having to adhere to your control? One of the things that I that I think is very good in this business is that all of the product that's coming into the business is now is has to be prepackaged. So they don't have anything there that's really going to be, you know, letting out extra orders. So that's one of the things that was very important to me when when learning about the business is that everything that's coming in is already prepackaged. And I know that, you know, they're working on, you know, the way they're building it out is that they are putting in different different things that will prevent odor from going outside of the building. And the you know, it brings me great comfort to know that this is a business owner that has been doing this for a while and not a business owner, that this is taking the first shot at trying to bring a business to this. So I think that that's also very important. So I just wanted to ask that before I make a decision. Thank you, Councilwoman Zendejas, for that question. This is Lynda Tatum. Again, let me speak to that from the perspective that the review process for the medical cannabis is, the question that you're asking is that whether or not it could be fast tracked for the medical, that may be a possibility. However, the broader question and the item that that you have on the agenda tonight is speaking to changing the code to accommodate this in any building. And that's really the question. So it's not really tailored to this particular business because the reality is that this particular business could go into PD 30 right now, today at a different location that was not in a mixed use building. That opportunity exists today. It will exist tomorrow and in the future. What you're raising is the bigger issue of mixed use. The ground floor or the commercial component of a mixed use building, not just in this area, but citywide. And that's the area because when the ordinance was initially constructed, it did not contemplate allowing these uses in mixed use buildings. And because it didn't contemplate that. The challenge for us right now is staff has to go back in to fully assess that use in a mixed use building and look at those compatibility. And that's what I was referring to earlier, is that we would be looking that on at staff at council's direction, whether it's citywide or whether it's in PD 30. But those are the kinds of things we would be looking at. And I don't know that those actual requirements would be substantially different. But what I would suggest that the the comment about a C, p is a very likely outcome. Should we move forward with that? And that would allow us to look at the businesses on a project by project basis to determine the appropriate building improvements to address odors, security improvements to address security of those operations, and any other potential impacts that might come out of having a cannabis use in the same building with a a residential occupancy. I hope that answered your question. It was kind of roundabout, but I just wanted to be clear. Yeah, it's a bigger issue than just this particular business. It's looking at this type of business and any mixed use building in the city or MPD 30. Speaker 0: And I just got a note also from, from just, just from staff perspective and I agree. I just want to remind us also that, you know, we can't be really talking about specific addresses because really this is a land use question. And so we're not really supposed to be talking about a location. So we really should be talking about land use, right? And so we is really the better. And that's why I think the PD 30 question is really important because if we're saying we're going to make a change to PD 30, then what we're saying is that any regardless of this specific location, but any location, PD 30, that fits within the regulatory scheme that we have created, it would be considered, right, not just this location, really any location. And so I just want to make sure that that. Mr. MODICA Is that is that correct? Because I'm just trying to remember all of our planning conversations about PD 30. This is a it's a broader has there been any analysis done on PD 30 as it relates to cannabis in this and in mixed use? Speaker 5: So this is Tom. I'll let Linda talk about that actual last question. But for the first part, yes, that when the when the council and the city deals with land use, you really should be talking about the uses within that category and really not specific to a specific business. So you're setting the rules and the framework for all businesses that would have the ability to to locate there under certain guidelines. And so that really, you know, when you start picking an individual business and you do things like a cap of one or whatever, the meaning of that is that that is really where we get into trouble from like a spot zoning perspective. So I'll let Linda talk a little bit more, but really we would like the council, if you're going to go this direction to talk about some overarching framework of how and where you'd want to allow these. And then we would come back with what the rules are. Speaker 0: Thank you. Linda goes because at least my recommendation would be that would make me comfortable is. If we're going to move forward tonight, that it's really a conversation and that there's some type of analysis on what a PD 30 only layover would mean to our planning documents. That that's just my thought. I'll leave it there. But. Ms.. Tatum. Speaker 2: Mayor. Speaker 4: I don't have a whole lot to. Speaker 2: Add other than just to elaborate, to say that you're absolutely right that we would be looking really carefully at PD 30. And I think an option if councilwoman desire in Sunday House is open to it is that we can certainly look at it citywide, but we could also look at it within PD 30 with a very specific lens, because you're absolutely right. Our PD 30 has a very unique characteristic because of the specific densities and the intensity of land uses and the mix of land uses that we allow. And downtown, it has a very unique function and role in the development of the entire city. So we would certainly want. Speaker 4: To look at that carefully with. Speaker 2: The objective to ensure that. Speaker 1: This new. Speaker 4: Use, if it were to go. Speaker 2: Forward, would make sure that we're protecting the integrity of the PD 30 use, as well as addressing any of the compatibility issues that would be associated with allowing these businesses in. PD 30. MM Thank you. Thank you, Linda. Thank you, Mayor. As as we all know, today is very different from tomorrow. And so with that being said, you know, we we have so much on our hands right now with COVID 19 and trying to get businesses back into reopening Long Beach and trying to find ways to help businesses not only reopen their doors, but actually thrive and most importantly, survive. With that being said, I just I think I also feel more comfortable with amending my my motion to to asking staff to come back with a report on options on how we could do go about making these changes and being able to have. Businesses go into mixed use and I'm sorry, businesses. Conduct their business, cannabis business and makes use of properties or buildings which include residential and commercial. I think that is fun. If I can get a second on that, that would be great. And I would. And I know that that we you know, I would prefer it the quicker the better. And and but I know that they need some time. And so I would recommend that we come. I was hoping in 30 days that we could do something like that, but 30 days may not be feasible. So I would like to see what we can do in 60 days and then move from there. May I weigh in, Councilwoman Cindy Haas? I think staff can certainly do that, but I would ask that you clarify that the intent of your motion is regarding cannabis adult use cannabis dispensaries, because opening up the to mixed use for the other types of cannabis uses I think would be more impractical. And I'm thinking of uses like manufacturing, research and testing. So if if it is adult use cannabis dispensaries, that certainly helps clarify it. And the other point I would make is that right now you've you've mentioned about the COVID. We are stretched really thin on our staff that would need to do this analysis and this assessment. And we have other really critical time sensitive projects on our plate right now. So I would ask for a consideration of 3 to 6 months. I'd say we would need a minimum of three months, but ideally at least six months given some of the other the shortages of staff dealing with the COVID issue as well as other projects that have a more time sensitive priority. Speaker 1: So that would be staff's request of. Speaker 2: The regarding this consideration. Yes, I can. I can do that. First, yes, let's make clear that it's for dispensaries, adult use and dispensaries. And thank you for that, Linda. Also, let's let's do that. Three months, 90 days. That would be good if we get close and we don't you know, we don't see how, Chris, maybe we can talk about it then again. But I think this I feel more comfortable doing that. And I feel like there's still a lot of. Of uncertainty out there, not only on this item, but just in the economy as a whole. And I think said, you know, this might be the best thing to do moving forward. Speaker 5: Like You can't remember this. We'll do our best to do the. The three months. Speaker 3: Yes. Speaker 0: Thank you. I wasn't actually say the same thing. I want to think councilman's in there. First of all, there's a there's a second to that motion by Councilman Mongo. So thank you, Councilmember. I just want to add. Thank you, Councilwoman. I think that's a good one. Just to clarify, Tom. In no way does this slow down the current operators opportunity to continue moving forward in that space with the current license they have. And that's correct, right? Speaker 5: That's correct. For medical, they can still move ahead. Speaker 0: Okay, great. And then and then secondly, I would I would agree just to support customers. And they have said that the sooner we can get this clarified, I think, you know, obviously, we should be looking at not just what that what the mixed use piece is, but if you were only you know, if we come back to this council and it ends up being a change that only happens in PD 30, what that would look like as well, because there might be interest for that, you know, depending where this council lands. So I think looking at both of those quick, you know, as fast as possible, I think would be great to have for for for the councilwoman and for the business. I do support that. And so just want to think the flexibility of everyone on that issue as well. Let me just go through really quick cuz Councilmember your are you still on this list or is an old one. Speaker 3: So no, I was in Mexico City. Speaker 0: Councilman Mongo. Do you have any additional comments? Sorry about that. Speaker 4: No, I appreciate Councilman Van de Hoss taking a step to consider all the the potential ramifications. I think it's really important for us to know how many are possible in downtown. He talks about O.J., talks about 11 in the pipeline, but those 11 could easily choose other locations that are more profitable. And so I think that it's important. I've talked to another councilmember who talked about another downtown that had them speckled around and it was great. But I've also been to places that it's taken over corridors and that's not great. So I think it's prudent for her to look out for the interest of her district. And the COP option is what really gives the councilmember the opportunity to look on a case by case basis. So I look forward to hearing staff's recommendations when they come back. Speaker 0: I think in council, I think they have everyone. I think that's everyone. Any final comments? Anyone else from Zendaya's? Speaker 2: Yes. One final comment. Just refer to to clarify. I did want to include a separate option with ACP in there, as well as other options which don't include ACP, just to make sure that that's in that motion that I made. Speaker 0: Mr. Monica, did you get that? Speaker 2: Yes. Staff received that. And that is we can certainly do that. Thank you. Thank you very much. Well, thank you very much, everyone. Speaker 0: Thank you. Thank you very much. There's a motion and a second. Madam Curtis, read the rule. Speaker 1: District one. District two. District three. Speaker 2: May I? Speaker 1: District four. Speaker 3: By. Speaker 1: District five. I think District six. Speaker 3: I'm one of District seven. Speaker 1: I picked eight. District nine. District nine. Speaker 3: I was muted, I. Speaker 1: Motion carries.

Agenda Item

Recommendation to request City Attorney to work with the Development Services Department to amend location requirements in the Long Beach Municipal Code 5.92.420 - Location requirements.

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_04212020_20-0338

Speaker 0: Okay. Consent calendar is passed. Item 15 has been withdrawn. And so we'll move on to. Which was a hearing. So we're going to now move on to item 16 and if I could. And please Mr. Phones. Thank you. Speaker 3: Item six. Speaker 0: Madam Court. Speaker 3: Report from Public Works Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record, conclude the public hearing and adopt a resolution approving and certifying Environmental Impact Report and adopting a mitigation, monitoring and reporting program for the Shoemaker Bridge Replacement Project Districts one and two. Speaker 0: I can turn this over to staff. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. So this is American. So we are really at a juncture for a very important project that we want to give you a briefing on. I do want to point out that this isn't the first time that we're using the WebEx system to display the PowerPoint. So that should be on the screen for everyone at home and for you as well. And so we do have a presentation we'd like to go through. Craig back will give that presentation. This really is a project that could be one of those signature Long Beach projects. As you come into the downtown with some fantastic architecture. It's a park project as well, as well as a mobility and a safety project. And so it's many years in the making. We're asking you to certify the air tonight. And with that, I will turn it over to Craig back to walk us through it. Speaker 1: Thank you, Mr. City Manager, Mayor, Members, City Council. Thank you for the opportunity tonight to present a fantastic project. This is ai7 ten early action project and it essentially entails the construction of a new bridge connecting the 710 to downtown Long Beach. As the city manager details. It also provides us an opportunity to create new park space in the west end of our downtown. So this has been a long time in the making with a lot of community participation and and a lot of support from staff. Our lead staff is the city's engineer, Alvin Papa. He's been involved in this from day one. And I'm going to ask Alvin to go through some of the details of the air, what the study was, general timelines on this project, and then be available to answer any questions. So, Alvin. Thank you, Craig. Hello, honorable mayor and members of city council. What you have here today is for the public hearing for approval and certification of an environmental impact report for the Shoemaker Bridge Replacement Project. For the format of this presentation, I'm going to talk a little bit about the purpose and need and then discuss the various alternatives that were evaluated, how we arrive to a preferred alternative, along with a summary of the environmental process and the timeline, along with next steps. On the second slide. This is the purpose and need slide. So with regards to the Shoemaker Bridge, the bridge was built in 1954. The current structure has structural and operational deficiencies, and it also has a higher accident rate than the state average. So the goal of the project is actually to build, to rebuild the bridge so that we have a new facility that's current with highway safety standards. In addition, the new bridge will enhance the regional connections to our downtown by providing better access to the 710 freeway and connections. It should be noted that this project is an early action item. Speaker 0: But once again, the mayor, everyone's on me and you never want to go into it except for the staff making a presentation once. Speaker 1: I thank you. So it should be important to note that this project is an early action project of the ice of intense South Corridor Improvement Project. It's consistent with our planning documents for future growth, and it's also compatible with our planned future projects and developments in the area. On slide number three, what you have here is a map of the project along with the limits. So the project is located at the terminus of the Ice 710 Freeway. The new bridge that's being proposed is proposed to be built south of the existing bridge. As part of the project, ninth and 10th Street. Off ramps on the west side of the L.A. River are proposed to be closed. So the project limits were spent extended to the north and to the west so that we can consider any potential impacts as a result of those closures. Speaker 0: Additionally, additional. Additionally, though, this is the mayor. 1/2. I need everyone to bring me down. Right. Speaker 1: Additionally, there are local street connections that are going to be realigned to improve circulation throughout the downtown. And as part of this project, six and Seven Street will be converted from one way streets to two two way streets. This will help align those street segments with the connection over by Atlantic, which are currently two way streets. On Slide four, you'll see an overview of the different alternatives that were looked at. There were three alternatives and two design options. And as part of this environmental impact report, there were various technical technical studies that were looked at in various topics, and we evaluated each of these alternatives and options through those studies to see if there's any potential impacts and any mitigation or monitoring that would be required. So on the next slides, I'm going to go through each alternative and the two design options. On Slide five. This is alternative number one, the no build otherwise known as a do nothing option. In this option, there is no project. As a result of that, the structure would continue to be structurally deficient. We would continue to have high accident rates. And then in the future, this this area and the project would not be consistent with our future growth and any developments that came in the area. The next slide. Slide number six. Alternative number two. This calls for building a new bridge and then reusing a portion of the existing bridge for non transportation use where it would accommodate walking, biking and potentially jogging. Slide number seven is alternative number three, which is very similar to alternative number two, where we would build a new bridge south of the existing bridge. Except the difference is that we would completely remove the old structure. And this. This includes removal of all the piers that exist within the L.A. River. Slide number eight shows the design option A, which is a roundabout. So as part of the two design options, this design option A would be an elevated roundabout which would provide access to and from the I7 ten Freeway via Shoreline Drive and Seventh Street. And one thing to note is this hasn't been done in California. So this would be a one of the first of its kind in California. The next option is design option B, which is the Y intersection. This is a more traditional design and this is a design that we've been looking at and working with with Caltrans over the years. And it also has a smaller visual footprint when compared to the roundabout. It's going to take a lot of time here on this slide. This is the preferred alternative. So this preferred alternative was selected by the project design team. And the project design team consists of a mixture of Caltrans staff, city staff and consultant staff that designed the project. One thing I want to mention is that back in 2000, the California Transportation Commission passed a resolution to accept the Shoemaker Bridge as part of the I7 ten Freeway. And as part of the planning for the Shoemaker bridge process, when construction is done, the Shoemaker Bridge is going to be transferred to Caltrans for maintenance. The city, in the end ultimately will be responsible for all the local street connections, and Caltrans will be responsible for the Shoemaker Bridge with its associated ramps. And as a result of this and the reason I bring this up is Caltrans input has a lot to do with influencing the preferred alternative. And the preferred alternative is alternative three a. And this this alternative is construction of a new bridge. Complete removal of the existing bridge. And its construction of a roundabout at the terminus of the freeway. And as part of the selection of the preferred alternative, the project design team determined that this best satisfied the purpose in need of the project. It also minimizes the risk to habitat and hydraulic hydraulics due to the removal removal of all the piers within the L.A. River. And based on the traffic models that were were done to evaluate analysis of the different options, the roundabout had better safety and operations within the traffic model that was used. One thing I want to mention is that Caltrans and Long Beach staff, we did differ in opinion in some categories with this, but ultimately we agreed to move forward with Caltrans preference, which was this roundabout option. And the reason we did that is so that we can approve this environmental document today, so that we can meet the funding deadlines that we have for future design funding. This next slide, slide 11. This is a this is a concept of what this project could look like under this preferred alternative. Ultimately, the final project might be different based on the different options and alternatives. So although we selected a preferred alternative, it is just that it's a preferred alternative. If you remember, I think a couple of months ago when we had a design contract that we amended, there's additional design that we're doing. So we are looking at the roundabout and we option a little further along with different alternatives, and we're going to get them a little bit further. And if it's decided in the future that those options are preferred, we can always come back and amend it and supplement the IIR as needed to reflect the final design. So looking at this design, after the environmental impact is completed, we would start a bridge type selection process. So one of the concepts, the concept you're looking now is single pylon cables, the type bridge. But what we would actually do is when we start the design process, we would come back to City Council with various types of design options so that council could make a policy decision on the type of bridge that would best fit the city. And the final design would move forward based on that policy decision. And the cost would also reflect that decision. On the right hand side, you'll notice this is Drake Chavez Park and you'll also see on the top right hand side, that's the existing configuration of shoreline drive. So for those of you that drive Shoreline Drive, you'll notice that there's a there's a no man's land between both sides of Shoreline Drive. And as part of this project will be realigning that street and combining those two segments so that the bifurcated portions of park could be reintegrated together. And so in the end, what this does is remove five and a half acres of roadway within Chavez Park and we'll have a this will result in a net gain of approximately four acres of parkland. And as part of that, we'd also establish enhanced active transportation connections to downtown through Drake Park and to the L.A. River. On the next slide, slide 12. This is a summary of all the environmental impacts. If you look at this table, there's a lot of different topics that were investigated as part of this environmental study. I mean, overall, to summarize it quite succinctly, the majority of environmental topics reviewed revealed that there were there was no impact or less than a significant impact. You see, there were a few categories where mitigation does need to be incorporated. Um, but these have been looked at and these mitigation measures are fully enforceable through permits and agreements which are, which are identified in the environmental commitment record and as part of the mitigation monitoring plan. On this next slide is the project schedule. You'll see the schedule here over the next couple of years with anticipated start of construction somewhere around 2023 in the box to the right. You will see next steps. So if the environmental document is approved today, the next step would be to move forward with the design. We would move forward with allocation of funding for a design process to finish the design process. We would start the bridge type selection process and return to City Council with further information on the different type of options. And then we'll continue to look at the different alternatives to be included in the final design and amend the environmental document as needed. And with that, the recommendation today is for city council to receive the sort of supporting documentation into the record, to conclude the public hearing, to adopt the resolution approving and certifying the E.R. and to adopt a mitigation and monitoring and reporting program as part of the resolution that you are approving today. And that concludes my presentation. And staff, along with our consultants, are here to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you and really just much presentation. So I think that. Going to go ahead and turn this over to Council Member Sandy Haslam, District one of the motion. Speaker 2: To get in is something that I'm personally very excited to see moving forward, especially in looking at how this might impact space in the First District, having access to green spaces, incredibly important to my residents that they I will not lose opportunities for being there. So I'm really excited about this. This is something that I'm passionate about and I think that is something amazing that we can bring to our city. So I'm seeking the support of my colleagues to move this forward, to get into this that this resolution and the report. Thank you. Speaker 0: Councilman Pierce. Speaker 2: Thank you, Mayor. And thank you, Alvin, for the great presentation. I think the designs obviously look very exciting, something that we've all been waiting years for I to support additional green space. I would be remiss if I did not say that a a floating roundabout kind of terrifies me, but it looks really cool. So I have just two questions on. I appreciate that we can come back as we explore other design models. What's the speed limit going to be in that area? Do we expect it to be? I'm just curious. Speaker 1: The speed limit will be determined by the final design and is based on kind of the geometry and and a lot of other factors that we're going to we're going to design. Speaker 2: Well, I think the circle looks really cool. And but I'm terrified that somebody would go flying off the side. But I welcome you guys to continue to do the good work and look forward to getting this through this next hurdle. So I do support this and I hope my council colleagues will, too. Thank you. Speaker 0: District eight. Hi. I'd like to offer my support for the design. We are going to add Environmental Impact Report as is no small deal. So congratulations to 2 to 2 staff, but also to the residents of Long Beach. This has been a long visit. This has been discussed as long as I've been on the city council. I believe this is a project that is in the long term interest of our city and consistent with our vision of making our downtown more accessible, but also improving our just thruway accessibility for residents as long as the goods movement while coming over to the freeway. I did have a question regarding the construction number that I hear construction would be ready in 2023. Will we be ready for construction if the timeline. Speaker 1: Councilmember Austin. That is correct. I think if we can meet our timelines that were laid out, which includes adoption of the E.R. today. Also funding of the design by the CTSI scheduled for June that we believe we can complete the necessary final design, get council support of that final design, get bid documents out, and be ready to start construction by 2023. So that is our schedule. You have a team that's committed to delivering that as long as we can meet some of these milestones. Speaker 0: And are we are we the project funded? I know this to some the air and some of the early funds that we are putting forward are actually some measure are of early action items. But where is the funding for this project coming from and what is there own? Is there a gap? Speaker 1: Council member. I think you've identified that as correct. It was one of the early action projects identified as part of the I 17 overall effort. We don't know exactly what the gap is. There are some estimates as to the preferred design and costs associated with getting that final design completed. There's roughly $14 million of funding identified that we're going to be requesting the CTSI to approve in June. The current estimate shows that there is a funding gap beyond that 14 million. We'll be working with our partner agencies to to finalize commitment for this design and move this all forward. And we can keep council apprized as those conversations move forward. Speaker 0: I was looking more for the overall for construction. I think this as chair of the Fed merged committee and hearing conversations from Washington DC about potential future stimulus regarding infrastructure. I think this should be a high priority and will be a high priority for the city to fund this project, because I think it's very important for our future for many levels economic development, but mobility for our residents and goods movement from the port. And so I like I said, I really support this. I think this is an important project for the city. And to to one more request is that this was presentation. If you can email the documents as well, because I don't think the staff report that we have. Speaker 1: Councilmember. We're happy to do that. Speaker 0: Thank you. Councilman Glenda. Thank you. This is exactly what we've been talking about in the, you know, infrastructure committee that we have that we have in council. When I was a member of it were six years ago. So this is a culmination of a long series of meetings and discussions, especially with Caltrans and the Southern Committee. So really looking forward to the completion of this project. And I want to congratulate staff a job well done. Thank you. Councilman Price. Speaker 2: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I, too, want to thank staff for the presentation. And like my colleagues just said, this is a project we've been talking about for many years now. So I want to acknowledge the work that. Now, Senator then Councilwoman Gonzalez and Councilman Lowenthal did in these conversations. I know that we talked about them a lot when they were on the council and how the ones that they asked hasn't missed a beat. She picked up right where they left off and is bringing this project forward. And I think staff did a great job on the presentation, so I offer my full support. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you. That concludes council comments. We have a motion any second. I will go ahead with. Of course the comments have been any comments or submitted? Three comments. And with that, we will take the vote. Madam, what happens? Speaker 3: District one. Speaker 2: And. Speaker 3: District two? District two. Speaker 2: I spoke about that district three. I. Speaker 3: District four. Speaker 0: I. Speaker 3: District five. My District six. Speaker 0: Right. Speaker 3: District seven. District eight. Speaker 0: I. Speaker 3: District nine. Speaker 0: I. Speaker 3: Motion carries.

Resolution

Recommendation to receive the supporting documentation into the record, conclude the public hearing, and adopt resolution approving and certifying Environmental Impact Report (EIR 01-20)/ Environmental Assessment No. 273000, making certain California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) Findings and Determinations relative thereto; and Adopting a Mitigation Monitoring and Reporting Program (Environmental Commitments), as set forth in said Resolution, in accordance with those measures as set forth in EIR 01-20; for the Shoemaker Bridge Replacement Project (State Clearinghouse No. 2016041007). (Districts 1,2)

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_04212020_20-0340

Speaker 0: Madam. I think I skipped over eating there. Speaker 3: That's management item 18 meeting. Communication from Councilwoman Mango. Councilwoman Price. Vice Mayor Andrews. Councilman Austin. Recommendation to implement a commitment to adopt policy within 60 days. Speaker 2: See if I can. Speaker 0: Have Councilwoman Mango motion in. Speaker 2: Time to motion. Speaker 0: To a party. Speaker 2: To. I don't see it because I can't see anywhere else. Speaker 0: Into the. Not into the chat it into the texting messaging service that we emailed earlier today or yesterday. Okay. Last week. It was last week. It's okay. Go ahead. Cut one mango. I do it. Speaker 2: Thank you. This is the culmination of bringing together a lot of the ideas from many who have come to council meetings and written. Speaker 0: Office related to. Speaker 2: How to support animal services and getting the animals into the homes. Over the last six weeks, we've seen an amazing amount of work on the part of. Speaker 0: Our foster. Speaker 2: Partners, and we want to continue that progress on a go forward basis. Many of you know, the shelters are on the verge of empty. We do have a few cats left, but it would be great if they had a home. And so as we come out of this crisis and return to normal, we want to get ahead of it and make sure we have processes in place that support our animal control director and our employees working hand in hand with the community and our foster partners to make sure each animal finds a home. So you may remember that in the state of California, there used to be a ten day sale policy for owners to reclaim their animals, and that was rescinded several years ago and during a prior financial crisis. And so the shelters are only required to be a lot on three days that we do as a best practice for the protest. This would allow people during that time their whole period to. Commit to adopting the animal and then have a backup person. This will allow. Speaker 0: The director. Speaker 2: And the city manager a lot of leeway in crafting the policy and ensuring that the organizations that follow through on those commitments are rewarded with the ability to make more commitments. But if organizations make commitments and don't follow through, then they would lose their ability to make those commitments so that we ensure that animals have the best chance of finding a home. With that, I hope that my colleagues will support this item. We've done a lot of outreach in the community and we really think that this is a step in the right direction. Also very open to any suggestions that have come up since item was written, which we felt that could improve it both on the city manager side or the Parks. Speaker 0: And Rec slash. Speaker 2: Animal care side. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you. Councilwoman, I have Councilwoman Price who's going to make a second. Speaker 2: I'm happy to support this item, and I want to thank Councilwoman Mongo. She's always very, very creative and thinking about our animal care services division and all the different things that we can do to increase adoptions. And I really appreciate her leadership and happy to support this item. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you. Next up is Vice Mayor Andrews. Yes. Thank you. I also would like to thank our cast in Mungo for bringing the site on board. It was about any measure, you know, everything. I've seen more animals arriving in the home. I think it's worth giving it a try again as a notable bonus item. But the next is council this year. Oh. Speaker 2: Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Councilmember Mungo, for bringing this forward. I think completely and a real compassion. Speaker 0: To once again. Can I go and get the times, please? I can see that there's a lot of books that are not me, including city staff. Everyone needs to mute their phones except for the person. So thank you so much. But Council Member Pearce. Speaker 2: Thank you. I was saying I appreciate the item. I think it is a step in the right direction and aligned with the work that we've done over the last two years with Compassion Save. I did make sure to check in with city staff first and I had a couple of questions that I just want to ask publicly and then I'll give my full support to the item. I know that we the last time we talked about our animal shelter, we had given direction to city staff to start working on an operational agreement, which would seem that some of these items laid out in this item would include could stop. Just give us a report on where we're at. I know that COVID pops up, but what's the timeline for getting an operational agreement with the SPCA? Speaker 0: Take out some of our time, Erica. So we were given the assignment by the council to first before we got to the operational agreement, really dove into the review of the agreement and the lease and all the documents that are currently in place. So that work essentially was very close to being finished when COVID 19 happened. So that has been we're very close on that part. We were actually in the process of setting up the negotiation meeting and sitting down with SPCA when I believe it was even on the day that we implemented either Safer at home or declared an emergency. And so that has unfortunately impacted our work to be able to to have those discussions. It is currently on pause and we know it's important to the council. We would like to get back to it as soon as we're able to. But we ideally this item was going to wait until we were done with those negotiations. But we do feel this is a relatively easy step to implement. But the ongoing discussions and operations and the negotiations would take a fair amount of time. So I don't have a date for you. Stephen, does he? He can chime in. But at this point, we're a little bit on a pause. Speaker 2: That's that's okay. I just wanted to make sure that we kept that at the forefront of what we're thinking. And my next my next comment would be just and one of the issues that continues to come up is tracking animals that go to the SPCA and making sure that if we're focusing on Forever Home, which has been the continued intent of this council, that we are also tracking what happens to the pets that go to Assisi. So I would ask as part of this, that that staff figure out a way to track when those adoptions are happening so that we have a count of that. So that those are my my two comments. I support the item and think it's a good step following all the work that we've done and want to thank all the advocates that continue to do great work and advocate and again, thank our shelter staff and want to make sure that they have the tools that support them to do their good work. So thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilmember. And we can certainly add to the list of the things we're going to discuss with SPCA, the reporting requirements that you talk about and have that be part of those operating agreement discussions. Speaker 2: Thank you, Tom. Speaker 0: Councilmember. Thank you. I thank the board. Thank you, Councilman Mongo, for bringing this forward. You did ask for suggestions, so I will really get into the weeds on something a constituent brought up. And that's the last bullet point number eight. If no committee member has requested or allow refuge to pull at 4 p.m. the night before, and what was suggested was that information needs to be out there publicly. So if someone is anticipating an animal still being available for a rescue on a Friday or adoption on a Friday, you don't want to disappoint them by the animal being gone before. That's all I have. Thank you, Councilmember Austin, but thank you. Would also like to lend my support to this. Obviously, I was closing in on this item. I think it's very important. But I also want to commend my colleague, Councilmember, a longer term commitment to this issue. I know she and her husband, Scott, they spend a lot of time and they're very close to an animal shelter near and dear to her heart, the dolphin. I'd also like to think that this this policy that we are moving forward with will help support many of our dogs and partners who are doing some amazing work. I mean, there are a lot of where some of our unsung heroes in the city of Long Beach for their commitment, compassion and work to adopt out my pet. I can speak for my personal experience. Just a little over a month ago, my family, we adopted a pet and know I want to thank our school board member Megan Crawford of fostering and facilitate that. Also want to give a shout out to Sparky and the gang for their efforts to really save the lives of countless amount of animals in the community. And so this is this is a good framework to work from. I think this does kind of get into the weeds, but I'm okay from that. And I hope that you can actually build on this and come back with a really good policy. So I'm happy to support Cities Home as well. Thank you. I'm now a compliment. Speaker 2: And they think you're a member longer for me. But I just also wanted to go with my colleagues have said in support of this item and I'm thinking. Speaker 0: Well, thank you, Councilwoman. That concludes comments of Councilman Mungo. Your your Q and and it's in motion was I think you did already. Do you have any additional comments to close or. No. Speaker 2: I just want to appreciate the adult membership. And I think the same committee member called my office is on my call list. We do have a procedure that smooths that process out and we do need a lot of local information and that will be available. That tells people that some of that so that they can. We really, really want the public to make that commitment to adopt during the ten day period. That's our ideal service. Thanks so much for the and support. Speaker 0: Thank you. I just want to add I want to I also want to thank Councilwoman Mongo. I think she has been just really bold in the work at the shelter. Obviously, the shelters have been in the district and there's been a lot of great work on the council. But I know, Councilman, you've been putting a lot of time with the organizations, and I think that the proof is in kind of the new reality that we have with the amazing director and team and volunteers. And this is really great work happening. So I just want to thank you and everyone on the side and integrity and support for the work. So thank you. With that, please do the work. Okay. Speaker 3: District one. Speaker 0: Lake. Speaker 3: District one. Speaker 0: Park. Speaker 2: West Lake. Speaker 3: District two. Speaker 2: I. Speaker 3: District three. Our district for. Speaker 0: I. Speaker 3: District five. Speaker 2: I. Speaker 3: District six. Speaker 0: Five. Speaker 3: District seven. Speaker 0: I. Speaker 3: District eight. Speaker 0: Oh. Speaker 3: District nine. Speaker 0: Hi. Motion carries with you now item 90.

Agenda Item

Recommendation to request City Manager, or designee, to work with the Animal Care Services Bureau in Parks, Recreation and Marine Department to implement a "Commitment to Adopt Policy" within 60 days to provide a streamlined and equitable approach for placing animals into forever homes.

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_04212020_20-0350

Speaker 0: Thank you. Motion carries. Thank you for that. We're going to have a had a request to move item 28. So we'll go ahead and move item 28. Adam Court. Speaker 3: Communication from Council Member Richardson. Vice Mayor Andrew's Council member Urunga Councilman Austin. Recommendation to request city manager to work with the Office of Equity to establish a policy requiring a health equity lens. Statement on all staff reports related to COVID 19. Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you. I'm going to. I'm going to turn this over to Governor Richardson. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Okay, so I wanted to start off just thanking the Coal Agenda's vice mayor Andrews, Councilman Austin Austin Councilmen Ranga for signing on to this proposal. The idea here that this COVID 19 crisis has really impacted cities across the country and here in Long Beach, we're noticing, you know, based on the data that we see, that the demographic data really shows that there's disproportionately impacts on African-American AAPI communities. And we also know that we've learned a lot over the last few years about making clear that we understand this concept of equity and undertaking need into account in how we respond. I think that's that, for the most part has done a good job of thinking about the concept of equity. I saw when we are you know, I really want to applaud the memo when we talked about the demographic data, which, you know, the city council asked for it. There was really a lot of context put there. And in my opinion, that really showed how much growth the city has really taken on in becoming a leader, in really understanding this concept of equity. Well, all of that comes from a number of practices we've taken on. You know, we've made a commitment to join the Governance Alliance and Racial Equity. We've participated in the National League of Cities, a real conference that's reached equity and leadership, where, you know, our deputy city manager attended trainings in New Orleans and we've traveled the country and learned from what other cities are doing. And we also took an important, important step. We're one of just a handful of cities around the country that has actually established an Office of Equity to ensure that we understand what this equity concept is, and that is baked into the decisions that we make and that sprinkled on top. I think, given what's taking place with this, with the COVID 19 emergency, I think we should look at best practices of what's happening around the country. And we see that many jurisdictions place an equity impact statement on agenda item. And now is an opportunity, I think, for us to really demonstrate that we are thinking about all communities and and that is a central driver of our response, not an afterthought. This activist, you know, this action is take effect. People are doing this all around the country California, Texas, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin. And it's widely supported in our own communities. You'll find letters of support from a number of community organizations from the Advancement Project, the Filipino Migrant Center and Long Beach Interfaith Community Organization Lobbies Forward Long Beach Coalition for Good Jobs, Healthy Communities, Mangrove Action, a nonprofit partnership. So it's this is a practice that has brought support within the community. I think our staff has taken steps to be prepared for this. And I think now is the moment that we really demonstrate that we understand the concept of equity and we're going to play to how we respond. Actually, I've I've talked through this with Carmen on how you receive it, how you handle it, and you have a good understanding of what the expectation is. Staff Report The memos related to the COVID 19 response should have a statement related to, you know, how this impacts equity or helps us to close gaps or takes need into consideration. We have an equity toolkit in the city and it really helps staff that's out, I believe, seven, seven or nine questions. And there's really questions to consider as you make decisions. And those are the types of things you would consider in when you issue this statement. Another thing I'd say is, you know, when you add statement agenda items, it it does it triggers it's good practice for all of us to really think about certain impacts. I remember back in, I believe it was 2011 when then council member James Johnson initially made the motion to include fiscal impact statements on agenda items. And it was a bit controversial that initially happened. Folks thought it would be an additional step, additional thinking. But now that process is well, it's refined. It's it's really been it's really been a good process that we've seen that's really been embraced by both the city council and staff and the community. And I envision that this is this you know, this is something that we can do today to make sure that we place this equity lens on our decision making. So that's it. I'll conclude my comment and this is my motion, and thank you for your support. Thank you both, Mr. Andrews. You know. I want to thank our special counsel in Richardson, you know, for bringing it to hate and blow it. You know, just last week, this is the day we've done the days of speaking about mental illness. And today we're talking about health equity. Every one of these issues boil down to continue to be an exclusive, supportive city for all residents. There's no secret that the community with a large concentration of minorities and people of color and it's not a light. It's you know, it's a it's an expensive project. But, you know, with this pandemic, we showed that once again, the African-American community is affected at a large scale. Yeah, I'm looking forward really to use. Now these have equities, you know, lithium, you know, statements on staff report and how the GC team implement that equity toolkit and really recalibrate in the way that we look at things and implement strategies for this. Because I think this is something that we really, really should take a serious look at and think you when we for bringing this to the. All right. Thank you. Vice Mayor. Next up, I have with your Councilwoman Van Day. Speaker 2: Thank you. I also want to thank Councilmember Richardson and Cosigners and council vice mayor and Councilmember Austin. And I think that this is very important. It is becoming more and more clear that the impacts of this pandemic are spread evenly among our community. What is to come from the people of color living or being hospitalized in Long Beach? I hope the. Speaker 0: Next step. Speaker 2: That is just to make sure that we are aware and mindful of the issues in our conversations about COVID 19 and supportive of this item. And I think it will lead to more equitable and just policies as we respond to this president's crisis. Thank you. And I fully support this item. Speaker 0: Thank you, country ranga. Thank you. I want to thank all the comments that have been made thus far from our less colorful colleagues. This is a this is a growing pattern in our country. And we need to identify the fact that we are a diverse country and that where they were sitting and this action would make it a lot stronger and much more informed as to how our policies were affected our communities. So thank you for bringing this forward, and I hope that I get that we get the support of the full council. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Upton. Thank you. Happy to support this open season and take a whole other side when I was in school to cosign this because this is obviously an important issue with a diverse city, with a diversity of language, it's important that we understand, analyze and understand the data so we can make smart decisions to deliver services, but also protect our residents. And, you know, looking at the data from last week, it's clear that 55% of those who were hospitalized due to COVID 19 were African-American or Latino. But that was the same disparity, to be my understanding, that we can be smarter with our resources in terms of targeting. We're testing test methods. Are education campaigns well, in other words, to just be a high functioning city that serves everybody. So I'm happy to support these items and kudos for bringing it through. Thank you. Thank you. That concludes a couple of comments. So, one, we're going to do a roll call vote. And I'm. Speaker 3: District one. Speaker 2: By. Speaker 3: District two. I District three. District three. District four. I am District five. District five. District six. Speaker 2: I went. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Speaker 3: By District seven. By District eight, by district nine. Speaker 0: I. Speaker 3: Motion carries. Speaker 0: Great. Thank you. I've also had a request to move up item 27. So, Madam Quirk, please read that item.

Agenda Item

Recommendation to request City Manager to work with the Office of Equity to establish a policy requiring a health equity lens statement on all staff reports related to COVID-19 impacts and response. Further, request the Office of Equity to train the Joint Information Center on utilization of the Long Beach Equity Toolkit.

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_04212020_20-0349

Speaker 0: Great. Thank you. I've also had a request to move up item 27. So, Madam Quirk, please read that item. Speaker 3: Communication from Council Member Pearce. Council Member Urunga. Council Member Richardson. Recommendation to request City Manager to work with Office of Equity to schedule a future presentation on the Equity Toolkit. Speaker 0: Councilmember Pearce, you obviously. Speaker 2: Thank you, everyone. And I want to thank Councilmember Richardson for the other item related to the Office of Equity Toolkit and COVID. I figured I'd save my comments for this part. We actually drafted this item before the COVID crisis hit us, really to try to highlight the work that the city has done over the last several years around Equity. Our Office of Equity and our Health Department have done a lot of work in the community and with city staff already. They released a equity toolkit a couple of months back that the council has not yet had an opportunity to look at. And it really highlights the fact that Councilmember Richardson just mentioned, which is equity is when everyone has what they need to be successful. Well, equity is treating while equality is treating everyone the same. We want to make sure that we promote fairness and it can only work if everyone starts from the same place and receives the resources that they particularly need. And so I think the COVID situation definitely highlights the fact that not only is it race age, and we know that some of our nursing homes have been the location where we've had the biggest outbreaks. And so these are examples for us to take to heart and really demonstrate that we as a city, as we are coming back and doing recovery, needs to have a full understanding of the toolkit, which really is fantastic. If you guys haven't had a chance to look at it yet, it really talks about what burden and benefits there are. How do we understand the data, community engagement, decision making and implementation? Accountability in a ways out of several questions. And they give examples for policymaking, how we do our budget priorities. And so my request today is that as staff come back and do a full presentation on this toolkit so that when we have other items come forward, WHITE Councilmember Richardson has brought forward we all already have a shared understanding of what that toolkit is and how we can use it to ask questions as we are drafting policy and giving staff direction as well as how we are crossing our budget. And I think it's a particularly important time to do that. So I thank my colleagues for signing on. I know that there was a lot of support for this item previously, and I know we move quickly to get it on the agenda. So I appreciate everybody's effort and look forward to coming back with a full presentation for. And I urge your support. Speaker 0: Thank you. Thank you, Governor Pearce. You didn't. You also just sent a Q in on the motion, please. We have a recorded and then camera angle. Very glad to look at the motion on this side of this. And it's very much needed at this point that we know what we're getting into in this presentation and what we mean by this issue. So thank you. Thank you. We have a motion and a second and we're going to do a roll call vote, please. Speaker 3: District one. Speaker 2: And. Speaker 3: District two. I District three. District four. Speaker 0: All right. Speaker 3: District five. District six. Speaker 0: II. Speaker 3: District seven. Speaker 0: I. Speaker 3: District eight. Speaker 0: I. Speaker 3: District nine. Speaker 0: All right. Speaker 3: Motion carries. Speaker 0: Thank you. I'm going to go for items 21 through 25. I'm going to ask if people can just queue in for the motions. I'm going to do. I'm going to take unanimous consent on the votes for these. And so I'll just go through these and let them and watch their presentation. We'll start and do the presentation like we typically do in the council meetings. So item 28 and 20. Can I get a motion in a second motion by Councilor Richardson, seconded by Councilwoman Zendaya's? Unless there's any objection, we'll take that as unanimous consent.

Agenda Item

Recommendation to to request City Manager to work with Office of Equity to schedule a future presentation before the City Council on the Equity Toolkit, including an overview of case studies and examples on how to apply it.

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_04212020_20-0345

Speaker 0: Madam Court, please read the next item. Speaker 3: Item 23 Report from Parks, Recreation and Marine Recommendation to award a contract to Great Scott Tree Service to provide tree trimming and related services for a total annual contract amount not to exceed 970,025 citywide. Speaker 0: Yeah. I'm just looking for a motion to see a motion by Councilmember Pierce, so I can have a second, please. Looking for a second on the item. And a second by councilman's and de Haas. Thank you. Councilmember Pierce, you have any any comments or questions? No comments any from customers and they have. Yeah. Okay, then, unless there's any objection, I'll move those without his consent. I know before we get the items 24 and 25. Customer Pearce's You want to say something? Speaker 2: Yes. I'm going to be recusing myself from item 24 and 25 from my previous work with From the Earth. Thank you.

Contract

Recommendation to adopt Specifications No. RFP PR19-126 and award a contract to Great Scott Tree Service, Inc., of Stanton, CA, to provide tree trimming and related services, in an annual amount of $843,500, with a 15 percent contingency in the amount of $126,525, for a total annual contract amount not to exceed $970,025, for a period of two years, with the option to renew for three 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 contract, including any necessary amendments. (Citywide)

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_04212020_20-0348

Speaker 3: Communication from Councilman Austin, Councilwoman Zendaya's, Councilwoman Price, Vice Mayor Andrew's recommendation to request city manager to report back on how Long Beach households will be able to utilize the L.A. County Countywide Emergency Rental Assistance Program when it's implemented. Speaker 0: Thank you. I'll turn this over to Councilmember Austin. Well, thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I want to thank my colleagues, council members, and they have praised Virginia Andrews for signing on. This is an extension of the spirit of the economic relief that this country has already committed to in terms of protecting families who've been devastated by this economic fallout of COVID 19. Obviously, we're experiencing a public health emergency, but this is also an economic crisis as well. So our citizens passed an eviction moratorium or other economic relief to protect workers and renters who are unable to pay their rent over the long term. However, this this measure protects households during the crisis. This will require, as we all know, to pay back rent or do in the months following this emergency order is lifted. There's a significant financial burden on these families that we know. We know this will be the case. We. We have a significant number and it's been echoed many times. Roughly 60% or more of our population are renters in the city. And this puts this tremendous, tremendous strain on the entire community. Not only are families facing tremendous burdens pass well, but also our housing providers and landlords are property owners who are relying on rental income to support their families, their families, as well as significantly impacted by the crisis. And so lastly, what really give close to the Board of Supervisors, L.A. County Board of Supervisors, who unanimously approved the motion by Supervisors Janice Hahn and her party wide emergency rental assistance program. This to me, when I first saw this exactly when when proposal, the proposed program would provide up to $1,000 a month for three months to renters who have lost income due to the crisis. The town was looking at CTG and other federal funding to help fund this program. This proposal, my opinion, as I said, is a win win solution that would take a major step in providing housing stability as we get through this crisis. The Board of Supervisors asked for an implementation plan within 30 days, which means they will be coming back within the next few weeks. I'd like to request that our city manager look at the county's recommendation to when it becomes available and see how long these families can best utilize this program. We also expect the need to likely exceed the allocating resources. So we're also asking the manager to look at federal, state private funds that would allow us to see how we can leverage those funds, including city dollars that lawmakers will be receiving as part of the federal cares out to offer emergency rental assistance to additional mortgage. How is it possible that you won't stop the spread of coronavirus? We're also putting a priority on how we pull together the community to get through the difficult economic times for so many of our families are experiencing. This will be another tool that we can help allies to help in this effort. So I would ask my colleagues to support this this measure. Again, this is in line in spirit with our existing economic relief package. Thanks. Thank you. Councilman, I have a second by Councilman Price. Councilman. Speaker 2: Thank you very much. And thank you very much, Councilman Austin, for bringing this item forward. I echo your comments completely. I'm grateful that you brought this item so early, because one of the things that we have seen is that the small business owners with the federal relief is that so much of it had to do with the timing that the applications went in. So if we're able to be in a position as a city to understand what the program is going to be and how our residents can access those funds early, we'll be putting them in a better position for hopefully getting the grants that they need without doing so at a time when the funds, whatever funds are identified, are depleted. So I think that's really great. I think for me, the biggest concern I have is I think it's great that rent has been deferred in situations where people can't make their rent due to COVID 19. I'm glad that we've offered that deferment, but I worry about the back rent and how difficult that's going to be for people to pay. You know, as a commercial property tenant for small business, I know that the backdrop we're going to have to pay is it's really going to be backbreaking. I mean, it's impossible to put that kind of burden on a small business. I can only imagine how difficult that will be for families, many of whom are out of jobs. So anything that we can do to try to provide that support through a grant money I think is really good and I'm glad we're doing it early . So thank you, Councilman Austin. Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilwoman. Vice Mayor Andrew. You know, the leadership on the podium. You know this you know, I'm looking at all of this. And I think every day, you know, there seems to be one new way I projects and help, you know, resources or assistance. And I think we intend here to be what we've been we've had $10 coming into the city of Long Beach. Know, I am fully supportive of this argument. I ask that we also take a look at that, you know, to see the big dollars, whereas, you know, currently than what we plan on doing with them in any way we can move some of these priorities, you know, in light of this crisis, that would be something I would really be interested in, you know, hearing about. So I want to thank you for bringing this up, Mrs. Price. And speaking of everybody's been affected that need and said, you know I heard in situations do I think this is going to be something that we will be able to help someone else if this can come to fruition? Thank you again, Councilman. Awesome. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Councilman. Super now. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Austin, for bringing this item forward. I fully support it. I did have a question and I communicated with the city manager on this today and we don't know what the answer is. So I guess this would be in terms of a friendly. I would like to ask is would the community development block grant funds go directly to the landlords? And we don't know if we have to follow the lead of L.A. County. I assume so. I'd like to ask that that be added to the study. Open to the staff. It's suggested as a friendly and certainly open for staff looking at all possibilities for this. This was fun to work. Right. And and when they come back to give the city council an opportunity to provide that type of direction. So we don't know at this point. I don't know if we know enough to be able to prescribe actually how we're going to make such expenditures. But I'm not opposed to it. I think it's worth looking at because it will help all parties involved. Right. Okay. Well, at the time, I think that's a very good point as we don't really know the answer to this super nice question right now because we haven't seen the report back from the accounting, though. Exactly how it gets paid or who it goes to is a key question, and we would certainly include that. Thank you. That's all I have. Thanks. Thank you. Councilwoman Zendejas. Speaker 2: Thank you. And thank you. Remember Aspen and all the cosigners on this? I think this is important here. I absolutely listened to me from Stephanie's point back on this policy. The majority of Long Beach, this is open truth. And this is especially true in the first district. We have a higher percent of renters. With that being said, we also have a high percentage of property owners. And we believe that our renters are going to be affected by not being able to pay rent. And so that trickles out. And so that means that our property owners will also be affected by not being able to receive the rent that they are owed. So I think this is very good for us to take a look at this. Like Councilmember, I said. Speaker 0: This. Speaker 2: Early on so that we can make sure that we all come out stronger at the end. So I'm super excited to see what the next steps are obsessed. Thank you very much. Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilmember Richardson. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I wanted to chime in and say thank you to Councilman Austin and the COSIGNERS for introducing this motion. I think it's in alignment with what the city council has taken on in the last few weeks, and it's an important program. I think taking a look at what the county does and understanding that, you know, I completely agree with council members, places and us that we need to get to the table and understand just how far this will go. I know that we we have a number of people who are who are struggling. So I want to make sure that whatever we do is we're able to kind of stretch it or spread it out. I'm pretty sure we won't be able to cover, like, all right. So whatever the criteria is, let's figure out how we target those who need it, those who maybe have a gap and just need to close the gap to make make, you know, make their landlords whole. People who have, you know, demonstrated the faith payment plan. You know, I just want to make sure that we have some criteria that really rewards rewards, you know, people's willingness to really kind of work together with landlords and get it and get it done. I also want to say, I know that, you know, we are going to look at additional resources and funds. I know that CDBG, for example, could be a good use for this. I also know that it's going to be tough looking at what was going to be required to get some of these businesses back open, particularly the ones on CDBG corridors. And so we need to keep in mind that we have to look at. So our eviction moratorium was both for commercial and for residential. And I think as we think about what resources we have, we should think about some some support for those small businesses and commercial businesses on the CDBG corridors as well, to see how we can make sure that that they can, you know, can help keep their doors open and take one barrier away as they get to their recovery. Those are my thoughts and considerations, but this item has my support. Thank you. Councilmember Pearce. Speaker 2: Thank you. Agree. I think this item is in alignment with the work that the council's taken on in the last several weeks. I did have I guess I want a few things. I want to take a moment to share our story. I talked to a small business owner today that owns three different small businesses in the city of Long Beach and as a renter at his home. And he shared how fascinating it is for him with the way that his landlords have been. The one landlord called them and said, you know what, for the month of April, you don't have to pay rent. We'll talk about what happens in May. The next landlord said, We're going to reduce your rent to 10% and then we will add on to your lease three more months and you can pay the full amount of rent for those three months. And then another landlord called and said, We we need to make sure you're paying your for your full rent because she had many other tenants that weren't paying rent. So I think it's really interesting to be able to look at the different situations that tenants and landlords have. And I agree with Councilmember Richardson's comments that really looking at the means and making sure that we're being thoughtful about maybe it's a percentage of gap for those tenants. And I think the same thing goes for landlords. We know that there are some landlords that have many properties and some that only have a few and trying to be get as much information from the county on how these funds are going to be distributed. If there is a conversation about paying it straight to the landlord instead of the tenant. I think that that also changes the conversation about the need of that landlord. You know, if they've got, you know, how many tenants do they have that are unable to pay? And so I would ask for a staff to look at that as part of the conversation. My one other comment is about the funding sources. I'd like to know how much of the funding sources are federal dollars. We know that our undocumented communities, which the City Council has taken a stand for many times, cannot accept dollars from the federal level. So making sure that we really have a full understanding of all of the funding sources. And then my last question is the county also put in 12 months the payback list, which makes it a lot easier for tenants. And so I guess my question for staff is if this council wanted to extend it from six months to 12 months, is that something that could be done on an item like this tonight, or is that something that we would need to bring back to council? Speaker 0: This is Charlie Parker. Can't remember. That item would be, if I understand your question correctly, an amendment to the eviction moratorium. And that would have to be brought back at a separate time. It could not be done this year. Speaker 2: Okay. But that is including it would be helpful for us to make sure that there's a report. Thank you for that, Charlie. But whenever we're looking at these funds and helping people pay back their rent, that we do understand that at the county level that they are giving people 12 months to pay back. So what that timeline looks like and an understanding that. So those are my comments. I support this item. Thank you for bringing it forward. Speaker 0: Super or not. Not there were supernova. Am I looking at an old one or is this. That was my original comment, I think. Okay. Okay. Thank you. That concludes public comment. I was going to do a roll call vote on the motion in the second. Speaker 3: District one. Speaker 2: I. Speaker 3: District two. Speaker 2: I. Speaker 3: District three. Speaker 0: I. Speaker 3: District for. Speaker 0: All right. Speaker 3: District five. Speaker 2: I. Speaker 3: District six. Speaker 0: All right. Speaker 3: District seven. I District eight. Speaker 0: Hi. Speaker 3: District nine. Speaker 0: All right. Speaker 3: Motion carries. Speaker 0: Thank you. I have two items left, but we'll.

Agenda Item

Recommendation to request City Manager to report back to the City Council on how Long Beach households will be able to utilize the L.A. County Countywide Emergency Rental Assistance Program when it is implemented, and assess the feasibility of utilizing additional federal, state and private funding sources to leverage for additional Long Beach families in financial need to be able to obtain emergency rental assistance during the COVID-19 crisis.

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_04212020_20-0351

Speaker 0: Thank you. I have two items left, but we'll. Speaker 2: Do item 29. Speaker 3: Report from Economic Development Recommendation to execute all documents necessary for the relinquishment of the city of long beaches, right of first refusal pertaining to real property owned by the Boeing Company District five. Speaker 0: Okay. Can I get a country in Mongolia? You want to put a motion in first? Count them among. Do you want a promotion and. Okay. We'll have a motion by both Councilman's and de Haas. Can I get a second? Second about Councilman Bill Richardson? I think Mr. Modica did. Is there any additional updates on this? Yes. And we can give a short snap report if you want to have one. I don't think I think I think we've got the report. But unless you have anything additional work and. Okay, then unless there's any objection with unanimous consent, remove item 29. Please. Madam Cook, you recorded 29%. Speaker 3: A unanimous consent on item 29.

Agenda Item

Recommendation to authorize City Manager, or designee, to execute all documents necessary, for the relinquishment of the City of Long Beach's Right of First Refusal, termination of use covenants, and termination of access easements pertaining to real property owned by The Boeing Company (APN's 7149-001-052 and 7149-003-010). (District 5)

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_04212020_20-0352

Speaker 3: A unanimous consent on item 29. Speaker 0: Great. Thank you. Well, yeah. We'll move on to item 13, and then why don't I have the, uh, the clerk read the item, and then Mr. Modica, we will have a staff report on this because I know there's a lot of interest. And so we'll just go right in from the moment to the reading of the item into the staff report. Thank you. Speaker 3: Report from Public Works. Recommendation to support reinstatement of citywide street cleaning program, including enforcement on May 4th, 2020, or adopt a policy directing staff to defer full reinstatement until the city's safer at home order is lifted. Or direct city manager to develop an implementation plan for a new citywide street cleaning program that would provide services twice a month citywide. Speaker 0: So Amir and members of the City Council. So we did want to have a discussion with you tonight about streets within. So that is one of our critical services that we provide the community. And we every week we come and we collect thousands and thousands of pounds of trash and debris. And it really is one of our bigger environmental efforts that we do to keep our streets clean, but also to impact our water quality. And so when COVID 19 hit and we had the safer at home, orders go into effect that put a lot of people at home suddenly. And so one of the things we did under the emergency powers was to suspend the enforcement of streets we being and to do our best to continue that service while not issuing tickets. So we've done that now for about a month, and we did that as a way to provide relief as we created a program to offer free parking. But we really needed to come back to the council to have a higher level policy discussion about how we either continue that service or modify that service. And so we have provided you a couple of options and a recommendation. I will turn it over to Craig Beck to really kind of walk us through that and for us to have the debate and receive some direction tonight about how you want to move forward. So with that, I turn it over to Mr. Beck. Thank you, Mr. City Manager. So just to add a couple more detail, point to the information that Tom provided. I think it's important to understand that street sweeping is done citywide to not only address the dirt and debris in the gutter, but to also ensure that we have clean water because our storm drains flow into the L.A. River and then ultimately to our beach. So part of the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System Permit, or you may hear us say in the PD, yes, the city is responsible for ensuring that the water is clean before it is pushed into the river. And so one of the main ways that we we meet that standard and that requirement is through our streets, our streets sweeping efforts. As Mr. Modica said, we did suspend enforcement of street sweeping restrictions, parking restrictions on March 17th and we've been operating under that program now for a little more than a month as a way to try to address some of the parking challenges that many of our multi-family community neighborhoods have. We implemented the free parking program and so we have through this free parking program, made available over 4000 parking spaces. The number is actually 4307, to be exact. And we have roughly 1200 residents who have taken advantage of that free program. All of our lots under that program, with the exception of maybe one or two, are still open and have parking available to be utilized. And so since we've been operating under this program, one of the challenges that we've been experiencing is that people are now not moving their cars. In the beginning, we did see that people would move their cars on their designated street sweeping day. But now that is not happening. And we're before council this evening making a recommendation that we move back to an enforcement model so we can get to our street sweep program. And for women, are our clean streets strategy under our MVPDs permit. As as you may have read in the Stack proposal, there are three opportunities that we've presented to you. I think the one that staff is leaning towards is that we move back towards an enforcement mechanism, but maybe we implement a a warning instead of issuing tickets . So we could provide a warning for those that don't move their vehicles and then also provide information about where there is free parking opportunities. That concludes our report, and we're available to answer any questions. Thank you. I have a full list of folks that are queued up. Let me just make a couple a couple of comments and then turn this over to the to the council. I just really want to thank staff. I know that this has been one of the more challenging issues for us. I think it's important to note, and we've said this many times, that sweeping is a critical health and safety function and ensuring that streets are not only cleaned for for for health purposes. And they are it's a water quality issue, like you mentioned, and it's really a store management issue as well. And when we get rains, it just becomes more difficult, of course, to manage when you have drains that are full and that have not been cleaned. And so I really understand the work and and the strategic push back during the crisis. I'm also very, very sensitive to the idea that in areas that are parking impacted, which is not a majority of the city, but in these areas that do have impacts on parking, whether these are areas that are laid out in the code or whether they're not in the code as parking impacted areas. But but areas that we know still have challenges with parking. You do have serious, serious challenges. These are, in some cases, cases lower income communities, families that certainly would have a hard time paying the ticket during this time. And so I just want to thank the staff for pushing the sweeping citation process. Speaker 2: Back. Speaker 0: And and trying to work with the community on that as well. I am a. I'm interested to see what the council's thoughts are on this. I have personally some interest that we just don't go immediately back to fighting folks. I think there's a way to ease into that process in a way that includes some warnings, but that we make it clear that streets we need to continue. And so I'm happy to share those. But I want to also hear from the four from the full council as well. And so I've got a full list of folks. So let me just go through that list. And Councilmember Richardson. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. My comments would be brief, though. So, you know, I'm not a district that has immense parking impacts. We have just, you know, one or two few areas that have apartment. However, you know, my district is one that sees a lot of damage when the streets are not clear and especially when there's rain. We have tremendous flooding in the Grant neighborhood and the Hamilton neighborhood. And so street sweeping is incredibly important. I also understand I completely understand, you know, folks are staying home and getting tickets and, you know, people are well, the people not shouldn't necessarily get tickets. So we need to figure out a balance here. What I think I'd like to see is a slow, gradual phase in of the street sweeping enforcement. I think that might look like, you know, for maybe in in part of the impacted areas. You know, those tickets are maybe it's a warning. Like the mayor mentioned, maybe a warning system in the park impacted areas for a few weeks while the phase is in. And if even a little bit a little bit faster, more immediately in the non parking impacted areas. So I again my, my comments will be short, but that's what I'd like to see. And so I move the item, I move the item for staff to sort of present a process that allows us to have some gradual phased in the more parking in impacted areas. But we do begin the process of collecting parking, ticket fees and enforcement in streets. We think yes. Street sweeping enforcement. So that so that's my most. Okay. And then, councilman, maybe you'll be open to kind of refining that as we as we move forward. Okay. Councilmember Pearce. Speaker 2: Thank you, Mayor, and thank you for your comments. I want to thank staff as well being one of the most parking impacted districts. We definitely appreciate that. We've been able to not give tickets. I did walk almost all day on Saturday and saw many residents cleaning out their gutters. This is in addition to the emails and phone calls that my office has gotten about the streets being not clean. Of course, balancing that with the parking needs and the fact that people do not have income or their income is much smaller than it was before is really important. So I like the motion that was made by Councilmember Richardson. I think that there is we did a phased in approach. So I think around May 4th, if I recall the day the that staff wanted to go back to Street three being if we had a phased in approach through the day of the stay at home order . And so we would be doing. Warning with those cars two weeks prior. I think that that would make a lot of sense. We know one of the most difficult things about changing city services is really informing the residents of what services are changing and what that timeline is. I think that if we did those warnings, it would also make sense to include in there the information about the city lights that are open. While I appreciate that the city that we've opened up so many lot of lives aren't in the middle of neighborhoods, which is why people are still, you know, aren't moving their cars as often as we would like and why we still have spaces available. I would ask that if I know that we have been hesitant to waive meters and one of the arguments has been that we have small businesses that count on those meters to turn over. The fact is, if you drive down by March or you drive down Fourth Street or down find, there aren't people parked in those meters. And so if we did a two week period, I would like to see staff give us a presentation or include some information on waiving the meter fees up until the stay at home order so that people have a place to move their car on street sleeping days because right now they don't. That's not not something that makes sense for them, but not by box at ten blocks away. And then the other question, and I don't think I asked this last time we talked about parking and I'm going to put our city attorney on the spot because I know we've talked offline about this with Starbucks, but I wanted to clarify one more time. A year ago or so, we had asked for the city to propose funding to allow people to park in a private lot and that we wanted to work with those private lots to open them up , whether it be something like we have at Fourth and Cherry, which has a city meter and we share the meter revenue. I had heard from from staff that that was something that was not able to move forward because of legal concerns. Is that? I'm not sure. Probably if you remember, it's been a while. But do you recall legal concerns with us partnering with Private Light? Speaker 0: Council member not I don't have a clear recollection of that. A while ago we did look at some private lives for this current situation, and there have been several legal issues that have come up with trying to reach agreements with the private lives or the private property owners who want the city to either indemnify them or compensate them for the use of the lots. There have been some businesses that, after we've spoken to them, have just decided they would allow the public to park in those lots and others have have remained off limits. But there have been some concerns raised by the private property owners and some of them are very justified on the liability issues. Speaker 2: Mm. Thank you. And I think that that was what we had talked about before was the city providing an insurance policy, but that that came back being too expensive. So I've had lots of people ask about this because we have lots of empty private lights in my district. So that's why I want to go on record to just make sure that. The city has done their due diligence to try to open up those lots and that that has not happened, not on any part of the city. Speaker 0: That's to say this is time that the same issue that Charlie enumerated now was the same issue that we were having back then. So it really is a question of who accepts the liability if there is a claim. You know, we're not in charge of those lights. So that was a concern. If somebody has an 88 claim and we've taken it over, who then accepts that liability. So that is something, you know, we're in different territory and times now, we're in a much more of a of a crisis. Now, if there's certain lights that are really important for us to look at, and that's a policy choice that you're willing to accept that that risk. We can look at those. But just looking at every light, I think would be we want to be a little judicious on how we do that. Speaker 2: And I think that there are you know, there's lot so in my district on seventh Street, we've got Beatty, which has over 50 parking spots in a parking impacted area. And I know years before they had that they were open to it. And so we obviously everything's closed has been difficult to get hold of people, but I think it's another issue. But just bringing this issue back at now might not be the time if we've already kind of done our due diligence there, but I think we have to revisit it because we have parking impacts, those people that are extremely that are in tough situations. And so I just want to make sure that we're doing everything that we can, if that means revisiting it. I would appreciate that right now for this item. I like the motion that was made by Councilmember Richardson. I would hope that we can kind of hone in. I want to hear the rest of the council. But if we could do two weeks of warning in the parking impacted district in particular, I think that that would be great if there's an option for lower ticket prices or ticket fees. And then I think making sure that we're sharing information on those notices or warnings that there are other parking options because there are still people that that aren't aware of that. And so I look forward to hearing from my council colleagues at the. Speaker 0: And this is time, you know, Mr. Mayor, can I respond to one thing? Her. So we can certainly look again and revisit the issue of private lives. I do think we are in different times than before where that was a pretty large liability that we were accepting that, you know, was was not really related to what we're looking at now, which is some, you know, some very, very tough times on people. So if you would like us to look at one or two, we could get that direction from counsel. I'd like to ask that we keep it focused. And if you have ones in your district that you really want us to look at again, we can do that and and go and contact those groups and hopefully they'd be willing to let us use their lights and we would work on the liability issue. Speaker 2: Thank you, Tom. I yes. I mean, at least right off the top of my head, that is a lot that is, like I mentioned, kind of in the heart of it and would be a great lot. The other one is it's called the Broadway Bar, which is on Broadway, has about 20 plus spots in the back and it's gated. They have not been willing before, but but they might be now. So would love it if you guys could work with them. Speaker 0: Thank you. Vice Mayor Andrews. You know, Tom, I want to really commend you and your leadership with our city team, which has been incredible during this crisis. You know all of you. Your department should be proud of, you know, the hard work. You know, the key issues doing, you know, this crisis. You know, but I read the South report that, in fact, there are that I met with that with the apartment building and mass and multifamily complexes. Only 15% of the street sleepers has been successful. You know, it concerns me that the cleanest of which result may help satisfy our residents, you know. But I believe. And anything that we implement. A large outreach campaign needs to be followed soon so that the residents are clear on what we are planning to do. No opportunity cost as information come when it changes week by week. So there's a lot of confusion. And I'd like to ask you, Tom, what you know with this. What can we do with this information and our utility to act on the affected by the fact remains that need to be you know you are smart enough to ask given that information about the program and the utilities both have information and know what to do about the possibility that we could do that. I don't know what we could enact. I'm just asking. So thank you for the suggestion, Vice Mayor. We have a lot of different ways to get information out. We can certainly look at utility buildings that tend to take 28 day cycles because we do it every single day. So we would miss certain areas if we did that just from a timing perspective, but we would definitely look at ways. I think the council had a good suggestion of putting it on people's cars is probably the easiest way to do it and get it directly to people. So when we're doing those those warnings that we would basically just put something right in there and so that they could find out about our programs. But we'll look at a lot of different options, including what you add four times a year. Thank you very much. Thank you. And before I go, let me just a quick announcement on the queuing system. I have everyone queued up. However, if you queue if you say if you go, if you push your service the number twice, then you lose your place in the queue and you go back to the very end. So I'm just asking. So once an item comes up and if queue and one don't, don't, don't put a second message into the system because it goes to the end of the line. Did that make sense? So I think Councilman Price may have done that. And I'm going to put you back in your original spot. So just please. And Rex, you also did the same thing. So if you guys can just just queue one, that's great. Okay. So. DB So Councilwoman Price and then that customer prices for next. Speaker 2: Thank you very much and thanks for that clarification. I felt like I queued up right when they announced the item, but in any event, I like the motion that's on the floor. If I if I understand it correctly, my recommendation or my motion was going to be based on my conversations with Craig back that we resume normal , we resume normal street sweeping operations May 1st, of course, and then we have a two week warning period where there are no citations issued and warnings are given. And in my discussions with Craig, that would align perfectly with right now, we're not ticketing up until May 1st and then we're looking at some of the stay at home orders being extended till May 15th so that that time period would coincide with what we think where the state is headed. So that was going to be my recommendation, hopefully, Councilman Richardson, you're open to refining your motion a little bit to add some of those details. Otherwise, I support the motion and concepts that I think two things are important. But supporting people at this unprecedented time is important as well. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilman, Mango. Speaker 2: I think you and I could put out of this. I wasn't sure if it was a recommendation of a friend of mine. We have a lot of areas that have seniors that when people park. Speaker 0: In front of their house. Speaker 2: They are not really as mobile to go out into the street. But as Olympia Snowe seems that her neighbors have gone out and cleaned up the as I mentioned, to come to America on several occasions. There have been times where my husband or I go out and get a dustpan and help a neighbor. But we. Speaker 0: Have neighbors who are. Speaker 2: Actually regularly. Speaker 0: For us to resume. Speaker 2: Those simply being so my has to be that the warnings are given in Turkey and actually we maintain and go back to the way we announced we would in areas that are not parking impacted, at least similar to Councilman Richardson during the day. So people are home, they can move their cars is even a possibility. I know our previous public works director talked about some efficiencies that could be had in the system. Speaker 0: With doing multiple streets in a. Speaker 2: Day in a different way. That wouldn't be possible with a fully engaged workforce. So I'm open to explain everything. But from our side we really do have a challenge with the gutters being pretty filthy and with the amount of debris falling from the trees. It gets to a point where if a car has been there for one week, that's two weeks of debris and a street sweeper can't even pick up the amount of debris that's in the gutter, it literally has to be picked up. And our. Speaker 0: Team teams are very. Speaker 2: Busy and other things. Speaker 0: Keep thinking, Councilwoman. I mean, I know we still have a couple customers on that field. I'm going to make some comments because I think a lot of this is actually aligning. And it seems like there's a similar theme that's kind of emerging from the comments. Councilman Price has made a customer, Richardson, Councilman Mongo Pearce. And so maybe if I can just make a couple of comments to the maker of the motion and and refine it. And then if there's additional comment or if we don't like the refinements, I'm sure we'll we'll I look forward to hearing from the members. So I also agree I do like but for starters, I think that the the the citation period and signing period. I think that Councilman Price just mentioned the the the March 17th date or the end of the safer at home date. And I think that certainly should be the case or whether it's citywide, which I could support. Absolutely. Or whether it's for the parking impacted areas. But I think that should absolutely be the time when we get back to normal citation that should end with the separate homes. So really support that. I would also add that there should be, I think, a two week warning system. I like that that's been mentioned on the call and I would just get into a little bit of the details. I think what I'd like to see from staff is that in those two weeks leading up to it that on week one you would have essentially what would look like a citation or a version of a note that would go in the car. And that note would essentially say, you know, on this date. Citation and enforcement will begin again. And we have, you know, what's available for you to park your car for free and to access these lots. Here's the website or here's a phone number where you can call. And so not only that people have two weeks to adjust, but we're also giving them the information about where they can park their car for free in their nearest lot that we've created. We've created lots. I know across the city there's an opportunity to create maybe, maybe more of those. And so I'd like to see a system that way that where they can it's on their car. All right. The warning done for two weeks. And and I think that's especially important in parking impacted areas. I would also ask the maker of the motion to consider the code has a very defined version of what parking in a parking parking area actually is. And there actually aren't that many across the city. I believe Councilwoman Price and Councilwoman Pierce have official parking impacted areas, but not very many other parts of the city are are called out that way. In the coach I would ask that it's it's areas that are either defined in the code or defined by the city manager in consultation with the council members that might have areas where they feel are going to need that additional support. If if if we if we go with the the tiered system, which Councilman Mongo is saying. So I could support either the, you know, the citation citywide and parking impacted areas yet get you know, get noticed but I also like just giving everybody the we the the the the notice as well and not doing citations until we get closer to the safer at home. And so I can support either and look forward to hearing what witnesses comments are. And maybe Councilman Richardson, we can discuss those once we go to the the council comment. Absolutely. Okay. Next up is Councilwoman Zendaya's. Speaker 2: You think your council members are just going for the motions? Understood that is a very high level protein impact said even before this crisis and have in a lot of our lives and in my district this was people with disabilities. I think that it's very important to to really recognize where those. Hoping impacted areas are testing in. Speaker 0: Parcel effects to. Speaker 2: Be more specific and maybe start work on old street sleeping works not so parking impacted. So I think that it's really important to make sure that we that we only stay at home order in a lot of things this seniors who aren't drinking and or aren't parking out in the street. You know, they're very nervous about going outside, period. And so it's going to be hard for them to go outside every week and, you know, move their coat. But for. Speaker 0: Clarification. Speaker 2: We are hoping to resume parking with what the previous council members have have added and and the mayor on May 4th, is that correct? Speaker 0: And I think that. Speaker 2: When you have. Speaker 0: What you would. Speaker 2: See a phase in time. Up until then, the stay at home order is lifted. Am I correct? Speaker 0: Yeah, I think, Councilwoman, I think just to clarify, I think the day that staff is looking at is May 4th for kind of for resuming of street sweeping was their suggestion because I think that the Monday if I'm not Ms. right there right. Mr.. Modica and then the main corrective and then the May 17th date is essentially the Monday after the stay at home is left. Is that also correct? Yes. The stay at home goes through the 15th and the Monday would be actually the 18th. Okay. The Monday would be that would be when enforcement would could begin. Okay. So. So, go ahead, Councilwoman. Speaker 2: Yes, I absolutely support that. Keeping in mind that we focus on the highly impacted parking areas and being a little bit more flexible with those that are not so highly impacted. And I think that would bring some kind of a balance, too, to this item. Thank you. Speaker 0: Mayor. This was hey, I just out on the. I think from a legal standpoint, we're going to be have a very difficult time. As you pointed out, we have very limited the impact areas are defined and we can't just ask the council or staff to start determining which block is going to get a citation and which isn't . So I would from from the seat it would be much more manageable if there was a two week notice period for the city. And then he went back to issuing the citations versus trying to break up neighborhoods by block by block. Thank you. This is Tom. The city staff would agree with that as well, that it would be difficult to really identify what those parking impacted areas would be. We do have a map, but we know that many of you get calls about areas where people believe that they're parking impacted, but they may not actually be according to the definition. Speaker 2: Yes. Yes. Thank you for that consultation and it makes complete sense. So in other words, what we're trying to do is. Speaker 0: We still. Speaker 2: Are quite keen on this place. Speaker 0: With. Speaker 2: Citations. Well, not really, say patients that have validation or that come with a cost, but actual information where they can go into a meeting. Speaker 0: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Come through it there. Yeah, I think. I think there's. Yeah, I think we're, we're, we're getting there. I think that you're you're seeing citations I made keen to get clarity on. That is very important. Yes. Okay. So let me do that. I have I also have two more speakers or three more that have not spoken yet and then everyone else kind of queued up again. And then I'd like to also get clarification on what the actual meant were. The main motion is that I think there's been kind of friendlies, but maybe not official friendlies. And so that way we can we can know we know where we are exactly. So let me keep going through that through the speakers list or American Council. Give the questions. Speaker 2: No, no, that's okay. You. Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you, Councilmember Superman. Thank you. I appreciate all the input so far. But the fourth district is very unique due to its extremes, so I really can't support the motion at all as made. So for instance, on the eastern half of the fourth district, I agree with Councilwoman Mango. We have the same challenges in terms of leaves. 90815 is the least dense zip code in the city with 5300 people three square mile the western part, the park district is 90804 that is the most yes zip code in the city with 18,200 residents per square mile. So we have tremendous parking impacts on the western half of the district couple that were the parking lot that were suggested by public works. And we had one in our district route library, which I believe we suggested a total of six parking spaces. That's the lowest number and we just don't have the commercial lots available. So it really doesn't work at all for the fourth District to have citations again. And let me say one thing about the warnings, because we've had experiences with this. Unfortunately, the warning citation looks identical to a parking ticket. So what happens to the person, the resident approaching the car gets that sinking feeling in their heart as they approach the car, and you have to study it to see that it's a warning. So if we do go with warnings, I would highly recommend that it looks completely different from a from a parking citation. We've had a lot of pushback on that. So as it stands, I think we couldn't do anything until the stay in order stay at home order is removed. If there's a warning system, I would not want it to look like any type of citation. And I guess the last thing is we would certainly have to have a confirmation that the stay at home order was lifted before we could ever accept, you know, the return of the citations. That's all I have. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember. And next up is customary Ringo tacular in a big screen with everything he said about the plan to get this medication as to how we're going to implement this program. I do like the fact that we are going to have a warning system that at the end of the day, you will say nothing at all. But when we're looking at the fact that we want to warn people, we're re-implementing the street sweeping sentencing program where those control over supervised results are included. Every district should weigh on that is impacted as perhaps is in my district is how you residential what I do have these positive stories that are impacted that may not be the definition as it worked and could. So what I'm thinking about is that on top of that, we're looking at a drug that that I don't really agree with that we're looking at the what we've seen since the fraudulent injury reinstitution that we can control the treatment program. What happens if for some reason and we know what the reason is, obviously we have to extend the stay at home program and it goes down to 15 and we have these impacted neighborhoods. That will continue to be that way. And then the people are going to have to remain with continue to stay home. And here we are again. And then with the reinstitution of the sweeping program, again, I would say a little bit nebulous as to what direction that is going to take. I'm hoping that maybe we can work with some of those councilmembers who have more impacted local runners to identify those areas. So should the. Stay at home, mom continues. Because we are on the 15th, but we are able to work with with our council colleagues, with public works to determine what those levels are so that we can determine whether we should continue to invest in that area or not. And then from there, the other issue that I have with with the warnings, obviously, is the fact that we just went through an equity tool kit resolution this evening. And obviously, language access is going to be a big part of this. And I know it's going to be difficult. But if if the warnings are short enough, I would love to see those warnings put in the three languages that we need, most notably Spanish to garlic and cravats, especially in those areas where we know that those are the holy places, which is basically the six and seven remain are the ones we've had no problem with, of course, where we're getting easier. So that's another. There's a little a little penalty in the in the issue that we got to look at in regards to making sure that everybody gets workable. Celebrity guest set at the same time and everybody is on the same page when it comes to this. So all that my comment, we were looking forward to see if we can work this out. Thank you. And Councilmember Austin. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So I think I support the direction that this ends and possibly the motion on the floor. I want to I'm looking at this from a public health lens and the public health issue. And I think there is because we're making changes to to policy and operations in the city in response to COVID 19 . There's a big conclusion that comes with that potentially with many of our residents and seniors are no longer issuing parking tickets and reversing course and going I to require a level of thought and sensitivity in terms of how we kind of get back to normal. So I think the phased approach, you know, the carrot approach to getting us back to some place where, you know, unfortunately parking tickets will be awesome because, you know, that's part of the system. I want to re-emphasize, too, that I don't think that this is and I'm glad that I haven't heard of any of this, but I heard from, you know, some. Social media comment regarding the shooting, wants to get the money for parking tickets and we've had more discussions before. This has less to do with revenue from parking tickets and more to do with public health and our ability to clean our streets. We've been doing a disservice to any neighborhood in the city if we were to say, okay, we're going to ignore stupid things in this particular area of this city versus that particular area of the city, because we would be further exposing population to vulnerabilities of public health that born of ability. So I think know, I do appreciate the thought that's going into the conversation here. I think as far as warnings, I'd like to to be creative and possible with those warnings and stuff. But we've always been innovative and creative. You know, I agree that, you know, just having someone out there issuing tickets looks like standard operating procedure. I'm willing to take something a bit further. And I know we're reclassifying duties of city employees. You know, there may be an opportunity for some to do some some outreach, actual outreach in the communities, particularly in the impacted communities , to provide warning and really check the busses and say, we have done all we can do to ensure that residents are well informed about. That's kind of closing in on these policies again. And then, you know, when I talk about creativity, damage to babies, there's no technology available on our disposal. You know, I think it would be really helpful if I were to get a text message from a similar language to let me know straight people want as well. I've got a 15 minute notice on that. I'm probably going to give some thought to moving my vehicle. I think that's something that should be looked at. I don't know if there's time to do that to implement this, but just something that I know we have data and cell phone data on a lot of our residents. But, you know, it's possible sometimes you know, how to make an emotion as friendly to, I don't know, suggestions. I mean, I was also thinking about the weather forecast because I'm like the major function of states. Would we have to do with, you know, prevention and smoking and other issues that can come from that, having taken in always taking into consideration weather forecast on its own? No, I think we haven't turned the corner. Have we seen the worst of the rains and potential flooding in the city, which is something that we've got to respond to as well. But again, I like the direction this is going in. I think I can support the what is on the floor. I hope that to be a phased in model and phased in approach, not the only one in and then stepping it up. I think that's the best approach to take, but I would love to get some clarification on what's on the table, what's before us as well. My comment is don't take a compliment. And I have just for people that are chewed up for a second time. So I'm going to do I'm going to ask some clarification as well, and then I'll go to the folks for the second round. I mean, go back to the original motion, Councilman Richardson. And so. Great. And so I think you've heard obviously from from everyone. I think that and you've heard from me, I think staff comment especially on kind of the difficulty of doing that, you know, two separate groups. And I think what I've heard is that they would that the enforcement piece word would begin after the fifth third home order is lifted. I think I heard that from almost everyone and would begin on on May 18th, the enforcement piece. But the actual street sweeping kind of slash warning system would begin two weeks before that on me, or for that matter, once again, I think that's where I kind of heard that. Captain Richardson. Yeah, sure. Thanks. So, you know, I think what we have in front of us now are fine. It's clear, simple. We're going to start back street sweeping activities on the fourth. We're going to do warnings for two weeks. And on the 18th, after the stay home order is lifted, we'll be in sexual activity. So that's what the motion is. Also want to make sure that, you know, acknowledge, you know, some great comment and some direction the city staff around the gravity station. I think we should make sure that those are reflected as well. And the other thing that came up a bit earlier, we continue to look for of support, not only quite a lot of, but I think it's a pretty straight forward motion that is reflective of where I think the council is. What I've heard from majority of people where we are right now. Thank you. Can I just add also I want to just also uplift councilor a super I comment that we don't make the the the warning system look exactly like a parking ticket, but there's some deference to that. And then I do like I think councilman asked and if there's there's a I mean it's staff will have to see but if there's an opportunity in putting impacted areas to do some kind of door to door work or some more kind of on the ground warning on top of the warnings that we'll be doing on the on the cars. I think that's great as well. So I like all of that as well. And I think that's a great I think that's a good motion that's on the floor. And you're going to start with those items, right, Governor Richardson? Absolutely. Okay, great. So let me if I can have two questions. Yes. So we I heard two different things and I just wanted to get some clarity. We talked about very specific date to which was May 4th to May 18th, but then we also heard until Safer at home is lifted. And while we all hope that by the time we get close to that March 18th, there's going to be amendments to our safer at home ordinance. It may not be that it's completely lifted. There may be certain types of restrictions, so there might be some changes. And so those are kind of two different concepts. The May 18 or completely changing. I do want to remind us that we are one of the few agencies that actually has a date in our order. And the governor's order is unlimited. It does not have a date. So the governor's order is would be in place. So if I can just get some clarity on that, we can certainly reassess as we get closer to the 18th. I think that I think yeah. I think Governor Christie is at the 18th, correct? Yes. Okay. And I think I want to also just note that obviously as we get closer, there are other changes. So the council can come back and make and make adjustments, obviously. So let's open up. Absolutely. Thank you. I go back to the second round, Councilmember Pierce. Speaker 2: Thank you and thank you for clarifying the item as it is of the motion that's on the floor. I wanted to queue up and just look three things. One is I had also mentioned about meters and so I wanted to clarify a request on that would be that we waive the meters during suite three sleeping days and find out if that is something that is doable. So could staff respond to that request? Speaker 0: Councilmember Pearce regarding waiving the meters. I don't know how that would work. I think that it would be if this is a direction that this council wants to go, I think it would be better to agenda's that item and talk specifically about when we would waive metered parking. What you find is that most of our parking meters are in commercial areas and they're separate from where we find most of the residential parking impacts. And so I'm not sure how it would provide relief, but I would defer to the city attorney. My guess is we would have two agendas separately. Speaker 2: So I guess the areas that I like to diverge. Speaker 0: In that. Speaker 2: It would have to be a separate agenda item. Okay. And maybe at this point, I mean, we're just a couple of weeks out, I wish I would have thought to agenda that earlier. But really, the thought for me was the fact that Fourth Street is in the middle of a parking impacted area and it's completely vacant. And so I was hoping that during the time that we were trying to get cars to move, that might be an option, but we'll explore that later. The other piece that I wanted to lift up was the language access. What is the protocol for a parking ticket? I mean, I used to get them all the time. It's been a while. Is there language that somebody needs to sound like someone's buying? Thank you. What is on the tickets right now as far as language access? Speaker 0: To Councilmember. I think what we would bring forward as your staff is that we would essentially create an informational piece. And so instead of using a ticket warning system, we would use more of a flier that's more of an informational warning system so that those would be placed on the cars. It would talk about the neighborhood parking program. It would talk about street sweeping and and the reasons why we clean our streets for it, for health and safety of our population, and that that we would ensure it was in multiple languages. Speaker 2: So that's what I was I was looking for. And then I know everybody's already gone around and I'm. Maybe if I could just. Maybe hear the mayor on this on the citation beginning the day or the day after the stay at home order is lifted. I do not imagine that the day after the stay at home order is lifted that people are not are not going to be home. They're going to be you know, they're going to be waiting for their job to start again. They're going to be waiting for businesses to reopen. So even if we had a week delay. I just. I wanted to propose that. I'm curious what the mayor's thoughts are on it. Yeah. Speaker 0: But I think I mean, I think that I think the motion on the floor is is a good reflection of kind of other council comments. I do think that, you know, the only caveat is that as we I think we're going to know a lot more in a week, ten days about our stay at home order day , which, of course, is the same as all 80 cities in the county. So we're all together. I, I could be wrong, but I expect that our stay at home order is going to look different. I will look differently on May the 16th, and it might, you know, and I think that there are going to be changes that are that are on on their way. I don't know exactly what yet, but I think that because we've been because we have been promoting that may stay at home order date. I think it's it's a nice date for this to kind of align with which is the closing of that stay at home order. And then if we've got to change it, we'll be back having a debate or a discussion, I think, in the future. Speaker 2: Thank you. I'm going I'm great with the idea as it is. Appreciate it. Speaker 0: Thank you. Let me see. I have councilwoman and they asked. Speaker 2: Me thinking I can type. Quick question then. I am hoping you will be able to answer that. I am wondering in the days when these street people go, if they wait for. Speaker 0: The. Speaker 2: Second person, because I'm assuming they can see behind them that they could be a great behind the street sweepers to avoid hitting people with tickets. Who saw the street sweeper passed already like 3 minutes ago. I'm not sure how that works. Is that how that works? Like become ratings in them? Speaker 0: So council members in their house? Yes. Typically as a parking enforcement vehicle will follow the sweeper. But if but but there are situations where that enforcement officer is stopped to issue a citation. And the sweeper keeps going. And so sometimes there's there's there's a delay until they get caught up. One of the things that we have really been working on first, we really we did our third sweeping optimization program, you may recall, where we changed the start times in residential neighborhoods. We moved the start times back and that was really at the leadership of the mayor in this council to make it easier for folks to to be able to comply with those time restrictions. So the next phase of this that we've been looking through and we're hopeful that we can implement this year, is that we would be able to shorten those sweeping times, time and and that at that might be addressed that might be able to address what what you're bringing up, which is that instead of a two hour restricted time zone, maybe it's only an hour. Speaker 2: Yeah. So especially during this time, maybe see if that's a possibility for, for it to happen during this next coming month. That would be nice of you guys to look at that. And in addition, I know that a lot of people will be dealing with not having jobs and not having the financial means to heal people's tickets . And I don't know if this is the place or if, you know, I have to see this for a different time. But is there a way that we can upgrade to possibly even cutting that place on the ticket, that they get it in half? How much is that right now if you guys know? I don't know that off the top of my head. Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilwoman Councilmember Mongo. Speaker 2: Oh, I'm sorry. I was waiting for an answer. Speaker 0: I'm sorry about that, Mr. Modica, and I'm sorry we had we had a little technical issue there. Can you ask that again, please? Speaker 2: Oh, you're kidding me. Speaker 0: I didn't hear the question either. Oh. Speaker 2: My question was that how much are the tickets right now? And if we could look, we may be cutting the tickets maybe in half or in the next couple of weeks or so once that is implemented, to give the residents a chance to recoup from this crisis financially. Speaker 0: So Councilmember currently the streets within circuit is priced at $70 and I believe it would require a change to be tabled to to move forward with what you're suggesting. Speaker 2: So at a different time. Speaker 0: Yes. You couldn't you could not reduce that. This is Charlie Parker. I'm sorry. You could not reduce the fetus even I believe it requires a public hearing. And then, as Craig mentioned, a change to the fee schedule. Okay. So it would not be possible to do it this evening. Speaker 2: Okay. Thank you, Tony. Thank you for that. Speaker 0: Thank you, Captain Burger Mungo. Speaker 2: Thank you. We will. Speaker 0: Be. Speaker 2: Putting in some of Lewis letter about this, but the note goes to the warning. Speaker 0: Could. Speaker 2: Also encourage them to clean the gutter running or parked at the time. Potentially that could discourage them from not building their car if they're able in the future. I mean, as I mentioned. The health and safety of our community is at stake. And we have already started to see mosquitoes here in the side and will continue to watch their herds and encourage people to disperse is when the sprinkler masters into the gutters and then the and with leaves and debris from all of the overgrown trees in the south destroying the water pools and it pools quickly and so perhaps that could be identified in the warning along with. If you or a local organization you belong to has the energy and resources to get out and take some dust pans and clean the gutters in your neighborhood, we strongly encourage it or something because the clean water is just a big problem. So I'm supportive of the motion on the floor. I'm just hoping for additional language in the warning that tells people. Okay. If you're going to park here and you can't leave your car, consider that you're maybe parked in front of someone who is unable to clean up their gutter. And then in talking with Mr. Modica, the clean teams are already very lean because they're stretched as bent on so many other things. But I think we really need to be honest with ourselves that May 12th or whatever the first day, when we go back to street sweepers, we're going to have significant delays due to. Speaker 0: Multiple. Speaker 2: Dumps from the excess debris that has been building up. And so I just want us to be prepared for that and make sure that Mr. Medico has a plan in place to address and make sure that everyone gets swept and that not large areas are just avoided because of the massive pile up. And if they are avoided, a clean team or other source is deployed pretty quickly. And if it needs to be Boy Scouts or neighborhood groups, we're happy to help coordinate that different neighborhoods. But we need at least a notification so that they're happy to go out and help. Speaker 0: The Council member will work on an education piece as well. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilmember Superar. Thank you. I think I've got a lot of questions answered that we have multiple languages now going on on Wired and I realize that we can't lower the price of the citation. The other kind of conundrum we have here is that we have fires being distributed during a stay at home order. That seems counterintuitive, but I guess we could solve both if we gave another week's question. Probably don't have the support for that right now, but if you waited a week till after the stay at home order was lifted, you could get fliers distributed during that time and also maybe lighten the load because the $70 tickets will have a tremendous impact in parts of my district. And I think that's what Mary Sun House was alluding to in that I support the motion. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember. That concludes the comments. Madam Clerk, welcome. Speaker 3: District one, District two. Speaker 2: High Court. Speaker 3: District three. Speaker 2: I. Speaker 3: District four. Speaker 0: I. Speaker 3: District five. By District six. High District seven. Speaker 0: By. Speaker 3: District eight. District nine. High motion carries. Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you very much. I'm going to go ahead. And unless there's any new business from anyone, if I don't see anyone coming out for any new business or announcements. That concludes our agenda for for this evening. And I want to thank everyone for joining us.

Agenda Item

Recommendation to support reinstatement of citywide street cleaning program, including enforcement on May 4, 2020, consistent with the temporary modification plan, initiated on March 17, 2020, to suspend operations while an alternative neighborhood parking program was put in place; or Adopt a policy directing staff to defer full reinstatement of the citywide street cleaning program by continuing to suspend enforcement until the City’s Safer-at-Home Order is lifted; or Direct City Manager to work with City Attorney to develop an implementation plan for a new citywide street cleaning program that would provide services twice a month (e.g., first and third Wednesday each month); conduct all necessary meet and confer requirements for any impacted employees; and, work to place all impacted employees into other vacant positions within the City. (Citywide)

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_04142020_20-0277

Speaker 1: Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and council members. This is Monique Delgado, Long Beach City Clerk. I just wanted to give you a quick update on the item before you. What you have is three resolutions approving the election on March 3rd. This election was a county consolidated election that included districts two, six, eight and two measures measures A and B Pro, the California Election Code Section 10263b. We need to adopt certified results from the L.A. County Registrar recorder at our next regular meeting, which is this meeting. You may know that there was a recount that was filed for Measure eight, and that recount has been concluded. And per the registrar recorder, Mr. Dean, log in today at 5:00. So that is no longer a concern. And I would appreciate the council adopting all three resolutions so that we can move forward to our November election, the general municipal election that will include the runoff for District two, six and eight. And I'm here if you have any questions. Speaker 0: Thank you. I have a motion to that by Councilmember Richardson and a motion by councilmembers, and they have to approve the consent calendar item or do a roll call vote. No additional questions. District one. By District two, by district three. Speaker 2: By district four by five, I think on. Speaker 0: Seven. Speaker 2: Pi 809 by Greg motion. Speaker 0: Now we're doing the rest of the content calendar, which is items one, 231 minus the last item. Can I get a motion and a second, please? I had a motion by council member. Your Ringo. Can I get a second? And seconded by Councilmember Richardson. Unless there's any I don't see any other questions. So I will do a roll call vote, starting with District one. Speaker 2: I decided to. Speaker 1: Try. Speaker 0: District three. Speaker 2: I tried this before by five. I suppose I just accept that. Speaker 0: I just want a. Speaker 2: High classic nine high grade. Speaker 0: Motion carries for the concert calendar. Now we're moving on to item 45. Clark, please read the item.

Resolution

Recommendation to adopt resolution declaring the results of the Primary Nominating Election held in the City of Long Beach, California, on Tuesday, March 3, 2020, for the purpose of nominating and/or electing candidates for three (3) offices on the City Council from district numbers 2, 6, and 8; and nominating and/or electing candidates for the Long Beach Unified School District Governing Board Members for the Second and Fourth Districts; and directing the City Clerk to place on ballots to be used at the General Municipal Election to be held on the 3rd day of November 2020, the names of the candidates declared to have been nominated in the Primary Nominating Election; and directing the City Clerk to issue a certificate of Election to the candidate declared to have been elected at the Primary Nominating Election;

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_04142020_20-0318

Speaker 0: Motion carries for the concert calendar. Now we're moving on to item 45. Clark, please read the item. Speaker 3: I'm 45 as a recommendation to approve an employment agreement. Employment agreement with Thomas Modica to serve as city manager. Speaker 0: Thank you. We are. We are. We do have, obviously, Mr. City attorney, I'm going to turn it over to him just to read something into the open session from a vote and some discussions of the council. So some discussion to the council. Sorry, Mr. City, Attorney. Thank you, Mayor. Mayor and members of the council are trying to stabilize. Speaker 2: The before. Speaker 0: You. This evening is a recommendation to approve the employment agreement with Thomas Modica to serve as your city manager. And he has the city manager salary pursuant to this contract. Speaker 2: Will be. Speaker 0: $290,650. Speaker 2: A 12. Speaker 0: Period at an hourly rate of $139.26 per hour. Speaker 2: That concludes. Speaker 0: My report. I'm happy to answer any questions. Okay, let me begin. I do have a motion to approve this by Governor Richardson. Can I get a second sheet up? Okay. And I got a second by Councilmember Bass. Mayor Andrews. Let me go ahead and I'd like to make some comments. And I would also I'm assuming that the makers of the motion wrote, and if anyone else from the council would like to make comments, please do so as well. To. I just want to just begin by thanking Mr. Motorcar for it is now 20 years, almost 20 years of service to the city of Long Beach. We know that Mr. Modica has done a great job not just in this role, but his work all the way from being a management assistant to working in our Development Services Department to managing our lobbying effort. Communication. Appreciate the city and of course serving as our former city manager, Mr. West's number two as as the assistant to the city. He's obviously been acting in that role now, and I think the Council would agree, Mr. Modica, that your handling of the COVID crisis been impressive and stellar and you've done a great job and really risen to the occasion in this crisis. But separate of that, no one has a better mastery of the budget. You are connected to our city. You live here. Your children go to school here. You're invested here. And we know you're going to do a great job. So congratulations to you on on a on a process. And I know we want to wish you the very best to you, Mr. Modica. Captain Bill Richardson. Speaker 2: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I think your comment summed up the joint statement City Council put forward. I'm honored to make this motion. I'm honored to support Tom in this moment. I have to say, you know, for 20 years that I was there with the city, I've known for about ten. We both had a lot a lot more here back then. But this crisis that we're in is the ultimate test. And I've said it before the ultimate test. I'm pretty sure not many new city manager will walk into a crisis and be able to lead the organization. And what you've been able to do is truly impressive, and we have a lot more ahead of us. So I think this was the best, most prudent, responsible decision for our city, our city's future. I think you have the right set of skills and I'm honored then to have this vote. Welcome to our new city manager. Speaker 0: Thank you, Vice Mayor Andrews. Speaker 2: First of all, let you down. I don't think that there's going to be another candidate who could be accomplishing. You are. I think you came in the way you did and you were very, very supportive and in everything. And I don't think anyone. You out of your ideology in the sense that you go through. I know you wanted it back and you will be the best party and the crisis that will end. Just follow your heart. And I know we will come out of this the way we should with your leadership. And thank you again so much for getting into this into this job, knowing all the time of our situation. You are going to be coming up again. I you are going to do a great job. I support you 100%. You go get them. Speaker 0: Thank you. And next, we have Councilmember Pearce. Speaker 1: Thank you. I wanted to chime in, Tom, and say, you know, I don't take this vote very lightly. I've told many people in our community it is perhaps the most important vote that we can take on this council. And since my first day, you have always been engaging. You've always listened and acted in a way with integrity that really tried to make sure that you were balancing all the needs and requests of all the, you know, the diversity that our city has. And I wanted to make sure that I looked at that up because I think it is so important when so many of my constituents I have brought up diversity that you really have led with that in so many ways. And I think your demonstration over the last month with this crisis have really demonstrated not only to myself but to the community members that you will also be serving, that you're the right person for the job. So I'm proud to take this very important vote and getting to work with you not only the next several months, but in the long term. So congratulations. Speaker 0: Thank you. Next stop, a few councilmember. Hold on 1/2. Speaker 2: Susie. What? Speaker 1: I'm sorry, Robert. I cut out for a minute there. You call on three? Speaker 0: I did? Yes. Customer base. Speaker 1: Oh, perfect. Thank you. Sorry about that. I just. I want to echo the comments of my colleagues. And, Tom, we wish you the best, and I'm really happy to be taking this next step. And thank you for everything you have done. And thanks in advance for everything you're going to do to keep us stable and strong. Thanks. Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilwoman. And they have. Speaker 1: Thank you, Mayor. I just want to congratulate you on being our new city manager. You've been doing a phenomenal job for the last couple of months that I've been working with you, but especially in this in this crisis that we face. And I feel that the rest of the council will agree with me in the fact that we are so glad that we are in your hands right now. And we feel very strong and confident because you are at the head of our faces, always being on top of things and always, you know, even, you know, predicting the future. I think that, you know, it takes a certain kind of person to do that. And I believe it's the love and the passion that you have for our city that that makes you work so very hard. So I want to thank you again and congratulate you for doing a phenomenal job. And I'm looking forward to all the great things we're going to do together. Thank you again. Speaker 0: Thank you. And Councilwoman Mongo. Speaker 1: Thanks. I just wanted to congratulate Tom and add a bit of perspective. Thompson here so long that he's been through three economic downturns. And and for that, I know that he has the experiences to guide us through what we did right and the things we can do better. And I look forward to many years of service at this important role. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you. And Captain Ranga. Speaker 2: Thank you, America. And you know, I've known you your whole career myself, having been an employee in the city as well, then now in the capacity of a council member is something you develop. I've seen you grow and you crawl into this position with regret with that. And while we maintain open communications or playing a role, we continue that goal. And I appreciate your director for you're opening with me because certainly we'll get over this together, but I'm sure that there'll be some of the challenges of the future where they be. We can also work together the resolution and thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you. That includes a comment from the council. I would go ahead and take care of the motion any second. I will go ahead and take a roll call. Vote for District one. Speaker 2: A district. Speaker 0: Do. Speaker 1: I. Speaker 0: District three. Speaker 1: I. Speaker 0: District four. Speaker 2: By. Speaker 0: District five. Speaker 1: By. Speaker 0: District six. Art District seven. Speaker 2: Hi. Speaker 0: District eight. Speaker 2: Hi. Speaker 0: And District nine. Speaker 2: I. Speaker 0: Great. Congratulations to our new city manager, Thomas Modica. And I'm going to ask I know you should take a minute here, Tom. I know you. You're on the line. I was at the part of the meeting, so I'm just to let you say a few words, if you would like in your new role now for the rest of the meeting as our city manager. So, Mr. Monica, you have the floor. Thank you very much, Mayor. And I'm just beyond humbled to hear the support of the council. It is such a great group of policy leaders that we have in our city, and I am just so honored to be your city manager and your commitment to public service, your commitment to thoughtful discussion, to compassion for your community is just amazing. And it amazes me every Tuesday and every day that we that we talk on the phone. I do want to say I'm just so fortunate to have an amazing team at our city. Our city employees are second to none from our 6000 that work out there every day for their residents to our executive management team. They are all focused really on the excellent delivery of service to our residents. Our mission really is just to make Long Beach a little bit better each and every day, and that's something that they really excel at. And so I appreciate all the very kind words. It's not me. It's really our team that does all of the things that you talk about, and they do it with pride, and I just couldn't be more proud of them. So thanks again for the opportunity and I look forward to serving in this role and and helping you achieve your goals for this community and to do it every day with integrity and with dedication and with service. So thank you so much and are just so proud to live here in this in this great city. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. America. And we will move on with the agenda for. Thank you. We're now moving on. We have three hearings that we have to do. I'm going to have the clerk kind of help move the hearings along just because they're going to be calling folks in. And so we're going to start we have items 32, 33 and 34. And if we can, please have and start with item 32 that the first hearing will let the court begin and introduce the item.

Contract

Recommendation to approve an employment agreement with Thomas B. Modica to serve as City Manager.

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_04142020_20-0301

Speaker 0: And so we're going to start we have items 32, 33 and 34. And if we can, please have and start with item 32 that the first hearing will let the court begin and introduce the item. Speaker 4: Thank you. Item number 33 is a report from Development Services recommendation to receive. Speaker 0: 1630. Speaker 4: I'm sorry, 3232 is a report from Development Services recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record, conclude the public hearing and find the project exempt from secure. Declare ordinance approving zoning code amendment to reclassify adult use cannabis cultivation. An ordinance approving amendments relating to building design for adult use, cannabis businesses and to the personal cultivation of cannabis. Read the first time and lead over to the next regular meeting of City Council for Final Reading and adopt a resolution to submit the ordinance amending the Long Beach Municipal Code to the California Coastal Commission Citywide. Speaker 0: Okay. We're going to go ahead of the start now. Begin the. Speaker 2: Presentation. Speaker 0: Linda Tatum. We'll give thanks for the vision. Speaker 1: Excuse me, staff and mayor, I'd like to say, instead of being overly cautious, I'd like to recuse myself. So I'll I'll find out when the hearings over and. Speaker 2: Okay. Speaker 1: Gift. Speaker 0: Okay, go ahead. If we can, please have the staff to the report. Speaker 1: Good afternoon. Good evening, Mayor and members of the city council. With us, Linda Tatum. Speaker 0: Director of. Speaker 1: Development services. I'll be writing a brief staff report on this item in July of 2019. The city manager's office provided a report to the council in response to our request for staff to review the cannabis industry in the city of Long Beach and explore means to expand the tax base, streamline the review of the approval process, and also to provide incentives for the industry to establish itself in Long Beach and to grow. This report specifically outlined factors that could be considered, including options for taxation approaches, as well as features of the current development review process. This item this evening specifically focuses on the zoning and regulatory processes that are essentially have been determined to be low hanging fruit that can be fairly easily addressed without impacts the ongoing city revenues or to the city's quality of life as directed by the City Council back in July. The Development Services staff assessed the current code regulations and took forward a package of modifications for planning, commissions, consideration and summary. These changes, including included refining cannabis definitions and the reason we needed to do that was to clarify terminology that does not currently exist in the zoning codes. And these included defining cannabis distribution, defining cannabis cultivation and cannabis distribution itself, which means an operation that not only manufactures and cultivates, but also distributes its own product. The second item that was involved was modifying the processes to essentially allow approval of cannabis related uses rather than at a PC level, at a planning commission level, to go from a conditional use permit process to an administrative process. This concept produces both the timing of the process as well as the cost of the review to the to the individual operators. The Code Amendment proposal also revised the building design process to allow greater flexibility and window placement and one two glazing. But at the same time it maintains the ability for good design while also adjusting security and visibility into the cannabis operations following. And finally, this code amendment actually also modifies Chapter eight to establish parameters that are consistent with state law for cannabis enforcement. It allows the city's code enforcement staff to issue violations of the provisions. It also adds definitions that don't currently exist in Chapter eight for a public place and for private residences. And lastly, it establishes a maximum of six cannabis plants for personal use. Okay. So in summary, this recommendation reflects input not only from the staff assessment of the industry, but it also reflects feedback from the industry itself. Staff conducted a a couple of outreach efforts with business cannabis business operators. And this feedback reflects or the proposal reflects feedback from the industry. So in summary, I'd like to recommend that that City Council uphold the recommendation for approval by Planning Commission and to adopt the categorical exemption for the proposed Zoning Code Amendment and the amendments proposed to Title eight. And that concludes the staff presentation. I'm available for questions if there are any. Speaker 0: Okay. I have come from a district one mayors and they have. Speaker 1: Thank you, man. Thank you for that. I just wanted to say thank you. I think that. Oh, just give me one sec. And I absolutely want to voice my support for this for this of counsel. And then I view I viewed as I'm doing and, you know, my pride in supporting businesses like this. It is important for us to continue making changes with changes and needed. Like in this instance, the cannabis industry is a vital part of my local economy landscape and taking these steps to support small businesses then gives them the flexibility they need to grow, grow and flourish. Only makes sense to me as far as supporting the state in. Speaker 0: Can we make that a motion councilmember? Speaker 1: Yes, I would like to make that a motion. Speaker 0: But I need a second on that, please. Speaker 2: Okay. Speaker 0: Okay. Just queue up into the system please. Is possible that I have a second account number, Austin, and then I'll do a roll call vote. District one. Speaker 1: I was. Speaker 0: District to. Refused. Speaker 1: It's a3i. Speaker 0: District for. Speaker 2: I district five. I disagree. Six five. Speaker 0: Six, seven. Speaker 2: Eight. Speaker 0: Eight. Speaker 2: Oh. Speaker 0: And just a name. Hi. Okay. Item 33.

Ordinance

Recommendation to declare ordinance amending the Long Beach Municipal Code by amending Sections 21.15.441.1, 21.15.441.3, and Table 33-2 of Chapter 21.33; and by adding Section 21.15.441.5, all relating to cannabis businesses, read and adopted as read. (Citywide)

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_04142020_20-0304

Speaker 0: And just a name. Hi. Okay. Item 33. Speaker 4: Item 33. Report from Financial Management Recommendation to receive supporting documentation under the record, conclude the hearing and grant an entertainer permit with conditions on the application of thicker wood cider work at 7 to 0 East Broadway for Entertainment Without Dancing District two. This item requires an oath. Our opponent is on the line. Anybody who is going to be offering testimony, do you and each of you 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: I didn't expect. Speaker 1: You. Speaker 0: Okay. We'll now have the staff report. Speaker 1: Presenting will be Bret Jacobs, business operations officer. Speaker 2: Good evening. Speaker 0: Honorable there and. Speaker 2: Members of the city council tonight you have before you in. Speaker 0: Application for entertainment. Speaker 2: Without dancing or Spider Lab LLC doing business as the Norwood. Speaker 0: Cider Work located at. Speaker 2: 720 East Broadway. Operating as a restaurant with alcohol in Council District two, all of the necessary departments have reviewed the application. Speaker 0: And have provided their recommended. Speaker 2: Conditions as. Speaker 0: Contained in the hearing packet. Speaker 2: As well as the piece where I. Speaker 0: Stand ready to answer. Speaker 2: Any questions council may have. And that concludes staff's report. Speaker 0: So that concludes that report. If we are going to go ahead and have the the the those that are speaking to this item that have been have also something to add. Go ahead and make your comments, please. Speaker 4: Mr. Stephan and Jim. Speaker 2: Have nothing out of this time unless there's any questions. Speaker 0: Okay. Is there anyone else speaking from those videos? Okay. I'm seeing none then. Governor Pierce. Customer appears. Governor Pierce, I have you queued up. No one you may not know. Speaker 1: She might not be back on. He refused to suffer the life left side. Speaker 0: Yeah, but she's. She's queuing up, so. Okay, so can I get another motion, please? Someone queue up on the queue system to move this. Okay. I have a message from District nine, but I got another motion and a motion for District six. There's a motion and a second. I will go ahead and do a roll call vote. Is there anything else that is. Nothing of bad stuff, Mr. America. Speaker 1: But there's nothing else to add. Speaker 0: Okay. But District one. Speaker 1: And. Speaker 0: District two. District three. I worked for. Speaker 2: My. Speaker 0: District five. I District six. Speaker 2: Hi. 758. Hi. Nine. Hi. Speaker 0: Rosanne Cash is thinking. We're now moving on to our final viewing item, Madam Court. This really.

Public Hearing

Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record, conclude the hearing and grant an Entertainment Permit, with conditions, on the application of Ciderlab, LLC, dba Ficklewood Ciderworks, at 720 East Broadway, for Entertainment without Dancing. (District 2)

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_04142020_20-0306

Speaker 4: Communication from Councilmember Aranda. Councilmember Pierce. Vice Mayor Andrews. Council Member Richardson. Recommendation to request city manager to establish information lines and multiple language. Direct City Manager to provide resources to ensure that our monolingual residents are apprized of the most up to date information regarding COVID 19. And direct city manager to report back on the feasibility and cost associated with permanently moving our translation services in-house. Speaker 0: Okay, I'm going to. Before I turn this over to Councilmember Ranga, can I please have everyone meet their phones? We are getting some feedback. So if you can just unmute your phones, except for the person that's called on, that would be that would be great. Thank you so much. Customer Ranga. Thank you, Mayor. Speaker 2: This sale came about because obviously we were in a in a very critical point of our city history right now. And basically, it's so very important that we maintain open lines of communication with all our residents. And one of the things that came up during the pandemic is that information was getting out there, but it wasn't a real time for those that were challenged by my English language. So we thought that it would be appropriate for the city if we can get quick time translations to all information to go out, including press releases and any notices so that all of our individuals will speak to Garlic Gourmet in Spanish and also get that information in real time. So I hope that I can get the support of my colleagues and the World Bank is going to join me in this item. As we know, it's very important that we maintain as open a communication with our residents as we possibly can. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you, Vice Mayor Andrews. Speaker 2: Thank you. First of all, I'd like to thank you for bringing stadium forward, because I think it's disappointing that this has to become an agenda item before we took serious action this week. And the city has prided itself in diversity and access, as we should always be forward thinking and proactive about our monolingual residents. This is an entire process of having a language access policy and we should not be throwing policies out the window because we are in a crisis and dismal translation is not enough. We can do better. We have not employed every skill and this is the time to be maximizing on our in-house skills and employ that. And I think the cosine is going to take him also. And let's not forget that we do not have an internet. Social media is to receive an update. Thank you again, Yolanda, for bringing this forward. Speaker 0: Thank you very much, Vice Mayor. And I'm assuming customary anger that was in motion and vice mayor without a second. Speaker 2: Yes. Okay. Speaker 0: Councilmember Pierson. Speaker 1: Thank you. Appreciate that. Further comments made by the other Cosigners and the Roberto. Thanks for bringing this up. You know, I want to to say I fully support this. I know that this is asking for a report to come back. And so just wanted to outline, I think making sure that we've got dedicated staffing and resources is really important. A permanent move to interpretation and translation in how I know with my office it has. We're fortunate to have a Spanish speaker and somebody that can do some translation. But I know sometimes that it's taken us a very long time to get translation material. And when we do try to do events or briefings with translation, it often is a week or two weeks later whenever that information is already. You know, outdated. And so I think the more that we can do this in-house is really important. Fully support having dedicated phone lines and Spanish commodes going as well as on the website and provide interpretation for all council meetings as well. So I'd be curious to have staff report back on what that would mean, particularly for our our Spanish speakers. I know that sometimes there's been times when we've had long holidays, right? So we recently had where we were closed on a Friday. Monday was also a holiday and so people weren't able to call in and get translations. So knowing that every council meeting would have translation, especially for our Spanish speakers, it would be really important. I look forward to the staff report coming back and again, thank my colleagues for bringing this item forward. Thank you. Speaker 0: Customers in the US. Speaker 1: Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to say thank you to Councilmember Odinga for, again, bringing this item forward, I think is very, very important. I think that representing residents where the majority were a big majority of our residents speak other languages. I think it's important and like Councilmember Pearce said, in regards to having the the documents or information translated into Spanish in real time is very, very important, especially. You know, a perfect example is what we're going through right now. So I really think that it is very important to to have these in the house. So thank you. Speaker 0: Councilmember Richardson. Speaker 2: Segment. The mayor wanted to chime in quickly, say, I think this makes sense. Councilmember Rank Elevate says, in fact, this is not new in our city and we know that our health department is doing the best that they can right now. But they need. I think it's important that they hear from the council that, number one, we support what they're doing. And number two, we want to add more resources to make sure that, you know, communities that may not speak English was not their first language. They have a very you know, they are getting information and real time on how to stay educated and learned this this this virus. And I think this is just a moment that really underscores that language access really is essential to public health and health equity. Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilmember. And just as a reminder to all we have, of course, was comments that people forwarded in the comments, which I know you're all aware of, you already received them all. But those are those. We have those, of course, for all these items. And so with that, let's look at what will work. Although, Madam Kirk, can you call the office district one? Speaker 4: I district to. Speaker 1: I. Speaker 4: District three. Speaker 1: I. Speaker 4: District four. Speaker 2: I. Speaker 4: District five. Speaker 1: I. Speaker 4: District six. By District seven, by district eight. Speaker 2: Hello. Speaker 4: District nine. Speaker 2: I.

Agenda Item

Recommendation to request City Manager to establish information lines in multiple languages and also website landing pages in the three most commonly spoken languages (Spanish, Khmer, Tagalog), as described in the City's Language Access Policy (LAP); Direct City Manager to provide adequate staffing, resources and translation services to ensure that our monolingual residents are apprised of the most up-to-date information regarding the COVID-19 global pandemic, public health updates and City services; and, direct City Manager to report back on the feasibility and costs associated with permanently moving our translation services in-house to provide a faster response and update to our residents.

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_04142020_20-0307

Speaker 0: Okay. Motion carries item 36. Speaker 4: Communication from Councilman Super NAN recommendation to increase appropriations in the General Fund Group and the Economic Development Department in the amount of 250,000 to support elevator repairs at Community Hospital of Long Beach. Speaker 0: Take count number supernova. Speaker 2: Thank you. Mayor Garcia, I'd like to make the motion to approve. I appreciate it and the support of my colleagues. And I also like to say thank you to our city staff for their assistance on this stadium. Speaker 0: Thank you. And I have councilwoman prices cued up the second. Speaker 1: I support this item. And again, I want to thank Councilman Superhot for his never ending commitment to this project. He really literally is putting his money where his mouth is. And I'm so grateful for the work of his team and of course, our city staff for getting us to this point. And Councilman Super. And it would not have happened without you. And that is a fact. Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilwoman and D.A. thank more. Speaker 1: I'm a huge, huge thanks to councilmember. Nice for this contribution. It is so big and speaks so highly of your commitment to not only your district, but to Long Beach and to everybody that, you know that might be able to attend. Going to the community hospital and be able to use these elevators is a huge deal. So thank you. Thank you very much. Speaker 0: Thank you, Rosemary. Andrew. Speaker 2: I don't think that the subsequent supernova that we're going to keep this on the map for everyone because of that, that knowledge will provide to that. And I just want to let him know that the proof is in the pudding. And I know this will get done because it is hard work. And I wouldn't think you've given up on Supernova. But what your constituent and this is going to be a great, great, you know, adventure to jump into again, bigger Roger. Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilwoman Mongo and then customary ringa. Speaker 2: I would add my congratulations to cover Supergirl. The timing couldn't have been more perfect in this day and age, so thank you, Cochran. Speaker 0: Dr. Councilmember Richardson. Speaker 2: Said that Mayor Hayden is one of the firemen to say thank you to Councilmember Supermarket for just maintaining a focus on there. You know, a lot of people are going to use in that elevator. I think we ought to we ought to name it the na elevator, a community hospital. But I'll just say thanks a lot. You've really been committed to this and we know it. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilwoman Mongo. Speaker 1: Big congratulations to all those that have been supporting community hospital great work and the leadership of Tel supernova as exemplary demonstrating here today and his generosity. Thank you. Speaker 0: Member thank you Councilman Osman. Speaker 2: This also want to chime in and congratulate or thank council members to go now for such a great sacrifice. Budget is off this budget to make this happen on behalf of the entire city and community. Community hospital really being a place to do the work. That is the marketing and the commitment to this project and just getting it over the hump. This more than $50,000 and then after budget means a lot to make it happen. And so all in all, I don't think many of us are in a position to be able to do that, let alone commit that moment. Congratulations again and thank you. Your office. Speaker 0: Thank you. That includes a comment from the council. Will go take a roll call vote. If you can, please call the war court. Speaker 4: District one. Speaker 1: I. Speaker 4: District two. I'm District three. Speaker 1: I am. Speaker 4: District four. Speaker 2: All right. Speaker 4: District five. Speaker 2: I am. Speaker 4: District six. Speaker 2: But. Speaker 4: District six. Speaker 2: By. Speaker 4: District seven. District eight. Speaker 1: I can register is on time for the hard. Speaker 4: District nine. Speaker 2: I. Speaker 4: Motion carries. Speaker 0: Thank you. And that was phones on mute if you're not speaking. Thank you so much. Let's move on to the next item, which is 37.

Agenda Item

Recommendation to increase appropriations in the General Fund Group in the Economic Development Department in the amount of $250,000, offset by the Fourth Council District One-time District Priority Funds transferred from the General Fund Group in the Citywide Activities Department to support elevator repairs at Community Hospital of Long Beach; and Decrease appropriations in the General Fund Group in the Citywide Activities Department by $250,000 to offset a transfer to the Economic Development Department.

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_04142020_20-0308

Speaker 0: Thank you. And that was phones on mute if you're not speaking. Thank you so much. Let's move on to the next item, which is 37. Speaker 4: Item 37, communication from Vice Mayor Andrews and Councilwoman Zendaya's recommendation to increase appropriations in the general fund group and the city manager department by $2,000. But to provide a contribution to Midtown. PBE, ID and Downtown Peabody to support a food and Small Business Support Fund. Speaker 0: That customers and they have. Customers and they have an accompanying motion sound. Speaker 1: Thank you. I'm just very pleased to be able to do something for during this COVID 19 crisis that we're in. And I know that this is maybe just a little bit of what needs to be done, but I'm happy to be able to participate and help organizations that, in turn, will help our residents here in Long Beach to get through these difficult times. Speaker 0: Is that emotion? Speaker 1: Yes, it is. Speaker 0: Okay. Vice Mayor Andrews. Speaker 2: Yes. First of all, I'd like to thank my councilwoman now for joining me and this partnership with this bid. Well, the midtown bid has been very, very proactive in these times, providing resources to our small business along the corridor. And I know that they have good relationships with the rest of. Right. Grocery stores and other essential businesses. The problem with this idea is to have mass families that want to take on space and that are being hard to find, such as toilet paper and milk, rice and beans. But probably half of what we have partnered with local food banks and nonprofit organizations. We also have district resources. We know that there are small businesses that are also in needing local aid. And with this partnership, we want to be able to help residents and small businesses along the that shopping locally. I know me and my staff are committed to helping with deliveries to seniors and disabilities individuals. So I would appreciate everyone. Yes. Vote on this item. Thank you very much. Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you. There's no no one cued up, so we've got to take a roll call vote. Madam Clerk. Speaker 4: Council. District one. Council District two. Speaker 1: But I. Speaker 4: Council District three. Speaker 1: I. Speaker 4: Council District four. Speaker 2: All right. Speaker 4: Council District five. Speaker 1: I. Speaker 4: Council District six. High Council District seven. High Council District eight. Arts Council District nine. Speaker 2: All right. Speaker 4: Motion carries. Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you. Let's go ahead and do the next item, which is 37. I'm sorry. Item 38. And then that will to kick us off will be based on. And let's let's meet the fans, please. Aspirant athletes read the item.

Agenda Item

Recommendation to increase appropriations in the General Fund Group in the City Manager Department by $2,000, offset by $1,000 of the First Council District One-time District Priority Funds and $1,000 of the Sixth District One-time District Priority Funds, transferred from the Citywide Activities Department to provide a contribution to the Midtown Property & Business Owner's Association (Midtown PBID) and Downtown Long Beach Alliance (Downtown PBID) to support a food and small business support fund; and Decrease appropriations in the General Fund Group in the Citywide Activities Department by $2,000 to offset a transfer to the City Manager Department.

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_04142020_20-0311

Speaker 4: District six. By District seven. So District eight. High District nine, high ocean carries. Speaker 0: Thank you. Item 14 Staff. Speaker 4: Report from Economic Development. Recommendation to enter into leases with public or private parties to lease or occupy real property in response to the proclaimed emergency due to the COVID 19 pandemic and adopt a resolution authorizing to execute all necessary documents citywide. Speaker 0: For the mayor and council. This is the ability for staff related to go go quickly to lease property when we have a need related to COVID response and to also accept grant dollars for groups that want to give us money. And then we would come back at the next available council meeting the next opportunity and get that ratified. So with that, we ask for your support. Okay. Thank you, Vice Mayor Andrews. Speaker 2: You know, I just like to come in and and say, I'll be friends on this because I like let's reflect on some of the possibilities into the item. You know, I hate to see I keep bringing this up, but we really need to start looking at the private parking lot and attempted to do a contact with them for temporary parking. So, for instance, you know, I know that the work is in the detail and the liabilities, but looking at this item, I think that this is the kind of work that we are going to be doing anyway. So please that we can allow, you know, the city managers to enter into this contract to facilitate the parking. I would really appreciate it because like I have spoke with some of the few people in my district and they want the kids in a central role. These are three parking lots and only one of them are getting used and they also allow library in the Wrigley that also has two parking lots. I would really like to see that work a little more with the Private Friday during this crisis. And thank you again for this item. Yeah. Speaker 0: But the members. And they have. Speaker 1: Thank you, Mayor. Was that a motion by mayor? I don't know. Speaker 0: Mayor, is that a motion? Speaker 2: Yes. Speaker 1: I would like to speak in that motion. Big, bad business, very clear. And I really welcome this type of creativity during this crisis. The last thing we know right now, the last thing we need right now is to be caught up in the people know. So I really support this item having the second motion. Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilmember Austin. Speaker 2: Thank you. I just had a question for staff from the staff. And for the benefit of those, I mean, what type of role on music would we be looking at on all the pieces I've heard properly on the record the multi. Speaker 0: Yeah. So I'll give you thank you account number. I give you an example. We needed to bring on a warehouse to be able to accept all of the material that we as a health department get from the seat in order to put out the PPE to our first responders and to our medical providers here locally. Thankfully, we had already been working on that and we were able to have a council meeting and bring that to you. And but we did have to wait until we had a chance to get that signed. It was all paid for. We all had the money coming in from the grant, but we did have to line it up and call a special meeting to have you do that. So that's an example. We could also be looking at things like if we needed to do drive through testing and lease somebody like for a little while to do a huge drive through testing capability, we could do that as well. So those are some certain examples. I think what Mr. Andrews is talking about is parking. You know, that is certainly something that we could look at. We have in the past, you know, we wanted to bring our parking assets on very quickly. And so a lot of times the property owner requires a lot of us in order to do parking. You know, they want us to pay their insurance. They we have to look at A.D.A. responsibilities and those types of things. So we can certainly use this to look at those opportunities further as well. Speaker 2: Thank you for that clarification. Or I just think that I'm supportive of this item, but I also support the comment and requests from our Vice mayor regarding parking, because I'm hearing from a lot of our residents who want to do the right thing, particularly when it comes to moving more vehicles to them purposes there, because everybody is home right now working from home on a school home either makes it a lot more challenging, can't get around and we have problems getting up. And so if we can find the creative would be retailers, large retailers and retail groomers, the beacon of light that would be doing that. Speaker 0: And someone hit me hard on that. Can someone mute their phone? Thank you. Customer Anger. Speaker 2: I just want to let my support to say to them I think it's a very creative way of being able to deal with open spaces. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you. And that concludes comments for this item. So please do the roll call vote. Speaker 4: Council District one. I can't tell district to. Speaker 1: I. Speaker 4: And so District three. Speaker 1: I. Speaker 4: Council District four. I cancel District five? I Council District six. Speaker 2: Yes. Speaker 4: Council District seven. High Council District eight. Speaker 2: Oh. Speaker 4: Council District nine. My motion carries.

Resolution

Recommendation to authorize City Manager, or designee, to execute any and all documents necessary or desirable to enter into leases with public or private parties for terms not to exceed six months, with an option for one six-month extension at the sole discretion of the City Manager, to lease or occupy real property in response to the proclaimed emergency due to the COVID-19 pandemic; and Adopt resolution authorizing City Manager, or designee, to execute all necessary documents, including subcontracts and any subsequent amendments, to apply for, accept, and expend grant funding for financial assistance to respond to the proclaimed emergency due to the COVID-19 pandemic. (Citywide)

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_04142020_20-0320

Speaker 0: Okay. Motion carries as item 41. Thank you. We've had some requests to move up item 47. So if you can, Madam Clerk, can you please read item 47, please? Speaker 4: Item 47 Report from Economic Development. Recommendation to review a report on the coronavirus economic relief package for Long Beach families and small businesses and provide input and policy direction to staff on economic relief strategies for working families and small businesses impacted by the COVID 19 emergency citywide. Speaker 0: Okay. Great. So so go ahead. I know this is a long we have a very long staff reporting presentation, so I want to turn this over to staff to go ahead and go through a and it was a lengthy presentation. So I'm curious over to Mr. Murdoch and Mr. Keisler. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So I wanted to give some background on this item, and it's a really lengthy item. So rather than giving a full list after presentation, all the different issue areas, I'd like to give a summary of what this is and what it really kind of entails at a high level, and then really take some counsel direction about how much we want to address tonight and what issue areas. So the report is there. It's about 39 pages down report in addition to over 100 pages of all the different attachments. And so this was really an impetus for this was the council asking us on March 17th, right after we declared a fiscal emergency, to really focus on economic resiliency. And so we set up a unit in our emergency operations center headed up by Mr. Kaiser, and with the whole team really looking at the items that the council gave us, as well as a couple of others that came up after you had asked us to work on these items. And so we've organized that into 12 issue areas, and I will basically read the issue areas. Essentially. The first one is a review of supplemental sick leave policies. This is one of the 12 areas where we don't have city staff, have a recommendation, and we're looking for a policy direction from the council issue area to how to deal with TOTTY and revenue sharing and reviewing that and coming up with some plan. So we have a staff recommendation there about creating a hospitality recovery task force and developing strategies to essentially get our hotels full again as soon as we can lift the stay at home order issue Area three Lending Partnerships to prohibit Foreclosures or Home Mortgage Payments. And so we have two recommendations. They're about direction. A dedicated educational and marketing program and also working with our economic development and community development corporations in issue area for there was a request for a streamlined processes in partnership with the Economic Development Department. And so we have three recommendations there supporting contracts and expanding grant funding to do robust marketing and promotions and to develop a plan to improve the design of our online labor exchange program to really help match employers and workers. But Issue Area five had to do with emergency loan assistance. You took some actions regarding that tonight, and there's much more to go. So there's four different recommendations there about bringing on additional loan capacity for our small businesses. Issue Area six is partnership to safely assist people under sea quarantine. And working with our coronavirus relief fund is what we recommend. We currently have 31 grants out of over half a million dollars that's been raised and is in the hands of nonprofits to help people who are under self-quarantine. Issue Area seven is training on COVID 19 prevention for the tourism and restaurant industry. And we recommend doing this, continuing our public education efforts and what's in our health order, which is a very strong order to protect safety of our employers and employees and the public. Issue Area eight is worker recall and return. And so this is an area where the city of Los Angeles has done some work and the city of through the county of L.A. And so there are three different options here where you can, you know, go and do something that they've been moving forward. You can create kind of a rapid response, right? I'm sorry, rapid response strategy or you can do additional study. And so we don't have a recommendation on this area and are looking for policy direction, the same as with issue area nine. This is about worker retention and just cause termination. Again, this is an issue we've seen at the city of L.A. and the county of L.A. And so there are three options for you to consider there. And city staff not have a recommendation at this time. The last two areas, one is food and grocery service protections. The city has issued a very strong update to our health order. We did that on Friday and really addresses the conditions that grocery stores need to operate under to be safe for both the public and employees. Issue Area 11 is digital inclusion, and so there are two recommendations there to direct the manager to work on current digital inclusion roadmap process for economic relief programs, and getting access to the Internet for residents and businesses. And also to work with private partners to increase access to hardware, Internet access and literacy training. The last area is development relief, and we talked a little bit about that earlier tonight. You added a couple of additional items. But, you know, we have three different recommendations. They are about continuing to look at licenses, permits and fees for development that can be deferred or staggered to work with us to market the continuation of services through things like election. Chronic plant check and inspection services and to really create awareness of all the work that we are doing, even though our city hall is not open and then creating a marketing plan as a potential and reviewing the costs of creating that plan. So those are the 12 issue areas. As staff, we recommend that you either approve the staff recommendations or modify those and do that tonight, but then really spend your time on the three issue areas one, eight and nine, where there is no recommendation. Or alternatively, if you're not ready to take on all of that, defer the staff recommendations for a week and really give a direction on issue areas one, eight and nine, because those are the ones that we need policy direction on. And that concludes the report. John Kolko And Sue, you and others are here to answer questions as needed. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Modica. I have folks that are queued up at this point to make their general comment. I just want to just add to the entire team, Mr. Modica and the team at Economic Development and Success on your team. You guys are obviously put in an enormous amount of work into this package. Obviously, I know there will be discussion tonight about where we go. I think overall, you guys are really looking at ways to ensure that we are really focused on bouncing back and reopening this economy that we know we have to do when it's when it's when we're ready, when it's safe to do so, while at the same time taking care of workers and our small businesses and making sure folks are protected. And so I just want to thank all of you for the incredible work. I think it's been impressive. I know that this issue was we had a great discussion. The council had a great discussion by the last meeting to direct the council to do all this work. And I want to thank all those members. But really just the product of that to just thank you. And I want to just I take this time I know that one thing has been very apparent to me is that in all the health orders and other directives that have been put out have been going out, you've all been really focused on making sure that we are protecting the public and protecting the workers in our essential businesses. And that's been pretty clear. And I think we we appreciate that. So I'm looking forward to that discussion tonight. And I certainly strongly support moving forward and making sure that we are doing everything we can to support our small businesses and the workers that are working, working hard to protect us now and those that will get back to work as well. So thank you, Mr. Kaiser, for you and your team's work. So I have asked council members and they asked. Speaker 1: Thank you, Mayor. First of all, I want to thank our staff for rising to the challenge and bringing these recommendations to council. I know a lot of work went into this, and the information that you've given us is incredibly comprehensive. It is becoming clear that dealing with the COVID 19 pandemic and its aftermath will be the defining challenge facing Long Beach for at least the next year or even beyond. And the city council has an absolute critical role to play in assisting our residents through this incredibly difficult time. I'm so grateful to have the support and partnership of each one of my colleagues as we work together to create the problem, to create solutions for the problems at hand. I also want to express our commitment to everything and to do everything in our power to make sure that the residents of Long Beach are, as they are , able to weather this crisis. It is something that we never imagined that we would go through. But now that we're going through that, we are coming together as a city and trying to find the best, best solutions together to continue moving Long Beach forward. With that being said, I'd like to make the following motion. I move two sets of staff recommendations and the economic relief package in the following issue areas Section two related to the D.O.T. incentive. Section three relating to the foreclosures and mortgage payments. Section four related to partnership with DVD. Section five related to emergency loan assistance programs. Section six related to partnership to assist people under self-quarantine. Section seven. Related to training Section 11 related to digital inclusion. And Section 12 related to development relief. Both are in session 189 and ten of the staff report related to this day grocery workers rights to return to work and worker retention policy staff made no recommendation and request further direction from the City Council. Therefore, in section one. Review of the supplemental city leave policy. I move we adopt option eight that all employees with more than 500 workers nationally provide a benefit method of supplemental COVID related pay, sick leave to full time worker and a pilot amount to support those working part time. Additionally include an opt out was that employers and employees have a collective bargaining agreement in place in section eight. Speaker 2: Worker restraints. Speaker 1: And recall aims as we adopt Option L. Speaker 0: Women. Just 1/2. 1/2. Can I have everyone use their phones except for councilman's and their house please? Can everyone get their phones except for Councilwoman Zendejas? I have some people that are not muted. Everyone needs to meet their phones except for councilmembers and D.A.. Thank you. Councilwoman, go. Speaker 2: Ahead. Speaker 1: Thank you. I'm going to repeat back to me worker return and recall. I move that we adopt option e draft an ordinance requiring employees of hotels and janitorial companies of 25 employees or or more receive first right of refusal for workers to lay off as well as themselves as a result of the consequences. Once their employer begins the rehire process, which I'm hoping will be there, the benefits. Speaker 2: Should. Speaker 1: Be also active to March 1st. In Session nine. Worker retention and just cost termination. I move that we adopt often a draft in the ordinance requiring hospitality and janitorial companies of 25 employees or more to continue to employ the quiet company's employees for a set number of days upon the transfer of ownership of the business. The benefits should be retroactive to my first. Is Section ten Food and Grocery Service Protection. I move to request the city managers to work with the affected parties to explore ways to ease the burden on essential grocery workers by allowing special adjustments without restrictive vision to accommodate for workers. By allowing them to special adjustments and to accommodate for issues related to COVID 19, including but not limited to childcare needs and assisting family members in medical but basis that can be handled by an experienced workforce. Therefore, furthermore, ways to acquire an existing part time groceries and drug store workers are offered full time hours before new employees are hired. But if my motion. Speaker 0: Okay. Let me let me just also before I go to the next speaker that the motion is made. Constable Richardson, you are our next. Before I go to Constable Richardson, I'm not sure compliments. And perhaps if you have that motion maybe prepared or kind of written out for that, maybe we also can make sure that city attorney gets a copy of that so that we can read it back and we have it all for the record as well. But while you're while you're looking at that, let me turn it over to Councilmember Richardson. Speaker 2: Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and thank you. I'll start by thanking staff when we proposed this item a few weeks ago. The intent was to really leverage our local government to help drive the response to this emergency. This is something that we've said for a long time. We do have a role as leader in local leadership, and I believe that our residents are looking to us to help make sense of what's happening. And in fact, other communities, even, you know, Press Telegram likes the report Long Beach area. Now, other communities are looking at the Long Beach to see how we will help. These are the regions of decisions that we make with respect to this item will have a direct impact on thousands of working families in and around Long Beach. We started this process on economic relief. We gave direction to tackle housing and to make sure that folks we needed to shelter in place, have a roof over their heads. And we took care of that. Now, the next piece was we're taking care of the name is a bit more comprehensive. How do we make sure that we protect our small businesses, we protect our essential workers, we we protect our impacted industry. We know that their circumstances, fluids rapidly changing. It's a moving target. It requires engagement of many, many stakeholders and requires following the trends of what's happening across the nation and across the region. And that's exactly what's happened here. And that's why I want to start by thanking staff, namely John Kapler, our city attorney, our health department, for not only producing a 158 page response to our proposal in local league, the memo was clear. It was well researched, it was well-organized. But I also want to highlight that they didn't wait for this moment. They took action ahead of it in a language that most people would support on Friday, the looking for citizens in order to further protect the of workers on the front line. Like our grocery workers and our pharmacy workers. We're counting on these workers right now. And our health order stepped up in alignment with this motion. They stepped up to really take care of that. Speaker 0: So tonight it comes and I want that councilmember really quick. Everyone else, their phones. I may have one other person. It's not on mute. Looks like it's if everyone else can meet their phones except for Councilmember Richardson. Thank you so much, Councilmember. Speaker 2: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So, so, so, so. Tonight it's a night where we're taking steps to further protect while these working families are taking action on expanding additional health and economic protections. That's going to make a meaningful difference in the lives of working families across our city. I want to thank council members and Beyhive for stepping up. The freshman class is leading and I'm glad to see that in helping to lead this effort. This motion, as presented by all of that, has presented it represents all of that recommendation from incentives in emergency loans for businesses and distressed industries. It's a relief for homeowners and property owners, but most notably, it also supports the best options in front of us as it relates to protections for working families. We're expanding sick leave for workers impacted by the coronavirus, ensuring a right to return to work for those in the hardest hit industries. And we're further supporting essential workers on the front lines of this crisis with respect to the sick leave component of this motion. I support the motion. It limits companies to limit the sick leave provision to companies, 500 employees or more. Since the SAFER Act already established sick leave relief for employees of small businesses between 50 and 500. That makes sense to start it at 500 employees and above. Secondly, with respect to the recall component of this motion, I support this option as we focus on the long journey of recovery. We need to make sure that workers have an option to return to their jobs as early and as soon as possible. I'm glad to know there are cities already familiar with this policy, as we already have a similar policy on the books in our airport and our convention center. It makes sense that this protection is extended then to workers in the hospitality and janitorial industry. With respect to the retention component, we also have examples of this in our convention center, an airport. When a convention center concessionaires change, the hundreds of rank and file workers remain in place. This protection should be extended to a hotel and janitorial industries that we know are going to have a difficult time, difficult economic time over the next few years. So I strongly support this package and it's a result of the work of many of the many of the city council members on this line. I think it really represents strong leadership on behalf of Long Beach, and I think it's the right thing to do. So I strongly backing this most. Speaker 0: Hey, there's a motion and a second. I understand you're sending over your motion over to the city attorney and the Court. Is that right? Just so we can were able to get access to it? Yep. Speaker 1: Yes. Thank. Speaker 0: We received a thank you. Thank you. Next up is Councilwoman Price. Speaker 1: Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and thank you to staff for this incredibly comprehensive document. I reached out to John personally to thank him for putting this together. There's a few things I want to highlight that I really loved about this piece. The first was that I very much like the fact that the city attorney, what is able to weigh in? Because I think a lot of times we we don't know if we need an ordinance or a resolution. We don't know if something that we are thinking of policy wise will pass legal muster. So I really appreciated having the attorneys input on on this document and throughout the document. I also really appreciated that that did not take a policy position on a few of these items that, in my opinion, really are policy items. I think sometimes once staff gives the recommendation that kind of effective, the neutrality of the data and the neutrality of the research goes away. So I want to thank you, John, for making this an objective document that every council member could analyze objectively based on fact that information and I appreciate it, that I think I understand the motion that's on the floor. I want to thank Councilman Van De Hast for such a thorough job and presenting the motion. And I do want to highlight just a few questions in regard to item eight and nine. And I guess this would be a clash question. How are we defining the term, the quality? And so it's a two part question how in defining the term hospitality and why are these protections only for hospitality? And I guess we're adding janitorial employees. Are there other categories of employees throughout the city that we have considered and excluded from? How is it that these two entities were identified? Speaker 0: Council member. So in terms of in terms of a definition, of course, that that something can it can include more or less depending on the policy direction of the council. Our understanding right now is that hospitality is referring specifically to hotels and hospitality workers, to hotel workers. So when it comes to janitorial, our understanding of that has to do with building maintenance and potentially other property services related to the maintenance of buildings themselves. And so if the Council has a different definition that deviates from from what I described, that would be direction to provide to our city attorney so that they understand the breadth and depth of your your definition. Speaker 1: Okay. All right. And did you answer the question on why we limited to these industries? Speaker 0: Yeah. Council members. So we're actually responding to the the original March 17th action, which describes specifically hospitality as the industry that you are concerned about. And so we were trying to stay within the parameters of the request. Speaker 1: Oh, I see. Okay. And I'm sorry. He already said that to. As to the issue. First of all, I'd say issue number one, issue area number one. I notice that the city attorney indicated that if we were going to establish any sort of policy direction on this, there would be additional specifics that we would have to provide for the ordinance. And so my question is, the council comment, when they had have you looked at page eight of the memo and you have a recommendation on which of these specific should be included? Because if not, I'd like to I'd like to offer some friendly in regards to item number one. I'm sorry I was on you. I'd like to hear your friendly and. You hear me? Oh, yes. Yes, I can hear you. Okay. So we're looking for you. Looking through these documents or these suggestions, it says which employers would the ordinance apply to? I think we've answered that already with employers of 500 or more. I think that was in your motion. How we would be requested by employees of the second area. My amendment would be that the supplemental leave would be requested by employees in the same manner, but supplemental leave would otherwise be requested by employees of that organization. The next area is which need or reason the supplemental leave could be used for, I would say, for COVID related issues. Mm. Whether the ordinance would apply to employers that are closed or laid off employees as a result of COVID 19. I do not believe the ordinance should apply to employers or businesses that are closed or have had to lay off employees as a result of COVID 19. Or as related to the health orders. I don't believe the sick leave policies should apply to those organizations because those organizations are closed for the duration of just time anyway, and probably not in a position to offer a supplemental sick leave when they reopen. But that's that would be my friendly. So you can consider that. In regards to the applicable time period of the ordinance. My recommendation would be that this provision sunset 90 days after the governor has withdrawn the state of emergency or lifted the state of emergency. As to exemptions to the ordinance for health care provider, emergency responders or other essential employees. I defer to you on that. I don't know what your thoughts are. I have no amendment to offer on that. As to the exemption for specific businesses, my recommendation would be that my family would be that businesses with 25 or less employees should be exempt. From having to offer a sick leave. I do believe that's in there already. Council member it is. Okay. Okay. Okay. Perfect. Then we can forget about that one. Whether the ordinance can be waived by collective bargaining. I think you did include that threat. And then I asked that a previously provided sick time by employers. I defer to you on that. I don't have a friendly. Not so, but I do think we need to. You're the maker of the motion, and I do think we need to identify the parameters. So I've offered the friendlies on the ones that I believe should have some clarification and then the remaining ones I defer to Yuan and then the other friendly that I wanted to offer. And then I'll and then I'll leave it all with you is on item number eight. I was eight and nine. And just to clarify, item number nine or issue area number nine, that's only in the event of a bank robbery or subcontracting, correct? Issue area nine sub a sub a here. Yes. Okay. Perfect. I would like to offer issue area eight and nine that the sun set 90 days after the governor has withdrawn the state of emergency for the state of California. So those are my my family. And I would ask that you consider accepting them. And if not, if they're not inclined to accept them, then I would like to offer a substitute that incorporates all of the items that you've listed with the amendments that I've enumerated as the Sun. Thank you, Councilmember Price. I will definitely consider them. And I would also like to send the rest of the council on the item as well. Thank you. Okay. Well, with that then I'd like to go ahead and make the sub. Unfortunately, given our weird queuing structure. I'd like to make the stab that includes all of the items that council members and they have indicated, plus the enumerated specific areas that the city attorney asked us to provide direction on that I already articulated an item issue area one and issue areas eight and nine. Again, all of the provisions that council members and they have included should be included with a sunset of 90 days after the governor witnessed the order. Speaker 0: Okay. I have. Speaker 1: Nothing. Speaker 0: Okay. That is a substitute motion. So that makes changes to the main motion. Charlie, have you did you just want to make sure we as we go? Charlie, did you make a note of those changes for the substitute motion that comes from in place made? Mr. City attorney this is probably thank you fair members of the council. I do have the answers to eight and nine. The good news is, Aaron, I think is also on the line and Gary Anderson. Speaker 2: So a few. But the. Speaker 0: The only change that I have or option made by the first district on a. Speaker 1: Nominee. Speaker 2: Is to the. Speaker 0: 90 day sunset. Speaker 2: Clause. It happened at that time. Speaker 0: And I don't one, I know not. Speaker 2: All of the party. Speaker 0: Everyone. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on a second. Can everyone mute their phones, please? Except for the city attorney. And thank you. I just want to make sure the city attorney has the most of the substitute motion to that. We're going in order. So, Mr. City Attorney, any clarifications you needed from Councilman Price? Yes. Thank you. I do need or if possible. Councilmember Both of you have the amendments that you wanted to add to this motion, if you could send them to me. I didn't get to write them all down. Speaker 2: To be honest with you, I was trying to follow you, but I. I couldn't follow you. Speaker 1: No problem. And. And I had to. I was going off of reading the memo. I have no notes written down myself, so I'll just go through it real quick. Again, as to item number one on the specific areas that the city attorney asked us to provide further direction on going through the list as to which employers the ordinance will apply to, that's the first bullet point. It's already covered in council members and they have this motion, which is 500 or more, how the supplemental leave would be requested by employees. My recommendation is that supplemental leave would be requested by employees in the same manner that's established by that business. For the request of supplemental leave. For the reason for the supplemental leave. The leave must be the reason for the leave must be related to COVID related issues, whether the ordinance should apply to employers that are closed or laid off. My recommendation is that it should not apply to employer employers for businesses that are closed. Or have laid off employees as a result of COVID 19, and they're not operating right now to provide time. The applicable time period for the ordinance, I said 90 days from the date that the governor withdraws the state of emergency. I did not weigh in on exemptions for the ordinance for health care providers, emergency responders or other essential employees. I'm silent on that. Hopefully someone else on council wants to weigh in on that. More exemptions for specific businesses. I didn't realize there was one, but councilwoman said they had said security recommended authority in there for 25 businesses of 25 or less should be exempt. And whether the ordinance can be waived by collective bargaining that was already in Councilwoman Sandy House's motion, which was signed incorporating into my motion as well. And then the onset of previously provided sick time by employees and silent on that issue as well. So if council members want to augment my job by weighing in on the exemption, are the exemptions for the health care providers, etc., and offset then they can do that. But my motion is silent on those two issues. The rest of the issues, I believe, are covered either through my amendments or council members, and they have the main motion. Speaker 2: Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you. Next step is Councilmember Austin. Speaker 2: Well, thank you, Mr. Mayor. Oh, thank you for the. Speaker 0: Motion. Speaker 2: On marriage. This is a real happening and a lot to unpack over a three week period of time when we were trying to do all we can to provide economic relief to working families and interpret legislation at the same time, which all the more reason it particularly about family growth, COVID relief, that seems to be more and more ambiguous when it comes to on benefits for employees. And I don't really I want to say that what I support most of what is on the floor. And I do think that it's important that we do so in a sense that honors and clarity for all involved. I mean, we all the money we're going to build on. I think a lot of what we are discussing today revolves around the retention or recall rate, which I believe is wearing off, considering we are dealing with some very uncertain and extraordinary circumstances on the basis of this opportunity to say that membership in unions has the most collective bargaining agreement, that while it would lay out in the Tennessee language a loophole right in so many of the collective bargaining agreements already have those and I believe was on the floor for the rest of on collective bargaining agreements. And already we are reminded of, but also from many of our unions involved. They're giving voice to to millions of hardworking Americans a future essential right now and to do what we can to help these families. I don't think we should lose sight of the long term economic impacts of this crisis on our local economies, on workers and on the employees employers. And they need to be in a good place to be able to continue to strive all of all interests. And I would like to ask our economic development director as well regarding just the quick question I have regarding the tax incentives that are already in place for working in terms of who qualifies for those, what is there a limit in terms of how big it is or how small businesses and whether or not what it is? What are the penalties that are not be imposed on? We take it from a platform. We know that the. Speaker 0: County council member asked, and so there were there were three questions there. The first question is that there are there are a number of different programs provided primarily by the Small Business Administration and through the Small Business Administration, loans that provide incentives for employers to retain their employees. So one example of that is the Paycheck Protection Program, which actually is establish the amount of that loan is established by multiplying the last month's payroll by two. 2.5 times. That's the maximum loan that they can receive. And then if 75% of the loan proceeds are actually spent on payroll for those those employees that they've retained, then they would the loan would become a forgivable grant. So that is a really big incentive for these employers. They can get loans up to $10 million, in fact, for larger companies who have sizable payroll. So it provides a really strong incentive for them to keep their employees on payroll as long as possible because they could then have that loan forgiven. Another tax credit that is part of the CARES Act allows for a 50% tax credit to the business in their next tax filing for retaining their their employees, which is another incentive. Outside of that two and a half month window. And then finally there there are programs that encourage the retaining of employees or rehiring of employees. If maybe they've been laid off, they give certain windows that if the employee was laid off or, you know, within the last month, they want to bring them back. Then they become eligible for some of these programs as well. So there's a couple of different incentives for the employers themselves to to retain or even rehire employees that may have been let go as a result of the initial business closure. Speaker 2: Thank you for that. We still have a very important we that out there and understand that all stories and perhaps actions today will will help incentivize even some employers to move to the beneficiary form to the federal government. Yeah, I mean, I'm sure economic development department would be happy to assist on that. All right. That's sent home. I'm going to message on my colleague's home Internet here. There's been a lot of talk about moving people to their home. I would just say that whatever we do to make them also possible, because we think this is very doable and changing the norm on that. But first and foremost, we're here to serve our residents and to make sure that we are mitigating the impact of this. So hopefully making the lifetime process a little more commonplace. Speaker 0: Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember. Next up is Councilmember Garrincha. Thank you, Mayor. And I really appreciate. Speaker 2: All the comments that have been made thus far. This is a very important issue, obviously, for working people, working families. And I want to thank John for the very thorough working on here. When it comes to a lot of things with a lot of research on this and based on the responses that he's given thus far, we really are committed to what's taking place not only locally, originally, but nationally as well. Thank you, Joe, for all the work you've been doing on this. It's really a very intensive and very informative for us, especially as we're trying to work our way through this map work, which they do have on their skin. Let's backtrack it a little bit. What is the data that we have? Essentially, this pandemic crisis begins in Long Beach. What's the big march? What is that? Speaker 0: Yes, sir. March 4th was the start date of the eviction moratorium. So so that that's where we sort of began. Speaker 2: Okay. That's a mortgage. Okay. And as they've been listening, they haven't heard anything as to. Indeed. I heard something about maybe it was correct, but not a date and just amending. So starting from when? For today or what will be the initiation date? Remember that subject? Speaker 0: Yeah. Yeah, it came from the government. I guess you could. I, I that was, that was very symbolic. So what we referred to in the memo was 90 days because we were focusing in on the March 4th to May 31st window of the eviction moratorium that council took action on. So March, April, May are really the three months that we're focusing on for what we're calling the emergency relief period. We're also referring to those that 90 day period, because right now the existing health order is in place until March 15th. And from a business standpoint, when we talk to businesses about reopening that, even if on March 15th they're able to reopen businesses that have been closed, they would still need a ramp up period. Obviously, that month of May would be a very difficult month for revenue still. So we're talking about the real negative impacts of the public health and economic emergency between March, April and May. Speaker 2: So in my mind, correct me if I'm wrong, that makes the 90 day window irrelevant at this point because more like you going to need that threat. And that's why I was asking before we're talking about a 90 day window. What is the initiation data that out to this meeting, to this package anyway whether that's at today's meeting is the first back to earth were final 90 days. Speaker 1: So the. Speaker 2: Oh. Speaker 0: Yeah. So it's. Speaker 2: Just. Speaker 0: I'm sorry, sir. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 2: Sorry. Speaker 0: Yeah. So there's two different things going on. There's one. The motion that's on the floor with the friendlies. There's also the the window that we were looking at with regard to, you know, the emergency declaration and the the the relief recommendations. So, yes, we would be looking at programs to cover employers, to cover employees and workers from the beginning of the declared emergency. And that's consistent a lot with what the federal government, the state government and some of the benefit programs, small business loan programs are also referring to. It's really the beginning of March through the end of May, when right now most of the emergency declarations are in place through mid-May to end May. Now, in terms of what we would the council is considering with regard to a sunset on some of the programs or policy recommendations, there's there's a range of some cities that we've looked at have said, you know, two weeks after the city health jurisdiction has declared the emergency over, some of them have said December 31st. In fact, a lot of the federal legislation says that the small business loans, tax credits and some of the other programs are actually in place until December 31st of this year, by the end of the year. And then, of course, the motion on the floor was 90 days after the state governor has has determined that the emergency has ended or the emergency period has ended. So it really is a question for the council, I think, to contemplate and provide policy direction to staff. Our job is more to provide you with an overview of what some of the other governmental agencies have done. Speaker 2: Okay. If you don't, journalists are going to be. Okay. Speaker 0: Any other question? I can't remember. Speaker 2: But basically, I just want to say that I am not going to be supporting the service. I won't be seeking support for a reasonable approach. The questions that I got right now, it appears that it's very vague as to what we're looking at in terms of a sunset and I would more and war request that we probably have a timely update on this issue, whether it was 30 days from now, 60 days from now, whatever is appropriate. I think that is a more of a. Strategic clear to followers and having a definite name will be the sunset that anything that we do, whether it's before or after that we do within the next couple of weeks. It's important to me to know that the working families and our employees will matter with the industry again. Secondly, during this period, some of everything is, well, those individuals that we want to protect here. So I'm supporting the original motion with the time we're reporting back to the council as we moving forward. Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you. Just to make sure Councilwoman Pryce, she made the substitute. I thought I heard a second on that, but I can't confirm who that was with who. Their second on and counts on the substitute motion by Councilwoman Pryce. Speaker 1: I seconded. Speaker 2: Again. Speaker 0: The councilwoman manga. Speaker 2: Okay. Speaker 0: But I didn't speak. Speaker 1: To the motion, sir, but I was left off of the speaking of second in motion. Speaker 0: I have you have you queued up still in the queue here. So, Max, next up is Vice Mayor Andrew's. I've got Vice Mayor Andrews. I'm here. Speaker 2: You know I think it's out the past and report you know that was quite a tough year for the man. A few things I would really like for us to focus on, because this is a crisis and there are frontline workers who are truly stepped up and will wholeheartedly work in every day to ensure that she has to stay super sanitized and clean. Most important, nobody should be working when they're sick for the fear of dismissal additional during this crisis. They certainly should be given all of the money should not be either or or delay going on in a certain industrial. Once an economy starts lifting back up. I think it is important to remember those who are loyal and and working hard to when the crisis began and gave those individuals an opportunity to come back first. Those are the ones that should be, you know, on the front line. We can reach an agreement tonight and children's rights to bring forward something that helps restore our city and livelihood. Thanks very much for being inside the border. Speaker 0: Thank you. Okay. Next up, she is Councilwoman Christ and no government was Franklin Pierce. Speaker 1: Thank you, Mayor. I want to thank our staff for a very thorough staff report. I know it's already been said, but it's times like these that you guys really step up to the plate and demonstrate just how nimble we are. So congratulations on a job well done in getting us this report. I have a couple of comments to make. I will try to keep them brief. First of all, on the hospitality task force, as mentioned by Councilmember Jean de Haas, fully support that. I know right now that it's just those hospitality leaders. I would ask that staff, make sure that that includes people that are that work in the hospitality industry and work to support those those workers as well that also have to benefit from a thriving hospitality industry. And second, I wanted to clarify, as Councilmember Richardson mentioned, the recall and retention piece. These are policies that exist regardless of a crisis, and they exist regardless of bankruptcy. And so we know here in Long Beach and the second District, we've gone through many sales of our hotels in our downtown. And we know that often what can be the case? And can somebody mute? I can hear someone munching. Sorry. You guys it. Thank you. So we want to I guess somebody is not get it. Speaker 0: But everyone needs their phone. Besides Councilmember Pearce, it looks like we have one or two lines that are not needed. Can everyone mute their phones except Councilmember Pierce? Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you. So getting to the worker retention piece, I think we have seen over time whenever new owners come in that the whole sub whole divisions of the hospitality industry have been let go and rehired. But I think it's important that we make sure that that this is something that is not just done with with bankruptcy or something that is specifically call that is covered. So the recall retention policy is something that's happened for, you know, over 15 years. It's something that we fully support and that I'd like to see continue to be strengthened with historic moments like these. We know that it's time for the government to step up and do the right thing and are very thoughtful and pragmatic about how things trickle down. So the comments made about sunsetting this and saying that it should be a donut for a certain number of days of the state emergency was lifted. We know that that emergency is lifted based not on economic stability, but it's based rather on health. And so it is important that employers have as long as they need to be able to bring back those employees. So we know that, you know, when a hotel might open up or a restaurant might open up, they might only open up. It's 50%. Speaker 0: Black really. Speaker 1: Quickly. Speaker 0: Thank you. Hold on. Speaker 2: Hold on. Speaker 0: Okay, everybody on the line. I need everyone to mute their phones, please. There's clearly two people that are not muted in me, and I don't know if I don't know if it's a staff member that walked away from the phone. I don't know what's going on, but please, everyone mute their phones except for Councilmember Pearce. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you. It definitely gets distracting when you're trying to think thoroughly through all your thoughts. So I wanted to say that on on the recall piece, it is important to make sure that that does not have a sunset because it might take two or three years. But it's also important to know that that the employees need to understand that if industry is back up, that the place that they worked for ten or 15 years is going to be in a position to hire them back. And so there's a lot about stability and making sure that workers know that there's going to be a job there for them whenever that time comes. So I would like. I would like to support to make a substitute substitute motion and support the original motion made by council member Van de Hoss. And I would like to include a 90 day report by our staff on the status of of these economic packages and where we're at. I think that everybody's done a really fantastic job, and I hope that we can move forward tonight with policies and processes that really help support not only our union members, but our nonunion neighbors and community members. Thank. But can I get a second on that substitute? Speaker 0: Okay, hold on. There's I have a substitute substitute motion that the original motion made by council members and they have that ad they report back to council. I think I heard in 90 days. Can you guys meet your phones, please? Thank you. In 90 days. And that's a substitute seconded by Councilmember Richardson. I think. Speaker 2: That was. Speaker 0: Let me keep going. I still have a lot of books queued up. I get the right customer of yours. Speaker 1: Yes. You got that right. Speaker 0: Okay. The city attorney here, this is city attorney. I was wondering if these substitutes substitute motion there was some discussion by the council member that. Speaker 2: The. Speaker 0: The ending. Speaker 2: Date for the main. Speaker 0: Motions for items eight and nine. And I believe. Speaker 2: You changed. Speaker 0: Those dates or you want them to be not to have a sunset. Speaker 2: Is that in your motion? Speaker 1: And the original motion made by council members. And it did not include a sunset. Speaker 0: Yeah. And I think that we need to have a little bit of discussion on that. I believe in order for the urgency and you're relating it to the COVID crisis, I think I heard you say it may be a year or maybe two years. I think you may need some sort of relationships to the COVID to do the urgency on an urgency ordinance to do that if you want to do a regular ordinance to. Speaker 2: Do it forever or, you know. Speaker 0: Without a sunset clause, we could do. Speaker 2: That. Speaker 0: It's certainly. Speaker 1: Partly and a few. Speaker 0: Months back. Speaker 2: Go ahead. Speaker 1: I believe that the original motion did not include the word emergency. This is not an American story or an. Speaker 2: Accent. Speaker 0: Urgency or not. Okay. Speaker 2: Thank you. Speaker 1: All right. Thank you. Speaker 0: Okay. Let me get back to the speaker's list, but council member Mungo. Speaker 1: Thank you. Mr. Parkin I'm not clear how the most recent motion could you tell me is different than the original motion. Speaker 2: That's. That was what. Speaker 0: I was asking. The way I understand the substitute substitute motion is the main motion and a report back in 90 days. Speaker 1: Every 90 days. And so the council clarifies that we don't need that. Speaker 2: Oh. Speaker 1: Correct. That is the difference. And between this and the original. Speaker 2: But. Speaker 1: Okay. I have some clarifying questions. Mr. Chrysler, the report talks about seven companies that are over 500 employees. Speaker 0: Councilman Mango, can you hold on 1/2? Can someone can you get me their phones? We have a lot of councilmembers who are trying to make their comments. And I just I feel like some phones are not needed. So please. Please meet your phones. Councilman Mango, go ahead. Speaker 1: Thank you. There was. There were some differences in some of the ordinances that I've read related to the city of L.A., the county of L.A., the city of L.A. motion passed by the council, the city of L.A. directive from Mayor Garcetti. And so I just want to be clear. There were some back and forth about that, other jurisdictions that organizations have to have those 500 employees within the city limits. Mr. Parkin Is that how you see this or that? Any company with 500 employees anywhere in the world, if they have even five employees in Long Beach? They're connected to this. How do we where are we? Speaker 0: And Councilmember, I'm going to ask Aaron McKinley if she's on the line to. Speaker 2: Answer that question. Speaker 1: Good evening. This is Aaron with the McKinley, with the city attorney's office there. That's just that you're describing, Councilman Mongo is actually the difference from the ordinance that was adopted by the L.A. City Council. They sought to have that ordinance apply. They were seeking to all the federal legislation and to apply to businesses with over 500 employees nationwide. When Mayor Garcetti adopted the ordinance, he altered that language in the application of that ordinance, and he changed it to 500 businesses with 500 employees inside of L.A. or and or 2000 employees nationwide. So that was something that was ultimately a policy decision for city council and for Mayor Garcetti and where I believe we would be seeking a policy determination from the city council tonight. So since every single motion has built on the original motion made by a couple moms and dads, I would like to ask Councilman Van de Haas , was your intent with those 500 employees within the city limits? That makes a lot of sense. 500 national. Oh, nationally. Okay. So even if they only have five employees locally, they would be required to do that. Yeah. So. Okay. So then my next question is there was some confusion and I thought that I got some clarification from Mr. Keisler, but I want to be sure that it's on the floor and open and in public that I'm not misunderstanding, but that if a company or a corporation, let's say a chain has a franchise and the franchise has 120 employees in the city of Long Beach, and that franchise is owned by a single business owner in the city of Long Beach. That would not apply to them, even though the corporation, which is made up of several smaller employees, has had more than 500. But as the city of L.A. did, they wrote in some language they have here, they pulled up. Speaker 2: Let me see what it says. Speaker 1: It says. It was made clear that franchise employees do not work for the parent company, and therefore these small businesses would not it would not apply to them. Is that your intent? Listen, they have come in and they have allowed them to cover those, both companies that have more than 500 employees. So. And yet nationally. Right. So in the case of, let's say a small but a small mom and pop fast food restaurant that has 120 employees and that owner only owns one mom and pop franchise, they would not be a part of that, though. The corporation is not headquartered here and it would not apply to them. Ben Council member Mungo We're talking about hospitality and janitorial. Company. Okay. Yeah. In my original thought of hospitality, I thought it included restaurants. So that helps a lot as well. Thank you. And then this has not been discussed yet. So, Councilwoman Pierce, I'd love to add a friendly that prioritizes local hire. Somehow there are going to be corporations and companies that maybe currently have, let's say, 600 employees. But when push comes to shove, they've taken some major hits. And maybe for the next five years, they're only going to have 500 employees. Is there any incentives we can offer that would prioritize Long Beach residents? Is that something you'd be open to in a friendly. The people that they're going to be rehiring are the people that worked for them originally. So the point is to make sure that people have access to their jobs back. In the hospital, that number might be 90% of people that were in hospitality industry are Long Beach residents. So but not only that, but I would say hotels are like that. So let's take an example. So let's say a hotel has 400 employees and over the next three years they only hire back 300 of them. Would there be an idea that of the 400 they have to choose from, we would want them to focus on local hire and that we hope that they would prioritize Long Beach residents instead of the 400, let's say only 50% were Long Beach residents. Wouldn't it be great if all the Long Beach residents were hired back first? Is that an incentive that we could have staff work on and bring back? I understand the intent behind it, and I think the intent of that is a great intent. As somebody who's worked on local hire policies longer than my time on council, I think there are some legal questions with that. But again, the intent of this is to make sure that an employer hires back the people that originally worked for them. In most cases, they're going to hire back based on their seniority or some other mechanisms. I don't think it's appropriate for us to use this time now to do a local hire policy. We want to do a local hire policy for the entire city. Then I think that we you know, we've asked for that several times over the last several years. So I think just making sure that the employer has the opportunity to hire back those folks, if there's incentives that the staff wants to work on and legal questions and they can work on those and come back. But I don't want to include it in this measure. I want to make sure that we try to keep them simple and to the point so that these employers are not being burdened in the middle of this crisis. That's very disappointing. As a Long Beach resident and representative of so many Long Beach residents, I would have hoped that we would have wanted to make it a priority to at least to have staff bring it back and offer an incentive without the delay of requiring a council member to rate another agenda item. But I'll work with some other colleagues on that who feel that local hire is more important. I'm very disappointed that my family is not being considered at this time. I want to clarify that the intention is is a great intention. I think that as staff, you know, they they're doing a lot of these reports if they want to bring something back. I don't think that it needs to be, you know, a big issue. I want to make sure that we're not overcomplicating things for the for the businesses. So I think that that's the proposal that you have might violate the Fair Employment Act and some other things, which is why I want to just keep it out of this item is not to be rude, it's just to make sure that we're trying to follow appropriate measures. And in no way have I said that you were rude. I've just said that your priorities do not include the research necessary for staff to come back with an incentive to make sure Long Beach residents are at the top of their priority. And that's fine, but that's your priorities and that's understood. And unfortunately, I can't make a substitute substitute because the floor is full. Would you say since you're not open to a friendly a council member. I'm sorry, city attorney park in is that a possibility for a separation of a question to add in some research on a local higher priority. Speaker 0: No, not at this time. The substitute. Speaker 2: Substitute motion is on. On the floor. Speaker 0: And the what you're trying to add is an additional component, which isn't a divide by the question. A divide the question consideration at this time. Speaker 2: I would like you to go to only. Speaker 0: 1/2. Speaker 2: I'm sorry. Go ahead. Speaker 1: I have to. Mr. Parkin, please. Go ahead. Speaker 0: Yeah, let me, let me, let me. Mr. Parkin has the floor when I ask the question. So we're going to let Mr. Parkin continue before we keep going, and then we'll get the responsibility for Parkin. Thank you. There was a question on. Speaker 2: The. Speaker 0: Supplemental sick leave policy. And I think, Councilman Mongo, you are bringing up the 500 workers and your example. Speaker 2: Of the. Speaker 0: Franchised and then it switched. And I think there was some confusion there about it applying to hotel and janitorial companies. The sick leave does. Speaker 2: Not apply as is broader right to the recall. Speaker 0: And worker return, and recall applies to the hospitality and janitorial hotel. Speaker 2: Industry. But the sick leave. Speaker 0: Is a 500 or more national. Speaker 2: So it seemed like. Speaker 0: There may have been some confusion there and I was hoping that I could get some. Speaker 2: Clarity on that issue. Speaker 1: Yeah, I was confused as well. So I think that was when I was asking the question of Councilman Van de Haas because the. The concern I had was that if there's a company that has. A small satellite here. They may choose not to maintain that satellite at all, and those employees would go away completely. Especially when you have such small satellites as five or six employees. And so that's why I was hoping that Councilman Van de Haas would be open to some kind of exemption on that. But since the pause, it hurts. I understand, and I don't think they have any additional ability on that. Is that correct, Charlie? Speaker 2: That is correct. Speaker 1: Thank you. Okay. Well, I just want to say that I think it's important that we put workers first. And putting workers first is my my number one priority. And I also want to make sure I will accept your friendly. I will have to search on local higher and have it come back. I mean, local higher. The idea that they're to look at I don't know, local higher is not not true is something I fully support and I would love for self to be able to do more research. I hope it also includes legal research about what we as a city can be doing because obviously we'd like to do as much as possible. So. Thank you very much. Thank you. I appreciate that. It's important that we have the opportunity to clarify our words and sometimes each other's perceptions of that. But the way that it is can can be misconstrued. So I appreciate that local I that they're going to try really to be included in this motion. Thank you. And thank you from the workers who really want to be hired first. They think that that matters. And not all organizations have a policy on who they will hire. And maybe even them just hearing this discussion will have them take a different look at the way that they roll out their programing. So that and let me just check through my notes really quickly. Is there a way to define the word national, Mr. Parkin and ensure that franchises are defined as a small company? Because those were the two components in the city side that kind of went back and forth and and scooped up some businesses. And then there was clarification needed. Speaker 0: I'm going to ask Aaron again to. Speaker 2: Discuss what the federal and I. Speaker 0: Think the local jurisdictions are doing. Speaker 2: With that issue. Speaker 1: Councilor Mongo. I believe that you correctly stated how a lady has addressed this issue in relation to franchising and how that determination is made around what employees count toward that larger number of 500, or the threshold that would trigger any obligations under a supplemental sick leave policy. The Federal Government has taken that on in a slightly different manner, suggesting that some people that not not along the franchise lines, but have suggested that you can't break a workforce down by where folks are working. So if you have people working in satellite offices, but they report back to one umbrella corporation, then all those individuals would be counted toward understanding the number of employees, for example, in that corporation. And there is that additional guidance embedded in the Federal Families First Act. I think that the recommendation used on the language that you quoted out of L.A. generally aligns with the steps the federal government have taken. And again, that would be a policy determination for council. So you're saying and maybe I'll just use a name, a chain, so I can throw it out there so that we can all be looking at the same thing. So let's say McDonald's. McDonald's is a well-known franchise company or. Speaker 2: Yeah, let's go to McDonald's. Speaker 1: So McDonald's or the corporation has 70,000 employees, but there's a business owner in Long Beach who owns one McDonald's in the city of Long Beach, or even literally on two McDonald's, one in Long Beach and one in another city. But combined, they don't make 500. The policy direction that would come from the making of the current motion, which I guess I would put it to. Councilwoman Pierce, is your thought that they would be included in the 500 because they are part of a big corporation? Yes. Okay. So, Councilman Pearce, small businesses that have less than 500 employees when they are a franchise would be required to provide the additional two weeks of sick leave. So you have let's eat hamburgers. That is not a part of a national team that has 120 employees. I think a McDonald's that has 120 employees. And because it has a brand name McDonald's and they give 10% of their money to the McDonald's Corporation or whatever they give it, they actually have no idea. But a percentage then now they would be subject to something that their competitor teams or even Burger or any of these others that are not part of a national chain would be subject to. Is that your intent? Yes. Ooh. Okay. Um, I'd love to get some feedback from my colleagues because I worry about a lot of our our fast food workers and the employers. I've asked these workers have been on the front lines and serving us for weeks and weeks and weeks. I know that I've talked to some of the local owners, including Chick-Fil-A and others, even though they're working hard. Their costs have increased for sanitization. They've been giving generous packages to their employees and they've been keeping them on, even though revenue was down. And now to count them as an employer of 500 when they actually only have 100 employees is very, very scary for me. So I'm going to have to think again. I was 100% in support of the motion, but I don't know that I can be as supportive when these these oftentimes people who've risen from being afraid all the way to the. Speaker 0: Top. Speaker 1: To be put in a position to even lose their business over there. So I'll have to think about it some more. I'm sure there's more people killed that'll give me some time to listen. And then there is there any excuse for public comment? Speaker 0: The public comment is all these comments. Speaker 1: Oh, it's all you comment. People aren't able to. Okay. That's right. Okay. Thank you. I have no further questions. Speaker 0: Thank you. Next up is Governor Richardson. Speaker 2: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So very lively conversation. Good questions on all sides. I want to I want to reiterate, and I think the you know, the angels in the details here, the point on sick days, I do believe that five fold it makes sense. There's already protections for them smaller for those smaller businesses. What we're talking about are people who are not already included in the 5500. So the question of franchises, they wouldn't necessarily fall under both of these. Are they going to fall under what's been provided for 50 to 500 or 500? But I think the city attorney understands that ten of where we're going. And I think over the process of after we get this direction, that'll be clarified a little bit. 500 does make that the impact is above the universe that's already covered under federal law. So however that is defined, that's what we know the intent here. People use the example of McDonald's. McDonald's should be including McDonald's is 500 more employees at the national company, thousands of people in our city. You know, I mean, hundreds of people in our city are employed by McDonald's. Those are the types of workers that are inside that are members of our community that need these protections. And I need somebody to meet their folks. But these are the people that we're talking about need those protections 500 above. This is a good thing. This is positive. I'm happy to support that. On the question about Long Beach versus, well, you know, seniority, I don't think this is a this is a either or. Seniority is a well-established principle. And a lot of folks lean on seniority. And frankly, those workers a lot of workers depend on seniority. You know, resonance is hard to pin down. I think studying it separately and being allowed to talk about a separate, you know, separate research on local hire have supported local hire in the past. Folks like, you know, past council members, Councilmember Andrew, people have supported local hires. I think that warrants some further, further discussion. But I think the intention of a motion that here is the motion of here just talked about the existing workforce that's here. So as we come into recovery, those workers who did nothing wrong on their own should have a first rate review refusal to come back to work. Right. We're not talking about splitting hairs. We're talking about if you simply lost your job, do this emergency. You get an opportunity, get your job back. And, you know, I'm happy to talk about, you know, work on additional items and other things that come back. But I think what's in front of us. I just want to refocus. This is a good thing. It's a good thing. I think we we have time to kind of work out details of folks. So I just want to say that I support the motion at the front of the substitutes us do motion. It takes into account all of the feedback that that we've received in Councilmember Councilwoman and they have this motion and allows for additional reporting and it includes for a separate report on a separate report on some of the local issues that are important to all of us. So I strongly support it and I think it's yeah, I strongly support it. I'd like to get to a vote that. Speaker 0: Think I still have folks cued up. But I just want to clarify also for the attorney, the friendly that was made for the the substitute substantive motion by Cutler Pierce had a friendly on it that was accepted but also was accepted by the second hour of the motion, which I believe was Constable Richardson was the second year of that motion. So I'm assuming you also get to the friendly. Speaker 2: Okay. All right. Speaker 0: But the question that was asked for let me go back to this were councilman's in the house. Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you for the whole council, my colleagues. I know this is something that we are all very passionate about. I know that right now what we really need to focus is or I should say refocus, that what we're trying to do here today is to provide some relief for our residents who do work in these small businesses throughout the city, our large businesses. But we really that's the focus of today. And I think that, you know, we we need to move forward. And I really appreciate all the you know, all the families that have been made and even those that were not accepted, but also those that were. And I think it's time for us to move forward and and and call for a vote soon. Speaker 0: Okay. Next step is customary, Rango. Speaker 2: Thank you. Basically, I've moved away from this proposition that there's between us, and I'm very supportive of of where we're at. I think we've landed in the place where we needed to be from the beginning. The only other question that I have was regarding item 11, which is the the digital divide question. Staff Rose and their colleagues at Will West Long Beach. Their work has been in the dark when it comes to Internet access and opportunities. So I would ask what makes sure that our staff, direct staff to ensure that West Long Beach is included in this work and always seems to be a priority in looking at West Larrabee too. Last time I saw the the assets of where Internet is provided, West said, was the weather ocean that was black. So I just want to make sure that that is included as well. That's all. Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you. Next up is Council Councilmember Austin. Speaker 2: Thank you all. I appreciate the conversation. I just had a couple of clarifications on regarding the. In 90 days on one of the under storm regatta review every 90 days on the mental and emotional. Speaker 1: I guess until we clarify that, we no longer need that review. Speaker 2: Okay. But I can live with the review of the debate. I think that that's an art and that that that says I'm on the on the issue of cimabue and I would like to see this. Move it up for consideration. For the Council to understand that we need to have great flexibility with what we're dealing with on the economy changing as it moves as it has just in the last few weeks. So I'd like to think about on, I don't know, flexibility to modify policy on so that we are not out of whack in the region because this is a regional issue. I think it has been established at the moment in Northern Ireland and there will be some money around this that will, you know, out of our own. Our policy that I don't think should be much different than it was and dissipated around us so easily. I'm waiting to see what the county of Los Angeles, the board of Supervisors, among those in San Francisco to speak about reflexively here, because if they come back in and of itself, necessarily, it should come back on. I did have a question for. The Economic Development Department is. Speaker 5: Uh. Uh. Uh, uh. Speaker 0: To about eight private sector employers that have 500 or more employees in the city. There's only really if you exempt out the health care and other large employers, that goes down to really about two local employers that actually have more than 500 people in the city and are not a part of the exemption list. However, as I mentioned, if you expand the universe to any company, even if they only have one or two employees in Long Beach but have more than 500 nationally, that's going to be a different research project for us to go look at. And if this is not an emergency ordinance, as the city attorney has said, we would have plenty of time to go and do that research and come back when the city attorney brings back the language that they've recommended. So we could do that. And then in terms of enforcement, what this would wear, this would fall. And this is similar to the county and city of L.A. This would be a process handled by the courts. So what would happen is, is an employee who feels that they've been aggrieved or has a formal complaint, they would file that with the courts and then the employer would have to deal with it as a as a matter of the in the court system. So it really wouldn't be something that the city would be enforcing. And that's not how we've seen it presented in L.A. as well. Speaker 2: I thank you for that clarification. I have no further questions. I would just say that I would like to make the most of the briefing consider whether or not this is the emergency item or not. Speaker 0: Okay. I do thing I do a tumor speaker is on the on a list. I know that we're queuing up again. I just want to make one comment before we go back to the next couple speakers. I just want to add something that comes from Austin said, which I think is is important. And I think the word is positive. Patients about adopting a package tonight is that similar packages are being adopted in the county and in the city of Los Angeles as well. Yeah, I think I, I like the idea of reviewing what we presented regularly because I think we're all going to have to tweak things as we go to ensure that we are doing alignment with our other partners as we go. And so I think I don't know if whatever we adopt tonight, I think there's a certainly high possibility that in the weeks and months ahead there will be alignment or tweaks that will happen because all the other agencies are doing similar types of measures . And that's happened, by the way, with our health orders as well. I mean, we'll put out a health order. L.A. will put one out a few days later, and then I end up aligning a week or two later in the county. And so I think that some of this is feeling our way through and then trying to get, you know, adopting adopting a package and then trying to work with our partners to align those as we move forward. So I imagine some of that will happen. So I just wanted to highlight that piece of customer assistance comments that I think that part's going to be really important moving forward. But let me keep going on that on the speaker's list, Councilman Mongo. No. I'm sorry. Councilman Price. Speaker 1: Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. So I'm. I'm glad that Councilman Orson asked for clarification on the 90 day review. I know that the Federal Cares Act, I believe it has a sunset date in December. Is that correct? Does does anyone know? Does the city attorney know that? Speaker 0: Aaron. I think I think the answer is yes, I think at the end. Speaker 2: Of the year. Aaron, do you have that deep? Speaker 1: Hi. Yes, thinking customer. Remember Price? Yes, it is sunset on December 31st, 2020. Okay, that sounds good. I mean, I like the idea of having a sunset, but if the rest of council is not inclined to support that, then I respect that. I think a 90 day review is a nice compromise, so I like that. Well, who knows where we'll be in 90 days? But hopefully, like the mayor just said, we're able to align ourselves a lot with the various moving parts all around. I do have a couple of I share a lot of the concerns that Councilman Mongo raised about independent franchise owners. If you're a franchise owner, you're no different than a small business except for the fact that you pay for support from the franchise to your business. But you're still a small business and it's very, very difficult to you still have all the same expenses that every other small business has. But you also have to pay the franchise for the rights to use their name and their practices and their marketing materials. So if you think about it and I'm I'm happy to support the subscribe, although I really wish Councilmember Pearce he would think about the independent franchisee because as I read the CFA, I think it talks about small business ownership and independent franchisees. Those are those are categories of people that I think we should be separating from big corporate right in general. I think we want to try to and encourage people to invest in businesses and whether they decide to invest into a franchise or any other business. We want to try to encourage small businesses. And so, you know, if you think about it, they're getting hit by, you know, by both sides. They're considered a small business in some regards and they're considered now a large business in this regard. And I would hope that when this comes back for first or second reading, we can maybe have that the the benefit of seeing what some of our partners are doing and maybe sitting with that thought a little bit in terms of our, you know, the UPS store owner or, you know, the all people are just regular business owners trying to make ends meet. And so I would hope that we would be able to opt out for those folks in terms of the sick leave provision. And I, I do want to highlight again that the city attorney specifically asked us for some direction on item one. And so the items that I included in my stuff. Um, Councilmember Pearce, is it your intention to move the motion forward without identifying some clarity on those items? And if that is the case, then the question would be to the city attorney, what do we do with that? There was clear on issue one the strictly policies. There was clarity on the original motion for option one for opt out for the employers with 500 more. Okay. So that's only one of the factors listed that you're. Providing any information on that. The other one. I don't have the original emotion right in front of me. Well, page eight has. Nine items that the city attorney said that they would like some I talk about a lot to me I'm saying. The City attorney. You have to believe that it's been sent to you by now. The original motion. Speaker 2: Yes. Speaker 0: We have. In front of us. Yes. Yeah. Let me let me let me let me go ahead. And, Mr. Turner, can you clarify what the original. I thought I heard that they were going to motion have some clarity on item one, but maybe I missed that. Can you can you review that? Yes. On item. Speaker 2: One. Speaker 0: The this review of supplemental SEC policies. Speaker 2: That councilmember for the first. Speaker 0: District moved that they had asked option a. Speaker 2: All employers with more than. Speaker 0: 500 workers nationally provide a benefit of 80 hours of supplemental COVID 19 related paid sick leave to full time workers and a pro-rated amount. Speaker 2: Of those working first time who do not, for the employer. Speaker 0: And employees, have a. Speaker 2: Collective bargaining agreement that includes an item one. Speaker 1: Okay. So, Councilwoman Pearce, would you be willing to consider an exemption for businesses of 50 or less? As I know the federal standard does that, but our ordinance wouldn't unless we included that language. So our ordinance is to. Supplement what the federal level did not do. So including. But you're asking for sick leave for 50 or less. That's your life? Yes. So do we not need to enumerate that? Is that already included? I guess I'm confused about that. And reading the it's under the other consideration language here. So I didn't think it would be included in ours. But if it is, then I guess that issues. No. It's not specifically included in Ari because we wanted to. Speaker 0: I think that I think that I think the issue is moot. Right. I'm Mr. City attorney in my interpreting this. I'm going to ask Karen again to step in on this one. Speaker 1: I think it is. So this the federal rate, the federal act that came out for the CARES Act supplemented the Families First Act and the Family First Act applied to businesses with 500 and less. And there were some considerations for small businesses that would be facing financial hardship by the implementation of the Act. That was later clarified that the DOL but the intention was to not have that federal action apply to businesses with more than 500 employees. With less than 500 employees. So the Federal Act applies to businesses with less than 500 employees. So the gap would be that you're looking to fill in for employee with 500 for employers with 500 or more employees, they are not covered by the Federal Families First Act. It's always because it's already been covered. Right? Right. I see what you're saying. I guess that's right. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Thank you for that clarification. And what about the council member parents? Are you willing to consider anything about whether the ordinance should apply to employers that are closed or have laid off employees as a result of the COVID 19 pandemic? Speaker 2: So. Speaker 1: Like, they've had their non-essential business and they've had to close down. About William? Yeah. Somebody is there and they don't longer work there then. How does that employer supposed to pay them for sick leave? I think it's also a moot. Okay. And I'm seeing an employer that has already laid off employees expected to pay for their sick leave. Although many companies have furloughed employees. So assuming the company reopens, that employee will be resume their work. And if that's the case, that if the employers resume their work, then they should have to pay sick leave. But related to COVID issue. I mean, assuming the non-essential business opens up after the health orders are modified to allow the non-business non-essential business to open up, then we're operating in a period of post COVID emergency. So my question to you is, are you willing to it's really a small ask. It's just for these businesses that are closed, do they would they have to give sick leave for COVID related sick leave when they're closed? I don't think when they're close, they're expected to pay for strictly. I don't. Well, I understand that and heard that before. And so I'm trying to fully understand. If they've opened and covered, come back, then they should have to pay for sick leave. If there is an employee actively working. Yes. Okay. So I'm just reading the document and it has the city attorney's opinion and it says for us to consider whether the ordinance should apply to employers that are closed. So what you're saying is you've never heard that this would apply to employers that are closed. I'm just following up on this document. Can we provide some further direction there? Are you willing to do that? Thank you completely. Yes. Councilmember Pearson Price. But would it be helpful if some additional background was provided in relation to that item, to that comment? That would be very helpful. And the reason why I. I made the statement, but I hadn't heard of it before because I haven't. While it's in the memo, if the business is closed due to COVID, I don't think that there is a need for them to pay because they have not. They're not bringing in income if that business reopens. And at that time, they should be paying. That would be my interpretation. And I think the direction that that would make sense, that it wouldn't matter. Speaker 0: Let's go ahead and hear some more clarification on that and then we'll continue. So please. Speaker 1: That's on the position that the Department of Labor has taken in relation to the interpretation of the Family First Act. One of the audiences that was included in your packet was from the LA City Council, and initially the City Council wanted to remove that carve out that interpretation by the DOL and specifically include in the supplemental separate businesses that were closed as a result of COVID and and have them still have to comply with the act. That's part of the reason why that was included for consideration is that with 18 different municipalities taking a position that is different from the position that you're suggesting, Councilwoman Pearce, and the real world interpretation of the Family First Act. Perfect. So the way this motion is, if it's voted on tonight, it would be consistent with the federal interpretation. That's correct. Okay. Great. Thank you for that clarification. Speaker 0: Okay. I mean, go back to now. I have council member Mungo. Speaker 1: Great. With the clarification that the city attorney made, I actually don't think that it would be possible for the businesses to operate under the CARE Act, which have less than 500 employees. For example, I'll go back to Chick-Fil-A on the pay statement and the W-2. A person's employer is a person not to play, and so they would be covered under the CARE Act. And therefore, even if we move forward with the debate, that couple of shares that I had earlier, it wouldn't be possible because they can't be covered twice. So with that clarification, Councilwoman Pierce, since they're already covered under Care Act, because they're under the Care Act, considered a business of 20 of 500 or less in applying for those grants, and they can't be considered on both sides. Does that eliminate our discussion from earlier and put us on the same page? Clarify again for me. Speaker 2: So it. Speaker 1: I'm I'm franchisees. So franchisees actually are covered under the CARE Act or the supplemental policy already. And that issue area one is gap coverage. And so because there's only gap coverage. Franchisees are not currently in the gap. And so it would not apply to them because they're already. Covered in the CARE Act. It depends on the number of employees of that franchisee. So, I mean, that's. But if they are a single and have less than 500 in the CARE Act, and I guess that would be too. Okay, great. Well, then that removes those small local businesses and I think realigns with the intent so I can be supportive of the motion. Great. Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you. I'm going to go ahead. I think there's been some consensus here around the motion. Let's to call the the motion here. I don't see any I just I have someone account number representative cued up again. Do we need to can we just vote or. Speaker 2: We can vote? Speaker 0: Okay. Local, please. Madam Clerk. Speaker 4: Council. District one. Speaker 1: I. Speaker 4: Council. District two. Speaker 1: I. Speaker 2: Am. Speaker 4: Council district three. Speaker 2: I did see the. Speaker 4: Council, district four, High Council, District five. A Supreme Council District six. Speaker 0: US. Speaker 4: Council District seven. Speaker 2: High. Speaker 4: Council District eight. Speaker 2: High. Speaker 4: Council District. Speaker 1: 959. Speaker 2: High. Speaker 4: Motion Carries. Speaker 0: Thank you, guys. We'll go on to the next item. So I'm going to do that for 1/2. The next I do, I'm going to try to move quickly through quickly. We have item 42, which is a COVID 19 funding item.

Agenda Item

Recommendation to review a report on the Coronavirus Economic Relief Package for Long Beach families and small businesses and provide input and policy direction to staff on economic relief strategies for working families and small businesses impacted by the COVID-19 emergency, as more specifically detailed in such report. (Citywide)

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_04142020_20-0313

Speaker 0: Thank you, guys. We'll go on to the next item. So I'm going to do that for 1/2. The next I do, I'm going to try to move quickly through quickly. We have item 42, which is a COVID 19 funding item. Can you please see the item on the Quick Work. Speaker 4: Report from Health and Human Services recommendation to execute all necessary documents necessary for the COVID 19 emergency homelessness funding. Large city allocation to accept and expend grant funding in the amount of 7004 764,902 citywide. Speaker 0: Okay. Unless there's any objection, I'm going to go ahead and do a roll call vote. We're going to go ahead and start with trying to do this. Like I did the first that first meeting where we just called the we just called the voting. Yes. Mayor, are you I assume you would get a motion and a second and then we're saying any opposed and that. Speaker 2: Would be an unanimous. Speaker 0: Okay. So let me let me go ahead and I'm going to do these really quick and do these things quickly. And so I'm going to ask for the motions. I'm on the phone for these. Okay. They're going to get a motion to approve. Speaker 1: So listen, they have. Speaker 0: Then they have to make it a second. Speaker 2: Second Andrew. Speaker 0: Language. Okay, second. Andrew Then without objection, we will pass that item by unanimous consent. Next item is 43.

Contract

Recommendation to authorize City Manager, or designee, to execute all necessary documents, subcontracts, and any subsequent amendments, including amending the terms, or changing the amount of the award, with the Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency (BCSH), Homeless Coordinating and Financing Council (HCFC), for the COVID-19 Emergency Homelessness Funding, Large Cities allocation, to accept and expend grant funding in the amount of $764,902, for the estimated period of April 15, 2020 through June 30, 2020, with the option to extend the agreement for an additional six months, at the discretion of the City Manager; Authorize City Manager, or designee, to execute all necessary documents, subcontracts, and any subsequent amendments, including amending the terms, or changing the amount of the award, with the Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency (BCSH), Homeless Coordinating and Financing Council (HCFC), for the COVID-19 Emergency Homelessness Funding, Continuum of Care allocation, to accept and expend grant funding in the amount of $369,106, for the estimated period

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_03242020_20-0260

Speaker 0: Ocean carries. Speaker 1: Thank you. Item number three, please. Madam Court, please be the item. Speaker 0: Report from Public Works. Recommendation to execute all documents necessary to amend six contracts for job order contracting services to extend the contract terms for an additional one year period for a total annual aggregate amount not to exceed 12 million citywide. Speaker 3: Motion. No. Speaker 1: Okay. I have a count commissioned by Constable Manga and a second by Councilman Richardson. Without objection, we're going to go to a roll call vote. Madam Clerk. Speaker 0: Council District one. Speaker 3: I. Speaker 0: Council District two. Speaker 3: I. Speaker 0: Council District three. Speaker 3: I. Speaker 0: Council District four. Speaker 2: I. Speaker 0: Council District five. I Council District six. Arts Council District seven. High Council. District eight. High Council District nine. Speaker 2: All right. Speaker 0: Motion carries. Speaker 1: Okay. Thank you. That concludes the regular agenda items on the meeting. We're going to go right into closed session. And just from a what what's going to happen is this meeting will stay open. I'm still going to put it out at the end.

Agenda Item

Recommendation to authorize City Manager, or designee, to execute all documents necessary to amend Contract No. 34577 with Bitech Construction, Inc., of Buena Park, CA; Contract No. 34571 with Exbon Development, Inc., of Garden Grove, CA; Contract No. 34582 with Good-Men Roofing Construction, Inc., of San Diego, CA; Contract No. 34586 with Harry Joh Construction, Inc., of Paramount, CA; Contract No. 34578 with Thomasville Construction, Inc., of Fullerton, CA; and, Contract No. 34575 with Vincor Construction, Inc., of Brea, CA; for Job Order Contracting (JOC) services, to extend the contract terms for an additional one-year period through March 21, 2021, with an annual amount for each contract of $2,000,000 for a total annual aggregate amount not to exceed $12,000,000; and Authorize City Manager, or designee, to execute all documents necessary to amend Agreement No. 34736 with O’Connor Construction Management, Inc., of Irvine, CA, for as-needed JOC Program Support Services, to extend the contract term for two additional one-year periods through July 31, 2022. (Citywide)

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_03242020_20-0257

Speaker 1: Okay. Thank you. That concludes the regular agenda items on the meeting. We're going to go right into closed session. And just from a what what's going to happen is this meeting will stay open. I'm still going to put it out at the end. But now council members, you need to I'll log off there and what a number that you were sent and that's where we will meet for the closed session. And if we can start by reading the items first and we'll go into the other things so that of course we do. Speaker 0: Closed session regarding public employee appointments. City Manager. The second item is regarding labor negotiations with unrepresented employee. Speaker 1: Thank you. I'm going to close an online course in minute. Mr. City. Attorney, are you on? Speaker 2: Ah. Speaker 4: Yes, I'm here. There. We concluded the closed session and there is no reportable action due from the closed session this evening. Thank you.

Agenda Item

a. Pursuant to California Government Code Section 54957 and Long Beach Charter Section 300 regarding Public Employee Appointment: City Manager.

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_03172020_20-0244

Speaker 0: Oh, okay. That was District eight. The motion carries unanimously consent calendar has been adopted. Now we're looking at items, so we're not going to take items ten and 11. Correct, Madam Clerk, because those were just withdrawn. So we're going to do item 26. Madam Court, can you read item 26? Speaker 1: I. Item 26 Communication from Mayor Garcia. Recommendation to cancel the meeting of March 24th and April 7th, 2020 and hold meetings as teleconferences under the Brown Act. Waivers provided by Governor's office for the remainder of April. Adopt the same guidance for all charter commissions and cancel all non charter commission meetings through April 30th, 2020 unless otherwise requested by the Acting City Manager through a teleconference and waive the municipal code requirement to re declare the emergency every 14 days due to suspension of the regular meetings. Speaker 0: Thank you. Let me just add that we developed this item in coordination with the city attorney as well as our health office. And we're just trying to we're following some of the governor's guidelines and giving the city flexibility as these meetings move forward. Can I get a motion, please? Speaker 3: Oh, no. Speaker 0: And I just when you say emotion, just make the motion and then say your your your name. So I think the motion was by Councilman Austin. Can I get a second? Speaker 2: The Sun from. Speaker 3: The. Speaker 0: Recent days with a second. There is no there is no public comment. So I will go ahead and do. I'm sorry. That's not correct. Mr.. Mr.. CONFER you had a public comment. Please come forward. Speaker 4: I think with regards to, um, a current motion agenda item, we don't have the infrastructure yet as we can hear the feedback. For this to work properly. And I think that as public servants I can understand limiting the amount of people within the chambers. But as public servants, it's important for us to see you guys standing firm in unison in the physical realm. You know, not as many of us have, you know, access to the virtual or Internet world. You know, there's a large segment of the population that doesn't even use the Internet, you know, and there's a very serious amount of seniors who get an idea of what's going on via public access through Channel three or whatever it is. And so I, I understand what safety precautions, why this is, uh, uh, a, an agenda item that is deemed as necessary. And also with regards to the other coastal commission, the civil service people and everyone else, I get why, you know, it's, it's good to to tell teleprompter then. But, you know, in the private room, I think it's it's different how we conduct ourselves versus how public servants conduct themselves and are like, if it's possible for you guys to come into the chambers and, you know, have some way of citizens access and you think you. Speaker 0: Thank you very much, Mr. Cohen. There is a there's a motion and a second. I will do the roll call. We'll begin with District one, district two. I District three. I district for. By five. Six. Speaker 2: Ray. Speaker 0: Seven. I ate. Nine. Speaker 3: Oh, I'm so high. Speaker 0: Okay, nice high. Okay, motion carries. Speaker 3: All right. Speaker 0: We are moving on to the next item. Madam Clerk, if you can please read, the next item we are going to do is item 17.

Agenda Item

Recommendation to suspend Council rule contained in Long Beach Municipal Code 2.03.020 (B) to cancel the meetings of March 24, 2020 and April 7, 2020 and hold meetings as teleconferences, under the Brown Act waivers provided by the Governor's Office, for the remainder of April; Direct City Clerk to find the best way to conduct these meetings as teleconferences; Adopt the same guidance for all Charter Commissions effective March 20, 2020 and cancel all Non-Charter Commission meetings of the City of Long Beach through April 30, 2020, unless otherwise requested by the Acting City Manager through a teleconference; and Waive the Municipal Code requirement to redeclare the emergency every 14 days due to suspension of the regular meetings.

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_03172020_20-0231

Speaker 0: We are moving on to the next item. Madam Clerk, if you can please read, the next item we are going to do is item 17. Speaker 1: Communication from Council Member Richardson. Recommendation Greece Decrease F 20 appropriations in the General Fund group by 2352 reflect the use of the ninth Council District one time district priority funds for donations to various organizations. Speaker 0: Councilmember Richardson. Speaker 3: Rex Richardson. Move the item. Speaker 0: Can I get a second? Speaker 3: Tauranga City Centers. Speaker 0: There is no public comment. Will do a roll call vote. District one. I just talked to. I District three. High District four. Speaker 3: By. Speaker 0: District five. By District six. Speaker 3: And. Speaker 0: So are the six seven. By District eight. District nine, District nine.

Agenda Item

Recommendation to decrease FY 20 appropriations in the General Fund Group in the Citywide Activities Department by $2,350 to reflect the use of the Ninth Council District One-time District Priority Funds for donations to various organizations.

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_03172020_20-0233

Speaker 0: So are the six seven. By District eight. District nine, District nine. Speaker 3: All right. Speaker 0: Thank you. I'm moving on to item 19, please. Speaker 1: Communication from Council Member Pearce. Recommendation to request a report to council in 60 days on the sales tax receipts for the Broadway corridor between Chestnut and Alamitos Avenues and Alamitos two or Zorba Avenues. Speaker 0: Councilmember Pearce. Speaker 2: Yes. Thank you. This is an item that would be historical from the past, so we'd like to go ahead and take a vote on it. But it is not an urgent item by any means. But if we could go ahead and make the vote tonight. I do appreciate it. Speaker 0: Great. Can you make that motion, please? Speaker 2: Most motions motion to approve Councilmember Pearce. Thank you, Russell. Speaker 0: Okay. Can I get a second? Sunday house. Mr. Kent, do you have a comment from the public? Speaker 4: I would like to commend Councilwoman Pearce for bringing this item to the agenda. I own a small business within this corridor and I would like, you know, with the economic development team to really be mindful in particularly business corridors that don't is as prominent as, say, um, Bixby, Bixby Knolls or in Belmont Shores. The economic impact of things like the current pandemic they were going through. And I think that the numbers will show the informal economy sufferers the most in these kinds of moments. And I appreciate the city jumping on this. Thank you. Speaker 0: Mr. Kemp. If you'll just stay up here for a second. Let's go out and take that vote. And so, district one. OH, Mr.. To. By District three. I Patrick for. All right, District five. By District six. By District seven. I. District eight. I took nine. District nine. Okay. Motion carries. Thank you.

Agenda Item

Recommendation to request City Manager to work with Economic Development and report to Council in 60 days on the sales tax receipts for the Broadway Corridor between Chestnut to Alamitos Avenues and Alamitos to Orizaba Avenues.

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_03172020_20-0235

Speaker 0: It should be working. From what I understand, Granicus is working and they're trying to work on the on the Long Beach TV connection as well. Okay. Moving on to item 21, Madam Clerk. Speaker 1: Report from economic development. Recommendation to execute all needed documents with various Pacific Gateway Workforce Innovation, Network Service and product providers for training and employment services to residents for a revised total aggregate amount not to exceed 5,105,712 citywide. Speaker 0: And this is a on for the staff items we're going to move to to avoid investors objections. There's no public comment on this item. And so without objection, we'll go to a roll call vote. I don't see any question. So District one? Speaker 3: No. Speaker 0: I decided to. Speaker 2: I. Speaker 0: 1/2 in just a minute. Just for an hour. I think the city attorney said that on on on these islands, we can just move straight to the vote. We don't need a motion in a second. Why don't we. Speaker 3: Just see less objection by the other counsel? Yes. Speaker 0: Yeah, unless there's objection by the city council. Okay. So that was that was a city attorney that was on. Yeah. So District two. District three. I district for. I District five. I six. Our District seven. I ate. All right. And nine.

Contract

Recommendation to authorize City Manager, or designee, to execute all documents and any needed subsequent amendments, with various Pacific Gateway Workforce Innovation Network service and product providers for training and employment services to residents, to increase the total amount by $1,900,000, for a revised total aggregate amount not to exceed $5,105,712, and to extend for one additional one-year period, with an option to renew for two additional one-year periods. (Citywide)

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_03172020_20-0236

Speaker 3: All right. Speaker 0: Thank you. Moving on to item 22. Adam Kirk. Speaker 1: Report from financial management. Recommendation to approve the fiscal year 20/21. Departmental and Fund Budget Appropriation Adjustments Citywide. Speaker 0: Thank you. Mr. Modica, did you have an improved look there before we go there. Thank you. Before you go there, Mr. Modica, did you have any updates on this? Yes. Speaker 3: I do. We can't give it down before if you want it. But I would like to say, when we put this on, we were not expecting COVID 19 at the level that we were at. So we would ask for your permission to hold off on any of these things if we find that we're really redirected given the crisis. We would like that permission, and then we would certainly come back to you and reappropriate that and get your approval before sending it. Speaker 0: Okay. Can I get a motion? Speaker 2: Ocean by town. Foreman Mango. Speaker 0: Can I get a second? Speaker 3: Jason works for. Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you. I think we've got that and we're going to go ahead. I see no public comment or anything else. We're going to go to a roll call. Actually, Mr. Henry, did you have a comment? Nope. Okay. District one. I district to. District three. I district for. I just took five. Speaker 2: I. Speaker 0: District six. I strict seven. I. District eight. District nine.

Agenda Item

Recommendation to approve the Fiscal Year 2020 first departmental and fund budget appropriation adjustments in accordance with existing City Council policy. (Citywide)

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_03172020_20-0238

Speaker 0: District six. I strict seven. I. District eight. District nine. Speaker 3: All right. Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you. We're going to go out in 24. Madam Clerk. Speaker 1: Report from Health and Human Services Revised Recommendation to adopt resolution re declaring a shelter crisis suspending applicable provisions of local law, including those contained in the city's zoning ordinances. Of the Long Beach Municipal Code and Regulations. And authorizing the operation of an interim shelter for the period of April one, 2020 through September 30, 2020. Inclusive and authorize the city manager or designee to execute an amendment to lease 35431 to extend the term until October 30th, 2020. District one. Speaker 0: Thank you. We're going to go without objection, we're going to go ahead and go to a vote saying that there is a no public comment. Speaker 3: And, Mr. Mayor, we do have an. Speaker 2: Amendment that. Speaker 3: We would like to read into the record, please. Speaker 0: Sure. Mr. Modica. Speaker 3: So this is Charlie Parker? Yes. The the item. I think we've gotten some recent information from the county. This is all good news. And and Theresa Chandler is here to go into details on it, that we are going to adopt a resolution declaring this shelter crisis, suspending the applicable provisions of the local law, including including those contained in the city zoning ordinance of the city of the Long Beach Municipal Code and Regulations, and authorize the operation of the interim shelter for a period of April 1st, 2020 through September 30th, 2020. Inclusive. And the good news on this, I believe, is the city was ready to do this and ready to pay for it. And the county over the weekend has stepped up. And I'll let Teresa kind of give the details. Speaker 2: Well, originally, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, also known as Lahsa, was only planning to fund the county run Winter Shelter Program to March 31st, 2020. Lahsa holds the contract with the provider of the shelter, which is used for this Winter Shelter program in order to continue the interim shelter program through the opening of the long before granting farm spreads housing community, which has a coming up year round shelter council approved additional funding to ensure we have shelter beds available on Long Beach while the ABC community undergoes construction. But the gap between winter shelter closing in March and the opening of the Addison community. In June, the city of Long Beach made arrangements to contract directly with the operator US vets that would extend the interim shelter through June 28th, 2020, yesterday and late afternoon last but confirm they will be extending all winter shelter sites throughout the county to September 30th, 2020. Therefore, the city no longer needs to contract directly with us that or pay for shelter services because last year will absorb the costs for the extension. So this is why we're making the recommendation to extend the lease. Speaker 0: Thank you for the current program. There's no there's no public comment. I'm going to go to a roll call vote without objection. District one. I district to district three i. District four. Speaker 3: I. Speaker 0: District five. A six by seven. I hate. I a.

Resolution

Recommendation to adopt resolution authorizing City Manager, or designee, to execute all documents necessary to enter into a contract, including any necessary amendments, with the United States Veterans Initiative, Inc., of Los Angeles, CA, in the amount of $113,036 to operate the Interim Shelter Program from April 13, 2020 through June 28, 2020, at 1718-1722 Hayes Avenue; and Authorize City Manager or designee to execute an amendment to Lease 35431 to extend the term until July 28, 2020. (District 1)

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_03172020_20-0239

Speaker 0: District five. A six by seven. I hate. I a. Speaker 3: Hi. Speaker 0: Thank you. Motion carries over. Moving on. Item 25, which is. Will be must contract. Speaker 1: Report from Public Works. Recommendation to award a contract to Keller North America for construction of the Long Beach Municipal Urban Stormwater Treatment Facility Ground Improvements Project. For a total contract amount not to exceed 1,449,000 District one. Speaker 0: I'm going to go ahead and without objection, go to the go to a vote. I don't see any public comment. Actually, no, I don't see any public comment on this. And so we will go to a roll call vote unless there's any objection. All right, District one. Speaker 2: I was. Speaker 0: District two. I District three. I district for. High five. I six. By seven. I ate. Speaker 3: And. Speaker 0: And now. Speaker 3: That. Speaker 0: We've had a cry from nine. Speaker 3: That's nice. Speaker 0: Okay. That's tonight. Thank you. We're going to come back to 27, be our last item. We're almost done with the rest of the agenda item 28.

Contract

Recommendation to adopt Plans and Specifications No. R-7166 and award a contract to Keller North America, Inc., of Irvine, CA, for construction of the Long Beach Municipal Urban Stormwater Treatment Facility Ground Improvements Project, in the amount of $1,260,000, with a 15 percent contingency in the amount of $189,000, for a total contract amount not to exceed $1,449,000; and, authorize City Manager, or designee, to execute all documents necessary to enter into the contract, including any necessary amendments. (District 1)

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_03172020_20-0247

Speaker 0: Okay. That's tonight. Thank you. We're going to come back to 27, be our last item. We're almost done with the rest of the agenda item 28. Speaker 1: In a report from Economic Development and Health and Human Services, the recommendation to execute a Second Amendment to lease with Long Beach Airport hangar owner to expand the lease area to include a vacant hangar for use by the Department of Health and Human Services at 3 to 0 five Lakewood Boulevard, District five. Speaker 0: Thank you. And I'm going to ask everyone else to please put their phone on mute, if that's possible, if you can. If our staff and council. That would be great. Thank you very much. We're going to go and then we have an item. If there's no objection, we're going to go ahead and go to a roll call vote. Let's get an objection from the council. I see no public comment on item 28, so we'll go ahead and take the vote. District one. I district to. I District three. I for. By five. Speaker 5: I. Speaker 0: I seven. I. Speaker 3: 809.

Contract

Recommendation to authorize City Manager, or designee, to execute any and all documents necessary for the Second Amendment to Lease No. 30102, with Long Beach Airport Hangar Owner, LLC (Landlord), to expand the lease area to include a vacant hangar for use by the Department of Health and Human Services at 3205 Lakewood Boulevard, for a period of one year, with the option to renew for one additional one-year period, at the discretion of the City Manager. (District 5)

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_03172020_20-0250

Speaker 3: Hey. Speaker 0: Motion carries and our final staff item is item 31. Madam Clerk. Speaker 1: Report from Public Works, Park Recreation and Marine. Recommendation to execute a Third Amendment to contract with plenary properties. Long Beach to modify the conditions to conveyance of the Mid-Block site. Extend the project long stop date and include additions to Lincoln Park. Enter into an agreement with the Harbor Department to accept and expend grant funding in an amount not to exceed 981,280 for the Lincoln Park Landscaping Project. Execute and accept a water line easement agreement and execute and indemnity and reimbursement agreement. District two. Speaker 0: Thank you. Our turn this over first to Mr. Modica. Speaker 3: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Do we have Craig back on the line? Yes, I'm on the line. So this is an important this is an important part, mayor and council really finalizing the public private partnership. We're excited to be at this point today. We have this motion and then a motion at the planning commission that will happen on Thursday, and that'll really complete the major agreement for the private development on the Mid-Block site. So what is envisioned is when this project was originally envisioned, they had looked at a hotel and about 300 units of housing. That was about four years ago, and market conditions had changed. And so we actually have 1200 units of hotels that are either have been built or are in the process of being entitled, are being built. And so naturally, this has been changing. The the new entitlement is actually sort of the newer plan is to actually maximize housing at 580 units as opposed to the roughly 300 they were looking at before, 10% affordable and actually bringing on a grocer in downtown as well, which we're really excited about and then creating some synergy around features and some community benefit so that teachers would be able to to have about 100 of those units and really create kind of a synergy downtown. So additionally in the South report, we have the ability to move forward with the final agreement on city hall and then also using some of the dollars that we're mostly getting from impact fees, but also the harbor department and some county imagery to enhance Lincoln Park and make it really a special park. So I will turn it back to the Council for questions and Craig Back can answer any questions you may have. Speaker 0: Thank you. And before I before I make some comments, I just want to make sure to the clerks are getting some reports that some members of the public can't hear the audio. So are we are we looking are we trying to look at that. Speaker 2: By doing that? Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you. And if we can if we can also just please mute your phones. Thank you. The council and staff commute their phones. Thank you. We want to just make some comments, just obviously in light of how difficult the last couple of weeks have been. This is one, I think, significant and positive development that has happened over the course of the last week or two. We have been working with our partners at Cal State, Long Beach, Long Beach City College, as well as Long Beach Unified. I've talked to the the heads and CEOs of those organizations, and there is a proposal in front of us, as Tom described, that is going to include also this opportunity to dramatically increase the amount of housing on the Mid-Block site. And the developer is looking at building a 100 unit teachers village approximately, I believe, 100 unit teachers village. Of those of that teacher's village, which will be part of the development, about half, approximately half of those units will be affordable units. The other half will be more market rate units. But all of the units will have benefits that could include no deposit payments, free Long Beach transit, free bike share, access to community space, certain fees being waived, and other benefits. Special marketing to to bring teachers and faculty from the city into the civic center. And so that is something I know that staffs work very hard on, as well as our partners. I just wanted to uplift that as to to add to what the comments that Mr. Modica had mentioned. Let me turn this over to Councilmember Pierce. Speaker 2: Thank you, Mayor, and thank you. STAFF You know, the city center project was voted on in whole before I got on this council and midwifed something that has been very exciting to talk about and to dream about what the next steps might be. And I want to applaud the mayor and staff for their work that they've done with this developer, even though I have not had the privilege of actually meeting with them. I know that, you know, housing is something that we all care about having it be affordable. Housing is something we all care about. I know that that's not the vote that is in front of us right now being able to move this project forward quickly, I want to thank you for bringing it forward. Weeks before, we thought we would have it making the easements and talking about what we're going to be doing at Lincoln Park or something that's really exciting and important to me and our downtown residents. Ensuring that we have more space for kids, for teenagers, for young adults is going to be really important. But I want to applaud the developers in working on this and want to take a moment just to say we've had a lot of conversation on this council about three child services. Obviously, my office and several others put in some funds to make sure that we can have child watch during council meetings. But we also had a lot of discussion about an onsite child care facility. And I know that this site has a space that the city is going to be look to to do the programing. So I wanted to say probably with with everybody and with the mayor that I want to talk hopefully about what that might look like for child care in our civic center down the road. But exciting projects. Again, thanks everybody, for getting it here. I'd like to make a motion to vote yes and I hope that I can get a second. Speaker 0: Thank you. Can there be a second half? A second second on the second on the on the motion in front of us. I'm going to go out and take a roll call vote. Unless there's any objection, there's no public comment on this item. So let me go and begin that District one. I district to my district three. May I? District four. I District five. Speaker 2: I. Speaker 0: District six. Five seven. I hate. Speaker 3: All right. Speaker 0: And now. Speaker 3: Hi. Speaker 0: Thank you. Before we move on to the last item. I want to make sure that the clerk is aware that there's some reports of Granicus not working and the connection. Is that correct? Speaker 1: That is correct. Our tech and innovation team is working on it right now. Speaker 0: Okay. I'm going to I know that. I know there's a lot of folks that want to speak and are interested in the next item. So I'm just going to take just a brief two minute recess as the tech team wants just a little time to adjust the the connection. So council members, please don't hang up. Stay on the teleconference. We're just going to take a two minute recess and see if we can make the adjustment. If not, we'll just go ahead and continue. But we will be back in just 2 minutes. I'm going to I'm going to go ahead and restart the meeting. I think that from what I understand, there are a lot of folks that are trying to log on at once more than more than is usual, which is which is maybe why the issues are there. But the tech team and the caucus team are working on it. So we're going to we're going to go ahead and go back into recess. And I've checked in with the city attorney and everything as far as all legal procedures are all being followed. So everything is in good shape on that point. So let me go ahead and go back to do a roll call, check in and we'll start the last item. And I'm Clark. Speaker 1: Councilwoman Zendejas. Cancer Council member Pearce. Speaker 2: Yes. Speaker 1: The Councilwoman Price. Speaker 2: There. Speaker 1: Council member, supra. Speaker 3: Here. Speaker 1: Councilwoman Mongo. Speaker 2: So. Speaker 1: Vice Mayor Andrew. Speaker 3: Pear. Speaker 1: Council member Urunga. Councilman Austin. Speaker 3: Janet. Speaker 1: Councilmember Richardson. Speaker 3: Here.

Agenda Item

Recommendation to authorize City Manager, or designee, to execute a Third Amendment to Contract No. 34242 with Plenary Properties Long Beach, LLC, of Los Angeles, CA, to modify the conditions to conveyance of the Midblock site, extend the project long-stop date, and include additions to Lincoln Park; Authorize City Manager, or designee, to execute all documents necessary to enter into an agreement, including any necessary amendments, with the Harbor Department, to accept and expend grant funding in an amount not to exceed $981,280, for the Lincoln Park Landscaping Project; Authorize City Manager, or designee, to execute and accept a Water Line Easement Agreement establishing a utility easement over a portion of the Midblock site; Authorize City Manager, or designee, to execute an Indemnity and Reimbursement Agreement in connection with existing City obligations to remediate impacted soils existing on the Midblock site; and Increase appropriations in the Civic Center Fund Group in the Public Works Department by $1,736,227, for the revitalized Lincoln Park, offset by Cou

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_03102020_20-0193

Speaker 0: Vice Mayor Andrews. Motion carries. Speaker 2: No problem, sir. Speaker 0: All right. Motion carries item 18. Speaker 2: Yes. Please release me. Item. Speaker 0: Item 18. Report from police recommendation to receive the application of the breakfast bar fourth Street for an original application of an ABC license at 3404 East Fourth Street submitted public notice of protest to ABC and direct city manager to withdraw the protest if ACP is granted. District three. Speaker 2: And Councilwoman Price. Speaker 1: Thank you very much. I'm glad to see this business coming to the third district. The business is the breakfast bar. It's coming to fourth streets and fourth Street and they have applied for an ABC license. I'm I support them very much with all the fantastic success that they've had at their downtown location. I know they're going to be a huge district, district three location for people to enjoy. I do want to clarify a few things on this application. We are conditionally approving the ABC license tonight on the premise that the owners will complete the SIU process. I don't know if there's any staff here, but if they are approved for the SIU process and the ABC license will be approved as my understanding, and I see Miss Tatum shaking her head in the affirmative. That is correct. Councilwoman Price, I would just offer a couple of distinguishing comments. Typically, a restaurant, unless it has a full service bar, is allowable for what we call a conditional use exemption. And because they have not yet formally submitted, I'm not sure what the status of their proposal is. Right. Okay. Thank you. So for anyone who's excited to go there and and partake in beverages, that may not happen until the CFP process is complete. That is correct. Thank you. I urge my colleagues to support this item. Speaker 2: And, Councilwoman, you like to speak on that? Yeah. Fine, fine. Could you please. There any public comment on this item? If not, will you please cast your vote?

ABC License

Recommendation to receive the application of LB Beadels, LLC, dba The Breakfast Bar 4th Street, for an original application of an Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) License, at 3404 East 4th Street; submit a Public Notice of Protest to ABC; and, direct City Manager to withdraw the protest if a Conditional Use Permit (CUP) is granted. (District 3)

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_03102020_20-0211

Speaker 1: 3640. Speaker 2: That's ZIP 32 or 36, which was 36. Speaker 0: Item number 36 Communication from Councilwoman Mongeau. Councilman Austin Councilwoman Price Recommendation to increase appropriations in the Special Advertising and Promotion Fund Group in the City Manager Department by 1500 to provide donations to the Long Beach City College Foundation to support the citywide Long Beach Reads one book event held on March 19th, 2020. Speaker 6: Councilman Mangum Thank you. I'm very blessed to hand over the microphone for just a few minutes to two of the committee members who have worked so diligently on this project, and the new appointed executive director of the Long Beach Community College Foundation. Speaker 8: Thank you, Councilman. Council member. Sorry, Honorable Vice Mayor. My name is Susan Redfield, and many of you may remember Long Beach reads one book that ran out of the Long Beach Public Library Foundation. It stopped six years ago. I wanted to bring it back. And Long Beach City College agreed to sponsor it. And we are doing that this year. Long Beach reads. One book is back. The program is to encourage everyone to read the same book. This year's book is George Takei's graphic novel memoir about his experiences as a young boy in the Japanese-American internment camp and later his experiences as an actor on the movie the TV show Star Trek. And later as a gay Asian man and how difficult that challenge was. The book is appropriate for middle school and up. It's been vetted by our Long Beach Unified School District. My ten year old granddaughter read it in 2 hours, absolutely loved it, and sent a video to Mr. Takei about how good it is. It touches many values and themes that are important to us. We have five high schools reading the book right now and we have it. I wanted to confirm that I'm doing this right. Five high schools, librarians, librarian book clubs. Our city is known to have 145 book clubs, and they've been told about this program. The goal is to get everybody to read the book and then to come and hear Mr. Takei speak at a free an event that will be free for all students with a small suggested donation. But it's really a free event for Mr. Takei to speak on the campus of Long Beach City College a week from Thursday, March 19th. I think that's it. Speaker 6: Thank you so much, I. This agenda item under advisement of the city attorney commits three councilmembers to each, giving you a $500 commitment from each of our sappi funds. And I would ask any other council member that is open to joining me. I would be happy to take a friendly amendment if you're open to making such a donation as well. Speaker 2: Anyone else. Okay. Mr. Armstrong. Which? Usain Bolt. Speaker 6: So prices next. Speaker 2: Oh. That's one place. Speaker 1: I wholeheartedly support this item and thank you for everything that you do and I'm happy to be contributing to the allocation. So thank you. Speaker 2: As well. Speaker 3: Thank you, Vice Mayor, Councilwoman Mongo, thank you for the invitation to join in. And Susan, I know we spoken about this. And, you know, I'm a big fan from, you know, I wasn't alive when the Star Trek show was out. But I do know Mr. Sulu and I know about this book. So you can count me in. So you can accept this as a mr. Sulu else's name on Star Trek. Anyway, thanks. Come on. Speaker 6: I'm so thankful. Speaker 3: I know my stuff. Speaker 6: I'm thankful to the Trekkie in the ninth District and your commitment. Speaker 3: Oh, this is a you know, I'm offering. Absolutely. I'm happy to support it. And like we talked about, the more we can make sure that we advertise this at the Obama library so people know about it, this free event of the better. Speaker 8: Library and all the other libraries as well. Speaker 2: Thanks so much. Speaker 7: Thank you. Thank you, council members for bringing this item forward. We wholeheartedly believe in reading across every single age group and sharing and participating in as many book clubs as possible. So you can count us in for 500 as well. And again, a great book. I mean, I think it's a great book on so many levels and I really look forward to to finishing this. So thank you so much. Speaker 2: Thank you, Councilwoman. And there's. Speaker 1: Thank you. Ditto with all of my colleagues have said congratulations and I'm very happy to support this. I encourage everyone to participate and everybody, you know, reads a book because I think it also builds community. And I think that that's very important, especially when you have a shared common interests like this, and especially if you have a fun act for live action kind of book in all different levels. So thank you and I look forward to supporting you and spreading the word about this as well. Thank you. Speaker 6: Do I hear a friendly amendment for the council colleagues not mentioned on the agenda? Item two also commit 500 from their SFP. Is that the friendly? Yes. Yes. She each said they they each said they supported you. I just want to make sure it was heard. Speaker 3: Yes. Yes. Speaker 6: Okay. So that makes it 30 $500 on. Speaker 3: You guys got that? I move that we include Supernanny ranga to. Speaker 2: I second that. Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 6: I'm I'm happy to. Speaker 3: I'm not going to do that. Okay. Speaker 2: Way to go, Rick. Speaker 6: I mean. Speaker 3: You know, to the, you know, that motion that was drawn. Speaker 6: I was going to say, when's the next time Rex is absent from council? Speaker 2: That's what's. Speaker 6: Thank you for your support. And I appreciate those who are able to come together. I mean, it's very tricky to be able to get council members to agree in advance because of the Brown Act requirements. I met with County Council, our city. See? Now look at me. I'm at my work job, the city attorney to figure out how that works. And so hopefully in the future there'll be a mechanism where we wouldn't have to gain compliance in advance, but there has to be a mechanism where if we all wanted to pitch in on something, that that would be possible . So thank you for opening the door to figuring out what that looks like in the future. For those of you who didn't know, today's recognition of the women's suffrage was a case in which there was originally an intent by one or two council members that were looking to donate. And then we said, let's bring it to the full budget oversight committee and find a way to give as a whole to the organization. So that worked out. But this is seed money and so we look forward to being self-sustaining next year. Speaker 1: Thank you. Speaker 8: May I ask a quick question? May we say that this is a partnership with the city of Long Beach then? Speaker 1: Okay. Thank you. Speaker 6: We're your sponsor. Thank you, Mr. Parker. The recognition that comes with a donation of that magnitude. Thank you. Speaker 2: And before you leave, Mr. Perkins, you want to. Speaker 5: I just clarifying that it was 30 $500. We have CD 1 to 3. Five, six and nine. Eight, nine? Speaker 2: Yes. Okay, fine. Speaker 6: Thank you. Thank you. Speaker 2: That was the quickest money I've ever seen. Speaker 6: Oh, that's not true. I remember the Budget Committee meeting this year. It was a last minute swap in your district. Speaker 2: She's good. Speaker 6: I don't forget. All right. Thank you. Speaker 8: Thank you very much. And we hope to see you all there on March 19th. Speaker 2: Fine, thank you. I'm fine now. Could we have any further comment on this item? CNN. Cast your vote. Speaker 0: Motion carries. Speaker 2: I think, you know, we're comfortable in Mongo. Did you want to move up 3 to 5.

Agenda Item

Recommendation to increase appropriations in the Special Advertising and Promotion Fund Group in the City Manager Department by $1,500, offset by the $500 of Fifth Council District One-time District Priority Funds, $500 of Eighth Council District One-time District Priority Funds, and $500 of Third Council District One-time District Priority Funds transferred from the Citywide Activities Department to provide donations to the Long Beach City College Foundation to support the citywide Long Beach Reads One Book event held on March 19, 2020, at the Long Beach City College Liberal Arts Campus; and Decrease appropriations in the Special Advertising and Promotion Fund Group in the Citywide Activities Department by $1,500 to offset a transfer to the City Manager Department.

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_03102020_20-0201

Speaker 2: All right, please. Now we move to item number 26, please. Speaker 0: Item 26, Communication from Councilwoman Zendejas. Recommendation to withdraw the protest filed with Alcohol Beverage Control against Bright Spot Restaurant located at 412 West Pacific Coast Highway. Speaker 2: Yes, Miss. Councilwoman, in that. Speaker 1: Thank you. I strongly believe that the continuing. To pass this local business from obtaining its ABC license is not in the best interest of our city and our residents. The ability to sell alcohol is absolutely a privilege, but it's also a key component to many successful establishments. And I really believe that the bright spot is once again worthy of this public trust in in this regard. Speaker 2: Yes. Okay. Thank. I do have any. See, I have a first year secondary product coming in is fine. Okay. Would you please cast your vote inside of. Speaker 0: Councilman Andrews motion carries. Speaker 2: I think we're asking to move number 39 up. So these individuals, I think, are waiting on that. Can we move that 39, please? Item 39.

Agenda Item

Recommendation to authorize City Manager, or designee, to withdraw the protest filed with Alcohol Beverage Control by the City in accordance with the direction of the City Council on October 23, 2018, against Brite Spot Restaurant located at 412 West Pacific Coast Highway in the First Council District.

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_03102020_20-0214

Speaker 2: I think we're asking to move number 39 up. So these individuals, I think, are waiting on that. Can we move that 39, please? Item 39. Speaker 0: Item 39 Report from Health and Human Services. Recommendation to adopt resolution to ratify the City Manager's Proclamation of Local Emergency and ratify the Long Beach Health Officers Declaration of Local Health Emergency regarding the serious and imminent threat of an outbreak of novel coronavirus citywide. Speaker 2: Ask you, Councilman Richardson. Speaker 3: Let's hear from staff. Speaker 4: Thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor. Members of the city council. So we do have a fairly lengthy presentation for you. It is something we've been paying a lot of attention to. COVID 19 is something we've been following ever since December when it first came out in China. And your city team has been incredibly proactive. There's been an enormous amount of staff resources, especially in the last week and a half, devoted towards this. So we would really like to help explain what it is that we're doing, give you a lot of information about the virus itself, the medical information. We'd like to go into all of the kind of disaster plans that we put in place. We practiced for this. We have a system in place for any kind of what we call all hazards type approach, and we are putting that all together to be able to prepare our community for COVID 19. So you'll hear tonight from our health director, Health and Human Services Director Kelly Collopy, and from our health official, Dr. Anissa Davis. It's very rare that a city has a health officer is only three cities in the in California that have a health officer. And we're very lucky to have one. And so with that, I will be turning over the presentation to our Director of Health and Human Services, Kelly Collopy. Speaker 10: Good evening, everybody. Uh, honorable vice mayor and city council members. The Health and Human Services Department has really been taking a strong stand around COVID 19. Tonight, we'll be sharing information on the COVID 19 status on the city of Long Beach and its efforts to plan, monitor and respond. Dr. Anissa Davis and I will share these efforts. However, we're not just talking about the efforts of the health department, but we're really talking about a coordinated and committed cross-agency team. They're all giving their all every single day to ensure that our city is prepared for COVID 19 response and that our city communities and individuals are safe . With that, I'm going to turn turn the time over to Dr. Davis to talk about the virus and the preventative measures. Speaker 1: Good evening. So just to tell you a little bit about coronavirus disease, 2019, otherwise known as COVID 19. Coronaviruses are a large group of viruses that are common among animals and humans. In rare cases, animal coronaviruses can be transmitted from animals to humans. This novel coronavirus that causes COVID 19, is a newly discovered coronavirus that has not been previously detected in animals or humans. The source of the virus is not yet known. So recently. Yesterday, in fact, there were three positive cases announced in the city of Long Beach. All of these cases were travel related to locations with community spread. Two of the cases were associated with international travel, and one case was associated with domestic travel. These lab results of these three positive cases are considered or known as presumptive positive until they're confirmed by the CDC. We're also monitoring ten students and two staff from Cal State Long Beach, who attended a conference in Washington, D.C.. And we're monitoring dozens of people who have traveled to China, Iran or who have been on local cruises. So how does COVID 19 spread? COVID 19 is spread through droplets from coughing and sneezing from close contact, such as touching and shaking hands and contact with infected surfaces or objects, or touching your eyes or your nose or your mouth with unwashed hands. The most common symptoms of COVID 19 are fever, shortness of breath and cough. 80% of infected individuals have mild to moderate symptoms. It feels like they have a really bad flu. 15% have more serious illness and 5% can become critically ill. In order for COVID to be diagnosed. Currently, a health care provider needs to assess patients and consult with the health department on whether testing is indicated by the CDC. So right now, the Long Beach Health Department has to approve all testing that happens on Long Beach residents. To determine if a person is at risk and qualifies or would be appropriate for testing. We ask about recent travel contact with other people who have COVID 19 and risk respiratory symptoms, and we put all that together to decide if testing is needed. Most people will recover on their own. There are no specific treatments such as vaccines or medications for COVID 19 at this time. So how can the community prevent the spread of COVID 19? We recommend washing your hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds. Avoid touching your eyes, your nose and mouth with unwashed hands. Avoid close contact with people who are sick. Cover your cough or sneeze with a tissue and then throw the tissue in the trash. Stay home if you're sick and clean and disinfect frequently touched objects and surfaces and basic disinfectants will kill coronavirus. And this slide just illustrates some of the education we provide to the community in this instance regarding the best way to wash your hands. We're doing all of this because COVID 19 causes more severe illness compared with the flu, and because older adults and those with underlying medical conditions tend to have more serious illness and poorer outcomes from COVID 19. As the city health officer. I declared a local health emergency and the city declared a local emergency because of the increased resources necessary to be prepared and to respond to COVID 19 cases in Long Beach. The emergency declaration allows us streamlined access to extra staffing and goods and services. Speaker 10: So the Long Beach Department of Health and Human Services is the leading is a lead for the public health emergency response with support of so many of our partner agencies. The department began preparing for COVID 19 in December when it first hit the national radar, and it's been in planning since that time. Internally, our lead response team includes our city health officer, the Public Health Emergency Management Team, and the Communicable Disease Control. Our Public Health, Nursing, Environmental, health and clinical services teams have also stepped up to support the effort. At the risk of COVID and Long Beach has increased, the team is tracking federal, state and local guidance, training health providers, educating and communicating with public monitoring, self-quarantined individuals, consulting with health providers, city agencies, educational institutions and the community, and coordinating with providers to determine if testing is called for. It really is a full out press. Notre Dame is going to share a little bit about what just one case requires. Speaker 1: So for one case, we have to trace everywhere that a person has gone since they've been symptomatic. This might include a flight that they were on. Who's sat next to them? It might include an Uber where they worship or were who they live with, possibly their school or their dorm. Basically, any congregate setting that this person has been in. And then once we identify those places, we have to find all the people that they've come into contact with at all these different places, get in contact with them, interview them, and then make recommendations. So basically interview them. Find out how close of a contact they had with the source patient if they have symptoms or not, what their underlying medical conditions might be. And then we make recommendations on testing, isolation, quarantine based on all of those scenarios. And it can be up to 100, 150 people or interviews per case of COVID 19 that is diagnosed. And then when the actual case, who's positive is in isolation because it's not really known when the infection is over, we have to do serial testing. So we might be testing them every other day for several days, two weeks. So we're going either to their house or having them come here and testing them. And so it's a huge resource intensive resource demand, and it's diverts a lot of our staff from other health programs, especially our clinical staff, and then a lot of non-clinical staff as well to perform these duties. Speaker 10: The city's all Hazard Isthmus management team, commonly referred to as the IMT. Was activated on March 5th in response to the emergency declarations. This team, which is led by fire and police departments, include members of multiple departments who are working around the clock to plan for and manage all aspects of this incident and to ensure we are prepared citywide. Over 50 staff have participated in this effort to date. Each day the IMT reviews current information to determine if any changes are coming, sort of depending on where we're seeing around the community. What we're seeing in surrounding jurisdictions and if any changes are required of the planning or recommendations or guidance. So it's an ongoing, ongoing effort. The IMT has responded to many city incidents in the past, and we're well trained and coordinated to respond to COVID 19. We're also very thankful for all the city's past investment of time and focus to ensure that the city has this this really great resource in that to be able to really be prepared in this case. The Joint Information Center, which is otherwise referred to as the GIC, operates as part of the IMT and includes the CIA, the city's PIO, a communications team from across the city departments. The GIC was activated on March 6th and have been working every day from morning and well into the night with 15 to 20 people there literally monitoring the world to address potential impacts to our community. They're also developing and disseminating communications for various channels. A lot of social media. Dispelling rumors by providing facts and updates. Engaging with newspapers and media. Responding to community questions and concerned. When you walk into the room, it's literally abuzz. The list that you see on this slide is really all the things we've taken, all the steps we've taken to date in terms of guidance and education. And I'll be going through providing a little bit of information for each of these. The first is our health care. So we're really focusing on the safety of our health care workers across the city. When we think about who are great workers are we're thinking about our early childhood care centers, our daycare providers, the our educational institutions . And we're really focusing in this case on the health centers and the medical staff associated with those organizations. We're also talking about local hospitals, urgent cares and the skilled nursing facilities who are working with our older adult residents. The we've been making daily calls and conducting ongoing in-person meetings with dozens of health care institutions, including acute care, urgent care, skilled nursing facilities, student health centers. And we're just making sure that they have the most up to date guidance. We've had two trainings at the Department for Health Care. Providers are coming in and we're training them. We have a website section specifically for providers on the COVID 19 website. We're sending out provider health alerts regularly, and we're triaging patients who may require testing. So the hospitals and providers are calling us. We're having conversations with them about whether the testing needs to occur or not. We're spending a lot of time making sure that the community is well-educated and understand what the issues are. So we've created the website Long Beach to go back to COVID 19, which is the central hub for all up to date information. We've also implemented a telephone line to respond to community questions and concerns. It's very specific to COVID 19. We continue to push out significant amounts of information across all different platforms. We have various graphics that are provided in several languages to help people understand the symptoms and also what steps they can take. We've also developed and disseminated videos to help deliver safety messages and to provide guidance. We have posters and if you're going online, you can see billboards across the city and electronic signs. We're in close contact to the news media to make sure that they're getting the right information out. We've livestream a press conference developed and disseminated educational information through the go a lot of each newsletter and been doing presentations we've done to community presentations so far and others are lining up quickly. We're focused very closely on our staff. We want to make sure that our staff are safe as well. So with that, the our our department has been working very hard to ensure that we're really make that that the staff understand the steps to take, that they have guidance, the staff are healthy and that they're supported. They've developed workplace safety measures and employee communications. To date, they've trained staff on personal protective information or sorry, personal protective equipment, which is otherwise known as PPE, including creating a video to help the ongoing training. They have developed guidance for when people walk in, they place additional hand sanitizers in city buildings where lots of or you'll find a lot of public interfacing. There are also signs throughout now the restrooms and the eating areas about hand-washing and illness prevention tips. They're also upgrading the cleaning and sanitizing of the public spaces in the city buildings. I've developed many different communication opportunities, the multifaceted approach. Some of these are in place already. The other ones are coming up. So I won't go through all of them. But you'll see there are many, many different ways that we are interacting with city employees so that they have updated information and they know the different steps to take. The communications to date include two bulletins to city employees. We provide a guidance to employees. There is a procedure, policy and procedure in the city. Policy Procedure 6.7, which is the Communicable Disease Prevention Program, provides a lot of guidance and steps for our employees. We've launched the city Internet website for employees, supervisors and managers, and the administrative officer meeting, which will be conducted tomorrow, will be training our ACOs in steps in how to work with other folks. In providing guidance to local businesses. This is all available on the websites. There is a specific link on the website for four different businesses food facilities, childcare providers, ticketed events so they can click there. We've also, the Environmental Health Department established a phone line dedicated to COVID 19 that's very specific for business questions. Airport is installed signage throughout the airport. Their hourly disinfecting and cleaning the the public areas. Providing information on social media outlets and on the website about the airport efforts and making sure that they're linking anybody to our website to make sure they have the most up to date information. And they're coordinating very closely with their airport partners who are communicating to us that they've stepped up their cleaning protocols in all of their respective locations. Work with the port and the cruise lines is really held with the Coast Guard and the CDC quarantine station, which has jurisdiction on international waters. The city health department and the incident management team has been coordinating closely with the CDC in the case of any medical illness, including suspect COVID 19. We're supporting in terms of if someone needs to go to a hospital, we support with the transportation, the connecting to medical services and others, as well as the testing and getting the information to the CDC. The Coast Guard has directed that cruise coming from ships coming from China will not disembark locally. And any crew members who may be ill are reported to the CDC and they go through the quarantine station there. Their state guidance developed by the Department of Public Health on on mass gatherings and large events. The guidance is really sort of. It increases protections and that it does it over time. It sort of says in this situation, it is where we are now, sort of be thinking about if you need to be if you need to be canceling events, be thinking about where people are coming from. Make sure that you're messaging people who are ill, that they should remain home. Make sure that if you're holding events, that there's plenty of things with soap, a lot of hand sanitizers and tissues, so that you're providing all the opportunity for people to stay healthy as the situation. If the situation and as the situation increases, what we may see is that these guidelines will increase as well. So guidelines increase protections and possibly closures based on different exposure levels. Many places are canceling events outside of the guidelines. At this time, we're not recommending cancelation, but this may change as the situation evolves. There's also guidance for schools and essentially in the current where we do not have any community community transmission, we would treat as as a person in a school who has who has been either traveled to one of the areas in the last 14 days or been in close contact with someone for COVID 19, that we'd ask that they stay away from school for 14 days, just as we would for anybody in the community. We ask the school, develop a plan to communicate with the school community and to really encourage all students, families and staff to take preventive actions if there are two or more cases of community transmission. Now we ask that teachers and staff self screen and that they don't work. They don't go to work if they have an upper respiratory infection, infection or other symptoms, that the possibility of limiting visitors to campus and staggering larger communal activities such as assemblies, lunchtimes, recess, those kinds of things . Um, in terms of school closures, you're hearing a lot about school closures around if there's one or more cases in a single school, then we ask that the school district work very closely with US public health officials to determine whether the closing that one school may be warranted. If there are one or more cases in multiple schools, then we'd ask that the school district work closely with us to determine the next steps and whether it makes sense to close which schools to close and and for how long. Upon any closure, school must have communication plans available for staff and community and consult with public health to determine when the school can reopen and when students can be allowed to return. Schools should do everything possible to ensure students and staff privacy to help prevent discrimination or unnecessary stigmatization. There's a real focus on older adults. We've held two meetings with health care facility staff, many of whom came from skilled nursing facilities that are serving older adults. We're providing CDC guidance for health care workers and facilities to the different facilities around the city. We're responding to skilled nursing facility questions, and we're supporting decisions that they're making sort of wherever we can support them. That is what we're in the process of doing. And then we're developing more general messaging for older adults in their community. You may also hearing be hearing a lot more about the possibility of COVID among people experiencing homelessness. The Homeless Services Division is working closely with the IMT and our Public Health Emergency Management Team to address the risk among people experiencing homelessness. The outreach teams are taking out all the fliers, having conversations with people, really letting them know what the symptoms are and then what to do if they start experiencing them. We have developed protocols for isolation and quarantine. Should we have a suspect case within an encampment? We've also identified locations for temporary housing individuals who otherwise don't have a place to self-isolate. The clinic at the Multi-Service Center is prepared to triage and support to determine if testing is needed moving forward. The NSC will provide maps for those demonstrating flu like symptoms while they're accessing services, and we're posting preventive measures at the NSC as well as providing them to all of our partners in the continuum of care. So the situation is ever changing as you've heard through this presentation. Recommendation, you know, if as things escalate, if they escalate recommendations for closures, cancelations, different policies, things like that may change. And so what we are reporting today is the status today. And we will be in constant communication with you and with our community as our teams prepare for the situations as they arise. So in the end, you know, we are we're encouraging kindness during this time. Well, our health care network really is working hard to make sure that everybody is healthy in the community. One of the most important things that we can do is to support each other. If you have family and friends that are elderly or they have underlying respiratory conditions, we encourage you to give them a call check in. You know, you just being on the phone, video chat, whatever it is, is really helpful. And also, just we encourage kindness. You know, one of the key factors. Kindness is one of the key factors in not spreading fear. Fear leads to misinformation. Fear leads to conclusions that may not be accurate, neither of which are helpful in this situation. So we ask that everybody be kind to each other. There's been quite a lot of stigma put on some of our community members who are perfectly healthy just because they came from a certain community or they look like a certain community or have a certain background or or they've traveled recently. And we want to make sure that that is not what we're being what's being held up now. And stigma is really not helpful to the health and support of our community at this time. So it does take all of us to stop the spread of this, the spread of this virus. And it really will take all of us to make sure that our information is accurate and that we're supporting our community. So with that, I turn I turn the presentation over to Tom Modica. Speaker 4: Thank you, Kelly. So as you can see. An incredible amount of work has happened in a very short amount of time to respond to this. I do want to talk a little bit about a couple of other things that are going on, including the emergency declaration. That's why we're here tonight. This has not been done in recent memory where we have the you know, the acting city manager declared the emergency under the code and then we bring that to you within seven days for ratification. So that is why we are here tonight. Under our code, we need to return every 14 days with that reaffirmation of the declaration. You do have the ability to waive that if we're in a more sustained area and you want to have a different schedule. But right now we are planning to come back every 14 days. What an emergency declaration allows us to do is it allows us to purchase quicker. We can waive certain internal rules as appropriate. We can hire quicker, bring on the staffing that we need, both city staff, and if we need some supplemental staff from, you know, from other firms. And we can. We also are sending a flag to our state and federal governments that we want to be eligible for reimbursement, that we are going to need some financial assistance. We are tracking specific costs associated with COVID 19. Right now, the financial impact is unknown. And I'm letting you know that we normally try to budget and plan in an emergency. We really just the primary mission is to is to solve the crisis. And so we are spending we are figuring those out. And I will come back to you with a recommendation that might result in release of emergency reserves or other types of reserves. And we will bring that back to you as we know more. And right now, we are at and we are hoping there's going to be monetary assistance, but that is unclear. We have had a federal bill passed. At this moment, we're going through that. It does not look like a huge sums of money. Moneys are coming to local jurisdictions. There may be some, but it is not enormous amounts. But we are closely following that. And so another thing that's happening is longer term planning, which you heard all right here, is really kind of the operational what is happening on a day to day basis and planning out, you know, seven days, 14 days ahead. But we also need to be thinking long term if this becomes a sustained scenario, we need to have what we call our continuity of government planning underway. These are things like how do we continue critical functions, the continued function of the Long Beach government? What about critical supplies and economic activity not just for the city organization but for the city as a whole? All departments are reviewing and updating their continuity of operations plans. We call those coop planning, and we're also starting to see some future financial impacts that may last for a while. Our hotel tax might be affected. Our oil prices we've seen oil prices take a significant dip in the last couple of days. The port relies on on shipping in a lot of the activity that is being sent over or a lot of the goods that are normally coming from China are not coming because their workers are not in their factories. I believe they're down approximately 10%. If the cruise line industry is disrupted, we rely on that cruise line revenue, airport revenue as well. And then, of course, you know, if any spending habits change in the general fund, that might be affected. In terms of the organization, I want to let you know that COVID 19 is at the highest priority in the organization right now, and we have the best people working on it. We have the right resources, but that also will result in a delay and reprioritization of other work and staff. And so I'd like you to know that that is happening. We are trying to still meet needs. We know we still need to continue our critical services. But we are reorienting and spending an enormous amount of time on preparation. We are asking for understanding from you as our policymakers and also from the community that some things may take us a little longer to get to. Staff fatigue will at some point become an issue. This the team is very upbeat and they're working really hard. But at some point you you start to see the stress that it takes to keep this level of engagement up. And so we will need longer term staffing, maintenance plans. There's still a lot of unknowns that we don't know that we need to react to, and we're going to have to adapt to those as they come up . And we will be making the best decisions based on the information available. And while that sounds simple, we're just not going to know everything to make every decision exactly 100% correct every single time. And so we will do our very best to make those decisions using the information that we have. The response has really been phenomenal and I am incredibly proud of our team's response. The communication has been incredibly quick. It's been proactive and coordinated so that we're getting accurate information out in a way that is very well coordinated. Our incident command structure has been established and has been highly productive. The dedication and commitment of the team has been impressive and a lot of them are here tonight. But there are many, many more that couldn't be with us tonight. We have significant coordination and collaboration and partnerships with our major entities. Our executive management is highly engaged. Our department directors and our executive team get together every single day to talk through some of the things that we need to do to be able to do and to plan and prepare. There are tough questions being posed and the team is asking those tough questions so that we can we can confront those issues and plan for them. We are scenario planning for multiple potential eventualities. And I also just really want to thank you for all of your support. We have very, very strong support from all of our elected leaders, from the mayor to the entire council. I do want to note that the mayor, council member, Urunga and council member Austin could not be here tonight. They had other commitments, but they are very much plugged in. We talk all the time on the phone. They they know what is going on in in in the city. And they're very much supportive and we appreciate their support. And so with that, we do have our experts standing by if there are any questions. And thank you for allowing the length of the presentation. I know it's a lot, but there's a lot to say. So thank you very much. Speaker 2: Thank you, Tom. Excellent report, both you. Very good. Now we have a few here, and the guys would like to ask some questions. Councilman Richardson. Speaker 3: Thank you, Vice Mayor. So, Tom, thanks for prioritizing this the way that you have. It's important that people know that the safety of residents, of our residents comes first. I have a number of questions, but I just want to say this is one of those moments where we're proud to have our own public health department here in the city, and we're also proud that we're not a contract city, that we can coordinate with our own police department and fire department and be able to be more nimble and respond. So I just have a few questions, and these are questions that have come up in the public and sort of, you know, our staff will quickly Google something or they'll look at what public health department has put out to find the answers. So my first question is, are we planning to have some level of training for outward facing staff like city council staff that can, you know, get them prepared or put the hotline in their email subject line, you know, what? What are we doing? What is going to do or whoever to train some of our staff? Speaker 4: Yes. So we've put out a lot of information to employees so that we are arming all 6000 of our employees with information. One just went out about half an hour ago about things that they need to know about coronavirus. We'd be certainly welcome to do additional training for those, especially in the council office, who get a lot of phone calls so we can come to the Chiefs of Staff meeting and provide that training. Speaker 3: Okay, great. Also, I know that you've through an emergency, you've set up your incident command. So who's who's the incident commander on this incident? Speaker 4: So health is the lead and so they are. When you look at an incident like that, it's not always going to be your police in charge of your fire or public works situation. Independence of health is the lead in terms of the IMT structure. We have police and fire both jointly leading that effort. They are the most practiced at incident command. There's a specific structure you use when you get into an incident like this to to make sure you're doing everything in a coordinated fashion. So it is health with police and fire supporting and the entire team helping out. Speaker 3: So it's commanders. Kelly, great. Kelly, the incident commander. Thank you. Speaker 10: Doctor Davis is the instructor. Speaker 4: Davis under excuse me, Dr. Helicopter. I know you wanted to name Dr. Davis. Speaker 3: Okay. Dr. Davis, my neighbor. Great. All right, I know where to go. All right. So I notice that there when we look at what happened in Washington, a lot of the fatalities were seniors and mostly at one convalescent home. Do we have a good list of the convalescent homes we have here in Long Beach? Speaker 10: We do have a good list, yes. And when we are connecting to all of them, providing guidance and support. Speaker 3: Great. I have a number of them. My district is just curious about that. I know that that it's shown that young people have been real resilient to this. I haven't seen very many cases where young people has our school district handling it. So you guys in communication. Speaker 1: Are and and they are planning and we're in very close communication with the school districts and with our local colleges. Speaker 3: Okay. Is there someone what about private the private schools and the private childcare area? Area schools, should they coordinate with us? Speaker 1: Yeah, we're working on that as well too. It's a little bit less centralized. I just want to speak to the senior population. We've actually had an ongoing relationship because of new other types of novel multi-resistant organisms that happen in health care facilities. So we've actually been working really closely. We have a close like a coalition with our sniffs that we had for skilled nursing facility, got it ready for over a year. So this was easy to kind of just continue the education and outreach because we already had established a relationship. Speaker 3: The name is pretty ironic given what we're dealing with. Okay. If we know somebody, a senior in the neighborhood, should we just go do a welfare check or should we call the hotline? If we wanted to check on a senior in the neighborhood. Speaker 10: I think you could you can reach out, do you know, find out how they're doing. It could be by telephone or or other ways where, you know, if they're ill, you don't want to walk to the front door necessarily. Speaker 3: But I was wondering was there was the practice is to call the hotline, call non-emergency? Can you do a welfare check on this person? Speaker 10: You'd have a just sort of checking into the neighbor. Or do you think that like you consider there there may be an issue and that we want to have somebody go and check. Speaker 3: You and I know let's just someone you is a neighbor thing you know so if. Speaker 1: You. Speaker 3: Call them in your neighborhood. Speaker 1: Right. So you're going to your neighbor's house if you want to just stand about six feet away from them. Okay. And with you, check them out. They're not sniffling. They're not sneezing or coughing. Right. Go ahead and engage a little bit further. Speaker 3: Okay. Got about 30 more seconds and get another question in. So I notice I go to the grocery store, I'm noticing people are buying up all the water and hand sanitizer, but the soap is all still there. No one's buying. So everyone's eyes energizer and water. Are we is our water demand? Our water is pretty safe to drink in Long Beach and I can't say that enough, but we engaged the water department to tell people you don't have to buy the water off the shelves. You can probably just you know, if you want to just stockpile water, you can use the Long Beach water. We engaging with the water department to get the message out. Speaker 4: Yes, we're talking to them. We can certainly enhance that message, though. That baffles me as well. Speaker 3: Thank you. I think I think I'm good. Speaker 2: Thank you very much. That's a comfortable price. Grace Pierce. Speaker 1: Thank you. Speaker 7: Thank you for the thorough presentation, as thorough it is as it was. Still have questions. We've had lots of people contact our office. My phone has blown up over the last three days. Let me ask just two clarifying questions for our hospitals and our health care facilities. Those are governed by the county, correct? Speaker 10: So the they're the private nonprofit hospitals, very current. So we only have one county clinic that is actually governed. All the licensing is done at the state level. Speaker 7: So I ask because I had people calling me asking us to enforce, you know, the number of mask and everything else at our hospitals. And I'm just curious the the city's role in that conversation, because I've heard that that standard has rolled back some of the standards because there's a lack of resources. Speaker 1: Right. So we're I would say we're the coordinator, so we're or a liaison with our area hospitals and we liaison with the area hospitals, the state, the federal government and our regional partners. So there's a lot of different avenues where personal protective equipment or PPE, including mask, comes from. It is in short supply. So there's a lot of different avenues that supply different parts. And so we just help coordinate that. So we're definitely prioritizing our health care facilities. So it's a lot of conversations, hard decisions and trying to link the facility with the right avenue, whether it's the Strategic National Stockpile or our regional partner or the state, because there's cash is sort of everywhere. Okay. Speaker 7: And when we talk about resources, like if there's a shortage, it's not necessarily that the funding isn't there yet. It's just that there's a shortage. Speaker 1: There is an actual shortage. Many of these things are made in China. So there's a supply chain issue there. They're not making it. And then what they are making, they're keeping for themselves because they were the epicenter of the outbreak. Speaker 7: I don't know. And this might be an economic development question. I don't know if we have paper companies in the in the city of Long Beach or any companies in Long Beach that maybe could quickly kind of try to assist. That wasn't I wasn't planning on asking that question. But as we're having the conversation, I was like, that might be interesting. Speaker 1: Would be there's lots of regulations. Speaker 7: On how that's helpful. So I guess the other question that came up is outside of quarantining people in their home, quarantining people in hospitals, a facility like ours where we are, we employ 6000 people, not all in this building are we looking at local other places to do quarantine if that becomes a crisis. Speaker 10: City has identified three quarantine sites in city. If someone does not want to quarantine at home, so certainly someone can quarantine at home. But if they choose not to, then we are working on we have identified three other sites as possibilities if we get to that situation. Speaker 7: Okay. And now down to the individual. So I'm not going to call anybody out, but there's somebody that I know that lives with someone who has a high fever and a cough and they refuse to go and try to get medical assistance. Are there phone apps? I know that they can call in. I mean, some people aren't calling in. Some people just kind of refusing to go through that process. Are there simple ways that they can have an online doctor or somebody else visit them? Speaker 1: So we recommend if they have a provider that they call the provider, if they have symptoms, we actually don't want sick people. If they don't really need to go to the doctor, to go to the doctor just to try to keep pass to prevent spread. So definitely video. There's video health and there's telehealth. Speaker 7: Are there those services say they they don't have a regular provider like. Is there a way for the city to promote those types of services to say instead of just calling? Because I also have heard, you know, you hear lots of horror stories and it might just be one, but one story was somebody called our hotline and had, you know, that they had just traveled from Korea or somewhere and they were told to check in with their provider. They called our health department and they said, Oh, you're fine. And maybe they were fine. But I just want to make sure that we have as many options as possible for somebody that really feels like they need to be seen to to be seen without feeling like they're discouraged. Speaker 1: Right. So we we can do some more messaging around that. We are doing a lot of training. We have a lot of people who are talking with our community members. So we try to give the best advice. That's also, you know, working with what they desire and what their goals are. Speaker 7: It would be great to see some more messaging around the different ways to do that. Give me one 1/2. So Kleenex versus elbow, have we changed or is that four? Is that always that? I forget used to be like cough into your your elbow. Speaker 1: Kleenex would probably be number one. You can throw it away. Elbow would be number two. Just wanted to double check. It's like. Speaker 7: Is that changed recently? Speaker 1: The big thing is just trying not to do it right into your hands. Right, right, right, right, right. Speaker 2: And you can. Speaker 7: Oh, my time is up. Speaker 8: Yes, I will keep it up. Speaker 1: All right. Speaker 2: Yes, you can go out and. Or you. He came back. You could. Speaker 3: Yeah. Just queued up just talking to these last two questions and. Speaker 2: Keep on. Speaker 3: Going. Okay. So cert emergency response team. Are we doing a primer? We Telenor. We got hundreds of cert trained folks. I'm one of them in the city who probably want to, you know, roll up their sleeves and get get engaged and they. So Mr. City Manager, we thought about doing a primer, sending some communications out to cert to make sure they know what to do. Speaker 4: Yes. So we will certainly do that. So we're we didn't talk about some of the other communications that we're doing. We're looking at in this first tranche was really getting prepared, was really putting out current information as the team's able to transition to putting out a lot more information do we're going to know we're going to get requests from different community groups to come talk to them. We're looking at things like telephone town halls so that we can reach thousands and thousands of people on the telephone all at the same time engaging those types of groups. Speaker 3: I would love to do it. And telephone town hall on this. This is great. And then the last thing I'll say is I've been hearing about all the major impacts of the economy, particularly tourism. I'm curious to know what the impact is with our convention center. And is there anything that we could do from, you know, assuring people that things are okay or, you know, I don't know. I'm not sure. But is there anything that we could be doing to help support our convention center? Speaker 4: So, yes, we are in constant contact with the convention center. They have had certain events canceled, just like nationwide, where the the promoter has decided not to do it. And those tend to be ones where they're bringing people in from all over the country, including overseas. They've also had very successful conventions continue to be held at the convention center. So I think you heard, Kelly, at our current phase, we are not saying that all major events need to be canceled. You know, that might change in the future. And we are seeing certain ones change, but that'll be all situational dependent. Our convention visitors bureau is they for example, on over the weekend we had that, you know, potential with the cruise line industry where 4500 people were, you know, still on their boat and 4500 people were coming on to their boat. The Convention and Visitors Bureau was a huge help in getting people into hotels and accommodating all of all of that group. So they are letting us know we're going to be sitting down with them more and talking about what can we do to be to be supportive. Just internally, we're like we just had a, an item at the convention center internally staff. We decided to keep it. We weren't going to cancel anything. We had all of our management team and we said we're going to go and be at the convention center because we think that that's important. Speaker 3: Okay. So okay, great. Well, thank you all. I think, you know, in watching how the cities respond to crises, Dr. Davis, incident Commander Davis, I think you've been very calm and clear. Vice Incident Commander Modica I think you've been very calm and clear and it's been really good and paying attention. Thank you so much. Speaker 2: Councilwoman Soprano. Speaker 3: Thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor. I just wanted to clarify an issue that Tom Mulcair brought up and that this is ratifying an emergency order. That's the process we're in tonight. And that required a supplemental agenda item on Friday, and that requires three signatures from council members. So I'd like to thank my council colleagues who joined me on Friday. That's Councilwoman Pryce and Vice Mayor Dave Andrews for allowing us to do this tonight. I also like to mention a couple of folks as part of the team, and the first is Jake Heflin. I don't know if any of you saw the videos, but that was amazing. Jake, thank you for that. I know Jake's background and he has this experience actually in Native American communities. So, Jake, you did a just a great job and thank you also for those you don't know. We do have an employee in the city of Long Beach whose title is Communicable Disease Controller, and her name is only Holman. She's a fourth District resident. Don't worry, Emily, I'm not going to ask you to get up the podium tonight, but she has graciously accepted our invitation to speak at our regularly scheduled community meeting for the fourth District. And that will be two weeks from tomorrow night, March 25th, at the Los Altos Library at 5 p.m.. So thank you. Speaker 2: Thank you, Councilman. You know, Councilman Pearce. Speaker 7: Thank you. I was going to follow up on the economic question, so thank you for asking the questions about the Convention Center. I, I think that I've had a lot of questions with our debate around not canceling events, but planning events. And so I know that some of the reports have come out that the cases in China have started to taper off. What do we tell our folks are like, should I plan an event that's in three months? What's the city's role going to be? If we do permits, they raise money and they have to cancel. Are we thinking economic development and ways to assist organizations that might be doing big events? Speaker 4: So that's still in the pending column. So we we are looking yeah, we are looking at events of we look at them first from a safety perspective. So is it safe to do it? So in a lot of these we don't look at the financial perspective. We say is is it a safety thing? So we we are going to have some decisions coming up about, you know, certain events that are planned. Of course, the event promoters at any time can decide what they want to do with their event. But the city at some point may need to make decisions whether, you know, whether we're going to allow those events to continue or not. And so, again, as of today, we are we are not at that point, given what we know. But those are questions we'll be working with our city attorney to and an economic development. If there's anything we can do. Speaker 7: Great. And if we get some guidelines as to are you considering planning an event, here's what you should consider. Here's what the process might look like with our economic development team. I think that that would help a lot of the big events because we're we're going into summer, we're going into the biggest event season where our downtown is typically packed, our waterfronts typically packed. And I think there's a lot of concerns I'm not going to suggest this today, but I think it's really important that we recognize that there are cities this week that have put on eviction moratoriums because people have been quarantined. I think Italy put a was something that you homeowners pay a mortgage a mortgage moratorium because they are having such economic impact. So just things down the road to think about. And, you know, I think everybody the full team, I know that it's taken a lot of work. I know that the port, when I think about economic development, obviously if things are stopping coming from China, one of our biggest exporters, that's something I'm very concerned about. And if you have one last comment on that, I'd like to hear I know that it was in the presentation, but just how do we feel? Speaker 4: So I can't really speak to the forecast. We do know that there as I think the port reported today or yesterday, that it's been about a 10% decline in actual output when you look from year last year to year this year. And a lot of that has to do with that. There just isn't production in China right now. They they really are in a phase where they are shutting down. It depends on how soon they're going to get back to that and how whether they're going to be shipping the materials again. You know, we look at that from a financial standpoint a couple of different ways. One is the impact on our economy. One in every five jobs is related to the port. So that's something we pay attention to. The port does have very significant cash reserves. So from a financial perspective on the port, they would be okay. And then we also look at it from a tidelands perspective because they do transfer 5% of their gross to Long Beach, but that would be or two to the city. But that would be a future impact that happens in about a year to two years from now. Speaker 7: Right. Thank you. So thank you, everybody on the team that's been working on this. And I think that any of us council members here would have gladly signed on for an emergency item to be heard. So really appreciate all the efforts. Thank you. Speaker 2: Thank you. Fine. I do have any public comment on this item. CNN. Speaker 0: There is one public comment on this. Speaker 2: Item that come up. Speaker 0: Wesley Kocher. Speaker 3: Hello, counsel. So I just wanted to speak on the coronavirus a little bit. I know that you guys said that we've declared a public emergency, but for us at Cal State, Long Beach, life life seems to have continued as normal. We've been told to stay home if we're sick or wash our hands if a little bit more. But it's not really something you'd expect from a public health emergency. And Tim says we've had a phenomenal response in China. They've crippled their economy. They have armed guards outside of apartment buildings doing temperature checks. Italy has also been on quarantine, and I'm not suggesting that we should do anything that dramatic. I'm just saying that we should be offered a chance to protect protect ourselves by making California State University Long Beach online only until the end of the semester, like many other universities have done. Universities like Harvard, USC and Stanford. Now I understand why a lot of us aren't taking this super seriously. And I wouldn't blame you because we only have, what is it, three infections and no deaths. So while that might not seem super serious, I would just point out to you that the United States has only tested less than 5000 people, while South Korea has tested 140,000. In Italy, over 10,000. We're a port city and an airport. And so while it is largely possible that this virus may just be a slightly worse version of the flu, it is also quite a large possibility that it may be super serious. So in the event of that possibility, I would just like to go on record here in Long Beach and for my fellow 40 Niners and just say that me, Leslie, Utah, I warned you guys when it comes to senior centers, I work at a skilled nursing facility and we're doing temperature checks at the door, which I think need to be taken a little bit more seriously because while while we have implemented them, there are people giving other people passes and stuff. And I'm I'm not going to get too much into it, but I just want to say that I hope that we will take this more seriously. And thank you for listening to me. Speaker 2: Hmm. Thank you. Anyone. Speakers. So, you know, would you please cast your vote? Now we move to item 27.

Resolution

Recommendation to adopt resolution to ratify the City Manager's Proclamation of Local Emergency and ratify the Long Beach Health Officer's Declaration of Local Health Emergency regarding the serious and imminent threat of an outbreak of novel coronavirus (COVID-19). (Citywide)

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_02182020_20-0159

Speaker 0: Let's give them a round of applause. Thank you very much for being here. We are now continuing on the agenda. We're going to move up and go to item 17, please. Speaker 1: Adam, 17, is communication from City Attorney Recommendation to Adobe resolution expressing intent to prioritize spending of the transient occupancy tax increase for specific purposes. If approved by the voters in the March 30, 2020 special election. City Wide. Speaker 0: Thank you. I'm just going to do a couple of opening comments and then I have some public comment. I just want to again add and say that I was really proud to work with all of our arts organizations in the city, as well as our Convention and Visitors Bureau to propose, measure, be on the ballot that the Council unanimously put on the ballot. Measure B is a transformational measure that, of course, does two things. One is it provides stable and consistent funding for all of our major arts organizations in the city, museums, theater groups, and of course, supports the Arts Council in a much larger way, which will then give us the ability to also support artists smaller grants, mural programs, community art and and other purposes. In addition, it also provides stable annual funding to make upgrades to the Convention and Visitors Center, which of course is the home of many of these arts organizations as well. And so that was that is Measure B, and what you have in front of you is a resolution that, of course, as we know, we adopted one of these as well for for Measure A, and we did that when we passed Measure A the first time as well. And so there is a motion and a second. But I want to ask Kelly Lucero, Steve Goodling and Cantrell, Karen Deci and Paul Garmon all to come forward in that order, please. Kelly Lucero, Steve Goodling and Cantrell, Karen Deci and Paul Garment to please come to the mike in that order. So, Sarah. Speaker 2: Miss Kelly Lucero and president of the Long Beach Symphony. And on behalf of the Symphony's Board of directors, we urge you to adopt the resolution before you, which prioritizes spending of the funds that would result from the total increase. Funding will support the Symphony's inclusion and diversity activities by providing increased arts education programs in schools and after schools and on the weekends for all residents. We are deeply, deeply grateful to the Mayor and the City Council for your visionary support the city's arts organizations, artists, cultural programs and education. This action is unprecedented and it's extraordinary. And I've never been more proud to be a 33 year resident of this great city. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you, Mr. Sarah. Mr. Goodling. Speaker 3: Mayor, Council, also city manager. I, first of all, thank you for getting us this far. And last summer, I had the privilege of talking with the hoteliers individually. And they all said, Steve, we agree this would be a great thing for the city to help continue our arts programing, many of which use the convention center, continue to create this core vibrant area, but also some of the others like the museums and musical theater west further out. In addition, a study was recently completed by the city. An independent study 55 million is needed to take care of old mechanical that is 60 years old that we can't buy replacement parts for anymore. And so some of this money, sadly there won't be enough of it will help to defray and take some of that onus off of the back so that we can buy replacement parts, repair chillers and things like that. So it's a win win. And Mayor, thank you for champing this and the city council, thank you for your support of this. And to all of you, it's it really is a game changer for for the city. So thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you. Mr. Goodwin. Miss Cantrell. Speaker 2: Good evening. And Cantrell. And I wholly support the use of this hotel tax. However, I wish you had put in the measure that this extra 1% will go to the arts, will go to art education. As I read it, it says May and that all of this money goes into the general fund, just like the 10.25% sales tax does. And it's at the pleasure of the mayor and the council as to how it's spent. And I hope that when you come to budget time, you'll remember your pledge to all of these organizations that this money will be spent on the arts. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you, Ms.. Control. And I think like we passed the measure of resolution. That's why we're passing the Measure B resolution so that all the funds get spent where the resolution asked them to be spent. And so that's what that's what this agenda item is all about. So thank you, Mr. Simon. Speaker 4: Hi, I'm Karen Deci, artistic director, producer of International City Theater. Speaker 2: Honorable Mayor and City Council persons, too. It's a pleasure to be here and share. Speaker 4: This request with you. I was asking. Speaker 2: That you pass the resolution. Speaker 4: Which is a positive step in this city's evolution. Speaker 2: A priority to the. Speaker 4: 1% total increase it provides. Speaker 2: For arts. Speaker 4: Culture, education, ah, youth. And besides, it will allow for improvements that are now beyond reach at our. Speaker 2: In-Demand convention center. Speaker 4: The Pride of Long Beach. Speaker 2: Please give this resolution your. Speaker 4: Positive. Speaker 2: Affirmation. Thank you for listening and for your consideration. Speaker 0: Thank you so much, Mr. Paul Garment. Speaker 3: Paul Graham is executive director, producer for Musical Theater West. I'm going to let the kids speak for themselves. We reach about 17,000 kids, both bringing them into the theater at the Carpenter Performing Arts Center and going into schools, libraries and parks in each one of the nine city council districts. This is after our pioneers of flight tours, which toured for two different weeks this past year. And it talks about the evolution of flight and aviators, and particularly women and African-American aviators. I just want to thank you for everything you do. This was an amazing show that you put on for us. I liked all of you guys singing voices. It was so cool that you have amazing voices. You guys taught me so much how to accomplish all my dreams and goals, even though I'm going through some tough things right now. I just want to thank you in case because I earned so I learned so many new things that we don't have to listen and give up. We can keep on going and don't let people tell it. Get into your dreams. Thank you for setting up this show and for all the work. It was so fun and cool and creative and she was a third grader at Fremont Elementary School to musical theater. Wes, thank you for showing us the music and how fun it was to watching it. I hope we get to do it again. He came to see Carmody and I am thanking you for paying for the tickets and for our busses. And I'm so thankful because that was the kind of the show. It was so kind of you. Your show was great. It had lights plus music, plus characters, and it was all my people and it was all on stage. My favorite part was when we met Jim met his neighbor and a teacher that's a friend of his when he moved to a new house to do some hard work. This is from a special ed kid that the teacher said has refused to do any paperwork for six months. And this is the first thing he'd written. So arts education in the school is so important. Musical theater was totally supports it. I urge you all to as well. Thank you so much. Speaker 0: Thank you so much, Mr. Garman and Adam. And our final speaker is Miss Griselda Swartz. Speaker 4: Good evening, Mayor and council members. Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having us here tonight. I want to start by relaying a message from one of our third graders at Edison Elementary. When we went in with our arts, education, supplies and lessons and curriculum. After the third week, these this third grader said this is better than recess. And so this is. Speaker 4: The kind of impact that not only the. Speaker 2: Arts Council of many of our partners that are here with us. Speaker 4: Tonight do in our classrooms. Speaker 2: Many of us serve the schools that don't have arts curriculum in their classrooms. And so supporting arts education and dedicating these funds to our arts organizations, our artist and our performing arts is so such an important part of our city fabric. It really lets students know that their expression is important and their freedom of expression is important, and they can become civically engaged through that expression. So thank you so much for your support and for voting. Speaker 4: On this measure. Speaker 0: Thank you very much. Thank you for that. That concludes public comment. And I have a motion and a second councilmember pearce. Speaker 5: Thank you. I want to thank everybody for coming out today. Thank the mayor again for your leadership on this and the council members that worked on this. I have a couple of quick, brief questions similar to what I asked last time. Obviously, I fully support this. Last time this item was here shared some stats about how arts can really improve everything from science to math. I think it's a great program. Can you just share for us the next step? So today we're doing a resolution just on broad spending. But what that next step is when we kind of hone in on a spending plan. Speaker 0: I can share with I can I can answer that question. Sure. I think, Councilman, I think what we've been working on with staff is that similar to how the measure process went, the resolution was adopted. And then at some point in the near future, the as we did for Missouri, when the infrastructure plan came forward and there was an actual adoption by the council as to what projects and the amounts that will also a similar proposal from staff will come forward based on the resolution and the conversations with the Arts Council and the arts groups. And so that will be voted on by the council at some point in the weeks ahead. Speaker 5: Great. And I asked that question just because the conversation that we had last time also was around equity and making sure that we are looking at all the arts organizations, everything from music to painting to mural work and making sure that we are sharing this great new resource with all the organizations that do different types of art , as well as ensuring that kids from our entire city get to benefit. One of the things we talked about last time was the equity toolkit. And I know that we've passed that as a as a council. We haven't had a presentation on it fully. But I would love if staff could work using that toolkit as they're thinking about those funding priorities. And think about that as you guys give that presentation to us. Speaker 0: Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Mongo. Speaker 6: Supporting this is just something that's so meaningful. I think it's important for us to keep in perspective what a small amount of money and a small percentage is going to go and how far it's going to go. I also think it's important that there's a lot of misinformation out there. Even tonight, someone said that 10.2% goes into the general fund, but actually only 2% of your 10.5% goes to Long Beach at all. And so I think it's just important that we keep everyone focused on what good things this could do for Long Beach kids. Speaker 2: Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you. And Councilman Price. Speaker 4: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I want to thank the Council for consideration of this topic, and I want to thank everyone for coming out tonight in support of it. I have been a huge supporter of this concept from the outset, and I thank the mayor for his leadership in this regard. And I am pleased to see some of the organizations that are called out specifically in the resolution. I think many of these organizations represent the heart of the arts, community and culture in the city of Long Beach. But in addition, I know there are a lot of other great organizations that would fall into, for example, the local museums and theaters. Language that's in here. So our ranchos are beautiful museums that celebrate the history of the city of Long Beach. We have a lot of local theaters that are, you know, smaller, a functioning playhouses where folks get an opportunity to get exposure to the arts that they otherwise might not have. And they're trying to establish themselves. And and so I think this is fantastic. And I'm going to be not only voting in favor of this tonight, but personally, my family and I are going to be very supportive of of of this measure and look at the thoughts behind this measure and ensuring that the moneys that are collected with this measure, should it should it come to fruition, will be used in an appropriate manner. That's something that I intend to stay very connected on. So I thank you, Mr. Mayor, for this opportunity. Speaker 0: Thank you. And then as I closing, we go to the vote. I just want to add and I said this earlier, that the the the what this resolution really calls for is really historic funding for our arts organizations that have traditionally provided enormous amounts of arts education exhibits, performances across the city. This resolution calls for what would be the most public funding the city has ever contributed to our arts organizations in the modern history of the city of Long Beach. And so we are absolutely. So when you talk when you talk about public funding of the arts, which is a absolute must, this this resolution is speaks to a historic level of funding that the city has never provided in the past. And so if voters obviously choose to adopt this and this resolution is in place, I think this council should should feel very, very, very good about this really historic step for the city and a transformational opportunity for all of these organizations. I will also add that it's not just these organizations that are traditional larger arts groups, but I will add that the Arts Council, which is the really provider of funds and support for all of our smaller organizations, will also be receiving a significant boost in funding through this resolution. And so for those of us that support our mural programs and our small artists programs and cultural programing and these organizations that might be looser in nature, those will be funded also at historic levels as part of of of this resolution. And so thank you to all the arts groups that are here. Members, please go ahead and cast your votes. Speaker 1: Motion carries. Speaker 0: Thank you. And thank you all for for being out here this evening. We've had a request to move up item 23, which is, I believe, a reading of the ordinance that was adopted at the last meeting. And so we will do that.

Resolution

Recommendation to adopt resolution expressing intent to prioritize spending of the Transient Occupancy Tax ("TOT") increase for specific purposes, if approved by voters in the March 3, 2020 Special Municipal Election. (Citywide)

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_02182020_20-0158

Speaker 0: All right. Thank you very much. Moving on to the rest of the agenda, we're going to we're going to jump to item item 16, which is a report on the African-American Cultural Center, which is is is very exciting. And then we're going to go back to the regular agenda and started item 14. Mr. Vice Mayor, I'll be. Speaker 1: Item six in his communication from Councilman Austin, Vice Mayor Andrews and Council Member Richardson. Recommendation to request City Manager to provide a report on the progress towards establishing an African American cultural center in Long Beach. Speaker 3: Can we get a second person? Anita? Oh, fine. Speaker 8: Thank you, Vice Mayor. So this is a effort that the city council was previously given direction on back in 2018. And so we've been doing a number of work over the last two years. It's been led by our deputy city manager, Kevin Jackson, and he's prepared to give a brief report of the activities that we have been working on. Speaker 3: Okay, great. Thank you, Tom. Good evening, Mayor and Council. It's our pleasure to provide an update on the city's work on the African-American Culture Center of Long Beach Initiative. I would first like, if we're getting into presentation, I first like to acknowledge the city managers team that have been dedicated to working on this project for the last 18 months. We have Tracy Willunga, our chief innovation officer, and Alvin Tang, planning and analyst in Development Services, who is a management assistant in the city manager's office at the time that he spent working on this project. They did significant work throughout this 18 month project process, spanning, investing, a lot of technical expertize, but as well as relating to the community in a very impactful way. So just a little bit of background. On February 20th, 2018, City Council directed the city manager to work with community stakeholders to identify potential sites for an African-American cultural center. Three months later, city staff provided an inventory of potential sites, but also recommended further exploration, with a subject matter expert experience in the development of cultural center facilities, as well as some robust community outreach to engage the community. On September 4th, 2018, as part of the Fy19 budget process, the City Council allocated $50,000 in one time funds to support planning and outreach efforts for an African-American cultural center. So in response to the authorization of the funding, city staff implemented a community visioning process in partnership with two consultants and community stakeholders spanning from January, January to November 2019. The process had two parallel components supported by the contracted consultants. One was a comprehensive and inclusive community engagement process to gather and synthesize input from the African-American community and all of its supporters in Long Beach. This process was facilitated by environment, architecture, a local architectural firm and with the support of Tasha Hunter of Hunter Wiggins Consulting and president of the Long Beach Arts Council. The other contracting consultant supported the institutional development process and this was the second component where the Community Advisory Committee was convened to develop an operating vision for the cultural center informed by the community input and subject matter experts. This process was facilitated by Lord Cultural Resources, an international organization with experience in developing African-American cultural centers and museums across the United States. From February to June 2019, the Community Engagement Team of Environment Architecture, Wiggins, Wiggins, Hunter Consulting Group worked with city staff to solicit input from community members. Over 250 individuals participated in this process through three community roundtables in north, central and west Long Beach. Seven focus groups with the civic organizations, and 18 stakeholder interviews with prominent members of the community. Surveys were also distributed and made available online and for additional input. Participants were asked for ideas on locations, exhibits, programs and classes, facilities and as well as cost of entry. The more details on the methods and findings of the community engagement process could be found in the community. The Full Community Engagement Report, which is available online. The city's website. From January to November of 2019, the city manager's office convened a facilitated monthly meetings of the African-American Cultural Center Community Advisory Committee. This committee was comprised of key African-American leaders and stakeholders and was co-chaired by Ms.. Max Wiltz of Village Treasures and Earl Parker of Success and Challenges. There were 38 committee members that participated, including 22 voting members. Lower Cultural Resources conducted an informal informational sessions on museum creation, curation and operations and case studies of African-American museums and cultural centers across the world, as well as best practices for organizational development. On June 25th, Lower Cultural Resources facilitated a final workshop, which was a vision confirmation workshop, where the committee members synthesize input from the community engagement process to inform the development of a preliminary institutional business plan. This plan, drawing from a study of market and demographic realities of Long Beach, recommends a site at a maximum of 40,000 square feet, and with space a 40,000 square feet of space, an annual operating budget of $2.2 million, and a staff of 17 full time employees to serve an estimated 60,000 visitors annually. The full preliminary institutional business plan can be found on the city's website as well. So some key milestones throughout the process. Throughout this past year, the advisory committee worked to develop an independent organization that will carry on the work of creating an African-American cultural center. This was one of the challenges at at the beginning of the process we did there was not an actual organization for us as a city staff to work with. And so the process itself worked to build the capacity to achieve this result. City staff worked with the Committee to learn from other cultural institutions as well, such as the Museum of Latin American Art, the Long Beach Museum of Art, Aquarium of the Pacific, Queens Historical Society and the Universal Hip Hop Museum. The committee worked with city staff to receive updates on potential properties from the city's potential properties that are available that could be available for the effort from city staff as well. As part of the organization's development effort. Throughout the process, the committee developed the perspective that they needed to form a develop a mission statement. And this was a significant milestone for the group. It reflected the cohesion that was built over the course of several months for the group to independently decide that they were ready to create an organization. And they started with establishing a the mission statement that's reflected on the screen. And they also pursued the development of a nonprofit organization by executed in IMO Youth with the Long Beach Education Foundation, adoption of organizational bylaws, election of a board of Directors and officers and successful applications for nonprofit status. Going forward. The African-American Culture Center of Long Beach Organization is committed to pursuing institutional, continued institutional, programmatic and fund development, as well as the identification of appropriate sites for the establishment of the center. As of January 2020, the City of Long Beach has transitioned from a leadership and a facilitation role to more of an advisory role. We look forward to continue to support this community driven organization in any way we can. And to conclude my remarks, I'd like to thank the Mayor and City Council for your ongoing support for this effort. Also, I'd like to thank the city managers team that invested a lot of time and effort to ensure the success of this work. I'd also like to thank the African-American Community Center Steering Committee members for their hard work and significant civic commitment to attend countless meetings to move the project forward. I'd like to also express my appreciation to Alan Burke and Tasha Hunter for leading the community engagement strategy and final report. And again, I'd like to acknowledge Lord Cultural Services for working closely with our committee and the community to develop the preliminary business plan that will offer foundational support for the future efforts of the African-American Cultural Center in Long Beach. This concludes my report, and we'll be happy to take any questions you may have. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilman Austin. Speaker 9: Thank you. And thank you, Mr. Jackson, in the city manager's office for your great report. I think this is very comprehensive. Certainly, you took a lot of my talking points. Thank you very much. But it did did really take us back the last over the last, particularly in the year and a half of work, great work, great collaborative and inclusive work by members of the community who I certainly feel a lot closer to today. I know a lot better. And and I appreciate this this effort was is not something that we take lightly, because for several decades now that I've been in Long Beach, there's been a lot of discussion about the creation of for a center or place or space that recognizes and honors the significant contributions of of blacks and African-Americans in our city and country. And so in 2018, as was mentioned, we brought this issue forward and it was received with great support and enthusiasm from the community, the task force, the many folks who contributed to that task force. It should not be taken lightly. They came from every corner of the city. And the results tonight, I think, represent a lot of their great input and vision. The the focus on this project is, and I believe it is, a legacy project, not only for me personally, but many people in the audience who are participating in this , but also for this council, because it will will be a significant step forward. As we spoke earlier about our great appreciation for art and culture here in the city, this is just one extra piece that will certainly recognize a significant portion and bring a level of pride to a significant population of our city. 13% of our city is identifies as black or African-American. I want to also just just emphasize the the work toward developing that foundation and organization. I think it's very important to recognize that this group recognized some shortfalls. We we we had great consultants. We had great data. We we got a lot of good information. But to recognize and realize this vision, we needed to put together a real organization, a nonprofit status that could go out and do the development work. And that has been done. And I wonder, want to salute those who stepped up in our community, pillars in our community who are leading this process as we speak and as we move forward. And so, that said, I want to recognize the new chair of the AA LCB, as we call the LCB, African-American Cultural Center of Long Beach, where newly elected chair Dr. Felton Williams. But I also want to thank Max Bills and Errol Parker for leading and co-chairing our task force and really leading a a difficult process for the last year and a half. They really put their hearts, but they were the right people for the job at the time because it required steady hands and steady minds and and individuals who were respected and command respect of of everyone in our community. And so their work should not be taken for granted. And obviously, Tasha Hunter and everyone did a great job of helping to facilitate the community outreach portion. So I look forward to continuing this work and actually making this vision a reality. As you mentioned, a 40,000 square foot facility with a operating budget of $2.2 million is going to take a lot of development work and their commitments are already coming in and an aggressive plan to get us there. And so with that, thank you for the report and I look forward to hearing from the public as well. My colleagues. Speaker 0: Thank you, councilman. Councilman in the house. Speaker 4: I just want to say a big congratulations. It's so awesome to have a center like this in our city. I think it's been well overdue. But I'm very happy that it's coming to us. And just congratulations to all of you who worked very, very, very hard to to make this happen. And I'm super proud to be supporting this. Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilman Mongo. Speaker 6: I am so proud of my colleagues. I remember when Councilmember Austin and Councilmember of Vice Mayor Andrews at the time, Councilmember brought this forward for budget oversight committee consideration. And I think it was very thoughtful and methodical. And you guys have continued to be a champion for this. And I think that it is meaningful. I've heard excitement in the community from members who have taken part in a process that was very transparent and inclusive. Congratulations on a process. Will be on. Speaker 0: Thank you. Councilmember Pierce. Speaker 5: Thank you. I want to congratulate everybody that's worked on this, particularly the community members that really put their heart and soul into it. I know as a community organizer trying to get to a destination that you haven't yet defined fully with, the group of people that share varied interests can be tough, but it also is what builds the fabric of our community. And so I, I know that when the center is finally open, that it will be a place that you really feel the soul of Long Beach. So thank you guys for your commitment. Speaker 0: Thank you. Vice Mayor Andrews. Speaker 3: Yes, thank you, Mayor. This is one time that I look at this and say, how long that long? But this is one time. I think this is something that's been long, long overdue. And the individuals who have kind of spearheaded this is just letting everyone know that this will come to fruition. And I just want to thank everyone who's put all their effort, you know, energy into this. And it's going to be a wonderful thing for, I think, not only for African-Americans, but for everyone to know that we have an African-American culture here in the city of Long Beach. And I think it's going to just resonate all over the country. And again, I want to thank those individuals who've gotten so much time and energy put into this. And again, I want to thank also Kevin, Evan and Tracy, because this has been a long, long process. But, Mr. Austin, I think you guys have really we've hit it on the nail this time, so get ready for this project we're getting ready to put together and everyone better come and see it and put your money. And that's what it's all about. We got to have money. So thank you guys again so much for being a part of this project. Speaker 0: Thank you. And Councilman Price. Speaker 4: Thank you. I too want to congratulate staff for getting us this far. This is excellent. And to my colleagues who have been championing this effort and I think this is a fantastic development, I look forward to the next steps and the partnerships and collaborations that will be had in that process and really elevating the city even further in terms of all our cultural diversity. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilor Marengo. Speaker 3: Thank you. And I, too, want to lend my congratulations to the staff and to all the community representatives that were working on this very worthwhile project. Congratulations to a board member Williams and to Felton and to Max. You're individuals that I have had many years of being able to work with, with you, looking forward to working further with you. I did go to two or three of these workshops that you that you had where I participated in with you. But I also want to let you know that if not maybe present when major bypasses, I'm sure that this item will be on the radar for funding as well. So I'm sure that while you kick off your capital program as a council member and vice chair, Andrew said, it's you know, you've got to get some money and I know you're going to start building your capital program for that. And I'm sure that once Measure B is in place that there will be another avenue by which we can find this program and get it going. And as any city see is based on not only its abilities to keep its people safe and moving, but also by the arts and what it has to offer for its citizens . So thank you very much putting this forward. Speaker 0: Thank you. With that, we have two members of the public. As soon I can fee and trust 100, please come forward. Speaker 7: You got something to say, Larry, about this? No. Okay. I didn't think so. My name is and I can't fake two string. I just want to say that it's been an honor and privilege to attend the meetings in regards to the formation of the We'll be the African-American Cultural Center. It was great to see a lot of the elders of my community come from a spectrum of perspectives and ideologies coming together and, you know, communing for a common need, which is something that is lacking in the city, which is the center. And I'm just very fortunate to have been able to attend some of these meetings, and primarily thanks to Mr. Hundred behind me and hit me up to, you know, show up. And so here I am showing up. And when this was first introduced to the city council, I told my councilman, I think Councilman I know Vice Mayor , the Andrews. I think that there was a five, $5,000 pledge. Okay. Well, I don't know if you guys paying attention to the news, but, you know, Tesla stock has gone up. I was a very early investor in it. So and it is Black History Month. So let's make it ten. I got $10,000 is being held in the walk by the walkers right now. So you got to go farmers immersion if you want to get to it. But I'll give $10,000 with one. Can I put a little, uh, what do you guys call it? A friendly if it's in the sixth, otherwise it's going to say five. But if it's in the sixth, I'll put ten out 10,000. That's. I think you. Speaker 0: Thank you, Tosh. Speaker 2: Good evening, Mayor and Council members office of the city manager staff and those present this evening. My name is Tasha Hunter environ and we intend to consulting group are very proud to present this report and I'd like to give a very special heartfelt thank you for to Councilman Austin for initiating this process and for bringing this important item forward for the support and the support of your esteemed colleagues on the dais to Deputy City Manager Kevin Jackson and Traci Kailangan. Alvin, for your tireless efforts, insight and passion for this project every step along the way. And you're not just amazing people. You're good. And I appreciate your passion behind this project. Thank you to my partner Allen and the team for all the work you've done in Griselda Suarez and everyone with the Arts Council for your ongoing help and support with everything from promotion to input, getting the word out to the community. This report gives an overview of numerous people who we engaged to outreach and get the word out about what the city of Long Beach is doing. And though we engaged about 250 people, we probably touched about a thousand. We handed out fliers. I flew to Oakland for an event to meet someone to pass out fliers. Leimert Park just all over town to let them know that Long Beach is engaged with its community. In the African-American community, we were told many stories. A lot of these stories were told with a sense of pride and some filled with pain. All in all, the voices were heard and documented. We heard story about elders migrating to Long Beach for opportunities unavailable to them as African-Americans in other parts of the state and country. And during the engagement process, we held focus groups with many organizations that are detailed in the report African-American Heritage Society of Long Beach, 100 Black Men, Ministers Alliance, the coalition of Involved African-American parents and students, young, gifted and talented and more. Like I said, you can see all the information and the detailed reports. And we had community roundtables in historically African-American communities. So thank you to Councilman Turanga for letting us hosting your city to and also Vice Mayor Dean Andrews, as well as in District nine, Councilman Rex Richardson in our monthly ongoing meetings in District eight with Councilman Austin. So as you see, there were paper surveys, one on one interviews, and we ask some very important questions. And those questions are, what do you want? People want music and arts classes. Youth mentorship. Healthy living, financial literacy. Another important thing that came across in the report was the asset inventory. We got to document who the people events are in the city that were very important and you have access to that as well. So this report is directly influence the data at court. Lord Cultural Resources. I see my time is up, but I will say we have a website, a CLB morgue where you can get your updates and information and this sun so much. Speaker 0: I'll finish up this last sentence. Speaker 2: Thank you. This Sunday we are hosting an event at Mola. It is for Afro Latin Next Festival and there will be a panel called The Visioning of the African-American Cultural Center from 2 to 3. Speaker 3: Thank you so much. Speaker 2: And thank you. Speaker 0: And then I believe I don't see you on the list, Dr. Williams, but I understand that you wanted to say a few words and you are our leader at the school board, so please come forward. Speaker 3: Thank you, Mayor. Mayor Garcia, members of the city council staff. Thanks to all the folks who have worked to bring this project to fruition. I just wanted to emphasize a few things. And Mayor, we really appreciate all the branding that you've been doing on our behalf out in the community. With respect to the memorandum of understanding, we do have as our fiscal agent along with Unified School District Foundation, and that's for a very specific reason. Within that, working with the foundation, we wanted to make sure that we keyed in on the educational mission of Long Beach Unified School District to include the college promise, part of that . So that we are now, as in moving forward with this project, also connected with the college promise that gives us a partnership with Long Beach, Long Beach Unified School District Lobby, City College, Cal State, Long Beach, and also the city of Long Beach. So that was very important to us. The other thing that I wanted to just mention very quickly is that we will be having a presentation this Friday, and I would hope that the mayor's calendar can be freed up for that Friday event, because at that event, we are inviting some key folks to help us do a few things. One, to look at generating funding in other resources for this facility. And I just want to mention some of those folks very quickly. Jane Connelly, Reagan, Ramarley Jean Bixby Smith, Chris Steinhauser, Terry Geiling, Randi Gordon, Roberta Jenkins, Steve Goodling, just to name a few of the folks that have agreed to be there this Friday. So it would be very nice for the mayor to come in and say a few words. And in closing, my thanks to Earl Parker and Max Weevils for initially moving this project forward in the fashion that brought us to where we are today and to our outstanding council people, the Andrews Ellington, Rex Richardson, for for their support of this project and moving this project forward. But we are working we are working diligently. We're working very hard. And we really do appreciate the support of the city council in helping with this project. Thank you very much. Speaker 0: Thank you very much. That concludes public comment. Before we go to the vote, I just want to add, I think I had a chance to speak to a little bit to this project with Councilman Austin and some of our Black History Month celebration events. And I'm a I'm a very strong supporter of this project. I've committed to Councilman Austin that will ensure that we support the community's vision. We ensure that the funding will be in place. And I'll personally make sure that that the location work the city is fully in to ensure that we establish this center. I will add also that, as you all know and as I was with earlier this today, a group of about maybe 25 or 30 young, young black educators are here from the Cal State system. And they came to see our black history media exhibit that is out here at City Hall. And they were so proud of the city, they were proud of of this project with many of them knew about and are excited about the city's commitment to this project as well. And so the history of of the black movement in Long Beach is not just about education, but it's about civil rights, and it's about the work that's happened in culture and the arts and of course, in government and politics as well, and in the community and community activism. So that story should be told and it should be told in a much, much bolder way that has the ability to act to reach more people across the community. And so I'm really excited about uplifting those stories. This is absolutely the type of facility that we should have in Long Beach, particularly with our history and support of our people and our our, I think, commitment to inclusion. So I'm very supportive. I want to thank especially Councilman Austin, I think has worked very hard and really led this project with with the rest of the council members. But I know it's been a labor of love to him and we look forward to continuing that support. And so thank you to everyone involved and members. Please cast your votes on this presentation. Speaker 1: Bush Kerry's. Speaker 0: Great. Thank you. We're going to go ahead. And I think we have some folks here for item 24. So let's hear item 24.

Agenda Item

Recommendation to request City Manager to provide a report on the progress towards establishing an African American Cultural Center in Long Beach.

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_02182020_20-0169

Speaker 0: Great. Thank you. We're going to go ahead. And I think we have some folks here for item 24. So let's hear item 24. Speaker 1: Item 24 is communication from councilmen Sabina and Vice Mayor Andrews recommendation to increase appropriation in the special advertising and promotion fund group in the City Manager Department by 25,000, offset by the 5000 of the fourth Council District one time district priority funds and 20,000 of the sixth Council District one time District Priority Funds to provide donation to Cambodian Town Inc for the 2020 Cambodian New Year parade. Speaker 0: Thank you. I got to turn this over to Vice Mayor Andrews. Speaker 3: Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. First of all, I want to thank Councilman Superman for our continued support to promote the Cambodian town. Okay. Well, a really exciting to be a sponsor of this event. I am happy to say it's coming back. We have individuals like Richard and Sasha and his team are doing a great job coordinating. And I am really excited for all my peers to join us for this great event. Speaker 0: Thank you. And Councilman Super now. Speaker 3: Thank you. Just honored to be a part of bringing this event back to Long Beach in the fourth and sixth districts. And very happy to partner with Vice Mayor Andrews on bringing this forward. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you. There is a motion and a second. I do have public comment. So let me call for members of the public up thorough young citizen, a monogram. Nothing so they can free. Please come forward. Are you? Speaker 3: Good to see you. Speaker 2: Good to see all of you. Good evening, Mayor Wiseman. Members of the council and other elected official. My name is Carrie Ann, and I am the president of California, Cambodia. Sisters, the. Speaker 4: On behalf of California Cambodia sisters say I am here to support the recommendation. Speaker 2: Provide. Speaker 4: The the one time $25,000 donation to Cambodia accounting for the two thought the 2020 Cambodian town New Year's parade. Thank you, Vice Mayor Andrew and. Speaker 2: Councilman Sabino for helping bring back Cambodian. Speaker 4: Town New Year Parade to Anaheim Street in. Speaker 2: Long Beach on. Speaker 4: Sunday, April 15, 2020. Speaker 2: California Cambodia is a stake in is. Speaker 4: One of the community partner. Speaker 2: Helping Cambodian Town Inc to bring back the. Speaker 4: Cambodian town New Year to Anaheim Street in Long Beach. We are looking forward to see you join the Cambodian community as we celebrate the rich. Speaker 2: Tradition of Cambodia. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you so much. Speaker 3: To to. Speaker 0: Severe. Speaker 2: Good evening, honorable mayor. Vice Mayor, members of the City Council. Speaker 4: Ladies and gentlemen. Speaker 2: My name is City Hassan and I'm the chair of the Cambodia town in. On behalf of Cambodia. Town in what director? I'm here to support the item 24. I would like to take this. Speaker 4: Opportunity to thank Vice Mayor de. Speaker 2: Andrews, Councilman Darryl Spinner and the city of Long Beach for helping to make it possible for us to bring back the Cambodia Town New Year Parade to Anaheim Street in Long Beach, Cambodia town New Year Parade will showcase. Speaker 4: The diverse. Speaker 2: Culture of Long Beach, including mom Lotion, Samoa, Filipino, African Americans and Hispanic costume. This year, we will honor the spirit of Apsara celestial dancer, commonly depicted in my mythology as seen on the intricate wall carvings and statues by a sea operate marchers dressed head to toe in exquisite, authentic Apsara costume, demonstrating my classical ballet movements involving graceful and mesmerizing hand gesture. Speaker 4: Last but not least, I would like to invite. Speaker 2: You to join the Cambodian community as we celebrate the rich tradition of Cambodia and bring. Speaker 4: In the. Speaker 2: Cambodian New Year 2564 year of the Rat. Speaker 4: I am looking forward to see every one of you at the plate at the Cambodian New Year Parade on Sunday, April 5th, 2020. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you so much. Runner. Speaker 3: Sir. Sir. Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of the City Council. Speaker 9: City staff and residents of Long Beach. Speaker 3: My name is Mineral Garnet, and I'm. Speaker 9: The executive directors of Midtown Business. Speaker 3: Improvement District. Midtown Boundary is I'm home street from Richmond Avenue. Speaker 9: In the fourth District to allow me Alameda Avenue on a sixth district. Speaker 3: I'm here to support the. Speaker 9: Item number 24, the recommendation to. Speaker 3: Approve the one time 25,000. Speaker 9: Donation to the couple in time for. Speaker 3: The 2020 120 year parade. The last time something this. Speaker 9: Big and. Speaker 3: Exciting happened in Midtown on Home Street was on. Speaker 9: 2016. The Beach Street. Speaker 3: The bringing of the parade will bring thousands of foot traffic and a. Speaker 9: Potential customer to the to the diverse businesses in midtown. And over 100 so many businesses will benefit from it. I would like to thank Vice Mayor De Andrew and Councilman. Speaker 3: Nelson Pinol for helping to. Speaker 9: Bring back the parade and helping the businesses in. Speaker 3: Midtown. Lastly. Speaker 9: I would like to invite. Speaker 3: Everyone to visit. Speaker 9: Shop and dine in Midtown. We have the best authentic Cambodian food and Mexican food in the city. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you. That is true. So they can be. Speaker 7: He's definitely right because hacking and Alzheimer's are both fun and I'm street in and I'm corridor so I couldn't agree with you more and I know that as a resident I am in complete support of. This motion. I think it's a vital opportunity for the city to shine a spotlight on our Cambodian community here in Long Beach , as well as an ample opportunity for increased economic development of the midtown Anaheim corridor, as was just stated. You know, I was at the Beat Street, uh, in 2016, and it was great to have people from outside of our neighborhood come into an area that isn't necessarily frequented in the manner that other business corridors, such as Second Street or Fourth are. But it's it's always a great opportunity where we can balance our cultural emphasis with the financial and simultaneously. So I want to give thanks to the vice mayor injuries and cancer supernova for coming together and supporting this. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you. That concludes public comment. I just have a couple of questions for Mr. Modica. So I completely support this this motion. I think that one of the great things about our city, of course, is the diversity of of our festivals and parades. And obviously, we have a handful of really active parades that happen throughout the year. Many of those parades obviously are supported by community, by the community or businesses in the city in some cases as well. And I just want to make sure, Mr. Modica, I know that obviously this parade had had been happening for many years and hasn't obviously happened just in the last I think it's been maybe a couple a couple of years. How many years is it then? Is it been. Has it been that long? Wow. It's already been a really five or six years. Five years. Okay. And so I would just ask Mr. Modica and I think hopefully the council supportive as well, that because this parade is really trying to come back and I do believe they need additional support and consideration from the city as it relates to the expenses of putting on a parade like this. And so I just ask that we do everything that we can through look through the public safety costs and other issues that are there to work with the parade organizers just to make sure that we give them the breathing room to be able to restart this parade. And I think that we all know that. All of the parades that happen in the city are difficult to put on and they're costly and there's an expense, and we know that. But restarting a parade kind of from scratch again is even harder. And so I think especially in this first year, I'm just hopeful that the city can can give a Cambodia town mid-town the parade just some additional support to try to get this restarted. I think it's an important part there. There are there are not other large Cambodian parades that happen in the United States. And so this is very unique to Long Beach, and it needs to come back and be successful. Mr. Marker, can you address that? Speaker 3: Sure. Speaker 8: Yeah, we'll be very sensitive to that. You know, you're absolutely right. When you have a parade that is just starting, there's things that you don't know to plan for. So we recently saw that with the Veterans Day parade. That had been a long standing parade. But this year, the city took it over. And when you make that transition, there are some things that you have to do to make sure that it's successful. So we would be more than happy to look at this. We'd work with both the council officers who are funding it and do what we can out of special events and PD to make sure it's a success. Speaker 0: I appreciate that. And I think that the contribution that Councilman Andrews and Councilmember Superman are making from their district funds, I think is really significant and important. But I think, as you know, to put on a parade, it is quite costly, especially to restart one. And so I'm hoping that that you can personally get involved in assisting the Special Events Department in ensuring that this happens and to support the group. So thank you, Mr. Mordecai. Appreciate your support on that. Councilman Mongo. Speaker 6: You know, as a person who has participated in a lot of parades in the city in a very short amount of time, the Cambodian parade was and the festival beforehand and the ceremonies were very meaningful to me and learning more about the culture. I got pregnant and then had a baby and I assumed that I just missed them because I was either in the hospital having a baby or after that. And to know that that hasn't been going on just hurts my heart. And so I'm just so thankful that you guys brought this forward and to both Mayor Andrews and Councilmember Suber and offer really financially supporting this and bringing it back. Congratulations and looking forward to it. Speaker 0: Thank you. And we look forward to attending. And with that members, please cast your votes. Speaker 1: John Kerry.

Agenda Item

Recommendation to increase appropriations in the Special Advertising and Promotion Fund Group in the City Manager Department by $25,000, offset by the $5,000 of the Fourth Council District One­time District Priority Funds and $20,000 of the Sixth Council District One-time District Priority Funds, transferred from the Citywide Activities Department to provide donations to Cambodia Town Inc. for the 2020 Cambodian New Year Parade; and Decrease appropriations in the Special Advertising and Promotion Fund Group in the Citywide Activities Department by $25,000 to offset a transfer to the City Manager Department.

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_02182020_20-0157

Speaker 3: Thank you very much. That concludes Spokane public comment. Okay. Now we'll go to a meeting. Clark, would you please without him? 14, 14, 18. 14. Speaker 1: Item 15 is communication from Councilwoman Zendaya's recommendation to require City Manager to prepare an analysis of the possible options for increased regulation of food trucks. Speaker 3: That comes from one and this. Speaker 4: Thank you. One of the things that I would like to make clear is that I am a big fan of food trucks and the experience that it brings with them. While food trucks have been contributing greatly to our local food scene. My office have received a number of complaints from brick and mortar businesses that are concerned about the impact of their livelihood that these trucks can sometimes pose. And they they feel that it is unfair for food trucks to operate under a different set of rules and regulations and more traditional restaurants and storefronts, while still courting the same customers at the same time and locations that they are that they are competing for along certain business corridors. I think it would be a great idea to have city staff look at courses of actions that we can, as the council members can can take and to promote business environment that benefits all of our entrepreneurs. Of course, the city should not seek to eliminate food food trucks from the economic landscape in Long Beach. We do have an obligation, though, to consider and minimize any negative impact on our local businesses. Some adjustments to the regulation governing food trucks might help. Like, for example, proximity to the business entrances. Permissible hours of operation prior months for providing the bathroom. Other licensing and permitting requirements. All this while still maintaining the desired presence of food trucks in Long Beach. Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilmember Pearce. Speaker 5: Thank you. I want to thank the councilmember for bringing this item on my team. And I've talked about an item like this for a while. It's my understanding that the city has started years ago on regulating. So there's different departments that have different roles. So we've got the health department that regulates one area and then supposedly they're not supposed to exist in certain other areas. So I look forward to hearing from staff. I've had many conversations with Linda Tatum on this. I think personally from the conversations I've had, it would be wonderful to limit the area that they could exist in and say that if they were going to exist anywhere near business improvement districts or convention center, that there be a special permit that they have to obtain to be able to operate in that. So we can ensure that we don't have six food trucks in front of five restaurants that have spent a lot of resources and time to go that route. So a balance that really allows us to have both is something that I would love to have come back from council, but I look forward to hearing what staff comes with. Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilwoman Mango. Speaker 6: I would go as far as to add that it not just in the business improvement districts but in any location where they aggregate and prey on customers of other businesses. I think that an interesting dynamic is you take our summer concerts in the park and we often allow certain community businesses to sell to patrons, and then those community businesses make an investment, dedicate staff time, and then here come food trucks parking on the street alongside. I would state that to get a permit of any kind or two, there would be some kind of noticing process both to the council offices and other businesses that they plan to operate in a certain area during a certain period of time or certain days that they desire just something so that local businesses that have made the investment are able to get knowledge and awareness that they're coming. Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilwoman Price. Speaker 4: I want to thank my colleague, Councilwoman Zendejas, for bringing this item forward. Food trucks are something that my staff and I often have to discuss because we are in a bid, but also our bid is in a parking impacted area. So it presents a lot of problems. What I would hope is that when the report comes back, Mr. City Manager, it can address things like whether a business district improvement district can opt out of food trucks in terms of the parking within the bid. I would like some more clarity on the was the necessity for access to bathrooms within one hour of them being there. That seems to be an issue because we have folks going into restaurants to use the restrooms. Should the food trucks be able to park in metered parking in parking impacted areas or should they be required to park in an allocated parking lot or an allocated parking space? Perhaps we could free up loading zones if that was going to happen. There's options there. And then is it possible to for the city to allow access to city parking lots, to allow food trucks to to exist here, but but not be placed sporadically throughout the city , causing unnecessary impacts in areas where there's just really not the infrastructure to support that type of business. So I would hope that the report can include those things as well. And I thank you, Councilwoman Zendejas, for bringing this forward. Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilman Austin. Speaker 9: Thank you. And I also want to thank our councilman's councilmembers in the House for bringing this forward. We've noticed food trucks throughout the community, and I think they have a right to be here as well because they are small, small businesses and entrepreneurs. But I think we do need direction and can provide some direction in terms of where they are they're located so that they're not competing, as councilmember said, with with existing businesses, particularly in those business districts that we have. We have business districts that are set up that restaurants are paying assessments and business licensing fees to to be. And it's it's not fair. And so but I do think we do have areas in our city where food trucks can drive. There's parties and hours in which they can thrive as well, because I love going to them after hours. And there's all restaurants are closed, there's a food truck available. You get some of the best food in the city. So that said, I think we should be thoughtful about that. And then using food trucks to creatively program areas that they may not have activity currently. And so that would just be my direction. I would like to see some vision. And in regards to those points coming back from any kind of staff report. Thanks. Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilman. Super now. Speaker 3: Thank you. And to Mr. Monica, add something else to your list there. If you could look at how the oversize vehicle ordinance applies to these vehicles in a situation near the traffic circle where it was a restricted area and I don't recall the exact number, but I believe they got 40 parking tickets that was obviously being treated as a cost of doing business. So we'd like to know if we can beef up that ordinance. Thank you. Speaker 0: Q In councilman lingo. Speaker 6: To add to Councilmember Supervisor's comments, perhaps there should be a separate fee for a vehicle such as this that wants to park anywhere and then to add to Councilmember Austin and Price's comments, I love that they want to focus on business improvement districts. I would just hope that we could also expand it to any area that has a business association, whether it's a formalized organization or not. Those businesses have already worked together as well and faced similar challenges, though they have not yet been together as a bid. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you. Thank you. I don't see any public comment on this, but I do want to just add a few things that I think, Mr. Monaco, you and I have talked about this topic before, and I'm very interested in it as well. So let me I just want to start just saying that I appreciate councilman's in the house for bringing this forward. I think this is really important. I think, one, food trucks bring an important diversity of food and selection and opportunity for people to enjoy really great food experiences. So I absolutely support them. Some food trucks are providing, I think, unique dining experiences where there is no food being offered at certain times of the day. I think of this Mexican truck, for example, that's on the corner of I think it's PCH and Atlantic that has just created a whole new, interesting public space at night where they have tables out front, they have lights, there's people out congregating. So from a a public space perspective, there are food trucks that are creating unique public spaces in Long Beach and are activating public corridors that I completely support. And so I want to make sure that as we are looking at these regulations, that we're thinking about these these spaces and these trucks that are activating our corridors at night and creating, in my opinion, even safer streets. At the same time, I would agree that we have in in some occasions some trucks that are parking literally in front of businesses and really damaging that business without having the same set of rules to follow. And so I am very interested in that. Some of the topics that I hope you look into, Mr. Modica. One is what exactly is the permitting process? Is there a permitting process? And I'd like to understand that when that comes back to the Council, I'd like to also understand some food trucks actually have lighting and signage that we don't even allow in our municipal code . And so what I mean by that is I can think of one in particular that I have mentioned to the city in many occasions that has such a bright and. Powerful light and signage that is not even allowed in our code yet glares into apartments and homes right across from where they park on a nightly basis. And it is really a quality of life issue for those residents that if they were a brick and mortar, would not be allowed to have that level of signage. And to me, that is really important that we look at that piece of it as part of this permitting process is the lighting and signage on the trucks. I would also hope that we take into consideration some food trucks have a partnership relationship with brick and mortar stores. So, for example, we just have we just had a new cider cider open up here on Third Street. Cider works and they bring in a food truck on regular occasion to park in front of their cider shop. Now to provide food as folks are drinking beer and cider inside. And so I want to make sure that we're acknowledging that there are important partnerships that do form with brick and mortars, and that those partnerships are also part of what we're exploring in this regulation. So thank you to Councilman. And because I think this is I'm glad we're finally going to kind of take a look at this because it's kind of been out there. We haven't really nailed down kind of what the regulations are. And I look forward to this information coming back is just going to come back in a report or an ordinance. Speaker 8: So our plan was to come back first with a lot of those questions. We have a lot of those similar questions. This is a difficult area for us. It touches multiple different departments. It touches the county as well. So we'd like to really we're pulling the team together to understand this. Should this pass tonight, we'll come back with a lot of these questions and eventually we will need an ordinance. So if we're looking to implement any of these things, we'll make a recommendation on where we think the council is going. So this discussion is very helpful tonight and eventually you would be approving an ordinance. Speaker 0: And I would like if Councilman Sunday houses is amenable it I would hope because I think this topic is so important to so many people up here and it's really a quality of life issue. Speaker 3: Also. Speaker 0: I like this report and all these questions that come back to the council, whether it's in the form of an ordinance or a report that we here at the council instead of just a memo before we take that next step. Speaker 8: I'm sure we'd probably put it all in writing, put in a memo, and then we'd be happy to come bring a presentation and see if we've got it right on where we're headed. And then we can then get direction to do the ordinance from there. Speaker 0: And that could be part of the motion. That would be that would be great. Okay, great. And then so we have a motion in the second. Please go ahead. And Castro notes. I don't have any public comment on this item unless no public comments. Members, please cast your votes. Speaker 1: Council member, Austin. Motion carries.

Agenda Item

Recommendation to request City Manager prepare an analysis of the possible options for increased regulation of food trucks, and enforcement mechanisms, and report back to City Council within 90 days.

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_02182020_20-0160

Speaker 1: Council member, Austin. Motion carries. Speaker 0: Thank you. Next item, please. Speaker 1: Item 18. Communication from City Manager Recommendation to adopt resolution to execute all necessary documents to receive and expend grant funding in the amount of 913,009.91 from the California Bureau of Cannabis Control and Increase Appropriations in the Business Assistance Fund in the Economic Development Department by 530,000, offset by grant funds citywide. Speaker 0: Thank you. Councilman Austin. Mayor. Speaker 9: Councilman at certainly motion to start. Speaker 2: I'm. Speaker 5: I'm just to be careful. I would like to recuse myself from all cannabis items. Speaker 2: Thank you. Speaker 0: And let me have you do that while we go to count and ask them. Speaker 9: I'll wait. So certainly I support this. Social equity is extremely important, particularly as we we look at new emerging markets and the cannabis industry is now legal, supported by the voters of the state of California, as well as the city of Long Beach. And this is a grant coming from the the Board of Bureau of Cannabis Control. I'd like to know more about how we received the grant and how we expect to expand the grant. And I know we have a staff report, but I certainly support this. Speaker 0: Staff Reporter. Speaker 8: Sure. Kevin Jackson and AJ Cleary can provide a brief self-report. Speaker 3: AJ is going to provide the staff report. Speaker 7: Good evening, Mayor and members of the City Council. This is a recommendation to accept grant funds from the State of California Bureau of Cannabis Control to support the existing Long Beach Cannabis Equity Program approved by the City Council in 2018. Grant funds will be used to provide fee waivers, grants and technical business assistance to qualifying cannabis business license applicants. A general update on the program was provided to the City Council through a recently released memorandum. This grant will allow staff to continue developing the program to promote equal opportunity in the cannabis industry. That concludes my presentation and I'm available for questions. Speaker 3: So thank you. Speaker 9: I guess we apply for the grant. Speaker 3: We did apply. Speaker 9: For the grant. Was it a competitive grant process? Speaker 7: And it was a formula driven process. So any city that adopted a cannabis social equity program was eligible for grant funds and then the state awarded funds. Speaker 2: Based off of a formula. Speaker 9: Right. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you, Vice Mayor Andrews. Speaker 3: I support this also. Speaker 0: Thank you. We have two members of the public, Mr. Goodhue, and I think it's precious. Marcel said names. Speaker 3: That's very good here. I would use every single dollar. That we could get. To discourage. The use of the cannabis. In this city. We don't need it. Look at some of the conduct of some of the council members, and you can see that. Period. Use the money. I mean, if you if you're improving this. To me, that's tantamount to saying, hey. Let's encourage underage sex. Why not? Cannabis is dangerous to the city. No ifs. No answer. No buts. And if you don't understand that. Perhaps you're using it. Now, one other thing again. I just after. I know. That last subject, the trucks or the lights get our local people. To serve the food we've got plenty of. Operate community organizations that would be more than happy, more than happy to provide food as they do for other events. And they you can use their own kitchens and then bring it to the tables that can be set up. It's a it's a wonderful revenue source for those industries and so forth. And the point is, right on those those trucks are useless and expensive. At a neighborhood organization that baked, baked, baked goods and bring in the beverages. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Speaker 2: Hi. Good afternoon. Speaker 4: My name is Precious. I'm 21 years old, born and raised in Long Beach. I'm very grateful I get approved for the. Speaker 6: Campus equity. Speaker 2: Program. So I'm still in the. Speaker 4: Process of the application. And it's I'm finding it hard to get a location because I cannot complete the application without the location. And so I'm on my own doing this. Speaker 2: So I would like to get some. Speaker 4: Help with funding to obtain a facility. Um, because I won't be able to get issued a license unless I do have a place. And I just don't, I'm not having, like, luck with it. Speaker 2: Um. And offline equity applicants are. Speaker 4: Able to use 800 square feet, minimum of non-equity facilities and up to three. Speaker 2: Years of free, real. Speaker 4: Real estate, which is very helpful for equity applicants. But in Long Beach is prohibited to have another license. Speaker 2: Holder in renting in the same place. Speaker 4: And the city does not offer three years of free real estate. It would help if we could just be adjusted or some type of compromise. Being a minority and a. Speaker 2: Woman having no support makes this harder. Speaker 4: For me. But it is my dream to run my own facility and be a proud cannabis equity business owner in my city. Speaker 2: I will continue to do what I can to make. Speaker 4: That happen, not just for me, but for other Long Beach equity applicants that will be facing the same obstacles. Speaker 2: It's not just about the cannabis for me. Speaker 4: It's about growth and knowledge, business, education, networking and. More that comes with this. I just want to bring up really quick, there's an online that the city is not taking any more applications for storefronts, which is something I would like to do. Maybe someday that can be adjusted anyways. I would love to see more people like me thrive and be supported by the only city we know. And one day I can give back to my computer community in a positive way. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you so much. I'm going back to Councilman Austin. Speaker 9: So, yes, obviously, I support this item and encouraged the rest of the council to do so. I did have a couple of questions. And before I say that, any time you can get close to $1,000,000, $900,000 from the state to implement something that we are already going to implement, I think it's only helpful to our budget and so it would be wise for us to accept this this grant. I'm enthusiastically a yes. That's it. I'm I would love to know more about the accountability measures that we are building into this. Do we have any accountability for the grants in terms of reporting back to the Bureau of Cannabis Control? And will we be getting report backs in terms of how our equity program is actually progressing here in the city? Speaker 7: Yeah. The state has reporting requirements for the grants. We're required to. Speaker 3: Report on. Speaker 7: Who has applied for a license, received a license, a lot of demographic information for those who participate in the program and receive a license. We are planning to provide periodic updates to the City Council. Our most recent one was released just recently, but we're happy to continue updating the City Council as we make progress in the program Speaker 9: . Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you. There's a motion and a second. Please cast your votes.

Resolution

Adopt resolution authorizing City Manager, or designee, to execute all necessary documents to receive and expend grant funding in the amount of $913,991 from the California Bureau of Cannabis Control (BCC), for the approximate period of March 1, 2020 through February 28, 2021; Increase appropriations in the General Grants Fund in the City Manager Department by $913,991, offset by grant revenue from the BCC; and Increase appropriations in the Business Assistance Fund in the Economic Development Department by $530,000, offset by an operating transfer from the City Manager Department, offset by grant funds. (Citywide)

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_02182020_20-0161

Speaker 1: Washing cars. Speaker 0: Thank you. We are going on to the next item. Speaker 1: Item 19 is a report from financial management. Recommendation to receive and file fiscal year 2019 year end budget performance report and increase appropriations in several funds across several departments for various purposes to reflect final expenditures and carry over cleanup up. Speaker 0: I thank you. I think actually Councilman Mongeau is going to this is the BSE report, I think. Mr. Monica, did you want to start or do you want to turn over? My God. Speaker 8: Sure. This is a staff report that's coming back from the Department of Finance. And then it was heard by the Budget Oversight Committee last Tuesday, I believe. And I think they have some recommendations as well. So I will turn it to Grace Yoon to give the report and then we'll hear from the U.S.. Speaker 4: Evening, Mayor and members of the city council. This is the year end performance report for FY 19 for all funds. We have some good news to report as the general fund ended the year with approximately 7.98 million surplus and the Uplands Oil Fund ended with 222,000. The general fund surplus is less than 1.5% of the general fund budget. However, the surplus is larger than typical this year, mostly due to higher revenues than budgeted. Major contributors to this surplus were unexpected one time revenues in general positive economic growth and sales tax, as well as proactive management of the budget to generate departmental savings. One time sales tax revenues typically come from construction materials and from equipment purchases by companies, but can also be due to other factors. In the past, one time revenues have not been built into revenue projections due to their volatility. However, in a strong economy, one time, revenues as a whole can repeatedly occur, typically by businesses continuing to make major capital investments. This is what's happening in this economy and a change in projection methodology to provide some consideration of one time sales tax revenues is appropriate to consider. The budget staff is working with our sales tax consultants to develop a methodology to project and include one time revenues in the budget in a prudent way. The Performance Report provides a list of recommended uses of the General Fund and Uplands Oil Fund funds available. In summary, the funds are recommended to be allocated towards addressing homelessness, operational carryover, underfunded council approved initiatives and infrastructure and other liabilities. The ability to fund some critical projects is great news, but many important needs still remain unfunded, including the operational cost of funding. The FY 20 labor agreement costs currently estimated at 12 million. Only a small uplands oil fund surplus has been allocated towards these labor costs. To pay for FY 20 costs associated with labor agreements, the city will need to use as first priority any surplus generated in FY 20. And if that is not enough, the city will need to draw down from reserves. There's also good news with measure revenues, as with the similar sales tax measure. Revenues have shown excellent revenue growth and one time patterns at FY 19 year end, there is 4.3 million of unallocated measure surplus funds. The recommended uses of the surplus are to support a police academy class costs associated with converting a former landfill site to the new Davenport Park Eldorado Field Turf Conversion Project, 100,000 for irrigation pumps and 100,000 for tree stump removals in accordance with the direction of the City Council and the Bossie as part of the FY 20 adopted budget. In addition, staff is recommending that the first 3 million of unallocated measure a FY 20 surplus funds be allocated to support the Police Academy Building Project. These measure recommendations will also be reviewed with the Citizens Advisory Committee on March 20th. The report provides additional information on key non general fund funds. Overall year in spending came in under budgeted appropriations for all other funds. After factoring in technical adjustments requested in the performance report. This concludes my staff report and I'm available for questions. Speaker 0: Thank you. Let me turn this over to B or C chairperson councilman, mongo. Speaker 6: Thank you. I want to thank the staff for their diligent work this year. I also want to thank the voters for their approval of measure. And I further want to thank my colleagues for their continued support of important projects. I'm the Bossi met and reviewed all of the priorities as listed. We grilled some of our department heads on their questions and priorities, and I'm very comfortable with the recommendations before us now. I'd like I as at my understanding, I need to read these recommendations. Yep. Great. They're a little lengthy, so bear with me. First, I'd like to make a motion to approve the staff recommendation in the FBI 19 year end performance report with the following clarifications for the 100,000 allocated to irrigation pumps under measure, recommended uses of unallocated funds include that the funds can be used for filtration, circulation and irrigation . When the appropriation request comes to City Council, allocate the 100,000 to the appropriate department. Has that been completed in this allocation here today? Speaker 4: A Council member. The actual budget appropriation will come back in our first budget adjustment report for FY 20. Great. That's slated in March. Speaker 6: And for my colleagues, that is some of the work will be done by public works. Some will be done by Parks and Rec. In the past, there's been some back and forth that has caused delays. And so financial management is getting ahead of the game by making those allocations in advance with a recommendation that the first 3 million of unallocated measure, a fiscal year 20 surplus funds be allocated to support the Police Academy Building Project, and that the recommendation should that if the recommendation should come in under cost, that funds can be spent in the areas adjacent to the facility for improvements for the 200,000 allocated to support the work of the Office of Civic Innovation as it addresses homelessness under the General Fund, the recommended uses for funds available. As you may have seen, staff recently provided a report to the City Council on those proposed uses of the funds, so they have met the requirement of that before spending for the 100,000 allocated to the preparation of the Strategic Vision for 2030 Plan . Under the General Fund, recommended uses of funds available staff should provide a report to the City Council on how the plan will benefit the entire city and what steps will be made to ensure city wide impact. Included in the report include in the report any elements of the communication toolkit that can be utilized to ensure city wide involvement and impact city manager is also is to also request support from other departments, including harbor and water as appropriate to support the effort and provide a report to the City Council for all elected officers of their five year budget and actuals. Ensuring that any accounting errors needed to be corrected are corrected in advance of the circulation of the report. Those are my motions and I'm also available for questions. Speaker 0: Councilman Austin. Speaker 9: Thank you and I appreciate the staff report. I want to just say to the entire team, city manager, financial management, as well as the city council, congratulations. Because, you know, we don't get this kind of good news each and every year. This is close to $13 million of a surplus, which is pretty, pretty amazing. And I think that speaks to a lot of the good decisions that have come from this council, the conservative budgeting that we've put forward, and estimations in terms of returns, but also some great progress with our economic development work throughout the city. And so congratulations to the entire team all the way around. Does it mean that we don't have great needs still and every bit of these surplus dollars are now accounted for because of many unexpected issues that have come up priorities for this Council over the last year, year and a half as well. And so I'm glad to see as committing resources to improving our building homeless shelter and continuing to be innovative with the on the services of the magnolia trees is something that I'm hearing more and more about from constituents. And I know other council offices are well are as well. And so to see that we're committing resources to dealing with that, that issue is something that I know is going to be welcome to many of my constituents and as well as a thank you. I certainly support this because we do need funds to complete the Davenport Park Project, which is also called out in this in this recommendation as well. And so I'm encouraged with that. And then the police academy, these are one time funds and we've been doing and funding our police academies and fire academies for the last several years with one time funds. And so this is, in my opinion, appropriate use because I'm hearing from constituents that, you know, police public safety, safety services are extremely important to them. They maintain and continue to be a high priority. And of course, I see Chief Espino there in uptown. We want to replace Fire Station nine. There's no money in this particular recommendation, but in the last budget through Measure A, we have appropriated, I think, a significant amount of money to to put us in the right on the right track to to making that happen expeditiously. And so I certainly support this this item. And again, I want to congratulate the entire city team for being able to to realize a surplus in FY 19. And and I think we are are spending this these resources, these public resources wisely as priorities have been set by this council as well as the public. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you. You know, I don't have the list of those folks that signed up for public comment. I know that. I do. You have it. Speaker 6: I did see it. It was a. Speaker 0: I think it's for members of the public that sign up to speak. Speaker 6: It's Larry Goodhue and Cantrell carelessly and John Shultz in that order. Speaker 0: So please come forward. Why don't we have Miss Cantrell mostly come forward? Speaker 6: May I make a comment while they're coming forward or. It may also be supportive, supported by our colleagues. I really appreciate city manager, acting city manager Modica and his support and recommendation for the divide by nine. Many don't know that when we did the budget last year, every council office was very supportive of how lean we were and how tight the budget was and we did not have any available. And so the ability to fit in just a little bit of that funding is a big help to many of the council offices and I know they're appreciative. So thank you again for that. Mr. Modica. Speaker 0: Thank you. Let's hear from the public. Lose control. Speaker 2: Good evening. In control. And I'm pleased that you have a surplus this year. This is wonderful news. I agree with all of the things that you have come up to spend this on, except for the $1.5 million for an artificial. Turf field in Eldorado Park. As you remember from this poster, I have been fighting artificial turf for over five years. Professional soccer players prefer natural grass. In fact, the Women's World Cup complained because the men got to play on natural turf. They had to play on artificial artificial turf. Creates more injuries. It is so hot that it has to be cooled with water on even a mild summer day. My grand daughter, who plays soccer, says that her feet burn through the her the soles of her shoes, even with cleats. I agree. We need a new soccer field in Eldorado Park. The one that's there is full of gopher holes. It's dangerous. But for the $1.5 million, you could put in a natural grass field that's well prepared. You could put in two so that they could be rotated. And there could be play year round. Eldorado Park uses reclaimed water. This cannot be used to cool or wash artificial turf. So I'm assuming that the 1.5 million is going to pay for a new sprinkler system. Also, the plan includes boulders around the size of the field to keep out bikes. These are a hazard for play for soccer players. Long Beach Unified is putting artificial turf in all the high schools and many middle schools. NYS O should be allowed to use these fields on weekends. Plastic is bad for the environment. It shreds and washes into the gutters and storm drains which go into the ocean. And disposable of these feel the spoils of these feels after 5 to 7 years when they're no longer usable is becoming a huge problem. Speaker 0: Thank you so much. Next speaker, please. Speaker 2: There are better uses for this 1.5. Speaker 0: Thank you, Ms.. Control. Mislead. Please come forward. Speaker 2: I'm also pleased to see there is a surplus this year. Let's see. Where am I? Here. Okay. If we have surplus funds, they should be spent on bringing back the police and doing the street maintenance. That was what was originally promised with Measure eight funds or the two things that people are most interested in. If you look at what we've gotten back for that money, we only have 22 officers funded, 19 of those positions filled and three of the positions being used for overtime. But GLASSIE Mailer said 200 less police equals a lay, a less safe Long Beach. And that's true. So I'm pleased to say that the police academy is going to be funded. But what I don't like is looking at the transactions and the use tax spreadsheet that shows that there's 22 million going into public safety maintenance in 2020. Public safety maintenance was defined for me by the Finance Department as being wages and compensation for existing officers, not new hires. So I feel like the people didn't get anything for that 22 million that was supposed to have come out of the original general fund streets. If you look at street maintenance, we only used 15% of the money that has come through so far on streets and that's looking at mobility. 43 million of the 222 million received since inception. And that's another thing that I hear repeated over and over again by the people. Let's see if we have more funds. I'm also opposed to the artificial turf soccer field, mainly because I'm a part of of the group, the Friends of Eldorado Park East. And we've submitted extensive documentation on what's needed at Eldorado Park. And we have big maintenance issues. We have non ADA compliance and we have dangerous conditions. I personally fell in November trying to take a picture of it. So, you know, it's that's for real in terms of visioning this artificial turf soccer field seems to me like it's another case of commercializing park space. The real beneficiary of it is the air. So contractor, not the kids, not the players. So if we're going to do visioning, we should include the neighborhoods. There haven't been any outreach meetings on this that I know of in six years on this artificial turf soccer field. And if we're going to be doing I've also seen the RFP where there's additional commercial enterprise being sought. And right now there's 12,000 people have signed a survey for Save the Parks having looked at this. Thank you. So it's serious. Speaker 0: Next week, police. Speaker 3: Good evening, Mr. Mayor. Speaker 0: Council members and city staff. My name is John Schulze. Speaker 3: And I'm a 19 year resident of Council District five. I'm chairman of Play Long Beach. Speaker 0: Which stands. Speaker 3: For Parkland Advocates for Youth. Play Long Beach was formed to partner with the city and its playground projects. Our next being Long Beach's first all inclusive playground built in Eldorado West. Not too far from the proposed turf field. I look forward to working with all of you on this and other future projects. I'm also an Eldorado Park annual pass holder, but spend most of my time outside the gates with my 11 year old son, JT at Eldorado West. I'm here to advocate. For the proposed state of the art artificial turf playing field. It's beautiful, thoughtful, accessible and safe. Design would be a major improvement to the current rundown space. Our youngest residents deserve a quality field to learn, play and compete on. I've spoken to leaders of local youth organizations, and their members are overwhelmingly in favor of this project. This includes my family. Other local residents who support and appreciate the investments our local leaders continue to make. I'd also like to note that the Parks and Rec Commission also voted to approve this project. In closing play Long Beach not only builds playgrounds, we also support quality, open play spaces for our youth. We support and encourage. Your approval for and construction of the proposed artificial turf field at Eldorado Park West. Thank you for the opportunity. It's really been an honor. First time speaking in this big room. Thank you. Let me address you this evening. And for your part in making Long Beach a better. Speaker 0: Place to play. Speaker 3: In live. Speaker 0: Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. Mr. Motorcade had a couple questions. Maybe a park staff wants to answer, if you can answer, because I've had a number of conversations with parents and kids that play extensively on the other fields that we've installed in our other parks are artificial, and in fact, they are heavily used, heavily welcomed . I constantly get parents and young kids asking to install more of these fields across the city. The school district is putting in these fields all across the school district and have been they've been wildly successful as far as I can tell. I also know that the kids are playing a WYSO at El Dorado are are a complete reflection of what the city looks like and the parents and the kids involved are looking for more places to play. The one thing that I've always believed in when it comes to Parks and I and and I said this oftentimes at the Coastal Commission when we talked about park space in the coastal zone, is that to really activate our public spaces, including parks, you have to create spaces that people want to come to and that people want to enjoy. And oftentimes it's passive space and it's open space, and often times it's rethinking our spaces to ensure that we're bringing in young people that can experience the types of activities and sports and and and and interactions that encourage them to wants to be within that space. And so the fact that this addition to Eldorado Park, in my opinion, is going to bring a lot of new people to that site and a lot of young people and a lot of young kids that are reflective of this entire city. Do we think that's probably the case? Speaker 8: I can have Steve talk about more of the specifics, but I absolutely believe that that's the case. We have seen several of these being done. This has been about a five year program where we started this concept. We actually started it at Eldorado Park was one of the first discussions. And but we've moved throughout the city. I want to remind everyone that this park was actually originally funded. And then because we did additional community outreach and discussion, we actually delayed it and the council member actually donated those funds or said we can move on and do the ones in the other areas, the cities that we have constructed, many of these, they are very well used. Now this is coming back in and creating the one in Eldorado Park. We do hear from the users that they love them, that they are fantastic. We again, we went with a Corgan sand model rather than some of the chrome rubber, which definitely helps with the heaters. We don't have that black material that sometimes can can warm up. And so the one thing to remember is when you have fields, you have to take them down for maintenance. So having a field like this up has it the ability to have much more play all the time rather than having to take it down for maintenance as much. So I will ask Steve if he has anything else to add, but we think your comments are. Speaker 0: Spot on and. Mr.. Exactly. Mr. SCOTT. I know that these this field work will actually ensure longer play and longer use of the space because you don't have to actually tear it down or replace the field over, over multiple months. And so if the goal here is to activate the park more and bring more children from across the city and more users of all types to the park, this is going to achieve that, in my opinion. If the goal is to not do that and to keep the space more passive and maybe not encourage these young kids to come to the park, then we can continue to not create these additional types of spaces in across the city. So I strongly support this effort and I also really want to thank Councilwoman Mongo for spearheading this project. It's been something she's been working on for, for many years, and I would go beyond just that, that we need to continue these types of creative uses. I believe that soccer and those that play soccer currently is the height. We have the highest need and requests for more soccer fields across the city right now in our public and park spaces. Is that correct, Mr. Scott? Speaker 3: Mayor, members of the city council soccer is probably our largest sport in terms of play, in terms of play both at the youth level and the adult level. And we have four artificial turf fields already in our rotation in the city, and we have heard nothing but positive comments about those spaces. As the acting city manager mentioned. It allows for greater playability because we don't have to take the fields down for maintenance to keep the fields safe. We would need to take them down for six week periods at a time. With artificial turf fields, we don't need to do that. That downtown downtime, maintenance. And we'll be able to use those fields year round. And so certainly it provides for greater playability, but it also provides a safer playing environment. And I think it was mentioned earlier about gopher holes on fields. And, you know, that's something that artificial turf fields really help us avoid are some of those trip and fall injuries. And so certainly we are excited about the opportunity for a field for artificial turf because it's a safer environment and it allows for greater playability in a sport that is growing. Speaker 0: And it reminds me of the discussion that we had, for example, over the additional running, walking on the beach or adding additional active space. And in places that maybe have been passive, there is absolutely a place and a time to to preserve a complete passive space. But there's also an opportunity for us to bring more people to that space and activate them in new ways, particularly with young kids. And so I'm very supportive of that. And I thank you guys for your work on this. Councilman Marengo. Speaker 3: Thank you. Mary and I have an artificial field in my district in the Advocate Park, and I like to thank the EEOC and more specifically, Councilwoman Mungo, because she sacrificed her field before I got mine. And I can attest to the fact that that field is used from daylight to day night to nighttime. Speaker 6: And rise to something. Speaker 3: Still too dark. And it's been utilized a lot. And I think that it's been basically a a nothing but a positive influence on what went on in the West Long Beach area, especially with these kids who want to play soccer and also for the adult teams as well. So a very supportive of this. Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilman Mongo. Speaker 6: Thank you. I just want to clarify that measure A and the promises of Measure A have consistently, year after year been fulfilled. The promises that this diocese, this board made were for infrastructure and public safety and maintaining our parks and libraries are as important as our streets. You will hear me at community meeting after community meeting, fighting for streets, streets, street streets. But one of the frustrating things about street repair is it's a long planning process and we can only do so many streets a year because there are only so many asphalt vendors. I'm very fortunate that the fifth District has had nearly 200 streets repaired, but we were also double the detriment of other streets in other districts. So I think the next close is at the time when I was elected was Councilmember Oranga with about $20 million in street repair need and I was at $40 million that I inherited from my predecessor. Additionally, in relation to the extensive amount of maintenance and repairs needed at Eldorado Park, both west and east, I've consistently helped form friends groups I have consistently requested, and the groups to maintain a list of their needs and the items on the lists that are easily identifiable and maintained and communicated to our office have been funded. We're doing a $2 million duck pond restoration and enhancement. We've replaced and funded new tables. There were 40 tables identified throughout the park that were in disrepair. I went to one of the friends group meetings and proposed where we should place them and talked about the different strategies on how we could repair other benches throughout the park. I'm not using injury funds, but using council district funds for something that was on their list. And then the 100,000 in filtration pumps that were allocated tonight with this vote, that will be helpful. And then millions of dollars throughout the city. But several of them will be for park bathrooms in Eldorado Park done this summer. So that's about $6 million in investment in just Eldorado Park, east and west. And that is with a list that's just not maintained as actively as some of our other groups like Play. And one of the things that that's very helpful is when a group like Play or Friends of Wardlow Park get together and keep a list. When funds become available, it's really easy to find out. This is a small dollar amount. What small dollar amount items can we make significant progress on very quickly? Even so much as say that it's been almost a year and we allocated over $10,000 for trashcan lids, but the group hasn't really come together on what solution they want yet. And so those moneys are kind of tied up. So I look forward to meeting with those groups again potentially as early as this Friday. But I hope my colleagues will support moving forward on these items tonight because the community, as I have heard them, are in huge support. So thank you very much for that support and and your leadership on many things in the city. John. Speaker 0: Thank you. Councilwoman, there's a motion and a second. Please cast your votes. Speaker 1: Motion carries. Speaker 0: Thank you. Motion carries. When do we think this project will start? But in a few weeks. The the artificial turf in Eldorado Park. Speaker 3: I'm turning to our partners in public works to see how quickly we can start. I know there's still the funding vote that's going to be required coming up shortly. Speaker 6: Um, it's about 30 seconds away for that funding vote. Speaker 8: So we'll get back to you on when that will be. Speaker 0: I had heard it would be about six weeks. Is that correct? Okay. Okay, great. So then how long is that going to be? Mr. Modica and Apr.

Agenda Item

Recommendation to receive and file Fiscal Year 2019 Year-End Budget Performance Report and increase appropriations in several funds across several departments for various purposes to reflect final expenditures and carryover clean-up. (Citywide)

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_02182020_20-0112

Speaker 0: K. There's a motion. Can I get a second, please? No public comment. Please cast your votes. Speaker 1: Motion carries. Speaker 0: A 22. Speaker 1: Adam, 22, is communication from City Attorney Recommendation to declare ordinance amending the Long Beach Municipal Code relating to prohibiting the use and sale of single use food and beverage containers read and adopted as read city citywide. Speaker 0: Seamus is a First Amendment control. Speaker 3: Hello. My name is Seamus Ennis. I live in the art craft manner district within the fourth district. I'm the chairman of Long Beach chapter of the Surfrider Foundation, and our chapter has been working on this polystyrene plastic pollution issue since 2006, about ten years before I started wearing glasses, which has also been a long time ago, but we've been working on it long term. We realized that you guys, the council members and staff are responsible for all these ordinance amendments, and we really appreciate it. We love them. We support them. The the agenda item and the ordinance amendments. You've done a great job. Speaker 0: And this sends a great message to other. Speaker 3: Cities upstream that can learn from Long Beach. And when we look to them and try and get them to do the right thing, we can say, Hey, look at what we're doing. We're doing our part. Now, you guys, not only other cities. Speaker 0: But other states and other countries. Speaker 3: We can finally look to China and the Philippines and tell them to do their part. So, goodjob, you guys. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you very much, Miss Cantrell. Speaker 2: Good evening again. And I. And very glad that you're doing this. It's kind of ironic that on the same night that you are banding banning plastic straws, which are. Hazard in the environment that you would approve putting plastic fields in Eldorado Park. As Charlie Moore emailed today, and I'm sure you are aware that he is the person that discovered the plastic gyre in the Pacific Ocean about 25 years ago and is going all around the world telling people about the dangers of plastic. His comment about these plastic fields is that the children are going to be inhaling. Plastic residue. From these fields. Which is much more dangerous to them than eating out of a polystyrene take home package. Both of these are dangers to the environment, but you are adding to it with this. Plastic field. These fields only last 5 to 7 years. I have pictures here of the field. Speaker 0: Stick to this topic, which is the poorly staring ban on food products, please. Speaker 2: I'm talking about the dangers of plastics and. Disposing of these fields. This is the field in. Hawaiian Gardens, only six years old, and it's already got all this rubber exposed because the plastic shreds. I hope you don't stop with single use food and beverage containers, packaging and plastic straws and get rid of plastic everywhere in Long Beach . Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you so much. And you there don't see any public. Public speakers. Please cast your votes. Ocean cares an exciting place. Speaker 1: I think that's. Speaker 4: It. Speaker 0: I think I had. Okay. Then I do have. Is Gerry Glenn Thomas here? Please, sir, come forward.

Ordinance

Recommendation to declare ordinance amending the Long Beach Municipal Code by amending Sections 8.63.020, 8.63.030, 8.63.050 and 8.63.070; all relating to prohibiting the use and sale of single-use food and beverage containers, packaging and food service ware made of expanded polystyrene (EPS) foam, rigid polystyrene #6, and non-recyclable and non-compostable material for prepared food distribution, and the distribution of plastic for bio-plastic straws, read and adopted as read. (Citywide)

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_02112020_20-0139

Speaker 1: Councilman Mongo. Ocean carries. Speaker 0: Thank you. Let's go ahead and read item 16, please. Speaker 1: Communication from Councilwoman Zendejas, Councilmember Pierce, Councilman Austin. Recommendation to request the city attorney to draft an urgency ordinance for review at the February 18th, 2020 City Council meeting to address the substantial remodel loophole in the Tenant Protection Act. Speaker 0: There's a motion in a second councilman's in the house. Speaker 3: Yes. Amna, go ahead. And one of the reasons why I did this motion is because I've been getting a lot of a lot of residents coming to the first District with with eviction notices and fearful that they're being evicted unfairly in the interests of trying to keep things balanced and making sure that everybody is protected under the loophole of the 1482. I decided to really bring this item so that, you know, recommending the city staff to draft an ordinance. Okay. So I'm going to go ahead and reiterate right here what I have. The Tenant Protection Act also called the 1482, which passed in California and legislator last year and went into effect on January 1st , includes a key provision that protects renters from no fault evictions. Essentially, in most cases, a landlord must demonstrate a breach of the terms or lease by the tenant in order to evict them. Just a case in which a no fault evictions are still allowed under the law is in the owners discretion described to significantly remodel the units in the case they are evicted the current tenant to it, you know, in order to ask the tenant to leave the tenant protection. AP 1482 states that the remodel must be significant enough to require construction permits, but it doesn't require the permits actually to be pooled or for the landlord to describe the nature of the remodels. The exact language should be the replacement of of substantial modifications of any, any structural electronico, electronic plumbing or mechanical system that requires a permit from a government agency or. Abate. Hazardous materials, including lead based paint, mold or asbestos, is in accordance with the applicant applicable federal, state and local laws that cannot be reasonably accomplished in a safe manner with the tenant in place. And that requires the tenant to vacate the resident's real property for for at least 30 days. Cosmetic improvements alone, including painting, decorating and minor repairs or other work that can be performed safely without having the tenant leave. The proper gym or vacate the property do not qualify for substantial rehabilitation. The item should required landlords obtain the permit. To construction prior to posting the notice to vacate and include those notices in the nature of the remodeling being done and copy of the permit when presented to the tenant. This does not change the law or policy and it's the rent control in any way, shape or form. All that it does is that it clarifies the existing law and helping bring landlords into compliance with the with the ordinance or with the law by asking them to demonstrate the legal requirements for significantly remodeling before tenants received notice to vacate. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilwoman. Customer Pierce. Do you want to do public comment or do you want to go ahead and make comments first? Speaker 4: We can do public comment first. Speaker 0: And then we'll come back. You can come on our behalf. Speaker 4: I'll comment. Now, I'm going to be brief. I think that this is a, you know, a great item that doesn't touch with the state laws already put into place. It makes sense that before we uproot families, before children are taken out of their schools and have to move neighborhoods, that we are making sure that the landlords do their part first, which is taking out that permit first. I think I want to thank the councilmember for leading on her first housing item, and I look forward to hearing from our community members and I hope everybody will support this. Thank you. Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you very much. I do have a list of speakers. So we have over ten speakers who will be going down in 90 seconds. And we'll start I'm going to call the first. If you can, please come forward and line up as I call your name, please. So the first five speakers in this order are Hall Stewart, Gretchen Swanson, Hilda Delgado, Katie Douma and Jordan Winn, Hala Stewart, Gretchen Swanson. Hill of the Gotto Katie DOMA or Kate DOMA. Jordan. Jordan Wynn, please. Alice, please. Speaker 2: Good Mayor and council. I am speaking in favor of passing this. To close this loophole. Speaker 0: Because, by the way. Speaker 2: I'm a homeowner here in Long Beach. I'm not a cat. But I believe that justice has to be for all of us, not for part of us, and not just for landlords or not just for tenants. And this closing this loophole will provide the city with a situation where it can hold its head high and sell. So, yes, we are trying to provide justice and equality for tenants in a way that allows them to develop their families, to be part of our community and feel proud of that. So please do pass this and let's close this loophole and make it better for everyone. Thank you very much. Speaker 0: Thank you very much. Speaker, please. Speaker 5: Good evening. I'm Gretchen Swanson in Rose Park, area of District two. First, I want to thank Councilmember Santos for this leadership. Had you not done this, we wouldn't be able to understand the ramifications of a tiny loophole. The loophole has legal implications, loopholes. We hear about tax loopholes and people sort of shudder. They don't want to be, you know, caught in a loophole, but it allows for discretion that does not follow the spirit of the legislation or the regulation. So we know in January of this year we got greater, better tenant protections around California. Yes, but very quickly, an unforeseen loophole here. So my position is requiring permits that meet the standard of substantial remodeling is needed. I, for one, do not want to see landlords prevented from doing this type of remodeling. We have many properties in the city that need substantial remodeling and have for years. This simple and single correction protects both the tenants and the landlords for secure and safe housing. We need to close the loophole and protect our tenant community in Long Beach. Speaker 2: Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you, Nick. Speaker, please. Speaker 4: Good evening. My name is Helder. Then I'm the district director for Senator Lena Gonzalez, and I am reading this letter on her behalf. Dear Mayor Garcia and council members are right in support of Item 16 tenant protection substantial remodel loophole on the Long Beach City Council agenda for today. It is critical that the city does everything it can to ensure tenants are not wrongfully displaced. Last year, I was proud to vote in support of the California Tenant Protection Act of 2019 to provide a statewide rent cap and just cause eviction protections. Due to the timing of implementation, many cities, including Long Beach, pass emergency ordinances to prevent displacement of current tenants before the law went into effect on January 1st, 2020. Now, many tenants have received notices to vacate properties for what land owners consider substantial remodels without a sincere effort to perform those improvements. The original intent of the law was to provide tenant protections and prevent unwarranted evictions, yet it had it. Yet it does not clearly define the conditions under which property owners can require tenants to vacate for a remodel. Council Item 16 will help clarified what counts as a substantial remodel so our constituents are not wrongfully evicted. Thank you very much. Speaker 2: Next week at this. Speaker 5: Good evening. Speaker 6: You have all heard from me in a variety of ways, and I just wanted to reiterate and thank you. Speaker 5: To. Speaker 6: Those of you who put this forward. It was great work getting it together and. In counter measure to the discussions that we've heard from property owners, not yet tonight, but in the newspaper, they said they don't know the extent of the work that needs to be done until the tenant moves out. Well, according to the law, they have to know what they want to do in order for the eviction to apply. So if they're arguing they don't know what work needs to be done, then they don't have grounds for the eviction according to the state law. And that is the most basic concept. So this measure will ensure that they have put that into place, that they have a plan, that they know what they need to do before they can send out a notice to evict. Now, you also know that I think this is a great first step. It's a Band-Aid on the bleeding, but that stricter measures would be even better. So I would love to see this pass, and we'd love to discuss what more can be done in the future. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you. Let's hear from you. And before Jordan speaks, I'm going to call the next five speakers. Sandra Tommasini said I can fee Ankie Zwirner Curtis, Max Norris and Daniel Sherwood. Please come forward. Sandra Tommasini said, I can see an orchestra under Curtis, Max Norris and Daniel Sherwood. I apologize if I if I got any of those names wrong, please come forward in that order. Speaker 2: Sure. Hi there. Jordan Wynn, District two resident. I stand in support of item 16 and I want to thank council members S.A. Pierce and Austin, who is not here for bringing this item forward today. It's very important and quick and easy fix for this ordinance. The fix for this ordinance is very modest. It simply clarifies the process. I want to make it clear that it doesn't add any additional burdens or restrictions on landlords, and it should actually help landlords avoid issuing 60 day notices that violate state law and the cost that they would have to incur in doing so, having to defend unjust evictions, reissue notices, etc.. I want to thank the Council for protecting tenants in the winter and keeping tenants home for the holidays by passing an eviction moratorium. Unfortunately, those same tenants are facing this loophole. They are facing these unjust evictions, unfortunately, through the guise of substantial rehab that does not have any papers pulled and does not have any sort of evidence that it will take place. So we ask for this common sense reform and that this loophole be filled. Thank you so much. Speaker 0: Thank you very much. Speaker 4: Speaker eight Thanks for hearing me. I'm Sandor Tommasini and I am currently being evicted under this substantial renovations clause. I've been gathering evidence to see what can apply in my case, and I realize that the only recourse I have is to, after the fact, gather evidence that substantial renovations may not have taken place and then sue the owner or property management in civil court. Well, that seems like a ridiculous way to enforce the law. So going forward, it would be much better if these landlords have to provide evidence by telling city permits, providing architectural plans and so forth before they can evict people, which shows that they are actually following the letter of the law and doing the substantial renovations that they say instead of the cosmetic renovations that they, by observation, seem to be doing. So if you can just put that into law, then we are all protected and do not have to depend on suing these people later, which is pointless because at that point I've already lost my apartment and all of that. So thank you for having me. Thank you. To those of you who have put this measure forward and look forward to this being put into law. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you so much. Next week, at least. Speaker 4: And my name is Angus Warner, and I'm a resident at the same houses as the speakers before me. And I completely agree with everybody. Sad. And as you can tell from my accent, I'm not from here. I moved from Germany being married to a history professor at Cal State. Long Beach was there for 30 years now. And I love being in Long Beach moving here to Germany. But we got the 60 days notice. We got kicked out of our apartment. We had to find a new place even though we made a home, which was for me, Long Beach, the new. Speaker 2: Home. Speaker 6: Away from. Speaker 2: Home. Speaker 4: And it was a shock for us. And I said, How can that be as a German? As a German, I would said, there should be some law to protect it. You cannot kick it out within 60 days. I mean, we are two double incomes, no kids. So for us it's okay. We are sitting on boxes and are moving. The end of the week. We found a new place, a nice place. But what about all the other people? It's in the house, in the neighborhoods who don't have that, who don't have double incomes, no kids, and $2,000 for a one or two bedroom apartment . Living in Long Beach is not affordable anymore. Thank you. Maybe I'll move back to Berlin. Speaker 0: Okay. So thank you very much. Next is Mr. Norris. Before. Before Mr. Norris speaks. If I can have Daniel Sherwood, Dennis Baltimore. Baltimore. He said after Rosa, Joshua Christian and Alec Forrest, please come up. So it'll be Max Norris, Daniel Sherwood, Dennis Baltimore, he says, and also Joshua Christian and Alex for us. Please line up. Speaker 7: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, counsel. I was happy to see Ms.. And Diaz championing this. I'm a District one resident, and it's encouraging considering what we've seen so far. Speaker 2: As an attorney by trade, I know that loopholes are often exploited by the bad people in our society, and I do mean bad people. And in doing this, we need to close this loophole. Speaker 7: We need a solid definition for what this work is and a burden of proof to be carried by the developer for that. Otherwise, we'll see continued abuse of this. This is a story that happened in San Francisco where I was displaced from years ago. The loopholes in what were thought to be strong laws in San Francisco, much stronger than we have here, have been exploited to the nth degree. And now we have a city in San Francisco where you have to make over $120,000 to afford anything. And it's untenable and it's coming to Long Beach. And you all have been very complacent about it, and I'm very disappointed. But thank you, Mr. Diaz, and I hope to see more from you like this. Speaker 2: Thank you next week for please. Good evening. Council members Robert Garcia. I'm Dan Sherwood from the second district and. I've lived in this beautiful city for 36 years, and I've I've been part of the community ministry outreaches and this and that. And I've been in my home for 26 years. This one's been in her home for 28, and we have three back here, all who have been threatened to be evicted because of this new ordinance or loophole that is once again rearing its ugly head. It's only my opinion, but this is such an amazing city and this whole move is just a black smear mark across Long Beach. You know, we have an amazing city here. We're so diverse in so many different areas. And, you know, like the speaker said before me, we don't all make $140,000 a year. And many of us are very happy in our homes. We've we've made our homes where they are. And I look across the pool at the Obispo Building and this new loophole, and I've got six neighbors that I've known for 15 years, and they're all empty windows. We share a pool. I've got three from my building in Coronado who have already been evicted and moved out. This is unjust eviction, you know, we're good citizens. We're community. We hold each other up and we care about each other. And we want to continue to live in this beautiful city. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Speaker 0: So much. Next speaker. Speaker 2: Good evening, Mr. Mayor. Members of the council. My name is Joshua Christian. I am the Legal Aid Eviction defense attorney for the city of Long Beach. A notice stating scope, timeline and proof of permits will provide clarity and prevent unnecessary eviction lawsuits. The purpose of these notices is not just to tell tenants to move. It's to assure them that their landlord has respected their rights. The two words substantial remodel. Don't give them confidence that that is the case and they can't verify that it's the case. So they can only stand their ground by going to court. For a landlord acting legally, more information encourages tenants to move by showing them the law has been followed. More information helps tenants evaluate the situation and keeps everyone from playing a game of legal chicken. No one wants to go to court. For most landlords who are acting in good faith, all they'll need to do under this ordinance is give an explanation to their tenants of why those tenants need to go. For the few bad actors, this will stop fraudulent notices at their source. Ultimately, for those few tenants who do have to go to court, it will make sure that they have clear legal rights that need protecting. Thank you very much for me and for my clients for hearing this item tonight. Speaker 0: Thank you very much. Next week, a piece. Speaker 2: Clearly, too. My name is Dennis Baltimore, and I live in Long Beach, California. Over the past couple of years, I've been a victim of displacement rate increases. I'll just I'll just evictions and landlord intimidation has often left me out on the streets. I'm sick and tired of excuses. Being a formerly incarcerated black man is, for me, culturally a black man. I often find it hard for me to get a job. Many others have experienced similar situations as myself, and I ask you to please fix this loophole. This loophole is making us go in circles. We aren't making any progress with this loop loophole in place. Again, I ask you to fix this loophole so we can have a better system to where the we, the tenants are accounted for. Please. But I beg you. We are leaders. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you, sir. Thanks for Chris's. Speaker 2: Hello. Good afternoon. My name is says I am a resident of the First District and a member of Best Art Center of Long Beach. I came here back in December letting you know that my family was facing displacement due to rehab. However, through the help of housing language, we found out that the property owner never got the permit to make repairs. Please support us and. Passing this loophole faces strong. Help us in the strongest form possible. Thank you. Thank you. Speaker 0: And before our next speaker, I'm going to call the next five people up forward and that'll be Alex Flores, Malcolm Bennett, Chris Keebler, Cynthia macias and Jonathan Gibson. So if I can have Alex Flores, Malcolm Bennett, Chris Keebler, Cynthia macias and Jonathan Gibson, please line up. That'd be great. Thank you. Speaker 2: Yes. Good evening, Mayor and City Council. My name is Alex Flores. I'm a housing attorney with the Legal Aid Foundation here in Long Beach. Speaker 0: I'm sorry, Alex, before you, this is Dennis Baltimore. Go speak. That was Dennis. Okay, then. Great. Mr. Barr. Sorry. Start over. Can we start? We start his time, please. Thank you. Speaker 2: Thank you. What I wanted to point out tonight was that what's being presented today is a compromise and a modest ask, considering what different cities around the county are doing. What we are asking for is a fix that is locally appropriate for Long Beach and it's cheap for the city and the landlords. We're not asking to create a new department or a new process. We're not asking to create new fines for landlords or new punishments. This would be merely clarify what is a valid notice and what is not. Right now the problem that we are seeing is entire buildings being handed notices which say only two words, substantial remodel. At the same time, we're seeing that landlords, certain landlords are not planning a single permit, are showing no indication of actually doing any remodeling. The problem is that the longer we wait, the more people are going to be evicted. Attaching the permit will be the way to protect tenants and to make sure that both landlords and tenants understand that this is a valid notice. Anything short of that? Asking the landlords to start the process or asking them to file something beforehand is not enough. What tenants need to know the minute they get that notice is Is there a defense? What should I do? And anything short of explaining to them what the plan is and that the permits has already been pulled, that the work is going to be done, will not do. Speaker 0: It. Thank you very much, sir. Let's take a piece. Actually Malcolm Bennet is next after Malcolm Bennet is Chris Keebler and Cynthia macias. Speaker 2: Guardian American Council. Malcolm Managed Property Owner and property manager and licensed contractor. I'm asking for no vote on this at this time. I believe 1482 just came in. It's only been 40 days. I think we need to allow it to work. A lot of people understand the process in pulling a major rehab permit. It's not something you just just do. And I believe we need to see how this work. And I strongly believe that if a landlord does abuse this and does not permit, I think it would send a strong message out to prosecute a couple of landlords to do that and not put the burden on the amount of money to pay for a permit for a major renovation on property is quite substantial and quite a bit of money. And then you have to wait 60 days to the tenant, move out and then start work. That's causing a delay. And I personally believe it will dissuade a lot of developers from coming in and rehabbing some of these older houses. So I would ask for a no vote and let's look at 1480 to give it time to work and then come back in if there is abuse. There are certainly facilities and I think to prosecute, which we would strongly support as the housing market, those people that try to take advantage of a loophole and do this. So thank you very much for your time. Speaker 0: Thank you. Next speaker, please. Speaker 2: Hello. My name is Chris Keebler. I've lived in the city for 20 years. I've worked for Long Beach Unified School District for almost 20 years. I live in the second District. I'm currently in escrow in the ninth District, and I work at Cabrillo High School in the seventh District. I think this is a very important loophole to close. I don't think any developers are shy to come into Long Beach. I think it's also important if we do close this loophole, that it's retroactive to all of those who have received these eviction notices since January. You know, I'm fortunate enough to be able to go into escrow. You know, I have a good job with the Long Beach Unified School District, but I know that it's very hard, even in my circumstance, to own a home in this city. And I think it's even becoming harder for many people to rent in this city. And so I think it's important that we we close this loophole just so that this someone else said it earlier, that we have a city that's tenable for people to to have a take that aren't just, you know, the rich. That's all I have to say. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you so much. Next week, this. Speaker 4: Hello. My name is Cynthia macias. I want to thank you all for bringing this up and most importantly, for actually seeing the loophole that we all have seen. With that being said, I know like. Speaker 6: Previously was that it just started it came. Speaker 4: In 40 days ago. Unfortunately, I have more than 25 tenants that are getting evicted. Speaker 6: So within those 40 days, more than half of those people will be gone. Right, without this. So with that being said. Speaker 2: Close the loop. But we. Speaker 6: Also want to make. Speaker 4: Sure that. Speaker 2: Just like this loophole. Speaker 4: Was there, another loophole is not found. What do I mean by that? Well, landlords will not be able to put in for a permit and then kick the tenants out. And then once the tenants are out, pull that permit back out. Speaker 6: So just want to make sure. Speaker 4: That permits are in hand before they kick these tenants out. Thank you very much. Speaker 0: Thank you. Next speaker, please. This is Mr. Gibson. Yes. So before Mr. Gibson speaks, I'm going to call the next group of speakers and please line up in this order. Mike Murchison, Domingo Santiago. I can't re the last names is Fred. Oh. Oh, it's Fred. Big Fred. Big Annie. Kimberly Navas. Eduardo Lara. And Karen Harper. So after Jonathan Gibson, we're going to get Mike Murchison to meet us in Chicago for a beginning. Kimberly Navas. Eduardo Lara and Kieran Harper. Speaker 2: Good evening. My name is Jonathan Gibson. I'm a District seven resident and an attorney at Legal Aid. We just heard someone say, give this law time, but we already know that the loophole exists and the law isn't working. This is the right time to close that loophole. Legal aid has been flooded with tenants receiving substantial remodel notices when they receive these notices and ask management for more information. They get stonewalled. This puts them in an impossible situation, and many have already discussed do I stay and fight the eviction filed against me and hope that the landlord doesn't pull the permit before trial? Or do I just leave possibly knowing that the landlord never had any intention of remodeling the place? This ordinance simply asks landlords to be upfront and put their cards on the table regarding the remodeling plans so tenants can make an informed decision. I also want to dispel a myth that there is. We need to know that there's no need to evict tenants before remodeling a unit or pulling permits. That a landlord can already go into a unit, inspect it and see if it needs remodeling. This ordinance would simply give tenants a peace of mind while imposing no additional burdens on landlords. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, Mayor and council members. My name is Mike Murchison. I'm here on behalf of the California Apartment Association, the Small Property Owners Alliance and the Apartment Association. So all three of the major groups. Number one, I want to point out to you that unlike the tenant groups that knew about this item, none of these groups I just referenced knew about this. I have until Friday at 11:00. As we all know, supplemental goes in to noon. So I guess from a future action standpoint, it would be very helpful for the other side, the rental property owners, to know about these items in advance so that they have time to try to compromise and come up with a negotiation versus 72 hours, which makes it extremely difficult to communicate to the thousands of rental property owners that are out there. That said, here's a brief solution. Pull the permit, make it a generic permit, have the state, add the city, standardize it to say that it's substantial in nature. Have the landlord then have to post that at the tenant's unit, allowing the landlord to come back in and issue the city day notice after that, but not having to pay the permit fees which are substantial for some of these major renovations. So you're asking Mom and Pop to come in there and pay these guys. Speaker 0: Everyone gets a chance to speak, please. So now my. Speaker 2: Clock is running. One that's. Speaker 0: Ahead. Speaker 2: So it gives the landlords an opportunity to go in there without the tenant in there to judge what needs to be done, go back, submit it, and then pay for the substantial permit fees. We're not trying to hide anything. We're just trying to say, give us a moment to digest this and go forward. Speaker 0: Hey, guys, guys, I seriously I manage the time he lost few a few seconds because of the interruption. So is letting him finish. Everyone gets a chance to speak. Finish up, Mr. Richardson. Speaker 2: Thank you, Mayor. All I'm saying is, is that I'm trying to give you an option to have the rental property owner come in and pull a permit without the fees attached. Thank you. Thank you. Speaker 0: Next speaker, please. Which will be Dominga. Santiago. Speaker 4: On a memo La Mingus and even Apartamento Cuatro Cuando, though they say have a new apartment there. And then in all honesty, I know there is a review, so call me Familia Esperanza. Marisa is going to use your name, especially not as if you must know that because you know they are local. But the liberals in this society has seen information that they endorse while the trabajo is in the new Burmese source. Los Angeles. Not the official they see, but Robert. And it shouldn't so nice familiar case that someone. Salvador and this is that the system was closed by measles is then completamente forgotten. No sympathy sympathies, sympathy mender and besotted. But I sorry that nozzle notification the SA logo is. Hi. My name is Porfirio Dela Rosa. I live in for four days apartment E and I lived there for 11 years with my family and I hope to continue to live there so my children can continue to be raised there. Myself and my neighbors have received eviction notices because of substantial repairs without any previous information detailing the type of work that needs to be done or permits. All the renters at the Daisy Building are asking that you pass this. This article. So that the families and continued to live there. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you very much. Right beginning is the next speaker. Speaker 4: Good afternoon. My name is Kim. Really nervous. I am. Speaker 0: Really. I'm sorry. It's for the beginning here. Yeah. Yeah, for president. Speaker 2: Sorry. Right after him. No problem. Yes. Hi. Good evening. I'm a senior tenant in the first district. And thank you, Mary, for taking the lead on this. And I just want to say, we as advocates have worked really hard to pass the relocation or the relocation ordinance, the moratorium and the TPA. And it just doesn't make sense for it to be undermined by landlords who don't want to pay permit fees. So I urge you to go ahead and close this loophole. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you very much. And now kindergarten. Speaker 4: So I am from District eight. This is my second time speaking, the first being almost two years ago when my family and I were being evicted from our apartment we rented over 20 years ago, I mean, over 20 years for remodeling purposes, before the landlord even knew what was wrong with the units I am now. That was at the time asked Lina Gonzalez for help. But to see that my new councilman Austin is supporting this item really makes me proud to see it. So really proud to now be a resident of District eight. This item won't solve the problem in Long Beach, but it is a step in the right direction and I really hope it's passed to close that loophole. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you very much, Mr. Latta. Speaker 2: Good evening, Mayor. City Council. I want to thank Councilwoman Mary San that has Councilwoman Pierson, Councilman Austin for item 16. I'm here to lend my support. About a month ago, I met with residents from two properties on fourth and Coronado, Fourth and Obispo, and I can share with you the pain that they're going through in terms of , you know, being evicted without necessarily the proper procedures being taking place. This is a step in the right direction. I think the city of Long Beach needs to lead forward to ensure that the Spirit of Tenant Protection Act must be maintained. At the end of the day, the spirit behind this initiative and others like this is affordable housing. We really need to ask ourselves, what city do we want to continue to be? A city that economically is for everyone, or a city in which only those that can afford can continue to live here? So I ask us to wrestle with these questions as we move forward, not only in item 16, but in future agenda items that can preserve the city that we all love, which is a diverse economically, racially and ethnically LGBTQ wise and people from all walks of life. And that's at the heart of this matter. So I thank you for moving this initiative forward. Speaker 0: Thank you. Thank you to the widow. Karen, please. So last speaker. Speaker 4: Yes, good evening. Good evening. My name is Karen Harper. I'm from the third district and I just wanted to stand up in support of agenda item 16 and to congratulate you all for moving quickly, because when people are losing their homes, it's an emergency and we need action right away. And I think this is. Speaker 6: A good. Speaker 4: Step in in this loophole. And I also have a poem for. Speaker 6: Black History Month to give to each of you. So thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you very much. We'll just give it to the clerk and roll with us. Thanks, Ms.. Harper. That concludes public comment. Let me just close public comment. We'll go back. Councilmember Pearson. No, you were the last one. Did you have any other additional comments on your second or. I know you turn it over to public comment or no, you're good. Okay. Next step is Councilwoman Price. Speaker 5: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So thank you, everyone, for coming out and for your comments tonight. And thank you to Councilmembers and de Haas, Councilwoman Pierce and Councilman Austin for bringing this item forward. I don't think there's anyone up here who wants to see increased evictions or people being displaced. I do think, though, that there may be an opportunity for a compromise here, having listened to everyone. So I'm going to propose that in just a moment as a friendly amendment with the hope that Councilman Councilwoman Zendejas, would be willing to consider it. I myself talked with Linda Tatum just to understand the process better for when a landlord might need to make or want to make changes, significant changes to their properties. And my understanding is that the first step is that a copy of the plans need to be submitted. The second step is that the person who is intending to make the renovations would then go through the plan check process, and with that would come the requirement that fees be paid for the plan check. Process. Once that process is complete, then it would take 4 to 8 weeks for permits to be issued. And then, of course, there would be fees associated with the building permits. My recommendation or my friendly as a compromise to try to meet the needs of everyone here and meet the spirit of what this legislation intends to effectuate, is that at step two, which is where the planned check and the fees associated with planned checks occurs , that that would be required before an eviction notice would need to be given. So it wouldn't be for the full issuance of the building permits before a notification would have to be made, but rather at the planned check stage when planned check fees have been paid by the property owner. So that's my friendly I don't know, Councilwoman Zendejas, if you want to think about it or if you want to accept it or reject it. But that would be a recommendation that I would have. As a friendly. Speaker 3: Thank you, Councilmember Price. I'd really like to hear from everyone first. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you. Account summary income. Speaker 2: Thank you. Actually, we would be here discussing this item about a loophole had there been proper notice, proper communication with tenants. Eviction without a reason really brought brought us to this point and brought us to the understanding that there is something wrong with 1482. In regards to evictions. So, I mean, I'm totally supportive. When I heard this the last week or whatever was brought forward to us before that, there were eviction notices being given based on 1482, 1482. What you need to do is Columbus sorry added ten years. The it immediately came to my mind that we needed to we need to fix this. And I want to thank council members in the House for bringing this forward, because it is a way of addressing this. And and it is a way of being able to help tenants and landlords talk to each other, speak to each other to find out what's going on in each of those apartment buildings so that the renovations can be done in a timely manner, so that tenants can find other housing in a timely manner or temporary order or whatever needs to be done. But one of the biggest things for me is that when we have. Make evictions just like that. It puts the burden more on us, on the city to address housing, affordable housing and yes locations. And it increases our how our are homeless count and it just creates a bigger problem. So I mean let's let's be real. We want we want to address our homeless issues. We want to address affordable housing, affordable accommodations. And the only way we could get there is by working together, knowing that if we want to improve our buildings, we want to improve the experiences of our tenants, to keep them there, keep them housed. Let's talk to each other. And I think that this motion here on the floor does exactly that. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you. Next up is Councilman Mongo. Speaker 8: Yes, I think I have an additional question for development services. I appreciate the the work from council and they have evictions are and bad actors are never anywhere we want to protect. I do think we want to make sure though that we know and understand the full scope so we don't get ourselves into another position. Ms.. Tatum Are there any other substantial remodels that could be performed that would not require a permit? I don't know what you could limit. Like what if you're scraping asbestos ceilings? Does that require a permit? Speaker 5: No, pretty much. Any time you touch the building or any other systems in the building, it will always require a building permit. And that's for compliance with the uniform bill, the California Building Code. Speaker 8: So. If you're not touching the system, but like scraping ceiling. Asbestos like popcorn ceilings that even requires a permit. Or are you saying there's not. Speaker 5: Substantial there is nuance to this because, for example, if the ceilings are old, it depends upon when the ceilings were installed. And if it's pre, say, 1960, there is a very good likelihood that there is a substance. And that would require not only building permit but other safety precautions to test it and make sure that the the scraping the ceilings is done properly. Speaker 8: And what if you weren't doing a roof replacement, but perhaps a roof repair? Would that also require a permit? Speaker 5: Yes. There's very, very little that can be done without issuance of a building permit. Speaker 8: Okay. That provides the clarity that I needed. Thank you very much. Luckily, I haven't had to do a lot of those things, so I'm not really aware of that component. Thank you, Councilman Price, for that line of questioning as well. That helps us understand the nuance between the first deposit that a landlord makes and the secondary process. I think that it's also important to recognize that with the exception of bad actors, of course, good landlords don't want to get rid of tenants for longer than is necessary because that's income they're losing as well. And so with the exception of the bad actors, minimizing and limiting that liability is always something that we as a council also want to do to make sure that that future cost is not then burdened on the next tenant. So thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you. Vice Mayor Andres. Speaker 9: Yes, thank you, Mayor. First of all, I'd like to thank our council people who brought this item forward. And I see this is a very complex issue. And I can see from both lenses that it is very frustrating. And we must do our part to address this housing shortage and constant displacement of tenants. We need to find a middle ground that keeps people in their homes and allow landlords to remodel if they need to. And I do think that the city and we can do better in expediting permits and processes. I don't think I need to talk any longer. As long as we talk to more people being displaced. If this item doesn't go through. So I truly definitely would support the idea. Speaker 0: Thank you. Next up is Councilman Supernanny. Speaker 9: Thank you. And a question for staff. And we've heard some testimony here that there have been evictions. Do we have any hard data on that that anyone knows of? Are there numbers we can put on this? Since January one. Speaker 5: Councilman. So we're not we do not have data since January one. We had data from before. If you recall, one of the provisions in the tenant assistance ordinance that the city initially passed last year, it required landlords that needed to evict tenants for purposes of a substantial rehabilitation that that be reported to the city based upon that data. Last year we had approximately and this is very approximately 40 evictions that occurred. However, once that ordinance was rescinded, there was no longer a requirement that evictions for purposes of substantial rehab be reported to the city. So the responses we've heard that anecdotally, but none of those have been reported to the city. Speaker 9: Okay. So any evictions directly attributable to the loophole, you don't have data on that at this point? Speaker 5: That is correct. Speaker 9: Okay. You know, first of all, I'd like to thank the makers of the motion for bringing this forward. But we do have a challenge up here, and that is timing. If you can imagine how long it took to put this together at the assembly level, probably thousands of hours to craft this measure, 1482. And at the end of all that time, they ended up with a loophole. What we're being asked to do tonight is to fast track an ordinance with minimal time and make sure we've done all our due diligence. And there are no unintended consequences of what we do here tonight. That's a major, major challenge. And we would like to have. I personally would like to have more data on exactly what is going on here. So I would like to you. Speaker 0: Know, everyone, guys, just please, you know. Speaker 9: Mystified me why the audience would want to interrupt someone whose vote you want, but I don't want to, you know, challenge your constitutional right, I guess I guess you have that to shout out during a meeting. But for right now, I'm going to support the friendly amendment. Thank you. Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you. Next up is Councilmember Pearce. Speaker 4: Thank you. So I'm going to ask staff a couple of clarifying questions. Councilmember Price mentioned to step two staff, can you walk through what the process is and how long that whole process is for everybody in the audience? Speaker 5: Sure happy to do that. And this is I would just note that this is pretty broad brushed because every project is different. The extent of the work that's being proposed, it varies in terms of how long it takes to get through the planned check. So what I would the steps of the process are essentially for a landlord or a property owner to come in with plans that outline the nature of the work that they want to do. Staff would review those plans and accept them into plan check. There is an administrative fee for a few. It could vary any way from anywhere from a few hundred dollars to $1,000 for the planned check process to be completed in that process. And I'm going to say roughly because again, it varies depending upon that the extent of the work being done, it could be anywhere from four, six or even eight weeks. However, the city does offer what we call expedited plan check. And if a property owner wants to pay a a small surcharge, they can expedite the turnaround time of the planned check, and that would reduce it by about 20 to 30% of the time frame. So once you're in plan check and that's completed, you receive a notice from the the city staff that the plan check is complete and you're then able to come in and pay the building permit fees and be completed with that process. Once the the building plan, the permit has been issued, a property owner has up to two years to actually complete the process to final that process. And that approval comes in, I'm going to say nine month increments because once the permit is issued, you have nine months to initiate the work for good, cause that nine months can be extended an additional nine months up to a two year period. Speaker 4: And the comment that was made about allowing landlords in the building, right now landlords are allowed to go into buildings. And I mean, my landlord visits my apartment like every three months. He's like my friend. They're allowed to go in right now and take a look and make sure that nothing needs to have maintenance done correct. Speaker 5: That is not necessarily a provision of the building code, but generally a provision under the lease and terms and. Speaker 4: With notification three days. And then let me ask. So in that two year period, if they get into the building and they then decide that they need to change their plan, check, they can go back to the city and do that. Speaker 5: Yes, as a matter of fact, when it comes in, when we assess the plan, check fees as well as the building permit fees, it's based upon the contractors or the plan designers, their estimation of what the valuation is. So we base those fees on the contractors or the plan preparers estimate of the valuation. But during the plan, review the construction and the inspection process. If those numbers need to be adjusted for additional work that is taken into account and the fees are adjusted accordingly. Speaker 4: Okay. Thank you for that. And. I guess I would just also say in the in the conversation, colleagues, that we've had about negotiation and finding a middle. The city decided to try to find some funds and have staff really work to identify funds for people that have been relocated because of substantial rehab. Instead of having that be on the landlords and instead of having a conversation around the city going above and beyond what the state did. So in my mind and the grand conversation, it seems like we've we've had a lot of that negotiation and asking for a permit that might, you know, take six weeks, six weeks to a family can be a you know, a godsend. How often do we not looking for a place? How often do we see people start a planned check process and then not go through with it? Speaker 5: I don't have percentages, but I'd say that it's not uncommon to start a plan check and never completed or we complete the work and they never get. They never respond to the staff comments and it's never finalized. So it's not uncommon, but it's hard to put a number on that. Speaker 4: And I think that that's one of the questions that just listening to Councilmember Rice, when I heard her motion, I thought, that's not too terrible. But knowing that people can pull good, can start at the plan check process, but then not complete it, that still leaves a gap. So I thoughtfully want you to just think about the fact that if staff is saying that some people start that process, but don't finish it, we don't want to have people be put out of their homes if in fact that substantial rehab does not happen and then have tenants outside of that building trying to prove what's happened inside a building now they no longer have access to feels like putting tenants and landlords in a very awkward situation. So those are my comments right now. I see. I'm out of time. Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilmember Richardson. Speaker 7: Thank you. Just a few questions. And I see the you know, there's one motion on the floor. I just have some questions on that motion. So it. Speaker 2: So this is a. Speaker 7: Question for the city attorney. The recommendation actually doesn't say very much. So what do you understand the recommendation to mean and how would you approach this item? Speaker 2: Thank you for that question. You're stealing my thunder a little bit because I was going to ask for this clarification before you all took a vote. So it's clear everyone knows what you're voting on. I was going to approach it such that, well, first and foremost, what everyone should understand is that in order to make any changes to 1482, local municipalities need to adopt the entirety of section, not the entirety of 1482. But you do need to adopt in the entirety of the just cause provisions and the relocation provisions. So if this passes, the ordinance that is going to come back is going to be a long one because I'm going to cut and paste the exact provisions of 1482 and then I'm going to add what NB 16 here has asked me to add in. I won't just use the recommendation, but I'll take from the entirety of the narrative. And I think it's pretty clear with two exceptions, which I think I need to put Councilwoman Zendejas and Councilman Pearce on the spot a bit for some clarification. Namely, that motion that was originally read was some time ago now. And I want to make clear that in addition to what NBI 16 is requesting, that the motion also would like the ordinance to require that building permits not only be issued in advance of the termination notice, but that they be attached or otherwise referenced to the termination notice. Is that right? Correct. Okay. And I thought that that's what I heard, what I haven't heard from anybody and which is important is that you're asking me and I and I can do this to temporarily prohibit all no fault notices for substantial remodel until February 18th, which of course assumes that an ordinance comes back on that date, which I think I can do and that it passes and that makes sense. But prohibit from when I don't think unless I missed it. We don't say when the prohibition starts. And I think it could be February 7th, which is the date on which this notice went public. That's normally the way things work in the rent control arena, or I suppose it could be earlier than that. I don't know what you all were thinking, and I want to make sure that everyone behind the dais knows what they're voting on. Yes. Speaker 3: I would prefer from February. Speaker 2: From February. Yeah. So we'll do it any, any notice after February 6th issued on February 7th until the effective date of the new ordinance would be null and void. Landlords would have to re comply with the termination notice. That would only be a 11 day period. I think 11 or 12 days. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. I don't know if that answered your question entirely. Speaker 7: So. So you would approach this. You would grab that section of the state law, make that the local ordinance, and you would grab these two provisions that are in the discussion and include it. Speaker 2: That's right. And my intention would be to bring back a red line, to make it simple for the public and the council members to see exactly what changes were made to the first half of 1482, which is Civil Code 1940 6.2. Speaker 7: So those those two areas are one. Obtain all necessary permits from all applicable government agencies before serving a notice, and then to include information in the notice to vacate about the type and scope of the work. Okay. I understand that. So next question. So is there a definition either in state law or within this law on what substantial rehabilitation means? Speaker 2: There is it's already in 1482, and we're not going to change that definition. At least this is not requesting us to do that. And that is there's a couple of different requirements. Any work so substantial remodeling has to be work that requires a local public agency to issue a permit. Or it can be work where no permit is required but has to do with hazardous materials abatement. Like the asbestos example. In. I don't I don't have that much experience, but I think that would be rare where there would be abatement work that wouldn't require a permit, but the law allows for that. So it has to be one of those two things. Any work that requires a permit or hazardous materials abatement work, and if it's one of those two things, it also has to reasonably require the tenant to vacate and it's going to take 30 or more days. Speaker 7: So it has to be something on the inside of the unit. So if you have to pull a permit I mean, do you need a permit for your irrigation? Speaker 2: Well, you might, but presumably that would not require a tenant to vacate. Speaker 7: Okay. Installing carpet. Speaker 2: I don't think you need a permit for curfew. Speaker 7: So where's the threshold? Just curious. What's the threshold? Speaker 2: I'm not entirely certain. I think that's best for. Speaker 5: The threshold as it's defined in the ordinances that work that requires a permit. And so that typically is work on the interior of the unit. And typically it's major work such as repairing the air, the effects systems or any of the other structure of the plumbing systems. So those all require permits. Speaker 7: So replacing the age back would be a justified reason to issue a six day notice. Speaker 5: Per the way it's defined in the in the code. And but again, I think some reasonableness is required on the on the part of the the property owner. Speaker 7: Okay. So I guess the reasonableness that gets spelled out or litigated in court, whether it was reasonable for did you really need this person to vacate to fix the AC or not? Speaker 2: That's exactly right. So so substantial remodeling, even if it requires a permit, it's not going to qualify as a reason to evict someone unless that permitted work cannot reasonably be accomplished in a safe manner with the tenant living there. I mean, that's up to some interpretation, but that's the way the law. Okay. Speaker 7: So next question. So the conversation on site plan review, is that required on every substantial remodel project? Speaker 5: Again when the project plans are brought in to the counter, staff would look at the plans and make a determination as to whether or not they needed to go through that. What I described as the planned check process, because if it's a fairly simple and straightforward improvement, it may not need a planned check. It could potentially be issued over the counter. It really depends upon the extent of the work, the scope of the work being done. Speaker 7: Okay. So if it's a substantial remodel and it doesn't require much site planning, much planned check, you come in, it's a pretty straightforward process. Then they would just move straight to a permit. Speaker 5: That's correct. There are cases, limited cases, where a permit could be issued over-the-counter if it's not a major rehab, just they change out of the HVAC system, for example. Speaker 7: So if it's not immediately issued, how long does it typically take? Once you pay for a permit to receive a permit. Speaker 5: Again, what you're paying for initially is the planned check process, and that's the administrative fee for staff to review the plans to determine code compliance. And then after that process complete, that's when you pay for the actual building permit. And the building permit is what authorizes you to essentially begin the work. Speaker 7: So that's that second step of paying for the permits and receiving your permits on a four plex counts. Speaker 0: And we have to move on to the time and time's up. So. Okay, great. I know we're going back around to a few other folks, so I'm going to just have a couple just really briefly, just this is the staff because this is the way I've understood it. And if I'm incorrect, please correct me. I mean, state law currently says new state law that's in place currently says that before you can do a substantial renovation, you have to pull a building permit. Correct? Speaker 5: I don't know that that's necessarily in the state law because that's currently a building code requirement. That's kind of a standard. Speaker 0: I believe that. Speaker 5: You mean in 1482 or just in general? I wasn't clear on your question, but in general, yes, you do. You are required to pull a building permit prior to doing substantial work motivation. Speaker 0: That that is correct. Right. Mr. Austin, I just spoke about this as well. Speaker 5: And again, I'm just going to say generally, because there are always nuances and circumstances where it. Speaker 0: Wasn't that also remind me correctly and I'm not an expert in the law, but I thought that was also referenced in the new bill that also just passed was 92. Speaker 2: 1482. Yeah. No, 1482 actually says substantial remodel is any work that requires a permit or hazardous abatement work that doesn't require a permit. So it would suggest as though there is something it's possible that there is something that qualifies as substantial rehabilitation under 1482 that doesn't require a permit. I don't know that that's true, but the law reads as such that if someone thought about it, there may be such a thing as substantial rehab that does not require a permit. Speaker 0: Okay. I mean, that's not the way that I have heard it interpreted in other discussions. But I think that's what's I think the question. Right. And I think that's what I think is this agenda item is trying to lead to. And so the way I'm understanding what council in discussions is proposing is that before this type of work would happen and there would and there would be eviction notices that the the contractor or the property owner doing the work would pull. The permit, is that correct? Speaker 5: That's that's correct. Speaker 0: It was to me that what what is being proposed aligns and essentially codifies what is already. The law. Speaker 5: Well, it codifies the law in the sense that it's defining what requires the building permit issuance. But the difference is that right now, the the law doesn't require the noticing of the tenant and it doesn't very specifically define the nature of the work. That is a basis for the tenant to be evicted. And that's what this clarifying language proposes to do. Speaker 0: Mr.. Mr.. ANTHONY, do you do you feel like I am also getting a sense that you're trying to ensure that what's in front of us, in what's adopted, you're able to to turn into an ordinance. Do you feel that you have enough information about what that about what you need from a definition perspective? I do. Okay. You do. Okay, great. The only other thing I'll add is I support customers and the House's proposal. I will also just add that I think the part that I think is difficult, that I've heard from a lot of folks is it becomes very hard for for folks that are low income, maybe undocumented, may not have a lot of resources to, after the fact, get civil, go through a civil process where they may not be able to have the resources to go through an additional process. And so I think if if if we're able to assist those. Speaker 2: Folks. Speaker 0: At the start and to ensure that that property owners are pulling the proper permits to do the work, I don't think I don't find this to be a very an overly burdensome proposal. I think to me it's very common sense that to me it aligns with with the spirit of what the state was trying to do and whether, you know, folks agreed or not. Agreed. I don't think I think that's the law that's in front of us in the spirit of that law, I believe, aligns with what this proposal is. And so I just want to thank Councilmember and House for bringing this forward. And I think it's a commonsense proposal. I'll turn this over to Councilman Sunday House. Speaker 3: Thank you, Mayor, and thank you for your support. Question for the staff. Just for clarification, a unit does not have to be vacant before issuing the permit to the owners. Is that correct? Speaker 5: There is no provision in the building code or any local code that requires that a unit be vacant before a permit is issued that is completely at the discretion of the property owner. Speaker 3: Okay. Thank you very much for clarifying that just for me. Another thing, I'm going back to Councilmember Supervisor's question about data. I don't have specific data, but I have a long list of people who have already been evicted from their homes right now. And I I'd be more than happy to share with you. But in in the interests of time, just know that yes, we have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. Just in in my district, district one, we have one, two, three, four, five, six in district two. We also have one in District four and three in District six. So and that's only in the short 30 days that we have. I think that, you know, this what we're asking for right now is really a big compromise. What really breaks my heart is to see how many children are among these numbers then. And again, I'm not looking for an applause. Thank you, but no thank you at this moment. I just want to say that, you know, that's why I'm really concerned about uprooting the children from their homes and also to go back to seeing that sometimes I'm a renter myself and I don't have the first or second month's rent and a net positive to be able to move in 60 days from where I am. So I'm I if I'm not able to do that, I can understand how it would be a burden for these folks as well. So thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you, counselor. Entrepreneur. Speaker 9: Thank you. You know, all in all our thank you's, I don't think we mention city staff. Thank you for all your work from development services on this, and especially Rich Anthony. That must have been a very fun weekend for you. So it was an incredible amount of work. And what we're learning here tonight is that and I didn't realize, not just a few minutes ago, is that we'll have a whole new audience here in line. We said we currently do not have. Speaker 2: That's correct. Speaker 9: And that will basically basically replicate 1482, which we had at one time or a version of that, and then we reject it. So that's back on. Speaker 2: And we're doing that specifically because that is a that is a specific requirement of 1482. Speaker 9: Understood. Okay. Well, thank you for all your work. Speaker 2: You're welcome. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you. Councilmember consumer appears. Speaker 4: I hope that my colleagues don't kill me. But I want to clarify. You had asked the question and Councilmember Zendejas had answered on the day that it's effective and she had clarified February 7th. Is there something preventing us from making it January one? Speaker 2: No, but I would I would then limit the language to say it can go back to January one to prohibit all pending pending notices of termination. If any notices of termination have actually been acted upon, a tenant has accepted reload and left. We don't want to undo those. Speaker 4: Well, remember, tenants don't get reload for substantial rehab. Speaker 2: Under 1482. They do. Speaker 4: Okay. Thank you. I didn't want to get confused again, so I. You would just have to change the language. Speaker 2: That's right. Is that. But I think I need to hear from them. Speaker 4: I understand the move. I would like to make a substitute motion for January one just because for all those that have not been acted upon. Speaker 0: We can make a friendly. Speaker 4: Also friendly. I'm sorry. A friendly motion. Speaker 2: Me? Okay. Got it. Speaker 0: A friendly amendment. Councilwoman Zendejas, would you accept that? Yes. Okay. So now we have Councilman Mango. Speaker 8: I just want to thank Councilman Zendejas. I know that these items can be contentious. And also a thank you to Councilman Pearce, because I think that one of the things that we as a diocese are trying to do is be collegial and demonstrate the respect for different people's opinions and that. Both praise and scowls towards any council member would not be appreciated. And I really appreciate the class that you brought tonight in bringing forward such an important item. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilmember Richardson. Speaker 7: Thanks. You know, last thing, you know, I was getting some clarity. It was just really unclear in the motion. But I think where it's going, I think this makes sense. If I think it's if if the attempt is to close a loophole, I think you want to be as simple as possible in closing a loophole so it doesn't create a loophole. So Councilwoman Sandy has know all the signers. Good work. Councilwoman, your first item and I'm happy to support it. Speaker 0: Thank you. Thank you. And that I was I was actually going to close with the just congratulations on your first piece of legislation, councilwoman and Mayor. Speaker 2: Just just to clarify. Speaker 0: Because I just I got it. Got it. And so, Councilman, today has I know that there was earlier there was a a friendly that was offered up. And I know you have accepted Councilman Pearce's friendly. I'm not sure where the rest of your motion is. Councilman. Speaker 3: I think I would like to move forward, as is with the Pierce's family. Thank you. Speaker 0: Okay. So the motion is the original motion with the addition of Councilmember Pierce's date change members. Please go ahead and Caspir votes. Speaker 1: Motion carries. Speaker 0: Thank you. Okay. Thank you. I know we have a we have a full agenda. So if folks are exiting, please, now would be a good time so we can continue on the agenda. So we're going to go to one more item, then we're going to go to public comment, if I can get item 15 really, really quickly

Agenda Item

Recommendation to request City Attorney to draft an urgency ordinance for review at the February 18, 2020 City Council meeting, to address the Substantial Remodel loophole in the Tenant Protection Act. Additionally, temporarily prohibition on no fault notices for substantial remodel until February 18, 2020.

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_02112020_20-0112

Speaker 0: Thank you. Okay. Thank you. I know we have a we have a full agenda. So if folks are exiting, please, now would be a good time so we can continue on the agenda. So we're going to go to one more item, then we're going to go to public comment, if I can get item 15 really, really quickly Speaker 1: . Communication from City Attorney Recommendation to declare ordinance amending the Long Beach Municipal Code relating to prohibiting the use of and sale of single use food and beverage containers, packaging and food service where made of expanded polystyrene foam. Read the first time and lead over the next regular meeting of the City Council for Final Reading. Speaker 0: If I can have folks exit and speak, not talk to exit, please, that would be appreciated. There is a motion and a second. I don't have any public comment in front of me. Is there ever. Is Craig Cadwallader. Walter here? Oh, please, Craig, come forward. Right. Craig, what's your last time? How are you? Speaker 2: Craig had Craig Cadwallader. I'm speaking on behalf of the Surfrider Foundation South Bay chapter. And thank you, Mayor Garcia and Garcia and Councilmembers. I just wanted to say I'm very happy for the improvements made to this ordinance. Speaker 0: Hold on a second, sir. Everyone in the. Everyone that's here, please. We have someone speaking. If I could ask all of you, please, to exit the chambers and stop speaking out of respect to the person at the podium. Thank you. Speaker 2: Thank you. These improvements are very important. It's items that we had hoped to get in the original ordinance, and I'm glad they finally have bubbled up. This is something we're working on not only locally, but for the unincorporated areas of L.A. County. And just today, the on the federal level, the Break Free from Plastic Pollution Act of 2020 was announced by Senator Tom Udall and Congress member Alan Lowenthal, who is one of my heroes locally here. And it is in the same spirit as SB 54, AB 1080 that we're doing it for the state of California. So this is very important that the City of Long Beach set this example to help us move forward, to clean the environment and to make a better standard of living and to protect our wildlife. The ADA addition was very important. We're glad that was included. And I did want to point out two items. They made a comment earlier on this, but there are two issues I'd like to address in the definition for directors that refers to two chapters, chapter 1.25 and 1.26 to the Long Beach Municipal Code. That, from my reading, 1.25 is on nominating petitions and 1.26 addresses mass mailings. I believe the correct reference should be to Chapter 9.65, which is administrative citations and penalties. So I think that ought to be fixed. It's been dragging for some time. Then my only other comment would be the definition in paragraph Q, which refers to recycled code. The proper definition of that is a resident code. So it's a little thing, but it's important. There's no such thing as a recycled code, but it is resident code to identify the type of plastic resin for recycling purposes. So I think this is really important and I really applaud the Council for moving forward on improving this ordinance. We have 136 in the state now and this is extremely important. It is not harmful for businesses and it's good all the way across the board. So thank you and I hope you'll go forward with this in Adopted at the next reading. Speaker 0: Thank you very much. Councilman Mango. I'm sorry. Actually, I'm sorry. Councilman Price of everything addition? Nope. Our councilmember hearing anything in addition of Councilman Mongo. Speaker 8: I just wanted to know if those changes were insignificant in nature or significant. Speaker 2: We can make those and continue with the first reading and bring back for a second reading next week. Speaker 8: Is that okay, Councilman Price? Thank you. Speaker 0: Excellent. There'll be adopted members. Please go and cast your votes. I just want to also add on this topic. I think it's the way that public opinion is turned on this topic I think is so great to see. I sent out a message a few weeks ago, a week ago on this on this. And I was I always used to brace myself for the responses. And we probably got 100 responses of mostly just glowing reviews about this. So very, very good work. I think the motion carries some excellent motion carries. And with that, we move on to the of the speaker's list for the evening and I have Mr. Boland, Robin King, Marcell Alonzo Snake, Ken Fay and Darlene Broom, if you can, please.

Ordinance

Recommendation to declare ordinance amending the Long Beach Municipal Code by amending Sections 8.63.020, 8.63.030, 8.63.050 and 8.63.070; all relating to prohibiting the use and sale of single-use food and beverage containers, packaging and food service ware made of expanded polystyrene (EPS) foam, rigid polystyrene #6, and non-recyclable and non-compostable material for prepared food distribution, and the distribution of plastic for bio-plastic straws, read and adopted as read. (Citywide)

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_02112020_20-0128

Speaker 1: Motion carries. Item nine Communication from Councilmember Pearce Recommendation to request the Economic Development Department and Long Beach Small Business Development Center to implement Elevate LBE Business Academy and increase appropriations in the General Fund Group and the Economic Development Department by $10,000 for the Elevate LBE Business Academy. Speaker 0: Give us a motion the second there's there's one member of the public wants to speak also Councilmember Pierce. Speaker 4: Okay. Yeah. I'd like to talk a little bit about this. I know John is cued up. We're really excited. It's $10,000, so I do. That's a lot of money coming from my divide by nine. So I do want to take a moment because I think that all of the council members will probably want to do this in their district. So Elevate LBE Business Academy is a pilot program in the second District that will give retail establishments the opportunity to stay competitive and profitable. While understanding different challenge of the media distribution. It also allows for some insight for brick and mortar as long as as well as online sales, along with funding expansion among many other areas. So really, we know that in the second district we have Fourth Street and we have Broadway. And often we talk about supporting our small businesses. We've had a number of unfortunately, of small businesses leave for Street in the last several years, mainly because of issues like their rent increases or access to capital. And so our staff is working on access to capital issues. We're working on some other issues around speculation. But one of the biggest things is making sure that our small businesses that really are people that really work seven days a week in their shops have all the tools and resources that they need to be able to succeed and expand their business. So I'd like to turn it over to staff to talk a little bit about it, and then I'd love to hear from the public. Thank you. Speaker 10: Honorable mayor and members of the city council. Thank you so much. A few months back, you recall that we received a report from Cal State Long Beach about some of the perceptions and confidence from their Small Business Monitor survey. And one of the challenges that the small businesses said that they faced in the coming year was challenges related to finding customers and retaining customers, particularly in this new environment with online, retail and other competing factors. And so in conversations with Cal State, Long Beach, as well as our Small Business Development Center at Long Beach City College , we were able to find some really good resources and package them as part of this Elevate Long Beach Business Academy. So this will be a pilot, of course. All of the funds associated with the city council district whose contribution here will actually go into the businesses. They will receive many grants to help them with business licenses if they graduate. They will also have the option of making a video that will be used for marketing and promotion promotion for their business if they graduate and there will be a for a class to about 2 hours each class a four class series taught by a consultant who has experience working with businesses throughout L.A. and Orange County. And so we want to thank you. This is a good example of, again, the council hearing about some of the survey data that small businesses report and then finding a way to pilot some solutions. And so we'll hopefully be able to come back to you in just a matter of about 60 days with our goal of 20 graduates, get some feedback from their their results and then hopefully see their taxable sales increase in the coming year. Speaker 9: You said it, Mrs. Councilwoman Price, you want to speak on this item? Thank you, Councilwoman Mongo. Speaker 8: Thank you. The Small Business Development Center is an amazing resource if you don't know about it. They're headquartered in the fifth District and these classes are typically much longer. And so I think that this is a good transformation, not just for. The business community, but also for the sbdc to hear the feedback from the community that six weeks, 12 weeks, it's just too long. And the amount of time they want to kind of accelerate through the program. I think it's also really important to note that we have a lot of advisors at the SPDC. The advisor who's going to be teaching this class is like a nationally acclaimed. Renowned retail expert. So if you are in anything that sells to a customer base, this is an amazing opportunity to have this up close. And expertize, expertize like this can cost upwards of 250 to $400 an hour of advice and guidance. And it's being provided for a very, very nominal fee, if not completely free. And then once you're plugged into this network, there's also several other additional complementary services that come to you via the advisors. So just a great program that's been alive and well in the fifth District for. A couple of decades. And really through this feedback has taken on a transformation. So I look forward to the feedback from this new group of individuals to see how much better a four week program is than the traditional system that the entire country really operates under so long, which is again on the cutting edge on the front of changing the way we think about training our businesses. Speaker 0: Councilman's in the house. Speaker 3: I just want to say congratulations on this item. Council Member Pearce This is something really that excites me having a lot of small businesses in the First District along Pine and Long Beach Boulevard, Fourth Street, all the small businesses, the town that we have. This really excites me. So I'm rooting for this program. Thank you. Speaker 0: So I can't find any comments. Speaker 7: It's good to know what I need. Some ammo. Unfortunately, I have a business. Unfortunate bonito, so this obviously appeals to me. I would just like to know from the city as there is already a small business center in the fifth district. Has the council images acknowledged if we can add another incent incentives? I'm speaking as a business owner on one of these corridors specifically. I mean, it would be great if the city would work with us, you know, in terms of the tourism board and administer the directory without, you know, you know, these are things that, you know , not to differentiate, but like, you know, as a quote unquote millennial owning a business. You know, I have different priorities than the generation older than me that maybe we might be a little bit more east of Fourth Street than me because they're more strictly retail. They're more brick and mortar, the brick and mortar business model. Whereas most of my business exist on online. I think that issues more of like communicating to, you know, in widening the niche of people who know about my business, which is why, you know, be great, maybe, you know, I don't know what that building is on on Long Beach Boulevard. And first, a nice orange building. Whoever is up there, you know, whenever they come to the performing arts center and the Terrace Theater, like these kinds of people and the convention center, you know, for a specifically is related conversations there are these conventions there. It would be great to have some kind of a report just to add it to the program. You know, obviously when this passes, I'm going to apply for the program just thinking of ways that assist us, because I don't particularly need help with the Internet. I know that there are businesses that exist that do, but, you know, just adding, you know, make it a more wide range. But I support this. Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilmember. Speaker 7: Pearce, also, since I have one minute left, you know, being a business on fourth in Bonito in the second district, you know, you check us out 1029 East Fourth Street play nice. It's a community space. Thank you. Speaker 4: Thanks. And I I did want to say that you did mention and I just wanted to be real clear for anybody listening is if you do graduate you get your your business license fees waived. Speaker 10: To clarify, we don't waive business license fees, but the grant funding, the grant being provided will pay for one year of business license fees for the graduate. So that's the mini grant that's associated with successful completion of the program. Speaker 4: Thank you. And then tonight, also, in case you don't know yet, my staff can help coordinate any conversations. John is also an excellent resource to connect you to other people in the city. And then my team, along with John's team, has been going down Fourth Street in between Alamitos and Cherry. And before my term is up, my hope is that we have our own business improvement district right there. And so hopefully you can help our team really do that and make sure that it's the right fit for that part of Fourth Street. So thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you. We are have a motion. And second, please cast your votes. And Susie's a yes. Oh, she's back.

Agenda Item

Recommendation to request the Economic Development Department and Long Beach Small Business Development Center to implement Elevate LB Business Academy, a pilot program to assist businesses on 4th Street and Broadway to thrive and continue to be a part of the vibrant Long Beach community; Increase appropriations in the General Fund Group in the Economic Development Department by $10,000, offset by the Second Council District One-Time District Priority funds transferred from Citywide Activities Department for the Elevate LB Business Academy; and Decrease appropriations in the General Fund Group in the Citywide Activities Department by $10,000 to offset a transfer to Economic Development Department.

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_02112020_20-0132

Speaker 1: Motion carries. Speaker 0: Item 11. Speaker 1: Report from Human Resources recommendation to adopt a resolution approving an exception to the waiting period for public agencies to hire Arthur Cox for a limited duration citywide. Speaker 0: There's a motion and a second saying no public comment, please cast your vote. Speaker 5: I'd like to make it clear that we would like him to work on our magnolia tree issues. Please. That needs to be in this contract. Is he limited on what he can work on? Speaker 0: Mr. Modica. Speaker 2: No. So he would be available to the director of public works to head for whatever it is within the hours that he's available. Speaker 4: Thank you. Speaker 9: I'll start to work on my tweets to the 63. Speaker 0: Please, please cast your votes. Let's vote quickly before this. Speaker 2: List gets longer. Speaker 0: The other one's really quick. No, I want to show you this. This is important. Speaker 1: Motion carries. Speaker 0: Thank you. I'm going to do we're going to do. Adam item 12 is our last item. Can we do item 13 really quick and 14.

Resolution

Recommendation to adopt resolution approving an exception to the 180-day waiting period for Public Agencies pursuant to Government Code 7522.56 and 21224, to hire Arthur Cox for a limited duration to work in the Public Works Department. (Citywide)

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_02112020_20-0131

Speaker 0: I also I'm going to go back to the airport at a moment. I don't see any public comment parade for the second round. Correct. So we're going to call that. There's none for that. It will conclude that now we're gonna go to our last item of the evening and what I like to say the most exciting. So please, if we can have item number 12, which I think is a huge and important moment for our airport that we're moving forward on. So this is very exciting stuff, and I'm going to turn this over to Mr. Modica. That's a good presentation for us. Speaker 2: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. We couldn't agree more. This is an incredibly exciting item that we really want to delve into a little bit on some detail. If if you remember, we did a very significant improvement to our airport a couple of years ago back in, I believe, 2012, which is really about the terminal and about the the flights and everything else. And it was controversial at the time. This really is the next phase of that, which is all about the customer experience. This has nothing to do with increasing flights but really making Long Beach Airport even better. We hear constantly how amazing our airport is, but there are definitely some things that we could improve. This is one of our eight by 28 Olympic projects to get ready for the Olympics. And we would like to walk you through the project as you understand what's being recommended and what phases and see all the really exciting progress that's going to happen at our airport very soon. So with that, I will turn it over to Cynthia Guidry and her team to walk us through the presentation. Speaker 6: Oh, good evening, honorable mayor and members of the Council. As Tom Marica mentioned, this item is for a contract amendment to 2010 Builders for the Phase two improvements at Long Beach Airport. We have a very brief presentation to talk about the background current status as well as the next steps for the airports modernization program. Next. Next to me is Mr. Stefan LAMB, who is our senior civil engineer on the job. He is our program manager at the airport. So just as a quick recap for phase one as part of the airport model. Speaker 0: 1/2, I've lost quorum, I think, as councilman here. Okay, good. And I'm not sure there's other customers in the back, but you guys can come back out. That would be great. Okay, let's continue. Speaker 6: Just as a recap for for phase one of our airport modernization program that began several years back and was completed in 2012 and which was a $100 million program really designed to to address the customer experience and the improvements at the airport post security. It was a construction of a new concourse, a new parking structure, and several other improvements that have really led to the airport receiving numerous awards in the industry. And so we're all we're all proud of that moving forward. Phase two really focuses on pre security improvements. So this is everything before passengers arrived to the security screening checkpoint. It is a nine projects that are part of an incredible program. But this original concept, which you'll see on the screen, was really defined and placed in a way to improve functional flow for our passengers, as well as renovate aging facilities and install and construct new modern facilities for for the airport. One key thing that I would like to add is that it has no effect on airport capacity or that the phase two program improvements really, again, focus on the customer enhancement. How can we improve the customer experience and make Long Beach Airport an even better airport? So this was the original concept and and phase two background, just to give you a little bit more information, back in 2018, Council did approve the contract as one of ten builders. It was a $65 million design build construction job. And at that time, really the procurement of doing the design build allows the owner to have more control over the design, and that has allowed for several different improvements to materialize over the last year and a half. This is a project that is a play job which will sustain over 440 jobs in the industry. And the other item that I would like to add is that the federal environmental approval process, which did take a little bit longer than anticipated, just was completed in December of 2019. So moving forward and since that that design award a year and a half ago, staff has worked really intimately with many stakeholders at the Long Beach Airport to refine those improvements, figure out what is best needed pre security, and determine a great plan for the passenger experience. However, those improvements came at the cost, and we'll go over some of those changes in a second. And we also saw a difference in the market conditions in the construction industry. So what does that design? This is a rendering of the new refined design for Long Beach Airport. It has a bold, new modern architecture. We have several different buildings that that we're constructing that will be brand new. We have a new ticketing lobby, a new checked baggage, TSA screening facility, a new backplane building, as well as a new concession space. All of these improvements really have led to to a design that really reflects Long Beach. Long Beach as a whole in the sense that it's a very open and accessible layout. We have a new meter and greeter plaza that will allow passengers and their loved ones to welcome each other as they enter into the city. We also have a design that truly showcases our historic terminal and lends itself to opportunities for our historic terminal in the future to be used for our new rental car counters. The historic terminal will also, as part of this program, involve a seismic retrofit, retrofit and many other improvements to the historic terminal. So we're all excited about that. This is also a rendering of our new ticketing building, which includes various upgrades and finishes. We have common use counters. We have an improved baggage efficiency system in the back of the building. We also have self-service kiosks and additional other sustainable amenities that we've included into the program. This will be a new LEED Silver Certified Certified Building, and we're all definitely excited to see it move forward. So those market conditions nationwide, we've we've seen an increase in construction costs across the country. And it's it's on average about 12%. But here, more locally, we're seeing an increase of about 30 to 35%. And part of that is all the major construction that we have right here in the L.A. County area. And this is multibillion dollar programs with Metro eight by 28, 28 by 28 program. We have the L.A.X. $14 billion program, the NFL Stadium. All of these different programs have really just shown and reflected to us that the agencies are really competing for the same limited pool of construction resources. And for us, what our original estimates really, really were we're targeting was that we would have 6 to 7 bids portrayed. But in reality, we on average received two bids portray. And so we've experienced a high increased in cost over the program. And those are things that we have to take into consideration as we move forward. So based on those costs, based on the affordability, based on where we are in the program, those nine projects that I spoke of earlier, we're recommending that we move forward with six of those projects listed here, the remaining three, which really focuses on the area in front of the historic terminal. So this is the rental car ready return in the ground transportation improvements that we would do some additional planning on those areas and rebid those projects within the next two years. So the fiscal impact, one of the things that we're you know, as an airport and as a enterprise department, we're also responsible in ensuring that as we move forward with any of our program improvements, that we're doing it responsibly. And we've worked with our financial management department and their city Treasury bureau to develop a plan that allows for us to move forward with the improvements and the additional cost while maintaining conservative financial metrics for the airport. We do have exit ramps designed in the contract that allow us to, if there's any efforts and conditions to allow us to to stop work and pay a small penalty. Well, it's a 1.5% penalty on on the future work. And we also have identified other remediation efforts if the airport has difficulty in paying in some of the financing plans that we have moving forward. One of the great things is that we do have grant funds from TSA that that will help offset the cost. This this as as an enterprise fund. We don't have any funds that will impact the general fund. However, we do need to issue airport revenue bonds to help offset the cost for for the program. And so you'll see an item in in a month or so asking your approval for the airport to issue those airport revenue bonds. So what are the next step if if City Council approves, we would move forward really quickly on our check baggage inspection system as well as our ticketing building and back claim area. We will have those six projects that I mentioned earlier complete by May 2020 to late 2022. And we would rebid those projects that I mentioned earlier that were the ground transportation improvements within the next two years. So with that, I might say that the airport staff, we are extremely, extremely excited. Committed and ready to move forward on the Phase two program. Happy to answer any questions you might have. Speaker 0: Thank you very much. May I make some comments? I have a couple of questions on the transport of Councilwoman Mongo. I think the two of us have been pretty involved in this project up to this point and have been strong supporters. And so I just want to begin by saying what a kind of home run vision I think this next phase is for the airport. The airport is absolutely one of the best things about our city. It is constantly winning awards. It is constantly being uplifted by so much of the country. And it's just a great it's a great airport. I think that we want to maintain its charm and its historic nature as well. I want to emphasize that I think the the design and the look that you're all going forward in this next phase, I think really fits with the historic nature of the actual site and the facility. So I really love that. I have a couple questions. The first is I want to just understand a little bit more the rental car piece that is going to be delayed or that's going to be pushed back. So I know that part of the I'm if you can explain to me from a visual perspective, I know that the long term plan was to have some of the rent a car kind of service. The counter service moved into the historic terminal. That is still part of phase of this first phase, correct? Speaker 6: That is still part of the first phase. On this rendering, if you can see the there are curb improvements in front of the historic terminal where you see the red shuttle busses as well as taxis. That's the the area that we're referring to that we would rebid within the next two years. Speaker 0: Okay. And so what so the the moving of the kind of purchasing of picking up a car will still be moved into that historic part of the terminal, as we saw that will, you'll be able to walk right through our punching out the the back wall and creating those doors. Is that correct? Speaker 6: That's correct, Mayor. So so part of the improvements do include the rental car counters moving into the first floor as part of the entire program. We will restore that back entrance, if you will, to the back of the historic terminal. So passengers are able to flow right through to me to greet. Speaker 0: And so will we be removing the current rental rent a car, kind of, you know, hodgepodge structures that we have out in the parking lot as part of the first phase? Speaker 6: Yes. Speaker 0: So the modular that's the answer I wanted to hear. Yes, we are. So so even though we are delaying the kind of a rent a car area that's being created separately, the actual old kind of trailers will be removed as part of this first phase. Speaker 6: That is correct. Speaker 0: Okay, that's great. The second question I had was, as it relates to some of the other projects that are that are that are tied into this, I know that the full baggage component is part and will be completed in the first week. That's what I hear mostly from travelers, is that they want that the baggage area is complete. That will all be done, correct? That is. Speaker 6: Correct. Speaker 0: Okay. And I just want to also say that some of the exciting projects that are currently happening right now that I'm excited about, I love obviously the new airport wing sign at the front that a lot of folks put in a lot of work on that. We love that the LED lights that we put up at the terminal, which can Mason is here and he's sick of me complaining about when they were going to get put in. But they're finally and so things can and when are we getting the big Long Beach sign that matches the 710 sign. Speaker 2: On like a ballpark? Speaker 0: Off the 710 and the one that we're going to put in over by the 22 and four or five in that whole thing. Speaker 6: That is a project being managed by public works. Speaker 0: Okay. So. Mr. MODICA. Speaker 2: Yes. So we are actively working on that. We have seen some cost increase in that project and so we're looking at a couple of ways to get the costs back in line with the budget. But we do want to move forward with that this year. And so we're doing a quick value engineering effort to just see can we find a a spot to make it a little bit and a little bit less expensive, and then we'll move forward. Speaker 0: Q So what does that what does that about from a timing perspective? Speaker 2: I'm guessing probably two months, something like that, to have that analysis back about what we can do to keep those costs a little bit further down and then start. Speaker 0: Councilman Mongo really wants us sign, and so do I. And then. And then the last. The last piece of my questions on those is the. I also I'm not a fan. I think is is, as Mr. Mason knows, of the some of the not historic signage at the terminal. That needs to be replaced. When is that going to happen? I'm talking about the signage says Long Beach Airport with the little. Speaker 6: You know on the I'm actually on the story terminal. Speaker 2: That sign will also be replaced as part of the Terminal Restoration Project. Speaker 0: Oh, so that'll be all replaced as part of this, right. Speaker 2: And it'll be restored back to its former look and esthetic of that. Back on the eyebrow. Speaker 0: Okay, great. Listen, I just want to I want to thank you guys. I think that the airport campus is looking really spectacular. I love the lighting. I love the large new letters at the parking structures. I love the landscaping. It's looking really great. So thank you guys for all your hard work. Councilman Mongo. Speaker 8: Finally, I don't have any questions. This is my third viewing of this excellent presentation. I want to thank you and your leadership, but. But mainly your team. Your team has always been so welcoming. There's not a day that I can't just pop by the airport and ask a myriad of questions that you're all ready and willing to look up and find out and answer and support. And I just appreciate you very much. I think that this is a light, bright and open plan that really is the real feel of what Long Beach is. And it will again keep us in the top five airports in America that I know we will move at the top . I would also say that it's smart, convenient and efficient. I know that there's not enough time in the short presentation to go into the details of how much this new TSA screening area will help reduce potential worker injuries because they won't have to pick up bags in the way that they do now will be more like the airports that have come a long way in allowing in line movement of baggage behind the scenes once you do your checked baggage. And I think that that that's really important because we want Long Beach Airport to also be the best place to work. And so I know she didn't go into it. And it's going to get me a dirty look from the city attorney because it's a scope adjacent comment. But people love to work at the Long Beach Airport. They love to work on projects like this. And our director is really pushing into workforce development and letting people know about what a great opportunity it is to work at this amazing place. So great work. Thank you for everything you do. And while this presentation was great, we could learn a thing or two from the airport staff because they really know how to use technology in their presentations in the director's office. Speaker 0: Thank you. Q Councilman Price. Speaker 5: Thank you. By the way, it's not a dirty look from the city attorney. They teach us that in law school, it's like to deter you from being creative and thinking outside the box. Thank you. Thank you to the city staff for putting this together and the entire airport team. I'm really, really proud to support this project. And I love our airport. I love flying in and out of the airport. It's just a fantastic testament to what an amazing city we are. So thank you very much. I'm looking forward to these improvements. Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilwoman. Speaker 3: Councilman Zendaya's echoing what my colleagues have already said. I'm just super excited to see this. I wish I could see it now, but I know it takes patience. But thank you very much for all your work that you've put in it. Staff Airport Thank you, Cynthia, for being so flexible and available and accessible to us when we've had questions about this. And I'm just really excited. The airport continues to be something I'm very, very proud of to have in our city. So thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you. Councilman Richardson. Speaker 7: Thank you. Just wanted to chime in and say, you know, I'm a big fan of the Long Beach Airport. I love flying out of Long Beach Airport. I'll be flying out tomorrow morning from Long Beach Airport. You know, a lot of great stuff happened in there. You know, just a question. I love that you can valet. Your car and get your car wash for about 20 bucks. He's going to keep that program. Speaker 6: We're looking at that, right? Speaker 2: Okay. Speaker 7: Just keep looking at it. Thanks a lot. Fantastic work. You know, you've you've hit the ground running. This is a great project. And I'm going to go brag to other cities about our Long Beach Airport. Thanks a lot. Speaker 0: Thank you, Katherine Supernova. Speaker 9: A thank you. And warning to the city attorney. I'm about to push the borders of the Brown Act here also. I just wanted to publicly thank Director Guidry for speaking at our last community meeting. We really appreciate that. And Staff Ron Reeves and Ken Mason, thank you also. Great project. Look forward to seeing it come to fruition. Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilmember Vice Mayor Andrews. Speaker 9: Thank you, Mayor. I really thought, you know, this is the first time well, maybe a third or fourth time we've gone out this early, and I couldn't understand why all these individuals are sitting over here. But now I understand this is probably one our better presentation we've had all year. So I just want to thank you for coming forth and giving us that enlightening, you know, night, because we can go home tonight and think about, boy, one day I'll be able to go to Long Beach Airport and fly out of there. I'd like to fly today out to L.A. just to show them how good we are. Speaker 0: Thank you. Next up is Councilman Mongo. Speaker 8: Only to add on to Vice Mayor Andrew's comment about how great the presentation was. I commented to the director at our meeting on Monday that her presentation could really be side by side with a presentation we saw in closed session about a year ago that we determined was the best presentation the council had ever seen, but I just couldn't remember who gave it. So if Mr. Modica or Mr. Parking could remind me or her. It was a great presentation and you are in the big leagues and we really appreciate you doing such a thorough and excellent presentation. I hope my colleagues will support it with my vote. Speaker 0: I see no public comment which for an airport item is really strange. So members, please go ahead and cast your vote. Speaker 8: I think that says what a great director she is. She took all the comments in advance.

Contract

Recommendation to authorize City Manager, or designee, to execute all documents necessary to amend Contract No. 34964 with Swinerton Builders, of Los Angeles, CA, for the construction of the Phase II Terminal Area Improvements at the Long Beach Airport, to increase the contract amount by $21,295,013, for a revised contract amount of $80,104,503, and increase the contingency amount by $5,565,675, for a revised contingency amount of $12,015,675, for a revised total contract amount not to exceed $92,120,178; Authorize City Manager, or designee, to execute all documents necessary to amend Contract No. 34964 with Swinerton Builders, of Los Angeles, CA, to allow for the execution of Construction Site Use Agreements with Swinerton Builders, in conjunction with the Phase II Terminal Area Improvements at the Long Beach Airport; Express intent to issue airport revenue bonds in an amount of up to $21,000,000 in principal to finance a portion of the construction costs for Phase II Terminal Area Improvements at the Long Beach Airport and the costs associated with issuing a bond; authorize

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_02042020_20-0112

Speaker 1: Motion carries. Speaker 0: Item. Next item. Speaker 1: 28 Communication from City Attorney Recommendation to declare ordinance. Amending the Long Beach Municipal Code relating to prohibiting the use and sale of single use food and beverage containers, packaging and food service where made of expanded polystyrene foam. Read the first time in the lead over to the next regular meeting of the City Council for Final Reading. Speaker 0: Thank you. I think there's a presentation. So I'll turn this over to Mr. Modica. Speaker 7: Yes. Craig Beck and his team will give a presentation reminding us of kind of the long history of this of this effort and what the next step is. Speaker 0: Thank you, Mayor. City council members we wanted to bring tonight before you an amendment proposed for the polystyrene ordinance as directed by this council back in October. And we've had a lot of success with the implementation in the first three phases. And so this would be an amendment to that and then a proposal for we'll call it a phase for getting into the details of what's before you this evening is dico mokonyane and he's going to go through the powerpoint. You go. Good evening, Mayor. Mr.. And Council Members, thank you for having us back here today. As Mr. Beck said, we've had some tremendous success with the first three phases of the expanded polystyrene ordinance. And at your request, we've come back with some follow up regarding some other materials that could be affected by this ordinance. So back in October, we had well before we get to October. There we go. As you recall, the first three phases were implemented beginning in September of 2018. Phase that was for city owned facilities and events. Phase two is for large food service providers, defined as 101 seats or more so very large restaurants. And phase three was small food providers of less than 100 seats or less. And that last phase just went into effect in December of last this past year. In October of this past year, we gave a presentation updating the city council as to the progress we've made. And at that time, the City Council requested to expand the ordinance to include language that would ban the use of plastic or bioplastic straws and eliminate couplet exemption couplet exemptions. By March 15th, approximately, it was a six month request. You have before you an ordinance that's being presented today and since it was drafted, we did have some last minute discussions and based on some conversations we've had, we are going to recommend that the City Council consider an exemption for consumers who identify as a person with disability, making the use of a plastic straw a necessity for them. Also, the City Council asked that we come back with a recommendation that expands the ban into retail sales. So just to get a little background here. You can see what we're doing is fairly forward thinking, but we're not the first ones out there. There are other cities who have done similar bans. So a lot of the large companies that we'd be working with for retail bans are chains with a retail like a McDonald's or franchises have experienced this in other cities around the country. 20 cities currently have an ordinance regarding the use of straws, and 26 cities have retail ordinances that restrict the sale of polystyrene products. So the staff recommendation comes from mostly looking at similar cities as surrounding us. Like Manhattan Beach was one of the ones we considered San Diego as an area we considered, and our proposed ordinance is very similar to theirs. As you can see, no person, vendor, business or event promoter in the city shall sell rent or otherwise provide polystyrene food service where products which are not wholly encapsulated or encase with a more durable material including but not limited to cups, cups, lids, condiment cups, food trays, plates, bowls, clamshells and other food service use. We're also recommending that we extend it to polystyrene packing materials. So again, no person, vendor, business or promoter shall distribute polystyrene packing material, including things like foam peanuts, packing peanuts and packing noodles. And finally, no person, vendor or business or event promoter may sell, rent or otherwise distribute within the city. Meat and fish trays like you see at supermarkets are produce trays or egg cartons made in part from polystyrene. Again, these are relatively common materials that are included in bans in other cities. So just to celebrate some of our successes here, we have nearly an 85% compliance rate as of January 31st this year. And what makes that really extraordinary is that data goes back to September of last year and phase three hadn't even been a requirement yet until December. And we still, for that extended period of four months, have, sorry, September, October, five months have an 85% success rate. A lot of the reason some of the reason why there's a 15% noncompliance rate is because people are still expiring their existing inventory. And so while they're not in violation of the ordinance, we also didn't want to pretend like they're in compliance yet with the ordinance. So they're listed as a non-compliant side. But this is something the ordinance allows and would also allow for straws. We did a lot of outreach and promotion mailers to businesses, social media, door knocking, had some giveaways, and we did a multi-year educational program on that. And we have also resources on our website to assist businesses to comply. So what we'd like to suggest today, again, it's a slight variation and from what is in the draft ordinance and this is again because of discussions that happened since then in the last couple of days is the straws and lids would be effective sometime after March 15th, 2020. And that keeps us in line with the six month request that the council motion had originally put together. The goal is to get that in by Earth Day so that we can celebrate that as a success here in Long Beach for a day and also a retail ban to follow come October 1st. That's all I have for this evening. And I'm open to questions. Thank you, Councilman Ringa. Speaker 7: Thank you, Mary. And I want to thank staff for putting this together and really looking at closely at what we're trying to do here and especially tried to reduce deadlines as we currently have. One question in regards to page three, where you recommend for consumers who self-identify as a person with a disability to make use of a plastic straw necessary? Is that. Well, maybe it's more to the city attorney with that amendment, to the original ordinance that we put that we proposed back in October, have an effect of basically having this as a new reading for this ordinance. Would it change that much? Yes. Vice Mayor and members of the council. Councilmember, you're wrong. That is correct. These changes would require us to come back and bring this back for a first reading. We can do that very quickly, but they are substantive in nature. And so we will bring it back for a first and second reading. Okay. I'm not opposed to that. I think it's a good idea that we include that. It would make it, I think, even stronger in regards to what we're trying to implement here. So thank you for bringing this forward. Speaker 0: Thank you. Councilwoman, is this. Speaker 5: Yes. I also want to thank staff for this and my colleagues for actually working really hard on bringing the system forward. I'm excited to see that Long Beeches is moving forward on something like this. And I think that, you know, as a person with a disability that can lift up a cup of glass to drink from, I thank you again for all those that are out there in my same situation who don't have the necessary strength to actually pick up a cup and drink from it, especially when it's full. So thank you for that and I look forward to supporting this item. Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilwoman Councilmember Pierce. Speaker 8: Yes, I am super excited about your 85% compliance rate. I think that in the history of Long Beach has been a lot of times when we've had a vision, we've had a new ordinance and implementation hasn't gone that great because we haven't had the best community outreach. And that's just part of learning how to do it. And I think that you guys have really excelled and should be really proud. I'm really proud of Long Beach for this, especially considering how tough I think our very first conversation on this was. It really demonstrates how far we've come. And so I just really want to applaud you for that. And I want to applaud the city for the amendments, considering council members and de Haas's input and really just demonstrating that diversity on the council really can change policy. So thank you, guys. Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilman Supernova. Speaker 7: Thank you. Thanks, staff, for that presentation. And regarding the change to the ordinance. I'd like to read that exact language as proposed in a special thanks to the city attorney's office for working in the 11th hour on this. And I'd just like to add. Speaker 0: That. Speaker 7: The amendment would be reflective of cities such as Seattle and also California Coastal Commission cities, San Francisco and Santa Barbara. So I'll read the text as it will appear. Exemption A food provider or beverage provider is exempt from the provisions of this chapter under the following conditions. One. During a locally declared emergency, the city emergency response agencies operating within the city users of city facilities. And food providers and beverages shall be exempt from provisions of this chapter to the food provider or beverage provider provides or distributes a plastic beverage straw upon request to individuals with disabilities as needed to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. And I believe I need to make that as a motion for the amendment. I think you've clarified the motion that's on the floor, so you're good on that. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you. I just want to add that I'm really, really proud of the work that you guys have done on this. And I'm so glad that we've been ahead of the curve as it relates to policy steering, and particularly on these issues around straws and the work that the team has done to proactively get restaurants to transition out of the polystyrene. It's been it's just been really great. And I've been personally hap as an active user of takeout and Postmates. I've seen the change that's happened just in the last year from some of my favorite places that it just I just did not like that they still use polystyrene and now they've all converted, you know, to paper or other other types of products. And so it's really great. And I'm always, you know, happy to see that. And you guys did a great job. So I just want to thank all of you for for that work. Can you remind me on the on the straw issue paper straws were are we encouraging any type of transition or what what's the the preferred model that folks are transitioning to? Or is that really up to them? Mr. Mayor, it's really up to them. We're trying not to suggest that people use any one particular product, just that it not be plastic or bioplastic. You have some restaurants that are actually offering you a paper straw, or you can buy a metal reusable straw and just keep it for yourself. Open sesame, I believe, down in the shadows then. So we have, you know, we're allowing restaurants to get creative and do whatever they want to make it happen. I also see more and more of the of restaurants just, you know, not obviously having them. And I think it's been so easy to transition to that, you know, for for most folks or even even larger retailers like like Starbucks, right. Who are now putting the the lids on on the on the top, which is really great to see. So good. Really good stuff. Councilwoman Mango. Speaker 5: I'm a big supporter of straws generally, and I carry my own. Speaker 8: Roberto. Speaker 5: Durango straw in my purse. I've used it at many L.A. facilities, but I will say that as I've traveled around the country, I recently visited an airport that has an airport director that used to work here in Long Beach. And I will say that their entire facility adopted Apple straws and having used nearly every kind of straw on councilmember souvenirs lists that he just showed me, Apple was not listed on there. And I don't know if we provide a list of all the alternatives and their price points, but that was something that helped encourage this other airport by saying, here's a lot of options and here's a lot of the price points and here's how they come and here's how you can order them. Because a lot of our smaller retailers still go to like Sam's Club or Smart and Final within the city limits to pick up things. And so they've helped by encouraging those those suppliers as well. So I'm really proud of the work we've done. I can't believe I carry a straw in my purse, but I do. And when I go out of the house without a purse, the three things I grab to put in my diaper bag are my reusable straw, my sunglasses and my earbuds for my phone. So, I mean, the straw made the cut. That's a pretty high standard. Not even Chapstick made it. So thank you for helping me be a better environmentalist. Speaker 0: And can I just get one? I have one question for for the staff before we go to a vote actually. And then I have Craig called Waldner. I think it says here, I'll call you up in 1/2. So thank you. Want make sure you were here. Can I also ask I think the one will you give me an update on any sort of ordinances or additional laws that the City of Signal Hill has implemented as it relates to all of our laws? Because I think one of the things that's interesting, I think Signal Hill still there. They still have plastic bags. Well, plastic bags are now a statewide statewide issue. The state has some legislation regarding straws that would affect all cities. Yeah. And what it says essentially is that a restaurant or food service provider must ask if someone you have, you have to wait till someone asked for a straw. So the state state law is implementing it doesn't they don't in signal health, to my knowledge. Ban plastic straws there. Okay. Okay. I was wondering if we'd. Speaker 7: Be happy in the interest of uniformity to reach out to them and share with them what we're doing so that, you know. Speaker 0: I think I think if they could just afford them what we're doing and it'd be nice to have that kind of uniformity as well, if possible. Speaker 7: Reach out to their city manager there. Speaker 0: Their own, you know, government. So I get that there's a motion and a second is, please, Craig. If Craig called, water could come forward. Speaker 9: Good evening, Mr. Mayor and council members. My name is Craig Cadwallader and I'm speaking on behalf of the Surfrider Foundation South Bay chapter. And I'm very proud that you're moving forward with this amend these amendments. I was going to bring in the wording in the Manhattan Beach ordinance about the accommodations for people with disabilities, but it sounds like you've got it in there. And to me it was wrong not to have it. So I'm glad I'm glad you're proactive on that. It's very important. One of the things and also the the straws part of this is not that clear. So perhaps at the next first reading, the straws could be more clearly. There's only one sentence that reads All straws must be plastic or must not be plastic or bioplastic. I think if you miss that sentence, you don't get it. And other ordinances there currently are 136 by my count, in the state. Not all of them include the straws. I almost have them all memorized, which I work on this all the time with a lot of cities. But if it were clear that the plastic, including petroleum and bioplastic based straws are not acceptable, one of the options mentioned I bring these everywhere I go. I got my own straws and utensils. It's unfortunate utensils are included in this because they are in many other ordinances, including Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, Redondo Beach, Culver City, and we're trying to get regional ordinances down here. So I hope you might look at that. I don't know why utensils were exempted, but they never get recycled. They're always landfilled. And I think this is the good way to go to bring in the rough food expanded polystyrene tray ban is really important I'm glad that's included and the packing peanuts and expanded polystyrene packing items those we find on the beach all the time. We're really looking this is a good, strong way to improve the ordinance. We are working on L.A. County, unincorporated right now. What you do here is going to help define that and we hope will get the city of L.A. to match that. I also bring my own collapsible food containers so you can bring your own by state law. Now, AB 619 was signed into law. Bring your own. It's easier. Thank you very much. Speaker 0: Thank you very much. And with that, there's a motion and a second. Please cast your votes. Speaker 4: Councilman's in Dallas.

Ordinance

Recommendation to declare ordinance amending the Long Beach Municipal Code by amending Sections 8.63.020, 8.63.030, 8.63.050 and 8.63.070; all relating to prohibiting the use and sale of single-use food and beverage containers, packaging and food service ware made of expanded polystyrene (EPS) foam, rigid polystyrene #6, and non-recyclable and non-compostable material for prepared food distribution, and the distribution of plastic for bio-plastic straws, read and adopted as read. (Citywide)

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_02042020_20-0071

Speaker 1: Motion carries. Speaker 0: I'm 30, please. Speaker 1: Report from Development Services recommendation or declare ordinance amending portions of part five of the use district map from Park to Belmont Pier Plan Development District Red and Adopted Red District three. Speaker 0: There's a motion and a second is I don't see any Christians in here. Okay. Please come forward. Speaking of this. Speaker 4: I gave you guys two papers from two different groups. I'm not going to read those, but I just want to enter into the record of what I am going to do is read this way and I just have to get it in order. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be out of order. Okay, here we go. Partly because it's we're honoring Black History Month tonight here at the council. I decided to include this piece of history. But first to the BBC. Long Beach has adopted a healthy communities policy to reverse the inequitable distribution of public recreational facilities. And yet we now intend to build the Belmont Beach, an aquatic center, a poster child for racism so ingrained in the local public consciousness that it can be hidden in plain sight. A century ago, a small band of Long Beach residents stood up against racism at the pike. In late June of 1919, Alija Blain, who lived at 506 Locust Avenue, stood before the all white city council bearing a petition signed by 20 of the city's 120 42 black residents asking that a popular game on the pike midway be shut down. Lane argued that drown the N-word created race prejudice. City attorney George Hood Hooter Pyle explained that they knew of no legal method of prohibiting the game unless it could be shown that the sport created rheumatism, in which case the Humane Society might have it discontinued. The petition was referred to a committee. The game continued to be played up into the 1950s. Elijah Blaine, who I really think deserves a spot on the walk, was just a working class guy who risked everything he had and everything he was. At a time when blacks could only live in select parts of town, when the local KKK had more than 10,000 members locally, and when Beaches and our beloved Pike Plunge were for whites only. The rules may have changed, but are we still playing? A version of this scheme. The target is no longer a black man seated on a diving board, assaulted by numerous whites whose success in hurling the victim into a pool of water was cheered on by a crowd of their peers. Now it's drowning, not dunking whole communities, not single individuals that is perpetuated by those who look away from the victims and cheer on a status quo in which minorities and poor whites continue to be denied and denied an equal opportunity to learn to swim and to participate in aquatic recreation and sports. So we are 75% minority community. We have 225 meter pools built in 100 years. We have one Olympic pool. We are now going to have two Olympic pools. Look at the demographics, look at the economics and look at the demographics and ask yourself, you know what? What do you. Speaker 0: Think? Thank you very much. There is a motion and a second. Please cast your votes.

Ordinance

Recommendation to declare ordinance amending the Use District Map of the City of Long Beach as said Map has been established and amended by amending portions of Part 5 of said Map from Park (P) to Belmont Pier Planned Development District (PD-2), read and adopted as read. (District 3)

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_01212020_20-0058

Speaker 1: Item 11. Recommendation to authorize city manager to execute all documents necessary with Friends of Colorado Lagoon for the continued tendency and operations of Colorado Lagoon, Wetland and Marine Science Education Center and authorize city manager to execute all documents necessary. For Third Amendment right of entry permit number 3 to 9 three with friends of Colorado Lagoon from Parks and Rec District three. Speaker 0: Yes, that's one question. Speaker 5: Putting the effort that they put into this lease agreement. I want to acknowledge very publicly and very enthusiastically the great work that the Friends of Colorado Lagoon does for our city, the efforts that they have been involved in for a number of years, many, many years prior to me getting on council and with my predecessor and with his predecessor has just been tremendous. Through their great efforts and partnership with the city of the Colorado Lagoon, water quality has been restored to a place where we can be very proud of getting a ratings year after year. And that has a lot to do with the advocacy and the passion of SoCal. So I'm happy to support this lease agreement. I did want to call out one thing, and that's an amendment to the lease that's in here. And I want to thank staff for putting it in here, but it basically highlights the focus of the city, which is to work collaboratively with our nonprofits, not work competitively with them, to encourage them to apply for grants to support them in their grant funding effort, and to also allow the city to analyze whether those grant funding opportunities are going to encumber the city and if they are whether it's it's feasible for the city to support such endeavors. And so. Speaker 3: I'm grateful for. Speaker 5: The language on page three that has been and added to reflect some of my concerns in that regards. And I want to thank staff for working collaboratively with my office and with SoCal to make that happen. So thank you. Meredith Reynolds has been our lead on this. I appreciate your service. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilman Price. Now we're going to go into any comments on this, the item, any public comments. Speaker 1: There's no public comment on this item. Speaker 0: We're fine. Thank you very much. We don't have to vote on it either. Speaker 1: We do. Speaker 0: Okay, fine. See? No further comment or digest. Would you please cast your vote? Speaker 1: Council memo appears. But she carries. Speaker 0: Thank you. Now we have a special presentation and. I saw a presentation tonight. And that presentation and the Peacemaker celebration tonight, the peacemakers presentation were honored. Some great individuals, as some of you may already know, each year after our annual Martin Luther King parade and celebration, I would like for us to honor a few individuals in the

Contract

Recommendation to authorize City Manager, or designee, to execute all documents necessary for a Third Amendment to Lease No. 32944 with the Friends of Colorado Lagoon, for the continued tenancy and operation of the Colorado Lagoon Wetland and Marine Science Education Center, located at 5119 East Colorado Street, for a term of three years, with two, two-year renewal options, at the discretion of the City Manager; and Authorize City Manager, or designee, to execute all documents necessary for a Third Amendment to Right-of-Entry Permit No. 32943 with the Friends of Colorado Lagoon, concurrent with the recommended action above, to allow for continued third-party maintenance of portions of the Colorado Lagoon, and authorize City Manager to amend the Use and Permit Area to add or remove areas of responsibility, as needed. (District 3)

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_01212020_20-0021

Speaker 0: Okay, fine. Okay, let's vote on that. Yeah. Okay, fine. No comments. Fine. Well, now we're going to move to item number 28, please, with item. Speaker 1: Item 28 is a report from Parks, Recreation and Marine recommendation to receive a presentation on the status of the implementation of the Long Beach Animal Care Services. Compassion saves approach and requested authority to prepare ordinances amending the Long Beach Municipal Code, increasing the number of pets from 4 to 6 for each household citywide. Speaker 0: Everyone's got a second in that. Speaker 5: Madam Clerk, is it possible to have Councilwoman Mongo be the most winner? And I can be the second her because she doesn't have a computer that works. Speaker 0: Why? One Mongo. Speaker 10: I think we'd like to start with the staff report and then public comment and then comments on the day. Speaker 0: Sounds good. Okay, please. Speaker 7: Thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor. So we had published some information. This has been an ongoing discussion about compassion save. So back in November, there was a two from four to the Council on the Public about some various follow up from Compassion Saves. We're here to present that report and some other concepts and ideas as well. So I will turn this over to her. Our two most, our director of Parks Rec and Marine. Speaker 2: Thank you. An honorable vice mayor and city council. It is a pleasure to present to you. Compassion saves next steps. Next to me is our Animal Service Bureau manager, Ms.. Stacey Danes, that helped prepare this report and is here to help answer any questions you may have after the presentation. It's like, oh, I'm sorry. When I arrived here a year and a half ago, phase one of the city audit on L.A. backs had been completed. Phase two was then completed in August 2018. The mayor then appointed 20 members of the community to the Animal Care Visioning Task Force to help develop the all back strategic plan that is called for in phase one of the audit. Ms.. Daines and I then help facilitate your study session on April 16th, 2019 on the proposed Compassion Saves model. This was followed by the May 7th, 2019 City Council direction to staff to implement the compassion savings model and to make sure that it is reflected in the development of the strategic plan. Council's direction was also to come back with recommendations and how best to improve operation relationship with SB Clay. You will note that this presentation will also provide you with remarkable key progress on the statistics showing results this past year, especially as they compared to previous years. The presentation will also provide you with an update on camel management fundraising for all our plans to enhance our max adoption messaging and greater adoption opportunities, and the recommendation on to ordnance to help manage dog and cat population growth. As you can see in this slide, there is a remarkable decrease in cat and dog admissions of 46% when you compare 2010 to 2019. It is interesting to note that the pattern of admissions by month as shown in the chart on the right on on the right side, you can see that the peak season that challenges our capacity at L banks is from May to September. Thank. This slide shows the impressive library lease rate progress in 2019. Of the 2106, 169 dogs admitted into banks, 94% were library leases where cats in 2019. Of the 3210 cats admitted, 83% were library leases. Again we can see here the remarkable progress in ah euthanasia in died in Care's statistics in 2010 5559 dogs and cats were euthanized or died in care. In 2019, that number is the smallest we have ever had at 665. That is an 88% improvement rate. Our adoption numbers are particularly impressive. In 2010, we only adopted 146 animals, and in 2019 we adopted the highest we ever we have ever had at 995. That is an 85% improvement rate. These 985 animals that were adopted does not include any transfers to SPCA or any other rescue partner. Though, we still have a lot of challenges and opportunities. Ella Banks Achievements in 2019 are something to be very proud of. How we make these achievements are due to key. How we made these achievements are due to key factors. Stacey Daines was hired in February 2019. We increase community engagement through foster care, adoption and volunteerism. We expanded opportunities for veterinary care and treatment and behavioral support for animals, especially during peak summer season. With your approval of budget enhancements in fiscal year 19 and fiscal 20. In fiscal year 20, we are able to hire a full time veterinarian and an additional full time adoption and volunteer coordinator. We were able to foster nearly 200 animals in 2019 and also delivered with an all time high in our adoption rates. We could not have achieved these results without our volunteers. We increased our volunteer involvement by 73%. We now process volunteers faster and train them better. We also established a special group of trained volunteers to assist in our behavior program. We also launched a web portal that volunteers use for scheduling opportunities. This efficiency ensures that volunteers come in to help when they are needed. As I mentioned earlier, Elba is challenged with a rise of admissions of dogs and cats from May to September. It is the increase in cat admissions during this time period that is that it has become quite challenging. This 2019 season we came up with a creative solution. El Bax, as you know, is in the pitch. The Pitchford companion, Animal Village. The village is configured with dedicated areas for SPCA, play a dedicated area for backs and the common area to be used by both partners. We rented three mini pods that were climate controlled to house the large intake of cats that were that we experienced during this peak season. And we were very grateful to the city of Los Angeles, who loaned us their mighty mover, which is a unit that is climate controlled and can be easily moved to different locations. The mighty mover was also used to house the large intakes of cats. We placed these mobile units in the bank's dedicated footprint where we have an area for bags, parking needs, staff's hard work in collaboration with local rescue groups, volunteers and increased medical services. We were because of these efforts, we were able to overcome the challenges of this peak high cat admission season. Compassion saves us working. We saved more lives through a combination of foster care, adoption, help from rescue groups and our volunteers. These efforts increase the animals that need our care by 30%, which challenged our ability on our animal care duties. We were taking the opportunity. We are taking the opportunity to improve our ability to deal with this challenge with by pulling staff from different assignments for animal care. When the challenge is there better use of volunteers. And most importantly, we are restructuring the cleaning assignments to ensure feeding occurs before cleaning. These efforts are increasing tailbacks, efficiency and animal care. In addition, tomorrow, one new part time employee will start working at old backs to join the team to keep the kennels clean and ensure a healthy environment for dogs is provided. A second new part time employee will also be joining the ranks to help us with this challenge very soon. The Mayor's Animal Care Visioning Task Force began meeting in October 2018 and has provided very valuable feedback to the BAX team in order to improve its effectiveness. The task force members have been working hard in helping develop the strategic plan, which is a key deliverable and will be presented to the City Council in March, April. We're also excited to announce that Partners of Parks has agreed to work with our backs in raising private monies for our backs. The 100,000 of one time fiscal year 20 addition to the IBEX budget is meant to spearhead these fundraising fundraising efforts and to enhance the outback social media presence. A web portal in partnership with partners with Parks is currently being developed. We're also excited that we have begun planning a large annual fundraising event to help raise money for Outback's. With the generous approval of the City Council's $450,000 of Measure a moneys l banks will be improving its signs and ability to deal signs and ability to deal with high peak admissions season and also to taking to take our art and in to enhance adoption opportunities to areas that are further distant, that are that that are farther away from the Outback's campus facility. We plan to enhance our signs around the village that lead to the public, that lead the public to the campus and purchase up to three mighty movers. You can see on this slide an example of one of the old signs that we will be changing with a new design and messaging. The picture below is an example of a mighty mover that can be custom ordered with specific message ram so that we can be more effective in taking adoption opportunities to the people. Staff work with deputy city with deputy city attorney Art Sanchez to review the four existing agreements with SPC L.A.. The first agreement is for construction. The second one is the lease. The third is the lease back, and the fourth is a permit that allows SPC, L.A. to park vehicles at the city's Park Maintenance Operation Yard. A special L.A.X. team has met with Speaker Lee twice and made it clear that the city is requesting the establishment of an operating agreement. Other specific issues that we have been discussing that the city intends to make part of the operating agreement is to clarify is clarity of what is and what is not common areas and how best to respectfully use these areas in order to benefit both parties when their needs require it. This includes adding clarity and writing on how best the VACC will manage our footprint areas that corresponds to our leaseback areas, shared keys for the common areas and signs and common areas that are alabang specific. Last Friday we placed three banners and Stacy will briefly show you two of those banners that we placed them in and around our village. This is one of the banners that has also is introducing to the public our new album logo. And then we had. And then we have a larger banner that we're placing in front. Of the village that has been placed already in front of the village. And it shows some of our happy animals. We're also excited to continue working on the further development on best practices to operate the Joint One-Stop Adoption Desk and have been developing a mutual adoption questionnaire aimed on decreasing confusion from members of the public looking to adopt Long Beach animals from from the village. Staff recommends the city council request the city attorney to prepare Long Beach Dogs to prepare Long Beach Dog and cat ordinance to help manage population growth. We believe these two ordinance will be ready in March. Or April, the first ordinance will focus on on increasing the household limit from pets from 4 to 6 pets. The second ordinance will be to provide all banks the authority to regulate nonprofit organizations that bring 300 or more dogs and cats from outside Long Beach. L Banks will in February and early March, outreach to the rescue groups and to the public to receive their input on both the ordinances. You should know that the pet limit is currently, as described in Chapter 11 of the municipal code. Includes dogs, cats, caged birds and rabbits. Next steps bring back to the City Council the O back strategic plan in March, April, also at the same time bring back the ordinance on dog and cat population control to City Council. And also in March, April, we proposed to bring back a progress report on the ongoing meetings that we have started with SPCA, LA. That concludes the presentation. Be happy to take any questions. Speaker 10: Thank you. I know I want to hear from our public, but I want to start by setting the tone. I want to thank a lot of people who did a lot of work, and most of them are sitting in the audience. We talk a little bit about the reduction in admissions, and I know a lot of us give that credit to the community and the Spaniard's program that has been out in the community and helped to get the number of animals from having unwanted litters down. I want to thank the rescuers for contributing and helping with the number of animals released alive from the shelter. That work is a lot, to your credit. Many of you are constantly posting. We appreciate it. While I know that once compassion saves one enacted, a number of our posters moved on to shelters that still have high kill rates. Our animals still need to be posted often. And I know that Stacy Danes is doing a great job by posting a lot of our animals in Lost and Found, but we still need all the help we can get. And I know there are shelters that are far worse than us, and I appreciate that there are a lot of love going to those animals, but we still need to get our numbers even more improved. I want to I want to thank Stacy for what she has been able to do in the months that she has been here. However, I think there are a lot of questions that still need to be answered. You said that we have one new part time staff member starting tomorrow. Is this to replace the retiree from like six months ago that we lost? No councilmember. That particular recruitment is set to open soon. So this is a recruitment that has already been conducted. So let me be clear that this council has already been clear with the city staff that our recruitment is take too long and there's been an audit and a review of the onboarding process and. When we know a person is going to be retiring out of a staff or a department that is so small, the recruitment should probably start before they retire. And so my next question is to City Manager Modica, because I know Hiroto is leaving any day now. We said the second part timer will start soon. What could we do as a line in the sand date that we can check back in? So that my staff will know. Speaker 7: I believe actually two people are starting tomorrow. Is that not correct? Speaker 10: The report said one. Speaker 2: Yeah, the one is starting tomorrow, Mr. City Manager, and the second one is going through the process. It has been selected but is going through the process. Stacy, is there anything more on on the second one? Speaker 3: The second individual. Speaker 10: Is still in the medical screening process but has been, which is the last hurdle. Already done backgrounds and all that. Okay. Correct. And is it my understanding, Mr. Modica, that once they pass that they can start immediately? Speaker 7: So once we make a hire, we have to get them cleared by the FBI through the scam process, and we have to do the occupational health. Speaker 10: So this person's the first one's already been done. So now it's just occupational health on this person. That's what I'm seeing. Speaker 7: So if they're ready to go, then they're ready to go. And occupational health is actually something that we're taking a very close look at. We hope by February to have a list of positions that won't need to go through occupational health anymore. And some are still going to depending on physical duties. But that should be we are starting that very soon. Speaker 10: Thank you for that. And when the retiree that needs to be replaced, can you remind me what position that was? That position as a maintenance assistant. Three. So they clean the kennels, correct? They're animal care. And do we not have an active list for maintenance? Assistant three. There is a recruitment that is going to open soon that will provide us with a list and that is a city wide. Mr. MODICA Is there a maintenance assistant one, two or three list available? What can we. It's been six months and the person's been gone. And I know we hadn't had a director of. So then. Speaker 7: Those go to civil. Speaker 10: Service. Thank you. Speaker 7: Yes. Speaker 10: So what can we do about that? Speaker 7: I'll raise that with the civil service director. We clearly want to get either an unofficial or something into that position. If we have to take something to the Civil Service Commission to change things or ask for a provisional appointment, we can do that. Speaker 10: That would be great. I would love to hear back on a provisional appointment. A couple of things about the proposal tonight. So first and foremost, this says animal care's next steps. I think that this is animal care's proposed next steps. This council tonight will make the decision on what those are. And I'd like to make a couple of modifications out of the gate. So I know we talk about a memorandum of understanding with SPCA, L.A.. I don't feel that that's strong enough. I think that in a lot of our other reports that we've talked about, the consistent terminology that Mr. Modica has used and has agreed is necessary in all of our agreements is an operating agreement. So Mr. Modica, can you give us a little bit of information about what the timeline might be for such an operating agreement? Speaker 0: It's not. Speaker 7: So yes, in our original item that we brought forward, we were calling it a memorandum of understanding. We are changing that a little bit more to a formal agreement of what we call an operating agreement. I think that better clarifies what we're looking to do, that we want to outline all of the different provisions and really write down the stuff that is currently happening out there and also clarify things that are not happening out there that we would like to happen out there. I will ask Rado and Stacy to give us a more concise, more precise estimate of when we'd come back. My sense is we want to make a lot of progress in the next two months and really align this with the strategic plan. So when we're hearing back from the from the task force and are hearing back from the strategic plan that we come back, this is, of course, a negotiation. They are not under any requirement to actually enter into an operating agreement with us. We have started those discussions with SPCA and we hope with the next 2 to 3 months, that will have a lot to report back on. Speaker 10: Wonderful. I'd also like to modify the motion tonight to include a time certain to bring back a ordinance. We kind of talked about in the presentation a February or March date. I recognize that this council often is expected to have an ordinance that's so perfect that only ministerial changes could be proposed on the night the ordinance returns . I'm not looking for that. I'm okay with it being a draft that we can make significant changes to. But I'd like to ask if the city attorney could, at research, if possible, to have that ordinance back by February 24th. He said February or March. That's the last Tuesday meeting in February. If that's possible, that would be great. If it's not. Please let me know. And then the strategic plan. It was a broad date, if I know that's kind of based on a consultant. So if you could tell me a specific time certain that we could count on, that would be helpful. And then I'm just going to close with one last thing before we go to public comment, if possible. In 2015, I asked for our live releases to be a part of our open data portal. This is not something that needs to be created. L.A. County Animal Control already has an internal open data portal. I specifically drew that to the bar graph that's possible that links directly to Chameleon, and the data can be drawn on a daily basis and it shows the number of live animal in LBS and then it shows the animal outcomes in a bar graph. And that bar graph is a stacked graph that has this many animals where live animal outcomes by either being transferred to a rescue or being transferred to a or being adopted or they're in the foster program or they were whatever their live release category and you can click on those bars and they change on a daily basis because they pull directly from Chameleon. And this is not anything that needs to be created. It's all open to the public because it was created with government money. And here we are four years later and we don't have it. And I know at the time we went through two different IT directors, but I'd like as a part of the. If there's more to from Forbes, I'd like a date that our live release rates will be a part of the open data portal. And I don't know if it's here, but I want a date that that's possible if it's six months from now, tell me that. But I'd like to know when that's going to happen, and I want that to be a part of the motion with that councilmember. Mr. White, remember. Speaker 4: I know you've asked for the February 24th date on the ordinance. The one of the ordinances that changes the number of animals has to go to a planning commission. So I don't think there's any way that we can bring this back to you on the 24th. It has to go to Planning Commission first. Speaker 10: Would we be able to do the part of the ordinance? The other two components that they're they're proposing. Speaker 4: We could certainly attempt to bring back part of the audiences that don't have to go to a planning commission by the 24th. Speaker 10: Yes. That would be fantastic. And with that, Mr. Vice Mayor, I'd be open to either hearing from Councilman Price my co motion or hearing from the public eye. Speaker 0: Is there anyone I would like to speak? I think I have. Uh. How many names you have? Speaker 1: We have 19 that sign up for the public comments for this item. Speaker 3: Can he go? Speaker 0: Yes, go ahead. Speaker 5: I just want to add one more piece to the conversation. And I thought maybe doing it before a public comment might be more productive so that if members of the public want this particular issue addressed, perhaps it's going to get addressed right now. But I don't know. So, first of all, I want to thank our Parks Rec and Marine Department and specifically Stacey Daines. You have been a great addition to the team. I'm so grateful you're here. I'm grateful for your transparency, your authenticity, your willingness to work hard and truly your love for animals, which can be faked to some extent. But you it's real with you. I mean, it's it's genuinely real for you. This is not a job. You're not doing it because it's a job. You're doing it because you care. And that's that comes across clearly, I think, to any of us who work with you. So thank you for that. And I want to thank my colleague, Stacey Mungo for her comments. She's been very engaged on this topic, and I agree with everything she just said wholeheartedly. I know that I have met with many of the advocates. Several of them live in my district and are my constituents, and I've had the pleasure and the opportunity to be able to sit with them on a number of occasions to talk about this specific issue. And I know that one of the biggest concerns for them and it makes a lot of sense to me and perhaps they brought it up to me because I'm an attorney, I don't know. But it's the terms of the lease. The terms of the lease are a major concern for me, and I agree. We need to look at an operating agreement. We need to look at an emotive issue. But I think we have a lease in place and my concern is that there are practices that have been developed over time that are outside the scope of the lease and outside the scope of the intent of the lease. So as part of this item, if it's okay with Councilmember Mungo, she's amenable to this, I would like to request the following. I'd like to request that the city attorney review the current lease between the City of Long Beach and SPCA, L.A., and meet with the SPCA, LA management team, the Lubbock's management team, and any other persons deemed by the staff or management team of either entity who have credible, relevant information to contribute to determine whether the current lease terms have been followed, whether they have been violations of the lease, and whether those violations warrant a modification or termination of the lease or. All conversations shall be protected as privileged communications and every effort shall be made to protect the identity of those who are expressing accounts or concerns regarding events and practices. And that provision, I'm not sure if it can legally be upheld, but I really want to protect. The individuals who might share concern from being. Retaliated against in some way. I just I want to make sure they're protected. Speaker 10: So I appreciate your comments. And I would like to adopt some form of that. I know that. Speaker 5: Sorry. Speaker 3: Sorry. Speaker 10: The report that also on the lease. Yes. Speaker 5: The report shall be deemed a priority and which should return back to council within 30 days in order to cease all practices and operations that are deemed to be non-compliant and or detrimental to the operations and functions of Al Bax. Speaker 10: So I do know that in meeting with Art Cox in advance of this meeting, that they've reviewed the lease and started through a process of noticing. Is that something we can comment on at this time, or is that something that's under negotiations? Could. Mr.. MODICA Well. Speaker 7: That's something that Heard can give you an update on. He has been actively doing that work with with the SPCA. Speaker 10: But I think that the component of Miss Price and my I'm sorry, Councilwoman Price and my comments both now and then when I met with you previously, was the legal components that Mr. Cox is involved in. Mr. Tan. Sorry, Cock Sanchez. Speaker 9: Okay. Speaker 4: Yes, we can talk about that. The one of the issues that has been addressed is potential violations of the lease. And you only have a violation of the lease if the city were requested or the in this case wrote to the director of Parks and Marine. What's the other side on notice and under the lease, they have 30 days to cure that default or potential violation of the lease. To my knowledge, we've never put them on a notice for those type of incidents. So and some of the incidents that have been raised, the statute of limitations probably has run on some of the if they were light violations at that time in 2005 or, you know, more than four years ago under the contract. So if there is an ongoing issue that staff believes they can't work out with our our tenant, in this case the SPCA, we could certainly work with them to write a notice. But before we get to that, obviously, we'd want to have negotiations with them to see if we could resolve it. Short of implementing the legal system, I don't not sure we could terminate the lease under anything I've seen so far. We don't have any grounds that I'd been put aware or made aware of that would result in some sort of termination. We have a I think a lease is in place till 2053. And so it is a long term partnership that we have with SPCA. And but that said, we could certainly clarify some of the issues that have been raised and we would meet with SPCA and do that. Speaker 10: And I think what has recently happened and Mr. Modica was present was that there were concerns about violations of the lease that were brought forward by the community, that were both brought to the attention of the Parks and Rec director, the assistant city manager. And there was a discussion about making sure that if there were violations, they were put on notice. So I guess, Mr. Modica, where any of the claims brought forward deemed to be founded and were they cured or was there a noticing that will need to take place or has taken place? Speaker 7: So the director of Parks and Rec has brought those up to the attention of SPCA last week. We also put those in writing to them and and were at this point dealing with it through negotiation, saying here are things that we want to hear where we're proposing this operating agreement, because we think that is really the best way to address these going forward. We can look further at actual lease violations at this point. The things that have been raised to our attention, such as, you know, not being provided keys, those are getting addressed. And we have we have assurance from SPCA that they will give us keys to the to the common areas that is clearly in the lease. That is not under dispute. They owe us keys and we've asked for those and we will receive those. And if we don't, we would take that to the next level. I'd like Corrado to jump in and talk a little bit about the discussion that we had with SPCA and what specifically we have noticed them on. Speaker 10: And I think it's important to to kind of let the community know how many meetings there have been with SPCA. Speaker 2: With regards to these issues of concern. There's been to sit down meetings, very lengthy meetings, and such as as the city manager just mentioned, mentioning on our request. And then also it was put in writing that we going that develop an operating agreement. And then we brought up the issue of the keys, the shared keys in the common areas. We also brought up the issue of needing to have a mutual understanding on the placement of signs in common areas and also in the areas that is our bank specific footprint. And then we also how we need to have a really good, clear understanding because there have been instances there where there wasn't and how best to use the common areas as well as what are the common areas. So that needs to be clarified. That was brought up as well. And and then the effective programing of a joint One-Stop Adoption Desk, the adoption questionnaire was brought up with specific it has to be a jointly developed and owned document and. And and then not just even more clarity on, for example, during the summer season when we used the Benee pods and the mighty mover in our area, there were concerns about whether we had the right to do so. We we did so. But we need to make sure that that gets established in writing so that there is no tensions with regards to using our footprint to the best of our ability when we have the needs to save our animals . And from Long Beach. Speaker 10: Thank you. I appreciate your discussion related to the one stop. Many know that that's something that I'm very passionate about, that people would have the opportunity to know that they can adopt from Long Beach. I appreciate that you're addressing the adoption form. I think those are all things that have been brought to our attention by the community. I know Councilman Price said 30 days. I'd like to include the. Operation of the one stop launch and the adoption form. And with that, I'd like to open it up to potentially being 60 days. Speaker 5: That's fine. Speaker 10: And so those would be included as well. Great. And then if we can, Mr. Vice Mayor, hear from the public and then potentially bring back to add additional. Opportunities to improve the recommendation. Speaker 0: All right. Thank you. The public place will call you names off and please come up. And you have 90 seconds. Thank you. Speaker 1: Well, the next five public comments. Could you please do mine up in the podium? Beverly Leifer, Joanne Quartz. Speaker 0: Excuse me. Excuse me 1/2. I'm sorry. Councilwoman Patricia. Okay. Okay, fine. Speaker 1: Beverly Reliever Joanne Coates, Laura, Selma, Alex Armstrong and Wang. Can you please come up and stand by the podium, please? Speaker 3: Do we only have one minute, 30 seconds. Yes. Okay. I'm Beverly Lifer. And first, I want to thank council members Pryce and Mungo for wanting the lease and potential violations to be investigated. This needs to be done prior to an operating agreement or ammonia or whatever you call it. I organize and peacefully demonstrate outside the State of the City event with a group of other animal advocates last Tuesday, like I did at last year's event, with no trouble. However, this year I was told by the head of security at this public event on public property that you, city council and the mayor stated that no signs were allowed within the security perimeter outside the building. Even the police agree that we were allowed and so were our signs. I checked before we even showed up. Unfortunately, the mayor's not here to the address, but the mayor and city council members have a history of restricting the public's comments and thoughts, as seen in the mayor's deletion of criticism of him on Facebook, limiting the time for public comments and now trying to remove people and their signs from a public event. Well, you can't and won't stop us from an acting our freedoms of assembly and speech. And you will never silence me or others from advocating for our city's pets. We demand that this city's animal shelter operate autonomously. All decision making should be made by the shelter manager or its city management. No private organization, including SPCA, L.A. should have unmitigated power to control. Thank you, Agency. Speaker 0: Yes, thank you. Speaker 11: I don't know. Speaker 3: Hi, my name is Joanne Frost. Thank you for your increased attention to Long Beach Animal Care stories. This past year. I've been advocating for Outback's reform for over 12 years, and after all these years, I finally feel a glimmer of hope today. Thanks to many of you recently meeting with me and patient and listening to the unfortunate complex issue. So thank you very, very much. I am the family against entering into any additional agreements with SPCA until the violations and the current lease agreements are remedied. Past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior. We do. Speaker 12: You all have a letter at your desk from Best Friends Animal Society. Speaker 3: They are a leading national welfare organization. They're dedicated to ending the killing of dogs and cats in America by 2025. Speaker 12: They have written, commending us for our work this year. And they also noted that to have continued progress, our. Speaker 3: Municipal shelter needs autonomy and self-determination. They made note that our backs must be freely, must be free to choose the type of collaborations that save the most limited animals. As Ella Max is in the current state of evolution. Now maybe the time to review current partnerships to ensure alignment of goals and purpose. Meet the Compassion Saves Initiative. They believe independence is a logical next step to its long term success and sustainability. And then the last thing I have is a visual that you may have in your doc, in your this is the main building of the common area. There's these pink areas that are highlighted. They we consider the valued space where animals can be housed and the veterinary areas. You'll see those pink arrows are all owned. Speaker 0: Thank you. Speaker 3: They are all taken over by SPCA. That's what we really need to get back as part of the lease. We don't need an operating agreement to get that taken care of. Thank you. My name is Laura Selmer, vice mayor and council. Thank you for the leadership. With the animal care services last year, having the lowest euthanasia rate in our history was a true accomplishment. I want to give a shout out to Stacy Danes and her team. You are saving lives. Another deserving Shoutout goes to Hiroto Mourad for his insightful decision to bring Stacy here. You knew what we needed. Thank you. Next is looking ahead. I urge the council to have the city evaluate and remedy the ongoing violations of the lease agreement between the city and SPCA. We have some information about your seats by addressing these violations. The dominoes will fall. The city might not even need or want an operational agreement. Please enforced release before attempting to negotiate an operating agreement on top of a lease agreement that is already being violated. Thank you for your service to Long Beach. And I also want to appreciate that the words of the voice of confidentiality, because there are some animal advocates in the community who are who are not free to speak because of fear of retaliation. So thank you for that. Speaker 0: Thank you. Speaker 2: Hey, guys. Thank you. Stacy. Stacy Mungo, Janine Peterson, Susie Price for what you've been helping Stacy Dance accomplished this year. It has improved in regards to the SPCA. We are asking our city council mayor not to not to approve the move or any operation agreement. We already, as you guys said, we already have a legal document that needs to be enforced. And that's really where we need to stand is on the lease. It's a violation of the lease, too, to change door locks. It's a violation of the lease to not allow our city animals in the shared part of the facility. These things are continually going on and the lease, it's a violation of the lease. So whatever needs to happen to save more lives is really on you guys to make that happen for us, and we keep asking you to do so. I think it's also disgusting that the Spca's Le's ethics are not being challenged here, that it's unethical for them to have the first pick of puppies or dogs that come into our city shelter over our Long Beach residence. How the hell does that work? I mean, no, that's just the these things that are going on there. It's ridiculous. It doesn't happen anywhere else. And Madeline Brunson needs to be accountable for what she's doing. She is responsible for the deaths of many animals. And it's got to change in our city. Speaker 0: Thank you. Speaker 3: I also want to echo my thanks to Councilmember Pearce, Price and Margo for your movement. Forward with Compassion Saves. I am more encouraged than I have ever been. Tonight, hearing Susie Price and Stacy Mongo backing very strongly what we all have wanted. So thank you. I want to make it real clear that Mr. Perkins Perkins, we do not have a partnership with SPCA. If you look on page 19 of the book that you were given, it very clearly states in the lease, this is not a partnership, so please make sure you guys review that. Secondly, I also want to concur that I do not support animal you or any kind of agreement until and if all violations committed against the L backs against the shelters by the SPCA, which I have personally seen myself. Speaker 10: I was there the day. Speaker 3: Those animals were tossed out of the small animal room. I saw it with my eyes. That can never, ever happen. Lastly, I'm asking you to hold off on any type of vote or consideration for Part six Chapter 6.04 with regards to the ordinance bringing in animals from other areas. This is punitive to rescuers who operate and pull many, many animals from the shelter and off of the streets and needs to be strongly reconsidered before it is even looked at by council. Speaker 0: Thank you. Could you please stop the next slide, please? 1/2. Speaker 1: Next, guys, please come up to the podium. Candice Lawrence, Carole Peterson, Kristi Mammoliti, Adam R and Fernando Collado. Speaker 0: I thank you. Go ahead, Mr.. Could you. Speaker 2: Yes, I think the record will show me that. I'm embarrassed to say this is the first time I've ever spoken on this issue. This is really nothing more than a 32nd conversation. There should be no killing. Of any dog or a cat. Figure out how to do it. It should end tonight. Nothing. Nothing should be killed. Figure it out. That's what you're there for. Thank you. Speaker 3: Right now, I, too, would like to thank the two, Stacey's and Councilwoman Price, for the work that they've been doing. And it's wonderful to hear that there is some attempt at improving our relationship with SPCA, L.A., which we've all been crying for for years. I was brought up to believe that there is no such thing as government money. It's taxpayers money. And I want to know why my taxpayer's money, instead of going to our shelter where we get pleas for kitten food, where we hear that there's no heat and the animals are cold, where there are no spay and vouchers, there are no spay neuter vouchers available, not even for, God forbid, language, but form where we have our spaying and neutering done. San Pedro. This is insane in a city of our size and our financial acumen. I don't appreciate that my pet taxpayer money is being spent on things like roundabouts landscaped roundabouts that everyone hates and nobody knows how to manipulate them. Speaker 1: The signage is insane. Speaker 3: I've killed practically killed about ten people so far. Not to mention how many people tried to kill me. And it's just not workable. They're in residential neighborhoods and they're not necessary. I'm not interested in my taxpayer money going for rainbow colored walkways. I'm not interested in my taxpayer money going for bike paths all over the city. I've seen exactly one biker on my street in the 20 years that I've lived on Pacific Avenue. So let's get the priorities here, people. Let's let's do something for the animals. The big thing that was in that order over and over again, obliquely. Speaker 0: Thank you, young lady. Thank you. Speaker 3: Was money. We need money. Hi. So the only menu I would accept is one that grants complete independence from SPCA. I have yet to find any evidence at all backs of the an innovative and life preserving care that was promised in that formation of this public private union years ago. In fact, SPCA has been a great obstacle in the operations and services provided to animals that backs the thousands upon thousands of animals killed can attest to that. So unless the AMA you give the autonomy to L backs, I would urge you to reject it. At the State of the City address last week, the mayor shared numbers from animal care services. Adoptions were up, euthanasia were down. But these two categories combined represent only a portion of the 5000 plus animals who come into our backs. So what happened to the rest? Well, a large number of them went to SPCA, L.A. And then what happened? Nobody knows, because there's no transparency coming from SPCA. The public is kept in the dark as to how many animals it kills and adopts without transparency. And with a CEO who has openly come out against no kill, it makes it kind of hard to trust this society. I would also think twice about regulating the animals coming in to Long Beach to adopt from other places. The last thing I want is more animals to go to SPCA because I don't know what happens to them. And if we free up cages that SPCA, LA is going to send more over. And of course, this will increase Long Beach's save rate and it will look good. But here's the thing. Not only will we not know what happens to these animals. Speaker 0: Thank you. Thank you very much, Ms.. Speaker 3: But there will be no incentive for Long Beaches Own Adoption program. Speaker 9: Good evening. I'm Christine family and it's nice to see you all again this first time I've been here at the new facility. Quite expensive facility. We spent a lot of money. We've spent a lot of time. But the bottom line is that our city's animal shelter is still killing healthy and treatable pets. Public record requests about those killed have shown this. You've been announcing a great save rate at our city shelter, but that save rate does not include in the numbers that SPCA transfers or kills. We do not know what they do with them. And SPCA is adamant about not being no kill on their website about not. Having no kill around our shelter, hands over up to 25% of the pets. To them, that SPCA is not transparent about what they do with them. How do we know what that number is? How can we even estimate what our save rate is? When. SPCA. L.A. is a care facility. You cannot even guess. Please stop telling the public how great you think the save rate has become until you get their facts. Let's be transparent. Our city shelter needs autonomy from especially in order to function as an adoption facility and SPCA. L.A. is toxic to that end. Let's keep this train moving forward like it is tonight. But no agreements with SPCA, L.A.. Speaker 0: Thank you very much. Next. Speaker 2: Hello. I usually want to start off with a little refresher, and I had needed one for autonomy. Apparently it's in developmental psychology and moral, political and bioethical philosophy. Autonomy is the capacity to make an informed, unconscious decision. And basically what we're trying to get is we want Long Beach Animal Care Services to operate as a separate shelter from SPCA. Due to the reasons I addressed earlier, since they're not transparent and we don't not know what happens to our pets once they take them to their facility, they can't be counted as adopted. So therefore it's not what it is meant to be. They can't be. If UCLA kills any of them, the same way for Long Beach should represent what they do with our animals. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you. Next, before we get started, can we call up the next slide, please? Speaker 1: Wendy Aragon. Sherry Stamp which. Ronnie Nakano. Diane Cliche. Kate Karp. Would you please come up by the story? Line up by the podium, please. Speaker 0: Einstein, sir. Speaker 2: Thank you. The council members don't agree that we want Long Beach Animal Care Services to offer you a separate shelters from SPCA. Since they do not represent Transparent and we do not know what happens to our pets once they take them to the facility. They cannot be counted as adopted at SPCA. They killed any of them. They saved me for long pieces that represent. Speaker 6: What they do with. Speaker 2: Our animals. Thank you. This make Long Beach shelter in Tokyo. Speaker 0: Thank you very much. Next. Speaker 3: Wendy Aragon, president of Pain Assistance Foundation. We've helped to spay and neuter many Long Beach pets over. Speaker 9: Over six decades. Speaker 3: We have concerns about the proposed changes to the number to the proposed changes. Speaker 9: Mentioned tonight to the ordinance. Speaker 3: Regarding the number of pets strongly recommend that rabbits be included in the six animals allowed and that they be required to be spay and neuter like dogs. Speaker 9: And cats. There's more prolific than cats. Speaker 3: And subject to a lot of abuse. Neglect, abandonment. And we would really like to see this edition. We also in general regarding changes to the ordinance or change the proposed changes tonight, I just want to say that every animal advocate longs for the day when all healthy, adoptable animals find a quality, loving home. However, we cannot adopt our way out of the pet overpopulation problem. It exists. We cannot depend simply on the live release rate. Pet overpopulation is a complex social problem and it requires complex solutions. One Increased public education about responsible pet care. Humane education in our schools. Increase spay and neuter. Speaker 0: Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ms.. Next. Speaker 9: Hi. First off, thank you for allowing us to speak. So I've never done this before. So it's a little a little intimidating. So anyhow, I run Zaza Cat's Kitty Rescue. We are a street cat rescue based rescue. We save probably about a thousand kitty cats off the streets last year. Probably 80% of them are from the city of Long Beach. And out of that, 80%, probably 80% of them are adopted outside of the city of Long Beach. My fear or whatever is if you put limitations on the adoptable kitty cats we are able to adopt in Long Beach outside of Long Beach, it will actually cause us not to be able to save the amount of lives that we do. Say, if all cities were to put an ordinance out there that I'm sorry, but you can't adopt out your Long Beach kitty cats in Whittier, that is going to decrease the amount of cats that we can actually save because we do, like I said, about a thousand cats a year. We are on average 500 adoptions a year, just our rescue, not to mention what everybody else here does. So I fully support Stacy and I love what she's doing at the shelter. And I would love to be able to help the shelter out more by saving more animals and by doing so. If you tie our hands with where we can and cannot adopt our kitty cats out at. Speaker 0: Thank you. Thank you very much. Speaker 3: Animal. Hi. I was going to talk about partnerships tonight. Thank you very much, Gerardo, for clarifying. Step number two, because I was very concerned about that. Partnerships, it's become clearer and clearer by what I've heard and what I've seen. That SPCA play, no matter how many animals they take, is not a partner. The ones the ones who are partners are the independent rescuers, like the ones you just saw, Ronnie. They spend their own money and they scramble for more trying to save and adopt out as many pets as they possibly can. And we worry that step two is going to affect their ability to rescue, and it'll also isolate them from the rescue community at large outside the city. And as for business, they, with their own rescues, bring business in to the pet stores where they have the rescues on compassion saves and also knows no boundaries. And you and I all know that if any of these people find a box of kittens in a dumpster in Rancho Cucamonga or a dog by the freeway ramp, they take it in. And I'll bet. So would any of you. I think I'm Will. If you can get rid of that. I think it's ridiculous. I think that there's just a small number. Speaker 0: Thank you. Thank you very. Speaker 3: Much. You get it? Okay. Yeah. Hi, I'm Sherry. Say, go to the Sparky in the game. We do adoptions in Long Beach and SEAL Beach. I feel that that putting a pet limit on how many adoptable animals for small groups would really affect us. We do save animals from the Long Beach shelter, but unfortunately it's mostly the second injured. And just in the last eight months, we've racked up $28,000 in bills from animals that were not taken by the SPCA, which is very disappointing because when I moved to Long Beach, I was like, wow, we have SPCA here thinking that they have the funds to take the animals. So we do rescue animals for other shelters that offset the cost of our sick animals here. And we do a huge program of that. I feel like all of the rescue groups here do work together. The only group that doesn't work is the SPCA with all of us. I would also like to see that if a dog does get rescued off the street, that the general public gets first pick of the dog, which would which would be called a CTA, which means commitment to adopt so that they can do due diligence of rescuing the dog, getting into the shelter, and they get to adopt it from our shelter and collect license fees. And then from that point I would be interested party which would be like rescue groups or anybody else would like the dog and makes it simple, clean and clear where it's not like we're holding this dog for this group or that group. They get the dogs out as soon as they're available. They need to go. Also. Okay, I think that's. Speaker 0: Fine. Thank you. Yes. Excuse me. Before the last go. Speaker 1: We have three more. Mr. Vice Mayor? Yes? Linda montgomery. You please come up to the podium. Luis Montgomery and Jacqueline Case. Speaker 0: Sorry. Speaker 3: Good evening, honorable council members and vice mayor. I'm the executive director of Fixed Long Beach, so I know most of you and thank you for your past, present and continuing support. Since we have been in action, we've helped to fix over 8000 paths in and around Long Beach. So getting there, but not there yet. I would ask that with the 300 adoption pact limit that you include language to say those are pets adopted on city property. We as small rescuers and most people don't know about fix does rescue animals because we have them dumped at our events. We have them left behind. We have picked up animals off the freeway and off the street. And yes, sometimes we do get an easily adoptable animal that is surrendered to us and we can adopt out. But it takes 20 of those to offset one medical case. So when we take we have taken a dog from the shelter. We were told it would have a surgery. Money ran out. That dog ended up costing us $3,000. Speaker 1: So limiting what. Speaker 3: We're able to do and the pets that we can get and adopt out. It's it's going to be very detrimental to all of the small rescues and it's going to give the SPCA way too much authority, and they're just going to continue doing what they're doing then and. BOWLIN So please consider that. Speaker 0: Thank you. Speaker 3: Thank you for your time. My name is Louise Montgomery. I'd like to address the increase of pets from 4 to 6. I think it's a great idea. However, the wording, I believe, needs to be for pets to six licensed pets. While volunteering at the city of Long Beach. I personally experience the frustration of the staff and the thousands of hours spent addressing barking dogs, roaming cat complaints from irresponsible citizens who do not supervise their animals. With the mandatory licensing, spay neuter and breeding laws we have in the city. It's very difficult for animal control to even enforce this. Now, we have very low licensing rates now, and I'd like to council to consider increased funding to address that for the staff of the city. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you. Next. Speaker 3: Hi. My name is Linda montgomery. As my sister just said, we do have a lot of dogs in Long Beach that are still not neutered and they're not to go to Dog Beach. A lot of those dogs should be in Speedos. It's crazy. So the city is having a hard enough time enforcing a lot of the rules that we have now and spay and neuter. And also, one of the things that I was concerned about and I was interested in when you showed the chart, was that there are so many dogs that come in in the summertime. And one of the things that may seem irrelevant, but it really is a big deal and there's no transparency on it, is fireworks. The day before 4th of July, they empty out the shelter. A lot of dogs are put to sleep that day because they have to make room for the dogs that are coming in the next day because the police are not enforcing our fireworks. And people, if they knew that fireworks harmed as many dogs as that as they do. Maybe if we did a campaign with posters showing that's why we have them illegal, or at least letting people know how many dogs get out, get hit by cars, owners having to go back into the shelter to claim their dogs the next day. It's a program that might help with that. So I appreciate your time. Thank you. Hi. My name's Jacqueline Keith. I'm from District eight and I'm also a member of the Animal Task Force as as an alum. So as of March 2019, our box has shifted its model from animal control to compassion saves providing animal care and placing greater emphasis on saving healthy and treatable animals and providing life saving programs. So we had an audit back in 2018. Speaker 9: And so during that, and I'm grateful that you guys are getting more staff, but we still are lacking. Speaker 3: The funding programing has expanded to saving healthy and treatable animals remaining in. Speaker 9: Open intake and shelter. And yet our budget for 2020 was less than the previous year. So although we've added a new staff member and we're going to add a second one back in 2018, we were told that we need eight additional staff. If you read the. Speaker 3: Audit in 2018, it says in two sections that we need 12 part. Speaker 9: Time, we need eight full time, and then we also need 12 additional. So the problem is, is we're still in I'm grateful for this for this report that you provided being a task force member. Some of the stuff is the first time I'm hearing it, which I'm grateful for. The people we have, they know I support Stacy and the staff in itself. I also am against the MRU. I think the list stands on itself. We should have more transparency. You should also investigate the fact that why does SPCA have keys to our shelter, our kennels? Speaker 3: Why do they take our animals? Speaker 9: And the joint documentation for presentation? Speaker 0: Thank you. Thank you very. Speaker 9: Much. Because at the bottom. Speaker 3: Of the application, it states that my information is going to be. Speaker 9: Advertised with SPCA. And I didn't ask for that. I voted. I wanted a dog or a cat from our shelter. I didn't want to be advertised from them. Speaker 0: Thank you. Yeah. And. That is the end of public comment. Now we're going to back behind the diocese. Speaker 9: Okay. Speaker 10: So I have a bunch of things I'm going to try to remember to hit every single thing that came up during that time. It's. Speaker 12: Because you already got to speak. I believe it's my turn. Speaker 10: The vice mayor called on me. I don't think the chairs discussion. Speaker 0: Sure. Speaker 10: Thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor. Okay. So just to get through a couple of the things that were said in the audience, the budget of animal control has never gone down. What you're looking at in the budget book and I've gone through this with some of you, but obviously I haven't met with all of you. I try to make order as city attorney. Speaker 12: Could you clarify the. Speaker 3: Process for us. Speaker 4: The maker of the motion you had commented before, and then it went to the second year of the motion. Then you went to public comment and then the councilmember appears was cued up next that if you're going in the order, it should be the councilmember from the second district at this time. And you're free to recue. Speaker 10: I understand that's the process. I'm just following the chair's discretion. Does he have discretion? Speaker 4: And the chair could call on someone else. But that's been your form and your order that's been followed. Speaker 0: I don't think it's to me. Well, that's up to Councilwoman Pierce, but I think we're going to get through this no matter how we look at it. Speaker 12: So I was cued up to second and I was asked to step off of the second. Speaker 0: Okay, well, fine. Then you go. Speaker 3: And I don't allow it. Okay, good. Thank you. Yes. Speaker 12: I am excited that we are here today and that we have great leadership coming from both Stacie and Councilmember Price. And so it's it's wonderful to know that that we have many people on this council that today really care about our shelter. So I want to thank all the staff. Thank give them a round of applause. I want to thank our staff, as we already have, not only Stacey Daines, but the staff that's been in the shelter for a long time. I understand that it's about ten years is the average length of stay, length of stay for a staff member in our animal shelter. And I think that that says a lot about how much our staff really care about our animals in that shelter. I'm going to try to get through this quickly because I know we've got a long agenda when it comes to the lease in the MCU. I think absolutely. We've already really looked at the lease. We need to continue that. Our staff is asking for an IMO you. And from my understanding they're asking for an IMU because and I hate to kind of put it out there, but we have a hostile workplace and between our shelter and the SPCA and so they're asking for an IMO you to really put process into place to hold accountable the things that we believe we have laid out in our lease. STAFF Can you answer just a few questions in the lease? Does it lay out how to handle keys, how to handle meeting room request? I, I understand there's meeting spaces that we haven't been able to reserve just how we access pet food. That's a shared space. Does it lay out all of those pieces in the lease? Speaker 10: Those items are not spoken about in the lease. Speaker 12: Right. So it's my understanding that over the last several years that practices have been put into place just as a nobody called that person on it. And so we continue to get ourselves in a hostile work environment. I was there Friday for almost 2 hours and being able to see the space and really understand, understand what the shared space was and what our team had access to was really disheartening, not only as somebody who cares about animals, but as somebody that's responsible for our city budget. So my next question is. Speaker 3: It's. Speaker 12: When I'm standing in the adoption center, there are beautiful rooms that the little kitty corners, there's additional cages and there's a shared desk in the very back. It's my understanding that there have been times whenever there's been space available, but we haven't been allowed to put our animals in that space. Is that true? It's true. I'm saying I had not. That's true. And it's it's my understanding that on some of the the way that the bills are set up, do we pay the water bill for the entire property? Speaker 10: At this time we are operating expenses are split 5050, including water. Speaker 12: Including split 5050. So and I don't believe that the audit did this. Do we have an assessment of how much space we actually have access to and how much of the resources have been split? My question is getting out, do we have an issue where we're overpaying and maybe there's a government gift? That we're giving the SPCA that we're not accounting for because we don't have access to the space or we're paying for more water and things that that we don't use. Have we done that analysis? Speaker 3: So I don't think that we have taken a look. Speaker 10: At percentages. Speaker 3: And square footage and allotment. That's not something that was evaluated in the audit. Speaker 12: Okay. I ask that because I think when we say that the lease is enough, it's really important for us to really consider how much of our city resources are going to support a nonprofit whenever we are not supporting those organizations that really carry the heaviest load. As was mentioned here earlier. I support the council comments so far and really making sure that we're putting a lot of teeth to it. I want to make sure, though, that we don't wait to get to the process of of an IMO you because I worry that we might lose staff, we might lose support, we might lose funding if that is not a space that is really being shared fully. I love the signs. I love the new logo. I love that when I pulled up at 9:00 on Friday, I saw the staff out there putting up the new signs. Do we have in our budget for permanent signage? Because I know our logos change and we have the spaces. Speaker 10: It's a part of the. Speaker 2: Mix that that was. I'm sorry. That was part of the city council approves measure a $450,000. We're going to end up putting new signs. There was a slide there, as well as up to three mighty movers. Speaker 12: And when we talked about the permanent signs, we talked about signage inside the building and we talked about the sign right by the front gate, right above where we walk in. Is that part of the signage as well? Speaker 2: That that is something that we're going to be that is our goal and that's something that we have to bring forth in our meetings with, especially because we would have to remove the existing signs. Speaker 7: So, so I'd like to talk to you about that a little bit. So we've heard very clearly from people in the audience, from our stakeholders and from the council that signage is very important and we completely agree. So we have we do think that's a very good use of measure. There are certain signs that the city has for control over anything that is not within the facility, anything that is in the park, anything that is on the sign or on the freeway, on the roads leading up to it. So we've identified a number of signs. All of those are going to be switched out. Those will have our brand new lettering. They'll be able to clearly delineate where this where the city shelter is and anything else. Then the lease is very specific. When it deals with signage inside the facility, it actually says both groups have to agree on signage and then it has provisions on what happens if you if a city can remove a sign that goes up, it is not an agreement. It is not a very good, well, well-written lease. So it's that's part of the reason we're bringing forward operating agreement because we want to make sure that we clarify all this. I think people when they wrote this lease back, you know, 15, 20 years ago, didn't really contemplate the situation that we have today. So that is really why we're proposing these types of things. But we clearly want to replace signage. We want to have good, very clear signage. And we're going to make that a priority. Speaker 0: Great. On 1/2. In all fairness for the public, just like we have behind the diocese, your time is up so you can keep back up. Mrs. most will go to you can keep back up to 5 minutes. Okay. Now, just mongo. You have 5 minutes. Speaker 10: Thank you. I completely agree this is a lease that this council would never approve. And then I'll also comment that often in our current lease agreements, we also approve a lease and an operating agreement at the same time under current. Is that accurate? I feel like I just read a two from four where we're approving a lease and an operating agreement simultaneously. Could you go into that? Speaker 7: Yes, that does happen from time to time. Speaker 10: Great. So. A couple of things. The shared areas in this operating agreement, I would like to see an effort to utilize. As primary custody. I don't know any other words except for, like, divorce words, but we need primary custody of at least 50% of shared space. And if that means 100% of shared space 50% of the time, or every other Tuesday and every other weekend, whatever you work out. But. Shared again. I have a daughter. I try to teach that it doesn't always end up 5050, but sharing doesn't mean that you keep all the toys all the time. And so I'd love for there to be some understanding moved towards and the operating agreement that we should see in the next 60 days. I'm willing to work with someone on an animal ordinance for rabbits, but I don't want to hold up where we are today to make modifications on the rabbit side. 50%. Oh, CTAs. I want to talk about CTS. For those of you who aren't in the animal world, I know we have a lot of people here on short term rentals and other things. A commitment to adopt is a very serious thing and we need to have a process by which during the animal hold period for owner redemption, that means an animal is lost. It is brought into our shelter. There's an owner redemption period where we don't let other people adopt it out. We need to be able to have a commitment to adopt. And if someone signs up for that commitment to adopt, they have 24 hours from the date of which the animal becomes available before we even put it on the docket for SPCA or any other group. Quite honestly, I love our rescues, but the public needs that first opportunity. And where I come from, we have a very strong CTA policy. We're in Chameleon in the Notes section. You can have up to three CTAs. They're all called at the same time when the animal meets that requirement and or they can be present at 10 a.m. on the day that the animal becomes available and whichever one's there first gets to adopt whatever you want to work out that doesn't result in fistfights at the shelter. We need that. And there have been fistfights at the shelters around the region over puppies. Budget. Going back to budget, what you're looking at in the budget book is not that their budget has ever been cut. It's that in previous years, as the year goes on, when we know that there's a certain need and Parks and Rec might be able to underspend in an area, they allow animal care to overspend on a one time basis. But the budget from year to year has not gone down. The budget are the things that you have, the ongoing costs of staffing and food and things like that. So I just wanted to be clear on that and then I'll recue for additional comments. Speaker 0: I thank you, Councilwoman Pryce. Speaker 2: It's. Yes, yes. Speaker 0: Okay. Councilman Soprano. I see it. But he was. Speaker 12: Gear. I saw supernovas was up earlier, but I wanted to to ask the question one more time on the signage. So we have it has to be shared and agreed upon inside, but not outside. Speaker 7: We'll have to get you the details. I believe it's the premises that are under the lease. I don't have it in front of me what exact premises they're talking about. But the lease specifically says signage governed under the lease has to be jointly approved. Speaker 12: So when I was there, I saw many doors that were in the shared space that had sparkly names plastered on the doors and said sparkly stuff only in our shared spaces. And it's my understanding we didn't have a process to agree for that. So when we're talking about the menu, I want to make sure that we come back with what is the process that we approve, not only shared space signage, what is the process where we approve meeting space rooms, what's the process for putting our pets into the adoption place but that there is a process and that not one person can say no, we might need to use that tomorrow or next day. To is is I wanted to ask what happens if they do not sign the MCU and we find that in the lease there's nothing too egregious because it's not clear enough in the lease. What happens if she says, no, we're not going to sign that? No, you. I might be a city attorney. Question. Speaker 4: As everyone's mentioned, this would be a operating agreement. Operating agreement without an operating agreement or a memorandum of understanding is also an agreement. Right. So they could that is a distinct possibility that the SPC, LA would not execute that agreement and then we would revert back to the existing lease, which is the governing document for the property Speaker 12: . And when when does the word cease and desist come into play? I just had somebody ask and I had to make sure I asked. Speaker 4: Well, it it probably wouldn't come into play with this lease. We probably send them a notice of violation of the lease under the lease and the then they would have a cure period, I believe is 30 days to cure whatever the violation is. So if they are inappropriately locking out the city from shared space area, we would send them a notice and they would have 30 days to do that. Prior to doing that, I would hope that the director of Parks and Record and staff would have a conversation with the SPCA to try and resolve that short of involving the city attorney's office and and enforcing the terms of the lease through the legal process. But that's certainly an option that we have. Speaker 12: Right. I just wanted that kind of mapped out for folks. My last part is around the 300 number. I don't think anybody in the city wants to deter people from rescuing animals. And it's my understanding that this is not saying that you cannot, you know, rescue animals and work with us at the 300 level, but that it's more regulating. Can you tease it out just a little bit more on the intent behind that 300 number? Speaker 2: Yeah. So in the presentation, you'll note that we are suggesting that the bank's banks team is going to do outreach to the rescue groups as well as to the public about the 300. To be clear, the 300 number is regulating nonprofit organizations that bring 300 animals or more from the outside and Long Beach. It's not adopting Long Beach animals outside of Long Beach. That's not the intent. The intent is to regulate nonprofit organizations that have higher numbers than 300. And we're going to have a discussion with the rescue groups and the public on whether that's the right number before it comes back to you so that it doesn't negatively impact those rescue groups. And that's that's the intent. Speaker 7: And Councilmember, I think we would also ask for some flexibility in this ordinance. We would also request and we've seen this in other places where the director of Parks Rec, a marine, can request a waiver of the ordinance under certain circumstances. So if there was a rescue group that somehow was at 301 or whatever it is, that if there's a partnership, if things are working well, we're able to say, Yep, absolutely. If things are not working well, we're able to say, I'm sorry, the ordinance does not allow that. So we are asking for some flexibility to recognize the effort of those groups that really do do very good work in the city. Speaker 12: That's exactly what I was I was hoping to hear again. Guys, I think you've done a great job, Stacy. I look forward to many years of continuing to improve our shelter with you. So thank you, guys. Speaker 0: Contribution? No. Speaker 8: Thank you. Thanks to PRM for a great presentation. Thanks to all the speakers tonight and special thanks to those of you who reached out to our office prior to tonight's meeting. I was most struck by the comments about some of the behaviors out out at the Animal Care Services Center. And it was touched on here. Hostility in Stacy Mungo just mentioned, fistfights breaking up. I'm reminded of that famous line from the movie Dr. Strangelove. You can't fight in here. This is the war room. If you can't fight in the war room, I don't think you should be able to fight in a room where volunteers are trying to help cats and dogs. And I think you're trying to address that by the signage, internal signage within the facility explaining what the rules are. But I think based on one thing that Laura Selma said, that a lot of people are reluctant to come forward for fear of retaliation. So I think I have a friendly amendment that might address that. And that is I think we could set up, for lack of a better term, a separate portal where reports can be made anonymously as they see the behaviors or see violations that we can have some type of hotline. So if the if the maker of the motion would accept that, that's that's my amendment. Speaker 10: I think that would be great. I think having some kind of email address that allows people to anonymously make a report that can be looked into and given the proper timeliness, that would be very much appreciated. Speaker 7: So if I could we think that's a great suggestion. I'd suggest that we use what we have in place, which is the city auditor's fraud hotline. It is completely anonymous. It has the ability to go directly to the auditor, and then she has a process to forward those things to us for investigation without any attribution. So we will work with her on on getting that available if, if that meets the need. Speaker 10: Thank you. Speaker 0: Councilman Orson. Speaker 6: Thank you very much. I'll be very short. I needed some clarification, first of all, to staff. I want to say a great report and to our our city team, great work just over the last ten years. The numbers speak for themselves. We are definitely headed in the right direction when it comes to euthanasia rates being reduced and adoption rates being increased. And I know that you guys don't share that credit alone. It is as a result of a lot of the great groups that are working in our city to work to make that happen. And so they are. Congratulations to everybody for the work so far. Thus far, we're not perfect, obviously, but I think we're definitely headed in the right direction. As a result, I wanted to add to the to the it's an emotion on the floor. There's been a lot said about operating agreement and memorandum of understanding. And I want to get some clarification from city staff on what's the difference. Speaker 4: Legally they're probably no difference. The IMO you is is also a contract. The operating agreement would be a contract. You would have terms and conditions in both of the operating agreement and the IMO you that would hopefully clarify and add to the existing lease. I think that's the intention here. Either one of those documents is capable of doing that. Speaker 7: And from city perspective, the reason for the change in terminology is just to communicate a little bit better. You know, there was some mistake, there is some confusion about memorandum of understanding. You know, sometimes that term is not well recognized outside of government speak. So operating agreement is really our way of saying it's supposed to be very clear who does what, how are we going to operate it? The facility was a way to better communicate to the public. Speaker 6: So how long has SBC, L.A. been our partner? Well. Speaker 2: Since 98 is when the lease was established in 1998. Speaker 6: And what were the terms and how are we operating today? How did how do we get to this point? I mean, how has there never been a sit down to agree on how. Dog food is dispensed. And what? What areas are our city of a Long Beach versus SPCA, L.A.? I mean, has there been none of that whatsoever in the 30 years? Speaker 2: I can't speak for the entire 30 years. But during my my being present there, we have been, you know, before Stacy with Ted Stevens, we have been bringing these issues up. And now they have pretty much come to a point where they're now much more serious with regards to changing behavior and ensuring that the the terms of the existing agreements are enforced. And also more added detail is added to an operating agreement. Speaker 6: And how many years are left on the existing lease agreement. Speaker 2: The lease expires in July 2053. Speaker 6: So that tells me that there's going to have to be some some significant work from staff to to work together with all of the stakeholders to try to find a way to co-exist and operate together. Well, I. And so, I mean, I do like I'm going to support what's on the floor here today. But I'm I'm concerned that when, you know, you already have a lease agreement, there's not a whole lot of incentive to come to the table to an agreement if both parties are not willing to get there. Right. And so how we get them there is is is a concern of mine right now and to some of the tone around this issue. And to me, there's that there should be more and more collaboration moving forward that with that kind of a tone. So I want to support this. And then my last question is the I know the city auditor did a they did an audit of our animal care services. And what authority, if any, does a city auditor have to to look at this lease? But also the the the operations of SPCA. Because it is on city site. Speaker 2: Councilmember. Speaker 4: I believe that the other could look at the lease and the operations of our partner or speaker in this case under the lease, to see that both sides are operating as they would any other type of lease where we have an agreement. Queen Mary comes to mind right there. They're looking at the operations of our in that case, of our tenant. In this case, it would be looking at both the city and the SPCA. Speaker 6: Or would you be open to a friendly amendment to asking the city auditor also take a look at. The lease as well as the operations of. Speaker 10: Absolutely. Speaker 2: Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you. Fine. So one pair price. Speaker 5: So I just want to go back to my friendly, which was very specific language directing the city attorney's office to review the lease. Note the violations. Seek out weather modification is necessary or termination is warranted. My concern with talking about operating agreements and may use whatever term we want to use is that we currently have an existing contract that I'm concerned is not being followed. So what I don't want to do is have us enter into another agreement with someone who might be in violation of the first agreement. So I know Councilmember Mungo accepted my friendly, but I just want to make sure that doesn't get lost here. I get that we're already doing that. But this is a formal request from the Council for the City Attorney's Office to take a look at the lease to provide provide us with information on what violations exist. I will tell you sometimes when we in the past, when we've heard about the relationship there, it has not seemed that violations are as prevalent as they might be. And so I don't know if that's because we've had this long term partnership and we're trying to support the partnership. But a partnership, a real partnership only exists when both of the partners are respectfully participating in the partnership with a spirit of trust, mutual respect, all of that. So I think that we have a legal partnership with this entity that should not be clouded by the term of the partnership, but rather by the terms of the lease. So I hope that my friendly was clear that I want to look at the terms of the lease. We can we can talk about operating agreements. But right now, I'm concerned that the first agreement we have in place isn't being followed. So I really hope that that message came through. I felt like I needed to reiterate it one more time because it's been a long conversation, and I'm happy to provide the city attorney with the specific language that I read into the record, or I'm sure the video is available to double check that. But that's that. That was my friendly. It was very specific. Speaker 7: And Councilmember, thank you for that. If we can get a point of clarification that I understand that you want us to suspend any negotiations on a four operating agreement until that work is done or continue those discussions while we're doing that. And then the second part of that is just the role of the city auditor. So those you know, we welcome the auditor. If there's if there's a role for her and the council wants to do that, it's just to be clear. What is the attorney doing? What is staff doing and what is the city auditors? Speaker 5: Sure. And I know Councilmember Mungo wants to speak on this, but what where my intent is that is that. The city manager hears very clearly that we're concerned that we have a lease that's not being followed in the manner that it was intended when it was entered upon, that that should be a priority for us to determine what provisions of the lease are being violated and to correct those those violations as soon as possible. We should not be entering into a new lease or new agreement. Sorry, not no lease, new agreement with someone who is already in violation of an agreement we have with them. So I would I think continuing the conversations is great. We can talk all day long, but we shouldn't put pen to paper on any agreement until we've determined. Speaker 3: Whether the first. Speaker 5: Agreement we have in place is already working or not. Speaker 7: Thank you. That's clear. Speaker 10: Okay. So just as a comment to reinforce, I'm responding to the friendly discussion. Speaker 0: All right, please. Speaker 9: Okay. Speaker 10: So in what you had originally asked in my response, I just wanted to clarify what I had stated. So what I had stated is I received a manila envelope. From no name that had a bunch of potential violations on it. It's this does not have to it's from my vanilla folder did not have who it was from. I met with the city attorney, the city manager, and he wrote him what? And in those cases, we went line by line through it was not this thick. So there may be additional violations in here that were not in the manila envelope provided to my office with no name on it. And we went line by line through every. I don't know, exhortation from the person who provided an anonymous folder of every potential violation. Many of those are in this folder that I received today, and many of them the city attorney looked into. And the statute of limitations has either already passed or they were notified at the time of our meeting. To the to SBC Ala. And they have 30 days to cure. However. In addition to that packet that I provided to the city manager, I'm happy to add any of the materials submitted by the community today to add to that, and I am supportive of the city attorney and the city auditor working together in addition to the in the light of the friendly amendment also provided by Councilman Austin. If she's agreeable because she's not here to agree. And I think that that's an important part. If she doesn't have the resources, I don't want to hold it up. Speaker 0: Antoine Monger That makes sense that time is up and now we're going to move to Councilwoman. Speaker 10: Is that agreeable, Miss Price? Of course. Okay, great. So we're all on the same page. Speaker 0: Councilwoman Pugh. Speaker 12: Thank you. And I want to thank Councilmember Price for for clarifying that. I agree and support that. And I just didn't expect I don't expect that that will take too long because we've already been doing that process, which is why I went into the conversation about the operating agreement, because our staff really does need to be supported in that process. So my one question that I have two quick things. When the SPCA takes a pet, they come over, they take a pet. We don't know if that pet gets adopted or euthanized. Is that correct? Thank you, guys. Speaker 3: Let's. Speaker 10: So the assumption is that the pet is placed. The SPCA takes animals from us that are extremely highly adoptable and so would not. Have a reason to take an animal that wasn't. There have been times where. Speaker 3: An animal. Speaker 10: Maybe falls outside of their adoption program after they have taken it and they have returned it to the shelter. Speaker 12: Okay. I wanted to ask if there was a process for that, just to make sure as we're going through the conversations with process and M.O., you if there was an opportunity to say if you guys take a pet that perhaps you can't adopt, that the first place would be our animal shelter, that it could come back to just because I know that that's been a question out there. And then I did want to just clarify, since we're having the conversation today so we don't have to have it again, it looks like in the lease that says any signs are not mutually agreed on, may be removed by the SPCA, by the city at the speaker's cost. And so any signs that we just don't agree on? There is a process in that lease. So I just echo that to make sure that we're not you know, we have our signage in the appropriate places so people can adopt from us and that there are signage in other places that might not be appropriate that we address that. And the last thing I'll say is that I, again, really proud. And the difference in between ten years ago and today and this is a difficult part, I think, for the SPCA, is that we used to be the facility that euthanized all the animals. We were animal control. We were not designed to be an adoption facility. And what we're doing right now is we're changing the model to compassion phase. And so it's going to take time to figure out the space in the process and that they really understand that, too. Is that yeah, it might have always operated a different way, but we as a council are setting the tone to say we want to make sure that the city is participating in saving lives instead of euthanizing them. So, again, thank you. Speaker 0: That's one. Speaker 10: Mango. Thank you. I was going through my notes. One of the things I have here is I was contacted by a reporter last week and again today that they've had a public records request in on our animal outcomes for months. So I guess I have a question related to. What is the challenge with running a critical report from Chameleon to get the media the information that they're asking for? Speaker 3: Thank you, Stacy Mungo. Speaker 10: There should be no challenge. If that is happening, I'm I'm going to guess that that is some sort of clerical error. Statistical data is readily available at a moment's notice and can be sent very, very quickly and easily. So it sounds like from talking to a reporter today that in December they requested the number of animals whose animal outcome was transferred to SPCA, and they're still waiting on that. Is there a reason why they cannot have that by Friday? No. There's no reason. Wonderful if you cannot find said public order requests. If you could just email the answer to the council, then we will make sure they get it. Okay. I think that will help. So just to kind of wrap up, thank you to the community for coming. Thank you. For those of you who responded to our Facebook and actually did the sit down dialogs with us in advance of the meeting, I think we got a lot of things handled in advance of the meeting related to potential violations. For those of you who are scared to come forward and. Put envelopes into my field office mailbox that we read and get everything. And we appreciate you. And I look forward to. If you have any other violations you're concerned about, please email the fraud hotline the city auditor immediately so that those can be handled as a part of this process. We'd like to move forward quickly, and we don't want to wait three weeks for more things and more things and more things to come up. And then please also be specific. Make sure that they have dates, make sure that they have the things that are necessary for them to either be notified or cured so that we can move forward. Thank you to my colleagues for all the time that all of us have spent in reading the many, many emails and better digging into and understanding. And thank you to my many colleagues who have visited the shelter over the last six months that may have not had another opportunity. And I'll end with. With relation to the 300 animals. I would really like us to look at a monthly limit versus an annual limit because animals are seasonal and kitten season and all these. If you're talking about 300 animals, maybe you just want to limit it by 25 a month because then during the peak seasons it's easier to monitor. And then a rescue that gets an exception is on an exception on a month to month basis. You'll notice that that's something I do in the budget as well. I like monthly limits and I hope that my colleagues are in agreement with that. I don't hear any objections. So let's look at that to make sure it's a better. Thank you, everyone, for all of your input. And I hope that everyone will support this motion. Speaker 0: I. It's a good package. We had three motions all do it. Speaker 4: We have a motion that's been extensively amended and that's on the floor to be voted on at this point. Speaker 0: So with that, could we come up with a vote? Yes. Speaker 1: Motion carries. Speaker 0: Thank you. Next item.

Agenda Item

Recommendation to receive and file a presentation on the status of the implementation of the Long Beach Animal Care Services’ Compassion Saves approach; and Request City Attorney to prepare ordinances amending Chapter 21.51.210 of the Long Beach Municipal Code (LBMC), increasing the number of pets from four to six for each household, and amending Chapter 6.04 of the LBMC, regulating the adoption of dogs and cats originating from outside Long Beach. (Citywide)

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_01212020_20-0077

Speaker 0: Thank you. Next item. Speaker 1: Item 24. Speaker 0: Yes, please. Speaker 1: Item 24 is a report from economic development. Recommendation to execute a proposed least buy in between the city of Long Beach and Central CHA for city owned property located at 1850 through 1862. Atlantic Avenue District six. Speaker 10: Of emotion in a second. Speaker 0: Yes. Clark, could you please read the item? Speaker 1: We have four speakers there. Sign up for item 24 would Sydney can fee. Jessica can tin can Tina, Ernest Castillo and Christine de la Brea. Would you please come up to the podium, please? Speaker 2: Oh, sorry. I don't want to be too shiny of you, son. I can say. Uh, son, I came from sixth district resident. My my vice, uh, my councilman, the vice mayor. He suggested that I straighten up when I come up so that people can see, you know, the the physical image of, you know, people who drink water the street. I am in complete support of this partnership, of this property going from the city of Long Beach to central China. I think they are a positive fixture in the community from the time that I've known them, from the original office on L.A. to where they've moved now until now with Boulevard. I've seen them do amazing work with helping ease a lot of the tension between the African-American and Latino community within the sixth District, which can be seen even in so far as recently with some of the disturbances we had last year. Polly. Polly. Hi. They do a lot of development work with a lot of the children in the community, and they provide a lot of the moms in the area with available space to, you know. Whereas it's not a lot, especially right there on Long Beach and in the 16th, I believe. So I'm just as a resident in the area, I just want to say I come out in support of central China. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you. Speaker 2: Good evening, city council members. My name is Vanessa Castillo, and I'm here representing on behalf of State Senator Lena Gonzalez to express our support for the proposed lease agreement between the city of Long Beach and Central Asia. As you know, Central Asia is a leading nonprofit organization in the city for workforce development, equity and inclusion, and we have worked closely with them since then. Gonzalez To serve on the Long Beach City Council. Gonzalez is excited that the city identified a facility that will allow Central Shore to continue the great work they do for our community and to recognize the value that Central Asia brings to Long Beach. We want to thank you again for your efforts to support this wonderful organization. Speaker 4: And I hope we could count on your approval on this item. Speaker 2: Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you. Speaker 3: Good evening. Honorable councilmembers. My name is Chris in the lab. I'm the operations director for Interval House. We work with the homeless population and in Long Beach and we have centers for victims of domestic violence. We have been serving the city of Long Beach for the past 40 years. I'm here tonight to add to the Stickley support, the lease between the city of Long Beach and Central Charm, who will be working with youth workforce development, city leadership, inclusive and staff ownership, training and community services. We are central in such a high respect for the outstanding work that they do in the community. And it would be our greatest honor to continue to refer our client to Santa Rosa and to continue collaborating with them. We believe that this new facility really would be giving a life changing opportunity to many youth and many people in Long Beach. Thank you very much for your support. Speaker 0: Thank you. Speaker 3: Hello, everyone. Happy New Year. I'm Jessica Quintana, executive director of Central Cha, also a long time resident of the city of Long Beach for over 54 years. I have the great opportunity not only to work and serve my city, but also to be a resident here for the city. I just want to thank city staff, our board of directors who are here in the audience today and our honorary community advisors for their leadership on this initiative. It's been a long time meeting talking. I know the two gentlemen over there, John Kiser and Sergio, our meters. I want to thank them so much for their support and efforts. Speaker 9: You know, it's it's. Speaker 3: A challenge and it's it's not easy. Most of, you know, on that side of the dais, the organization, you know, has been a trusted nonprofit organization, one of the largest Latino serving organizations providing workforce development and job training services. Speaker 9: And also providing legal. Speaker 3: Services for the city. Speaker 9: We are a DOJ, Department of Justice, Immigration Legal Service Providers. So we are. Speaker 3: One of the largest providers. Speaker 9: Of legal services and economic. Speaker 3: Development providers in the city. And what we do is we really try to address poverty. Poverty, as we know, is one of the core issues and one of the symptoms as to why we have violence and low education and, you know, lack of economic opportunities. And so, you know, I just want to thank all of our supporters, all of our funders, you know, all of our advisors who are here today who has really supported. Speaker 9: Us to be able to provide. Speaker 3: That service in our community and that gap. We are definitely excited about this initiative in this partnership. There's a lot of work to do as you as you know. There's significant improvements that need to happen to add to the property, you know. Speaker 9: At least, you know, a million to even get there and in up. Speaker 3: To 3 million to get us operating. So we're we're committed. We're dedicated. We're we look forward to our continued partnership with the city and with the Economic Development Department. Speaker 9: And we're not going anywhere. So if you know us, we've been on this. Speaker 3: Journey for a while and we move five times. Speaker 9: Several times, and it's never because we couldn't pay a rent. So that's never been the issue. Speaker 3: It's been because of development services. Property got sold, you know, housing got built. And then the last time that we moved was because of redevelopment. And so that put us on a transition. And so we're looking forward to. Speaker 9: Find a permanent housing for Central CHA so we can continue to help save the lives of our children. Speaker 3: And families in the city. Speaker 9: As we know, that's most important to our councilmembers, we hope. Speaker 3: And so we thank you for your support. Speaker 0: Thank you. Thank you. Yes, Councilwoman. And then there's. Yes. Speaker 3: I just wanted to see how supportive I am of this item. Central China has been a great help to so many. And Jessica say, right, when you say, you know that the center has helped save lives, I really do see that. And I am really looking forward to central China getting its own permanent home, which is very deserving. So I'm very supportive of this item. Speaker 0: Thank you very much. Council member Yolanda. Speaker 2: Thank you. Thank you. Very proud to set this motion. I've known Jessica in Central Asia for many, many years, and it's been sort of a process for them in the struggle. They've gone from one location to another like an orphan child, and now they're on a path to find some permanent residence. And so I'm glad to see that it's here. It's long overdue. And over the years now, Jessica, I can tell you one thing. It's now it seems Turtle Jose is the the premiere. Hispanic serving organization here in Long Beach. And I congratulate you for that, because if there's nothing that says more about Central Cha and your leadership is tenacity. Perseverance and a willingness to serve. And I'm very proud that we're going to be able to work with you and that you're going to work with the city to get a permanent home for Central Chuck. It's way long over. Do the congratulations. Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilman Urunga. Finally. Finally, I just. Jessica. It's been a long time coming. It's like you said, you have moved from pillar to post. Everywhere you look, wherever you land, you find a way to be successful. And this is you finally have found yourself a home. And before I'd like to make that motion, you know, I like to move forward, like saying that I'd like a motion to amend this item to reflect that the city would be responsible for the property tax as long as the city retains ownership of this building. And I hope I can get a second on this motion. Thank you. Thank you very much. With that, you know, is there any public comment? He's no longer. The city owns the property. Yes. Is anybody? Come on. This idea. Speaker 1: You've already done the public comment, Mr. Mayor. Speaker 0: Then Mr. Councilwoman. Yes. Speaker 12: Yes. I just had a this was the first I heard of it. So I'm just curious what the property taxes are estimated to be for this property. Speaker 0: Could I get that, please? Speaker 2: Oh yeah, council members. So at this point, because it's a government owned. Speaker 9: Property there, there hasn't been a property tax assessed. So that's at zero right now. Speaker 2: And as long as we are going through the period of due diligence, there's obviously an early termination period where the city will retain full possession and operation of the site. There will be no property tax. Speaker 0: That sounds good. Speaker 4: However, I would like to add, Mayor, just for clarification, there is a revenue and tax code section that while the city leases the property, the tenant may be responsible possessing any interest tax that the city can't cannot pay. So there, there there may be we can work out if there were property taxes do. But on the possessor interest tax, it may be the obligation of the tenant. Speaker 0: I mean, I think that's the one. Would you please speak on that? This is a concern is that when you speak, you know. Speaker 3: Yes. Speaker 0: That's the one I think you long as you have ownership of it. Yes. Speaker 12: Okay. So I just it was the first that I had heard of that. I've obviously we've worked together for many years, and I don't think that the city does enough for our non-profits. I just want to make sure that we are all clear on on how much that is and looking at opportunities to support other non-profits as we go down the road. But I support this item and support that change. If staff could give us a two from four on what those expected costs will be over the next 510 years. I'd be great. Thank you. Speaker 0: It's progress. That's right. Yes, right. Okay. Councilwoman Mongo. Speaker 10: And Councilman the dance. Did you go? Oh, okay. I guess I'm confused. Possessive. Your interest is determined by the auditor comptroller and the Treasury tax collector and the county assessor. And so I. I don't know that I'm comfortable asking our city staff, but if you'd like me to connect you with the person that does that, there's actually a division of the assessor that I can connect you with and they can give you those estimates. But the estimates are based on several factors that are kind of outside the city's control. So you have my cell phone number. Call me tomorrow and I'm happy to. Speaker 3: We weren't aware of that. Speaker 10: So because that's the interest. Speaker 3: Tax rate that somebody who's leasing the properties still get taxed on leasing a property. Correct. Okay. So we didn't. Speaker 10: Wait, let me connect you with the assessor's office, and they can explain the specifics that you would need to know. Speaker 3: So we're looking to get a note from the assessor's office and not from the city department in the name of Cent, their charge for those taxes. Is that what we're. Speaker 9: Expecting to get? Speaker 10: I'm not sure what you expecting to get, but I can definitely connect you with the people that can help you figure bargains. Speaker 0: Could you some clarification on this, please? Speaker 9: Yeah. Speaker 4: Yeah. I believe the the draft lease has the language in it that talks about the tenants responsibility for the possession interest tax, which is required under the revenue and tax code to be in there when we're leasing property, city owned property. And then but I'm not sure at what time you would exercise your option or how this is going to work. But the possessor interest tax is the responsibility of the tenant at this time. I hear what the vice mayor is is recommending is that we somehow switch that liability to the city. Speaker 0: Until. Speaker 4: I think we'd have to have further negotiations on maybe the value of that is some sort of a rent credit or something. But I don't think you can they can't just pay the possessor interest tax on behalf of the tenant benefits. Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. So we're, we would definitely have to have more information about that, I think. My understanding it's where it's the way it's structured. So I think there is opportunity to negotiate on that. And so maybe it's part of our community benefits. But my understanding is. Speaker 9: It's the way it's structured. So, so. Speaker 0: So what motion you will that give them time to get more information and we could. Okay. So is that okay with you? Speaker 9: Absolutely. Speaker 0: Well, with that, could I please call for the vote? Speaker 1: Council member, Piers. Washing cars. Speaker 0: Thank you. Speaker 3: All right. Yes. Thank you, vice mayor. Thank you. City council. Speaker 9: Members.

Contract

Recommendation to authorize City Manager, or designee, to execute all documents necessary for a Proposed Lease, with an Option to Purchase, by and between the City of Long Beach and Centro C.H.A, Inc., a California 501(c)(3) corporation, for City-owned property located at 1850-1862 Atlantic Avenue for youth workforce development, civic leadership, inclusive entrepreneurship training, and community services. (District 6)

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_01212020_20-0067

Speaker 0: All right. Is. Excuse me, is that number 22? Okay. Yes, we're going to we're going to move some call 22. It's going to take us about 5 minutes. And then we're going to go to the big oh, my pool item. Speaker 1: Item 22 is a communication from city prosecutor. Recommendation to use City Prosecutor. Budget savings from FBI 19. Increase appropriations in the General Fund by 295,525 in the City Prosecutor Department. Speaker 0: Yes. Congressman Mango? Speaker 10: Yes. I want to first support. Prosecutor Halbert and all the great work he does. And I appreciate you and I appreciate the work you do. And I even had great hesitation last week with making the option for the city auditor to bring forward her amendment to the floor without going through Budget Oversight Committee. $295,000 is a considerable amount of money, and I appreciate that you have budget savings. And I among our council and a huge advocate for those that save should get to eat a part of their savings. However, at a time when we're facing potential budget shortfalls and we've had hundreds of animal advocates here who can't hire a $40,000 a year, part time person to clean animal cages when our be safe programs in the summer cost. $30,000. This could be ten of those programs. I would really appreciate my council colleagues supporting sending this to Budget Oversight Committee. It would not be a long process. The Budget Oversight Committee meets February 11th, and I would be happy to put this on the agenda. But I think it's important for us to do it as a part of a process. And I think it's important for us to make allocations at this level with a global picture, not just with a single part of mind. Furthermore, I support homeless programs and homeless services. We do have a percentage of a specific kind of funding for those types of programs. This is general fund money that could be used for park programs, animal programs, library hours on Sunday and things like that. And so I think that it is important to take a step back further. When I asked Mr. Halbert if it was going out through a contract or any of those things, he was talking about potentially adding a staff member. And it's really hard when our animal control staff make minimum wage and we don't have enough of them to clean cages to make this independent decision for $300,000. So if my colleagues would be supportive of my motion is to send this to Budget Oversight Committee to be agenda ISED for the February 11th meeting. Thank you. And I would also recommend that all department heads who want to do that. Asked to agenda do budget oversight committee. Speaker 0: Thank you, Congressman Austin. Speaker 6: Thank you. And so we we approved something very similar just this last week for for our city. I know. And and obviously, I'm a member of the Budget Oversight Committee and I'm speaking in favor of this this particular motion. Madam Chair, with all due respect, I mean, I understand where you want to go with this. How do you envision this this working out? It goes to the Budget Oversight Committee and then comes back to the city council. Speaker 10: So this money is from prior year savings. Mr. Modica, would you be able to tell me if we took this act tonight versus February 11th, when that money becomes available and in which fiscal year? Speaker 7: So that when you put me on the spot, it's probably in the next 30 days or 40 days. We're normally closing at the end of February. I think this request is to do that when we close and it's just you're doing it a little early. Speaker 10: So we do have that kind of time available. So what I envision is for us to discuss the priorities. We have a budget meeting that has some discussions from staff on the shortfalls for next year and the potential risks and areas that we have to consider. And I think that this should be discussed as a part of that. Speaker 6: So the city prosecutors department had a $591,000 fine, 19 savings in their requesting $295,525. I'm sure during that B or C meeting, we will be discussing how to potentially allocate the balance. Is that. Speaker 10: So? Currently, the staff bring forward a set of recommendations for mid-year. Typically, if a department head does not get their money back, it becomes available for divide by nine in the next year. We made some allocations based on savings and so we already put together a list of what would be funded with this money. And so I think it's important for us to make a decision and I will speak on my vote. Last week it was with great hesitation that we made that, and I in hindsight, wish I had not been supportive of that. It was I really feel there has to be a process and I know that I should have started last week. But better to save. Where we are. Speaker 6: Okay. I'm going to ask. I know we're on my time and so I'm going to defer and I look forward to hearing from the rest of my colleagues. Speaker 0: You're comfortable in your eyes. Speaker 5: Thank you. I share the same concerns as Councilman Orson. I understand what Councilman Mongo is saying, but frankly, I think we should start off with congratulations to you for ending the year with a budget surplus as high as you did and not scrambling at the last minute to figure out how to spend every single penny of the money that was allotted to you and instead telling us honestly what you actually need to help us combat homelessness in the city of Long Beach. I think the fact that you're asking for less than a half or about a half of that is is frankly something you should be rewarded for. And I do not want to. This is a this money was allocated to your department as a department head to be able to make a determination of how best you want to use that money. You ended up with a budget surplus. We want to encourage our department heads to do that and not feel that they might risk losing that money if they come out with a surplus as opposed to a deficit. So I am wholeheartedly in support of approving your request this evening. And and I think the diversion programs that you've been involved in in the city have been extraordinary. They have commanded attention from throughout the nation, and they have come in at a very responsible cost in terms of I know how much these programs cost. Frankly, I'm shocked that you're able to do as much as you do with the budget that you have as a person who does your profession on a daily basis. So I would urge my colleagues to support this item if we're going to have a change of policy regarding surplus having to come to posse first. I'm not opposed to that either, but I don't think we should do it without giving notice to the department heads, because if that's the direction we're going to go, I guarantee you will have less surpluses throughout every department next year. Speaker 3: Right. Speaker 0: Thank you. Speaker 12: Thank you. I agree with Councilmember Austin and Councilmember Price. I applaud you for the budget savings. And I think any time that a department can save money and then be creative with how they want to use those funds to achieve the goal of that department, it's important we support that. Any budget conversations, really, whether it's the body or during the budget process where this entire council gets to weigh in on the budget, I think is is appropriate. Thank you. Speaker 0: I come from a. Speaker 10: Ago, so I think it's important to note, Ms.. Price, that Councilwoman Price, that the policy is that they do not get to carry it over. We have made an exception for Prosecutor Halbert for two years and we've only made an exception for city auditor out one year. This was the first time it caught me off guard. I have a lot of questions about it, but the policy of the city is that this is not allowed and that is why it's coming to council because it is an exception. At which time last year I made similar comments that we really need a process specifically. There are programs on contingency Sunday library hours, be safe programs and other things that right now Grace is bringing to our February 10th 11th meeting a list of here's the priorities and here's how much money is being rolled over. And so we're only going to be able to fund A through F. And so I think that the council should get to know what that is when making the decision. And we made an exception for Prosecutor Halbert last year and the year before two times. And we made an exception for councilman I'm sorry, a prosecutor, city auditor. O'DOWD One time. But I also believe that we we have a bigger discussion that we started, which is the vacancies. We have department heads who come to us on a consistent basis and say, I need seven staff. And to your point, both Ms.. Pearce and Pryce, there are staff vacancies in development services that each year happen, and each year they ask for more staff, and each year they have a budget savings because they don't fill the staff. Now part of that is because of the process and the specific challenges that we have in civil service. But we need to get to the bottom of whether or not these departments are appropriately staffed. And Council of Prosecutor Halbert would not have been able to use this money and spend it last minute on printer cartridges or whatever he could, because from what I understand, this is a one off funds. It was salary and employee benefit funding that was available. And from what I had in my very short discussion with him earlier today, a few moments ago, he would be using this money for another staff member for this program, which if he stopped at the same level he was staffed out last year, he would have the ability to do that anyway. And so. And I don't know what percentage of his total budget is, $300,000. But coming in 1% above or below, it absolutely should be rewarded. And we should have a program that does that. But if we had other departments come forward in my discussions with Mr. Modica, if we had other departments come forward and do the same thing, we would be in a world of hurt and we're already in a position where we cannot fund. What we've approved to finish this year. And so for those reasons, I implore everyone to support the motion on the floor. Speaker 0: All right. Thank you very much. My comment on this and my perspective, I don't think Dan would even come to us that this wasn't necessary, whether it's for a staff member or whatever it was, and especially at this time of night, you know, because one thing I do know, if you don't use it, you lose it. And Doug, I think what you're going to use it for is totally acceptable for us. And I'm concerned and I will totally support you tonight on this item. Thank you. Mrs. Cindy has. You know. Okay. Speaker 10: I just want to say that I am not saying that what he's asking for is not appropriate. I'm not saying that it's not a good program, and I'm not saying that we wouldn't award it through the process that we have planned on February 11th. All of that is still completely possible because he was so prudent to bring forward the items so early. Speaker 12: We hear from him. Speaker 3: Of course. Speaker 10: If you'd ask him. Speaker 0: Yes, but wait till she finish, please. Okay. Mrs.. India's. Oh, yes. Okay. Do our public comment on this, folks. Okay, fine. Now, would you like to speak there. Speaker 2: Very briefly and I apologize. I thought this was going to be your fastest item tonight. I didn't know it was going to be the longest. I do believe this is the fifth or sixth year that the council has allowed my budget savings to be reallocated to me. It started, I know, when Councilmember DeLong was on the Budget Oversight Committee. So I do believe there has been a precedent in my office. So I wanted to mention that the second thing is the innovative programs that our office has really is a reflection of a partnership between the council and my office, because I could not have started these programs without having the budget savings from previous years reallocated so that we can do creative things that we didn't think of in the current year. So we start programs. We look for grant funding. The biggest reason that I have this much savings are really two reasons. My office has been very aggressive in getting grant funding everywhere we can to bring money into the city of Long Beach. And the second thing is, when we have a vacancy, we delay filling that vacancy as long as we can in order to generate savings, knowing that that savings will help us to fund the next program. So I want to thank you. And I do take to heart all of the comments. And Ms.. Mungo's comments will be taken to heart and I will bring it. Earlier, I was asked to hold off. John GROSS asked me to hold off until January. I was ready to make this request earlier. I would have been happy to bring it to Bossi in October. I was asked to wait till January and then I was asked to cut it in half. This is the first time I've asked for half of the budget savings to be carried over because it was such a large amount, because the city is in such a financial situation that it's needed. So I was more than happy to do that. But I do appreciate the partnership. I do appreciate the programs we have are a result of your allowing me to do this. So I thank you for that. And next year I'll bring it to BMC right away and get this input as soon as possible. But I do want to thank you again for considering it. Thank you. Speaker 0: And us. Speaker 3: Thank you and thank you, Doug, for for all that information. I did want to hear from you. I also wanted to thank you for all your hard work that you do. And I will be supporting this. Thank you. Speaker 0: What's a woman? Mango. Speaker 10: Mr. Halbert, do you know the average amount we've allowed you to roll over in the last five years or approximate? Speaker 2: I do not. Speaker 10: You know, last year's amount. Speaker 2: Of time I had, I don't recall. Speaker 10: Mr. Modica, do you have any financial management staff that might know that? Speaker 2: I don't think we have that tonight. Speaker 10: I would just say to the council that. I appreciate that Prosecutor Halbert has had savings, but if every year he has savings, then potentially he has enough money in the budget to do the program. But I don't know that because I don't have enough information at this time. So that's all. But I really appreciate it. And I do think the program is important. Thank you. Speaker 0: Yeah. Okay. So it's no public comment is that we. Speaker 13: We the as I understand it, the motion was Councilwoman Mungo's motion to refer to B, O, C and nice and a second. Speaker 10: Yes. And I'd like to ask Mr. Halbert if he'd be supportive of that. Speaker 2: I would appreciate the council just approving it tonight. Speaker 5: I'd like to make a substitute. Speaker 0: We've got. Speaker 9: To prove. Speaker 13: It. I couldn't. Austin, did you say something? Okay. Council. Councilman Austin removed the second. So no, we don't have a motion on the floor and somebody else wants to second. Councilwoman Mangos. Speaker 10: I think Councilman Price is going to make a motion. Speaker 12: There's no second. Speaker 3: Rate so she can make. Speaker 10: The original motion. Speaker 13: Councilwoman Price, if you want to make a motion. Speaker 5: I'd make a motion to approve the request, as indicated in item 22. Speaker 13: We have a second. Speaker 0: Right. This is it. Speaker 13: And then we should have public comment. As for public comment on the motion. Speaker 0: Any more public comment? Speaker 1: No one should sign up for the public comments. Speaker 0: So I appreciate. Okay. Mr. Mongo, you wanna speak one more time about it? Speaker 10: I'm just very disappointed because I've tried to do my diligence. I reached out to Mr. Halbert a week ago. I wish he would have been supportive of going through the Budget Oversight Committee, especially since we have plenty of time. Speaker 0: But please, please cast your vote. Speaker 1: Bush and Kerry's.

Agenda Item

Recommendation to use City Prosecutor budget savings from FY 19, increase appropriations in the General Fund by $295,525 in the City Prosecutor Department.

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_01212020_20-0068

Speaker 0: Now we're going to move to item 20. Oh, you play club, please. Speaker 1: Regarding item 20, report from Development Services. Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record. Conclude the public hearing and consider the third party appeals and uphold the Planning Commission's recommendation. A DAB resolution accepting the Environmental Impact Report Addendum. A resolution approving a General Plan Amendment Declare Ordinance Approving a zoning code amendment. Read the first time and lead over to the next regular meeting for the City Council for Final Reading, declare ordinance approving a zone change and amending the zoning use district map. Read the first time and later go to the next regular meeting of the City Council for Final Reading. Approve a modification to site plan review, approve a local coastal development permit and adopt a resolution to submit the local Coastal Program Amendment to the California Coastal Commission for its review and certification, all located at 4200 East Ocean Boulevard , District three. This item required an oath. Those wishing to give testimony, please stand and raise your right hand. You in each of you do solemnly state that the testimony you may give in the courts now and pending before this body shall be added to the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God. Speaker 0: Mr. Perkins. Speaker 13: Vice Mayor. I guess I'll kick it off just as late in the evening. But just a reminder, this matter is an appeal regarding the pool project for the city. The city is the applicant. Here we have four. Appellants. Earlier today, the vice mayor allocated up to 10 minutes for each of the appellants to make a presentation. If they felt that it was necessary to go for 10 minutes as a reasonable time period, we will kick it off with the city making comments about the project. Then each of the appellants will be given an opportunity to speak. Then we'll have public comment, then a short rebuttal if necessary by the city, then back behind the rail for a vote. So the first order of business is City's presentation. Speaker 7: Thank you, Mr. Assistant City Attorney, Vice Mayor Andrews and members of the Council. I will be given the presentation on behalf of staff. We will try to be efficient with your time. We realize the late hour. However, this is an appeal and there are some facts that we need to get in the record. I'm supported by a very talented team, both from the planning side and also our project team, led by Eric Lopez and Josh Hickman, who can answer questions as well. So to revisit this project. If you remember, the previous facility closed in 2013 and we came forward about a year later with a programmatic design that was approved by the council. We then completed conceptual design in 2016. This was in front of the Council in May 2017 where you approved the year and gave us final direction on the design and the related entitlements. We then went through a longer process where we submitted the project to the Coastal Commission in August 2018. We got back some comments from them and then really went through kind of a re-envisioning of the project which will really walk you through today. And then the last step was the Planning Commission gave us unanimous approval and a recommendation on December 2019. And so I'm going to walk through what those changes are today. Do you want to get out for the record that we do have a a approved secret document and we're asking for an ER addendum. So we have evaluated the potential impacts of that revised project. There are no new significant impacts, there's no impacts that exceed the those analyzed in the previously certified EMR and that the mitigation, monitoring and reporting program that's certified E.R. Continues to apply. So it's important to note that this project is really in a split jurisdiction between the city and the Coastal Commission. The area in red is their original jurisdiction. And so while you're making actions on behalf of Coastal Commission through the local coastal development process, this does need to go to the Coastal Commission. So there really were three steps Planning Commission, City Council, but really the ultimate project decision is going to be in the hands of the Coastal Commission. So the major entitlements that we're looking for are a general plan amendment, zoning code, amendment, zone change, local coastal program amendment, modification to site plan review and a local coastal development permit. So back in 2017, this council in a in a pretty long hearing about 5 hours, heard the project and gave us some direction. We also heard some concerns from both the council and the Coastal Commission. And so those included looking at increased recreational components, increasing our connection to disadvantaged communities, addressing sea level rise, addressing height concerns, providing a robust alternatives analysis, providing a parking analysis, and lowering the overall project cost. And we're going to go through each one of those. Some terms, the recreational components. We heard loud and clear from the council. You'd like this to be not only able to host competitive events and have, you know, lap swimming for everyone, but also to really focus on youth and recreational components. We've added a number of components, including zip lines up in the top left vortex pool, which is in the bottom left is an example of that fun elements like splash pads and water features for kids and some small slides and some cascading features to really increase the recreational component. We also wanted to really make a strong connection of this pool to every other park. You know, existing park programs in our disadvantaged communities. We found the best way to do that was to incorporate the pool into where kids are already going to their neighborhood parks, including transportation options, being able to, for example, go to your neighborhood park and knowing that on that Wednesday, that's the day you get to go to the Belmont Pool if you're already incorporated into the programing at that park. That helps people realize that this is a community asset for everybody. They're hopefully telling mom on the weekends, I'd like to go to the Belmont Pool. I've already been there. I know it's a cool place and let's go. We're also looking at language access programs to increase marketing of the pool to the entire community in four different languages and a number of other projects and programs that are in our coastal application. For sea level rises was a major concern of the Coastal Commission. In this diagram diagram I'd like to call your attention to that blue dotted line. This is now the new poor design. And if you notice that blue dotted line, that is the 2100 maximum sea level rise in the 1% storm in the hundred year storm. And so coastal commission under the previous pool, it was designed so that the water in that year would, in those major storms, touch the facility and then recede. And Coastal Commission felt that that was still an impact for sea level rise. In this new design, we have designed it so that that water does not touch the facility. So essentially we are completely out of sea level rise from the facility. And we believe that will satisfy that requirement. We also had a major height reduction. We're proposing making this an outdoor facility rather than an indoor facility. The original building height was 60 feet. The prior design, which is what you saw in 2017, had a maximum height of 78 feet. The new improved design is what we're calling it has a building height of 35 feet. So a significant reduction. There are a couple of areas where we have higher than 65 and we have the sale element that you can see this is a neat kind of shade structure and also brings that aquatics theme to the to the pool. And so the max of that is 60 feet, which is the top of the mast and the lights, which is equal to the original building height. And the top of the shade canopy is 49 feet. You can see the dotted outline with the old pool was not even the prior design. And so this is a significant improvement from a from a coastal view, shared perspective. We also look significantly at other alternatives. Those were considered in the air, which also went through a lawsuit to which the city was successful in. We looked at Harry Bridges Memorial Park. We looked at the Queen Mary, and we focused a lot on the elephant lot and convention center. And all alternative sites were determined to be inferior to the Belmont as Belmont Pool. We then went through a process with council to give additional information about our our turn alternatives analysis. In particular the elephant lot and really spend some additional time on it. We're able to show in that analysis that the elephant lot is actually inferior to the Belmont site in the in the revised design in that we would not have sea level rise impact at the Belmont pool site, but we would have sea level rise impact in that same scenario at the elephant lot. We'd also have to do additional parking. We'd have to build a parking structure in order to accommodate that for at a significant cost and probably in excess of $50 million. There's also leasehold issues. We also looked at environmental data and saw that from an air quality perspective for swimmers that are outside, it's superior to be at the Belmont Pool site and a number of other factors. We looked at parking analysis. There are currently 1116 spaces at the prior facility under the new facility, with all the parking improvements that we've made. We would have an increase. 1152. The old Belmont Pool had a parking demand of 834 spaces because it had significantly more seating. The proposed facility demand is 614 spaces, so we are well within you know, we have almost double the amount of parking that we would need and well within actually lower than the previous the previous pool. We also did some additional design modifications. We went out to our stakeholder advisory committee and talked to them about the project. That's been the committee that the council asked us to really engage with as throughout this process and not talk about some of that in a second. We've also engaged with the 2028 Olympics Committee, and they are highly interested in having diving at that facility. We believe everything that we've done in our design has been consistent with what we heard in 2017 from the city council as well. And so here's the picture of the outdoor facility. This used to be an indoor covered pool. This now you can see the bubble was removed significantly lower in height and still a very elegant structure. This is the overhead. And you can see that the push to the left was suggesting suggesting that that pool remained. That's the current temporary pool. We would enhance it with some additional buildings and some decking and make it a more of a permanent structure. And then you can see the the pools on the right. We've maintained all of our water bodies. So we haven't lost any major water bodies. We are looking to relocate the beach concession. That was a beach concession outside of the facility. Given all the improvements we've done to concession stands along the beach, we don't need it outside anymore. We don't need that one anymore. We recommend bringing that indoors for a year into the facility for a better experience. We also are designing this pool to be Olympic dove ready, which would include the ability to have 10,000 temporary seats that could be constructed. And while there's no commitment from the L.A. 28 Olympics, they are very, very interested in having this as a as a potential to consider. And we would create that to them to Olympic standards. We have also increased open space. The original facility had 18 118,000 square feet of open space. The prior design that you had approved in 2017 increased that to 127,000 square feet of open space. The improved design increased that even more to 141,000 square feet of open space. And if you look at green space compared to the original facility, it is more than or nearly doubled. In terms of the increased green space. Increased spectator seating. The original design had 1250 seats. That was important to the proponents of the project. We've actually now increased it to 1555 seats at the main pool and 310 seats at the existing Murtha pool. This is a picture of the support building. There will still be a building on site that is covered, but that really is for locker rooms and for, you know, maintenance equipment and offices. So it's a much sleeker design. And so I do want to talk a little bit about cost. So part of the main factor here is that cost escalation has grown since 2014. When we first approved the programing design was $103 million programmatic budget, which over time the cost estimates came in around 145 million. That was not a realistic project. We have 61 and a half million set aside for the project. And so, you know, we we believe with all these scope changes, we can address the concerns, make it a better project, make it more, you know, in line with cost of commission and council, maintain the bodies of water and also reduce the cost to 85 million. We have a lot of public comments. We have over 100 written comments since the public hearing was published for the Planning Commission. All comments received have been provided to you. They relate some of them relate to noise, and I did want to cover that. We actually have less outdoor seating than the previous pool. We also have a glass perimeter wall that is going to be covering the entire facility, which will help with noise. It will be closing at 10 p.m., which will help with noise as well. It will have below daytime exterior noise levels and we'll also use directional speech. So noise, you know, has been studied in the air is not an issue. There is one thing that is still being kind of looked at is this concept of a 25 meter wide pool versus 25 yards. The original design was 25 yards. The stakeholders have requested an increase to 25 meters. We've looked at that and done some additional outreach. We included that in the ER addendum and looking for some direction on that. The costs might be up to a 1.5 million. We're hoping that can be significantly brought down as we look at some other options and design. And that's currently within the $85 million ballpark range. And so for next steps, we are asking for your approval tonight. We then we originally, when we put this presentation together, had a goal of really trying to get this on the February 2020 Agenda for Coastal Commission because it's here in Long Beach. When you if you approve this tonight, the Coastal Commission will have everything they need to consider that. From a timing perspective, they're telling us they may need a little bit more time. So we would ask for the the next immediately available local meeting to be heard here in Long Beach. That will probably be sometime in April or May. We would then do final design and permitting in winter 2021 and get the pool built by winter 2023. And so in conclusion, positive findings can be made for all the required entitlements. The E.R. addendum with the previously certified ETR satisfies fully the sequel compliance. We recommend that you approve the entitlement package and accept the IIR addendum, and this is the list of all the recommendations that we're making to you tonight. There in your packet. I won't read them all in the interest of time. And that concludes stuff's presentation. Speaker 0: Thank you. And with that, we will start out with the. It's a package. We started with. Speaker 13: A vice mayor. We have four appellants listed in the order on the agenda would be first appellant Jeff Miller with up to 10 minutes allocated for his appeal. Speaker 0: Thank you. Would you please come forward to. All right. No problem. So would you please come up to the front? Okay. All right, fine. Speaker 3: Yes. Yes. I do have a PowerPoint presentation if we can bring that up. Seven years ago, the city failed to heed legitimate concerns about sea level rise, flooding, seismic and liquefaction at this location. So ignoring other alternative sites, the city pool planning began giving little regard over costs or Coastal Act limitations. For the past six years, this area has been a grassy park with mature trees. A passive park is the correct usage for this geological location. So Saga, more plans, more wasted dollars to appease a special interest group began. This is a flood zone. You won't be able to reach the building because it's sitting on an island. This site will require grid work of 80 foot deep pylons in the sand where groundwater is at six foot. These are significant negative impacts to prevent the beach from disappearing completely. The city has been backfilling the beach, calling it sand nourishment as worn by the city's own climate change report. Coastal areas should be planning managed retreat. Putting this facility on a plinth with retaining wall or doing sand enhancement is considering armoring which will eventually resolve and acceleration of our beaches. Coastal Commission will not allow these types of remediation or build up of infrastructure. Long Beach public officials warn coastal homeowners of rising water from climate change will eventually flood their neighborhoods. Yet at the same time, Long Beach promotes plans for a massive pool complex. Ignoring their own advice. Here we are tonight with the latest rendition that has never seen public outreach. This plan has even more flaws. East Ocean Boulevard has already been narrowed. Plans intend to remove East the Living Plaza. Note In this slide, the residential size cul de sac loop in the center with a 31 foot turning radius. This is also the area for handicapped parking. This traffic plan could not possibly be feasible for the Olympics. This is inadequate for traffic management. Here's another missing reality check. Then an avenue East Ocean Boulevard pool entrance is not used only for personal vehicles. It's used by oversize vehicles daily. See the earth movers on extended semis, massive beach sweepers, first responders, police, fire and paramedics. Note paramedics are regularly at the pool. Diving areas and children's rec areas have propensity for accidents. So with inclusion of these areas in the pool, plans will require more paramedic visits to the pool. Many cities have closed diving areas because of accidents, lawsuits and liabilities. More oversize vehicles at this intersection include busses, the pool, chemical supply trucks, and there are delivery trucks to the businesses on East Olympic Plaza. You will see military exercise vehicles on the beach, including hovercrafts and Humvees. The city claims they will require special traffic control at special events, but this has not been the case. Light and noise are huge negative impacts with a ruthless pool plan. The old and closed Belmont pool contain the noise. Noise complaints from the old closed pool were from illegal skateboarders on the Front Concrete Plaza. This new pool design is a skateboarders delight with the lure of ripping on the concrete stairs, plinth and ramps. The majority of the new noise is from the Open Air Belmont temporary pool from water polo whistles, air horns and P.A. systems. If the operational noise can be so easily abated, why was this not done at the temporary pool? Why did the city not record dust measurements at this pool to full analyze neighborhood impact? These noise violates municipal noise codes as per the city's municipal noise code. Areas near schools, hospitals, so on are considered noise sensitive zones. This pool is right next to a preschool. The oversize towering light poles at the temporary pool saturate residential night neighborhood nightly. These towering lights are twice as tall as the street lights. Competitive swimming and diving require higher illumination than recreational pools, creating increased light glare clearance aboard the highest diving tower must be 16 feet, five inches. How can the Dove Tower be covered and stay within zoning height register restrictions? It is blatantly false to say there will be no negative light. Noise or traffic impacts with this plan. The EIA addendum states that traffic volume will double due to two large pools. This is without even counting the impact of the new recreational features and frequent special events. But what makes this plan especially egregious is the city intends on operating this facility 350 days a year from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. at night. This pool is five times larger. It is the size of a football stadium. Cleaning the pool will go on long after the pool closing time of 10 p.m., leaving the lights on. Phasing PA speakers away from the residential is not a successful soundproofing plan. Noise from the beach. Events in the temple invade the neighborhood now regardless of speaker direction. Not only have the residents been subject to noise and light intrusion with the open temporary pool, the noise, lights, traffic and chemicals have decimated the protected wildlife habitat at Bennett and Ocean Boulevard. Fractured open space does not make a park. The Coastal Commission considers this open space, free or low cost coastal recreation area, even with large subsidies that taxpayers will be burdened with. These will be charged to use the aquatic center. If you have walked the Belmont Pier, you are fully aware of seagulls perching, pecking and pooping the seagulls. Thank you for creating this design, contributing to their activity, and adding places for their target practicing. A pool is not a coastal dependent but with towering light poles is planned exceeds height restrictions. Move it to the elephant lot instead of manipulating zoning heights to squeeze it into a residential neighborhood. No parks and rec pools should be built for a weeks long Olympics event. The Olympics are a terrible investment and a huge risk. This past June, a presentation was given to a select group. I was part of this group. Originally, I was part of the city designated pool advisory committee, but somehow I was not invited to this meeting in June. In this presentation was text about Olympic diving. The slide you've seen was taken at that presentation. Also in this presentation on page 17, a page titled Probable Path Forward. It states reduce height by creating an outdoor pool with option to cover later. This is called segmentation or piece mealing, and it's illegal. Another missing design consideration in this pool plan is allocation for a first aid room. Recommended pool guidelines suggest a swimming pool with a surface water surface area in excess of 4000 square feet shall have a readily accessible room designated and equipped for emergency care. The room shall have a cat sink telephone, including first aid kits and long spine boards with ties and collar and blankets for potential triage spaces for victims who need to be moved away from on lockers. Where is the allocation for this first aid room? This is especially necessary with a diving area and a children's recreation area. Despite significant geological, environmental, financial obstacles. With this project in this location, city will not consider another location. The old pool building was demolished because it is on unstable ground. So how preposterous to build in the same location. Where will the money come from? Taxes. Bonds. Grants are sold off like the City Hall is a privately financed P3 project. With shrinking budgets. Are you going to allow general funds to be siphoned off to float a pool? These proposed plans are new build and they need a new IIR. No pool on the beach. I request my retain remaining time for rebuttal. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you. Next week, the. Good evening. Speaker 4: Vice mayor and council members. I'm Jeff Miller. I ask you to postpone or vote no on all of the items of this hearing? The second attempt to build the BBC. The first attempt three years ago ended when the Coastal Commission found fault with the proposal. The immediate problem is that you and the public have not been given all the information needed to make an informed decision. There are two significant gaps in information. First, the details of the second version of the BBC have been fully known only since they were presented at the Planning Commission meeting of December 19, 2019, just a month ago. Even then, the materials presented did not include some relevant data, such as the design renderings separate from the plan drawings, which you just saw in the presentation tonight. Some public comments were also omitted from the documents. I believe those items are still missing from what has been presented to you. And second, the city has not answered the significant questions about this project. 22 of them asked by the Coastal Commission. Their approval of the project will not even begin to be considered until these questions have been satisfactorily answered. This project seems to be shrouded in secrecy. The second version of the design has been produced and presented with almost no publicity and with no public outreach. Not one public meeting was held to present this design ahead of the December 19 Planning Commission meeting. Even though it has been touted as a citywide facility. The last public outreach meeting was in April 2016, and that was for the first version of the project, a totally different design. There was a secret presentation of this latest design to the BBA stakeholder committee last summer. From the beginning, there has been only one resident representative on that committee. That representative was intentionally excluded from that meeting. The proceedings of that meeting were not made public. This is not a citywide representation. The signage at the Belmont Park where the project would be built is incorrect. The four large billboards four feet tall by eight feet wide, are the illustrations and description of the four year old project. There is no picture or description of the current project. This new project was never presented to the city's own Marine Advisory Commission. This commission meets monthly and is tasked with advising council on quote matters regarding city policies pertaining to marinas, beaches, waterways and near-shore areas, unquote. They had no meeting in December, but they did have one in January. This project has been portrayed as a replacement of an old pool. It is not. It's a new project, far greater in size and impact. It would be a replacement of a natural beach and park containing grass and mature trees, which have been enjoyed for the public by the public for six years now. This is the baseline. A new E-R and approval process are required. It is not accurate or acceptable to claim. The second attempt is merely a revision of the first BBC, which was presented three years ago. At that time, two council members acknowledged it was a new project, not a replacement, and voted no. Now is that it is a different new project. The presentation at the Planning Commission meeting in December was basically a stealth action. It was scheduled at an extremely busy time for everyone in the middle of holiday activities guaranteed to minimize public awareness and participation. The meeting was announced, then canceled, then confusingly reinstated. The documents, images and exhibits presented at that meeting were not made available to the public until three days before the meeting. These included the air addendum of 865 pages. I challenge anyone to be able to even read, much less understand and prepare a response to all of the documents in three days. The ER addendum contains significant errors of fact. Here is only one example in the section describing traffic impacts. Quote The project site and surrounding area have not been further developed or altered since the 2016 certified air was prepared. There is no information in the administrative record or otherwise available that indicates that there are substantial changes in circumstances pertaining to transportation and traffic that would require major changes to the 2016 certified air, unquote. That is blatantly false. Since 2016, Ocean Boulevard in that area has been reduced from four lanes to two. The Olympics, now renamed Iconix Fitness Business, has opened with a large demand on parking. The beach in that area has undergone a large increase in usage in those intervening years by volleyball players, dog walkers, pedestrians, bicyclists and others. Also adding to parking and traffic demand. Changing the zoning to accommodate the extreme height of the structures, including the floodlight poles, is nothing but a trick. To mask this inappropriate height. And there's the question of money. The stated costs of this project have been nebulous. The cost of additional design work has not been addressed. The operational and maintenance costs have not been detailed. And the Tidelands Fund. Money set aside is not really available if you want the city to be prepared for the 2028 Olympics. The pier is the viewing site for the sailing events and it needs costly upgrades. And finally, there is sea level rise and increasing damaging storm surges. The sea can't be held back. Long Beach should be leading the effort to deal intelligently with sea level rise, not creating a problem for itself by proposing a new building on the sand. The Coastal Commission will not look kindly on the attempt to ignore this problem and instead put an expensive facility on the sand vulnerable to an uncertain future. Please start now to plan and commit the funds to renovate the pier for the 2028 Olympics. That will be something to be remembered for building a first class venue for the Olympic sailing events. Not the costly mistake of pursuing a flawed proposal. Please postpone this item or vote no. Don't approve this project now. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you very much. Speaker 3: Seems to be a little bit longer. I hope you can hear me. Good evening, Vice Mayor Andrews. Council members, or is it? Good morning? I think not. But anyway. My name is Melinda Cotton. My husband and I have lived in Belmont Shore for more than 35 years. We're fortunate to live just a few blocks from the beach and have walked and bicycled the states. The city's enviable Long Beach the entire time. As temperatures rise, we see more and more people flocking to the beach to enjoy the bike and pedestrian paths soccer and volleyball, Rosie's dog beach, the surf and just playing in the sand and making sand castles since the old Belmont pool was demolished six years ago. Olympic Park Plaza Park has shined as a beautiful beachfront jewel with family picnics and group parties, people walking their dogs, young people partying and having improper, improper and impromptu soccer games on the nearby sandy beach. The L.A. 28 Olympics Committee has liked the area so much, they've chosen the waters off the Belmont Pier for the Olympics competitive sailing events. This artist rendition of the sailing venue is telling for. When you look closely at the beachfront, you'll see in the Olympics picture no Belmont Pool complex. The existing green treed Olympic Plaza Park is still there. The L.A. 28 official website shows swimming and diving events taking place at USC's baseball stadium. It's called Dado Field in downtown L.A., where they'll put in a large temporary pool, which you see in the artist's rendition and diving facilities. The L.A. 28 game does have water polo water polo events in Long Beach. The site, a large temporary pool and stadium to be built in the elephant lot next to the convention center where other kinds of events will take place. This is the same site the Coastal Commission and many others have strongly recommended for the BBC. Doesn't that tell you the elephant lot is the best place for a permanent new complex? That is, if the city can afford it. An expensive $85 million pool and diving complex is not needed in Belmont Shore. We already have and have had for six years an Olympic sized temporary pool that is slated to become permanent. It serves recreational swimmers and water polo players, provides lessons, aerobics and more. One must ask, does the third district need additional public pools and special diving facilities when only two other council districts in the city have public pools leaving six districts without? And that $85 million price tag that we heard talk about earlier, that $85 million price tag just for the BBC is daunting. The NY 20 city budget shows in the red less than $54 million set aside for the BBC complex that's out of the beaches and marinas $89 million total capital improvement fund shown in blue. And the funds set aside so far are at least 32 million less than the current pool estimate, with no information as to where those extra millions will come from. The Title IX Capital Improvement Fund also expects less than $3 million in new money this year and in years to come. And that's also in blue on that chart. Think of just a few of the titles unfunded needs. We know the crumbling Naples Sea still need for more repair phases. Phase two, which is now going on, is costing $15 million. That indicates another roughly $60 million for phase three through six. Again, unfunded. Public Works also says there's no money to rebuild. The 90 year old lifeguard headquarters on the beach or to appear on the council in 2015, recognized the elderly 1930 structure, needed rehab or replacement, paid for a study and architects. But no idea when that might happen. The junior lifeguard building did get approved and apparently will go under construction. But don't we need a really up to date lifeguard headquarters building and marine safety and public safety by 2028 when we have the competition off the Belmont Pier. Yet the city has promised the 2028 Olympics Committee it will rebuild the Belmont Pier for the sailing competitions. But it, too, is listed in the budget as an unfunded, unfunded, high priority. And the pier needs serious help, which was highlighted in 2017 when a storm to docks off the end of the pier landing on the beach. Now, three years later, the pier still hasn't been fixed. The Marine Advisory Commission asked why at this month's meeting in early January and was told bids to replace the docks were coming in at two and a half million dollars and the city has only $900,000 in insurance available. We were told, again, lack of funds is the key. And then there's continued climate change, sea level rise and global warming to plan for. The League of Women Voters held its sixth annual climate symposium at the Aquarium of the Pacific last Sunday with scientists detailing the seriousness of SLR, especially when combined with king tides, storm surge and wave action which plagued the peninsula regularly. And on my street in Park Avenue, we have heavy rainstorms flooding the street and our garage. The Aquarium of the Pacific titled It's October Climate Change Event Coping with Sea Level Rise with a focus on Long Beach. As we all mature and peninsula. And as you see, this deluge is already happening in front of my house. I know this LV Post article from just a year ago, only last January, with floods inundating the Olympic Plaza dry where the Belmont Beach and Aquatics Center is to be built. Is this really smart? Shouldn't we be spending our limited tidelands and other funds on the critical needs noted above, rather than spending $8,085 million on an aquatic complex on the beach 100 feet from the surf? I think a lot of us would think the answer was no. And if you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them and thank you for your time. And if there's time left over, I might have comments after the report. Speaker 0: Thank you very much. Speaker 3: Thank you. Speaker 0: Next speaker. Speaker 4: Hello. My name is Jim Hines. I'm a 30 year resident of Long Beach and a taxpayer. And this is my first process in the city council. So bear with me. But I hereby request, respectfully request that the City Council reject this application of the Belmont Beach and Aquatic Center as the item is presently written. From a taxpayer perspective, I believe better analysis is the other stakeholders and other speakers have said is the make a sound decision is ordered is required to make a sound decision. Analysis should examine the city latest redesign relative to the days overall city investment needs, the strategic criteria, associated risk and funding. A comprehensive risk assessment should be made sure in best, most likely and worst case scenarios not just the initial investment, but also importantly, the operating support and maintenance costs. Question How likely will the center be completed in 85 million? Well, is that not to exceed cost or is it a 5050 chance that the cost will be there? And who will who will bear the brunt of the overruns? What are the major concern? Risks, contingencies and associated costs. From a finance standpoint, I'd like to see an S-curve. Taxpayers should be informed of the project risks relative to their requirements needs, not just wants. Ground rules and assumptions against total nonrecurring and reoccurring costs. Financial should also be reported both for public and private financial commitments. That far along, you should be getting the commitments and their likelihood firm upfront commitments should be obtained for the initial investment. But as well for the operating revenues before going forward. Olympic requirements seem to be the driving factor for the 85 million. The question is, is what are the firm city commitments for the Olympics? You need to nail those down. Otherwise the requirements are a wish list or a want list. Well, relative to weather, what is needed? For example, we should know whether the Olympic cost drivers, the number and size of the pool, the driving force, the diving facilities we talked about, the associated costs and commitments. It seems that a few wants are driving a lot of the cost. Although vocal, the reality is a 50 meter pool, etc. is only used for competitive purposes and that only represents about 5% of the total population. So from that, you know, other similar aquatic facilities without diving seem to cost anything about 15 to $30 million. And we know that UFC, you know, just spent $8 million to renovate their facility up there, too, with diving facilities, etc.. So that should be nailed down relative to who's doing what, when associated with the cost of this effort. Um. We hear a lot from the competitive swimming community, but where is their financial commitments? Taxpayers. With all that, the taxpayer shouldn't be the point and the burden that satisfy the special interests. Also were the swimming requirements coordinated and integrated with our local public school systems. To date, there seems to be little. Long Beach taxpayers are already paying for a $28 million Olympic sized pool for the Long Beach City College. Long Beach tax payers are already, you know, are also paying, you know, 3 billion for Major K and major E for school upgrades and repairs and include new pools and pool upgrades. Cambria, Ohio, for example, has a new $12 million pool, reportedly because there's no public pools nearby. Wear them or any of the Long Beach Unified School District, Long Beach C College or Cal State, Long Beach financial commitments to the pool. That lack of coordination doesn't and does not inspire taxpayer confidence. Up to 80% of the like the Aquatic Center Lysate because it's typically tied up in operation maintenance and support expenses. What is the project? Operating life with its probable operating maintenance and support cost. Is there a list of operating maintenance and support concerns or risk? What are the reserves? Is an operating and maintenance risk assessment being performed or the operating commitments he's made with the swimming, private, public and private organizations? My understanding in Sacramento is when organizations stepped up to pay 70% of the operating costs or 70,000 per year of the operating costs, where's the commitments from these people that, you know, from these organizations are want these special requirements? Which one of this according to the also according to the capital improvement process, you know, public works, financial management. Any possible end user department should have quantified anticipated name cost route for each council so they can have a detail and understand the costs and risk against future allocated budgets and to make an informed decision and such as that being done. My personal benchmarking shows that cities with aquatic centers experienced net operating losses, some substantial rip up to billions of dollars. Again, council members and taxpayers need to understand the driving cost requirements and get a detailed breakdown of the probable operating costs, room routes, revenues and cost recovery. The taxpayer's concern is that the city does have a reputation of neglecting infrastructure. Look at our streets, sidewalks, public facilities with liability. Debt is up to 2.3 billion. And we're going to add new, new infrastructure on top of that. What about the Queen Mary? The city has established criteria for capital improvements. Question is, does the aquatic center meet them? Does Aquatic Center address any city health, safety or legal concerns and mandates? Does the Aquatic Center prolong the life of the city asset or in minimizing future costs? Repair costs? Can't be prolonged anymore. We need to reassess the needs to the to the current environment and the constraints. Is the aquatic center in the is long range strategic plan. Is there a city long strategic plan? Does the Aquatic Center secure will be able to secure future funds through programing, planning or grant eligibility versus its cause ? In summary, I asked, is the current needs and priority of the proposed Belmont Beach and Aquatic Center serve the average Long Beach taxpayer, especially, especially with the $2.3 billion liability and infrastructure. I then encourage careful consideration of the City Council regarding the financial realities of the proposed Belmont Beach and Aquatic Center project and in its existing requirements as they now stand. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you. Speaker 7: Thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor. I would like to take the opportunity to make a couple of comments in rebuttal. Obviously, there's a number of. Speaker 2: Oh, I'm sorry. Do you want to do public first or rebuttal? Speaker 13: Okay. Mr. Vice Mayor, it's appropriate to do public comment now and then. City staff, since they have the burden of proof, would have the opportunity to provide a rebuttal to anything that's been said. Speaker 0: All right. Thank you. So any public comment on this item? Would you please come forward? Speaker 1: We have Khadijah Cager, Mel Nutter, Joseph. Griever and Joseph Slim and Anna Christiansen. Terry's daughter, Kim or O'Shay calls Lee and Cantrell, Lucy Johnson, Joe Weinstein, Katie Roll, Dr. Preston Smith, Dave Sugar and Keith Mason. Speaker 9: I'm in this. Can I clarify the amount of time that you're giving to the public speakers this evening? Agenda item, it's. Speaker 0: Over ten people, so we're kind of down. And their place. Seconds. You can go whenever you feel. Thank you. Yes. Speaker 9: Good morning. My name is Gordana Cager, and I'm an appellant on this pool to the Coastal Commission. My comments were filed earlier this week via email, and as most of you know, I am opposed to this pool. I'm so very grateful to those of you on the dais, along with your staff who were willing to meet with me this week. Thank you for listening, and thank you for listening to our concerns about this pool. There are so many unanswered questions that it's absolutely irresponsible to make a decision this evening. So I urge your no vote. The Coastal Commission has serious concerns and questions on this pool. City staff, I understand, has responded to the December 6th incomplete letter with a response this afternoon. Have you seen that information? You must have that information before making an informed decision. And exactly how many public meetings were held in Long Beach about this project? Zero. One private meeting was held with the pool stakeholders in June of 2019. I urge you to consider the comments of Councilman Oranga, Coastal Commissioner Urunga, who pointed out significant issues on the first design in 2017. This revised pool has not changed those issues. We will see you at the Coastal Commission. It will not be in February. It will not be in May. Maybe this year. Thank you for your time and please vote no. Thank you. Speaker 2: I'm Bill Netter, and I'm here representing Gordana Cage, who. Speaker 0: Appealed your. Speaker 2: Approval of a local. Speaker 0: Coastal development. Speaker 2: Permit to the Coastal Commission back in 2017. Speaker 0: Because the coastal. Speaker 2: Are because the city waived the time to hear the appeal, that appeal is still pending, and it's unclear what the city's position is relative to that pending appeal. But regardless, the proposed finding that the current proposed local coastal development permit is consistent with your certified LCP or local coastal program is false. The fact that the staff proposes. Speaker 0: That the city. Speaker 2: Seek certification of an amendment to the current LCP is proof that the city staff knows that that proposed finding is untrue. Speaker 0: And if you look. Speaker 2: At the comments I made before the Planning Commission, I expanded upon that. The staff reports that the changes made to the project since 2017 could have been made in response to public input. That is not entirely accurate. The only public exposure to the proposed changes occurred at the Planning Commission hearing in December. Speaker 0: Thank you and have pointed out and I have a few other things to say, but I thank you. Speaker 2: So my name's Joe Giaever, and I live in a third district. So, yeah, Mr. Mercola, for kind of an important piece out of the timeline there, and that's those appeals. So the several appeals from local residents were combined with a couple of appeals by the coastal commissioners, and those appeals are still pending. Not clear to me whether the city has ever informed the commission that you've got a new project on the same property and that old clip should probably be just rescinded and start over again. But despite all that. The revised pool has definitely been made smaller just to make it cheaper, I guess, but it doesn't resolve the issues in those appeals. So I don't know who the stakeholder advisory committee is, but it clearly doesn't include the appellants or probably the most important stakeholders, at least from a dispute resolution perspective. So two of the issues kind of go together. The idea of alternative sites for this pool and the and the prohibition on protective devices from sea level rise. So in the first of all, the the elephant line was considered. Last go round and eliminated because it was. Speaker 0: So I said, thank you very. Speaker 2: Much. She's okay. Um. Oh, thanks. Speaker 0: Anyway, I'm next by speakers, please. Speaker 2: I was going to say good evening, but I think somebody was right when they said good morning. Thank you for your time and your stamina to stay awake and pay attention to these these comments. And we greatly appreciate your efforts. My name is Kim O'Shay. I work for Southern California Swimming. Our offices are over in San Pedro and we represent over 20,000 swimmers who participate in competitive swimming across this area all the way over to Vegas. And our swimmers love to come to Belmont. They love Long Beach. They love the history here. They love their experiences. Hopefully, many of you were able to look at some emails that you received earlier today from Olympians who participated in meets throughout history here in Belmont and phenomenal, phenomenal memories, sentimental value and success as well. Speaker 9: But we're not only talking. Speaker 2: About Olympic swimmers. Yes, it's a special interest group and we're very much into the competitive side of things. But we also want to applaud you for looking at cradle to grave programing for your community. Absolutely. To look at putting little kids into swim lessons to make them safer around the water because we are a beachfront community all the way up through programing for senior citizens that want to lap, swim and stay healthy. So it's cradle to grave programing and it's a beautiful community service. We thank you for your time and we greatly appreciate your attention to this. And we would vote for a recommend voting for approval to uphold the Planning Commission's recommendation. Thank you. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thanks, Speaker. Speaker 2: Good morning. Dave Shukla, Third District. I both my brother and I were on the swim team at Long Beach Poly and from 1996 through 2002, we participated in the Moonlight Swim finals at the Belmont Pool. After his injury, after he became disabled, he did two years of physical therapy at the Belmont. It's an important institution. Having a city pool, a flagship institution, is important nonetheless. I. I oppose the project even as revised when it was approved in 2013. In February of 2013, that was the first City Council meeting I went to as an adult, and there were hundreds of people here in the afternoon. Through the evening. The offshore clinics was here, but not here next door, but they were in the city council chambers and they were engaged. It's the dead of night. What are we doing? What are you doing tonight? The appellants are going to start. Whatever merits you think their arguments have. They are going to continue. And the one issue that I have specifically with this project is that. It's a built structure that's going to last 60 to 80 years. Sea level rise is something that we're increasingly learning is coming sooner and faster and harder than we expected. It would be a horrible symbol for the city to take tidelands funds and not think of how the lifecycle of those funds has been used and what that flagship actually works. Speaker 0: Thank you. So. Hello. Speaker 2: My name is Terry Stoddard. I'm the general chairman for Southern California Swimming. And as Kim has mentioned, I'm here representing over 20,000 registered athletes, 800 coaches and over 150 clubs and 250 officials that have been through the process of using Belmont's pool in the past. Myself, I swear on my last national championship there and 15 years later I was able to win a national championship as a team. But more importantly, as my daughters then were able to compete in a massive championship and also for their their college and a four year school. So the whole process went through. And now, as my grandkids are beginning to learn how to swim at age six, four and ten months, they're looking for facilities like this. But my players applause an iconic. Pool that goes straight to the memories of learning to swim, have the opportunity for competition on weekends, but have the ability to have fitness throughout the time. Eight people die from drowning every day. Having this in a coastal community is going to give us the opportunity to avoid that, and it's going to be able to reach out not to only the communities of Long Beach, but the surrounding communities. We urge you to continue your support of revitalizing this project. Speaker 0: Thank you. Could you please call the next speakers? Speaker 1: Joseph Silverman. Anna Christianson. Corey Leslie. And Cantrell. Lucy Johnson. Joe Weinstein. Katie Roe. Dr. Preston Smith. Keith Mason. Speaker 0: Please come. Speaker 3: Up. Speaker 0: Yes, please. Come on. Other names as you call, as you please. Speaker 1: Coming up, Joseph slamming Anna Kristiansen. Speaker 2: In the name of the bride. Speaker 0: Oh, okay. Fine. Thank you. Yeah. Speaker 2: And if she wants it. Speaker 0: You know, we can't do that, too. Speaker 9: So I think keep doing it that last time on the clock. You have Lieberman's points. I'm not going to reread them. Okay. But I am also speaking for Lieberman, the BBC. Move it or lose it. Build it downtown on the elephant lot or some other location where more residents, especially low income people of color, are likely to use it. How and where we build our municipal pools reflects a pattern, reveals a pattern of race and class prejudice. Olympic sized pools in the wealthy, white, south east corner and too small. Jim Crow, I'm quoting a gentleman who wrote about contested waters, the history of swimming pools in low income neighborhoods for people of color. BBC. Both boosters, as you see here tonight, invoke nostalgia, insisting that our former Belmont Power will be rebuilt in the same location while also demanding to make it bigger and better. And we know that 16 of those 17 stakeholders are either representing sports teams or for profit businesses. A state of the art facility for competitive and for profit owners will not reverse the high risk of drowning faced by the majority of youth in Long Beach. We are a 70 plus percent minority community nationwide. 40% of white youth and 60 to 70% of youth of color do not learn to swim and are more likely to drown. All residents are expected to share the $85 million cost some will be paying with their lives and the communities. Prioritize public health, safety and recreation. Let's plan accordingly. Speaker 0: Thank you very much. Next speaker. Speaker 9: I am cautiously and I'm opposed to this agenda item. I have no issue with building a pool and but I do have objections to the location and specifically with the risk associated with that location and also with the cost. The risk once again, is the sea level rise and placement on the sand where liquefaction and earthquakes can cause another a loss of our of our pool. There's also poor public access in that location. It's way over in the corner of Long Beach. We're using precious tidelands funds that in and of themselves will not cover the scaled back design that is lacking a roof and will very obviously be a money pit for maintenance. And now about the cost. Why is it that Torrance can produce a public swimming facility for $15 million? Santa monica built a pool on the beach in 2009 for 27.5 million. With the additional listed amenities a rec room, the swimming pool, a splash pad, beach volleyball, tennis courts, soccer fields, canopies, a cafe, rentals for paddleboards all that for 27.5 million. Why are we paying 87 or 85? Whatever it is? Less than a third of the price of the Belmont Pool is how they did it in Santa monica. Thank you. Speaker 0: Very much, Mr.. Speaker 9: Salmon. Why Skip doing that? Good morning. In control. And I agree with everything that's been said. I'm asking you to either vote no or postpone this. I'm speaking for carp. I we sent you a letter. I want to reiterate. You're being asked to approve an addendum for the Environmental Impact Report that was approved for a completely different site plan and location. Removing the roof from the previous pool. Adding a kids fan zone. Moving the project, taking out a park and public ride away are all significant changes to the original site plan and EIA are the additional impacts of noise, light, traffic and parking have not been adequately studied nor mitigated. The city manager tells you there's no problem, but there's not been any studies. The new project must have a new IIR. Carp has never opposed a pool. We have opposed the location. And this location is flawed. The elephant lot. There's no proof that it has in greater danger from sea level rise than the current location. I would like to see a study that shows this. Speaker 0: Thank you very much. Speaker 9: Thank you. Speaker 2: Hello. I'm Joe Weinstein, and I sent you the other letter from Karp. What's at stake is not merely making the right decision about a pool. Speaker 6: You've been presented you've been presented. Speaker 2: A project which proposes to spend at least four times much as much as is necessary to produce a full fledged aquatic center. Karp supports the idea of a multipurpose aquatic center. We don't support the proposed squander. These proposals would have us. Thanks. Thanks to the choice of the absurd choice. Based solely on nostalgia, but needless and foolish and almost about the worst possible sight. Belmont Park has a beach. Thanks to this, you have a recipe for squander. And you think this is just about a pool project about aquatics? No, I'm afraid not. These proposals will damage not only city finances, but the public career of every official that votes for them. Because you declared a fiscal emergency and you want a permanent sales tax. And when you approve these proposals for squander, you are sending a very clear message that people are going to continue to reiterate. Namely, you want the tax revenue in order to squander it. Squander is not okay even if you get other sources of revenue, because think of a philanthropist as a philanthropist, want to enable you to make you have to spend more in order to get less. That's essentially the message you'd be sending to a philanthropist. Thank you. Thank you. Speaker 0: Next speaker. Speaker 1: Is Lucy Johnson still here? Katie Role. Dr. Preston Smith. And Keith Mason. Speaker 2: My name is Dr. Preston Smith. I admire your your ability to take this. I have a difficulty opposing the pool since I was a swimmer in high school at USC. But I've also spent 45 years studying the beach and its processes. And for that reason, I have two. Speaker 6: Reasons why I oppose it. Speaker 2: One is the costs. The money should be set aside for use of protecting property. We already have problems in Naples and the peninsula. We need we need to protect the property that we do have. One thing that hasn't been mentioned is in 1939, we had a hurricane caused by warm water. We have warming water and much more of a chance of hurricane men. If we look at history, will see that this area was under water in the thirties and then there's a sea wall running along the back of the of the parking lot. You also had storms in the late thirties. We have signs of erosion now. And I have a letter from demonstration to the Army Corps of Engineers stating that we had. 114 feet of the recession in during a two hour, two month period. So for all the reasons, I think it's a very dangerous place to put the pool. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you, Doctor. Next we go. Speaker 2: And Keith Mason. I live in the third district on the I regularly use the temporary pool that's there. I'd like to see something done with the pool in that area. I don't know that we need to pools. I don't know that $80 million is the right amount of money. But it certainly would be nice to have something in that area that was used a lot today, and I think it would be a real detriment to the community to not do something like that. So with only 30 seconds. I came yesterday to the meeting. Speaker 0: Thank you. Next week. You? Speaker 1: Is Lucy Johnson still here? Carrie Row. That's the end of our speaker's list. Speaker 0: I think, you know, the answer comes from the Council on Price. Is that it, or what do we know? Speaker 13: We have this as an opportunity for a short rebuttal, if necessary. Speaker 0: Is there a time when energy just. Speaker 13: It's reasonable. Speaker 0: Is there anyone who like I. Speaker 7: Yes, we would like to provide some brief rebuttal. Those were a lot of comments. There's needless to say, there's a number of things that we disagree with. I will focus on the the large ones and do the mostly in chronological order. So forgive me for this being a little disjointed. There was a comment about that there no access for fire lanes or oversize vehicles. The facilities for were designed with fire lanes and the ability to turn around any type of oversize vehicles that are necessary. There was a comment about that. We need to armor the building that is not correct or that sand replenishment is required and that is armoring. That is also not correct. We had originally contemplated sand replenishment but with the new design, since we aren't impacted by sea level at all because we moved out of the sea level plane as requested by coastal, that is not required. There were a number of comments about how the information was shared. I do want to point out that when we were first contemplating a redesign back in June, we of 2019, we created our stakeholder committee. We brought them to. I'm sorry. Didn't create them. We reactivated them and brought them together and shared information about the project we did at that time. Take a little bit different approach because on that stakeholder committee was also an individual and others who had sued the city. And so because of that legal action, we actually did still provide the information. We just did it in a different forum. So they got phone calls from me and we shared the same information. We just did it in two different forums. We also then provided information before we came to Planning Commission on December 3rd and writing so that everybody had the new design. The discussion back in June was high level concepts, and then we provided a new design on the 13th. Then went to Planning Commission on the 19th. That was a major public meeting. You have the public meeting today where there's additional input for everyone to be here. And it's well attended, obviously. And we also have an opportunity, a coastal commission. And there was a comment that we are proposing a cover that is not correct. That was an initial part of a discussion with the stakeholders and could we may be consider recover. We did not put that in after getting some stakeholder input. The project will be designed so that we could add one in the future, but that would be a completely separate project going through all the separate entitlements and separate air if future councils ever want to do that. There was a question about the notice of incomplete application from the Coastal Commission. They did send us 22 different questions about our response that we submitted back in, I believe, November. We have submitted to that as of today. We'd be happy to share that with anyone who wants to see it. It's a seven page response. Frankly, doesn't affect what we're doing here tonight because that's addressing a different jurisdictions issues. They're different than than the ones that we have here tonight. But we can certainly make that available to anyone who wants it. Do you want to respond to the cost as that has been brought up? When we talk about $85 million, that is a total budget figure and it's actually pretty comprehensive. It's kind of soup to nuts on the project. It even includes the cost of demolition of the facility of the old one. So we wanted to provide the council on our fiscal policies, not just the construction cost, but the full cost of the entire project, including soft costs, design costs and the demolition. And so whenever we talk about that 85 million, that's what's included there. And so I did want to clarify that. So when you're comparing this to other projects, a lot of times that you'll read about it in the paper, that'll be the construction cost of the facility. Our construction cost is significantly less than $85 million. There was a comment that we had promised the Olympic Committee to rebuild the pier. That is incorrect. There isn't you. Yeah. They're not asking us to rebuild the premier and the pier. That is a separate project that we're visioning. But that is not a requirement. We also had been asked about maintenance and operating costs, as have been estimated. We started that when the council first entertained this project back in 2014. We got permission to move ahead knowing that there were maintenance and operating costs. Frankly, this project has gone through so many different changes. That is all going to be updated after we get an entitlement and then the council will make a decision whether you want to move forward. Once you have the entitlements, that's one thing you still are going to make a decision whether you want to fund this project or move forward. And our fiscal policies say we're going to go through all of the costs, both capital and operating and maintenance when you make that decision. There was also comments that we should not be spending city taxpayer dollars on this. I want to remind everybody, this is not the general fund. These are not your property tax dollars or sales tax dollars that go to this project. These are specific funds funded in the Tidelands, funded mostly out of transfer from the Port of Long Beach and oil operating dollars that are funding this project. Oil dollars and dollars from oil recovery. These are not tax dollars in the in the normal sense of the word. And then finally, there was a question about the appeals and what the status of those are. We are in constant communication with the Coastal Commission staff on this project. It's been that way since we first proposed this project. We have talked to them about staying our appeal so that we could go through this process. All of those appeals will be heard at the same time. You know, Coast to Wall is holding everything so that at the meeting that they are planning to have, everything will be discussed. Everyone will have a chance to come. We expect that to be very, very well attended. If you'll notice, there were not a lot of supporters here, and they all are. A lot of them went home and then let the council member talk to that. But also they all know that, you know, everyone's going to come out and really talk about this at the Coastal Commission because that really is the the final body making the final decision. So if I turn to staff today, miss anything critical. Speaker 2: I just. Speaker 6: Think correct to. Speaker 4: Factual items in the record. In Ms.. Miller's presentation, there was a comment that this was somehow inconsistent with the city's climate action plan. The city is working on a climate action plan, but there is no draft, much less any adopted plan. So there's no way for this to be inconsistent with that. And there were multiple references to the Olympic Games. Just to clarify what's in front of the council. No agreement what the Olympics is in front of the council at this time. It is the land use entitlements that are in. Speaker 2: Front of you for the. Speaker 4: Permanent structures at the site. Any temporary activities for the Olympics would be subject to a separate item that would come in front of this council. And those items are exempt from sequel under a different section of law at square guidelines 15272. Speaker 2: And with that, there. Speaker 6: Were many items brought up, but just to correct those items on the record. Speaker 7: So we have our full team here. We have anything from our environmental consultants to our project delivery team to our project manager, and we are available to answer any of your questions. Speaker 6: Councilmember Price, would you like to? I'm sorry about that. Speaker 5: Thank you. Councilman Austin. So I want to thank everyone for staying, especially the appellants and the public that came out to speak. I know it's been a late night and I really appreciate the fact that everyone stayed and I appreciate everyone's input. I want to thank staff for working very hard on this project for as long as they have. It's great to see how far this project has come. It's taken us a long time to get to this point, and I think we've had a lot of investment from our city council in educating themselves about the project and learning about it and really understanding the issues. We've heard input from residents city wide on how the project can best be possible and has. We've included lots of amazing amenities as a result of comments directly from my council colleagues. The last time this item was before us. Whether it's a competitive swimmer, toddlers or seniors, the amount of recreational activities and opportunities to use the space has been enhanced as a result of this redesign. So I think staff are taking to heart the comments made by my council colleagues. The last time this item came forward. This will be truly a pool that anyone can enjoy and it will increase access to the coastal. Speaker 3: Area for. Speaker 5: Residents throughout the city. I think that the changes that have been made to the facility make it less intrusive and more feasible for us to construct, which I appreciate. The height has been greatly reduced, which I know was a concern of some of my colleagues, and the design changes have reoriented the property to reduce the impacts on the beach. I will say, and I have said this over and over again, this pool has been designed with sea level rise in mind when we're talking about sea level. I am far more concerned about the hundreds of homes and the thousands of people who live around this facility whose homes have not been designed for sea level Speaker 3: . Rise like this property has. Are this the. Speaker 5: Proposed design has? We did have a large group earlier today, if I may inquire of staff, how many letters of support and opposition we received. Speaker 2: I received a total of nearly 300 comments. I believe approximately 250 were in support and we've had the remainder were in opposition. Speaker 3: Okay. Thank you for that. And I appreciate. Speaker 5: The folks who took the time to write letters, because I know I knew tonight was going to be a very long night. And in the past, we've had a lot of youth who are interested in swimming attend the meeting tonight. And with the SDR item, I knew that the earliest we would get to them would be 10 p.m., so I'm glad that they didn't come for that. We talk a lot about I know the opponents talk a lot about the best use of tidelands moneys and I have talked with some of them in the past for the beach path, for example. Some felt that that was a waste of tidelands money. And I understand that. And while I appreciate those concerns, I don't share them. I believe that engaging our coastal spaces and activating them has been a positive benefit for the city. And I'm very, very much looking forward to continuing to do that. I would love to have swimming pools in every district in the city. I really would. And if the decision today was whether or not we're going to fund a pool with $85 million of general fund dollars, I probably would not be supporting that project because our biggest projects right now and from a citywide level are our street infrastructure, our public safety. And if we had $85 million of general fund moneys to play with, I think building a pool would not be anybody's top priority. We are using money that's restricted in terms of where it can be used. And I think that it's. Speaker 3: The void of the. Speaker 5: Pool is felt by many. I heard the opponents speak tonight about the use of that property, but I will say from the residents who live around that facility, the businesses who operate businesses right around that facility, that the void of the pool is felt very strongly every day, while on occasion you might see families picnicking in the area. We often do see also encampments, a lot of areas that are not maintained and a lot of non activation of the space that has deteriorated. Speaker 3: The general use of that space. Speaker 5: I think that's I think when we talk about pools throughout the city, the only pool on the east side of Long Beach is a temporary one. In Belmont Shore, we have no permanent pools. And the east side of Long Beach, we do have two public pools, but they are located in exactly the areas that some of the opponents suggested. Speaker 3: We built. Speaker 5: Additional pools. And so I'm all in favor of building more pools. But in terms of this project, I ask for my colleagues support and I do want to commend staff because they've been working very closely with Coastal Commission staff to get us to this point. And will there be changes and modifications made along the way? Absolutely. But staff has worked and earnestly with Coastal Commission to try to get to a place where we have some meeting of the minds. And I want to thank our staff, our entire staff for the excellent work that they've done and for allowing me to carry on this project that was really started by my predecessor and Assemblyman O'Donnell and Councilwoman Lowenthal, who were all very supportive of this. And I carry the torch forward on their behalf as well. Thank you. Speaker 6: Councilman Suber No. Speaker 8: Thank you. I wanted to cover a point. Tom McCann actually covered it, but a few speakers did bring it up and that was about the 2017 appeal and their questions. Would that be rescinded? Would it be dismissed without prejudice? I think Tom could explain that. That will be addressed by the Coastal Commission along with everything else. So it's kind of an aggregate of of both appeals. I think that. The other point that Tom Marcum made was that this is not the final decision on this in terms of the council in the funding. So, Mr. Murdoch, if you could just repeat what you said in that point, I think it's important. Speaker 7: Yes. So before we can even get to that funding decision, you have to have an entitled project. So you're one part of that coastal commission will make a decision on the on the final entitlements. You may have to come back and actually tweak things depending on what they're what their actions were. But then, more importantly, you would need to give us direction on should we move forward with, you know, getting to 100% construction drawings, bidding the project and then ultimately deciding on whether or not we should fund the project and actually start the construction. So there are still several steps ahead of the council. Speaker 8: Thank you. Speaker 6: Thank you. I'll be short. Looking at the hour, I. I was, I think, one of the one or two council members here in 2014 when this first came before us. I can remember the meeting like yesterday. I can remember my mindset going into that meeting, but then also being influenced by a lot of people who who utilize our pools and what the Belmont pool really and understanding what the Belmont Pool really meant to so many people in this city and not just in the third district, but from for those across the city. Recently had a an experience where we had our niece's staying with us during the Christmas holiday and they stayed about a week . One is a competitive swimmer at the University of Pacific. The other is going to be a water polo sensation in Long Beach State next year. But during their time with us, they were looking for a place to work out because they're competitive athletes. They needed to to work out. And so I gave them my car keys and said, go down to the Belmont pool, you can the temporary pool. And they loved it. There was a perfect experience for them. And so I think we sometimes take for granted the resources that we provide and can provide as a city. And this I got to say, I'm really delighted to see the cost of this project scaled down significantly. And I think that that has that can't be overlooked. You know, you go from a $140 million project to an $85 million project. That's the direction I want to see. Because when we first. This project was first proposed, I think it was a $60 million project. Then it started escalating up the other way. And so I commend staff and everybody involved for getting us to a place that, yeah, 80 million plus is expensive, but it's, it's way more reasonable than where we were headed. And so and the design changes I think are are definitely consistent and reasonable as well. I did have a question regarding just the little nuance of detail, 25 yards versus 25 meters. Can you explain that? Speaker 7: Yes. So while most of us with a calculator realize that's not very much distance, it means a whole lot to the poor community. So certain groups swim 25 yards, you know, and this is just the width of the pool. It's 50 meters. Is the is the normal size of the pool. It allows you to do more collegiate type of practice on the 25 yards width, 25 meters is a little bit longer. And that is what is considered a fully Olympic pool. So not many people swim 25 meters, but it allows more water polo to be done with floating goals, which is important to the water and community, water polo community. And it allows you to have what's called a fast core. So it's a little bit of distance, but it does make a big difference to the to the swimming community. Speaker 6: I appreciate that. That note of clarification. Again, I want to thank everybody who's been involved in this. What we're voting on tonight is moving this to the Coastal Commission. Is that correct? Speaker 7: That is correct. Speaker 6: Right. I will be supportive. Speaker 0: Fine. Thank you. Councilwoman Price. Speaker 5: Yes? I forgot to ask that staff make a change in the design that we change it from a 25 yard with to a 25 meter width pool and that we we consider that change as part of our design element. Speaker 7: Thank you. So we're considering that to be part of the motion. And we've done all the environmental study to allow that it's included in the air and we've done some additional outreach and staff is very comfortable with that. So thank you for the direction. Speaker 0: I'm so impressed. Speaker 12: Thank you. I want to thank the appellants that showed up today and the community members that have been involved in this process. And 2017 I issued my concerns on this item was not here, but issued a lengthy letter that I know was submitted as well, and the Coastal Commission had access to that. My concerns are voiced. I have some questions that I'd like to ask and understanding that this is putting it to the Coastal Commission. With this design, obviously support a smaller design. My first question is around the Climate Action Adaptation Plan, and it was stated by staff that we have not yet adopted one. My gut reaction. And I and I know that the votes aren't there for tonight, but my gut reaction is to say we should we should stop considering a poll until we have a climate adaptation plan. But I know that that's not where we're going to end up. But that's that's my gut response. Could staff walk through for me two pieces? One is, what is the timing on the cap and two out of Thailand funds? And I know we're not talking about funding it today, but just so we know as we're moving forward. Are there things in the cap that are proposed right now that Thailand funds could be used for to protect against sea level rise and some of the other issues that that are a priority for us. Speaker 2: Thank you, Councilmember Perez. So we're about. Speaker 4: A little under a year out of completing the Climate Action and adaptation plan for this city site. Then we'll go to the Coastal Commission. Average turnaround for items at the Coastal Commission right now is in excess of a year. So we're talking, you know, 24 months before being fully complete, the hold up on the Climate Action Plan has nothing to do with sort of this topic of sea level rise. That has to do with the greenhouse gas reduction side and finding sufficient greenhouse gas reductions for the city within the city's existing fiscal and logistical constraints. So. I don't want to go too far astray and end up in brown at all. But we can, you know, provide you an update on the Climate Action Plan under a separate cover, but its completion is not imminent. Speaker 7: And I'll answer the Tidelands questions of all of our projects in the city, the ones that get the most scrutiny from a climate perspective and sea level rise perspective and all of those things are the projects in the coast that is pretty clear set out by the Coastal Commission. They expect that, they ask for that. We look at every single adaptation there and the main idea is retreat. So wherever you can, they're not looking to armor or prevent sea level rise. They're looking to basically get out of the way. And that's exactly what we're doing with this project. We have retreated completely out of the 2100 sea level rise projection, and we do that with just about every project along the coast. We look at climate impacts. Speaker 12: I can't believe for 24 months out of. Speaker 3: Having a cap. Speaker 12: We had a presentation like a year ago. I know this is not the agenda item, but I am just. Really surprised because I thought from my conversations with development services that we were looking at this early in this year. So I am I'm very surprised that we're two years out. Speaker 4: We and to clarify, we. Speaker 2: Do expect to have a TFP to you in the next 30 or so days. On the cap. Speaker 4: We are within a major milestone of, as I said, completing our local adoption over the next 12 months. But it does have to go to the Coastal Commission and to our great frustration. But nonetheless it's taking in excess of a year for the Coastal Commission to process our items. Speaker 12: It's heartbreaking. I feel like climate change, like we always say it should be, it is the ultimate crisis and yet it takes us so, so long to go through this process. So, I mean, there are some things that we can talk about at a later date that I want to tease out necessarily. But I'm very interested in looking at even proposed items in the coast that are geared towards protecting our environment and thinking about climate change and thinking about how we offset supporting the poor while being able to do that. Can we also really invest in some of these focus on climate change? Because we've done a lot on tourism already, I think all of the nodes. And so this is just a public way for us to start that conversation. I know that you guys mentioned it. The cost has come down. Any additional fundraising that is being looked at now that the cost is lower or. Speaker 7: Yes. So there are two main aspects that we'll be looking for for those funding. One, we do want to approach the Olympics Committee. We're a ways away from actually getting a commitment on Olympic diving to this point. All of the facilities that they've looked at, there really aren't any additional cost to the city. This would be one where we are creating a facility where one does not currently exist. So we think there's a good opportunity to talk to them about funding. We are also looking at doing some fundraising and some marketing and sponsorship. This is a big asset. It's going to be right in the Olympic area in 2028 and we believe there is some potential for some tasteful sponsorship of a naming rights for the facility, and then we would look at any other ways to close the gap. So it's a much more manageable gap to close than before. Speaker 0: So would you like to keep up again? Speaker 12: I just have one quick thing, but yeah, I can queue up again. That's fine. Speaker 0: Now you go ahead if you have one quick go ahead. Speaker 12: On the you mentioned naming rights. I just want to make sure that the staff brings forward a agenda item about how we do naming rights before we get to that point. Speaker 7: Yes, that would be for council approval. We did a exercise about a year and a half ago where we just understood the feasibility of it. Before anything really gets done, the council will have to adapt that and blessed. Speaker 0: I'm going to be nearing the. Speaker 2: I see nobody else queued up so I could to make it short because it is late, as you tell my wife, that if I get home after. After Colbert put the APB on me. Colbert belonged on finished of the standard. A review that we have here is the standard of review that we have for this project here. The standard of review that we had in 2017 with a whole lot different. And it was a different project. And at that time I brought that up. There were a lot of issues that were involved with that project at that time. So that we're right that we're right up here, that some changes have been made. We'll talk about heights and a few shades and and sea level rise was a big one. And then. And so the long story short, I didn't vote for that project. But we I said, anyway, it went forward to the Coastal Commission knowing that the Coastal Commission has a different standard of review. And that and that has been going on, I'm guessing, for the last two years, year and a half, where staff has been meeting with a close commission staff to talk about some of those concerns that were raised back in 2017. Height and sheds and sea level rise. So the project comes here. Now we have a different a different standard to review today. From my point of view, this area that we have here today is satisfactory. You addressed a lot of the issues that were brought up in 2017, which in my opinion is enough to move the project forward to the Coastal Commission. That having seen that, there's still going to be another standard of review again by the Coastal Commission, which is going to be, I think a little more. Scrutinize it a little harder. Going to be a little bit more. More. Critical as to what's going to be presented. And I think the challenge is that here the challenges with costs commission, I think you understand it and I think it's going to be also a challenge that the commission knows very well about sea level rise. You said a key word there, kind of a managed retreat there had to do managed retreat because they're already back. But that's another issue that the Coastal Commission is dealing with every month in terms of managed retreat. We had a whole workshop on a managed retreat and sea level rise where a lot of cities are not as positioned as we are, where they're really encountering some really serious erosion along the cliffs, in their bluffs to where there's there's going to be some serious decisions being made for them next 20 to 30 years. What are they going to do with those those homes where they can't retreat anymore? I mean, they're done that. What's what's going to happen? People who have made investments for their families and I mean a. Sure you say a house with a great view of the beach. But that's going to be gone within the next 20 or 30 years because of sea level rise. No rate is going faster than we thought we were thinking at first it was going to be about six feet. But by 2001. 100, but it's going to be actually looking. Projections are more like ten feet, which is going to be a massive impact not only for here for us, but around the world, obviously, and everywhere else . So what I want to do, what I want to basically push forward is that this is a different project now. The standard reviews is much different. The standard review that the Commission is going to look at is going to be different. I think that step has already been challenged with that. I know that you have been asked to provide additional information, some additional challenges being put forward to you to to meet so that when it comes to the commission or when it is adopted an agenda, it is pretty much the the plan that that you want to go forward with. I don't think this is the end of this discussion. I think there's going to be some war on on this project because obviously, I think there are still some some issues we need to take care of. We have to look at, and especially when we're talking about, you know, environmental justice issues with having access to the beach. We talked we had a big discussion earlier tonight about affordable accommodations and Sterling's short term rentals. So, I mean, it's all that it's all it's all related. It's all related. And we'll be dealing with those when they come to us. So I'm going to be supporting moving forward to the Coastal Commission because I think that the standard review there will be much more much more difficult. The reason, much more challenging. Speaker 0: I mean, thank you. See? No more comments from anyone. Please take the vote. Speaker 1: Ocean Cay.

Resolution

Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record, conclude the public hearing, and consider the third-party appeals by Jeff Miller (APL19-012), Melinda Cotton (APL19-013), Susan Miller (APL19-014), and James Hines (APL19-015), and uphold the Planning Commission’s recommendation; Adopt resolution accepting the Environmental Impact Report Addendum (EIRA-03-19) to the previously-certified Belmont Pool Revitalization Project (EIR 01-16/SCH#2013041063);

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_01142020_20-0043

Speaker 1: Thank you. Oh, Constable. Once we got there, sir. I need a goodbye. Good. Congressman Larson. Okay, fine. Any public comment on this item? I see that. Would you please cast your vote? Speaker 2: Motion carries. Speaker 1: Now we have our second public comment for those who have, and then we have anyone. Speaker 2: First public comment. Speaker 1: Or public comment. Anyone else? We do have anyone. Speaker 2: Brett Poole. Brett Le Poole. Speaker 1: Oh, fine. Brett, would you please come forward? Come to the podium so we can hear him. You have three strong minutes. Speaker 4: I don't mean 3 minutes. I find it very odd. I was working in Arizona for a number of months. I'm just back to Long Beach. I lived in Long Beach for 30 years. I come you move offices. I was looking for the code and for some people where I'd done some business before I left Long Beach. Go over there and they say, Hey, I got to come to 411 West Ocean Boulevard. I don't I didn't go to school in Long Beach. But I know that 411 West Ocean Boulevard should be east of 415 West Ocean Boulevard, which is what's out on Ocean Boulevard.

Resolution

Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record, adopt resolution authorizing the issuance by the Board of Harbor Commissioners, on behalf of the City of Long Beach, of Harbor Revenue Refunding Bonds Series 2020A and 2020B, in an aggregate principal amount not to exceed $175,000,000, and Harbor Revenue Short-Term Notes Series 2020C, in an aggregate principal amount not to exceed $145,000,000, secured and solely payable from Harbor Department revenues, and authorize the execution of all necessary documents. (Citywide)

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_01072020_19-1259

Speaker 1: Okay. Thank you. We do have some hearings and some items that are being moved up. So let me begin by. The first two hearings we're going to do tonight is hearing 16 and then 18. Both should be fairly short hearing. So let me start with item 16. And if we can begin that by having the clerk read the item. Speaker 0: Report from financial management to recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record, conclude the hearing and grant an entertainment permit with conditions on the application. Supply and demand at 2500 East Anaheim Street for Entertainment Without Dancing District four. Speaker 1: I. I'd like to introduce our acting assistant city manager, Rebecca Garner. Speaker 3: And we have Brett, the Yankees business services officer percent in the report. Speaker 0: So there is an oath required for this. If I could get all the witnesses to stand and raise your right hand, please. Do you and each of you 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 3: Good evening, honorable mayor and members of the city council. Speaker 2: Tonight you have before you an application for entertainment without dancing for Anaheim and Stanley LLC doing business of Supply and demand located at 2500 East Anaheim Street Opera operating as a bar tavern lounge. Speaker 3: In Council District for all the necessary. Speaker 2: Departments have reviewed the application and have provided their. Speaker 0: Recommended conditions as. Speaker 3: Contained in the hearing packet. Speaker 2: I, as well as the police department, stand ready to answer any questions. Speaker 3: Council may have. And that concludes staff's report. Speaker 1: Thank you. And before we get to the deliberation room, the council and Councilmember Supernova, we do have three members of the public that have signed up and they can say and control and Christiansen all three can please come forward to the mic at this time. Speaker 10: Uh. So I came for six. Speaker 11: Um, I've come. Thank you. I've come tonight in support of supply and demand as an establishment in business and on corridor. I think they provide a vital service, um, for this part of the fourth district, um, supernormal territory and the, the couple, Kevin and his wife, who run the business, they do a very exemplary job of providing the space for a lot of local artists and musicians to perform and the very diverse lineups that they have there throughout the week. And, uh, you know, I just come to support them. I think then where that is on and I'm in, uh, Stanley just down the street from one apparel, you know, it's a very sleepy area . And so by allowing them to, uh, you know, get this entertainment permit, it'll drive a lot more future foot traffic in that part of Vietnam. So I'm here to support. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you. Controversial opener. Speaker 8: Thank you, Mary Garcia. I would like to amend staff's recommendation to add tiered conditions identical in regulation to that of the downtown dining and entertainment district with Tier one restricting entertainment until 1 a.m. seven days a week, tier two until 11 p.m., seven days a week, and tier three until 10 p.m. seven days a week. Our office thinks the public speaker and we stand in support and ask for my council colleagues support. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you. With that, there's a motion and a second. We're going to close this hearing by taking a vote and I'll do the roll call, please. District one. Mr. to District three. I worked for my district. Five, six, seven, eight and nine.

Public Hearing

Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record, conclude the hearing and grant an Entertainment Permit with conditions on the application of Anaheim & Stanley, LLC, dba Supply & Demand, at 2500 East Anaheim Street, for Entertainment Without Dancing. (District 4)

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_01072020_20-0015

Speaker 1: Nine. It's all but six. Thank you. Motion case. We're now moving on to our third hearing, our final hearing of the evening, which is under seven hearings, 17 on the Studebaker Road. Speaker 0: Appeal Report from Development Services, recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record, conclude the public hearing and adopt a resolution approving and certifying mitigated negative declaration for the 300 Studebaker Road Industrial Park Project, making certain sequel findings and determinations relative there to adopting a mitigation monitoring and reporting program and deny the appeals and approve the site plan . Review for the demolition of existing structures and development of two concrete tilt up industrial buildings with surface parking, associated landscaping and offsite open space on a site located in the coastal zone at 300 Studebaker Road District three. Speaker 1: Thank you. First have a report from staff on this. Speaker 3: Linda Tatum, director of development services, will be presenting the report. We will have a brief staff presentation on this item from Marianne Cronin, the project planner. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor and honorable members of the City Council before you this evening as a request to receive documentation into the record, conclude the public hearing and consider appeals for a project. Locate at 300 Studebaker Road. The project is located at the intersection of Loynes Drive and Studebaker Road and encompasses approximately 6.69 acres of land on the east side of Studebaker Road and 1.81 acres of land on the northwest and south west corners of Studebaker, Road and Loynes Drive. The total project area is 8.5 acres. The project includes a proposal to construct two new concrete tilt up industrial buildings totaling 139,200 square feet of building area. With a 168 parking spaces. An additional 43 optional parking spaces are provided in the form of Grass Creek parking to allow a flexibility of uses which include light manufacturing, warehousing, assembly and distribution as long as with ancillary office uses. Both buildings are sited on the front of Studebaker Road with vehicular access and parking located between and at the rear of the two buildings. Vehicles will access the project site via a new 61 foot wide driveway that creates the fourth leg of the intersection, as well as the re-use of an existing driveway on the north side of the project site. In the seating area, there is a 30% onsite open space requirement. As part of this application of standards, various variances sought to provide offsite open space on the southwest and south southeast, the north west and southwest portions of the site that are called the western parcels that are shown in green on your slide. This land would be transferred from private ownership to a Joint Powers Authority, which is the Los Angeles Wetlands Authority or state or local government agency. And it would also be dedicated in perpetuity, as well as restored in accordance with the restoration plans for the wetlands area. Both buildings, as previously noted, are oriented to eliminate visibility of the loading docks from Studebaker Road. A bird safe window and glass treatments are also proposed and included as conditions of approval. As part of this application, a lot line adjustment would also be proposed. The lot line adjustment is shown on the screen, and it would move a vertical North-South oriented property line to the east side of Studebaker. Road to divide. Divide the two properties for subdivision purposes. This slide provides an overview of the previous project approval. On November seven, 2019, the Planning Commission conditionally approved the project with conditions of approval. On November 14, 2019. Two applications for appeal were received. The project appeal summaries include that additional environmental review and coastal impacts are required to be analyzed and an ER must be prepared. Staff has prepared responses to the appeal issues raised by the appellants are included in this appeal. Notes that the mitigated negative declaration was prepared in accordance with secure and that all environmental review was done satisfactory with legal requirements. The staff's response to the appeal are included with noted responses to each issue raised. As a result, the Planning Commission approval nor the project will result in an effect on the environment and the project is consistent with all required findings. This slide shows a summary of the required findings that have been made, and all required findings can be made in the affirmative. For the first findings, a site plan review. The project is consistent with the step development standards where the required local coastal development permit. The project is consistent with the local coastal program as well as CDP for the industrial development to the east side of Studebaker Road and the dedication of open space on the West Side of Studebaker Road would meet the intent of the LCP to preserve, restore and dedicate open space areas in the sub area. And finally, the standards variance would also provide the offsite open space that is necessary to meet the intent of the local coastal program, to have open space, usable and accessed access by the public. And the required findings for the lot line adjustment can also be made in the affirmative. Staff analyze the project in accordance with the required findings for the site plan, review local coastal development, permit standards, variance and lot line and adjustment entitlements and finds that positive findings can be made for each approval. The approval. The appeal materials provided by the appellants with the materials considered by the Planning Commission were also approved by the project. Therefore, STAC staff recommends the adoption of the resolution approving and certifying the mitigated negative declaration, the denial of the appeals, the upholding of the Planning Commission's recommendation, and the approval of all the requested entitlements. This concludes staff's presentation. Both the applicants and the appellants are present in the audience and available for questions. Speaker 1: Thank you very much. We're going to have the applicant and then the appellants come forward. Obviously, we allow a reasonable amount of time for any arguments unless there's any objection and they need more. I'm going to have the applicant go up to 5 minutes unless you need more and let me know. And then I'm going to give each of the appellants 5 minutes. We're okay with that. Any objection to that? There'll be a total of ten, then four, but each one gets five. And then the. I'm saying no. Is there a problem with that? Okay. I'm going to give I'm going to. Mr. City Attorney, I think a reasonable amount of time for each one. I'm going to go ahead and give up the 10 minutes and I'll go ahead and allow the the applicant up to 10 minutes. Of course, you don't have to use all 10 minutes, but it'll be up to 10 minutes. And we'll begin with the the applicant and we'll have the court put the time up and then we will begin. Thank you, everybody. I am going. Speaker 12: To be brief. I really just want to answer. Speaker 6: Any questions tonight. I think staff did a wonderful job of presenting the project. Speaker 12: I'd like to maybe use some of my unused time to. Speaker 1: Be able to answer questions. If that's okay and if there's questions from the council, I think they can they can ask that. So. Okay. If you'd like to. Anything else you'd like to say? Yeah, just that we. Speaker 6: Really. Speaker 12: Took a long time with this project to. Speaker 6: Make a concerted level. Speaker 12: Of outreach to the local community. We met with the Wetlands Authority. Speaker 6: The Wetlands Trust received support letters from them. I think they're in the audience tonight to show support and met with the University Park Estates homeowner group several times and implemented a lot of suggestions. And so I'm I'm very pleased that that we went through that process. And, you know, that's really all I have to say. Sir, before you leave the mike, could you please identify yourself? Yes, sir. Sorry about that. I'm Mark. Speaker 12: Payne with Panattoni. Speaker 6: Development Company. Speaker 1: Great. Thank you so much. And then we'll have McCann first citizens about responsible planning for a total of 10 minutes, however you'd like to present. And then the philosophy of the Wetlands Task Force for a total of 10 minutes where we would like to present. The clerk was set up the time. Speaker 4: I'm sorry. You said the Low Surveillance Wetlands Task Force. Speaker 1: That's what I have. I have to. Appellants. I have. I have. Speaker 4: The task. Speaker 3: Force. Speaker 1: Okay. All right. Well, that's what the notes say, but you'll I'll let you introduce yourselves as well to the opponents. So why don't we begin with with carp the citizens about responsible planning at 10 minutes? Please begin. Speaker 4: Good evening. And Cantrell. I'm speaking for citizens about responsible planning and the Sierra Club Most Serious Wetlands Task Force. Speaker 1: So let me clarify something, because I have Mr. City attorney, I have on here two separate appellants. One is the citizens about responsible planning, and the second is the Sierra Club and Lo Cerritos Wetlands Group. Speaker 6: So. We double checked the actual appeals. There is one internal appeal. Speaker 4: Letter, number one, and it indicates citizens about responsible planning as the organization. Speaker 6: With the appellants names and control Joe Weinstein. Speaker 12: And Corliss. Speaker 1: Lee. Correct. I have that one. Speaker 6: And. Speaker 4: Appeal. Number two. Speaker 6: Indicates. Speaker 4: Sierra Club lost this Wetlands Task Force. Speaker 1: That's why I have. Speaker 6: Issues with the appellant's name. Speaker 4: And. Speaker 6: Christiansen and. Speaker 4: Cantrell. Speaker 1: Is there any objection this control? I can combine it for a total of 20 minutes and you can divide that time up however you'd like among the five folks. Speaker 4: So I explain that I am also on the Sierra Club Task Force. It's not the Wetlands Land Trust. Speaker 1: Absolutely. So I'll give you a total of 20 minutes, up to 20 minutes for the two the two appellants. Speaker 4: I hope we can get that. Speaker 1: Okay. Thank you. Please go ahead and we'll put the time up. Thank you. Speaker 4: The project site is listed as being located at 300 Studebaker Road in Long Beach. This address is not correct. If you Google 300 Studebaker Road in Long Beach, you will see a photo of a lot at the corner of Studebaker Road and PCH next to the pumpkin patch. The correct address for this project is 300 North Studebaker Road eight is at the property. North of this address is 690 North Studebaker Road. So the north is recognized as being necessary as part of the address. As all of the documents pertaining to this project, including the mitigated net negative declaration referred to the wrong address, CARB and Sierra Club Lost Readers Wetlands Task Force request a postponement of tonight's hearing until this is corrected. And could I have a ruling by the city attorney as to whether this is relevant? Speaker 1: I think you need to continue with your presentation. Speaker 4: All right. If it's decided to hold the hearing in spite of the incorrect address, the following comments are from appellants Carp and the Sierra Club, Los Cerritos Wetlands Task Force as to why you should deny the Planning Commission's approval of this project. Attachment l in your packet contains the city's responses to our appeals, starting with number one. The 2006 Environmental Impact Report done for another project on this site was found inadequate by a court of law. This program negative declaration, which also includes standards variance, is even more inadequate. The city response is that the previous project is a different land use and project sites. Yes, we agree this is a different land use and size. All the more reason to do a full year. The previous project, our Home Depot, was retail. One of the main objections was the lights and noise of night delivery trucks. This project contains two warehouses light manufacturing facilities with 24 seven truck deliveries with the same or increased threat of lights and noise on the low cerritos wetlands just across Studebaker from the facility. In 2008, the court ruled the Home Depot Environmental Impact Report inadequate for a variety of issues, including biological impacts, wetlands, delineation, light noise, traffic and circulation and air quality. And this negative declaration is even more inadequate. One of the appellants in the 2007 lawsuit, ESL meters was concert bargaining. He was concerned about the possible requirement to build a 12 foot security wall between Home Depot and the power plant to reduce public safety and security impacts. This photo of the property from Loynes Drive shows the east plant immediately adjacent to the property. Also, it would seem the 24 hour truck traffic, which uses the same driveway as yes, might present a safety problem for a yes. Yet no security plans were included in this negative deck. Another issue not addressed by the negative deck is the disposable disposal of the tanks and the non-working oil pump currently on the property. The 2008 court order states, in part the city of Long Beach is ordered to fully comply with the requirement of California Environmental Quality Act by preparing a complete and comprehensive EIA for the project. Respondents and Real Property of Interest Studebaker, LLC, is restrained from any actions in furtherance of the project unless the air has been properly prepared , publicly circulated and approved in a manner required by law. I wonder how a judge would view this in adequate that negative declaration. This negative declaration uses both. See, sip and see dip in the zoning plan for the project. The current zoning plans see Dip and the local coastal plans state. The parcel on the southwest side of Studebaker is to be the site of an interpretive center and overlook for the wetlands. The other personnel on the northwest side of Studebaker is to be dedicated for park and play ground purposes. The negative, devastated uses for these parcels are not in conformance with see them and therefore cannot be approved. The city's response agreed that see that is the existing adopted plan and agrees that uses for the Southwest Parcel are an overlook and interpretive center. However, argues the interpretive center has been moved to an alternate location. This should not preclude sea depths. Planned use for the interprets d center at Moorings and Studebaker. Best practices would keep the Interim Lee Center out of the wetlands to reduce negative effects on the wildlife. Having this overlook and interpretive center on the edge of the wetlands should provide the public a view of the habitat without doing damage to habitat. The city's argument that the other parcel is not sized or suitable for a playground may be valid. But until the California Coastal Commission approves sea CIP, the city must abide by sea dip and the local coastal act. Reason three is the standards variance. The Planning Commission approved a portion of the required 30% on site open space to offsite vacant parcels located on the northwest and southwest corner of the intersection of Studebaker and Loynes. That's the green portion on the map. The land is to be transferred to other owners. The developer cannot use it as open space for his development if he no longer owns it. The city's response states. See, that requires 30% of the site to be developed in as open space. The project would provide a portion across the street, and this transference of privately owned land to the Joint Powers Authority would fulfill the remaining portion of the open, onsite open space requirement, while also furthering the goals and policies of sea DEP and the local coastal permit permit. We agree that c dip and LCP require the portions on the West Side to be preserved and restored as open space. We argue that this open space cannot be included in the required 30% open space on the development side of the east side of Studebaker. The city says that sea dip does not require open space to have public access and that transferring these parcels to the sea will preserve this land for public access. This sounds good, but currently there is no way to access this property. Both Loynes drive, as you see here, and Studebaker Road have no parking signs, no sidewalks, and the closest place to park is in College Park neighborhood. These parcels may be transferred to the public, but the public will only be allowed to pay for the cleanup and restoration with no access. Appeal. Number four, the applicants assert this is what we assert, that the current owners of the parcels should be required to clean up hazardous waste before the transfer of the property. The response by the city was prior to the transfer of the property to the CWA. The project applicant shall coordinate with all CWA regarding further hazardous materials investigations. Speaker 1: This is just a note that we're at 10 minutes to the courtesy. Thank you. Speaker 4: I still have many to go. Speaker 1: Just let me know that there's only a total of 10 minutes for both the appellants combined. So there's there's 10 minutes left, and. Speaker 4: I think I'm allowed to present all of our. Speaker 1: Actually, I. Speaker 6: Think that's. Speaker 1: Actually Ms.. Cantrell, according to the city attorney. It's a it's a reasonable amount of time, which we discussed earlier and agreed to be 10 minutes. And so that's for both combined of the appellants with a total of 20. So we're done. Speaker 4: Now. You've you've used some of my time. Speaker 1: Thank you. And I'll be happy to give it back to you. I'm waiting right at the end if you go over. Speaker 4: Our objections to this is the property owners should be responsible for the cleanup, not the taxpayers. Whether this property goes to al-Qaeda or some other government entity, the clean up of any hazardous waste will have to be paid for with tax dollars. Since both C, DEP and C CIB zone, these private parcels as public open space, the property owner is unable to use the property for anything else and is foisting the cleanup costs off on the taxpayers. In response to our comment that bird safe glazing should be applied to all glass components of the building. The city states that CDP doesn't include a requirement for bird safe building treatments. This is because in the 1980s there was little knowledge of the number of birds killed by glass or buildings. Speaker 1: So I'm going to just stop us right through such a the quick Ms.. Control. So you had 10 minutes? I said a total of 24. Both. So unless the other other folks in the group want to continue to give you more into their time, there is a total of eight, 8 minutes and 45 seconds left for total for the appellants. And so unless I hear from the other members of the group, including, I think Mr. Lee and Ms.. Christiansen, I don't know how they would like to proceed, but I want to make sure that the other appellants got the chance to say something. Speaker 4: I am responding to the response control. Speaker 1: I'm just following the rules laid out by the city attorney. So that's what I'm trying to do. Speaker 4: I. Speaker 1: So, Ms.. Control, give me 1/2. So, Ms.. Christiansen and Ms.. Lee, would you guys like to like to give. Can I. Yes, please. Come forward. Speaker 3: Off the clock. Speaker 1: Now you're on the clock. Please come forward. Speaker 4: No, I don't want to be on the clock. You asked if it was okay. I'm not on the clock. What I'm saying is that when we pay $125 each for an appeal we are given, we are allowed the time to fully present our arguments. It's not a time thing. Speaker 1: Actually, ma'am, I'm just I'm my job is to follow the rules set forward by the city attorney. So which is what I'm doing? All right. Thank you, Ms.. Christiansen. Speaker 4: Thank you. Speaker 1: Actually, Nancy, Miss Cantrell, Miss Cantrell, you actually can't do that. But this is a hearing, as you know, CMA Judicial. So please address me. And I will I will ask the question. Speaker 4: I will ask. Speaker 1: You. Actually, no, Ms.. Control, 1/2. And I want to make sure you. Speaker 4: Are not allowing me to speak. Speaker 1: Miss Cantrell, let me finish. So what I would like to do at this time, as we said at the start of the hearing, is a total of 20 minutes for the appellants. I just want to make sure that you know, that you have eight and a half minutes left. I'm going to allow you to continue and then I'm going to confer with the city attorney. But please continue. Speaker 4: In addressing the bird safe glass. It's only going to be on 65% of the buildings. We think that's inadequate. All of the glass should be bird safe. LSD and truck headlights will affect the animals and plants in the loss saarinen's wetlands across Studebaker from the 24 seven facility. The response to this concern states no new information was raised and that there is existing lighting on and around the project site. Speaker 1: So this control image goes for suppertime real quick. Then confer with the city attorney. As the rules are laid out by by the hearing, the total amount of time that you have for both appellants is 20 minutes. We are now down to seven. What's the time left? You have 8 minutes left. So unless I'm going to allow Mr. Christiansen to come forward now at this time, unless she wants to give up her time, there's only 7 minutes total left for the appellants. And this is being reiterated by our attorney per the rules. I'm just following the rules set out by the hearing. Speaker 4: We were not able to give all of our I'm sorry use in that control. Speaker 1: So and Richardson. Speaker 12: Would would record. Speaker 4: Well we can't go to the Coastal Commission unless we have given all of our issues. Thank you. Speaker 1: And I. I'm here, but I have. Speaker 4: All. Speaker 1: This control. Mr. Christiansen, please come forward now. Okay. You give your time. Speaker 4: I'll keep talking. And I would like to point to the record. Speaker 1: That's actually that you can't you can't speak from there. So the time just as clear the time will be up when it hits the end of the time. So. Ms.. Control continue. Mr.. Mr.. MAYES Do you want. Speaker 6: To add anything? I was just going to say. Speaker 4: Miss Cantrell, if you have written material that you want to submit to the clerk at the. Speaker 6: Conclusion of your presentation, you certainly can do that. And that would become part of the record as well. Speaker 1: So please continue. And just as as as as a note, time will be up when she's when when the time is up. Go ahead. Speaker 4: We quote the court's ruling on the Home Depot E.R. for the same location, night lighting and noise impacts. The nearby most serious wetlands were not analyzed. The city concluded the project would not have an effect on the wetlands from traffic, light and noises. The EIA simply states that without support, without support, these sources already exist and are not expected to increase substantially. No baseline study of lighting was done and noise measurements were taken during one late morning period. If this didn't pass and are the same. Excuse given for the negative deck is not going to pass the court's approval. We are also concerned about truck traffic on Lawrence Drive Condition 36 says the operator shall require driver education to require bound trucks to utilize designated truck routes and avoid the use of Loynes drive. There are no signs currently on Lawrence Drive going west from Studebaker and one sign going east saying no trucks over three tons. This special condition does not seat the size of trucks to be prohibited. We are also concerned about the runoff. And. The wildlife, and I'm going to stop now and not talk about these other things and let the Sierra Club address different items. Speaker 12: Thank you. Speaker 4: In representing Sierra Club's lo Cerritos Wetlands Task Force. Tonight, I speak for the oldest and largest grassroots organization in the United States, founded in 1892. In California today, the club in our state has almost half a million members. Nationally, over 1 million members. Grassroots means that task forces such as ours are led by volunteers who have the full backing of our Regional Angeles chapter and the national organization as well. I gave you this addendum to the appeal, and so I doubt that you'll be able to study it. I certainly do not have time. Thanks to our mayor's arbitrary decision. Speaker 1: Thanks to the rules laid out by the city. Speaker 4: Yes. Sorry. I'm taking my time now because that caused me to respond to you and I. And so I hope that you will peruse this. You know, I'd also like to say, although I have very little time, that we don't come here for these arguments, but we are constantly thrown off balance in engaging in these petty seconds and minutes. A million people stand before you through me, and they would appreciate having a few minutes of your time. Just just a note, sir, with all due respect, you know, to the law that you claim to be representing. So basically, when you when you look over this, we truly believe that there are state laws and processes that are that are out of order here. And and we hope that you care enough about sequel law and the Coastal Act to know these problems that adequate surveys, whether they're surveys of birds and wetlands, have not been done . And because of that, the analysis is flawed, that one of the things that really jumped out at me is and the irony too of it is that the that the part and parcel that is going to have the giant buildings on it is declared completely. Dead and dead in the water and can't possibly be restored, whereas the parcels that right across the street are going to be restored. And we're going to pay in case they have toxic residue on them, by the way. Now, just last year, the Los Cerritos Wetlands Authority and the city and associated agencies such as the. Coastal Conservancy and the Rivers and Mountains Conservancy made the decision and the Coastal Commission as well made the decision that 100 year old polluted, heavily polluted oilfield just down the street could be transformed into a healthy wetlands and would cause no problems when it when the then when it was mixed in when the worm came down and it became our precious last surviving ancient marsh. So if you if you truly believed when you voted for the Los Cerritos Wetlands Restoration and Oil Consolidation Project. All but Mary here missing is that that it is possible to restore a heavily polluted hundred year old oil field. Then have a little faith that a meadow which is currently supporting wildlife, which actually is a corridor, can be can be saved as well. And do not dismiss out of hand the idea that that this is just written off. And that's not the law. The law says that you have to consider the potential of a site to be a natural space. That's absolutely not done here. I think that's a really, really important point to note when we envision the future. What we do, we follow any old developer's vision or do we have a holistic vision as a community for our wetlands and wildlife? You know, we know we we know that projects are made and done by the communities where the community here, the ones that are here now. Want those wetlands restored. This project site could be part of that could be associated with it. A warehouse with 24 hour trucks is not is not going to cut it. In fact, it's going to hurt. It is going to hurt our existing wetlands as well. So I think that's a very important point. I honestly, you know, meant to just stand up. And the other point I would like to make is regarding the law and tribal cultural resources. Once again, our city claims that they have done their due diligence regarding tribal consultation. Unfortunately, they have not. There's two points to make. One. All members on the tribal consultation list of the Native American Heritage Commission were not contacted by the city. So that's a flaw in the report. The other fliers that the project proponent states that it contacted the Native American Heritage Commission and can confirm that this is not on their list of sacred sites. Absolutely false. The this this project is on the list of the Native American heritage. It's within the territory of a massive sacred site of Pere Burgman. So that's a. So you've got incorrect, insufficient, you know, information in this document. If you approve it, then you approve, you know, something that is not true. And therefore, you know, it does not, you know, do service to your to your responsibilities. I would say in it. And the last thing is that in so doing, if you approve this document tonight, you will abuse your discretion. Let me read what that means. Speaker 1: I won't let you go. I'm not going to let you go. Another about 20 seconds, because I didn't see something up here. Speaker 4: Okay. Missing and abuse of discretion. Missing and inaccurate information. Leads to false conclusions invalidating this project's proposal 21168.5 of secure quote abuse of discretion is established if the agency has not proceeded in a manner required by law, or if the determination or decision is not supported by substantial evidence. An agency fails to proceed, quote, in a manner required by law when it fails to comply with the information and procedural requirements of sequence, a present prejudicial abuse of discretion occurs. If the failure to include relevant information precludes informed decision making and inform public parties, thank you very much, thereby just finishing the sentence, thereby thwarting the statutory goals of the ER process. Why do we. Speaker 1: Thank you very much. That concludes the appellant's thank. Appreciate that. Now we're going to move on to additional public comment for the hearing. If I read your name, please come forward to the mic right now at this time. Tommy Privé House, Van Light and House of Bud Light. I'm sorry if I mispronounce it. I believe it's a Sally G. John Freese and Dave Sekula. Those folks. And please come forward. Speaker 12: Mayor Garcia and fellow councilmen councilmembers. My name is Tom Evolv. I represent IBEW Electrical Workers Local 11 and we're here in support of the of the project that independent Tony Development is proposing tonight. And we urge the council to deny the appeal so we can move this good project forward. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you. Next speaker, please. Speaker 3: Good evening, council members. My name is Sally G and I'm here to represent the lawsuit as Wetlands Authority on behalf of our executive officer, Mark Sandy, who couldn't be here tonight. The loss of Rita's Wetlands Authority are CWA and supportive of the Studebaker Industrial Park Project. We're in partnership with partner Tony, in which we're supportive of the transfer of open space, where there's an opportunity that there's a chance of open space to restore new wetlands in the lawsuit as wetlands into perpetuity for the public benefit. The CWA was established in 2006 with the mission to protect the lawsuit as wetlands and to create new opportunities for public recreation. As part of our mission, we have worked with private landowners in the area to acquire properties for restoration, and today we have acquired around 170 acres of the 500 acre lost wetlands complex. And additionally, we will be working with Tony to ensure that the restoration of the Western parcels will be consistent with our restoration plans in the area. Our CWA is currently developing a programmatic air for restoration and public access of the entire 500 Los Alamitos Wetlands complex, with various project phases to be achieved over time. And we expect to release our draft air in the coming months for public review. The Cedar Baker Industrial Park Project will support these goals to restore our wetlands and to replace them into public lands so that they may be preserved into perpetuity. Our CWA is confident that our partnership with Panattoni will aid in the development of a great project and we thank you for your support. Speaker 1: Thank you. Next speaker, please. Is it is husband like to hear. Speaker 12: Horns on finance? Speaker 13: No, that's my writing, not your reading. I trust me. Hands, man. Light. I'm actually with the law firm of Routan and Tucker and I'm the attorney for Pennington Development. And you'll find it in your packet somewhere. A letter of the date of January 3rd, responding to the comments of the applicants point by point, which is really the , to a great degree, restates the analysis that staff provided previously to you looking at it. But we wanted to emphasize the fact that the issues that were raised had been previously addressed. A couple of things that were said tonight. I just want to make sure we're clear on number one. The fact that there was another project at another time with another analysis is is legally and factually irrelevant to this proceeding. The issue before you is the adequacy of the initial study and mitigated negative declaration that is before you, which so far no factual or legal error has been pointed out. And that's the conclusion of your staff. And quite frankly, it's our conclusion as well. In addition, there have been comments about some other topics, a number of which you're not really seeking issues, their comments about the desirability of the project. And and quite frankly, you know, that is a question which is entrusted to the judgment of the council based upon all the information that's been provided to you. We fully support the Planning Commission's decision, obviously, and we support the staff's recommendation. And with Mr. Payne here, we are here to answer any additional questions. But we see no evidence in this record of any environmental impact which was not analyzed and demonstrated to be less than significant. Speaker 1: Thank you. At Chantry Space. Speaker 12: Good evening, council members. My name is John Freeze. I'm the president of the Low John's Wetlands Land Trust. The purpose of the Land Trust is to support the protection and improvement of the low Sabrina's wetlands, to move as much of the property of the wetlands into public ownership as possible. We have worked at this job for many years and a substantial portion of the wetlands is now in public ownership of one type or another. This project is a small industrial park, much different from the previous Home Depot proposal that we fought against and sued over. And the. In a more perfect world than this one, we might like to see something else done with this property. But the Land Trust recognizes public, private, private property rights. And the owner of the property has a right to. His property and to develop the property. The development he has proposed is consistent with the zoning of the property and he has the developer has further agree to implement a number of protections for the wetlands bird safe lighting, sheltering trees to protect the wetlands as much as possible from truck lights. A native plant palette on the green area and directing traffic north on Studebaker to avoid as much impact as possible on the wetlands. We believe the developer has done a good deal to meet his obligations and to protect the wetlands and the Lowes. Rita's Wetlands Land Trust supports the project and urges you to vote to allow the project and for the recommendation. I thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you. Finally discover. Speaker 12: They've Shukla Shukla, a very old Brahmin. They get her out pretty quick. My parents bedroom window is across the street from where this this project will be located. It's all but a foregone conclusion at this point. I respectfully request that you work with the developer and specifically my councilwoman, Suzy Pryce, if she's still listening. Stipulate that to the degree that the tenants can be screened and the tenants can be kept from running their trucks between 10 p.m. and 6 p.m.. There's a lot of old elderly people who live adjacent to Studebaker, and I don't think a single one of them knows that it's a potential outcome of tonight's hearing that there could be 18 wheelers running up and down that road at all hours of the night. Beyond that, I'd just like to say, for the sake of posterity, that once we have a climate plan, once we take seriously the amount of carbon load and pollution load that we as a city are adding and shifting off onto our citizens, a project like this will be a thing of the past. That day is coming. This is one of the last dinosaur type projects. And, you know, there's there's nothing to entice the city more than than the prospect of land, especially land for a project like the wetlands. Nonetheless, if for any reason there's an earthquake, there's a spill from a truck, there's, God forbid, the wrong thing stored in one of these warehouses. Every single one of the environmental benefits. Every single one of the perceived benefits of this project will be negated and we won't be able to say we didn't know. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you. That concludes public comment. We're going to go to Councilmember Price. So, Councilman, the motion there is a motion that's been made by Councilwoman Price, and I want to go and turn to her. Speaker 5: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And Mr. Shukla. Yes, I am still listening. So thank you for your comment. I want to thank the speakers who spoke on behalf of this item tonight. Of course, as well as the staff and the Planning Commission for their work on this project and getting us to this point. I want to start first with the comments of the appellant. I want to thank them for speaking and voicing their concerns on this this afternoon. This evening, as always, I find Ms.. Cantrell and Ms.. Christian comments to be enlightening. Having said that, I would like to turn it over to staff and our city attorney to ask, were there any points that were raised by the appellants this evening that caused our city staff, our city attorney, to have the difference of opinion with the recommendation that was brought before the comments made by the appellant? Speaker 11: Council member from the staff table, Christopher Coons. We heard this evening many points that have been made previously in writing and orally by the appellants, and no new information that would change staff's determination or our recommendation. And we'd be glad to answer any specific questions you or other members of the council may have. But we did not hear anything today that would change the factual basis for this project. Speaker 5: Okay. And I'm assuming that remains the same for our city attorney, Mr. Mays, is that correct? Speaker 6: That's correct, Councilmember. Speaker 5: Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that. I do want to make sure that that I feel that we're on solid legal ground, of course, before moving forward on this. So having heard from the city attorney and staff, I want to weigh in a little bit on on some of the comments and specifically on this project. You know, I think it's really important to note that there's been a lot of speculation about what this project is going to be. In fact, Mr. Fuqua and his comments tonight referred to, quote, this type of projects. And the reality is that this project, we don't know who the tenants are. So we don't exactly know what, quote, type of project this is going to be a similar facility that this developer has. And within the region, for example, is a facility where they sought uniforms. So we're not exactly sure what type of project it's going to be other than it's zoned for light industrial use and that the developer has the right to develop it as such. And so we are mindful that certainly there are many projects in private properties throughout the city that we would love to see be turned into a park, be turned into additional wetlands, be turned into a lake. But the reality is, when we're dealing with a private property, we have to work with the developers to make sure that their rights are not infringed upon at the will of the city. And so I want to thank the developer and this particular project, because they engaged with the city early. We talked with them, gosh, probably more than a year ago that I first met the developer and we talked about bird safe glass that that be something that the included incorporated into this project that traffic mitigation be something that's included in this project. And so I am going to be supporting this project with the inclusion of two additional conditions based on the type of building and the type of business that would be operated here. I think it's the right type of development that takes into account the community and the sensitivity of the surrounding properties. On this development, as I've already mentioned, will be considered a light industrial use. We expect that most all operations I believe all operations will occur indoors. For some reason, there's a lot of speculation and untrue rumors out there about this being some sort of a truck parking or truck facility. That is absolutely not true. There will be deliveries to the site, I'm sure, as with any other office complex or industrial complex. But truck operation is primarily a daytime activity. Trucks would not be allowed access on long drive. I understand that we're going to be reconfiguring the Studebaker and Moines intersection. So a southbound left turn lane on Studebaker Road will be added to allow direct access to the site, along with a signal modification which we need. The inside eastbound right turn lane on both ends would also be converted to an eastbound thru lane for vehicles entering the project site from Moines. Additionally, the development will provide further community benefits, including and as chair of the Restoration of Wetlands Authority. In the passing of the current vice chair, almost two acres is actually 1.8. One acres of land will be donated to the restoration of wetlands authority for preservation and restoration of wetlands purposes. I understand the points that were made about access and parking, but the reality is we're taking private property and putting it into public hands in perpetuity in connection with and in support of our wetlands restoration project. So I want to thank Councilman Randa who sits on CWA with me because that is one of the primary goals for our CWA is to take private property and put it in the public hands so that it cannot be built upon in the future. And to me, that is the major public benefit that's coming from this, the developmental function of the visual screen to the large ADF industrial plants that will be situated immediately behind it. It will be more attractive and less industrial looking in terms of the building sites and the view that claim by drivers and residents, it will block the stacks and the storage tanks that are currently visible from wind and Studebaker. This developer has thus far been a great partner and engaged in the community early to seek input and ensure that they're building a positive relationship in the city. With that, the additional conditions that I would like to ask and I ask my colleagues to support are as follows. Condition number one Within six months of full occupancy and operation of the facility, the operator shall return to the Planning Commission for a general overview of the project, including, but not limited to occupancy information, collaborative efforts with the city and CWA on the property surrounding the facility and a review of code violations of any FAA facility. In the event of any violation, staff shall compile factual information to present to the Planning Commission regarding the violations, including, but not limited to police and fire calls for service and consult with CWA and the low street US wetlands land trust regarding biological issues caused by noncompliance with sea, sap or sea that adjacent to the site. The Planning Commission may direct staff to pursue code enforcement proceedings pursuant to Long Beach Municipal Code Section 1.32.040 to address any code violation activity arising from operations at this facility. Again, it's unlikely that such violations will occur. I am hopeful that they will not, but that conditions should be in place in the event that they do. Condition number two it is envision that operators of this facility will follow performance standards for daytime and nighttime operation consistent with the Long Beach Municipal Code and in due consideration to the surrounding community and wildlife. Any violations of the standards shall be handled pursuant to Long Beach Municipal Code Section 1.32.00 to address any code violation activity arising from operations at the facility. Additionally, information regarding nighttime operations shall be included in the six months report back to Planning Commission. So with that, I ask my colleagues support for this project, and I thank you for allowing me to share my thoughts. Speaker 1: Thank you. And there is a motion and a second to receive the supporting documentation and to deny the appeal. Councilman Austin. Councilmember Pierce. Speaker 2: Thank you. I want to thank everybody that came out and spoke today. This development is not in my district and I have not had any significant meetings in regards to this topic. But I did just want to ask a couple of questions and I want to thank Councilmember Price for your addition to this. I think having it come back in six months is a is a great opportunity for community members. Could staff just recap for us? I know that Councilmember Price asked the question about any red flags that made you change your mind. But if you could just recap quickly for us how the trucks will be mitigated knowing that it's light industrial, there will be trucks in and out, even though it might primarily be during the day. I believe there might have been some changes to the original plan. If you can share that with us, I'd appreciate it. Speaker 11: Sure. So this project does include we did a traffic study that assumes a certain number of truck trips. So there was a reference to very large trucks. There may be some number of large trucks, but with a facility of this type, what you're more likely to see is a 20 foot truck or more what you see in your neighborhood with sort of a UPS, FedEx kind of oversize fan. You'd have a big truck come in and then you have smaller vehicles kind of going out throughout the day. But we did a traffic study and in determining whether there is an impact, there's a numerical standard, you know, is there more than 50 peak hour and does an intersection fail to perform? So none of those triggers were hit in this case. But nonetheless, out of an abundance of caution, it's the lines restriction that's placed on trucks because that is more of a neighborhood street and less appropriate for truck traffic. So the operator, the future tenant, will use whatever technology they choose to avail themselves of. But there was some reference in the testimony about there aren't sufficient signs or there aren't sufficient controls. I think all of us on the staff table know from our own pool vehicle system here, when you're an employer and you have an employee driving those vehicles, the employer knows everywhere that vehicle goes how fast it goes when it was there. If people are braking appropriately or if they're driving too fast, there's enormous amounts of information and then corrective action can be taken so that there is a condition about not having trucks on lines and doing that through driver education. And that's what that was referring to. And then Councilmember Price introduced the condition to provide further clarification that this is primarily a day time facility. Again, we don't know the tenant, but what we see in other locations is not really nighttime operations. But you may have some employees come in very early in the morning and you and I may think of that as nighttime, but they think of that as the beginning of their day at four or 5 a.m.. But the bulk of the operations are during your sort of mart typical 9 to 5. Does that answer your question? Speaker 2: It does. It does. And I think I had heard that the developer was was open to some of those conversations and making sure the signage and education was a part of it. And so I want to make sure that that was clear for those members of the audience that might not be as fully tuned in. And then the two other questions. I know that any time we have developments around the Las Vegas wetlands area, you know, there's a divide between what we would like over there. I've had the pleasure of taking an extensive, like, half day tour, and I just think it's wonderful that we are still preserving part of that and opening it up and creating access and knowing that we're still protecting our wildlife as much as we can, given that this is a private development. My last question comes to the cleanup, and just if you could clarify for us a comment around what type of cleanup they might have been referencing and who's responsible for that. Speaker 11: So the agreement between CWA and the current property owner requires that the property be handed over in a condition that's acceptable to CWA that would facilitate public access and habitat value. So there is past industrial use on both parcels, the donation parcel and the parcel where the light industrial building is going. The bulk of the known contamination is actually on the parcel where the development is to occur. Because sometimes you don't know until you get in the soil, it is possible that there is contamination on the wetland parcel as no buildings will be constructed there. What will occur is a limited amount of testing to determine and then not the city but the wildlife authorities. So that would be I'll CWA in consultation with State and Federal Fish and Wildlife will have to make a determination of whether it's acceptable to clean it up or sometimes it's a better course of action if it's a light amount of contamination to leave it, because removing the soil means disturbing the plant life above the soil. So that process will occur prior to the conveyance from the current property owner to all CWA. And they'll have to meet the standards not only of the city but of the wildlife agencies that have purview over that topic. Speaker 1: Thank you very much. So a customer appears for a good OC Councilor Murang'a. Speaker 12: Thank you. And I want to thank the individuals who did step up to express their concerns over this project, as it was mentioned by Councilwoman Pierce Price. I sit with her on on the LCD way, and we did listen to all the arguments at that point in terms of what was going on with that property. Anytime you have a property owner, be able to convey parts of their property to public lands. I mean, I think is exceptional and rare. So I want to also thank the developer for offering those two parcels of land to become public, to become open, to become part of what already exists there, which is the wetlands that the lesser those wetlands of. Opportunities there if they could find another way of saying it. But anyway, so that was a unanimous decision that the authority took, and I would respectfully request that my colleagues here also voted unanimously to accept it. Speaker 1: You think there's emotion and a second to receive the documentation and deny the appeal by Councilman Price. So I'm going to go to a roll call vote on this. District one. Speaker 3: Hi. Speaker 1: Mr. two District 3i4, five, six, seven, eight, nine. Motion carries and the appeal is denied. Thank you very much for that. That concludes all three hearings. We are now going to move. I said we would get as close to 630 as possible on item 22.

Resolution

Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record, conclude the public hearing, and adopt resolution approving and certifying Mitigated Negative Declaration (ND13-19) for the 300 Studebaker Road Industrial Park Project, consisting of the demolition of existing structures and development of two concrete tilt-up industrial buildings, in accordance with the provisions of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and State and local guidelines; making certain CEQA Findings and Determinations relative thereto; and adopting a Mitigation Monitoring and Reporting Program in accordance with those measures set forth in ND13-19; and Deny the appeals by Ann Cantrell, Joe Weinstein and Corliss Lee (Citizens About Responsible Planning) (APL19-009) and Anna Christensen and Ann Cantrell (Sierra Club Los Cerritos Wetlands Task Force) (APL19-010); and approve a Site Plan Review (SPR18-056), Local Coastal Development Permit (LCDP18-034), Standards Variance (SV18-004), and Lot Line Adjustment (LLA18-002) for the demolition of existing structures and development of two concrete

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_01072020_20-0017

Speaker 1: Mr. two District 3i4, five, six, seven, eight, nine. Motion carries and the appeal is denied. Thank you very much for that. That concludes all three hearings. We are now going to move. I said we would get as close to 630 as possible on item 22. We still have two items in between them. I do these very, very quickly. I mean, item 20, Madam Clerk, if you could please read. Speaker 0: Communication for Mayor Garcia Recommendation to request City Manager to conduct a feasibility study on public banking in Long Beach City Wide. Speaker 1: Thank you. I'm just. Just just to be brief. Earlier this last year, the California state legislature passed Assembly Bill 857, which is the Public Banking Act. It was signed by Governor Gavin Newsom and included support from both State Senator Lena Gonzalez and Assembly member Patrick O'Donnell. That information is attached to the item and the bill, which really began as a grassroots effort by numerous community members and advocates and activists across the state. It would encourage and provide a road map for cities to study and then possibly implement a public banking system in the state of California. For those that are been involved in these conversations, public banking is something that has been extensively studied. It exists in other other places across the country, but is not active here in California. And many other municipalities and states are looking at this as a way of allowing folks to reinvest their hard earned dollars back into a public system versus into a system that is really set up to make profit for a bank or a financial system. The legislature, the legislature's intent is to which is to strengthen local economies and allow cities, municipalities, counties in the state to pump funds directly back into cities. Clearly, there are a lot of questions as it relates to public banking. The way it would work, the way cities would set up these these institutions, whether or not there would be county partnerships and how involved the state will be in this process. What the what the state legislature laid out in in the bill is that for cities to participate, they essentially have to go through a very stringent and extensive review process that includes a feasibility study and working with the state to see if it's even possible within their community. Some municipalities have already engaged in this work in the state of California. The state is own is also only providing a limited number of these kind of feasibility licenses annually. And so for Long Beach, it's an opportunity for us to begin our own study like it's happening in many cities in the state. And so we can get the information back and learn more about public banking and if it would be a fit for us as a community. Separate of that. I just personally want to say that I find public banking and the idea of public banking to be one of the great new innovations and probably one of the most innovative initiatives that municipalities and states can embark on in the future. When you think about some of the great public goods of of our country, whether it's public education, public transit, public libraries, these are systems that are set up for the public good. They're not set up to make a profit. And if there's any opportunity for us to reinvest people's hard earned labor in dollars back into a municipal or public financing system, that could have an impact not just on this community but across the country that in my in my opinion, could substantially change the way people invest their dollars back into their neighborhoods. So I'm very supportive of public thinking as an innovative idea for governments. I want to think this this isn't, you know, my proposal. This is something that's been developed by the community, by by activists up and down the state. They lobbied at the state legislature and got this done. And so I'm very happy to support that. There is a motion and a second on the floor before I go to them. I want to just do the public comment on this item. And so I have three members of five members of the public that are here. Please come forward as I call your name. Cicero. Medeiros, Snake can fee is Miss Cantrell and is Christiansen going to speak to this note? And Peter MATTHEWS, please come forward. Speaker 12: Cesar Mendez. Welcome. And I'm the chair of our revolution, Long Beach, and I live in the third district. zipCode 90804. Today we take the first step in the process of creating our Long Beach Public Bank. I want to thank me, Robert Garcia, for putting this item on the agenda and for recommending that the city manager conduct a feasibility study on public banking in Long Beach. Over the past few years, activists across the country have been working through the state and city legislatures to establish local public banks. We're talking about Maine, Hawaii, Washington, Alaska, Arizona, Florida, New York, Illinois, D.C., New Jersey, New Mexico, Michigan and California. Blue and red states. There is a national movement of people wanting to take back our power from Wall Street and make our dollars work for our local economy. Cities across the country, including Long Beach, pay millions of dollars in fees, fines and interest rates to traditional private financial institutions who hold our money. Why don't we create our own public bank owned by us? The Long Beach residents in keep our tax money here in Long Beach to rebuild our infrastructure, fill in potholes, keep our libraries open and build affordable housing. Our Long Beach Public Bank can extend credit to our own city at a low interest rate. And when we pay back the bank, whatever profits the public bank makes, it is then reinvested back into the community. This is because, unlike private institutions, a public bank measured its returns and investments not only by profits, but also by its success in supporting our local community. A Long Beach Public Bank will partner with other local banks and nonprofit credit institutions to extend credit to our communities and expand services to the underbanked. It would enhance local bank and credit union activities, increasing lending capital for local businesses. A public bank would promote a transparent, independent and publicly governed finance system that is accountable to Long Beach residents. Unlike the private banks that crashed in 2008, a local be a Long Beach public bank will provide strong protections against insolvency of large banks in periods of economic duress. For me, most importantly, a public bank would create a stable means to divest public funds, our money and investments from banking organizations and industries that may not align with the values of our community. So, for example, a public bank will help us divest from the private banks who are using our city's money to invest in fossil fuel companies and projects that are destroying our climate, our planet, and my kids future. For these reasons, we urge you to support the recommendation to have the city manager conduct a feasibility study on public banking in Long Beach. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you. Next speaker. Speaker 12: Please. Speaker 1: Sunday, January. Speaker 11: He's a good guy. We were saying. My name is. And I can feel. Born and raised in the sixth district. Born there because of, ironically enough, things like private banks and their hold on the community. I say that because, you know, there was an error, uh, where legally banks could, uh, practice a, uh, nationwide policy known as redlining. And so because of such things as that banks wouldn't give loans to returning guys like my great grandfather would fight for, you know, to save the world from oppression and fascism, only to come back and, you know, be forced to live in certain areas due to the not just due to the federal government's, you know, loans and who they giving them to, but also to who banks decide where you can live it. And so here I am. That being said, I'm in support of a public bank because, you know, it's imperative to us that we stop can we stop continuing to support and give our money to private banks who have done nothing but time and time? Excuse me. Excuse me. We have done nothing but time and time continue to, uh, you know, support the idea that they can discriminate against us. We have Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Chase not just being, uh, recipients of. Of the slave trade, but also have been sued multiple times by the federal government for predatory lending and lending discrimination. Just recently, a year ago, Wells Fargo was fined over $300 million by the federal. Excuse me, sorry. Speaker 1: I can't hear it from here, but there's conversations going on out there. Please allow the speaker to speak. Thank you. Actually. Please allow the speaker to speak. Thank you. Speaker 11: As I was saying, the federal government, they just sued Wells Fargo not just a year ago for discriminatory lending, discrimination towards black and Latino potential black and Latino homeowners in the in the city of Sacramento who were not only denied loans, but also were found to give continue to begin higher interest rates for the loans that they were given at a frequency of 2.8 times the average white loan applicant. So why are we going to continue as a city to allow these people to bank in our city? I'm completely in support of the public bank. One aside that I would like to see in the study would be that, you know, if you look at low income areas in the city, if we can push for more branches in these areas in the sixth District, there's no credit unions that exist in the sixth District, no branches there. And the only branches that do exist are the bigger private banks, which have, you know, limits that most people in these areas can't even afford. A $3,000 membership rate is something that's not feasible for a lot of these people. So if that could be also included. Appreciate it. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you very much. That concludes Peter Mathews here. Peter, Matt, is Peter Mathews here? No. Okay. So I'm going to go ahead then and go to the council. Councilman Richardson. Country councilman's in Vegas. Anything? Speaker 3: Yes. I just want to say that I'm excited to see the results of this study. I think this is a right step in the right direction. Speaker 1: Thank you. And Consumer Reports. Speaker 2: Strong support of this item. I did have a question on timing because I know when we talked, there's kind of a cursor, a very quick kind of glance at what needs to happen. Speaker 1: Mr. Marika? Speaker 14: Yes. So I don't have a timeline yet. I think we're. This is a brand new concept. This is something that is just getting going. We see this as a high level feasibility scan. So we understand the item. It's to understand what other what the law is, how it works, what other cities are doing, and then bring that back. I'm hoping it's not going to take too long. Maybe 90 days, 120 days. We'll give you an update on where we are, if it's going to really get into that high level feasibility or that deeper feasibility, that's where we're going to need, you know, much more resources. So this is a high level scan to begin with. Speaker 2: Wonderful. Speaker 1: Thank you. And just to be clear, though, it's going to be a study to meet the requirements laid out in the in the legislation. I just want to make sure that's very clear. Okay. And then with that and I. Speaker 14: Clarify that, sir. So does that mean that we're moving forward and doing public banking in the law? Speaker 1: That's that's not that's not the legislation requires a feasibility study that would then come back to the council. And so we want to make sure that as part of the study process and I understand that there will be check ins. And if we need to spend additional resources to do the study that does come back to the council. I understand the way that works, but just the motion itself is to conduct the feasibility study as laid out in the legislation. There's a motion and a second. Please cast your votes. District one. District two. District three. Speaker 5: Yes. Speaker 1: District four I. District five I. District six. District seven. Speaker 12: I. Speaker 1: District eight. District nine. Great motion carries. And then I know we're going to quickly do item 2001 and then we're going to go to item 22. We're almost there.

Agenda Item

Recommendation to request City Manager conduct a feasibility study on Public Banking in Long Beach. This study should explore a possible partnership with the County of Los Angeles as they consider a regional public banking program. (Citywide)

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_01072020_20-0018

Speaker 1: District eight. District nine. Great motion carries. And then I know we're going to quickly do item 2001 and then we're going to go to item 22. We're almost there. Speaker 0: Communication for Mayor Garcia, Councilwoman Mongo recommendation to adopt a resolution amending the fiscal year 2020 salary resolution to revise the salary range for the members of boards and commissions eligible for compensation. And request City Attorney to work with City Manager to prepare the necessary documents to provide compensation for the members of boards and commissions currently prohibited from receiving compensation in return to the City Council within 90 to 120 days for approval citywide. Speaker 1: You know, we've had extensive discussions on this and I know been a lot of staff, staff members, so I'm not going to get into a lot of it. I just want to thank the BRC for addressing this issue. On a few occasions I've been working with Councilwoman Mongo on this item. The only thing I'll add one is I just want to add to the motion that I included inclusive of the work that the city attorney has to do to come back. That will come back to the council. Just want to make sure that also is inclusive of the civil service commissions, a different hearing structure. So as the as a motion and the staff recommendation lay out civil service because they have so many hearings, they would they would hit their cap midway through the year. So I just want to make sure that we just look at that so we can have that discussion on civil service when we come back. And then the last thing I'll say is the one thing. This hasn't been reviewed for 20 years by the city. And the one thing I think is important and that I am glad about is I think that every person on a commission, regardless of the commission, should it be thanked and compensated for their labor and their work. And so I think this is important and it's something that I'm glad that we're finally doing. And so with that Councilman Mongo and you won't want to Miss Cantrell want to speak to this or Misconstruction, Miss Lee? Nope. They'll say, I think it says here. No. Okay. Councilman Mongo. Anything? Vice Mayor. Please cast your votes. I'll do the roll call. District one. Speaker 3: I. Speaker 1: I'm sorry. There the comment. I'm sorry about that. Councilmember Austin. Speaker 9: Mr. Mayor. Oh, so I've I've served as a commissioner, and I really do appreciate the work that those who who step up to do to help our city do on behalf of our city. There's a lot of important advisory roles that are that are played in our commission by our commissioners. But to me, I think it's. It's a little bit of a stretch to go beyond our charter commissions to to look for compensation. And so, with that said, I'd be happy if you entertain an option to to compensate only charter commissions at this time and then possibly look beyond that. I know we are facing some very tough budget times coming up. Forecast for next year. We had a presentation just a couple of weeks ago and for me, I'm just not too comfortable, you know, with Christmas in January right now. Speaker 1: I appreciate that, Mr. Councilman, but I just want to I think that all commissioners, regardless of the commission they serve, I should be compensated. And I respect that position. But I'm just going to have the motion to take the vote. And if you have to. Speaker 9: Vote accordingly, thank you. Speaker 1: You know, they want to support it or support it. I get that district one, I, district two, District three. Speaker 5: I. Speaker 1: District four I, district five I, District six, District seven, District eight. Ney and District nine. Thank you very much. Motion carries. And then with that, we will move to item 22.

Resolution

Recommendation to adopt resolution amending the Fiscal Year 2020 Salary Resolution to revise the salary range for the Members of Boards and Commissions eligible for compensation as provided in Option 2 of the City staff report dated November 8, 2019 to the City Council; and Request City Attorney to work with City Manager to prepare the necessary documents, including any Ordinances and Resolutions, to provide compensation for the Members of Boards and Commissions currently prohibited from receiving compensation, and return to the City Council within 90 - 120 days for approval. (Citywide)

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_01072020_20-0019

Speaker 1: District four I, district five I, District six, District seven, District eight. Ney and District nine. Thank you very much. Motion carries. And then with that, we will move to item 22. Speaker 0: Communication from Councilmember Richardson. Councilwoman Zendaya's recommendation to direct city attorney to prepare a resolution for the November 3rd, 2020 ballot for voters to consider a 298 million housing bond at $25 per 100,000 assessed valuation for the creation of affordable housing in Long Beach and Direct City Manager to prepare a report on affordable housing needs in Long Beach and report back to the City Council within 90 days. Speaker 1: Thank you. This is an agenda item from Councilman Richardson as the lead author. So I'm going to turn this over to him for the presentation. Speaker 15: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Happy New Year to everyone. And I think it's appropriate that we start the year off right by taking an opportunity to weigh in on one of the biggest issues impacting our city and our region. Housing and the homelessness crisis. Is this easy? Thank you. Thank you. We are on a limit here with our presentation is easy. No, it is not. Housing has never come without its own controversy when we discuss this topic. If you think of almost anything related to housing and that's okay, I think the proposal here that we're going to discuss tonight takes a lot of that into account. My hope is that the presentation will provide context and clearly outline a proposal to identify a revenue source to both support the production of affordable housing, housing it's affordable and to expand our capacity to address homelessness in our city. Tonight's proposal is a culmination of nearly three years of studies discussions before our council with community members, staff and stakeholders. Before we begin, I want to thank a number of key organizations have taken steps to bring us to this point. The Long Beach, Everyone Home Task Force, a coalition of stakeholders, education leaders, nonprofit leaders who work together to meet to put together a plan to address both of these critical issues in our city. The United Way, everyone in campaign who's done an amazing job helping to spread the word that it is possible for us to make a real, meaningful impact on the lives of thousands of residents in our city. The Housing Justice Coalition that is always at the table speaking up for justice in our city. The Long Beach Interfaith Community Organization and ministers all across town have been in communication with us from the last year to lift up Long Beach Families Coalition, who's taken a lot of work to conduct research over the past year to put us in this position. The Long Beach Homeless Coalition in Long Beach, the Long Beach Gray Panthers, and I see a number of individuals, the L.A., O.C. Building Trades Council, who are with us this evening, as well as the hundreds of residents who are engaged in this process. Thank you all for engaging tonight's proposal. Ask the city attorney to draft language for City Council Review and consideration for placing a $298 million housing bond on on the November 2020 citywide general election ballot for the purpose of boosting affordable housing production and creating affordable and creating additional homeless shelter capacity with our city. The recommendation also requests that the city manager present a study and analysis that includes the total cost breakdown ways the measure could work. Housing need in the city. Projects eligible for funding with the housing bond. And to present a plan to ensure that we're making the greatest impact with these dollars. To be clear, this is not a vote to place the measure on the ballot tonight. It's a vote to advance the conversation beyond studies and provide the public and the city council the language and the facts to take action within the next 90 days. We are not voting to put this on the ballot tonight. Tonight, we're voting to give directions to city staff after we've collected information over the past three years on what we'd like to see come back to put us in a position to move forward with a ballot measure. And I just want to be clear on that. Next, we we all know the California's in the midst of a housing crisis, which, you know, I want to provide a little context, context which significantly impacts housing affordability and homelessness here in Long Beach. We're we know that addressing this issue has been a top priority of our city council. And since 2016, we've reviewed and asked staff to report to prepare reports on ways to increase affordable and workforce housing, provide pathways into housing for those experiencing homelessness, and furthermore prevent individuals from falling into homelessness. This is not a new proposal. Recommendations to create housing and to create a housing bond have been brought before this council five times in the past three years, which you'll see on the next slide. Affordable housing and homelessness remains an ongoing conversation for the City Council, which first began in 2016 when the Affordable Housing Workforce Study Group assembled by Mayor Garcia and chaired by former Assemblywoman Bonnie Lowenthal. Since then, the following actions have taken place by the City Council and city staff. In May 22, in May 2017, the City Council adopted a plan called the Revenue Tools and Incentives for Production of Affordable and Workforce Housing. This report included 29 recommendations, one of which was the creation of a local bond measure for affordable housing production to replace the missing, the lack of funding or the gap caused by the loss of redevelopment. We used to invest $23 million a year into affordable housing production. Next, four months later, on September 2017, city staff reported back to the City Council on Costs and Benefits of a local housing bond to capitalize our housing trust fund and support affordable housing production. Two months later, in December 2017, we launched Everyone in Economic Inclusion Initiative, recognizing housing as a fundamental component to economic success for all Long Beach families, and highlighting the barriers to homeownership for an entire generation of families in our city. Five months later, the mayor appointed to everyone home task force, made up of dozens of stakeholders from business, the education community, the health care community, the affordable housing community, and multiple multidisciplinary city departments, and many more to to explore. Creating a comprehensive plan to address our housing homelessness crisis. In July. 2018, the city council voted unanimously to request the city manager to report on the gaps in services, in housing and precariously housing, those experiencing homelessness, as well as funding strategies and an implementation timeline for a local dedicated revenue source. A month later, August 2018, not only did the City Council consider several options for potentially funding a local revenue source, the council also took an additional step by unanimously providing a budget allocation of $50,000 to continue researching funding solutions for affordable housing. And four months later, the City Council unanimously adopted the Everyone Home Long Beach Report, an evaluation of existing services, funding streams, needs and recommendations to address, affordable address homelessness and housing affordability. The first goal of the Everyone at Home Long Beach Report is to secure local, sustainable funding. All of this brings us to tonight. And with the city council's approval, we can move forward with a request for resolution and a report on potential on a potential housing measure to address the gaps identified over the past over the past three years. This timeline shows seven steps over the last three years that the city council has taken to help bring us to arrive at this point. Each blue step indicates when a housing bond was either recommended, recommended or discussed. The point here, it's not a new idea. The Everyone Home report is comprehensive. Indeed, it does a great job of analyzing the city's current homeless services, projecting a need for homeless prevention housing. The items in Orange are the numbers that we know. Roughly 4000 people experience housing, experience homelessness each year in Long Beach. And during the 2019 point in time homeless count, almost 1900 people were counted homeless in a single day in our city. 1275 of those people are living unsheltered on our streets. 52% of those people were experiencing homelessness for the first time. 60% of those individuals are likely to experience homelessness for more than a year. Over half of Long Beach residents, over half of Long Beach residents are rent burdened, paying more than 30% of their income on housing. 58,000 people in Long Beach are categorized as precariously housed and on any given night could slip into homelessness. The items in great our home, our housing and shelter needs identified locally and by the state. We required to build 202,893 affordable units, and we have 817 in the pipeline. We have a need for 500 shelter beds and I am glad and thankful to the North Long Beach residents into the Long Beach City Council that we have taken steps by building a 125 bed Atlantic Avenue Avenue Bridge facility in North Long Beach. But we still have a 375 bed gap. 125 beds is not going to solve this problem for our city. Improve Everyone Home report. We need roughly 350 permanent supportive housing units and 450 rapid rehousing units to expand housing opportunity. The amount in red is the capital needed to build 2000 low income units and facilities for shelter capacity. It's clear that we know what the issues we're facing. We know which solutions will help address the problem. The funding in tonight's proposal is adequate to help us meet the needs and close the gap. The Everyone Home report identifies existing funding in the state is helping, but the amount of dollars provided by the state is slim compared to our need. The state provided $275 million to large cities to share on a one time basis. It's not going to close that gap. Our total our total need is greater than the entire amount that the state allocated to major cities. Let's put that in perspective. Now a bond can be used on various infrastructure projects across the city, such as shelters, facilities for mental health and construction, loans to build affordable housing. Bond funding can be used for the acquisition of nuisance motels for conversion. Expanding shelter capacity to make our community safer and more stable. And homebuyer down payment and second mortgage assistance programs to assist Long Beach families achieve the goal of home ownership in a bond will help Long Beach residents across various income levels, including students, two working families, teachers and seniors on a fixed income. Let's compare this bond to other local measures within our city. Here's a chart that shows the Long Beach Unified School District and Long Beach Community College bond measures in recent history. They'll be USD measures K, K and E were in the amounts of 1.2 million and 1.5 billion respectfully, respectively. And the Long Beach Community College District bond was in the amount of $850 million. The proposal tonight is $300 million. It's saying it will not only address this critical issue, but does so at a fraction of the of the cost of previously approved measures in Long Beach. And to be clear, I know there's a lot of numbers floating around, but the the the 2019 median assessed value on a single family resident in Long Beach is $346,000. That's the median in 2019. Assessed value for single family residents that would turn into the average dollar would be 86. The average, should this proceed, would be $86 per year on an average single family residence. To break that down, that is $7 a month for every single family residence. I know that folks are overburdened. I completely understand. But we're talking to put this in perspective, the proposals allow the residents to vote on $7 less than your next Netflix bill. Listing your Disney plus bill. I've got a coffee, I've got a soda. I drink plenty of those once a month. This is significantly less. And we're we're not imposing this. We're asking voters to consider this. Here's more information on the proposal. There are a number of accountability measures and enhancements to make this to address. Some of the concerns have been raised. The proposal includes the establishment of a citizen bond oversight committee, along with mandatory audits to ensure transparency and accountability. That is, that the funding is used accountably and effectively. The proposal includes an opt out process for seniors over 65 years old, as well as individuals disabilities, to ensure that this assessment does not overburdened vulnerable populations. The proposal includes a recommendation to negotiate local hiring on construction through a project labor agreement with the Building Trades Council to ensure that any construction activity creates local jobs and economic opportunity for Long Beach families. And finally, the proposal includes a recommendation for performance accountability, measures to improve upon housing, bond efforts in other communities and make sure that we are actually accomplishing our stated goals. We have an opportunity tonight to take a take a first vote, a first vote for you in the step toward letting voters in Long Beach decide on how we as a city address Long Beach address homelessness. This effort has been researched and discussed by our City Council. For more than three and a half years. We've studied the housing crisis. We've identified solutions that can help address housing affordability and homelessness in our city. Now's the time to consider this option and let the voters decide. The longer we go without considering this action, the more costly it will become for homeowners, renters and and those experiencing homelessness. They are reflect respectfully submit this proposal to the city council. Thank you. Speaker 7: Thank you. Public comment first. And with that, we have three we have 70 speakers. 70 speakers. So with that, that's 2 hours. Okay, just hold up. So what we're going to do is for the first 30, you will get 90 seconds. And after that, you will get one minute. We will start the first 30. I'll call of you maybe eight or nine or ten at a time. Mr.. Speaker 15: Mr. Vice Mayor, what is the protocol of meeting? Is that the protocol? Yes. 90. And then. Speaker 7: And in one. Speaker 15: Minute. Yes. Speaker 7: 90 seconds. In one minute. Okay. I have no idea. Okay. The first I got two words from Matthew Taylor. Speaker 6: Know that he is just one. Great time. You did. Speaker 7: Yes. Speaker 12: Thank you very. Speaker 7: Much. By Matthew Taylor Stevens. Speaker 12: 90 seconds. Speaker 7: Excuse me. If you will have your turn, please. Listen, I want to say this, Bobby. I'm sure the mayor is listening. He's here. Yes. Speaker 12: So I fully support the the bill to to have the bond for the homeless. But I'd like for us to spend our thinking. It is not only homelessness that is causing the problems and a lack of homes. It's the lack of a broken spirit that we have of people who are unemployed, who are also in the streets . And some will be most do not only have home providing and places to provide homes for people. We're going to have to do some things are providing employment, some spiritual uplift, some family assistance. We have to take the whole person and give them some love that we have not given them a long time. And so I think that this is going to be a fantastic start, but we must take the total human being into consideration and make sure that we don't leave anything out. And that's including their total person. We must love them, care for them, and really do something to make everyone have a place to live and to be respected and to have a home. Speaker 7: Thank you, Dr. Watson. Okay, I'm going to call a five more people. You guys can just line up in this order. MATTHEWS, Stevens, Tommy, you guys and Ivan and Milt, you guys please line up in that order. Matthew Stevens, Tommy, Ivan and Mel. Speaker 12: I guess I'll jump the line. Speaker 7: You just go. Speaker 12: Okay. Go ahead. Counsel Tommy five. I represent IBEW Local 11. I'm here with the IBEW folks that's here tonight to support this proposal moving forward. We feel that, you know, just having a tool in place when it comes to affordable housing and homelessness, you know, it just barely scratches the surface. You know, and we understand that, you know, we understand that bond measures like this helps, you know, help cities, you know, to be more aware of homelessness and, you know, housing. We we understand that, too, when it comes to building an infrastructure. And hopefully when this comes to comes to light, that we're there to help these folks get into a good career and help uplift them at the same time. When it comes to this bond measure. But we urge the city council to move this forward and then to bring it back 90 days. I think that's what Councilman Rick's Richardson mentioned. But I just wanted to thank Rex Richardson's office. And then of all the community, you know, groups that, you know, that come together and, you know, to bring this forward to to you tonight. Thank you. Speaker 7: Thank you. Thank you. And Matthew Taylor. And Matthew Taylor statements update you guys, please line up. And Ivan Jamerson, it doesn't make any difference. Just whoever steps up, you can go ahead. Okay. I respect your offer. You speak. Okay. Thank you, sir. Your name is you. Speaker 6: Steve Updike. Here for affordable housing for gay people. Speaker 12: LGBTQ people. A lot of senior housing is owned by religious groups, and they discriminate against gays, as you know. And there's these rich real estate people. They are they're running low and middle income people out of the Long Beach area. Speaker 6: They want psychiatrists to label people as mentally ill just because. Speaker 12: They can not afford to pay rents. How crazy is that? We know that they are up to we know what they're doing. The Christian law enforcement people still discriminate against gays and pushes them into psychiatry. To stop them from being gay. Speaker 6: Is like a gay conversion therapy and we know it and you know. Speaker 12: It too. The city has in bed with big real estate investors. They should be building gay senior housing to make up for the crimes they have committed against gays. But it allows over 100 years don't make the taxpayers pay for it. Make these people. Let me name off a few people. There's Steve Bogey. Bagel your back. Okay. Big, rich Armenian man down here at Marcus and Millichap. Get these people to put their fair share and they're making $1,000,000,000 off you people. And when Mayor Garcia. Speaker 6: Is old, he's going to need a place. Speaker 12: Where he can live. Speaker 6: And we think that we should name the gay senior citizen Robert Garcia, LGBTQ senior home. Speaker 7: Now, that's fine. Thank you. Time for your next. Speaker 6: A remarkable. Speaker 7: Improvement. You state your name, sir. Speaker 12: Matthew Taylor. Okay. Good evening, Mayor Garcia, City Council. Thank you for the opportunity to comment on this ballot proposal. I'm in District three with my wife. We are not homeowners, so it would not affect us. Nonetheless, we have significant concerns on this proposal. I have no doubt that this proposal is a well-intentioned move to make Long Beach a more equitable city. But this catch all proposal would spend $300 million and increase the bureaucracy to fight windmills without providing any services to address root causes of much homelessness and makes the goal of homeownership all the more difficult. We've all grown accustomed to hearing homelessness described as a housing crisis. Yet my wife and I have gone handed out dozens of lunches on numerous occasions to the homeless in and around Bixby Park. We sat on the grass and listened to their stories. And though anecdotes don't make statistics excuse me, with the exception of four individuals, every person we have met where substance abusers and a number of those likely having mental illnesses, everybody home study stated 21% of homeless self-reported having a substance abuse issue. If that is a self-reported percentage, I'm left wondering how much higher the actual figure is. There are serious mental health and drug issues plaguing Southern California and the root of much homelessness, and this would do nothing to address those needs. These are difficult issues. Speaker 7: Thank you. Please, please. Could you show some respect for the speaker, please? That. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Speaker 12: Thank you. City Council of Long. Speaker 7: Beach, please. State your name, sir, please. Speaker 12: My name is Mel DeLuca, and I would like to answer that privileged white person who spoke before me. Giving out sandwiches in a park doesn't give you the knowledge to understand what homelessness is. I have I have given out many sandwiches, which I'm only stating to answer him. And for all the people I have met, some have substance abuse issues. Most cannot afford housing, and that is why we are here. We can't wait until we are like the city of Los Angeles, where they just approved the first open, their first housing project. From a bond measure they started in 2016. We need the help now. Thank you, Council President Richardson, for proposing this. We need to push this through. There are studies. What is needed to solve homelessness? It doesn't take a study. It's homes. It's affordable housing. It's workforce housing. Let's get this done right now. Thank you. Speaker 7: Thank you very much. Ivan Jemison. Speaker 12: Good evening. My name is Ian Jamieson. In response to the moronic remarks made by the gentleman before last. Going to a homeless encampment and talking with a dozen people does not make you an expert on the issue. Far from it. Around 40% of the homeless people experiencing homelessness in L.A. County are doing so because they cannot afford rent. They do not have substance abuse issues. This goes to the very complex root of the homelessness problem, which is that people are simply being priced out of the housing market. As to the 60% of L.A. County homeless people who do suffer from substance abuse issues. The Housing First modality has been universally shown to be the only effective way at addressing substance abuse. You get a person and this is not counterintuitive stuff. I do not have to be Albert Einstein to see the logic of this getting somebody to get off meth when they have to worry about being raped or burgled or even killed on the streets is way more difficult than when they're doing it in the comfort of a warm apartment. So in conclusion, sir, you are an idiot. Speaker 7: Okay, well, these people line up here. Well, Akerman, flat. You real? You present an to call your name. Ackman. That's your real. Alice Stegman. Joe, why don't you do? And Mr. Hoover. Okay. Could you please type in that order or whichever? Doesn't make any difference. Go ahead. Speaker 3: Councilmember. Speaker 7: Please state your name. Speaker 3: Second County office. My name is Linnea. Okay. And I am a resident of Long Beach 90803. I am a doctor of public health and an educator as well as a health care provider. And after 40 years of experience, I. Speaker 4: Can say in the CDC and the. Speaker 3: National Institutes of Health support this that shelter and housing are the way to take care of many of the ills of society, including homelessness, illness. And, yes, many of the homeless are mentally ill. But if you were put out on the street for a year, you might be mentally ill as well as a health care provider. I assumed that the women that I took care of had been raped because. Speaker 4: That is the. Speaker 3: Reality of many women that are living on the street. So if we want to take care of many of our social ills, we need to look to the social determinants of health and housing our residents. Thank you. Speaker 7: Thank you. Speaker 3: That's how you cancel. My name is Rio. I just moved to Long Beach and it's pretty cool. Anyway, homeless people who are addicts and mentally ill are people and also deserve a right to live in Long Beach. Speaker 12: And. Speaker 3: Period. I myself have dealt with mental illness and being like put in an institution for it. And the only reason why I am so well put together now is because I had a home and I had a supportive family and I had the resources to do all these things to address this issue throughout my life. So I don't understand how people wouldn't have severe trauma. Speaker 6: And. Speaker 3: Like being homeless and it only really gets worse. Like the longer that you're out on the streets, like you're more likely to die. But why should you have to like all of the like homeless people who have who have the like. Basically if you have your resources, you can. Become the better version of yourself that you were meant to be. When people talk about people's potential. Maybe the next person to cure cancer is actually homeless, but they ended up dying on the street. Speaker 4: So maybe we should do something about it. Speaker 3: Not maybe we should. Thank you. Speaker 7: Thank you. Actually, the. Speaker 12: Okay. My name is Alberts Demarche and I'm a resident. Long Beach. You know, on my way up here, I access in a912. Look, I know two. 190216. Here you go. I'm away up here. Just like when I went to Boulevard and Sixth Street in between Seventh Street, right in front of Walgreens and CVS. There are people that sleep outside of CVS and Walgreens every night, and I see more tents popping up because people can't afford to actually pay rent. And of course, they they actually they're drug addicts, people who do actually have substance abuse problems. But there are a lot of people like people who go to City College, people that no, they go to obviously the college they actually are students, but they can't afford to pay rent. So they actually sleep in their cars. They live in like homeless shelters. And they also look to continue coming to school. But, you know, I think it is really important to do something about the homeless situation right away because the homeless population is growing like this, larger than it was last year, larger than it was six months ago. And I really would like to see you guys do something about it right away. Don't wait to six months from now. Next year, live. Do something this week. No, thank you. Speaker 7: All right. Thank you. What was your name, sir? Excuse me. What? Speaker 12: Your name? My name is Albert. Speaker 7: Thank you, sir. Okay, Mr. Weinstein. Speaker 6: No, thank you. There are good things and. Speaker 9: Not quite so good things about this proposal. The sensible thing about this proposal is it asks. Speaker 6: For a. Speaker 9: Look at what can we do? The weird thing about this proposal is that the one definite thing it puts in front is a tax. This is a. Speaker 6: Simply a tax proposal. No guarantee. Speaker 9: As to which specifics this tax revenue would be spent. Speaker 6: On. And absent the study, apparently there is a need for study to just. Speaker 9: See that the problems allegedly addressed would be addressed. It gets the impression that we started out with how much can. Speaker 6: We done. Speaker 9: The property owners of the city for. Speaker 6: And then maybe spend that? Well, you know, it's true that 300 million pales in comparison with some other bond issues, and that's a plus. And it's also true that you're. Speaker 9: Going you would go to the voters. Speaker 12: To approve that. Speaker 6: But on the other hand, if you really want to solve. Speaker 9: Homeless problems. Speaker 6: Fast, this won't do it. Another thing, too, is that. Speaker 9: There is a quicker. Speaker 6: Solution to housing people. A lot of people in that is. Speaker 9: To take this building, which has. Speaker 12: Lots of room in it. Speaker 6: And tell the people thank you, said miracle people. Thank you. Speaker 9: To go ahead and thank. Speaker 6: You. What I do namely do. Speaker 12: Most of. Speaker 6: My working business. Excuse me person on the internet next. Speaker 12: Which is what I've been doing as a state proxy. Speaker 9: For 15. Speaker 12: Years. Speaker 7: Yes. Yes. And okay. We have Michelle. We have Nadia. Andy Hollis. Christina. Jo Jo Nicholson. Just come on up. You guys just come right on it. Just. Just mention your name when you get a second. Write it up. Kristina. Roy. Speaker 6: Hi. Today I will be sorry. Speaker 7: You. Please give us your name, please. Yes. Good evening, City Council. Speaker 11: My name is Andy and I will be representing on behalf of link housing. I'm a resident at Linc Housing, which I've been visiting for a year. I previously was homeless and in foster care. The rate of the rate of homelessness in the community is rising, especially for young adults between the ages of 18 to 25, like myself and older adults as well. There is a high demand of housing for homeless youth and adults, but a lack of resources, which is a major problem in the community. I feel having stable, affordable housing for young adults, transitioning to adulthood and having additional resources for adults who are chronically homeless as essential. I believe housing should be a basic human necessity, which is why I'm speaking today to shed light on a very serious issue that is affecting our community. I was able to receive affordable housing and which helped me alleviate the trauma I experienced while being homeless. Speaker 7: Thank you very much. Next. Speaker 6: Ah, yes. My name is Hollis Stewart. I live in the first district downtown. I have a condominium there and my wife and I wanted to speak to the tax thing because I am someone who pays taxes right now. I am building that, you know, here in the city and I would be glad to pay some more tax in order to provide housing for people who need it. Because that's the way that's the way we build families. That's what we have. Children grow up with some confidence by living in a place and being able to be part of a community. And this is so important in terms of how you end up being when even when you go to school and universities and all that. So we do need this. We need it now. And as a matter of. Well, it's not a mental discharge thing I keep hearing about. Yes, there are drug users out there, but there's also a lot of people who drink alcohol every Saturday night downtown in all of our nice bars and nobody talks about them. It's like outrage in the street or something. No, we the people we are fighting for here who are homeless are people who need to have a decent place to live. And I pay the tax for it and I hope a lot of others will do. Thank you. Speaker 7: Thank you. Next. Speaker 3: Want to show you my side since I made it. My name is Christina Cervantes. My husband and I are District five residents, and before that we lived downtown. My sign says Long Beach. Thank you for housing veterans. Now let's get safe homes for everyone. I've had many interactions with our homeless residents and most of them have left me feeling helpless. I provided them things they've asked me for a heavy blanket for an older gentleman, my favorite picnic blanket from my car and directions to the multi-service center and bus fare for a young man and some warm homemade food. And a couple of times a little bit of money toward a hotel. Stay for a young couple and other young men and always a smile and a listening ear. But the main thing I know they need is the one thing I can't provide them safe housing. There's a senior at my church that just lost her housing. There are people beginning to camp on our church's property. How can I give them hope in finding safe housing when I know the city is so short on affordable housing? It makes me feel helpless. I can't do this by myself. I'm one person. I simply ask that you give caring residents like me the chance to make a real difference for our neighbors and now become before we become more like L.A., I have hope we can house more people because I know we've done it for our veterans . Let's provide safe housing for everyone. Thank you. Speaker 7: Thank you. Next. Speaker 3: My name's Nadir Tushnet, and I live in the third district. The benefit of the bond to the community is clear. Speaker 4: It provides funding. Speaker 3: For a path. Speaker 4: To security for those. Speaker 3: Who are experiencing houseless. Speaker 4: Ms.. As we know. Speaker 3: The longer people are on the street, the worst. Their lives are in many dimensions and the worst it is for their children. There are children on the. Speaker 4: Street as well. We have to remember that. Speaker 3: I am a homeowner. I am retired. That makes me a person of privilege. I know that I need to use my privilege not to benefit me, but to benefit the community. In my tradition, Rabbi Hillel said, If I am not for myself. Speaker 4: Who will be for me? Speaker 3: If I am not for others, what am I? If not now, when? Speaker 7: Thank you very much. Okay with the next group of interviews lined up this Sunday, Christina Christian, Jo Nicholson, Christina Oak. Every entry and the idea that Donald. Downfield. So I know I might have backed those names up and is close to it. So you come up with now your name and we'll just scratch off with that. So do what have you got? Segway. That's good. I mean. Okay. Christina Petit. Jo Nicholson. Christina. Attorney, Joe Nicholson. Okay. Speaker 3: Hi, everyone. I am Dr. Christine Pettit, executive director of Long Beach Forward and a sixth District resident. As a member of the Everyone Home Long Beach Task Force, I stand in strong support of this item that will realize one of our task force's top recommendations of establishing a dedicated source of local funding for homelessness solutions. As we all know, Long Beach is in a severe housing and homelessness crisis. The time is now for our city to proactively tackle. This crisis actually was yesterday, and we need these proven solutions, including a local bond measure, to be approved by voters. We are not asking the council to pass a bond measure tonight. We are simply asking the council to take the first step to give voters the opportunity to vote on it in November. This item is about opportunity, an opportunity to transform and save lives, especially our most vulnerable residents living on the street, experiencing chronic homelessness and cost burden. Families who live on the brink of homelessness. This is an opportunity to end homelessness with homes permanently and cost effectively and humanely. And we saw the statistics about how effective it is, how cost effective is. It's also humane. And this is an opportunity for Long Beach to get its fair share of available resources to unlock county, state and federal dollars that we have not had access to. Tonight is an opportunity to let Long Beach voters decide in November. Please vote yes tonight to make this first step. Thank you. Yes. Speaker 4: Hello. My name is Zoe Nicholson. I live in the second district. I'm asking you to take a moment with me and the. I know this to understand this. Each of you have one of these in your pocket. Imagine going home tonight and saying, Well, honey. I'm sorry, but I couldn't afford it. So you're leaving your toys, you're leaving your spouse. You live in the fridge, you live in the stove, you live in the sheets because you couldn't afford this. You'd be crazy, too, in no time. Imagine how you'd be in a year. Imagine in the eyes of your partner staring back at you. But I'm here to tell you. Lucky you. You get to do what I would do anything. Anything to do to sit on that side of the circle. And to vote yes. We're going to study this. We're going to conquer this. We're going to make sure that everybody has a key. Speaker 7: Thank you. Next. Speaker 3: That evening, everyone my name is Leonardo. How your I live now at the stroke with elastin I used to live in the square with. Lena Gonzalez. I was homeless 16 years ago. My daughter was one year old. She says 17 hours just going to school for exiting high school this year and going to the Marines. She experienced that homelessness when she was one year old. She still remembers it up to this time. And I don't understand. Before the rent control ordinance was passed, effective this year, on January last year. Most of the landlords in District eight rent increase was 50%. For my case, it was to raise 600 soon. I'm beginning to be out there as of being homeless again. So hopefully we get some more help. Funding for better housing. Affordable and supportive housing for elderly, low income and homeless people. Speaker 7: Thank you. Thank you very much. Tonight is tonight here in Europe. Delia. Christina? Christina, you. Ever. Speaker 11: So I apologize. Speaker 7: And Sandy lives here. I was inability to come right up. Heather. Sandy Lane. Rebecca Moran. Those individuals, please come right up. Okay. You can start. Speaker 11: Thank you, Councilman. And I can be president. Sixth District. Uh, I'm in support of the. The housing bond. My question in regards to, um, the study that comes along with it to the sponsor, to Councilman Richardson, is what are the guarantees that we have that we're going to house, uh, people who are in precarious living situations, who currently live in the city of Long Beach and that people who live in the city of L.A.. Because as it stands, I live in the sixth district, and there's no district in the city that rivals the amount of affordable housing units that are currently being built in the sixth District. However, that being said, a majority of the district's affordable housing units that are being built are primarily housing people in the city of L.A. or County of Los Angeles housing lists, which are people who live in the city of L.A.. So I'm curious to see how we can push this narrative to house people who currently live in and in Long Beach or who currently are homeless in the city of Long Beach. Uh, because I figure, you know, I don't mind paying the money. And I figure, you know, if, if, if the burden of this is on the taxpayers, maybe we can also get some kind of tlt, uh, quid pro quo thing that we did for like Molina and friends down the street with the hotels. Maybe we can get some, some of that burden alleviated, not just on us, but also like, you know, some of the businesses as well. Thank you. Speaker 7: Thank you. Mm hmm. Speaker 3: Good evening. My name is Suni Lee Chang. I'm the chief operating officer for Link Housing. I was also a member of the Everyone Home Task Force and a member and a resident of the eighth District. We saw the numbers that showed that, relatively speaking, this is a small bond. But I'd like to offer you the practitioner's perspective that that explains it shows that while it is a relatively small number, it packs a mighty punch. And the reason for that is that when we locally are able to commit dollars, that attracts other dollars from the county and from the state. So I'll give you an example. Councilwoman Andrews, you were gracious enough to advocate for. Speaker 0: The spark at Midtown, which is 95 units of. Speaker 3: Affordable housing in your district. The city put in $3 million for that site. We are. Speaker 0: An affordable housing developer and. Speaker 3: Any of our colleagues would be able to take that. We took that $3 million. We got 18 times as much money from the state and from the county, and we were able to build a 50 plus million dollar project there. We're doing the same thing at PCH and Magnolia in the first District said, you put in $2 million. We're able to build a $24 million project there. What you're proving tonight has the ability to have a much greater impact. And also to put this all in perspective, we spend all of this money on our educational system. We have a first rate nationally award winning school district. We have this wonderful thing called the college promise. We invest all this money and these kids go through school and they can't afford a place to live. Let's fix that by putting. Speaker 0: This bond. Speaker 6: Before the current. Speaker 3: He's I am to do a thrash and took a resident of the eighth district and a homeowner. I'm also the executive director of a regional nonprofit that leads work around economic development and housing policy strategies in local cities. As a housing expert. I sit on the board of Directors of Housing California, and I'm vice chair of Proposition eight, the Citizens Oversight Commission. My housing policy experience brings me before you today. You see, first we have a problem. It's been noted here today that our crisis is pushing people out of our city and in some cases certainly onto the streets, sidewalks, churches, storefronts, cars, trailers and even on railroad tracks. This creates a safety hazard as well as a financial hazard. It's the cost of not housing people that we should all be concerned about. This is complicated, trying to figure out how do we create the policy that is nuanced and necessary in order to house people? But that means that we must have courage. We have the chance to answer the call. You see, proactive leaders dissect policy options and look for solutions. More than 65% of. Speaker 2: The voters. Speaker 3: Here in Long Beach have said they are interested in this housing solution. Let's get moving. I've had conversations with many people in my community and many of them feel that they are one rent hike from displacement. That's not how people should feel if they're living here in Long Beach. Thank you. Speaker 7: Thank you. That's. Speaker 3: Good evening. I'm Rebecca Clarke. I lead link housing, nonprofit housing, affordable housing developer here in Long Beach. And I wanted to speak and speak in support tonight. This housing crisis that we've all been talking about is affecting. I actually live in Bixby Knolls, and I'm starting to see more and more homeless in this neighborhood, which previously didn't see a homeless problem. So it is everywhere. And Long Beach's diverse with a broad spectrum of people. And we love that. We want to see all incomes be able to afford to live in Long Beach. And that is changing. We're losing people that are being gentrified out and who are going to be left with a sort of a one dimensional population. The cost of land in development make it impossible. Speaker 4: To build housing that is. Speaker 3: Affordable, let alone providing housing for our homeless. And I know I've heard complaints from a few taxpayers saying we already pay enough taxes. We pay taxes into. Speaker 4: The VA for. Speaker 3: Affordable housing on the County of Los Angeles. Measure H. But in fact, that is for services, not for building affordable housing, not for permanent supportive housing. So, as Suni said, every dollar that is put in leverages a great number of dollars more and. Speaker 4: Also money for services. Speaker 3: So responsive. Well, communities all across California are really stepping up at the local level and realizing that they can make a difference. So Long Beach, move forward. Thank you. Speaker 7: Thank you. Next. Speaker 3: Hi. My name is Heather Pentecost and my families are fortunate enough. Speaker 2: To own property in. Speaker 3: District eight. And we love the city of Long Beach. I believe it. Speaker 2: Is our responsibility. Speaker 3: And our honor to assist those in our city who are rent burdened. And I urge my city council member to vote yes to explore this opportunity to fund more of this vital housing. Thank you. Speaker 7: Thank you very much. That's. Speaker 6: Good evening. Speaker 4: Councilmembers. My name is Lauren Elam. I work with Link Housing, nonprofit organization, District seven. I have also been a resident here in Long Beach going on 13 years now, District two and I stand before you here this evening. Council members, in closing with a community that has not only humbly awaited for opportunity for stability that is well deserved, however more so earned, let's envision this vision. A previous study found that it would cost taxpayers 10,000 per homeless person to give them a. Speaker 6: Permanent place to live. Speaker 4: And services like job trainings and health care. That figure is 68% less than what the public currently spends by allowing homeless people to remain on the streets. What are we what are what are we as human beings if we ignore the suffering of others? Let the voters vote and the community thrive. Thank you. Speaker 7: Thank you very. Speaker 9: Much. Speaker 7: And as Sandy lay here, Sandy Lay. Actor Stephen Richardson. Jordan Wayne. Any of those individuals who. Okay. This is going to go down to the next level, go down to one minute. So it's only late here. And come. We're not. Yeah. Welcome. Yeah. Come right up and state your name. So we got 70 names on here, so please just get in line. Speaker 12: My name is Jordan Wynn. I am a second district resident member of the Continuum of Care Board and a part of everyone in Long Beach. Speaker 13: I want to start by thanking everyone who is in this room for turning out, and I'd ask if you're in support to stand up if you can, and raise your sign. Stand up. Raise it. Speaker 12: High. Council members, Long Beach is ready to end homelessness. The voters are here and they are ready. As you can see, I'm speaking. Speaker 13: Up in support of item 22 and I urge City Council to vote yes and take this important first step towards funding for neighbors experiencing homelessness. I want to thank council members Rex Richardson. Mary is in the House and Dee Andrews for initially bringing this forward. This modest bond will go directly towards comprehensive housing solutions that help fill the gaps in our continuum of care. No matter how someone. Speaker 12: Falls into homelessness. Supportive housing makes social and medical services work more effective. Speaker 13: Costing half of what it would do. Administrate on the streets and in Long Beach, we've seen great success with this century. Villages like Cambria. Speaker 12: One of our biggest and most state of the art supportive housing developments in the country, has a 96%. Speaker 13: Success rate at helping recover formerly homeless individuals. Speaker 12: And keeping them housed. Speaker 13: Over 50,000 people are experiencing housing instability with 90% or there were more of their income going towards their rents. And we need to be clear, we can afford this. The median homeowner in Long Beach would pay $87 a year or $1.66 per week. And we want to make sure that's clear. And I urge council to vote to approve item 22 and take the first steps toward a safer and healthier Long Beach when we bring everyone in. Speaker 7: Thank you. Comment off. Speaker 12: Steve, members of the Council and Dr. Robert Garcia. My name is Pastor Steve Richardson. I pastor a church in District one today. One seven 2020. We mourn the death of 57 individuals who died from simply being homeless last year in the city of Long Beach. That is 3% of the counted population of people that are homeless. We have been working with the homeless population for the last nine years from Good News Church. We've given out over 15,000 meals and at this time, homelessness continues to be a bigger problem than it was just yesterday. We're living in a time when the average worker can barely afford to live in the city that we love. We're also experiencing the daily manifestation of movement of people from their apartments into cars and on the streets, because they cannot pay the high rents. For those that have been experiencing homelessness, the most innovative, cost effective way to provide permanent housing is permanent housing with social services. Inside of the building. This bond will help restore the lives of thousands of seniors, emancipated youth, low income and homeless people that have been displaced in our beloved city. 2500 units would make a huge difference throughout our city to combat the lack of affordable housing and those which are experiencing homelessness in our city. Long Beach has been extremely agile when it comes to commercial development and capital raising for infrastructure. This bond would go a long way to make sure that our city remains cutting edge. If it costs $86 per year. Speaker 7: Thank you very much. Speaker 8: Yes. Thank you. Yes. Speaker 7: Next. Speaker 3: Good evening, City Council. My name is Deidre Fulcher. I'm part of the downtown Long Beach and I urge the city. Speaker 4: Council to proceed forward with this. Speaker 3: And then put the ban on for the November ballot. Thank you. Speaker 7: Thank you very much. Okay. Now we're going to go into the one minute situation. So the individuals coming up, neither colors. Well, yes. Stephen Smith and a Christian in Baraka can recite and. Is that Dutch? Yossi. Okay. Speaker 3: Hi, I'm Kim BROSH. And my concern is because my son, who has schizophrenia, isn't able to live independently because. Speaker 0: He can't afford to live. Speaker 3: Anywhere in the city. He has to live with me or be hospitalized when he lives with me. He has no activities. I'm going to work all day. He doesn't have anything to do. He's not responsible for anything. It would be much better for him to live in his own place and take responsibility to the extent that he can for his own life. One part of this measure that I'd like to suggest is that people like me who don't own a home in Long Beach could contribute to this fund on a monthly basis. I would be more than happy to contribute $10 a month to this project. Thank you. Speaker 7: Thank you very much. Mexico. Speaker 12: Good evening. Council. My name's Steven Smith. I've been homeless for 20 years long under the seventh street in one more district. I came to the council several times. I spoke to council members about projects and stuff like that. The officers taking out property, throwing in trash trucks. Something's going to happen. I'm in. I hope the council's in. And I could speak to Rick Harrison on the side. He's having ideas. I'm taking them to the mayor's office. And I also challenged mayor during Grand Prix to put up his money for one person, one person concerned and one person take him off the street for one night. I got $10 in my pocket right now. Out of it. Anybody else want to put in? Speaker 7: I got a thank you very much. Speaker 6: That's the one person of the street. I got $10 on it. Thank you. Thank you. Speaker 4: I just want to acknowledge the. Eloquence and power of the community tonight coming forward. You know, we really don't know each other very well. And this is one way we get to understand that we really have a lot of really heartfelt and powerful voices, really articulate. And it's just really humbling. Thank you, neighbors. I just want to say that increasingly I wrote this down. Increasingly, our community members are becoming homeless as a consequence of systemic failings, not personal ones. Oh. This is an attempt to make a decision as a community to acknowledge that we have failed to make the right the right decisions regarding the people who live here. Now, as that gentleman said, you know, we have. Thank you very much, residents. That's it. I just want to make one more final point. I'm sorry, I had 3 minutes. The connection between private for profit development and I higher number of what constitute affordability and and no rent control and low wages , you know, is is our responsibility. Speaker 7: Just to thank you very much. Speaker 6: Thank you. Speaker 3: Karen retired, representing the Long Beach Gray Panthers tonight. We're a strong advocate for moving this initiative forward. I have been homeless. I was homeless for three months because my boyfriend broke up with me on a Saturday night. And when you can have no access to services after midnight. I don't want anybody to have to experience and go through that. We've seen a number of women come up here and talk about homelessness. One of the fastest growing segments of the homeless population are women. I worked hard all my life. I've had a job since the time I was 20. I make 1430 $2 a month in Social Security. I'm one of the lucky ones. I have subsidized affordable housing. Very few people in our community have that advantage with my little salary. If people would give up to two Starbucks trips a month, I can afford $7 a month and I'm willing to put more than that in. I think the community is willing to step up. The council should be, too. Speaker 7: Thank you very much. That's. Okay. Could could I have these names come up with Dooley, Lee Smith, Christian? Those individuals, please come up. Julie Lee Smith and Christian. All of those individuals spoke. Duly. Lee Smith and Christiansen. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I can't do that. Speaker 3: Good evening, Council. I'm Nina Dooley. I work at Linc Housing and I'm also a board member at SCAMP Southern California Association of Nonprofit Housing. We know it's more expensive to pay for city and health services for people who are living on the street. Having local. Speaker 4: Dollars invested in affordable housing allows builders. Speaker 3: Like link to score points to leverage the larger sources of money from the county, the state and also federal sources. We need to show that our. Speaker 12: Own city. Speaker 3: Is willing to invest. Please use your common sense. Have compassion. Move this forward and put the housing bond on the ballot and let the people of Long Beach decide. Thank you. Speaker 12: Good evening. My name is James. I'm not signed up to speak, but I have a solution for the problem. Speaker 7: James. Excuse me, sir. Yes? If you haven't said no to speak, you will not be able to speak. Know this. And that's. That's just to give you an end. Like you have to sign up to speak. Yes. Speaker 12: But you're turning the solution down. Speaker 7: Okay, well, thank you. Okay. Larson. Larson here. 3000. Excuse me. Yeah, go ahead, sir. Speaker 12: Good evening, counsel. Happy New Year's. My name's Ray Lawson of the Carpenters Union Local 562. We believe we live here. We work here like my carpenter, brothers and sisters. Stand up. We support the passing of this bar. I just want to tell you the story of one of our apprentices, Kevin Smith. He lives right here in Long Beach. He's apprentice. He got out of prison. He went to the Brother's Keeper program. He was able to get training and get placed. He worked in Long Beach Community College on a renovation project there. He also worked on building this beautiful building here with some of our subcontractors. And we believe that if he lived here, you should you should be able to work here. And a new project is coming up. Apprentices should be able to work on these new housing projects that are coming up, and they will be able to afford to live in those projects once completed. So that's what we believe in training a workforce, a local workforce here that can work for the future and building up Long Beach. Speaker 7: Thank you very much. Oh. It's Christmas in here. Was she okay? Excuse me. She's already spoken to Matthew. And Lee Smith. Closely. And Stephen Smith. Either one of those individuals. Speaker 3: So how carelessly here? I don't have any objections. Speaker 4: To the idea of integrating some affordable housing into our neighborhoods. It does matter to me how it's done. We need to have community meetings. People care about zoning and it's important to get this right to practice transparency and inclusiveness. The city has much homework to do before putting out a bond measure. Please delay this item and require that a study be conducted with those that work with the homeless, asking them to make recommendations and outline a plan that has some. Speaker 3: Chance of helping helping those in need. Speaker 4: Well, homelessness and affordable housing are key issues in the city. The suggestion to combine the two topics under one bond. Speaker 3: Measure with the goal of treating. Speaker 4: Both as if they are driven by the same forces. Speaker 3: Doesn't work. We interviewed some people that run homeless facilities and also a social worker. And one of the things they said. Speaker 4: None of them, none of the three we interviewed believed the homeless problem was driven by a housing issue or that I. Speaker 7: Don't blame you guys later. Speaker 3: Or that it would be solved or that it would. Speaker 7: Be solved. Improving housing. Thank you so much. Okay. Speaker 12: All right. My name is Arthur Jordan. I've been homeless most of my life since I was young. You know, honestly, I believe that, you know, there's always a way out. There's plenty of opportunities. I think mostly it's just right now it's a lot of overpopulation going on. There's not a lot of buildings people can live in. So honestly, I feel like maybe if we could, um, you know, just fund some more programs that would, uh, you know, help the people that I would say not really in a, in a major difficulty, but just mostly in a, in a situation to where, you know, they could make a better life. And that's, you know, I think it's a lot it's a difference of some people right now. They don't really want somewhere to live. They rather live with family members or some would rather live on the street. You know, it really just depends, uh, mentally. So, you know, I don't really think that people should just discourage the homeless, but I feel like we should just all encourage them to. To want to be better. Speaker 7: That's all. Thank you so much. Okay. I'm just. Please, that. Okay. Michael Maslin, new Milton Gonzalez. Oh, okay. Wayne has always spoken whenever he spoke. Sharlene. Wayne, please come up. As the Stefano. Venezuela's. Janette. Barbara, please come up. Gregory Moore. And now you. You can go extra. Speaker 12: Good evening, Mr. Vice Mayor. Council members. My name is Michael Massey. I'm the chief development officer for Jamboree Housing Corporation, a statewide nonprofit, affordable housing developer. Congratulations to the council for considering this and voting yes on this. By voting yes on this year, recognizing that economic development depends on having housing for workers across the economic strata. That homelessness costs society $100,000 per person per year. And for the most profoundly troubled of the of the homeless population. The top 10%, if you will. It's the cost is $400,000 per person per year. By taking a measure like this. You're recognizing that the city of Long Beach cares about those people and is willing to make the effort to provide the appropriate housing and to compete for the leveraging of the other sources of funding that are needed to be gathered in order to make an affordable housing development possible. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next. Speaker 4: Good evening, council members. Speaker 0: I want to thank Rex. Speaker 3: Richardson for bringing. Speaker 4: This proposal. You pronounce. Speaker 7: Your name. Speaker 3: Please. My name is Charlene when I live in District seven. Speaker 4: I'm here tonight representing the League of Women Voters of the Long Beach area. The league supports the use of private and public funds for facilities to provide. Housing to people who. Speaker 3: Are experiencing homelessness. Speaker 4: In Long Beach. We recognize that all levels of government must address the underlying causes of homelessness and the means of preventing it. We are here today to advocate for affordable housing, for those capable of independent living and supportive housing for those that need job. Speaker 0: Services. Speaker 4: And psychological counseling on site. We need all individuals to be in housing, seniors, students, low income homes and homelessness. Thank you. Speaker 3: Hi. My name's Stephanie and I'm from District four. I'm here to talk about young people right now. Young people. It's almost a joke that none of us can afford housing and we have to live with our parents. And I'm lucky enough to be able to live with my parent. But a lot of LGBTQ youth are not welcome in their homes and are thrown out on the street, don't have any mental health resources and fall into addiction. They deserve homes, respect and care. So please consider supporting LGBTQ youth in your vote. Thank you. Speaker 9: Bismillah Rahim. In the name of God, the most merciful and most compassionate. I am engineer Mohammed Banat. I used to live in Long Beach here. I am here on behalf of all the people who are poor and needy and homeless people instead of Long Beach to support this resolution. I believe deep in my heart that $298 million is not good enough to tackle this big challenge. Heads on to end homelessness in cities as great as Long Beach, but it's as good as a start, and we need to start at some point. We really need to find enough courage to help families. They are homeless now and prevent more families falling victims to join the long line of homelessness due to the fact of higher. Speaker 12: And lower minimum wage. Don't. Speaker 3: Good evening. Mayor Garcia, council members. My name is Jeanette Barrera, and I'm a candidate here for the second district for city council. I have been practicing mental health and social work for the past four years in education for ten here in the city servicing primary. Mary, send us your district and Rex Richardson's district. Thousands of hours of me working on the streets have been designated in those districts. Specifically, you cannot treat mental health if you cannot have your basic needs met, and that is housing. It is this working experience that I have had working here in the city of Long Beach and is why I'm standing before you as a candidate. So I encourage all of you to vote on this bill because it is crucial for us to move forward. And I'd like to thank the young woman who shared her story, mentioning that she was from foster youth and how difficult it was for her to find housing, because that is specifically the group that I work closely with. And how do you expect people who are transitioning from housing, who are young to afford 1690 dollars for a one bedroom apartment? Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you. Before before Mr. Moore speaks. Let me just get the next group of folks to come up. Danielle Curtis, Brian Russell, Marla Roach, Melody Ozuna and Ron Miller. In that order. Danielle Curtis. Brian Russell. Marla Roach. Melody Ozuna and Ron Miller could please line up. And then we'll have Mr. Moore speak. Speaker 12: Okay. Before I begin my time, is Councilmember Andrews around? Because actually my remarks are specifically to him. Speaker 1: You know, I think he may have just stepped out for. Speaker 12: Okay, can I can I let some other people go and then come back and play when he comes back? Thank you. Speaker 1: I guess the milkman. Speaker 3: Good evening. My name is Daniel Curtis. Speaker 2: I am a lifelong city resident. Speaker 4: I have personally faced homelessness. I am not mentally ill or drug addicted, but I have a loved. Speaker 2: One who is. And I'm not here for me. Speaker 3: I'm here for. Speaker 4: Him. I wish to voice my support for. I don't care if it's bonds or taxes, whatever it takes, whatever it takes, because he deserves. Speaker 3: A home, just like you and I do. I think we need. Speaker 2: To establish in order to make this supportive housing measure work, we need to establish year round supportive services. Speaker 4: Not just building construction. Those services should include intervention for addiction and serious mental illness. I also. Speaker 3: Believe we need to increase our Long Beach Police Department Quality of life team and our Lombard. Speaker 0: Fire Department heart team to be able to provide response, intervention and services around the. Speaker 4: Clock because homelessness doesn't just happen during regular business hours. I think that would free up our civil services to. Speaker 2: Focus on the most serious calls that we have. Speaker 4: I ask that the city address co-occurring issues of addiction and serious mental illness when considering homelessness and how to help them. I ask that we set up our most vulnerable residents for success and not failure. Speaker 12: Thank you very much. Speaker 1: The next speaker, please. Brian Russell. Right here? Nope. Mala. Mala. No melody. Okay. Speaker 12: Please come forward. Speaker 3: Good evening. My name is Melody Osuna. I am privileged to be a homeowner in Councilmember Austin's district. I'm also an attorney with the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles. I run a medical legal partnership here in Long Beach. It's a county run facility over on 14th and Chestnut. As legal aid attorney, many of my clients would benefit from this housing. Regularly, I meet with folks who are on the verge of homelessness because I'm at a health health care facility. Many of my clients are often injured, and because of the injury, they lose out on work that results in a loss of income. And for those who are rent burdened, that means that that loss of paycheck means they can't afford rent. This type of housing could be the difference between keeping these folks housed or having them fall into homelessness. Supportive housing services are 43% cheaper than keeping someone outside. Thank you. Speaker 12: If you. I know it was. Good evening, Mr. Mayor. Council members. I'm Ron Miller, executive secretary of the L.A. Orange County Building Trades. Ron, I got to say that I work downtown L.A. every morning, and as I'm going down first Street at six in the morning, there's two blocks of tents right on the sidewalk. And I can tell you that the building trades affiliates and the Carpenters, we stood up on Triple H and Measure H for the county. We're starting to see the fruits of our labor there. They're cutting ribbons on new affordable housing units in the city of L.A. but it's too late. You guys have an opportunity to get ahead of this? I think you've got a couple thousand on the street. You got 6% of your community college population that are homeless. This thing should be looked at just like a school bond. It's going to reduce crime. It's going to maintain your property values. It's going to help clean your community up. And you guys need to get ahead of it. So let's let's take the step. Let's not wait another five years and continue to make the sausage. Let's do something. Thank you. Speaker 6: Thank you. Mr. Moore, if. Speaker 1: You want, I'll just. I'll call you. I'll just call you at the end. Okay? Okay. Speakers will be Alex Flores, Linda moran, Martin Gravelle, James Shepherd, Rene Castro and Alan Greenly. In that order. Alex Flores. Linda moran. Martin Gravelle James. Or. Or maybe it's. Hi, Ms.. I'm sorry if I don't correct René Castro and Alan Greenly. Thank you. Speaker 12: Good evening, counsel. My name is Alex Flores, and I'm an attorney with the Legal Aid Foundation of L.A. The Legal Aid Foundation helps low income tenants and a variety of clients all throughout L.A. County, especially in our office here in Long Beach. While a variety of clients come through our doors with many different issues, all of them have the same problem. And that is affordable housing or lack of affordable housing. The problem is that most of these of these tenants are just one paycheck, illness, rent, increase or emergency away from facing homelessness. The problem isn't that there actually isn't the apartment out there. The problem is that they're not affordable. So actually allowing the residents of the city to look at the opportunity to fund affordable housing will help our clients in Long Beach greatly. Thank you. Thank you so much. Get it. Mr. Mayor, my name is Rene Castro. Nice to see everyone. I'm a resident of the third district and I work first century housing. We run the villages at Cambria. As you all know, we provide housing. We're located in the seventh District for 1500 formerly homeless residents, including 800 veterans, 400 children and the rest families. I'm very pleased and honored tonight to introduce one of our residents, Thomas Bias. Thomas is a veteran Army veteran. He served in Vietnam, Vietnam era Special Forces, and he's one of our residents. He's going to be housed in anchor place. I just want to echo what Sunni Lee Cheng said a little bit earlier. The anchor place is a $54 million project. The capital stack on that was 12 different sources. And that that takes our developers a lot of time to find all that capital with this kind of investment the city is doing. We can make a huge difference in terms of homelessness in the city. So thank you so much for your time. Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Speaker 12: Thank you to. Thank you. Speaker 1: Let me just make sure I know we had some is is Linda Brandt here? Is. Speaker 6: Martin You're. Speaker 1: MARTIN okay, James? Speaker 6: James SEVERANCE Yes. Speaker 1: And then is that Alan behind James before Mr. Chairman, before you go, then I'll have the next few speakers also line up. That'll be Maria Lopez, Molina, Flores, Sullivan, Lewis and Mike Murchison in that order. So we'll have James Shefford, Alan Greenlee, Maria Lopez Molina, Flores, Sullivan Lewis and then Mike Murchison. Thank you, please. Speaker 9: Hi. Good evening. City Council and the mayor. First of all, I'm a product of affordable housing. I was on the streets down in Skid Row. I slept in those dens for many years and got the opportunity to move to Long Beach when the century villages of Cabrillo housing units opened up. That was for the Family comes 2008th December 2008. And one thing I did I have learned about homelessness. Speaker 12: Is this. Speaker 9: That if you get someone else, they can be able to think and be. Speaker 6: Able to. Speaker 9: Do things for. Speaker 6: Others. And I'm a firm believer of paying it forward. Thank you. Thank you. Speaker 12: Good evening, Mr. Mayor, and members of the City Council. My name is Alan Greenspan, the executive executive director of the Southern California Association of Nonprofit Housing, a regional housing advocacy organization that represents developers like Linc and Century and Jamboree, who you've heard from tonight. I'd like to express my appreciation for the leadership, Mayor Garcia and Councilmember Richardson, on this issue. And I thought tonight that I would try to invite some. Speaker 6: Additional voters and constituents in. Speaker 12: The room by way of sharing my way of sharing with you some information from a recent poll that we conducted at the end of the year last year. Homelessness is the number one issue in the front of the minds of voters today across the state of California. And housing affordability is number three. 89% of those that we polled considered homelessness to be an extremely important issue in our state and in fact felt that local and state governments should do something about it. I hope that you guys will consider these findings as you think about this important vote. And I request that you approve them. Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Speaker 12: And thank you. Speaker 1: Yes. Speaker 3: Good evening. My name is Maria Lopez. I'm a proud one day resident. And also, thank you for supporting the item, Mary and Rex. Also my thank you to you. My name. My name is Maria, obviously. I live in two blocks, probably away from here. And wow, has this area developed? D one has developed its fair share of affordable housing, to say the least. Right. And so we are here in support for not just affordable housing in certain areas, but throughout all the city. Right. We want to make sure that folks are not just included in certain areas of our city, but in all parts of our city inclusively. Throughout this whole past year, we talked about random protection as rent control. And the first thing that always came up, what's build more, build more, build more. So congratulations. Let's build more. Make sure this passes tonight. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you. I might have Mr.. Mr. Moore speak. I know that he couldn't speak earlier, and so I'll let him come up. Yeah. Speaker 12: Thank you, Vice Mayor Andrews, I'm going to direct my comments directly to you. Originally, you were a co-sponsor of this measure, and I gather you took your name off of it because you heard from some of your constituents who were against paying the extra, again, the median $7 a month or whatever it is to fund to help the most vulnerable people in our society. I think you're where you were coming from in co-sponsor this bill. You were in the right place. And I just want to emphasize that, again, tonight's vote is not about putting this on the ballot. It's about having the city attorney prepare the possibility of putting on the ballot. And I think that the right thing to do at this point is to let it go forward. I'd like to see us on the ballot and let your constituents decide directly. The citizens of long. We decide directly whether we want to pay that $7 a month median to help these vulnerable people. So I please urge and I urge all of you to vote in favor of this at this juncture. Very easy call. Thank you. Thank you. Speaker 1: And then just give me 1/2. Just I'm caught up here on the speaker. So I is is this so is this is is Melina Flores here? I called. Okay. No. Okay. So then. Well, so then before before Mr. Lewis speaks. So we have Sullivan. Lewis, Michael Jackson. Believe it, says Muhammad, but not. And Phil Hawkins. I'm sorry. Okay. MUHAMMAD But not okay. So we'll have Sullivan, Lewis, Michael Jackson, Phil Hopkins and then Carina Rodriguez will be the next speakers. If you can, please line up. Yes. Speaker 15: Good evening, Mayor Garcia and council members. Speaker 12: I just want to say add a little bit of clarity. You know. Speaker 15: Homelessness is a huge issue, obviously, and it's a no brainer that we should. Speaker 12: Support this measure. But what I want. Speaker 15: To what I want to say is let's not spend a whole lot. Speaker 12: Of time meeting about it and doing surveys and research, because there are hundreds of organizations out. Speaker 1: Here that have already done that work. Speaker 12: Right. So in an effort to get things done faster, can we agree to. Speaker 15: Work with those organizations closely and and bring more residents to the table? Speaker 12: Because homelessness is a community problem. And while there are. Speaker 15: A lot of credentials and accolades up here, I don't think you. Speaker 12: All alone. Speaker 15: Can solve this problem alone. And I don't expect you to. Speaker 12: And so can you include us, the community. Speaker 15: In in a more in-depth way throughout this process? Speaker 7: Thank you very much. That's very good. Speaker 12: Good evening, Mayor and council members. My name is Mike Murchison. I'm here on behalf of the small property owners of Long Beach, on behalf of the apartment association, on behalf of thousands of rental property owners. We want to see this item received and filed for the following reasons. We're concerned that 38% of the residents that have single family homes or owned rental properties wound up having to pay for this tax. When it gets on the ballot, assuming it passes, there's 38% on the backs of these. 38% will be paying this versus the 62% that don't pay for this. Secondly, the other thing that occurs to us is there's no guarantee and vice mayor, I've spoken to you about this before. When you're building low income housing, there's no guarantee that it's going to benefit only Long Beach residents, no guarantee of that. So there's a possibility that people from outside Long Beach that are homeless could benefit with low income housing. Finally, whether it while there's, you know, probably 200 plus people here tonight that are very passionate about the issue, I'd like to remind everybody that much like local elections here in Long Beach, that doesn't represent the Maine electorate. Thank you. Speaker 7: Thank you, Nancy Baker. Speaker 12: Hi. My name's Phil Hawkins. I'm with the Pacific Association of Realtors. And I want to talk to you about three items. A lot's been covered here tonight, but when I look at this item, I keep reading the agenda item and you know, this is going for affordable housing. But do you realize you're increasing the cost of housing to support affordable housing? So every house that has already been built here in the city of Long Beach is going to cost more to purchase or live in. Let that sink in a second, because, again, we're asking that current people that live in Long Beach pay more to help affordable housing. So you're pricing out the affordability of your current stock already. The other thing I want to mention is I don't like to do suggestions without a solution. I Googled today and I did some research. There's a program called No Place Like Home Program that the state of California has. They have over $2 billion ready for for applications. The city of Long Beach, to my knowledge, and I did some research, has not applied for any money. Speaker 7: Thank you very much. Next ask. So I'm. Next. It's is. Kevin, Mike and Williamson. Are those individuals here? Arena Cavern, Mike Williams and Muhammad. Speaker 12: Hi. My name is Kevin A and I'm here to support the bond on housing. So a lot of people are going to throw statistics out, but I'm going to stick with the heart of the issue. So to the councilman here and the councilwoman. I want to ask a rhetorical when you walk into a grocery store and you see a homeless person right. Speaker 15: By the. Speaker 12: Entrance or the type of person that looks him in the eye and recognizes their struggle, or the type of person just walks inside. Tackling the symptoms and not enough. We know the symptoms are and we treat them on the daily. There's a lot of people who run organizations here that tackle the symptoms with the little funds that they have. But this bond will go a long way in making sure that we tackle the catalysts of the problem. In closing, I want to end with a quote from our very own Rex Richardson. All the solutions to the housing crisis we've all talked about boil down to we need more capacity. This bond will help fund all of it. It's something we have to give the voters a shot at passing. Speaker 7: Thank you very much. Next. Speaker 12: Hi. My name's Mike Bowers. I'm a constituent of the first. Um, I'd like to thank Rex for introducing this bill. I know you endorsed Elizabeth Warren. I think she'd be proud of you for this. Wealth tax. Wealth tax. I think the deck was also great that you prepared. I think it really highlighted the struggle the city has been going through recently, as well as the the potential ballot initiative. It noted that five times this has been discussed by city council. Right. And since May 2017. I just want to say how many more homeless since May of 2017? Right. How many more have been raped on the streets? How many more have been assaulted on the streets since May of 2017? And most importantly, what will that DEC say in two years? Right. What will that say about your voting record and what you guys are doing here tonight? Okay. This is about community. This is about allowing the community to vote. This is about building a stronger and more equitable community for all. Just tonight in this room, you see support from renters, homeowners, union members, homeless community members, all standing in solidarity and support for this. Speaker 7: Thank you. Thank you. Speaker 12: It's clear and your voting record will be clear on this as well. Thank you. Hello. My name is William Hernandez, and I've been born and living here in Long Beach. I met Vice President Andrews a couple of days ago. A few days ago, actually. I actually mentioned to him about the homelessness situation. Speaker 15: That we've had. Speaker 12: For a very long time. And I saw this look in his eye, and it definitely, definitely felt like he he wanted to do something about it. And he stuck to his word, something he told me. And I told him that. Speaker 15: I'm stick to my. Speaker 11: Word as well. And I'm here today to show them. Speaker 12: Um. Here. To the people here. They want a change about homelessness, say I. I mean, come on. This is only the room. You've got the whole city. Speaker 7: Thank you. As Muhammadu. Speaker 12: Very is. Speaker 7: Okay. Or is there anyone who hasn't spoke, you know, that that's queued up to spoke. I mean, you speak. Okay. You signed up to speak. Okay. If you if you have, you can come up to my daughter and. Good evening. Your name? Speaker 12: Frank Zambrano. My name is Frank Zambrano. I represent the Southwest Regional Council of Carpenters. And I want to thank all of you for your for your hard work. And Councilman Richardson, great presentation. It was a great sense of understanding with all the numbers of the need for this. I don't have all the answers from the fixes or anything like that. But I can tell you to be able to to to attack what is what is here right now, which is homelessness. What we can't do is create jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs. This project right here is going to create the opportunities for this homelessness, to be able to give them training, to give be able to train them with something that's going to carry them much above and beyond getting off the street. So I stand here in front of you in support of pushing this forward and and creating these opportunities for these homeless individuals. Thank you very much. Speaker 7: Thank you. Speaker 12: Hi. Barnaby Valderrama. Speaker 7: Excuse me. The individual's going to come up now. Have you signed up to speak? Okay, fine. Speaker 12: Come forward. So I am a resident of Lambie's fourth district and an employee of Link Housing, and I'm here to support this bond measure. I'm to tell you guys something you already know. Affordable housing and languages are very important to the well-being of the city. Affordable housing will give the homeless individuals access to improve their mental and physical health. And have access to jobs. And this will allow us to allow them to contribute significantly to the dynamic. Speaker 8: Growth of this city. Speaker 12: Housing is a human right. Thank you. Speaker 1: So I just I know that I want to make sure that we have every one of the speakers list. But what I'll since I know we've have a few folks that have that weren't here. Let me just make sure. Is everyone here signed up on this on this list? Okay. So I think I have the other person in there at the end leading the that will be the last speaker. And then just please announce who you are at the start of this other. Speaker 13: My name is. Speaker 9: Ida Norbert. Speaker 13: And I am a resident. Speaker 9: Of District three. Speaker 13: I'm super fortunate. Speaker 9: I retired from. Speaker 13: I was a building inspector in the city of. Speaker 9: L.A. and I could figure out why people weren't. Speaker 13: Building housing and in my methods, a little different. I work with private builders. We've we've built like 1100 units, and I'm actually building on my property in Long Beach. Speaker 9: I drew my research and found out that I can put four units in the back of my house and they will be. Speaker 13: Affordable units using the density bonus. Speaker 12: And and. Speaker 13: So it's. Speaker 9: Going to take everything to. Speaker 13: Tackle this problem. Okay. And I and I was homeless back in the nineties, and I, I am a. Speaker 9: Product of those services that have to get to those people. I'm I'm a I'm the product. Speaker 13: Of the services. And, and I was. Speaker 9: Able to to become gainfully. Speaker 13: Employed and become the kind of citizen I wanted to be. Thank you. Speaker 6: Thank you. That's Nicholas. Speaker 12: My name is Mohammed Hassan. I'm a citizen of District Two for about seven years now. I'm a homeowner. District two More than willing to pay high taxes for this cause. I support preparing the resolution because residents should have the opportunity to vote on whether they're willing to pay 20/5000 of a percent on the increasing value of their properties to invest in this city by giving back part of the gains they made to ensure hundreds of those priced out of their house housing due to rising rents temporarily without housing due to job loss or emergency expense. Students without sufficient financial aid and parental support. Youth in the LGBT community no longer welcome in their parents homes, individuals with mental and addiction related illnesses, and many others relegated to the streets through no fault of their own. Where a significant percent are likely to die can have a roof over their heads and services that help them back on their feet into work so that they can pay taxes and spend money to sell to stimulate the local economy and support the city. A yes vote would be a vote to invest in the city likely to save lives. Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Speaker 12: It's a significant return for the city. Thank you. It's good to be. Speaker 3: Good evening. My name is Marlin Goodell. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, council members. I am a student of social work at Cal State Long Beach. I'm also a owner and I live in the District three and I've been privileged to live in this city for five years. I'm more than willing to pay my fair share of our our property to be able to give affordable housing just at the beginning of the year. My neighbor lost her home because she didn't have affordable housing after 15 years. Her rent a one bedroom, three, maybe 300 square feet in District three went up to $600. And I said, where are you going? And she said, I can't afford to live here anymore. So I'm hoping that you guys can support this because you guys have done so much already for the city. But we need a little more. And we need we need you guys to support us and let us the residents, the owners make that decision. As well. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you. And and our last speaker, please. Speaker 3: Hey, my name is McKayla, and I am a resident of the eighth district here in Long Beach. And I'm here with everyone. And I'm also a friend of as the venue in the back. She mentioned that a lot of people our age who have gone to school and no longer and cannot afford to live outside of our homes with our parents. Ah, I was actually just sent a meme while I was sitting there about a private hallway space for rent $650 a month. And that's just kind of the joke is $600 a month to live in a hallway. So that's kind of the situation that a lot of young people are living in right now. And I'm really glad that we're starting a conversation about how the city can provide affordable housing for people experiencing homelessness. But it would also be great. We could also start a conversation about how the Long Beach Police Department also treats people experiencing homelessness, because that's also a huge issue as well. Thank you so much. Speaker 12: Thank you so much. Speaker 1: Okay, thank you. That concludes public comment. We do have everyone queued up on the speakers. Just let me. I know, Councilor Richardson, did you want to Cuba any you were. Speaker 6: There with your. Speaker 1: Presentation and items. Speaker 15: Obviously. Thank you to everyone to your comments. I encourage the city council to have a robust dialog and let's try to try to find a pathway forward tonight. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you. Next up is the second year of the motion councilwoman sunday has. Speaker 3: I just want to say thank you to Councilmember Rex Richardson for inviting me to be on this and this item. As you know, I'm very, very excited to hopefully turn this over to our city staff so that they can bring our recommendation over. We have been looking for solutions to this crisis that we're in. We're in a homeless and affordable housing crisis, and we have been in it. And really what this is, is it could be a potential solution. And I think that just because of that, we owe it not only to ourselves here out on the dais, but we owe it to our community to at least look into it. So thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you. Councilwoman Sun has a Councilmember Turanga. Speaker 12: Thank you. And I want to thank everybody who came out tonight on both sides of the issue. But mostly I will be voting for this. To say it upfront, direct. That's the way I like it. But you know, when we talk about what are the issues here, and the issue is basically letting the voter decide what they want. This is not an item tonight that we're going to vote on to say we're going to go forward with a bond. It's not to be very clear, and I think Councilman or Councilmember Richardson said that very clearly. And his presentation, by the way, was a great presentation. But the point is, is that it let the voter decide if they want to be taxed on a ban on a bond and an amount that's going to be very, very much affordable. Mr. Richardson mentioned about, you know, you can go out and buy one less latte that's seven bucks. There it is. There's your monthly contribution towards ending homelessness. So when we come to to how we're going to deal with this, this ban will also provide us with with a holistic approach on dealing with homelessness because it's been brought up. Homeless people are not only those who are addicted to drugs or who are alcoholics or who are mentally ill. We also have students, we have families, we have renters. We have people who are normal people like you and me, who, through some quirk in fate, become homeless. And we need to address that. And the issue is that we don't have enough housing stock in Long Beach to be able to deal with that. And we know that it's not only a language problem, it's a regional problem. We're dealing with it in L.A. as well. And I could tell you, you know, I'm proud of Long Beach. We've we've been able to deal with the homelessness issue here in Long Beach very well up to this point. But if we don't do something about it, we're going to be bad and it's going to get worse. And we want to avoid that. And not only that, if we don't go forward with it with this item to look into, get the research, get the financing back explained to us to help, to organize how we can move forward with this. It's going to be imposed on us. And we did this before with with the cannabis issue. As an example, we brought this to the city council. The citizens want to present a plan that was going to be very workable. It was voted down. What happened? It went out and we got people signatures and they put it on the ballot. And what presented on the ballot and it passed, by the way, came up a lot more severe than what the city council was proposing. Is that what we want? I don't think so. We want to get ahead of the curve on this. We need to get ahead of curve as a city council where we are the ones to determine what type of bond we want to put on the ballot and not have the county not have the state of California impose on us to tell us what we need to do in order to create affordable housing. So as I mentioned that right from the start, I'm going to be I'm going to be supporting this tonight. Well. Speaker 1: Thank you. Next up, I have. Next up, I have Councilwoman Pryce. Speaker 5: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Can you hear me okay? Speaker 1: Yes. Speaker 5: Okay. Well, I want to thank my colleagues, Councilman Richardson and Councilwoman Van de House, for bringing this item. So. And I want to thank all the people that came out to support. And I know that in our office, we received, I think it was 168 emails from residents on this topic. So I'm grateful that everyone is engaged, and I think we all agree that both housing and homelessness are major issues of import for the city, each separately and absolutely deserve additional attention. Long Beach has recently. Undergone a major, very difficult process to update our land use land use element with the goal of creating more opportunities for housing development and incentives to do so. And in my opinion, in order for us to continue to develop housing and to incentivize affordable housing, we need to be looking very creatively as a city of how we how we work with developers to incentivize these new buildings and these new units. As we see throughout much of the city, new construction and new units being created. We know that more housing is needed as our residents and families grow and Long Beach continues to be an attractive place for people to live for the many reasons we highlight regularly. I believe we need to continue focusing on getting more housing built here in Long Beach, but I have major concerns, as do the residents in my district, about using property taxes to do so. We also all agree that homelessness is a pressing issue for Long Beach and for our residents. But I do not believe that a housing bond alone can solve the issue of homelessness, because the issue of homelessness is best addressed for a multifaceted approach that encompasses services and programs for the homeless population. Time and time again, we've seen that the best way to get help to those suffering from homelessness is through services and programs that address sometimes the root cause of the issues that may not be economic in nature. A bond like this would be strictly ineligible to be used for programs or services and would simply be only available for land and development related costs. And although the city of Long Beach continues to work to address homelessness, and Councilman Ranga mentioned very poignantly that we are doing a great deal in this effort and we are, in fact one of the leading cities in successfully addressing this issue. We know that we have so much more to do. We know that the residents of the city of L.A. passed a housing bond in 2016, and three years later it was announced. And many of you have mentioned that the first units were built, and that's 40 something units. Three years later, if we are looking to rapidly create housing, too many segments of our population ranging from extremely low income all the way to moderate income workforce housing. Then a bond would seem to be a very slow way of approaching this goal and it would be an uncertain way of approaching it, since we do not have a sense of what development costs or the housing market may look like four or five years from now. Housing and homelessness are both important topics, but they are separate topics. But we should be careful not to make residents think those problems can be solved with a single new car based upon property owners alone. I'm going to be making a substitute motion at this time to ask city staff to research the alternative funding sources that are available to the city through state and federal dollars that can mitigate the housing costs that we have anticipated needing. I think before we go to the property tax option, before we ask property owners to pay more, we should find out what is available to us and whether what is available to us will mitigate what property owners would have to pay. My office and I have been involved for the last week and researching different state and federal funding options. We have identified 12 different state funds, which my office is happy to work with city staff on, that we can tap into to at least mitigate the total need before we ask the city attorney to put in place language that would be voted on or a ballot measure, which is what we're doing today. So we can say over and over again that we're not going to put this on the ballot tonight. It's just misleading. What we would be asking the city attorney to do is to prepare language for submission as a ballot proposal. So I think putting in that process into motion without knowing exactly how much money we have access to and how much money we're still short on is really unfair to property owners. Let's find out how much we actually need before we start asking people to buy less. Speaker 1: Because I got it, guys. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Councilwoman. Speaker 5: By running out of time, I don't have a. Speaker 1: Yeah, no, no. Your guys. I got the timer. Thank you very much. Councilman, your time's up. If you want to recue, please, please do so. Okay. But I believe, just to clarify, there was a substitute motion that was made. And, Councilman, just if I can clarify, the substitute motion was to have city staff look at state and federal options, at options to look at funding, housing affordability and and affordable housing as it relates to all the all the categories and bring that back to council before looking at any property tax bond that I get to that I get it. Okay, guys, I'm just I've got to. Guys, thank you very much, people. Folks, I have to get the meeting going. So that was the that was the most substantive motion that was made. There is a second on the substitute motion councilmember super now councilor Supernanny comments. Speaker 8: Yes. Thank you. First, just a point of order. We sat here and listened very patiently day everyone since 7 p.m. so I just asked that that respect be returned. Thank you. I agree with Councilwoman Price's point, and my job is to represent the residents of the Fourth Council District. And it's not that they oppose this, that they it's that they oppose this in overwhelming numbers. And I'm we were at like 97, 98% opposition. We have one person here standing up now. So let's drop it down to 95%. Still, we haven't had anything with with that type of opposition that I can remember in the four and a half years on council. I think the goals are noble. I think we're all on board for the goals. But I agree with Councilman Price that this item as written, it's you can see it right up there on the wall. It says a ballot for voters to consider. So with that, I'm happy to second the motion. Speaker 1: And thank you so that there's a there's a substitute motion on the floor. Everyone, please. I got we got to have the council discussion now. So please, it's got I have a long list of folks that want to speak their so councilman price councilman to point out the motions on the floor. Next up is Councilwoman Mongo. Speaker 3: Thank you. I want to first state that in building on what Councilwoman Pryce said, there are people in my district today whose housing cost associated with their property taxes would go up 17%. And these are seniors who live on a fixed income. And I know that that doesn't mitigate the discussion that you had, that they've built wealth in the equity of their home, but they're not trying to use that equity. There are seniors who bought their homes long time ago. Their property taxes are at a certain amount, and an additional $250 a year on their current assessed value would be a 17% increase for individuals whose current Social Security check is $662 a month. And so we don't want to push them out of their home. I want to I want to talk a little bit about who the true heroes are. I hope that those of you who respect Justin and Megan Kerr and Andy and the others know that I've taken meetings, I've provided feedback. And I think it's important that the feedback of the Fifth District that I receive is considered, because in my election we had a 40% voter turnout. And I think that it's important that we talk about not just an exciting thing that we can all get behind, but what could pass, and are we at a point where we know? Second, I want to talk about a real hero, Indi Andrews, and a lot of the talks I've had over the last week, a lot of people tell me where does D stand? Because he's the one who gives out the turkeys at Thanksgiving. He's the one that brings toys to the poor. He's the one who protected us and takes the. Portable housing, and DE is the one who knows better than most that the people who live in his district are really, really strapped with rental costs, and that a lot of times property owners will pass that cost on to them and they cannot afford that. So when he came to me in July and asked for a $50,000 budget item to do a study, it was put in the budget and the champions that voted on that were Al Austin and Suzy Price. They're the Budget Oversight Committee that put aside the 50,000 for the study that you're kind of asking for. The study that you're asking for does not include the robustness of the original 20th August 2018 item, and someone commented on how this is similar to marijuana. We really need to follow the course that we already started in August 2018. Changing direction now is not the answer. And for those reasons, I hope that my colleagues, especially on the Bossie and those who have done more for homeless than anyone else. I hope that each and every one of you respect us enough to keep the dialog honest and support, receive and file and maintain the course. We started thinking. Substitute. Substitute motion. Speaker 1: Okay. Hold on a sec. So there's a substitute substitute motion. I just want to clarify is. The substitute substitute is to receive and file the report, the agenda item. Okay. So just to clarify, we have a substitute substitute, which is to receive and file the agenda item, which is just to basically receive the report today. Then there's a substitute motion, which is Councilman Price's motion, which is to do a study on federal and on state opportunities to look at funding. And then there's the original motion which Smith made by Councilmember Richardson, which has been read into the record. Mr. City Attorney. That's correct. Okay. Just want to make sure that the council is clear on where we're at. Councilmember Pearce. Speaker 2: Thank you. I'm going to try to speak quickly because I have a lot to say, especially after hearing from my colleagues. First of all, thank you, everybody, for coming out. I personally have been coming to counsel for over ten years with many of you in this room asking for the city to put aside funding for housing. This city, we have done a lot. We have three heart teams. We have quality of life officers, a multi-service center, clean teams. We are building we are opening a winter shelter. We are building a year round shelter. We provide vouchers and other services, which is wonderful, but we have not once put any money significant enough to put into building housing. Homelessness is the one issue. Homelessness is the one issue where the answer to the problem is in the name. They are homeless. They need homes. When we sit here and act like that's not the issue, we are doing something that is either hiding the ball. It's acting like we don't know what the left hand is doing different from the right, or it's simply a simple word called hypocritical that says that we want to do one thing, but we're going to do something else. But this vote, again, is not about how much money and how many houses in all of those questions. This vote is about democracy. This vote is about saying that the voters deserve the opportunity to vote on this. And if they vote it down, then that's fine. But right now, I know that the polls I've done in my district, it's 80 and 90% of people that want housing and they want services for seniors. Our arena numbers right now are close to 3000 units that need to be developed in Long Beach alone, 3000. We heard from developers that were here today that said that they sometimes have to put together 12 different funding sources to build something. We've heard from developers here, we've heard from our our health department that when Long Beach puts money up, we get more money. We've also heard that it could cost upwards to $100,000 a year for one person to be on the street. So we know that $7 a month is not too much because those people that call my office and send me photos of people that are homeless in my community. They don't want to spend any more money. But the news is you're spending more money today than you would if we had a bond measure. So I have a couple of. I have a couple of questions that I'm sure I'll have to queue up again because I normally run out of time. You know, I tell my colleagues, I know that sometimes we get on different sides and cannabis was mentioned. Hotels can be mentioned. We consistently drop the ball and waste a lot of money and a lot of energy dealing with politics instead of doing what we know is right. I've taken a vote before. I've taken a vote before. That didn't let me sleep at night. And so I hope that as we go through the process tonight, that you think about going home and being able to put your head on a pillow, being able to actually sleep because you did the right thing. So allowing this to go to the voters is absolutely the right thing. Couple comments. There was a comment mentioned by merchants and that said that there was no way that we could guarantee that this bond money would be used for Long Beach residents. Someone on staff able to answer that question for me. Speaker 14: So, Councilmember, we understand the proposal that Councilmember Richardson has would be a dedicated funding source for affordable housing. So under California law, that would be all housing bonds need two thirds. That would be dedicated. It would go into only affordable housing. And there's only certain uses that it could be that it could fund couldn't fund services, it would fund housing, construction, the things that are listed in the item. Speaker 2: It's my understanding that it could fund development, but there were certain types of wraparound services that it could fund as well, that it wasn't only development. Speaker 14: That's something that we've heard. We don't we haven't reached that point yet where we know exactly what services could or could not do. Our initial scan is that it really is for the construction and the land acquisition. But if you're asking us tonight, what you would be doing is asking us to bring those answers back of exactly specificity, how much we could spend, what we could spend it on, what we couldn't. We've got a high level overview at this point. We would be doing additional deep dove. Speaker 2: And it's also my understanding that we could put in there that the suggested conversation was that seniors would be able to go down to the registrar's office and they would be able to do an opt out. Speaker 14: That's the request in the item right now. We would take that and research that and bring back, you know, how that would work and what the what that would be. And we need to know the answer to that question. Yes. Speaker 2: That's my understanding from the research that I've done as well. I think that I look forward to hearing the rest of the conversations. I want to remind folks that our health department also reminds us that Housing First is a model that we as a city say that we support. And while we've done everything else, we haven't done a Housing First model to the fullest extent because we haven't built housing. Speaker 12: Ow! Ow, ow, ow. Speaker 1: Thank you, guys. We're going to think. I'm going to. I'm going to. So, Councilmember, you want to. You're going to just cue back up. Okay. So customer appearances queued back up. Let me move on to Councilmember Austin. Speaker 9: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I want to thank my council member for starting the New Year. All right. We are certainly talking about the most important issue in front of our city. And I'm going to just say that that while I support affordable housing and building supportable housing, more affordable housing in the city, I'm not sure that this is the only solution. And I think looking at alternatives to to to to to to building and getting revenue that that may be available to us is something that we need to look at first. I have talked to many of my constituents over the last couple of weeks about this particular matter. And many folks are very, very overburdened. They feel overburdened with taxes. I'm going to run down a list of of actions that we have taken as a city, as a county, as voters over the last four years. Right now, measure a L.A. County parks, which is a parcel tax measure M L.A. County Transportation, which is a sales tax measure. WW was the L.A. County Water Tax, which is a partial tax measure. A local here, Long Beach was a public safety and infrastructure sales tax measure. E of Columbus Unified School District was a property tax measure k. Let me see if I school district was also a property tax. And these are ongoing revenue sources that we are dealing with right now, a measure elbphilharmonie city college. These are all bond measures that have been passed within the last four years. And I would just say most of these these measures are are still underway. They're still generating revenue. They're still creating jobs. And we have not yet met our obligations completely to the voters on these particular measures. In 2017th December 2017, the Trump tax plan was also passed, which capped what a homeowner can write off of their home at $10,000. For a lot of folks who may not understand that, but for many of the homeowners in my district who I represent, that created an additional tax burden on them. Right. And so this is not as simple as, you know, I don't know if it was $0.84 or, you know, $7 a month. This is compounded on a lot of other issues. And from what I'm hearing from a lot of our our our our my constituents is that, you know, they want to help. They want to do more. I think there's opportunities for us to do more. I like to look at those options a little further. And so I'm not completely comfortable moving forward with the with proposed here this evening, the $50,000. I do want to ask staff we did create a fund in the appropriation and if we're 19 to initiate work on housing related homeless services list in early 2019. And I'm Mister City Manager. What specifically has been accomplished with that $50,000 from 2019 and how much remains? Speaker 14: Yes. So that $50,000, we had a list of next steps when we talked about this issue last at the council in August of 2018. And it was kind of a large you know, if you wanted to move forward, we there were some recommendations on how to how to do that. The council at that time gave us about $50,000. So what we used a portion of it for was to do some additional analysis with our bond counsel to understand some of the mechanisms, to understand how a bond would work and how, you know, could be could be used. So we have some of that good data that we would use if you want to move forward tonight. And we have about we use about 15,000 of that. So we have about $35,000 left. Speaker 9: But to me, that that the direction was already given when we made that appropriation to study this and understand what could be done. As it stands today, we we don't have a plan. Is that correct? Speaker 14: I'm not sure I'm following the question. Speaker 9: So when we appropriated the $50,000 that was given to staff to study this issue. Correct. Speaker 14: So the next steps that were talked about on April or in August were a couple of things. I'll just read them for the record. Review measures passed and proposed in other cities, which we've done. We've used structures for broad based outreach to partners in the community, tie in strategies with the Everyone Home Task Force recommendations, develop a list of potential funding categories in highest need based on outreach. Educate the community on need, on what can be accomplished, and set aside resources. And then so the $50,000 is what was set aside. That is a pretty big work plan. And so we started with what we could, which is the understanding other cities. We frankly needed kind of this discussion for to really jump into this and really go and do all the rest of that for you to tell us, like get going and actually do this. So that's really what the direction is tonight. So we've started. We've got a good sense, but what you're asking us to do in the agenda item tonight is bring back resolution language, but also then really understand and do a deeper dove on all of the recommendations, how much would be funded in each category and bring that back to you as well as some of the other questions about debt burden and what this would mean for for the city. Speaker 9: Thank you. Speaker 1: I think it counts. I know that time's up, but when you back up, you're welcome to as well. Our councilwoman and the house. Speaker 3: Hi. I'm. Again, one of the things that we're asking tonight is to just, you know, bring back a plan, a solution. I think that we've been trying to find solutions for affordable housing and homelessness for a very long time. One of the things that was excluded from from the downtown plan was the inclusionary housing. Another thing that we've been trying to find solution for is is that like, for example, we brought forward the tenant relocation was which was repealed. So I think that we need to really move forward on this item, with all due respect to what my colleagues are saying. I think that, you know, this is the way to find those solutions and to really lay out a plan on how we address affordable housing and homelessness in our city. And the reason that I'm the most passionate about these two items is because I represent the first District and the first District. It is so impacted by one. We have the most affordable units in the district right now. And then any other district, I would say. But not only that, we also have even the greatest need for affordable housing in the First District. And so that's why I'm so passionate about this, because we need this in the first District, but not only in the first District. We need to be fair and bring all that to all our districts. And if we don't go forward with this plan, I think that we are leading our not only our our community down, but our city down. And as a city officials, as elected city officials, we really, really need to to move forward and really find some positive solutions that will help us move this plan forward. And I think that that's what this this issue is doing. If we pass this. Speaker 1: Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilman Mango. Speaker 3: Thank you. I want to be very respectful of Mary. I know that you weren't here. A part of the dialog in August. The motion being brought forward by Councilmember Richardson is actually stating what we decided in August. To look at all types of solutions is not the direction we want to go anymore. We now want to go with a housing bond. It's it's refocusing from a all solutions approach to a this is the solution. Furthermore, I feel as though as enumerated by acting city manager Modica the current direction, if everyone votes yes with what is on the floor right now, will bring back and study those funding categories, as was outlined in the original motion made in August. And furthermore. I'm sorry. I've been sick. So just give me 1/2. And furthermore. There are alternatives and other solutions that may have greater support, because one of the things we don't want to do is put forward an item that does not pass. And so for that reason, I hope that my colleagues will support the item on the floor to continue down the path of looking for the most solutions and bring back the funding categories and see all alternatives that are that are possible. And there was. Mr. Monica, you said we needed more direction. And I feel that that's not a great statement, because there was a memo that came out from Mr. Gross's office that outlined the 50,000 and the direction. And so I felt as though I feel as though if there was a concern from staff that they did not have enough information, perhaps that should have come to us before today. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you. Next up is Councilmember Richardson. Speaker 15: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Speaker 12: So. Speaker 15: Yeah, I want to just. You know, in listening to my colleagues, I completely you know, I get it. You get you got concerns. And, you know, the thing about my presentation, I started off by saying, let's have a conversation. There's been two motions before we were able to have some exchange. So I want to have a little bit of exchange. So the first point is there's no way to sneak this by the city council. The first vote needs a majority of city council to give direction to explore this. Craft language. Crafting language is key because it allows us to test the language in test. Your last point Council about viability. The initial two polls were conducted. A number of things were you know, the city conducted a poll two years ago on this and the ban was the most popular. You know, we conducted a number of other polls. This had enough support to have this question. The next step is to test language and actually evaluate real impact. That's the next step to make a real decision. The second step requires two thirds of the city council to put this on, and it's six votes. There is no way to sneak this in. If we somehow get one more council member to support this, it will need a supermajority of this council. There is no threat with doing the research on this motion because at the end of the day you will need a plurality major. Speaker 12: You will need. Speaker 15: A majority of a two thirds majority of the council members to adopt this and send it to the voters. So there's no there's no sneaking this by you. I didn't make I got my time. There's no sneaking by by the council. That's what we're doing. And so, you know, so I get it. You know, we want to you know, what's in front of us actually does make sense. The other thing is not a lot of conversation in the public and, you know, one side and the other and I get it is, you know, it's 2020. This is a decision point. This is why we should put it in front of the public to make the decision. That's our responsibility, not to make decision for people, especially in an election year, on something that is controversial. We should put it forward for consideration or at least take the step to do so. You know, there were there was a there was a constant question about no specifics, false bonds or more specific than any other measure. Bonds have to specifically outline the use of these funds in the next step should this motion move forward, is to actually take the next step on further specifying the details of the bond so you get more specificity. There was a statement about whether this fund, these funds can be used for Long Beach residents. Our current approach of asking the county in the state to you to be our solution, the county, the state has more strings. They have limitations on how those dollars can be used. I toured the shelter in Anaheim. It was funded by the city of Anaheim, their local tax dollars, and therefore that shelter is for the Anaheim homeless population. And if another city wants their homeless population to come in, they have to pay. They have to pay for their own homeless. What I'm saying is our current strategy of taking drawing down dollars from other communities exposes us to taking on other communities homeless. That's what people are actually saying. We have to pay to have the additional protection that all people want to protect their neighborhoods. That's that's smart. We have to consider that for our own public safety needs and to be able to have a manageable homeless population, that just makes sense. Someone said we already pay for these two major AIDS. Two points measure AIDS funds, services. People said this is only infrastructure. Yes, because we have a funding source on services, we need to build the capacity, heart infrastructure capacity. Here's the bonus, too, that other communities that have passed the local measure have leverage that to bring down other measure additional measure dollars and leverage. I think Sonny made a made a strong point a point about this small amount packs a major punch. Additionally, we don't even pay into measure H, we pay in them. It's a sales tax, not a property tax. And we don't pay it because we have our sales tax cap in Long Beach. So we receive millions of dollars annually. We have not paid into Measure H. Mr. MODICA, can you confirm this? So people know that this is the truth. Speaker 12: Mr. Mogaji. I'm sorry. Can you repeat that question? Speaker 15: Measure H, L.A. County, major, east of the city of Long Beach. Our sales tax include a contribution to measure H. Speaker 14: So currently we do not pay into measure H. So we are currently at our cap for sales tax and so that money then is collected by the city. But we do not currently pay into measure. Speaker 15: H now under. Now we will pay into it a little bit for a couple of years given whatever the outcome of the vote on Measure A's, that's that's different. But currently we receive the funding we don't contributing. Right now Mommy's doesn't pay any money into the into homelessness and affordable housing production of local dollars. We don't do that. So that's a myth. Councilman Durango, you mentioned one lottery per person. I just want to be clear and I kind of don't like when people do the latte thing. I said it. You said it is not one per person is one per household per month, meaning just one person in a household, not one . Councilwoman Price, I understand your concerns. I understand the social cost of of, you know, doing something that maybe your district is not is not exciting. Your district. I completely understand that. I serve on SCAD, where we have to work with people from Orange County, Riverside County, San Bernardino County to figure out a way to come together. I completely understand my hope. My hope was that we can have a dialog. I've reached out for dialog. I know there's concerns on how many people we can talk to do the Brown act, but my hope was to really have that conversation tonight. Before jumping to a conclusion, I placed a proposal on the table that was vetted. It's been in the public and press for over a year. When my swearing in speech, I said that we were going to pursue this. That was going on two years ago. We publicly talked about this in the prerelease polling. Everyone's known we're talking about there's plenty of opportunity to talk and there's still opportunity to talk. So so that's the conversation about need, a multifaceted approach. We have a multifaceted approach where we're lacking is the actual infrastructure of shelter beds. We had a discussion on council about Martin v Boise, about our limited our limited ability to enforce encampments and keep communities safe. It is a direct connection and it's all continue to evolve. But it's clear that there is a direct connection on how much capacity we have to serve our homeless in order to enforce our local camping laws. We had a debate about a debate about it a little while back. Now it's coming back in front of us. This is what we debated about before. Now it's now it's here. The Supreme Court sided with, you know, the appellate court. And here we are today discussing that we need to have capacity. Our Congressman, Alan Lowenthal, issued an op ed last week specifically telling Long Beach, hey, the writing is on the wall. You need to do this. In addition. Speaker 12: Hang on. Speaker 1: Hang on. Just just real quick. Speaker 15: I'm glad I only said so. Speaker 1: Just just just remember. Hold on. I'm not. I'm not sure. Finish up, but just chance. Councilman, your time is up. So I'm going to have you finish up this one question or thought and then I got to go. Have you read? Speaker 15: Okay. Speaker 1: I'll just recue and finish up this last statement then. Recue, please. All right. Speaker 15: I'll just I'll just continue. I wanted to sort of talk to the different councilman, but I'll start with that Councilman Price. But I wanted to give the councilman councilman anything and read some good points. And let's talk about those. But I'll get I'll get to that. I'll come back to that. So, so again, where was I? So. Really? I got lost. Speaker 1: Girls, have you with you. Speaker 15: Oh, the expert the in the motion to explore the state in other dollars we we've explored that so we've explored that everyone home has explored that city staff has full time staff that our health department is like 97% grant funded. Like all we do is explore these funding sources. It's consistent and these are experts. All they do, they do. They're better at my council staff and probably all of our council staff are doing that research. What we know is that much of that funding is unavailable to us because we don't have a local revenue source. It's matching dollars, much of that is matching dollars. So we have to have a local funding source. Speaker 1: Come and what. Speaker 15: Have you. So that's about to knock you back up, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Speaker 1: Count Councilwoman in Dallas. Hold on. Thank you. We so we have we have a lot of we have a lot of folks queued up. So I'm just trying my best to get through everybody. So please, councilman Sunday House. Speaker 3: Thank you. Just a quick question to Tom Modica. Can you clarify for me? I know that there's a possibility to see if people with, you know, seniors to opt out of of such tax. Is there a possibility for just in general people who are going through, you know, who are low income or going through financial difficulties, who can really not afford the $7 tax a month? Speaker 14: So I don't know if we know today exactly how that would work. So part of what we would ask you to do in a motion is tell us what kind of exemptions that you're interested in. And so the ones on the table right now that we're supposed to be looking at is seniors and disabled. If you know, you're asking us to look at other exemptions for low income and others, we would need to take a look at that. Speaker 3: Okay. Thank you. So with that being said, I just feel that, you know, I know that this is a controversial issue up here on the dais. But one of the things that I feel we need to do is make sure that we present it to our voters. And I think that's the right thing to do, because if your constituents like mine, if they vote against this and they're very passionate against this measure, then it won't pass. You know, but I think we actually need to give them the opportunity to vote on this. Speaker 1: Thank you, Councilmember. Councilmember Pearce. Speaker 2: Thank you. Now that I've blown off some steam, I'm going to try to be quick and just ask a couple of questions and with a little bit of a brief history lesson, we both we mentioned two times that that we had people go to the voters for ballot measures. And one thing that I just want to remind everybody is that when we don't do it ourselves, those other parties that are interested, they craft the language. So there were things in Claudia's law that I didn't love, but because we didn't put it on the ballot, we didn't get to craft that language. There were things in cannabis the same thing. So I want to hear from my colleagues. I see that some of you guys are queued up. I'd like to hear from you. You know, in addition to seeing how robust we are, we are trying to tackle this issue with all these different tools. What is it about putting this to the voters? That is your hesitation. And I know that we have different constituencies, but really just understanding, it seems to me like the most responsible thing an elected body can do to make sure that we design something that's right for Long Beach. So I'd like to hear from you guys on that. Speaker 1: Okay. So let me let me continue. Councilman Austin. Speaker 9: Okay. So I wanted to just just follow up on some of my comments as well. I mentioned a number of the existing measures that, by the way, I've supported most, if not all of them. And I think many of them are delivering and doing good work for them that they intended to do, particularly when our school district , community college district measure A for the city of Long Beach has been doing phenomenal and I continue to support those. The issue that I have is, again, adding something else to the to the voters, to the taxpayers in Long Beach. I've heard from many of my constituents that they have been hit hard and it's starting to impact them. I just want to, with all due respect, clarify that point. I also want to just say that I've been watching the state of California for some time now, and I do know that we do have a $20 billion rainy day fund in the state budget. Right. I will re-emphasize that. $20 billion if the the governor today, who is very much committed to affordable housing and if the legislature is very much committed to affordable housing, we're able to put $2.5 billion to a statewide housing crisis and give the city of Long Beach the money that we are requesting. We can get that and the taxpayers don't have to be taxed twice. And so I would just say that there are options out there. If we are creative, if we work together, we can get there. Again, I think we are all on the same page in terms of resolving the issue of building more affordable housing in Long Beach. It's how we get there. And so I will propose looking at other options. I know that that's an item for us or under consideration under one or two motions to actually allow us to to study and ask staff to look at that. But I also think staff is doing that anyway. Right. Our staff is looking at creative solutions anyway, because this council has shown its commitment to to to dealing with this issue. And so, again, I want to just clarify where I was on that issue, but also throw out some some alternatives for us to think about in terms of money that may be available. It's already there for us to deal with this important crisis facing us. Thank you very much. Speaker 1: Thank you. Councilman Price. Speaker 5: Thank you very much. I'll be brief here. So. I want to thank Councilman Austin because he actually articulated just a moment ago what I wanted to say, and I'm sure I can't do it justice. But, you know, and I and I appreciate. The guidance from some of my colleagues and what leadership and representing residents means to them and what it should mean to me. But I do represent the residents of my district and I represent the residents of the city as a whole. And what I can tell you is that we have no idea sitting here right now what specifically we've explored in terms of available funding options and how much we can tap into. If we had a good estimate on that, then maybe we could lower the amount that we want to tax property owners. Maybe the figures that you're putting out there, maybe it's a dollar or $2 plus a month. And I know we're talking about these things in the context of coffee. I'm not sure why that is, but when property owners look at their tax bills, they have multiple bonds, hundreds and thousands of dollars that are being paid into different bond measures. And like Councilman Austin, I supported many of those and I think they're doing excellent work. The Long Beach Unified School District Bond, for example, has benefited schools throughout our entire city. And I think they've put that money to good use. And I have no problem as a property owner paying that bond every single year or twice a year. But I think we need to have an understanding of how much we actually need based on what's available to us and what may be available to us with this administration that's made this a priority. Before we start to think about taxing our property owners, I have a real issue with taxing just property owners. I personally think that that will result in higher rents because I think they'll pass through those increases. But I think there's a fundamental fairness issue and that's my opinion and it's my opinion based on my conversations with my district who overwhelmingly oppose this proposal. Now, Councilman Richardson made a point about let's get the language in there so that we can test the language. Well, you know, I appreciate that. I understand what that means for a political sense. But, you know, our job isn't to craft language that we test the residents like guinea pigs to see what they'll vote for and what they won't vote for. For example, I bet you 90% of the people that you poll will tell you they have no idea what a general obligation bond means. Many people don't realize what they're being asked to do in support of affordable housing with a lot of these pollings. So I think that we need to be very cognizant that when we're putting ballot measures out there, I mean, let's not I mean, Councilman Pearce, I understand what you're trying to say about the other ballot initiatives. I really wish we wouldn't go there because, frankly, there was a lot of false advertising and some of those measures. And we can't expect voters to dig deep into these issues like you and I and the other members of the council are expected to do as part of our jobs. So our job is to educate people. What we're trying to do is tax property owners to pay for something that we don't know yet, how much will actually need because we don't know what state funding sources and federal funding sources are available to us at this moment. So I'm not in favor of moving forward on this at all. And so I think that it's important for us to, you know, take a step back and think about our options. And so with that, I will have. Speaker 1: Hey, guys. Hey, everyone. We got no, no, guys. This is time for the deliberation and everyone needs to speak. So I'm going to continue down this list. Councilman Richardson. Speaker 15: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So I was. So a few more here. I have a list of things. So, Councilman Price, before I move on down the line, I agree that we need to have an understanding on need. The number 300 $298 million was based on the need established in our Everyone Home report. This was conducted by by our our experts in our communities that are already doing this work as well as our city staff, our health department, our development services department, economic. They were involved in establishing the number. So this was connected to that. But secondly, the numbers flex. Let me just say, if that's the reason that people are want to support this, I'm going to say it very clear to the council members the number is flexible. If I want staff and I had a conversation with Mr. Modica that the idea is the number should meet the need. If we find that what's in the proposal is off by a dollar higher or lower or whatever it is, that's what we want to know. We want to pick it out the right number. It's not about what sounds good, $25 or whatever it is. And we've given that flexibility. I reiterate that. Now bring back the correct number to meet the need as identified. That's in the recommendation. Secondly, we don't need that. Hang on. Secondly, the second part of the most so the first part in motion is important because it allows us to do we've already done a lot of research on that top level research. The first part of the motion allows us to take that second step. And language is key because that's how we figure out more specifically, the general debt, the general. So the debt obligation for this, how long it will have to stay on all those details that we really need in order to make a full decision we need. And that's encompassed in the first part of the motion. The second part, the motion asks for all the other things we talked about. What specifics can we do that what's what is the plan? We did this on measure A. When Measure eight came, we sat we created a plan on how specifically we would invest that we can actually do that. But if there are other things I want to throw into that study, we can do that tonight. Let's put that if we say let's do tracking. I also want to explore options that don't raise taxes. I'm always going to say no to that. I'm a property owner to let's see if we can do it to the magnitude to close the gap. That's that's the purpose here. So we need to be able to include that into this recommendation. Councilman Austin, you made a number of great points. I know how our districts are very different. I know that a number of our districts in our city are very different. I understand social cut, social cost, the cost of taking certain positions. So I completely understand that. And my hope is that we can create space to find a motion that you can support. Frankly, there's we need to ultimately need six people on this council tonight is five. But we're ultimately you need six members of the council. We can't do this, frankly, without two additional members of the council. If certain members have already indicated that they are closed minded to a property tax option whatsoever, that limits the field. So I frankly don't know a way to do this without you. So I'm going to just try to create a narrative or dialog that allows you to address the concern. And I understand that concern. So opening open to explore additional options, we explored 29 options. This was one of them. But I'm okay with saying, Hey staff, if there are others we think might be viable to the same amount, including that in that I'm okay with doing that. Secondly, the reason Bond is in front of us because there are some natural sort of advantages. We've taken all every step except the specific step. We've never done a bond in Long Beach. Never. So the city attorney needs to actually get bond counsel and all of these folks and do that research. If we do something allows them to do that research, I'm okay tonight. Secondly, I think the part of the there's two parts of this motion. The first part I think that folks that I'm hearing have a trouble with is the part that says bring it back to council for consideration. The next vote is the vote to consider it. I'm okay if that if if you know, we're in if that creates a tough spot for people, let's do that. But the. Formation encompassed in the first part. Just bring it back as a part of the study. I do want to see. I want to take the next step on the bond, but other things. But we have to make sure that those actions that city staff would do under the first recommendation, short of bringing it back for consideration, we would have to take that action to do that. I want them to spend these next couple of months, two, three months actually doing that research. And I get 2 to 3 months because that's what the city attorney said would be required. I don't want to waste I don't want to waste three months when they could do that research. Now, engage bond counsel, do that research now. So in order for us to even have that conversation, we need in order for us to have that conversation, we're going to have to procedurally figure out some space to get to a place to compromise. I understand that the first two comments out the gate were substitute motions. I've done those games before. I understand what that is. We're going to have to we're going to have to create space for that. So in order to do that, the motion to receive and file. I don't think that's a reasonable motion. I think we should vote down the motion to receive and file and create space. I'll make a motion in place of that that simply says we will move forward with the second part of this motion. And in the first part we will take the meat of it, the actual context and details we need, and include that in the second part. And we're going to move anything about bringing it back to council for consideration so that if people want to know that we vote, is there anything about this? Is voting to pass a ban? No, we took a step. Absolutely. Explore this and other things. We certainly do. We have we have moved the ball and put us in a better position to do this. And ultimately, if by the time we're going to give you into this plan and as much as you want to want to be engaged in, it's not where it needs to be. We can't move forward without six votes. I think that's that is. Reasonable, a reasonable request and it is open. And, you know, these other things that Councilman Price mentioned about whether the number is higher or lower. There's flexibility within that proposal as well. So that is my respectful offer to you. I'd love to hear if you're open to this, because procedurally, either the substitute motion we need to be removed, our council would have to substitute motion would have to be removed or our city council have to vote that down in order to create space to make this happen. That's where we are. Speaker 1: From a supernova. Speaker 8: Thank you. I'm kind of digesting what was just said. I heard the word close minded and I was in the capital games. Our Democratic classes here referred to as games, and I couldn't differ more from that assessment. The councilwoman from the second District asked a question and I'll paraphrase it. I don't think it is rhetorical. I think he really wanted an answer. What's wrong with just placing this on the ballot? And earlier, you invoked the word democracy in describing that this would be a democratic process to put it on the ballot. And I'll just tell you what the constituents in the fourth District have told me. They've asked the question, what is Democratic about asking 38% of the people to foot the bill for this? And they've further stated that, you know, if this is that important an issue, shouldn't we have everyone in, to borrow a phrase? Shouldn't everyone be in to pay for this? So that's an answer to your question. So I seconded the substitute motion, and I'm ready to call for the question. Speaker 1: Okay. The question the question has been called and so concerned. Richardson has queued up to speak. So I think we're going to take a vote on the question. QUESTION Correct. That's Renee. I think there's a second on the question. I think constantly comes on the second question. But you said second. Speaker 16: That you would need to vote on a call for the question. Right. Speaker 1: So so I. Speaker 16: Need a two thirds you need a two thirds vote to end debate. Speaker 1: Okay. So just to be clear, I'm not sure if the clerk. Are you able to. We'll probably have to do roll call because of Councilman Price. So so just to clarify what's happening for everyone up. So Councilman Super nine has made a motion to end debate essentially. And so that motion has to be voted on by the council before we can continue having any more any more debate. And so that is the motion that's on the floor. And for it to pass, I believe, Mr. City Attorney, two thirds of the council has to vote to end debate. Speaker 16: Six votes. Speaker 1: Yes, six votes. Okay. So the motion is on the floor to end the debate and then do a roll call vote. Speaker 15: So when a voter I wasn't clear, it required six votes to end debate. Speaker 1: Mr. City Attorney. Speaker 16: That's correct. You need a two thirds vote to them to be. Speaker 15: One queued up. I just had something to say. If it's important enough to get six voters. Let's go ahead and vote the other six votes for that, because I think there's only one more person to go ahead. Let's do it. It's not debatable. It's the conflict question, right? Speaker 12: No. Speaker 1: Okay. So you're saying that we're just going to end debate and vote? Correct. Speaker 16: There is no debate on the call for the question. The vote on the call for the question that fails. Speaker 1: So we're doing you go back and. Speaker 8: That's exactly right. And you say something. When I made that motion, there was no one cued up. Speaker 1: And so just to be clear, there's a call for the question, and that's what we're voting on to end debate. So an I vote ends debate and never, of course, allows that debate to continue. So I do a roll call vote. District one. Speaker 3: Name. Speaker 1: District two. District three. Speaker 3: I. Speaker 1: District four. Speaker 8: I. Speaker 1: District five i. District six. Speaker 6: At the. Speaker 1: District seven. District eight. And District nine. Speaker 12: Hey. Yeah. Speaker 16: So the motion fails. So the debate continues. Whoever you up next. Speaker 1: Debate continues. And so let's go back to the conversation. So next up is Councilmember Richardson. Speaker 15: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Of course, it's an important debate. We respect our council rules. But at some point you have to say that some of this is silly. We you know, you get a few minutes and you got to come back. Some of it is silly. I think we need to explore occasionally looking at suspending those rules. I just have a few more thoughts here. So the attempt there was to open up a discussion. There was no response to that. It's sincere. I will make it again if by the end of my comments are there. I am open to that. But I put that offer on the table. It was not acknowledged. So here's what what the way that where I see this, I think this there's been a lot of like conversation that like dividing us and we shouldn't let this conversation divide. I'm sorry. Point of order to have the floor working people chime in. Are we able to meet the minimum? Speaker 5: I'm. I'm sorry, Rex. I just didn't have you on mute. It was a mistake. I'm sorry. Speaker 15: It's just really loud in here. I'm sorry, Suzy. It comes out everywhere. Okay, so. All right. So I know that this is controversial. I know that we need to it's my opinion that particularly in 2020, in a presidential election year, where people are already paying attention and we're getting a larger sample of voters than we typically get . We typically have low turnout elections. We have a high turnout election and get two thirds vote in an election of, you know, probably 60, 70% turnout is already a heavy lift. I feel like we need to take that step. It's clear to me, based on the comments that we don't have the support for that tonight. We just don't. And, you know, to put it in perspective, we've all had difficult votes. We've all seen us air on the side of, you know, we're going to take you know, we're going to look at the facts. We have a debate. We'll get there. We had we've seen our counsel and our staff prioritize incredible projects and get there. And we were fortunate to sit in a in a community in a civic center today. Today, a civic center has placed our our city incumbent for the next 40 years on that service. And we got there on every single vote. The majority of this council got there. We got there even though we had concerns about the Belmont pool, $80 million pool investment. We had concerns. We made the case. We made it stronger. We got good union jobs there. We got there. We got there. We had the debate. We got there. Yet tonight, we don't have the political will to simply let the voters have a choice. I think that I think that is shameful. And this council is not a great moment. There is not a lot of risk on a two thirds vote. Not a lot of risk on asking the voters of Long Beach to weigh in. Not a lot of risk here. If there's as much uproar about this, then the voters will tell us that at the ballot box. And it's not it's not on us. It's on the voters. You know, so, you know, that's that's you know, it's a point there, I think, that we're sort of undercutting the democratic process here rather than give people a chance to vote. We're forcing residents, nonprofits and all of us to find a different option. We're going to have to go back, go to, you know, nonprofits and these individuals and tell them the city council will not would not give you a chance to vote. You're going to have to go collect signatures and get this done yourself. That's what we're telling them. Just to be clear, that's about a half a million dollar effort. We're going to say, rather than save you the people money. Working families money. We're going to force you to go out and get signatures just to have an opportunity to vote. It's unfair. It's completely unfair when there's plenty of opportunities to compromise and all of that. The conversation will continue to do research. We've done amazing reports that have been lauded, and we're open to doing more, more reports. But this is simply kicking the can down the road. And frankly, inaction does harm and is more expensive. We pay more and more money. We have our clean team and all of these resources that we invest that are frankly counting dollars, all of this that we do to clean up an encampment. What happens a week later is right back. It's right back. It's not an upstream long term solution without building housing. It is more expensive to not house. This is a reasonable thing and we have a responsibility to have an honest, open debate about this, which is not what is taking place tonight. Most recently I mentioned this before Martin V Boise. Our ability to simply say, you can't be in our parks and our streets and our right away all rights of way that's being challenged. Our ability to do that has been challenged. We cannot sweep the homeless issue into the seams of life, into our riverbeds, into our river freeway on ramps, into North Long Beach, in the shelter. You can't do that. We have to actually build capacity. We've been playing we've been playing nice. But I got to I got to tell you, the count the rest of the council of these people are not playing nice and they're not playing fair. They're looking out for them. That's the reality here. I'm proud of our residents for stepping up and building that shelter. If that didn't give, opening up and building that shelter didn't give us an opportunity to give the voters a chance. What the hell are these people doing? We're not playing nice on this. We're not playing nice on these anymore. Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 15: Look, I'm gonna say one more thing, Mr. Mayor. This, you know, this is about this vote today was about simply having a discussion moving forward in the discussion. Clearly, folks are voting and to protect their interests and maintain the status quo. That is what people are doing. And we were sent here to find solutions and to fight for those solutions and have courage. And that's not what the city council is doing. So I move that we end debate. I mean, I move that. We close debate. It's not debatable. Speaker 1: Okay. So I think that there's a it's a motion, same motion as you know. Speaker 15: I'll let it go. Go ahead, Councilman Pearce. Speaker 1: Customer Pearce. Speaker 2: Thank you. Um, there was some back and forth. Darrell, Thank you for, for answering my question. I think that your answer was a reason to vote no on the ballot measure, but not a reason not to give it to the voters to decide. While that number might be accurate, it might not be, I'm not sure, 38%. But we have to. Today we're just supposed to focus on do we get some research back and do we give it to the voters? And so I obviously, the we kind of see the lay of the land after all these votes. Every time we have one of these votes where we are not talking and having a dialog, but we're talking at each other, it creates more tension. It creates more problems. And every time after one of these nights like tonight. There's tension between all of us, and it's really hard to get work done. And I think that, Councilmember Richardson, I applaud you for the ability to really you take an issue and you run with it. And you built a community coalition of people that put a lot of. Speaker 3: Money behind it, that. Speaker 2: Took, you know, the housing issue and really said, what can we strategically do? You tried to be smart about it. You listen to all of the research that went out. The mayor put together his task force. We had all of these initiatives come forward and none of us were able to lead on the issue to really provide us with something big that we could do. And honestly, this bond measure is pretty small. You know, it's the smallest one of its kind. And so it's sometimes I worry that because you lead with such a great vision on those pieces, that people are inclined to vote no. And I think it's really unfortunate because the city, a half a million people, we should be able to work together better. And so I you know, there's no debate. But I have to take the moment to say that I respect all of my colleagues for stepping up and being a council member and leading. I really wish that we could figure out how to get away from the politics, because that's why people don't trust local government. That is exactly why they don't. And so, Daryl, thank you for answering my question. I wish that the other council colleagues would have answered it and had a real dialog with us about how we can come to a solution. But here we are. Speaker 1: Thank you, Councilmember Gringo. Speaker 12: You know, I normally don't recue on these types of discussions because I like to be straightforward. What I said, as I said, and I stand by it. But you have to. Some of this dialog that we've had here, it's. It's it's. I'm feeling bad, I'm feeling sad because, you know, we really don't have to go there in regards to on occasion being disrespectful when I want one another's opinions. But let's face it, homelessness is a wedge issue of the 2020s. We're going to be dealing with this issue not only 2020, but a 20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 30. If we don't do anything about it now. I participate in the California League of Cities. And this is a very heavy issue in an elitist city. You're talking about all of the cities in state of California. We all meet together. We all talk about what are the important issues of the moment. And homelessness is the number one top issue. And it always comes down to one thing and it's consistent across the state and it's called NIMBYism. Not in my backyard. And that's what I have heard and that's what I keep hearing. And every time we bring an issue, we bring in whether it's a bond or it's a grant or an application for more funding. It's you know, I don't want to pay for it, but yet why don't you clear up that river or there's all kinds of camp camping going on in a river. There's people camping out in our parks or my doorway to our business is being blocked because there's a homeless person there. Why don't you clean that up? I get tons of calls to my office about the homeless situation. And what are you going to do about it? What? What are we going to do about it? I can do about it without your help. And what we're doing here, or what this proposal is proposing to do is to get precisely that. To get your help. Vote the help of the voters. You without your help. Homelessness will continue until we get more. Until everybody. Everybody's homeless. What's that going to look like? Your budget. Bunch of campgrounds all over the place. We don't want that. What we want is people to be able to be housed, to be bathed, to take care of their children, to educate their children, to educate themselves, and to live the American dream. And without getting addressing the homeowners, the situation, we're not going to get there. So I'm going to leave it with that, is that this tonight is not putting it on the ballot. It's to do the research is to do the backup that 25 cent per $100,000 might be different. And I'm pretty sure it would be a lot lower than that. Probably would be 18, maybe 1750. But it's not going to be 25. I'm pretty sure of that. So I'm going to be voting down the substitute substitute vote. I motion. Speaker 1: Okay. Let me I want to just we're going to go ahead and start doing some procedural votes. I want to just clarify, there's a substitute substitute motion that Councilman Mongo that receives and filed the report. There is a I'll. Before I go. Continue. Councilman, you cued up. Speaker 3: Thank you. I just want to say that. I'm really disappointed that the conversation went to a place where people are making false accusations, that someone's trying to be sneaky or name call or any of those things. That's not who we are. And what I hope that I will hear right now is a vote that passes the substitute substitute motion to continue to support the direction that this council unanimously voted on in August. And I hope that we can continue to look at all solutions, not just the one that Rex has determined to be the best one. And I'm open to hearing alternatives. I've had those conversations. I hope we together can decide and hear best which one has the best chance of helping All Long Beach residents? Speaker 1: Okay, guys, we have we still have more more comments of pure counsel of Richardson, and then we're going to go to the votes. Speaker 15: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Speaker 1: More people queuing up, so we'll continue to queue up. Richardson. Speaker 15: I just wanted I just wanted to just just state that there is there is hope, folks. And this is not the end of the conversation. Okay. The you know, we can continue to work together, continue to try to we have to continue to try to work together on this council to find solutions. I'm committed to that. I apologize if I got a little passionate on this and I apologize to the public. It's important. I apologize for that. And I commit to work with my colleagues on finding pathway forward because it's not really about me, it's about the people. And that's I honestly like deep in my faith, believe that that's what we should be we should be doing. And to be clear, just the state is there's there's no plan for revenue for affordable housing, so to say. So this vote should be clear. The receipt and final vote is simply to do nothing. That's what this vote is not we're not referring reverting back to some of the plan. There is no plan. We've been exploring options. I didn't come up with this idea. Council has given direction on this idea. What, six or seven times we've heard this. So be clear. This motion is do nothing. But we're going to continue to work together to do something. We will do that. You have my commitment, a number of council members here. I do feel this is this was just not right for them. And I understand the social cost there. And if it wasn't there, I hoped for a dialog to get to a place where we could find something that's not today. We will revisit this together. We will try to get to a place where city council members can agree on this. And it doesn't stop you, the public, from continue to push and advocate. Do what you need to do. 2020 is an incredible opportunity. If the Council won't give you a voice in 2020, then you need to go collect signatures and do it. I commit to help you. If you do that, that's what you should do in November 2020. If not, we're going to try it in 2021. I just don't think that we should wait. So thank you again. Hope is not lost. We will work together. Thank you. Speaker 1: And councilwoman. And they have. Speaker 3: Yes. As one of your newest members to the council, one of the things that I do look forward to is working together on tough issues like this. And I commend you, Councilmember Richardson, for acknowledging that that the best way to move forward is for all of us to collectively work together. And with that being said, be new to the council and becoming from the community and being big on affordable housing. We've been waiting for a solution, any solution for years and years and years. And so I think that, you know, every day we get closer. But the only way that we're going to really accomplish this is to work together. So thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you, Councilman Diaz. So let me let me just review the procedural vote. So we have a substitute substitute motion by Councilman Mongo to receive and file. Then we have a substitute motion by Councilwoman Price to look at, to study and look at other federal and state solutions as it relates to affordable housing and homelessness. And as a report to come back to council. And then we have the the original motion, which is the motion is read and submitted by Councilman Richardson. So, members, please. It'll be a roll call vote on each one. So the first is thus is councilman mango substitute substitute of the the roll call vote. District one. Speaker 3: Ne. Speaker 1: District two, district three I. District four i. District five i. District six. District seven, District eight. And District nine. Okay. So that motion fails. The second the second motion. The second version is the Councilman Price's substitute motion. Speaker 12: Out of order, Mr. Mayor. Speaker 1: Named district two, District three. Speaker 15: A point of order, Mr. Mayor. So now that it's freed up, I'd like to put a motion on table. Speaker 1: Mr. City Attorney. I think that. Speaker 16: Under under the rules, there is room at this point for a substitute substitute motion that can be made that would be go back to the first vote. So the answer is yes. Speaker 15: And I would like to exercise that right. Speaker 1: Okay. Well, all right. Just just just to be clear, so another motion can be made now that the substitute, the first half substitute was defeated, correct? Correct. Speaker 16: That's correct. Now there's room. Speaker 1: On the floor. I want to just to be clear, there's still the councilwoman price motion is still on the floor, as is the original Richardson motion, correct? Speaker 16: That's correct. If another motion is made and seconded, it becomes the substitute substitute again and again. Speaker 1: Okay. So, Councilman Richardson. Speaker 15: I would like to make a motion to include in the second part of my original motion, which is frankly very similar to Councilwoman Price's motion. It's to prepare a report on needs of. Speaker 9: The Board of Energy. One of order. Mr. City. Attorney. There was a vote in process. Speaker 15: I call a point of order prior to the vote being called. Check the records. Speaker 16: Correct. He did call the point of order before the vote was completed. Usually you're doing a roll call vote, so only two votes were cast. We did call a point of order and the vote stopped. You can make another motion to end debate, which ends all discussion and all motions, and then you have to vote on all of your motions in order. Speaker 9: But that motion in debate needs two thirds. Speaker 16: Two thirds? That's correct. Speaker 15: Zero. The motion. Now, that's fine. Speaker 1: So, I mean, yeah. So we're going to just follow the the rules as laid out by the city attorney. So, Councilman Richardson, thank you. Speaker 15: You know, I've been you know, you never know when you're a I encourage young people to join students organizations because you learn order really well. I learned that back and somebody by our members that, look, I have a motion. My motion is to include the second part of my motion, which is to direct, prepare a report on affordable housing need strategies that address affordable housing and homelessness, potential types of projects to be funded with a bond estimates on a number of units that could be constructed revenue source, dedicated affordable housing and report back within 90 days . So the second part of that motion I want to include I also want to include the additional options that Councilman Austin referenced. I want to include those into this and the research into the proposal on the floor. The research short of bringing it back for consideration for consideration of a vote. So just do the research. Do the research on the bonds, present it and all the other options and all the affordable housing needs. That that's the motion so as not to move forward tonight if people are concerned that this is not the option. You don't have to be concerned about that. This is literally to get information very similar. Councilwoman Price's motion, except mine says we've done a lot of work on this one. I understand. I hear you. If you say this isn't the right one, but, you know, it's pretty close, right? I feel like we're pretty close and we can figure it out. So I don't think we should just abandon it with all the work that's there. We should include that as well as others. So the research needed in order to move forward is what I want to conduct. Is that understandable? Mr. Parking. Speaker 16: Part. Part of it was you prepare the report, come back in 90 days. I get that. The second was to conduct the research on a possible bond measure. In addition to what I believe you were saying, the alternative funding from state and federal sources to mitigate the housing issues? Absolutely. And then you wanted to include Councilman Austin. I don't know what Councilmember Austin's ad was to that. Speaker 15: We will. But additional resources. Speaker 9: And additional options, I think it's very similar to what Councilmember Price had actually proposed as well, looking at federal dollars options there, looking at the state options. But I would also mention that Councilmember Richardson is the chair of our state large committee. This would be very much part of our state ledger agenda in terms of going after budget dollars in Sacramento to to to address affordable housing. And we'll do our best on the federal ledger side as well to make sure that that our voice is being heard. Because I know we have a very supportive congressman here in Long Beach who can be a voice for that as well. Speaker 15: Absolutely. And you have my full commitment. Commitment on that. That will be the top priority of our state legislative agenda. And we're going to work on that. I'll become I'll become President Skog in May. That will also be our priority there to address housing and bring down local dollars. So to be clear, it's all those things you mentioned what we're doing. We're going to take the part out in the first part that says bring it to, you know, bring it to the city council, bring it to the city council for consideration. So don't bring it back with a recommendation to pass it. We're clear that the council doesn't want to do that right now, but I want you to do that research, the Bond Council, all the questions you couldn't answer yet until we gave you a target. You have a target. Try that. And the conversation about how does it relate to other resources? Let's just assume Everyone Home report is a year old and there are new resources on the table and that may bring down the amount of the bond from $25 to $20, right. From, you know, seven bucks a month on the average house to $5 a month. I just want it to make sense. So if there's additional resources we can leverage to bring this cost down. Absolutely. We want to do that, but we want to be in position to it's a not for the next two months, three months, not do anything. We'll start working on this, put us in a better position to maybe come together on this. That's what this is. You clear on that? Thank you. That is my motion. Speaker 1: Thank you. I have a councilperson. And then I have Councilwoman Pryce. Speaker 9: Okay. So now we have a new motion on the floor, and I think it merits a little bit of conversation as well, because in the staff report, Mr. City Manager, I think it mentions that moving forward with this would would require a shifting of priorities from other affordable housing recommendations previously approved by the City Council and potentially away from other bond projects already in progress and intended to save money. Can you please elaborate on that and and help us understand what priorities will be shifting? Should we move forward with this recommendation or this this motion by Councilmember Richardson? Speaker 14: Yes. So when the council passed its fiscal policies last year, they updated the way that you want us to look at kind of fiscal impact and look in terms of staff resources. The item that was proposed by Councilmember Richardson, this is this is a big deal. We talked about this a lot tonight. This is really big stuff. So we are expecting that this will take some staff resources to do these reports. We actually believe it's going to be longer than 90 days. So with the additional time, we're able to just spread that out. So we're probably looking at 90 to 120 days. We don't have a list of exactly what would be impacted, but we we would move things around. The team does believe that we can get back reports. We'll take whatever you've asked us to do and we'll put it in the workflow. I will ask John GROSS to look at that. But in terms of the the bond financing, but we were assuming you were moving forward with the bond and actually bringing it back, which then, you know, that affects the Treasury staff. So, John, if you could add a little bit about the Treasury impact, if there is any from the recommendation. Speaker 12: And this the current motion as as the manager said, it does not call for Bond to come back, but it does call for information on bond funding. So there's still would be some research and actually probably some significant research. But on the other hand, with the kind of timeframe that the manager's talking about, 90 to 120 days, my my guess is that we can fit that in the bond projects that we were talking about, but I think are not going to be impacted with that kind of timeframe. Are things like the port bonds, the airport refunding bonds. Those are at least two that are being worked on and are scheduled in Carnival Cruise Line, all of which are in the pipeline and could be impacted. My best guess is at this point that it won't be. Speaker 9: Okay. Also, I know one of the priorities that has been discussed and I know the council is looking forward as well as the community is looking forward to coming back. That could impact the conversation regarding housing and affordability. Is the inclusionary zoning where we at with that and where when do you expect that to come back? And is that one of the priorities that would be shifted as a result of this? Speaker 14: I ask Lynda Tatum to respond to the timeline. Speaker 3: Yes, our staff has our consultant. We are expecting by the end of this week to have some reassessment by our consultant to respond to some issues that that came up. So we think that or right now we're anticipating that this would hit the Planning Commission for Inclusionary Housing Ordinance in February and back to the City Council approximately March. Speaker 9: All right. Thank you. That's all my questions for now. Speaker 1: Thank you, Councilman Price. Speaker 5: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So I'm a little bit confused as to how this motion is different than my motion. So, Mr. City Attorney, can you clarify that for me? Speaker 1: Mr. Parking? Speaker 16: Yes, Mayor. Members of the council. The difference that I see in the substitute substitute motion versus the motion for or the council member from the third district is this requests the report back. That was in the original motion from the city manager to come back and then adds what is essentially the substitute motion to study alternative funding for state and federal sources to mitigate the housing issue? So it is basically the substitute motion. In addition to asking the city manager to prepare the report and then the third possible portion of that substitute substitute motion is to request city attorney to do the research on the bond issue, but not to prepare the resolution and related documents to bring back for council consideration to place anything on the ballot at this time. Speaker 5: Okay. So I'm not I really don't see a substantial difference between my substitute motion and the substitute substitute. So I know I'm not as much of an expert in Robert's rules as some on the council, but so it sounds like it's a modification of the first motion, but it's not going to be coming back to council with a proposed resolution. Speaker 16: My understanding is that is correct, that whatever there will be a report that comes back, it sounds like between 90 and 120 days to the council with the information that was requested in the original motion. But what will not come back at that time is a resolution prepared by my office and the related documents for the Council's consideration to place a ballot measure on the November 3rd, 2020 ballot. Speaker 5: Okay. So if I'm understanding this correctly, that I may not be the substitute substitute motion that directs the city manager's office. And to some extent, I guess, the city attorney's office to explore a bond measure for property owners. Is that correct? Speaker 16: That's my understanding is. That's correct. We will be doing taking this time during this nine or 90, 120 days. We were directed to continue the research on what related documents and resolution we would need to prepare in the event the Council wanted to consider placing something on the agenda. But we wouldn't finalize that or bring that back until sometime after the report is presented to council and we received direction to do that. Speaker 5: Okay. So this is, you know, one of my concerns when we talk about we're just putting it on the ballot for the voters to vote on it, even if you're against it. We're just it's democracy. The problem is this incredible amount of staff resources being utilized for this. And my substitute motion basically says before we start to think about taxing property owners, let's find out what additional sources of revenue are available, see how that changes our calculations, and then explore how we're going to meet that funding gap. Because in my opinion, we've put the cart before the horse. We're saying we have a funding gap. We don't know how much we'll be able to offset the funding gap with outside assistance from the state or federal authorities or departments. So let's just figure out the map what we need and tax property owners with it. I cannot support additional taxes on property owners, and especially when I know that the central funding out there that we have not yet explored. To its fullest. So I would encourage my colleagues to first get the report on what funding options are available, then determine what the needs are, and then determine whether we want to go after that funding gap through property owners or through some other sort of assessment that perhaps more than just property owners are paying into. So I ask council to please support my substitute. I think it's asking for the same thing that Councilor Richardson is. I appreciate his willingness to compromise and ask for that additional information. I think it's crucial. But I do think asking property or even exploring the concept of property owners having to pay more taxes, well, we don't exactly know how much we need is irresponsible. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you. And what I'm going to do before I turn to Councilman Richardson is who's cued up next is I'm going to clarify who I make sure that I understand what the two motions are. And Councilman Price and Councilman Richardson can clarify for me if I don't get it correct, because I have a couple of councilmembers asking asking exactly the motion. So the substitute substitute motion by Councilmember Richardson is essentially to take the the portion that does the city study on the bond as outlined in that in that motion. And maybe he can clarify and not do any of the bond preparation work or any of the preparing of any types of resolution. And also add to that the piece of Councilman Price's substitute motion, which is to have to go out and look at state and federal funding opportunities of on a funding of affordable housing and or housing for folks experiencing homelessness. So that is Council Richardson's motion. And Council Councilmember Price's motion is to just go and ask staff to begin doing research on funding from state and federal sources on on affordable housing that were that we're discussing today. And then the main motion is, again, the original motion as presented. So that's how I've read it. Councilman Price, to have your your motion correct. Speaker 15: Councilman. Speaker 1: I know that your Councilman Price. Councilman Richardson, do I have your substitute correct? Speaker 15: I'm not sure. I'm going to restate right now. So whatever the city attorney. Okay. Speaker 1: Well well, do we do I have it correct up to this point? And if you want to clarify, you can be here. Speaker 15: There are three motions ahead of us. One was my original motion. Correct? The second motion is Councilwoman Price's motion. Correct. I'd appreciate if we can only speak on the one that's on the floor. It gets confusing if we don't. Speaker 1: Well, I appreciate that. But I also need to clarify the motions that are on the floor. And so you have the floor. Speaker 15: I think we will make it make it a lot more clear. Speaker 1: Okay. I understand that. I'm just getting other questions about what's being voted on. So I just want to clarify. So you have the floor so you can clarify. But I think as of where we are today, I'm sure city attorney, I have it correct as to what the motions are there on the floor. Correct. Speaker 16: That's correct. There's actually only one motion on the floor, but. Speaker 1: There are three that are brought up. So, Councilman Richardson, thank you so. Speaker 15: For the sake of just process, in order for this vote to move forward, it only needs a simple majority. I understand Councilwoman Price's concerns. And for the sake of this, if they are closed off to any exploration of any revenue source, that's not the university we're talking to right now, talking to the council members who say there is some wiggle room here to move forward. That's that's who we're talking to right now. And so the motion is the second part of my original motion direct city manager to Prepare Report on affordable housing needs in Long Beach. Strategies to address housing affordability, homelessness. Potential types of projects that could be funded with a housing bond. Estimates on the number of units that can be constructed with a revenue source dedicated to affordable housing and report back to the City Council within 90 days. It adds Explore additional revenue sources and options that are not tax related as well as other revenue sources. Explore them all. That's what it is. It additionally takes, hey, take the next step of exploration or research into the impacts of the bond. We need to know that even if the citizens were to do signatures when it comes to the city council, they ask go do a report on what the impact would be on this bond. It's something we do all the time. Do that. On this, you have an amount of resources already identified in the fiscal report. That's why I the fiscal impact report already outlines and there's resources and what would need to be had to happen to do that. City staff has said we need to amend from 90 days to 120 days. I'm fine with that. We need. But what I'm saying is, short of preparing the motion for city council to vote on whatever the resolution for city council short of preparing that. You know that part, to put us in a position to do it, we'd have to take that extra step of then affirmatively asking staff to bring that back, if that or whatever it is. The option. I think this makes sense because some good ideas did come up tonight, particularly is there a way to adjust the number, make it lower by looking at other strategy? I'm okay with that. I'm okay with that. So this is frankly a compromise motion inclusive of feedback from council members who have been open minded on this issue. That's what this is. That's what the motion is. Speaker 1: Okay. We have. That was concludes public comment. I'm sorry, counsel comment. So I think that the motions as I had clarified them earlier, stand. And so we right now have we can take a vote on the substitute substitute motion by Councilmember Richardson. So I'm going to begin again. We'll be doing the roll call vote and we'll go down. District one. Speaker 3: Yes. Speaker 1: District two. District three? Speaker 5: No. Speaker 1: District four. Speaker 8: No. Speaker 1: District five. Speaker 3: No. Speaker 1: District six. District seven eight. District eight. Speaker 9: No. Speaker 1: District nine? Yes. I believe motion fails. Speaker 16: Motion failed five. Okay. Speaker 1: So now we're going to the substitute motion, which is Councilwoman Price's motion. So let me can do the roll call vote. Councilman Price's motion district one name. District two. Speaker 4: No. Speaker 1: District three. Speaker 5: Yes. Speaker 1: District four. Yes. District five. Yes. District six. Speaker 7: Yes. Speaker 1: District seven. Hey. Speaker 9: District eight. Yes. Speaker 1: District nine. Okay. That motion carries. Is that correct, Mr. Attorney. Speaker 16: For motion commencing passes five four. Speaker 1: That motion carries five four. So that's the motion. That's the motion that carries and passes. Okay. So we're moving on to the next item. So let me go ahead with so we're going to go ahead and take a one minute recess and then we're going to go right back into item 19. Speaker 6: We're. I'm. Speaker 4: Do you? Speaker 6: Kill the children. Speaker 3: Have. Actually the. Speaker 10: The NSA is coming. Speaker 1: He were coming back from recess, if I. The clerk will call the roll, please. Speaker 0: Councilwoman in the house. Councilman. And Councilwoman Pryce. Councilmember. Super. Now. Speaker 5: I'm sorry. Speaker 0: Councilwoman Mongo. Vice Mayor Andrew's Council member. Speaker 3: Your anger presented. Speaker 0: Councilman Austin. Councilmember Richardson. Mayor Garcia. Speaker 1: Thank you. Is, is is. Do not twit here. Steve Updike or Tsuyoshi. Party. Are any of those folks here?

Agenda Item

Recommendation to direct City Attorney to prepare a resolution, and any related documents, for the November 3, 2020 ballot for voters to consider a $298 million housing bond at $25 per $100,000 assessed valuation for the creation of affordable housing in Long Beach, with funds available for extremely low, very low, low, moderate, and workforce housing, crisis shelters and homeless services facilities, motel conversion programs, and other solutions to address the housing and homelessness crisis in Long Beach. Direct City Manager to prepare a report on affordable housing needs in Long Beach, strategies to address housing affordability and homelessness, potential types of projects that could be funded with a housing bond, estimates on the number of units that could be constructed with a revenue source dedicated to affordable housing, and report back to the City Council within 90 days.

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_01072020_19-1276

Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. And I'm sure someone from Council District one is going to come and connect with you right now. So. So thank you for that. We're going to be moving to item 19, please. Speaker 0: Communication from Councilwoman Price, Councilwoman Zendejas, Councilmember Pierce, Councilman Austin, recommendation request city manager to work with City Attorney and Development Services to report back on the existing services the city provides for small businesses to increase compliance with the ADA. Speaker 1: Councilman Price. Speaker 5: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So I want to thank my colleagues who signed on to this item with me. As many of you who have business improvement districts in your districts may be aware, we're seeing a proliferation of ADA lawsuits. And I want to figure out a way that the city can help business owners make sure that they're able to comply with our ADA requirements to help streamline the process for them to be able to do so, develop some some ways and some mechanisms that maybe we can be more proactive so that businesses have an opportunity to fix any deficiencies before they're hit with lawsuits. So we can try to do some outreach and education. We want to make sure that our businesses are ADA compliant so that everyone has access to the offerings that we have in the city. But at the same time, we want to make sure that we're business friendly and that we're being proactive to help educate and help streamline the permitting process to make some of those ADA changes occur. So with that, again, I want to thank my colleagues who signed on and asked my colleagues to support this. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you. Councilmember Super. Speaker 8: Now a stand in support. And I also want to mention new business owners when they're moving into an existing facilities that we keep an eye out for them. Speaker 1: Thank you, Councilman Austin. Speaker 9: Yes, I fully support this. I think this is a resource, but also a guideline or guide for for our businesses, particularly our small businesses who've been impacted by, you know, the ADA issue and may need some some guidance and assistance from the city. This will help many of our businesses tremendously. And so I'm looking forward to it. Yes. So happy to support. Speaker 1: Thank you. And councilman in the house. Speaker 3: This is obviously very important to me personally. I'm so excited that we're moving forward in taking a look at what we can do to help our small businesses become ADA compliant. It's very important because the ADA came into effect almost 30 years ago. So if we still now have small businesses that are struggling to make their businesses ADA, we really need to step in and try to help them so that it can really, truly be business friendly environment for everyone. Thank you, Councilwoman Price, for bringing this up and for and for allowing me to cosign on this. Speaker 1: Thank you. And that concludes the council comment. I don't have any control and I'm Christianson I think are not here anymore so I don't have any public comment on item 19. We'll do a roll call vote. District one. Speaker 3: Yeah. Speaker 1: Mr. Two. District three. Speaker 6: Yes. Speaker 1: District four. Yes. Five. District six. District seven. Eight. District eight, District nine. Okay. Motion carries. Great. Speaker 0: Mayor, there is public comment. Speaker 1: Oh, you know, no one signed up for public comment. Yeah. You need to send up a public comment. No one's signed up for public comment. And so, members, please go ahead and cast your votes. I think we all we just did a motion case.

Agenda Item

Recommendation to request City Manager to work with City Attorney and Development Services to report back on the existing services the City provides for small businesses to increase compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and expand equity and access for people with disabilities; and Report back on feasibility of developing proactive solutions for small businesses to address construction related accessibility and ADA compliance issues, including, but not limited to education, outreach, the feasibility of additional support, and recommended changes to the federal legislative and state legislative agendas that support expanded access at small businesses for disabled residents.

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_01072020_19-1269

Speaker 1: I see no public comment on this item and I will go and do a roll call vote. District one yeah. District four, yes. District six. District seven. District eight and District nine. Motion carries that six votes. And next up is 31. Speaker 0: Report from Development Services recommendation declare ordinance amending the Long Beach Municipal Code related to the regulation of nuisance motels read and adopted as read citywide. Speaker 1: I have a motion any second. I do have some public comment on this item. Uh as an I can't fee and Jerry Glenn Thomas are the two folks I have is Jerry Glenn Thomas here? Nope. Mr.. Can we go ahead? Please put. The micron. Speaker 12: Okay. Speaker 11: It's unfortunate. Can I get my 8 seconds back mouse again? It's unfortunate that all the housing people have left, because I'm really curious on what the municipal code defines a nuisance motel. Being curious because, you know, everyone watching those that don't know, you know, motels are a vital part of the ecosystem of housing homeless people. So I'm always worried when I see that term Nuisance Motel. I know what it means. It means that there's drug activity possible, gang activity possible, uh, you know, uh, prostitution, etc., etc.. And this is true. But I'm worried that when we define things, uh, as such, it limits the opportunity of places for a lot of our homeless and housing impaired people to go to these vouchers. My mother works for the Department of Family Service at the county building on Santa Fe, and she specifically she's eligibility worker, so she's defining who gets to have a housing voucher each and every month. There's over 60 people a month. Those are 60 people who take housing vouchers from the county. And where do they go? No, there's no there's very rarely any Section eight or or apartment or subsidized housing providers who are taking these vouchers. So nine out of ten times, most of these homeless people who are on the streets are going to the county building, getting a voucher from them and then going to a motel. So if we start getting rid of these motels and or we start labeling them as nuisance motels, we're therefore eliminating housing opportunities for homeless people, thereby putting more people on the streets. So I'm just curious to see, like, what what, you know, what were the finances? And I'm worried that, you know, I understand that some of these motels are are, you know, harboring certain activity. And we don't want in areas that are now being redefined and changed and rightfully that's. And I appreciate them for that. However, you know, we can't get rid of opportunities for homeless people to have housing and at the same time say, well, we're going to knock down this nuisance motel. And then in 5 to 10 years after, it's been an empty lot for X amount of years because we don't actually have the capital funding to build the building on top of it, we're going to put affordable housing there one day. So it's like you're going to get rid of motels that actually do homes house homeless people right now or what. So I'm just curious to see what the city is going to do with that, because that county money is really like people are using these motels purely to get off the streets today. So. Speaker 1: Thanks. Thank you. Thank you very much. That concludes. That concludes that concludes public comment as a sign. Oh, yeah. Okay. Here we go. That concludes public comment. And we do have Councilman Austin who has some comments. Speaker 9: I did. Just just to clarify for clarification purposes. And following up on a public speaker, the the comment. Can you city attorney once again define what a nuisance site is or would be considered to be? Speaker 16: Certainly in the in the nuisance, this ordinance is trying not to close them, but to make sure that they are in conformance and not creating a nuisance. And in the event, for example, of drug related arrests at the location or excessive calls for service by the police department for services, it could be deemed a nuisance hotel. And if it is deemed a nuisance hotel, then the that business should shall retain its license only if it conforms to a series of and there are 22 requirements that they have to do in order to make that hotel a non nuisance hotel and maintain their license. So it's it's a combination of calls for service and complaints from the community that we're trying to address by this ordinance. Speaker 9: So. And I just want to ensure that that, you know, we're we're being fair here and understanding that, you know, one or two complaints from. One person is not, you know, used as a trigger to to a nuisance. Speaker 16: That's absolutely correct. Speaker 9: Okay. So I just want to clarify that, because I know I had a few people reach out to me after our last meeting. Just just for clarification on that. That's why I asked the question. I'll be supporting the item. But again, I want to make sure that we are not deeming every motel in the city as a nuisance property. Just just those specific ones. And I know we had a list of when we we looked at the study to begin with, there was a list of of specific sites that that that caused this or created this this ordinance. So. Thanks. Speaker 1: Thank you, Councilman Richardson. Speaker 15: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just want to speak in support of this. You know, staff done a good job. It's been a long time coming. We know the issues. We know the hotels. We know we. This gives us the definition of what a nuisance motel is. It helps add clarity, set some standards, and and it's going to have an overall impact on the quality of life in every neighborhood. So we're really proud that this has come forward. And thank you. Can I support this? Speaker 1: Thank you. There's a motion and a second. No other public comment. So please, let's do the roll call vote. District one. Yet true to. District four. Yes. District six, seven, eight and nine. District nine. Speaker 12: Yes. Speaker 1: Okay. That is six votes. That concludes the regular agenda. And so that's the I believe it's the last item. We do have some additional comment, but that is the last item 31. Is that right? Madam Quirk. Great. I do have three speakers I want to invite to please to please come forward a Cathy item.

Ordinance

Recommendation to declare ordinance amending the Long Beach Municipal Code by adding Section 5.57 related to the regulation of nuisance motels, read and adopted as read. (Citywide)

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_12172019_19-1269

Speaker 1: Washing Karis. Speaker 0: Thank you. Item 26. Speaker 1: Item 26 is a report from Development Services. Recommendation to Declare Ordnance. The language is for code relating to the regulation of hotels and motels in the city. Read the first time and lead over to the next regular meeting of the City Council for Final Final Reading City. Speaker 0: Do you want to? So should we start off with Stafford or. Mr. MODICA Stafford Port. Speaker 3: Linda tatum will give a staff. Speaker 4: Report for staff. Speaker 2: Good evening, mayor and city council members. We will have our planner, the project planner, Alejandro Santos Lopez, that will make the presentation for this item this evening. Speaker 8: Good evening, honorable mayor and members of the City Council staff is before you today to present an ordinance to address potential nuisance motels and hotels in the city and establish a review process for all hospitality locations in Long Beach. In October 2017, the city manager directed the Office of Civic Innovation to coordinate an interdepartmental team to explore strategies to address nuisance activities of motel users that affect the quality of life in the city of Long Beach. The departmental team at that time consisted of staff in the city prosecutor and City Attorney's Office and the Departments of Development Services, Health and Human Services, Police, Fire and Financial Management. The team subsequently developed and tested a Nuisance Motel compliance plan at six select locations as part of a nine month citywide pilot program. Staff presented the program findings to City Council in November of 2018 with a recommendation to develop an ordinance to permanently codify this program. The ordinance before you today accomplishes this through four primary components. Firstly, it creates an interdepartmental city team, also known as the ICTY, comprised at its core by the Department of Development Services and the Health Department with additional contributions as needed from the City Attorney's Office, the city prosecutor's office, and the lobbies, police and fire departments. Secondly, it establishes a process through which the ICC can assess complaints against hospitality locations. Thirdly, it codifies compliance measures the ICC can enforce to reduce nuisance and or criminal activity at or near the locations in question. And finally, it is structured to complement the existing nuisance regulations the city already has in place. The compliance measures included in the ordinance largely fall under three main categories security, health and practices or policies. Some of the sample measures for each are shown here. For security measures. Property owners might be required to install cloakroom and televisions at entrances, have gated property access or install lighting improvements for health measures, and may be pest control requirements. Additional measures to ensure clean and working facilities and to ensure plumbing utility improvements work as needed and for business practices might be requirements to maintain 24 hour staff on site and or post applicable signage as needed, such as for human trafficking. To provide a bit more clarity on how the ordinance will work in practice. The following flowchart shows a process to follow. Personally, the Act will review any complaint receive through existing publicly available channels such as code enforcement submissions. From there, the ACT will review additional data sources including but not limited to calls for service history at the site in question and assess if there is sufficient evidence to open a case file on the establishment in question. If this is deemed not to be the case, the complaint will simply be filed and kept on record. However, if the act determines that significant issues are present, it will determine which of the available compliance measures, if any, will be required and work in tandem with the business to achieve compliance. As long as the business is in collaborative collaboration and complies with the improvements required by the ACT. No further action will be taken by the city. It is only when a business refuses to comply and or meet with the city that the city will apply additional enforcement measures such as citations or business license revocation. In conclusion, staff recommends that the City Council approve staff's recommendation to adopt the proposed Nuisance Motel ordinance as presented. This concludes staff presentation and we look forward to answering any questions. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you, Constable Richardson. Speaker 6: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I'll be quick. Thank you for this. This presentation, all the work that's transpired over the last two years on this effort. Just as a reminder, this came out of a long conversation about the nuisances on Long Beach Boulevard, and we found that there's a greater citywide issue associated with grandfathered nuisance motels. The pilot was the short term solution. We described the ordinance as the medium term solution, but really long term solution is land use and updating the zoning to make sure that we're actually, you know, addressing outdated, underutilized motels. That may not be. You know, conditions have changed. We may not have need for so many of those motels across town. So I so I certainly support this. I just want to say, you don't want to acknowledge that. I know that the article over the weekend about this highlighted a motel, a particular motel that was not originally a part of this, this pilot. And so that had nothing to do with the city. But I will say to that hotel, to that motel owner, you know, we apologize if that if that motel was highlighted there, it shouldn't have happened. And, you know, the press should have been more responsible and fact checking and before putting someone's motel up there. But I fully support this. This gives us an important tool to clean up some of our corridors, particularly Long Beach Boulevard, Anaheim. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you, Vice Andrews, because it appears. Speaker 5: I'll keep it brief. I fully support this. I look forward to having some conversations down the road about, as Councilmember Richardson mentioned, land use and what role the city might be able to play as some of these motels might be deemed not necessary anymore. Thank you. Speaker 0: Catherine Ashton. Speaker 3: Thanks. And I certainly support this as well. We have motels throughout the city that that need attention. I just want to be clear on on the definition of a nuisance motel and how we get to determining whether or not a motel is a nuisance motel. Because as was mentioned by my colleague earlier, we don't want to paint every motel with with a broad brush. Tonight, there are some responsible operators out there, and I think we need to acknowledge that as well. So can you just staff identify and help us identify what are the triggers and what would be constituted as a nuisance motel? Speaker 8: Sure. So this might help to provide some clarity on the process. The pilot program illuminated that there's not a one size fits all definition. So while the program focused on calls for service and police data in general to kind of determine the effectiveness of the program, we realized through site visits and conversation with motel owners and operators that there's contextual factors that also have to be taken into consideration. And so part of the focus of the program is to not have a rigid definition or a rigid threshold and to leave it to the act to establish what may trigger the program on a case by case basis. We know that there's many factors that go into play, such as proximity to schools, proximity to other motels and other sensitive receptors. And so it'll be open to the staff's interpretation and to work with motel owners and operators to remain business friendly with the city. Speaker 0: And finally, Councilman Sun has. Speaker 2: Yes, I am grateful for the opportunity to be able to support such item. I think that this is a very important step and a very necessary step in moving in the right direction, especially because a lot of these hotels are in the first district. So I am happy to be able to support this item. Thank you to Councilmember Richardson Andrews for presenting this. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you. And there's a motion and a second. We have we have two members of the public is Laurie. Laurie Raimi or Yogi Patel here? Do they want to speak? Please come forward. Both. Please come forward. Please. Speaker 2: Hi, my name is Laurie Raney. I am a resident of the city of Long Beach. I've lived in the seventh District for over 20 years. I also work in the city of Long Beach. I work for Miceli for the I am the Director of Outreach Services for the Homeless Outreach Program. I oversee six outreach teams and we cover 23 cities. And one of those cities is the city of Long Beach. We work in partnership with the city's team. In this capacity, we place a lot of folks in some of these hotels, and I kind of would like you all to think about this from a different perspective. We often use these motels as a form of crisis housing, bridge housing to get people ready to move into permanent housing. Sometimes people don't meet criteria for hospitalization, but it's a place where we can maybe stabilize them. We use them in a variety of ways. Many of the folks that we put in these motels really don't have any other option. We have established relationships with some of these motel owners and they've been very open to working with us. They have our numbers. They call us when there's an issue. We come out, we work with our folks. So I don't want that broad brush to be used on all of the motels and just to kind of look at them in a different perspective, because they can serve a vital service for the city. Speaker 0: Thank you. And Mr. Patel. Speaker 3: Yeah. My name is Yogi Patel. I've been a resident of Long Beach since 1981. I run Colonial Motel for last 40 years. I partner with serious Long Beach to put the homeless people at my motel. Harbor Interfaith. Catholic Charity. Disabled Resource Center Family Solutions Center out of Los Angeles path mental health lonely just booked about and other charity organizers and. This whole issue came up because one of the councilmen had an issue taking the baby home and had to stay out of his or her house was locked down because of one particular motel luxury in. Last meeting, we were all here and everybody were pointing at looks at him. No other motel was mentioned. If you guys ever record, go back and check. Next day, I call the Andrew. Then what's up with this? Because he is my councilman and he never noticed any problem with my motel. And my motel was painted as Nuisance Motel. I am out there to help City to take people off the street and not create problems. But by doing this thing, by publishing our motel as a nuisance motel, we lost a lot of business. So we had to make up for business by getting more voucher people here. So is that what city wants? If you want people off the street, you need to work with motels, not Gordon. You done wood paneled and all that. Before going public, we should talk. What is the problem? If there is a problem, we need to solve the problem together. So that's what I'm asking for. I have contact with the city. If we need to move forward with the contract, I will need protection that down the line. City is not going to come back and use these weapons to close this down. This is our livelihood. Thank you. Thank you. Speaker 0: That concludes. For actually you have to be on this list. That concludes public comment. I have two speakers I've signed up to speak. And so with that there is a motion and the second member is going to cast your vote. I really called public comment. People that signed up to speak. You have to sign up to speak with the clerk for certain items. First, please cast your vote. Speaker 1: Council members have been. Bush and Kerry.

Ordinance

Recommendation to declare ordinance amending the Long Beach Municipal Code by adding Section 5.57 related to the regulation of nuisance motels, read and adopted as read. (Citywide)

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_12172019_19-1238

Speaker 1: Council members have been. Bush and Kerry. Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you. Item number 27, please. Speaker 1: Item 27 is communications from city attorney. Recommendation to declare ordinance amending the Long Beach Municipal Code by repealing Chapter 8.97 relating to tenant relocation assist in declaring the urgency thereof and declared that this ordinance shall take effect at 12 a.m. on January 1st, 2020. Read and adopted as Read City. Speaker 0: Why? This is the last reading of the ordinance. There's three speakers. Please, all three come forward as Andrew Amanda HANO here. Maria Lopez. And I believe that, says Isaias de la Rosa. Please come forward. If you are. If the three can come forward now, please. Speaker 3: Hello, everyone. My name is Andrew, with whom I know I'm here today to just highlight various issues that are currently going on. The building that was here that advocated for that eviction moratorium is still continuing to be harassed. Right. Are still being served. Three day period quits through this repeal of tenant reload. The amount of relocation assistance they will get will go down from 3000 to 1000. One of our partnership members for best, our central Long Beach Affairs District resident of the name of X Dela Rosa. His aunt was just served 60 day notices to vacate during the fact that we have an eviction moratorium. The reason these companies do this is because they know oftentimes the tenants don't have the knowledge to defend themselves. And when they go to court. They are not provided legal representation. So that way they don't even know what they're fighting for. They don't know the language. They don't have someone there defending them. These families are being torn apart. So she has actually grown up with Maria and played soccer with her. Now he's seeing his whole family be torn apart. Whatever politics is behind this repeal, whether it's my emergency or whatever it may be, it needs to stop because these families are being ripped apart. Those children, ages zero through five, are being are growing up with adverse childhood experiences, something that you all individually voted to be of importance . I really want us to see what they're feeling, because when you get to go home and celebrate the holidays and celebrate the new year and plan out your New Year's resolutions, these folks are going to be. Speaker 2: Served with another 60. Speaker 3: Day notice to make it. They won't be able to write the resolution. Their resolution is to survive. Where will they be displaced to Moreno Valley, Riverside, where there's basically no resources. San Bernardino County, which is one of the most counties with the highest rates of crime. I just can't fathom that this is the type of leadership. That is here. And I kindly urge you, I kindly add this is out of respect and love, because I've seen you all up there on the 14th floor before I've shaken your hands. I've complimented you on that elevator back there. I've seen you advocate alongside Jennifer. I've shown respect to you. Please show respect to the communities that you serve. Because this is continuing to happen. Speaker 0: Thank you very much. Andrew next with Maria Lopez, please. Speaker 2: Good evening. In the last meeting. Good evening. Maria Lopez. Undocumented, unafraid. Unapologetic. A proud D-1 resident. Since I migrated here at the age of three. And now I'm the director of Community Organizing for Housing Long Beach, and I organize with the Long Beach Tenants Union. And today it's clear that you will repeal Rila, a locally fought and won policy, which is really rare for all of us to stand here and even hear this right, regardless of the fact that those same communities that came to you and told you were being displaced, were being out priced and were being uprooted. Those same communities letting you know of an Internet, an alternative option to keep our local amounts, which ultimately help more low income, disabled, marginalized communities that we so adore, like our trans communities. Right. We know that displacement for communities like that that are very vulnerable can lead to death. Why? Because your connection, your community is all around you. You need access to your doctors. You need access to your village. You need access to neighbors who know about your sensitivity and your cultural needs. So basically, you need your community, right? So if I may remind us of what was first proposed was not just this simple repeal, right, which is very sour to my mouth. However, my work does not stop there and my work continues as families are continuously uprooted, displaced and in danger of becoming homeless, full families with kids living in their cars during the holidays. Right. So not just this repeal, but a senior and people's disability program was proposed. We have not received a report on it. So I would kindly bring that up to your radar and request information on that as soon as possible. January 7th can be a date that we could put on it. If you are so you know, enclose to do that for us today. And also the I appreciate Councilmember Richardson's effort to close the gap for folks who are still being displaced on the loophole of substantial rehab. So I also want to hold you all accountable to that promise. We would like to see some follow up on that second piece, not just this repeal. We want follow up on those programs that you all promised. So accountability here it is. Right? We want these programs. And we also would like to start thinking about enforcement mechanisms. So we as a community have come together to want to sit down with you and your staff and really bring people from L.A. County, from the state to talk about all these programs. You all hear from us inclusionary housing enforcement mechanisms, community owned housing, all those things. So please see an email from us. We will be reaching out, inviting you all to deep a deeper dove in this conversation. Speaker 0: Thank you. Thank you very much. And then he says the Rosa. Speaker 3: Oh, my boy. I just want to give context that we received this notification like a few minutes before. Is is this is okay. He walked from. Is going forward. Hello? Hello. Well, my name is Isaiah de la Rosa. Speaker 2: Okay. Speaker 3: Look here, speaker for my family member, they live in for 37 days Avenue. Well, actually, I've seen her two in the morning and she told me that the owner from the building she's living in is trying to evict him out. I forgot the reason why, but that I remember she said that a they tried to sue the owner or taken the court that they had to pay for the. What's it called? The fine, in other words. And well, she'd been living there for quite a penny a year already, and she's just don't know why she's been evicted . And I'm here, like I'm here with my family. For them not to be evicted. Speaker 0: Thank you, sir. So let me as you conclude. Thank you very much, concludes public comment. Let me just add two things. The first is, Mr. Molko, can you have I know that obviously there are some that folks guys feel free to grab a seat. Thank you. I've concluded public comment and thank you. Two things. One is that I know that Mr. De La Rosa, there are some legal protections that the Council adopted for folks facing evictions. And just want to make sure, Mr. Modica, that if we can have someone from our team connect with Mr. de la Rosa in the back , can we do that? Okay. So certainly so Mr. De La Rosa, if you can just hold for a minute. So I'm going to come talk to you in a minute to share with you what the what the what those are. And then the second thing I'll say is, I think that the request, as far as when the the fund is coming back is a reasonable one. Do we have a timeline before we vote, Mr. Modak, on when that's going to come back to council? Speaker 3: So the timeline of the fund will likely be in the spring. Part of that. Speaker 4: Reason is the funding that we are. Speaker 3: Using is going to be the state funding, which is we get to submit our application, I believe, in March and know what all the funding restrictions are. So we will be creating the fund, we'll come back to the council and update you and then the funding will be available in the spring. Speaker 0: Is it possible to at least get an update maybe towards the end of January? I think that's fair, even if it's an update. So we have that. We understand. I think we'll have a better idea on the funding. Sure. And we. Speaker 3: Can give you because we're using. Speaker 8: Two different funding sources. We can start with the. Speaker 3: CDBG and see where we are with that and give you an outline and a structure of how we believe the fund will work. Speaker 0: That's I think that's that's more fair. Thank you. With that and members, please cast your votes. This is the final vote on the ordinance. Speaker 1: Councilmember Unger. Well, she carries. Speaker 0: Thank you. Next up is we're going to be doing item. Where did it go? Oh, I hear that for the consent calendar. Even though we had a motion in a second, maybe the vote wasn't taken on that. Is that right?

Emergency Ordinance

Recommendation to declare ordinance amending the Long Beach Municipal Code by repealing Chapter 8.97, relating to Tenant Relocation Assistance; declaring the urgency thereof; and declaring that this ordinance shall take effect at 12:00 a.m. on January 1, 2020, read and adopted as read. (Citywide)

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_12172019_19-1268

Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you. And then. 24, an account of Richardson's after a concert for one of his daughters. And so it's going to do it in 24, please. Speaker 1: Adam 24 is a report from Public Works. Human Health and Human Services recommendation to execute all documents required by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority to accept and administer the 2017 capital cost for crisis and breach housing grant in the amount of 3.4 million. Adobe resolution to increase purchasing authority under the existing purchase order and execute a contract for the design, purchase, installation and permitting of modular housing units required for the Atlantic Avenue Bridge Community Project at 68413636845 Atlantic Avenue for a total contract amount not to exceed 3.3 million. Negotiate and execute all documents to obtain access to the property and adjacent properties that will help complete and operate the ABC project in a timely manner and find that the ABC project is exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act. District nine. Speaker 0: There is a. Motion in a second. Please cast your votes.

Resolution

Recommendation to authorize City Manager, or designee, to execute any and all documents, including any necessary amendments, required by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) and its fiscal agent Brilliant Corners, to accept and administer the 2017 Capital Costs for Crisis and Bridge Housing Grant awarded to the Health and Human Services Department in 2018, in the amount of $3,400,000; Adopt resolution to increase purchasing authority under the existing Purchase Order with Williams Scotsman, Inc., of Santa Fe Springs, CA, and execute a contract, and all necessary amendments, replacing such Purchase Order, for the design, purchase, installation and permitting of modular housing units required for the Atlantic Avenue Bridge Community (ABC) Project at 6841-6845 Atlantic Avenue (Property), in the amount of $2,500,000, with a 35 percent contingency in the amount of $875,000, for a total contract amount not to exceed $3,375,000; Authorize City Manager, or designee, to negotiate and execute any and all documents, including any necessary amendments, required by the County of

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_12172019_19-1263

Speaker 0: Thank you. I will. Let's go ahead and do item 19, please. Speaker 1: Item 19 is a. Communications from a Council Member Peers recommendation to receive and file a presentation from the CSU LP College of Health and Human Services on a Sustainable Tourism Development Plan for the City of Long Beach. Speaker 5: Thank you. I'm happy to say that I had the opportunity of meeting a new constituent of mine, the Dudley's. So Katie Dudley is a professor at Cal State Long Beach and graciously invited me to come spend about an hour or so with her students in the School of Recreation and Leisure Studies, which offers sustainability, tourism and planning development course. So all these students are going to give us a quick presentation. They've timed it. There's something in here for every council member. It's going to do a fantastic audit of our district and tell us what opportunities there are for us. So I want to welcome you guys. Thank you. You're going to do fantastic. Don't stress. Speaker 2: Thank you so much, ma'am. All right. Good evening, everyone. I'm Carla. We are students at Cal State Long Beach. So now we have compiled some of our coursework that we have conducted this semester. We each word separately, but together analyzing Long Beach and our Sustainable Tourism Planning and development course with Dr. Dudley, we examined what sustainable tourism really means. We were all given a council district in which we did a tourism audit. We went out and talked to the community. We have created our own unique product development items to spread tourism throughout Long Beach. We recognize that the Long Beach CVB currently has a slogan Hashtag We all grow. And we too agree that through Long Beach's transition, we can uncover new attractions and showcase the historic culture and diverse experiences that the city already has in place. I'm going to turn it over to Darlene so we can dove into our tourism audit. Hello. So we did a summary for each district just to highlight what we could get from our audit. So there within District one, we thought there was ample infrastructure in place and that we saw potential for designated tourism spots once laying down tourism superstructure in the port area. For District two. It's already well known for being a hub of commerce and community spirit, and we find that it has a strong transportation system in place within District three, which covers areas such as Naples and Beaumont. Sure, we saw that it has a nice mix of residents and tourists offering Instagram worthy locations, beaches, shopping, and a family friendly community. Going into District four, we did feel that it was rich and infrastructure and superstructure and served as a bridge between the tourist regions of Long Beach and the residential area. And then within District five, which we thought had a large residential population with over 45,000 residents and containing over 20 churches, as well as some of the tourism staples such as the Long Beach Airport and Eldorado Park. And then within District six, they are a diverse population with unique culture and heritage. We felt that the commercial businesses were primarily positioned to serve the community members. In District seven with over 52,000 residents. The area had a lot of locally owned businesses that have the potential through community engagement to become tourism ready. I did want to note that due to the amount of individuals that we had for this project, we didn't have someone for District eight, unfortunately. So I'm going over to District nine here, and we just kind of showed that did have many religious centers as well as culturally diverse restaurants and parks such as Holland, which will be going into further. And then after speaking with locals in the community, we each did some interviews and we felt that these were the three words that stood out as what Long Beach residents felt. Long Beach represents capable of solving and diverse diversity, being our proudest attribute and what the community is most afraid of losing. So with that being said, I'll pass it on to Sam, who will go more into the input that we received from the community. Hello. In order to further research, we decided to go out into the community of Long Beach and interview locals of Long Beach and just ask them what they felt were some strengths, some room for improvement, and also the tourism aspect of Long Beach. And what we came up with was that they were split 5050. Some people were very for tourism. They liked the revenue that it brought, the different opportunities that it brought. And some people were very skeptical of tourism as well. And with this, we feel like we can kind of find a balance between the two. For a community vision we came up with, we decided to see that as one of California's biggest cities, Long Beach seeks to uphold its small town feel while maintaining its civic culture and diversity. The city strives to deliver a high level of service to meet current and future needs for its locals, as well as visitors. And we feel it really captivates what Long Beach is about. It's very culturally diverse and it's like a melting pot for everything. So, um, and here we have our competitive analysis and we decided to focus on cities that really thrive on tourism. And we came up with Huntington Beach and San Diego. And with these two, we decided to focus on things such as tourist services, accommodations, transportation, their overall destination image, and also their marketing and their branding. And what we discovered was that Huntington Beach does a really good job at showcasing what their motto is, which is Surf City. And they they really do a good job at that. And as for San Diego, they do a really good job at advertising how culturally diverse they are and all the different things that they offer. And they also do a really good job at they have a development plan specifically for tourism, and that was something that we were trying to kind of figure out through our research. We didn't really find something that Long Beach had that was dedicated to tourism. So San Diego was did a really good job utilizing that as well. And for our SWOT analysis, some strengths that we found out was that language is, like I said, it's very culturally diverse, it's a melting pot. So it can we can really utilize that in order to market and brand the city. And we also have iconic tourism attractions. So the aquarium, the Queen Mary, all of our museums, all of our festivals that we have and we also have a very beachy community feel. Long Beach is very welcoming, I know, compared to others, other beachy communities such as Laguna Beach, Long Beach is very just welcoming to everybody. We welcome all types of religions, cultures and just types of people. And also we figured out some places on which have some room for growth would be definitely creating a tourism plan that's dedicated to tourism, obviously. And also tourism is centrally located, the one area mainly south. So Long Beach, north Long Beach is kind of missing some of those tourism aspects. And it's also surrounded by other tourism hotspots, like I mentioned, Huntington Beach and San Diego. So it can sometimes be overlooked. Speaker 5: But with this. Speaker 2: We also created some product developments that Caitlin will take you into. Looking to new product development for the city of Long Beach. District One has the infrastructure in place to host a warehouse throw similar to the still craft and things we know. This opportunity would bring in small, diverse businesses that would include birdies, local artists, workshops, food trucks and a space for Papa John's. In District two, we have plenty of attractions, including cultural, historical and recreational activities, but lots of the time goes unnoticed, creating a centralized tourism information booth that includes local tours and what fun activities are there to do in Long Beach. This could create job opportunities for low income residents who are familiar with Long Beach, helping tourists enjoy Long Beach while creating revenue. District three focuses on the beach. However, our city is not competitive with other surrounding communities. Creating a beach water park would make Long Beach stand out from the rest and we have the perfect environment as the breakwaters conversion. This would attract family friendly tourists from everywhere. Looking into District four, we have developed an enchanted urban arts sanctuary. This is currently the undeveloped part of the greenbelt installing public art installations, partnering up with the University Recreation Department for volunteers and work experience could bring opportunities to US college students. This attraction could for any tourist craving a green experience. And District five. There are over 20 churches of different faiths, and Long Beach could host an inclusive event in observance of World Religion Day, bringing in tourists from all religions to educate individual individuals on spirituality through demonstration music, art and cultural fit and District six. We can showcase cultural history by developing a children's oil and Naval History Museum that that could be interactive and inclusive for all children and adults. Focusing on the Cambodian town, the food and strapping scene could be developed in a church or that highlights the Cambodian community. Looking at District seven before bringing in new infrastructure is an important to develop the area first following along Long Beach Beer Lab as a hot tourist attraction. But the surrounding areas are not yet inviting, asking district residents artists to assist in beautifying the buildings, making them more inviting to tourists, developing a quarterly or yearly meet the art artist block party could be unique to all new and coming artists. Speaker 0: Why? You've got about 20 seconds left. Speaker 2: Right. Well, quickly, about Districts nine, Long Beach has a historical back musical place where we can focus on bringing in local musicians who are here to come and visit Ella, who like to come visit Long Beach as well. Thank you. Also, you've witnessed long beaches potential, so attracting more visitors and creating more of a sustainable tourism plan. We utilize infrastructures and engage the community and thank you for being here. Presentation. Speaker 0: Thank you very much. Thank you very much. That concludes the presentation and presentation time. There is a motion in second to receive and file. Thank you very much. All recalcitrant beach students and kept please cast your votes. Speaker 1: It's been a mango. Can't remember Austin or Urunga, but she carries. Speaker 7: Okay. All right. Next one I'm concerned about for the first excuse me, public comment. We had three speakers there. Speaker is Donna Atwood. And that. And then we have Jerry Glenn, and after that, we have Stefon. You go in that order, please.

Agenda Item

Recommendation to receive and file a presentation from the CSULB College of Health and Human Services, School of Recreation and Leisure Studies on a sustainable tourism development plan for the City of Long Beach.

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_12102019_19-1238

Speaker 2: Okay, we're going to do item 23, please, Madam Clerk. 23. Speaker 0: Communication from City Attorney Recommendation to declare ordinance repealing chapter relating to tenant relocation assistance. Read the first time and lead over to the next regular meeting of City Council for final reading, declaring the urgency thereof and declaring that this ordinance shall take effect at midnight on January 1st, 2020, citywide. Speaker 2: Thank you. I do have three public speakers, if I can, because, Mr. Emerson, you make sure the full council is out here really quick. Thank you. Okay. If Norberto Lopez, Liana Noble and Marlene Alvarado could please come forward. Norberto Lopez led a noble and Merlene Alvarado could please come forward. Please. Go ahead, sir. All right. Speaker 4: Um, so my name is. I work with Libra, the project director there currently. And once again, you know, we stand behind Long Beach amounts. There's a lot of misinformation that has been going out in the media saying that the state amount is higher than the Long Beach amount. We're still saying the Long Beach amounts are higher than the state amounts. And the fact that the average rents in 2019 were approximately 1400 dollars here in Long Beach. And so currently the way that the ten and below policy works in the city of Long Beach is if you live in a studio, you get 27 or six and then it goes up to 4500, depending on the amount of bedrooms. Where we would like is for a policy that comes back hopefully soon, sooner rather than later, that just implements everything from HB 1482 and just substitutes the relocation amounts from the state policy to the Long Beach amounts in order to help protect some tenants from going homeless. Average moving amount right now for a lot of people that we work with is around $6,000. Even then, with the current Long Beach amount, that isn't enough for people to move out but is definitely a big lift and helping them find a new home. So we're hoping that you can revisit this item and, you know, hopefully maintain the Long Beach amounts one way or another. I'm pretty sure you could find some way of maintaining these amounts for their Long Beach residents. And hopefully you can find, um, you know, the perfect policy, which I know is going to be hard, but nonetheless it's doable. I also ask that you take a closer look at how are you going to repeal something? And I have another substitute ready to go. I don't think that the senior and disabled program will be ready to go by the time that the repealing of the tenant relocation policy is done with. Thank you. Speaker 2: Thank you so much. Liana Noble and Marlene Alvarado, please. Speaker 6: My name is Liana Noble. I live in downtown and been active in our North Pine Neighborhood Alliance. There's several points of I'd like to make tonight. I appreciate that. There we have members of the council who have been consistent and clear advocates on affordable housing. However, what I am seeing now is a resident is that while you have your your intention of, as you put it, I think previously of clarifying what's going on and making it clear to landlords as well as to tenants what is applicable here in Long Beach in terms of the extreme housing crisis that we have. What I'm experiencing is somebody that pays a lot of attention to City Hall is that this is a critically important issue and yet it's being dealt with in a piecemeal basis. So my experience is that you are approaching a critically important problem that affects more than 60% of those of us who live here in Long Beach. And you are doing it piecemeal. That in and of itself is creating confusion. I would ask, therefore, that you not proceed with this sanction of relocation. If you rescind this, then you're adding to the confusion. You've made a made it public that you want to put together a program for seniors and disabled. And yet that is currently up in the air. In my neighborhood, we have. Speaker 3: Three. Speaker 6: Section eight senior housing towers, which doesn't begin to address the needs of the disabled and seniors literally living in our neighborhood. So if you look at the whole town and all of the other districts, this is a serious problem. And again, instead of coming to us with a package, you're doing it piecemeal. The other concern I have and the reason why I believe it is important that we have a Long Beach ordinance, is that the burden for enforcing these laws is falling on individual tenants. This is completely unacceptable as a tenant. We have we're in no shape to take on the corporate landlords. Speaker 3: Or landlords that own. Speaker 6: Properties here. If we have a local ordinance, you and our city staff can play a role in enforcing that ordinance. And as we know, the relocation ordinance here in Long Beach hasn't been implemented. It's not been enforced. We know of way too many tenants who aren't receiving the relocation benefit. Speaker 2: Thank you so much. Thank you. Marlene Alvarado. Speaker 7: Please. Speaker 3: I'm only Alvarado. Speaker 6: I'm in the first district. Quickly. I. Speaker 3: I own a property. Not here, but. Speaker 6: My tenants barely are able to pay rent, housing and everything else. I can't imagine anybody who is a landlord and takes out poor people and then expects them to pay for first and last month's rent. The state is not enough money for them to do that, especially here in Long Beach. It's really important that we continue the amount of money that we have already passed this law, which is more than what the state has. Gee, I can't. I can't. It breaks my heart to see so much greed here. I mean, this is Christmas, and I make a decent living charging reasonable rents. Why? I wouldn't want to kick out my tenants. They're really good people. They're hardworking people. And that's what's happening with most poor people who do this to the poor. It's tragic. Thank you. Speaker 2: Thank you. There's a motion and a second. Members, please cast your votes. I know we're having some delays with the motion carries. Okay. Thank you. We are moving on to item 20, please.

Emergency Ordinance

Recommendation to declare ordinance amending the Long Beach Municipal Code by repealing Chapter 8.97, relating to Tenant Relocation Assistance; declaring the urgency thereof; and declaring that this ordinance shall take effect at 12:00 a.m. on January 1, 2020, read and adopted as read. (Citywide)

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_12102019_19-1232

Speaker 2: Thank you. There's a motion and a second. Members, please cast your votes. I know we're having some delays with the motion carries. Okay. Thank you. We are moving on to item 20, please. Speaker 0: Item 20 Report from Energy Resources, Financial Management and Water Department Recommendation to receive and file a report on the feasibility of a Long Beach Community Choice aggregation. Direct the city manager to continue to monitor the energy market regulations. Prepare a study that analyzes the potential CCI governance options of forming a standalone city enterprise. Perform community outreach regarding the concept along with potential benefits and risks to customers. Continue the city's partnership with Southern California Edison to raise awareness of existing programs and defer for two years any decision whether to participate in a citywide. Speaker 2: Thank you. This is actually a we have a change. We're not going to hear this item tonight. But I want to turn this over to Councilmember Pearce. Speaker 3: Thank you. Yes, I'd like to make a motion to hold this over to February or March next year. We just haven't had enough time to really get our hands around the report. Speaker 2: That's the motion in a second. So if I can, I do have four members of the public. The motion is not is not the report, but to move the item. And so if therefore, those four members, the public want to speak to that, I'm going to call them up now. Marlene Alvarado, Caren Reside, Dave Chocola and Larry Goodhew. I wouldn't want to speak on that, Mr. Goodhew. You want to speak on moving this? It's just on moving it, though, sir. Dave Shot Collection Resign. Marlene Alvarado. Do they want to speak on moving the item? Please come forward. Speaker 1: Is this? Make sure I've got two kids over. Speaker 2: This is just a motion to move Tim to February or March. The whole. Speaker 1: Report. The issue dealing with the cannabis. Speaker 2: No, this is not cannabis, sir. Okay. Thank you. All right. Marlene Alvarado. Speaker 6: You know, once again, I'm with the First District, and I think this is a really good. Speaker 0: Alternative. Speaker 3: To climate change. Right now, we're. Speaker 6: Having an existential crisis. You, city council member, will not stop. Speaker 3: Extracting oil from our land. Speaker 6: And we have to stop it. But this is going to be the best thing that we can we can have. I would prefer that all of you stop accepting money from from the oil companies and also that we stop getting our taxes from oil companies. This is a good solution. Speaker 2: Thank you. So. I just wanna make sure that we speak to moving the item, not the item itself. So. Thank you. Misery side. Speaker 6: Karen reside in the First District. Speaker 3: This is a really critical. Speaker 6: Item for our city, and it's apparent that we're not going to make the December 31st deadline for this year. Speaker 3: So moving it with the intention of. Speaker 6: Establishing a deadline of December 31st of 2020 would be. Speaker 3: Preferred by the Long Beach Panthers. Speaker 6: And we feel that this is an opportunity to impact climate change and to shift the direction that our city is going in. We are heavily dependent upon oil. Speaker 3: But the marketplace is going to determine. Speaker 6: When the value. Speaker 3: Of oil is greatly reduced. And we need to be looking forward to that because it's going to happen sooner than we all expect. Speaker 6: But the developments are a new form of energy, so we support moving this to March. Speaker 2: Thank you. And Mr. Shukla. Dave Shukla Oh. Speaker 1: Shukla Third District. Can I support the motion? And I'd like. Speaker 7: To alert the council to. Speaker 1: Ab11 722. Speaker 4: And SP 719 2011, along with the CP C guidelines on I.O.U. Neutrality concerning. Speaker 7: Community choice. Speaker 1: Programs. Thank you. Speaker 2: Thank you. That concludes public comment. There's a motion the second to move the item to February or March. Please cast your votes. Speaker 0: Council on Sunday has. Washing washing cars. Speaker 2: Thank you. And now we're going to go back to item four, which is pulled from consent. I can read that item, please.

Agenda Item

Recommendation to receive and file a report on the feasibility of a Long Beach Community Choice Aggregation (CCA); Direct City Manager to continue to monitor the energy market/regulations and report to the City Council annually or sooner if substantial market changes occur; Direct City Manager to prepare a study that analyzes the potential CCA governance options of forming a stand-alone City enterprise, creating a new Joint Powers Authority (JPA), or joining an existing JPA; Direct City Manager to perform community outreach regarding the CCA concept along with potential benefits and risks to customers, as well as to gain feedback on how supportive the community might be of a Long Beach CCA; Direct City Manager to continue the City’s partnership with Southern California Edison to raise awareness of existing programs that provide Long Beach residents and businesses with various options to purchase a greater mix of renewables and utilize energy more efficiently; and Defer for two years any decision whether to participate in a CCA, in any format, or sooner if new inform

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_12102019_19-1230

Speaker 5: Which is the next item coming out? Speaker 6: Next 1516. Speaker 5: Oh, yes. Okay. Speaker 0: Final report from Financial Management. Recommendation receive supporting documentation to the record. Conclude the public hearing and approve an amendment to the conditions of the entertainment without dancing permit issued to Marina Wine at 194 Marina Drive, Suite 101 District three. Speaker 5: This is no one has to be sworn in for this. Speaker 0: There is an oath for this item. If the witnesses will please stand. Do you and each of you do you solemnly state that the testimony you may give in the court now and pending before this body shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God. Speaker 3: I have Brett, Jackie's business services officer, presenting the. Thank you. Speaker 4: Good evening, our mayor and members of the city council. Tonight have before you an amendment to the conditions of the entertainment without dancing permit issue to relevant in doing business as marina wine located at 194 194 Marina Drive Suite 101 operating as a restaurant with alcohol in Council District three. At its meeting on November 5th, 2019, the City Council granted an amendment to the entertainment without dancing permit subject to approved permit conditions. The permit conditions approved on the number of November 5th required entertainment activities occurring indoors with all doors and windows closed be restricted from 7:00 PM to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Sundays. Entertainment occurring indoors with the roll up door facing the patio open is restricted to 10 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 6 p.m. on Sundays due to a procedural error that occurred during the hearing. The conditions were not approved as intended in the entertainment permit. As a result, staff recommends amending the permit with the conditions as contained in the hearing packet. We stand ready to answer any questions Council may have. Speaker 1: And that concludes staff's report. Speaker 5: Thank you. Councilwoman Pryce. Would you like to have. Publicly. Speaker 6: Time's a charm. I'm hoping it passes tonight, and we don't have to come back on this one. Speaker 5: And we do have public coming in. This is a good. You actually going to try to. Fine. Okay. Will you please cast your vote?

Public Hearing

Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record, conclude the public hearing, and approve an amendment to the conditions of the Entertainment without Dancing Permit issued to Relevant, Inc., dba Marina Wine, at 194 Marina Drive, Suite 101. (District 3)

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_12102019_19-1239

Speaker 0: Councilman Richardson. Motion carries. Speaker 2: 24 Council member Pearce. Speaker 0: Communication from Councilmember Pearce recommendation direct the city manager to work with public works and the city attorney to amend resolution changing for street parking meter hours. Speaker 3: Yes. I want to thank staff for all their work. I want to thank Retro for their work as well. I know that we had this item come before us last year. It's just in front of us today. We are changing the hours from 9 p.m. to 7 p.m., which is in. Speaker 6: Alignment with the other. Speaker 3: Meters that we have. And other business improvement districts and staff will also be reducing the footprint, but that doesn't require a vote today. So again, thankful for community members that have come out and participated, engaged in this conversation and for everybody being patient with us as we, you know, figure this out, how we balance residential homes while they're surrounded by businesses as well and wanting to support both of them. So, again, thank you, staff. Speaker 5: Thank you very much. Hmm. Let's begin this year. Goodbye. Okay. Nobody can come in on this idea. Now, will you please cast your vote? Motion carries now in final. That's right. I've become my.

Agenda Item

Recommendation to direct City Manager to work with Public Works and City Attorney to amend Resolution No. RES-18-0171 Section 1, to change the 4th Street parking meters hours from Hermosa Avenue to Junipero Avenue from 10:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. to 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_12032019_19-1193

Speaker 2: Thank you. And those will be the next two items ahead of us. So if I can also ask if we can just please close those doors so we can and that would be appreciated. If you'd like to take a seat, you are welcome. And so with that, I'm going to begin by having the clerk read Hearing Item 19. Speaker 1: Report from Development Services Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record, conclude the public hearing and consider an appeal. Adopt resolution approving and certifying the mitigated negative declaration of environmental impact for the Long Beach Cruise Terminal Improvement Project and approve a site plan review for the onshore improvements of the Long Beach cruise terminal District two. Speaker 2: Thank you. And with that, if I can, please do we have an oath for this that we did administer? Speaker 1: If you're a witness in this hearing, please stand and raise your right hand. Do you and each of you 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. Please be seated. Speaker 2: Thank you. With that, we're going to have the staff report by city staff. Speaker 6: Thank you. Mayor Linda Tatum, director of development services. We'll be providing the staff report. I'd like to introduce the project team for this item that is our our event or current planning officer Alexis or a peso. And the staff planner is Amy Harbin. She will be making the presentation for this item. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor and fellow Council Members before you this evening is a request to receive supporting documentation into the record, conclude this public hearing and consider an appeal for a project consisting of an approval of improvements to the Long Beach cruise terminal in the Queensway Bay planned development zoning district. Although there are numerous assertions throughout the appeals, the most significant assertions are that the city did not consult with the Port of Long Beach on the project and that the baseline used in the study is faulty. The project site is located south of downtown, adjacent to the port of Long Beach, and within about one half mile to the 710 freeway. Zoning on the property is planned development PD 21 and consistent with the general plan. Louis Number seven Mixed use district primary access to the site is from Queens Highway and South Harbor Scenic Drive. Overall, the property is 103 acres, however. The city owned portion located on the east side of South Harbor Scenic Drive, is approximately 45 acres in size. The site is developed with the Arms Queen Mary Hotel and tourist attraction. Catalina Classic Cruises. City of Long Beach. Aqua Link Island Express. Helicopters. A Surface Parking Lot. A six story parking structure. Harry Bridges Memorial Park and the Long Beach cruise terminal. The former Spurs custom Long Beach Fire Department station number six is also located on Pier H along the southwest side of South Harbor. Scenic Drive is Pier Gee, which includes a rail yard, truck, container storage, liquid storage tanks and refinery equipment. Included for context relating to the mitigated negative declaration. The maritime improvements include dredging the existing berth to a deeper depth and the proposed expansion of the leasehold area. Also included as part of the maritime improvements are the construction of two mooring dolphins and associated catwalks, the extension of the passenger walkway, bridge and fender replacements. Onshore improvements include the expansion of the parking structure to the south. A total of 417 new spaces. This area has been designed to accommodate vertical clearance for emergency vehicles per the US Department of Transportation Standards, as well as the city's public works department. The third through fifth floors part of the north expansion will include 240 spaces. The bus parking area to the north will be reconfigured along with the interior reconfigured drop off traffic lanes to allow for improved pedestrian access from the structure and drop off area to the check in area at the dome. Each of the expanded floors has been designed to integrate seamlessly with the existing structure, and once completed, all levels will be accessible as one continuous structure. The existing tunnel will also be filled in order to accommodate the expanded structure and reconfigure traffic lanes. The Planning Commission found that the project is compatible in design, character and scale with its surroundings, which include the adjacent recreational and tourism uses. The project's form and massing are designed to be consistent with the existing structure so that when finished will be one cohesive structure. Additionally, the Planning Commission considered and approved the mitigated negative declaration which analyzed both the maritime and landside improvements. The required findings can be made in the affirmative. Pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act, Sequoia and the State Sequoia guidelines, an initial study was prepared which determined the preparation of a mitigated negative declaration of environmental impact. MDO 8-19 would be appropriate. The mitigated negative declaration indicated that no significant impacts would result from the project with the incorporation of an implementation of the stated mitigation measures. The City has been in ongoing communication and consultation with the Port of Long Beach staff since the project was originally submitted, as well as concurrently reviewing the project secret documentation to ensure adequate analysis of the whole action. The California Supreme Court has indicated that existing conditions will normally constitute the baseline physical conditions by which a lead agency determines whether an impact is significant. Selection of a baseline period at any other time would constitute the cherry picking of either lower or higher values than the current baseline . The piece mealing of a project occurs when a project is broken up into smaller pieces to avoid environmental review of all the impacts of the project as a whole. Staff recommends that the City Council receive supporting documentation into the record, conclude the public hearing, consider the appeal and adopt the resolution approving and certifying the mitigated negative declaration and uphold the Planning Commission's decision to approve a site plan review. And this concludes staff's presentation. Speaker 2: Thank you. With that, we do have some appellants. So because we have five appellants, we are going to be giving each of the appellants starting off 5 minutes. And then I think we have the we do have a coalition of some faculty, so they might get some longer at the last. Appellant But if I can please have a Jeralyn Mendoza Please come up first. And then after Jerry Mendoza, I'm going to have citizens about responsible planning. They'll be second. Please come forward. He's Geralyn Mendoza here. Speaker 11: Mr. Mayor, city councilmembers. My name is Chris Chavez. Obviously not Geralyn Mendoza. She had a medical procedure. Speaker 0: Done today, so I'm speaking in her place. I am the deputy policy director for the Coalition for Clean Air. I am also a resident of the City of Long Beach. Coalition for Clean Air filed this appeal because our concerns are the organization of the merit mitigated negative declaration seemed like inappropriate piece mealing of the project such that landside improvements were under the Planning Commission in water site improvements were under the Port of Long Beach. However, the city of Long Beach, through the Planning Commission and Planning Bureau, is the lead agency for Sequa for all purposes. The city cannot make the Port of Long Beach in charge of water related. Speaker 11: Issues for the purposes of the terminal expansion. Speaker 0: Project. Additionally, the Port of Long Beach has not formally considered the expansion project or contributed to the city as a responsible agency under sequel. The Planning Commission made its decision without a written report, written briefing or any other contribution in writing from the Port of Long Beach. And nobody from the Port of Long Beach. Speaker 11: Spoke at the. Speaker 0: November 7th Planning Commission meeting or to our knowledge, attended the meeting. The Commission made its decision without any deliberate port of Long Beach expertize on the water related improvements and its potential environmental impacts. Therefore, the Commission's decision was premature and based on incomplete information. We therefore request that the mitigated non mitigated negative declaration be revoked in the Port of Long Beach, be allowed to appropriate time to review and. Speaker 11: Analyze the environmental impacts of the project. Speaker 0: Before a final decision is made by the Planning Commission. As secure as a secret lead agency, it's important to note for Coalition for Clean Air part, we do not. Speaker 11: Oppose this project, nor are we trying to stop this project. However, we want to make sure that. Speaker 0: Seep was adhered to. Speaker 11: As strictly as possible. Speaker 0: Long Beach, as we know, has some of the most polluted air in California and in the United States. There's a lot of efforts going on at the state level, the local level, to try to mitigate some of those longstanding air quality concerns by ensuring appropriate adherence to the secret process will help build and reinforce the trust between local agencies and the constituents that those agencies serve. Speaker 2: Thank you for your time. Thank you very much. Next up is our citizens about responsible planning. Speaker 6: Before I begin, Mayor, I am going to be speaking for both carp and. The Sierra Club was Cerritos Wetlands Task Force. So may I have 10 minutes? Speaker 2: Yeah. Have you down for both? You're going to be that. Are you going to be the sole speaker for both? Speaker 6: No. Coral Inslee is also speaking for carp. Speaker 2: So carp in total only has 5 minutes. Speaker 0: And so. Speaker 2: Is control if you want to speak. And I'll let Ms.. Ms.. Lee also speak. But it needs to be within 10 minutes. Speaker 6: Within the 10 minutes, correct. Speaker 2: All right. I do have you down for both. Speaker 6: Thank you. Citizens about responsible planning. Caap and the Sierra Club Most Serious Wetlands Task Force are appealing the Carnival Cruise Expansion Project as we contend it needs a full environmental impact report to address the inadequately mitigated environmental issues. These include air quality kelp forests, marine mammals, birds, fish habitat, noise, light toxic materials, disposal of dredge materials and adverse environmental impacts. The Carnival cruise ships have not only on our port and the city of Long Beach, but on the entire ocean. The staff report base its recommendation to deny or appeal on a claim that evidence on the record does not support our appeals. However, to support. This claim staff provides only one letter attachment K in your packet, which was not written by the city as lead agency nor by the negative declaration preparer, but by attorneys for the party of interests. Carnival Cruise. Perhaps this utterly unprofessional and biased approach. Besides this utterly unprofessional and biased approach the staffs report claim is quite mistaken in substance. At the Planning Commission on November seven three, submitted on the record many substantive reasons why statements in the negative declaration are inadequate and therefore a full environmental Empower Pack report is needed . Both Carp and Sierra Club Task Force agree with all the concerns of the other appellants. But because of shortage of time, I will address only a few. The conclusion to the negative declaration states The project area is within one of the busiest ports on the West Coast, within highly modified habitat. In spite of the generally degraded habitat, a few special status or sensitive species are present or potentially present. The small number of sensitive species lists 16 different birds from pelicans to herons to terns, nor known to forage and nest in the project area. Six listed or special statue marine mammals from whales to dolphins to sea lions have a moderate to high potential to occur on site, according to the noise study. Unmitigated underwater noise impacts to marine mammals may occur during pile diving, driving and dredging activities. And what is the mitigation for these endangered birds and mammals? From the negative declaration. I quote, during pile driving activities, the construction contractor shall utilize a soft start initiation of the pile driving equipment at the beginning of each day, or following a 30 minute or longer break in pile driving. Driving to give nearby wildlife a chance to vacate immediate construction area before full force pile driving is initiated, unquote. Chasing birds and mammals away from their nesting and foraging area is not mitigation. Another concern are the kelp forests. The negative dex states quote, The major species of brown algae or kelp in the Long Beach Harbor are giant kelp and feather boa kelp. Surveys in 2013 and 2014 identified kelp beds growing along the outer faces of pure j and both faces of the breakwater just south west of the project's existing berth and docking area. As such, it is possible that kelp beds in the project would be impacted by the present project. Constructive activities. According to Dr. Rogers Bennett of UC Davis Bodega Marine Labs, the long time relative stable northern kelp forests have essentially been almost completely wiped. Speaker 9: Out of control employment. Speaker 6: Over the last decade and will take many decades, if ever, to recover. Speaker 9: Mr. Centralia, if I know if I'm into next Christmas, you know you're going to be the next I'm sorry. Speaker 6: I was given 10 minutes. Speaker 9: That you do five for you and five for Mrs. Christensen. That's what the mayor was telling me. Speaker 0: No. Speaker 6: As I understand it. Let me. Speaker 2: Clarify. Thank you. So I think we have 10 minutes total for both groups and so. Ms. Control anything you don't use in the next few minutes? Mr.. Speaker 6: Well, I would like my clock to be stopped while we discuss this. Speaker 2: We'll give you that. Those, those time to worry. So just continue. But whatever is left over is what Ms.. Lee will be able to use for the rest of the time. Speaker 6: May I ask a question? Isn't it true that at appeal hearing are the appellants are allowed to present all of their arguments in case there is a lawsuit? Speaker 2: You're absolutely able to continue, and I'm not going to cut you off, but I'm trying to, because we have so many appellants. I'm asking folks if they can stay within 5 minutes. Please. There lies a reasonable amount of time. And so please continue. And and hopefully within that amount of time, you can also hear. Ms.. Lee so just please continue. I'm not going to cut you off. Speaker 6: Am I getting my time back? No. Cost over. Speaker 11: $100. Speaker 6: Kelp forests anywhere are a relative rare and precious resource. One study found that along with removing carbon dioxide from the water, kelp is creating a defense against acidification. Mitigation measures? Incredibly, no mitigation measures are required for the kelp forests. Another big concern are the hazardous materials lurking in the dredged materials. I won't go into all of these that are there, but they include. Zinc. Arsenic. Copper. Nickel. Cadmium. Mercury. Dee dee dee dee dee ni and they were all elevated above the Los Angeles port reference sediments. Conclusion of the report states. Therefore, there is a moderate chance that the carnival sediments would cause significant toxicity to marine amphipods. The conclusion of the negative declaration appears to ignore the results of the study and are willing to submit marine life to the dangers of multiple toxic materials. For this reason alone, this project should not be approved. However, there is more and carelessly will tell you. What comes next. Okay. So in this negative declaration, they talk about being able to safely moor the larger cruise ship at the existing berth to improve safety at that berth related to ocean swells. But if you go online, you'll find that they have been advertising tickets for these sailings up to a year and a half ago starting this month. It's been confirmed with Matthew Armes, the environmental director of the Port of Long Beach, that they will dock the panorama at the same location as the other cruise ships. Either there isn't a safety issue or they are disregarding the safety issue. Also, if you look at the environmental issues in this city, if you look at that chart I had put up there, that's the coal enviro screen scores. And over on the left side, you'll see the port and going north, going up the 710 freeway. And you see all that red and all that red is basically saying that we have very we have the worst air quality in any city in the state. So shouldn't be carefully consider a project that brings with it additional pollution. According to USA Today, a study of four cruise ships, including two of Carnival's ship exhaust, contains her harmful constituents, including metals and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, many of which have toxic, mutagenic or carcinogenic properties. Do we really expect the people on the west side of Long Beach to live with that? They don't deserve it. Moving on, it says that there are speed requirements going into in and out of Mexico. And once again, if you look at the staff report, it's saying that that they use that for schedule issues. So is the schedule more important than our air? Also in terms of shore power, they are required to use shore power when they're inside the the port here. But the problem being that Stefano Barzani's spokesman for Carmel Carnival, admitted that of the five ships currently coming to Long Beach each week, only four are equipped with shore power . And I'm going to summarize here that at the end that, yes, money will increase, more taxes will come to the city if you approve this, but weighed against our residents health, we ask that you choose to support city residents their health and quality of life. Speaker 2: Thank you. As Christians say that you have. Okay. Then we're moving on to our next speaker, which is Mr. Marquez. And I want to just make sure mislead. I know your time was up because I also told this control. Did you complete everything you wanted to say? Okay. Thank you. All right. Yes, go ahead. Speaker 0: Good evening. Speaker 10: My name is Jesse Marcus. I'm the co-founder. Speaker 0: And secretary to the Coalition for Safe Alignment. And if you've seen our documentation, I also represent nine other. Speaker 11: Groups which represent a wide spectrum. Speaker 0: Of society and members of the public. Speaker 2: What I want to speak. Speaker 0: With you about and describe with you is what's not being told to you. For some reason, this is a project that's been put on a super fast track. It is already behind schedule. But then here's what's not being told to you as an addition to that. Both the California Air Resources Board and the South Coast Air Quality Management District submitted public comments in July and in September, both of them describing in detail the inadequacies of assumptions of the assessments and estimates of the emissions and the mitigation. City staff ignored them. So here we have. Speaker 2: The two predominant. Speaker 0: Regulatory agencies saying there's things wrong with this and yet it moved forward without that. That's what's not being told to you. You heard just mentioned about the shore power. Yes, it's in there that they will be short powered and they will hook up and plug in. But not today. Not tomorrow. A terminal cannot do it. Today or tomorrow, it will be a while before they get to it. You could give me a year or two before they even get to it. Those are concerns. In talking about mitigation. We have come to all agree, as appellants and many of our members, that city staff did not have an ongoing, continuous, in-depth discussion with the Port of Long Beach about this negative, negative declaration. Because when it comes to the subject of mitigating impacts, they did a very poor job. Both CARB and IT Committee also stated that our organization publishes a document which is a survey of all zero emissions transportation vehicles, cargo handling equipment, construction equipment, and we provide it to at least five six executive management at the Port of Long Beach. So they are fully aware of what is available. Yet city staff. Claiming that, you know, they need to be able to purchase pushing credit somewhere else to offset impacts is not true. Even though it mentions they will be using electric dredging, Carnival already mentioned that there's a probability that the dredger will not be available. Even the attorneys Piper LP said, Oh, well, the three dredger manufacturers la la la la. Well, actually there's five. And this project is not a new project. It's been on the books. Port of Long Beach, City of LA could have gotten a cap and trade grant, Proposition one grant. They could have gotten a Carmelo grant, they could. Speaker 2: Have gotten a deer grant and several other grants. Speaker 0: And worked with a dredger service provider provider to be able to have it available when you needed it. We all signed contracts to deliver services. You're behind already now. So come the time that you need to use it. It may not be available because you have no contract with them to do that. And since the ship cannot plug in today, tomorrow, or maybe even for a year or more, there is a technology. It's called Inec's Advanced Maritime Emissions Control Technology. It has already been used on over 300 ships at the Port of Long Beach alone. It is certified by CARB. So it's not unknown. It is feasible. It is cost effective. And it is readily available right here at the ports. And they use it all the time. But yet there is no contract to use them. To protect the public from emissions. There are also we claim that there are underestimates of the emissions. Well, yes, if you read the CARB letter and the and the Archimedes letter, they describe the areas where it's missing. But in addition to that, there are other things that you don't know and city staff would not necessarily know, for example. When a cruise ship comes here, there's trash. Well, you don't see the barge going to the ship to unload the trash. You don't see the emissions from the lift to take it off the ship. You don't see the fuel barge and its emissions as part of that. So we're saying we're not against the project. We're asking to delay and redo the air as required under sequel. Thank you. Speaker 2: Thank you, Mr. Marquez. And then I have Andrea Ricco, I believe. Yes. Please come forward. And I know if you want to go beyond the 5 minutes, you're. Speaker 0: Welcome to do so. Speaker 6: Thank you very much. I'm Andrea Ricco. Professor emerita from USC Keck School of Medicine, representing concerned academics from USC and UCLA. I would like to raise a number of issues and I'm sorry, I've had a cold for two weeks, so. See if I can do this. Despite claims and several others have raised this city of Long Beach, staff did not appropriately consult with the Port of Long Beach on strategy for the sequel analysis. I've had multiple conversations with port staff over the last six months. They personally told me that the city of Long Beach was handling the environmental review differently than the port would have handled it. For example, the Port of Long Beach said there was no need for a secure baseline analysis, which is the main thrust of the thrust of what the Port of Long, Long Beach planning staff did. So the public and government agencies, including Axiom D and A or B and dozens of community groups that signed on to a letter that the faculty at USC wrote spent weeks analyzing that secure baseline when the Port of Long Beach later said, That's not the way to have done the sequence analysis. That's a really horrible thing to do to the public. To publish a document that required that was so faulty in its analysis. That required has always been weeks analyzing it. And then the Port of Long Beach and Carnival later says, Well, we didn't really need to do that. We just did that or whatever. So the Port of Long Beach said that that was not an appropriate way to do that. So they were not consulted by the port of by the city of Long Beach staff. I forwarded the Planning Commission hearing notice to the Port of Long Beach top environmental management staff, and asked for a call about it. And they told me that my forwarding them, the Planning Commission notice was the first they had heard about it and that they had not seen the Planning Commission notice that talked about the Harbor Commission having a meeting. That is not what I would call proper consultation and it resulted in no in an opaque process and lack of ability to engage on this issue with the Port of Long Beach. Secondly, we argue that the analysis that the psychoanalysis that the Long Beach staff did City of Long Beach about the comparing the new panorama with the polluting Carnival Splendor was completely faulty. First, Carnival brought the Splendor back to Long Beach after I'd been gone for four years. Why do they bring it back? Do they think that that would be a good comparison with a ship that plugged into electricity so you could prove that the new ship was going to reduce emissions? There's no reason why Carnival brought the polluting Splendor back to the port of Long Beach. So again, we spent hours and hours and weeks analyzing all of the analysis presented by all of the environmental consultants to the city staff. And the Port of Long Beach later said there was no need to have done that. Third Carnival refuse planning staff for months by saying that Panorama had a Tier three engine, which has the cleanest engines that are currently available. I did a Public Records Act request and I received 1500 pages of city documents. So I've seen some communications back and forth that probably you have not seen. On May 28th, after months and months of emails going back and forth, consultants told us, I'm sorry. Pan Carnival told City staff that the Panorama was actually a Tier two engine, not a Tier three May 28. That's three weeks before this MMD was published. So one of the consultants wrote an email to the city staff saying, We don't know what to do here. All of our all of our emission calculations are based on this cleaner tier miraculously cleaner tier three engine. And all I know is that that was three weeks before the Mandi was published. And I find it hard to believe that after working six or eight months on their document, that the consultants revised all of their emission calculations in those next three weeks in time to publish it. Part of the confusion is when it is a way that you can get around the International Maritime Organization rules. They starting January 1st, 2016, they require that all new Marine oceangoing ships have a Tier three engine if they were going to enter North American waters like here in Long Beach. And so that started on January 1st, 2016. But Carnival bought this keel ten days before January 1st, 2016, so that they could get the grandfathered rules and have the Tier two dirtier engine. To me, this raises questions about whether Carnival Cruise Line really cares about public health in the environment. And you know, I have a PowerPoint. I'm sorry. It's not being shown. I submitted this. Speaker 2: We have the one we have in front of us. Can you can we go through the slides really quick? Ones that we. Speaker 6: I probably like on slides eight or something. Just go through it. Speaker 0: I'll tell you. Okay. Speaker 6: Who's going to do that? Speaker 0: Oh. Speaker 6: Okay. The Port of Long Beach should have known about this issue, that the tier that this was a tier two ship because in the 2017 update for the camp, the port said they were well aware of this method that the cruise that ships were using, ocean going vessels were using to use the earlier keels that were laid before 2016 to get to grandfather in these old keels and be able to use tier two engines instead of Tier three. So get this, in December of 2015, the carnival puts this keel on the ship, says it's starting to be constructed. Ten days later, the new rules start. Two years later, Carnival starts manufacturing the ship. And again, I say, you know, were the calculations about whether it was tier two or two or three really considered by the consultants? With regard to mitigation measures. There's a failure to demand that tug, that two or three tugboats be used, two or three engine tugboats and the visas were not available. So you can't make Carnival have to use something that's not available. And it's clear. I've got notice if you go through my comments that I gave you, there's notes from staff that says from Carnival, it says, we will not commit to tag three. Two or three tugboats. So then, as mentioned earlier, someone from the Piper law firm representing Carnival criticized me for demanding that Carnival use Tier three tugboats for dredging. And they said they're not available. And if they're not available, you can use emission credits. I found in the Public Records Act and an email to staff from that same person, Marshall Taylor from the Piper Law Firm saying emission reduction credits are not feasible. It would cost Carnival $30 million to buy emission reduction credits. So here we are. Tug three engines are not available, can't be mandated. Let's use emission credits, but emission credits are not feasible either. Behind the scenes, there's not a word about this in the in the Mandi, nor is there a word in the media about the fact that it's a tier two engine instead of a Tier three. And finally the end that there were a lot of dredged materials and sediment that ended up being dug up from doing all the dredging that's required to bring in a big ship like the panorama, which is the biggest cruise ship in the world. The analysis in 2018 showed that the dredged materials had moderate contamination. So the question is, where do you dispose of them? Where do you dispose of that dredge material? There also had been analysis from the cruise terminal in 2009, and that's in the document that's in the M. And it's not like I found it and some crazy places in the mandate, so everybody had access to it. If you look at 29 to 2018, the the contaminants are dramatically higher in 2018 than they were in 2009. In 2018, the decision by EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers was that it's okay to dump this stuff in the ocean in 2009 when the levels were a lot lower. EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers said it's too toxic to dump in the ocean. So I just would raise questions about whether we should have some kind of neutral person evaluate these dredging contaminants or whether there might be something going on. You know, with the current administration, which recently revoked the National Oceans policy, is there something going on that's saying let's let the more contaminated stuff just go ahead, we don't have to worry about it like we did ten years ago. And I've got examples of those metals in here. And I say arsenic level found arsenic levels. You know, you have this ocean dumping site called L.A. two. And so the analysis shows what are the chemicals like? What are the contaminants like at the L.A. two ocean dumping site? And what are the contaminants like that you're finding right now? So arsenic was 1.5 to 4 times higher. Lead was 14 to 16 times higher. Speaker 2: So I'm going I mean. Speaker 6: Let my last sentence. Speaker 2: Okay. Why aren't you. Speaker 6: Continually and there were no there were currently no detectable PCBs at L.A. two. And the levels of PCBs in the Carnival Cruise terminal sample exceed the the threshold, the lower threshold limits for what is okay to dispose of. So I think some neutral party really has to look at what's happening with that dredged material. Thank you. Speaker 2: Thank you very much. We're going we're continuing on the on the hearing. We do have both public comment and of course, the carnival is here. Also who they get or they're making it seem as if they like up to ten or 15 minutes since there's one person and the five appellants is a representative from Carnival wants to make any comments or any rebuttals. Speaker 11: Good evening. Honorable Mario Garcia, member of City Council, city manager and staff we. My name is Stefano Bersani. I do global development for Carnival Corporation. We are proud to be here tonight in front of you to represent our company in doing so, in full respect of the appeal process in front of us. I would like to introduce executives from Carnival. They are joining me today and partners. We are working messe commercial director, head of long beach operations. We have Vicky Ray, vice president of Guest Care and communications. We have Terry Taunton, senior vice president of nautical and port operations. Right behind here, I have John Africa, senior Vice President of Maritime Policy and Analysis, former US Navy officer. And then I have Andrew Brady right behind me and Marcia Taylor from DLA Piper. At this point, I'd like to ask Andrew Brady to please come up and address the legal brief we have prepared. Speaker 0: Thank you. Good evening. Honorable members of the Council. My name is Andrew Brady of DLA Piper on behalf of the project applicant Carnival. Speaker 11: First, I want to note that we did submit a as a reference. Speaker 0: Before a detailed comment letter that addresses the appeals. Speaker 11: Point by point. I'm not going to address the full detail of those comment letters, but I do want to go through a few key points. Speaker 0: First, in order legally to demonstrate that a mitigated negative declaration is invalid under SEQUA. Speaker 11: The California Environmental Quality. Speaker 0: Act, the appeals would have to show that there is substantial evidence in the record and a fair argument, a fair argument of significant environmental impacts supported. Speaker 11: By substantial evidence in the record that despite. Speaker 0: All of the detailed analysis in the media, that this project would nonetheless result in significant, unmitigated impacts on the environment. The appeals filed before the Council do not meet that standard. Speaker 11: They fail to meet that burden. Speaker 0: They, rather than address the substance of the amend its supporting expert technical reports or any of the evidence in the record, the appeals merely criticize in cursory fashion with no citations to the record and zero evidence that they want the city to have done the analysis differently. That is not nearly enough to establish a square violation. And now here tonight and at the 11th hour, the appellants have submitted new information and arguments that address a number of issues that are simply not relevant to the scope of this fairly modest and limited project. I will briefly address some of the germane issues that were addressed. Speaker 11: First, with respect to hazardous materials. Speaker 0: I would note that the M.A. has in support as an appendix, a detailed dredging soils report that includes analysis of the soils that are to be dredged and disposed of here. The city staff. The city's expert, circuit consultant, the United States EPA, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Port of Long Beach, all determined that these contaminants were at levels that were safe for disposal at a designated disposal site. That is that is more than enough for the city to have correctly concluded that in Mandi is appropriate and that these impacts would be less than significant. And it is supported by the conclusions of a number of different expert agencies on the issue of school piecemeal. The comment respectfully misapprehension would seek what piecemeal actually is. They say that because there are separate approvals from the port in the city, that constitutes piecemeal. That is not what piecemeal as piecemeal relates to the analysis of the whole of the project itself. Many projects require approvals from different government agencies. That does not render cycle analysis invalid. A cycle analysis is supposed to analyze the entirety of the project itself, and that is what this analysis does. Staff did briefly address the baseline question. I will just say that the standard under Sequoia is to analyze as the baseline, the currently existing conditions at the time the environmental analysis is conducted. That is what this memo does. That is the standard under secure and the mandate here follows that standard. Beyond that raised the issue of emissions reductions credits. That is a mandatory mitigation measure of this project and statements that it is going to be prohibitively expensive or actually incorrect. Carnival's taking on that as a mandatory condition for this project that it must meet in order to get the permits. Finally, the use of two or three tugboats, it is it is analyzed and determined in the manner that two or three tugboats of the size required for the work here, maybe, maybe unavailable, but where available? The project is mandated to use them. That analysis is in the Mandi. It accounts for it and the Amandi concludes, including that analysis, that the impacts of the project will still be less than significant. Finally, just to correct the record, the statement that the MMD does not analyze the engines that are used in the ship is incorrect . The MEHNDI was revised and recirculated. The remedy does a properly account for the type of engine that is used in the Panorama ship. So, you know, there's there were there's a wide variety of other claims and issues raised in the appeal. Happy to address any questions the Council may have regarding those additional issues. I would just note that, you know, an M&A is eminently appropriate for this project. This is a project that actually results in substantial environmental benefits insofar as it enables Carnival to bring in the use of a new, more efficient ship that's going to be able to connect 100% to shore power, and it will be able to connect 100% to shore power on day one. There is no delay. The project only involves approximately seven weeks, only seven weeks of berth, modifications and dredging, while still allowing vessels to be safely handled during construction. Based on these facts, we concur with the conclusion of the staff and the Planning Commission that the MMD is appropriate and fully complies with the requirements of sequel. On that basis, we recommend that this Council uphold the decision of the Planning Commission in denying the appeals. And I will now turn the presentation back to Mr. Barroso. Thank you very much. Thank you. Speaker 11: Don't steal my paper. Thank you. Thank you. Andrew, with regard to our commitment to sustainability and the specifics of a carnival panorama, I'd like to ask John Heffernan to please join me and approach that element of the presentation. Good evening, Mr. Mayor and Council Members. Thanks for the opportunity to say a few words. My name is John Heffelfinger. I'm senior vice president of Maritime Policy, and I also oversee our corporate sustainability efforts for the corporation. And I'd like to just provide a little bit of context, if I could. I'll keep it brief. For context, Carnival Corporation currently operates 104 ships around the world. We call on over 700 ports annually. Long Beach is obviously a very important one of those. We operate nine brands. Carnival Cruise Line is the largest of our nine brands, operating 27 of those 104 ships. As a going concern. We fully recognize that our future depends on operating safely, obviously, and on the health of the world's oceans. So it's important for us to employ solutions that manage our impacts. Our approach to sustainability has really been about continuous improvement and I'll explain a bit more. In 2015, for the first time, we went public with a series of sustainability goals for 2020, and next year we expect to attain or achieve all of them. One of our top priorities is ongoing improvement in energy efficiency, and associated with that is air emissions. Obviously, since 2005 as an entity, we've achieved an efficiency gain of more than 27%. We've invested over $500 million in advanced air quality systems designed to reduce sulfur and particulate emissions. We were the first cruise company in the industry to make an investment and it's an ongoing investment in LNG powered cruise ships. We took delivery of our first cruise ship recently. We have ten more being built. We're also investing looking forward to a carbon neutral future at some point in low or zero carbon fuel potential. Right now. That includes a large scale battery potential, as well as fuel cell and other new fuels. But there is no silver bullet here. As a few other examples of our sustainability efforts, we've committed to reducing the purchase and use of single use items, including single use plastics, and we have a goal to achieve at least a 50% reduction by the end of 2021. We're also investing in new food waste processing technologies, and we have comprehensive recycling programs on board. And every ship in our fleet has a full time environmental officer employed. Lastly, I'd like to mention that we also lead the cruise industry. In the percentage of our fleet that is shore power capable. And that leads me to Panorama. As already mentioned, Panorama will connect to shore power while in Long Beach. And she has the newest technologies in many areas, including advanced wastewater treatment systems, food waste treatment systems, heating and air conditioning, efficient systems, lighting technologies and hydrodynamics. Compared to the ships she is replacing. She's more than 40% more efficient on a per person basis despite being larger. She also has an absolute lower carbon footprint. We're excited and proud to have called Long Beach home for many years, almost 20. And we look forward to continuing the positive relationship. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Speaker 2: Anything else to add. Speaker 11: I just wanted to close very quickly in again stating we look at Long Beach is on a top three ports globally. It is a huge and critically important hub. We believe the partnership we have had for over two decades has been nothing short of amazing. We look forward to that. Continuing well into the future. We're bringing our very best ship, our newest ship just built in Italy a month ago. Coming straight here. We are very excited about the arrival of Panorama. We're very proud of the introduction of this new ship. As far as we are concerned, the arrival of Panorama represents a 100% improvement from the ship it replaces from all vantage points in all areas of of review. We also like to underscore is it is unique to bring a ship that is so much larger and so much more efficient. Therefore, bringing this win win of a of a major economic impact resulting from the scale of the vessel, more jobs, more of all the activities that surround the vessel, while diminishing the footprint from an environmental viewpoint. So we are proud of it. We thank you very much for your attention tonight. Thank you very much. We're happy to answer any questions, of course. Speaker 2: Thank you very much. Let me just continue on the hearing. I do have some members of the public that signed up to speak, many of whom actually were were appellants. I mean, if I read your name and you still want to say something for public comment, please come forward. Vicky. Ray. Terry Thornton. Ernie Chavez and Angel and Andrew Brady. Tommy for Bay and Janet West. So if you please line up to the podium. I'm only going to take the speakers that are lined at the podium. And then we're going to go to the motion in front of us. Speaker 6: Good evening, Mr. Mayor and council members. My name is Vicky Ray. Speaker 4: I'm the vice. Speaker 6: President of Guest Care and Communications. Hello, everyone. Thank you. I'm the vice president of guest care and communications for Carnival Cruise Lines. And thank you for your time this evening. I just want to take a few moments to share with you a little bit about my history with Carnival. I actually started with Carnival 38 years ago when I was 19 years old. I was a college student going to University of Miami and looking for part time work. And those of you who are my age may remember that this was the time when the Love Boat was very popular and I wanted to be the next Julie . So working for a cruise ship on the weekend seemed like the right first step after working part time at the Port of Miami as a checking agent. Very similar job as what our Long Beach team does here in the terminal. I went into the reservations department at the Miami headquarters to be a call center agent. And over the years, I have to say that I've had the opportunity to not only do meaningful work that I think has really impacted the quality of the vacations that we deliver to our over 5 million guests a year. But I've had the opportunity to grow professionally and personally to try to work with an amazing, talented group of individuals and to travel the world. I have led a contact center that has over 800 representatives and answers over 5 million calls from our customers every year. I've established the first industry care team, which is a group of carnival volunteers who take care of guests that have bereavement or medical emergencies when they have to disembark their voyage. Midship Our Mid Voyage. Most recently, I led the company's effort to become the first sensory, inclusive certified cruise line. As the company's ADR officer, it's my responsibility to make sure that we provide finding memorable vacations to guests of all abilities. So, you know, to say that it's been the best 38 years of my life is an understatement. I is a single mother and an immigrant here in the United States. Carnival has provided I've been able to provide opportunities for my family that I never thought possible. I was part of the team of leaders that first worked on bringing our first ship to Long Beach 20 years ago. So it's exciting times back then and it was exciting times now as we look forward to welcoming Carnival Panorama on Sunday. I'm very impressed with the work that has been done to bring up the city to the level that it is today. And I'm pretty proud of our commitment to the city, and we look forward to continuing to partner with you to bring not only more economic growth, but greater jobs opportunities for your community. So thank you very much for your time. Speaker 2: Thank you very much. Speaker 0: Terry. Speaker 2: 330. No, no. Ernie Chavez. Speaker 0: Yes. Good evening. My name is Ernie Chavez. I'm speaking in support of Carnival's Project. I have been a member of the International Longshore Warehouse Union. Speaker 11: Also known as ILWU for the past 25. Speaker 0: Plus years. I'm currently the operations. Speaker 11: Foreman in charge of the Carnival Long Beach terminal. It's my job to oversee all the loading and unloading of Carnival cruise ships, so I have a unique perspective. Speaker 0: On what really goes on. I have held this position for the past 15 years. Tonight I represent my union brothers and sisters, as well as all workers that are employed in the Carnival Cruise Terminal here in the beautiful port of Long Beach. Carnival Cruise Terminal is a vital source of jobs and local revenue. And I'd like to give you some facts explaining just how important this terminal and its future growth is, not to just those. Speaker 11: Working here, but the entire city of Long Beach and all the surrounding. Speaker 0: Areas. The terminal currently provides over 15,000 ILWU jobs, union jobs per year. This equates to over 120,000 ILWU man hours per year. That doesn't include the 2600 plus security jobs. Speaker 11: 2600 plus embarkation staff jobs. It's a total of over. Speaker 0: 20,000 jobs per year that rely directly. Speaker 11: On this terminal to continue to grow and maintain its presence here in Long. Speaker 0: Beach. Speaker 11: Indirectly, there are countless other jobs that rely on this terminal. Speaker 2: Carnival's terminal currently. Speaker 0: Brings in over 820,000 passengers per year and is projected to. Speaker 11: Increase that number to over 1.2 million passengers per year. These passengers are not only spending money on the cruise, they spend money. Speaker 0: At local hotels, restaurants, taxis, Uber, Lyft. Speaker 11: And of course, our iconic Queen. Speaker 0: Mary. All the people that work in those industries directly and indirectly rely on Carnival to bring those passengers into town to support their businesses and jobs. Speaking of the Queen Mary. Speaker 11: Carnival is a major supporter of the Queen Mary's Improvement Project. Speaker 0: And in fact, Carnival's lease payments go directly to supporting those improvements. This shows that we're really talking about a much bigger picture than this for the city of Long Beach as a whole. As operations. Speaker 11: Foreman, I can. Speaker 0: Assure you that the carnival cares about our local environment and is leading the industry in creating a green terminal. Speaker 11: Each new ship the carnival builds is greener and more environmentally. Speaker 0: Sound than the one before it. Every ship the carnival brings in the port line, which plugs in and stays plugged in until it sails. Speaker 11: Every ship every time. Speaker 0: There's a gentleman spoke earlier and said that they don't they're not ready. That is incorrect. Speaker 11: Every ship plugs in and every time they stay plugged in the whole time. Speaker 0: Carnival also allows only clean burning propane tir for forklifts. Speaker 11: Or electric. Speaker 0: Forklifts to operate on its Long Beach facility. Even the trucks and busses are not. Speaker 11: Allowed to sit and idle. Speaker 0: Due to our stringent. Speaker 11: Rules and focus on environmentally friendly. Speaker 0: Terminal. In closing, I'd like to remind you that there are tens of thousands of workers and the entire city of Long Beach itself that relies not only on this terminal's presence, but also on its ability to stay modern and to grow, to meet the needs of a larger and greener ship. Speaker 11: Carnival is bringing the green to the economy, but it's also bringing the green to our environment. Through these facts, I urge you to approve this project for Carnival. Speaker 2: Thank you. Thank you very much. All right. Next speaker, please. This west. West. Speaker 6: Miami Carnival Corp. reached a settlement earlier this year with federal prosecutors in which the world's largest cruise line agreed to pay $20 million penalty because its ships continued to pollute the ocean despite a previous criminal conviction aimed at curbing similar conduct. Senior U.S. District Judge Patricia seitz approved the agreement after Carnival CEO Arnold Donald stood up in open court and admitted the company's responsibility for probation violations stemming from the previous environmental case. The company pleads guilty, Arnold said six times in a packed courtroom that include other senior Carnival executives, including company chairman and Miami Heat owner Micky Arison . We acknowledge the shortcomings. I am here today to formulate a plan to fix them, Arnold added. The company also admitted falsifying compliance documents and other administrative violations, such as having cleanup teams visit the ships just before scheduled inspections. The company also admitted falsifying. Also repeat cites at an earlier hearing threaten to bar carnival from docking at US ports because of the violations and said she might hold the executives individually liable for the probation. Three people who claim they were victims of Carnival's environmental violations attended the hearing. Their attorney? No. Loney expressed skepticism that Carnival will keep its word this time. Time and time again, Carnival has shown its contempt of environmental laws and the rule of law, he said. Here we are again. Speaker 0: Please. Good evening. Mayor Garcia and fellow council members. Speaker 11: And newly elected mayors in Dallas. Congratulations. My name is Tom five. I represent IBEW Local 11 and we wholeheartedly. Speaker 0: Support the Long Beach Long Beach cruise terminal. Speaker 11: Redevelopment of the carnival. Speaker 0: And we look forward to. Speaker 11: The good jobs that that is going to create. As mentioned by the Carnival folks, they mentioned above our ship to shore power. We love to we love to. Speaker 0: Build the infrastructure for that. We've done it in the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach. We know that. Speaker 11: It's a it's a viable technology for the new ships that are coming in into the city of Long Beach and the city of San Pedro. Speaker 0: So we look forward to. Speaker 11: These good construction jobs and building a redevelopment. Speaker 0: Green terminal for Long Beach cruise terminal. Thank you. Speaker 2: Thank you. It's great to hear. Oh, that's right. In. Actually, you thought you were one of the appellants. Speaker 6: No, I'm one of the appellants. But you just gave 3 minutes extra to Carnival. The first woman wasn't a Carnival employee. May I have one minute? Speaker 2: Actually, ma'am, because you are you are an appellant. If you sign up for public comment, anyone can send it for public comment. Miss Christianson? Speaker 6: Well, I was told I could not sign up for public comment. Why can Carnival sign up for public comment when they just gave a ten minute presentation for five minute presentation? Speaker 2: Member of the public can sign up. Speaker 6: I was told I could not sign up for public comment. Speaker 2: I think, ma'am, because you know, what I'm going to do is I'm going to have this question to speak and then I'll have you say a few more words. Thank you, ma'am. Speaker 6: You could just. Speaker 2: Go ahead and screen. Speaker 6: And control gave our presentation. So I'm not going to speak for the language. I'm sorry. Most freedoms, wetlands task force. I am going to speak, though, for the Long Beach Area Group of Sierra Club. Speaker 2: You can speak the sample, have you? Speaker 6: Yeah, I know. I'm just trying to explain. I'm not trying to. So I think what we have here is an issue of trust. The that's what he said for environmental impact reports. Why do we have sequel? To find out. Mr. Richardson. Just saying. Mr. Richardson, please. Speaker 2: Please, please. I mean, your time is going to have to. Speaker 6: I know, but really. Speaker 2: I would use your time in these questions. Speaker 6: Okay. So why we have secure California Environmental Quality Act is simply to figure out what are the impacts on our environment. Are the people who are here, the animals, the plants, the air, the water? Right. Good or bad impacts? That's why we have it. And under what we have environmental impact reports. We get a report, we get to analyze it, really look at it. Why do we have mitigated negative declarations to keep things moving a little bit faster, to avoid having to do all those reports, to avoid having to have public comments and public hearings? So if you are really concerned as Sierra Club is, as some of these other organizations formed to protect the environment. Right, formed to protect public health like this organization for Clean Air, we're asking for an environmental impact report. We're not asking for the moon. We're asking to really find out what's going on. Do we trust Carnival Cruise lawyers? No. You know, and we shouldn't have to. We shouldn't have to have them come up here and explain to you how all the appellants got it wrong. You don't have to do that. You can ask for an environmental impact report. And we deserve it. Our port deserves it. Our city deserves it. Because this is a big and powerful company that has priors. They're convicted. They're convicted criminals. And, you know, I mean, I'm not I haven't I'm I'm all for second chances, you know. But please, let's do our own study and let's allow our our whole community, not just the port workers, bused in by Carnival Cruise. You know, and I with all due respect, you know, I don't I think there's a conflict of interest there. So I just beg you from the standpoint of of your community, let us do our own environmental impact reports as a community. Thank you very. Speaker 2: Much. Thank you. That concludes public comment, but I'm going to. You were one of the appellants. Please come forward. Actually, Mr. Goodhew, do you want to speak? Okay. No, no, no, no. Do you want to speak first? I'd be doing public comment. She was one of the appellants. Mr. Good, who are you speaking to in public comment? You speak now. You're up. Observe your. Speaker 0: Larry, you you although I had was aware of some of the details. So some of the overall project, I certainly was shocked and amazed of the details relative to the negative impact. It seems to be ignored and people want to run right over it. And I was. Good. Can't help think of what an individual would. Years ago. I had a opportunity to interface with him a number of times. Yeah. It was the mansion before. Overturned. Much of this country's thinking related to the environment. With. Her two books, the first The Silent Spring. And then there's the second book. And I would suggest that you read those books of Rachel Carson before you vote. But I sat here and listen, I haven't had the time to get inside of all those issues. But this is a disaster. The first order. This cannot be approved. Is it going now? It will be a tremendous disaster to this environmental area. Thank you. Speaker 2: He concludes. Public comment. We're going to go ahead. I know you're one of the appellants. If you want to make some closing remarks, you can you can make. So I asked the city attorney, but please brief. Speaker 6: Thank you very much, Andrew Ricco from USC. Just in regard to two issues that were raised by Carnival and the gentleman from the law firm. First, he said that the MMD was revised, recirculated to show that the engine and the emissions calculations were redone, to show that the engine was tier two instead of Tier three. I looked I tried to compare them. And the major charts that show Panorama versus Splendor, they're identical in the first MMD and the Recirculated One. If I were you on this panel of City Council people, I would not approve the Ndee without evidence that those emission calculations were redone between the MMD and the mitigated neg dac and the recirculated neg because I don't think they were done. And there is not a word in the recirculated volume that says that they had made a mistake on the first one and that they weren't wasn't a tier three engine, it was a tier two engine. So I think that you need to have evidence of that before you decide to vote on this tonight. Secondly, there is an email you have in your the back of your documents. In the appendices, there is an email from Piper saying that it would cost $30 million for Carnival to buy emission reduction credits. It's much too expensive. It it's not feasible. So Piper gets up here and says the emission reductions are mandated. I would like to know how they're mandated. When he representing Carnival says it's not possible for Carnival to pay those emission reduction so they can't use Tier three tugboats and they can't use machinery credits. What are the mitigation measures? I think you need to understand what that is before you vote in favor of this project. Thank you. Speaker 2: Thank you. With that concludes, I'm going to bring this back to Mr. Modica and then we have the motion in front of us. Speaker 12: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I believe staff have a couple of things you want to clarify for the record. Speaker 6: Mayor and council. I'd like to introduce William Walters. He's with Aspen Engineering and can speak to the air quality questions that have been raised. Speaker 0: Okay. To quickly answer the Tier two versus Tier three issue. The attorney for Carnival misspoke. The Tier two Tier three issue is related to the tugboat engines that are going to be used for 20 days during the dredging operation. And we did make a correction. Speaker 2: Or not a. Speaker 0: Correction. But in addition to show both Tier two and Tier three emissions for tugs, depending on which tug may be available. And that was in response to S.E. Committee comments. The emission estimate for the panorama always assumed Tier two. The issue in regards to some of the discovery period we were discussing in emails, the the ship, we were trying to do our due diligence to make sure that the ship shouldn't have been a Tier three ship based on the IMO requirements that started in 2016. We got information from Carnival. It showed that that the the hole was in fact completed prior to the date that would have required the ship to be tier three. So that was where we were trying to get that issue. The difference in the calculations is 20 minutes. So it wasn't very hard for me to go back from Tier two to Tier three in my initial calculations. But what was actually presented on the record in the very first A.D. and in the restricted Mandi was always Tier two. Speaker 2: I'm sorry. That's. That's it's done for the audience. Anything else, Mr. Mays? Speaker 12: That like to have the Port of Long Beach make a brief comment as well. Speaker 6: Mayor and council, I'd like to introduce Matthew Arms, acting environmental director for the Port of Long Beach. Speaker 11: Thank you, Mayor and council members. I want to make a couple clarifications. The harbor department, the Port of Long Beach, has been actively involved with our partners and development services as a responsible agency since the beginning of this project. Our involvement has included both consultation on strategy, selection of baseline. Our team, our environmental team in their respective resource areas reviewed all of the technical documents, commented on it with the city, and all of our comments were addressed to our satisfaction. In addition, we connected with the city on comments to the document, including things such as the carbon letter and we working with the City Development Services agreed that doing additional analysis to show that even if we would have used the baseline that CARB had identified that the Panorama has emissions reductions. Additionally, I want to make one clarification on the sediments. Sediment disposal within Southern California are approved by the Southern California Dredge Management Team. It's a team of local and state and federal regulatory agencies and we participate the harbor department as a member of that team, but we are not an approval authority. The people that actually approve disposal of sediments were not only these settlements, but all dredging projects within Southern California are those state and federal agencies that have expertize in that area. Speaker 2: Thank you. So we have a motion in front of us. There is a motion and a second. And I'm sorry, ma'am. No, no, that's we're we're no, we are done with that, ma'am. Thank you. We have a motion any second on the floor, and that is the motion of the second is to deny the appeal. And of course, that moves the project forward, which was the Planning Commission's recommendation. And so there's a motion for second. Please cast your votes. Speaker 1: Motion carries. Speaker 2: Okay, motion carries. Thank you. We're now moving on to the next item. And the next item is item 25. Madam Clerk.

Resolution

Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record, conclude the public hearing and consider an appeal (APL 19-006) by Jerilyn Lopez Mendoza (Coalition for Clean Air), Ann Cantrell, Joe Weinstein and Corliss Lee (Citizens About Responsible Planning), Ann Cantrell and Anna Christiansen (Sierra Club Los Cerritos Wetlands Task Force); Jesse N. Marquez (Coalition For A Safe Environment), and Andrea Hricko (Concerned Faculty of USC and UCLA); Adopt resolution approving and certifying the Mitigated Negative Declaration of Environmental Impact (MND 08-19) for the Long Beach Cruise Terminal Improvement Project, consisting of onshore and maritime improvements in accordance with the provisions of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and State and local Guidelines; making certain CEQA Findings and Determinations relative thereto; and adopting a Mitigation Monitoring and Reporting Program in accordance with those measures set forth in the MND; and Approve a Site Plan Review (SPR 19-026) for the onshore improvements to the Long Beach Cruise Terminal, consisting

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_12032019_19-1199

Speaker 6: Item 22. Speaker 9: I am 22. Craig, would you please read that it? Speaker 1: Item 22 Communication for Mayor Garcia. Recommendation to increase appropriations in the Special Advertising and Promotion Fund by $5,000 to provide a contribution to Central Asia for costs associated with the idea of Tomatoes Pop Up Festival and 13,040 to install neighborhood pride banners along Pine Avenue. Offset by first Council District one time district priority funds. Speaker 9: To every part, become an insider. Almost like would you like to speak on the side of. You know. Mrs. Pierce. Okay. He likes you joke. Speaker 12: Okay. So, Mr. Andrews, so we understand this and this would be a divided by nine item. And and the mayor's office has worked with City one on this one. Speaker 9: Okay. Please cast your vote. I am 23, please. Would you put. Speaker 1: A price, Councilmember Your Honor. Councilmember Richardson. Okay. Item 23 Communication from Mayor Garcia recommendation to cancel the City Council Meeting of Tuesday, December 24th, 2019.

Agenda Item

Recommendation to increase appropriations in the Special Advertising and Promotion Fund Group in the City Manager Department by $5,000, offset by the First Council District one-time District Priority Funds transferred from the Citywide Activities Department to provide a contribution to Centro CHA for costs associated with the Dia De Los Muertos "pop-up" festival that occurred November 8, 2019 on the Promenade in downtown Long Beach; and Decrease appropriations in the Special Advertising and Promotion Fund Group in the Citywide Activities Department by $5,000 to offset a transfer to the City Manager Department. Increase appropriations in the Special Advertising and Promotion Fund Group in the City Manager Department by $13,040, offset by First Council District one-time District Priority Funds transferred from the Citywide Activities Department for Special Events and Filming Office to install neighborhood pride banners along Pine Avenue from 3rd Street to Anaheim Street, Pacific Avenue from 3rd Street to Anaheim Street, and 3rd Street from Pacific Avenue to the 710 Freeway.

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_12032019_19-1200

Speaker 1: A price, Councilmember Your Honor. Councilmember Richardson. Okay. Item 23 Communication from Mayor Garcia recommendation to cancel the City Council Meeting of Tuesday, December 24th, 2019. Speaker 9: As Mr. Greenwood, you speak on this. If you go. Please cast your vote. Okay. Go ahead. Speaker 13: Yes. Mr. Modica, there was a discussion about the 24th and then potentially the seventh. Was that resolved that the seventh would be added? Speaker 12: And so we are looking at the calendar and we can certainly come back with something on the seventh. I mean, it's up to the council if you want to do that. I don't know if that's notified for tonight. If we can do that tonight, that would have us have one council meeting and in January for business, which you did. Speaker 13: We cancel the 14th then is that when the state of the city of. Speaker 12: 14th is not a canceled meeting, but it normally has was just consent calendar. Speaker 13: So we'd still come here and then proceed. Okay. Correct. You appreciate it. Speaker 12: But if we can look at the schedule and we're able to do the seventh, if that's something the council wants to look at later, we can still certainly do that. Speaker 6: Appreciate. Speaker 9: Thank you. Item 23. Speaker 1: Item 23 was just read. Would you like me to read? Speaker 9: Oh, let's take a vote then. Because your vote. Speaker 1: Motion carries. Item 24 Communication from Councilmember Pearce Recommendation to receive and file a presentation from CSU Colby College of Business Administration on the Long Beach Small Business Monitor Survey. Speaker 2: And Nancy. Mr. Goodhue, so I don't see any public comment. Please cast your vote. Speaker 6: This is a presentation from Cal State Long Beach. Speaker 2: Oh. We. Speaker 6: This is Scott is here. Yes. Speaker 2: Actually, 1/2. We're doing that. We'll go ahead and do this 1/1. But we actually did we I think we skipped over item 26. So we're going to that's on this agenda. So we're going to go we're going to come back to item 24 and go back to 26 and another 24.

Agenda Item

Recommendation to suspend Council rule contained in Long Beach Municipal Code 2.03.020 (B) to cancel the meeting of December 24, 2019.

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_12032019_19-1203

Speaker 2: Actually, 1/2. We're doing that. We'll go ahead and do this 1/1. But we actually did we I think we skipped over item 26. So we're going to that's on this agenda. So we're going to go we're going to come back to item 24 and go back to 26 and another 24. Speaker 1: Item 26 Report from Development Services Recommendation to Request City Attorney to prepare an urgency ordinance to repeal Long Beach Municipal Code Section 8.97 relating to Tenant Relocation Assistance effective December 31st, 2019, and direct City Manager to create a senior and disabled Household Security Deposit Assistance Program. Speaker 2: City Wide OC First time to read public comment. If you're here for public comment, please come forward in this order. She's not here. Kieran Reside, Nadia Tushnet, Leanna Noble, Holly Stewart, Myron Wallen and Cynthia think doesn't see us. Please come forward. Are those folks here? Speaker 6: Karen Reside, a resident of the First District. The last couple of weeks. I'm going to share stories that what I'm seeing from this relocation fee. The landlords are not telling the tenants about it. I have people coming to me at the senior center. They don't know anything about the relocation payments. The landlords are also not giving them any instructions about it either. Out of six tenants that I've talked to in the last two weeks. Only one person was. Speaker 13: Given a piece of. Speaker 6: Paper. That mentioned the relocation payment and that they might be eligible. So they have no idea. The landlords are not telling the tenants what this is for. And I'm hoping that this motion is not to. Take away benefits from people that need them very badly and the landlords are still giving out eviction notices. So that's another issue, too. So I hope that we're going to have a discussion that's going to create an opportunity to discuss these elements and come up with some solutions. Nadir Tushnet and I live in the third district. Sorry, Susie. The third district. I am. I do support the $250,000. But in my work with seniors, a lot of them don't even know that it exists. So I think that this needs to be amended and it also needs an enforcement mechanism that landlords need to tell seniors and disabled individuals about the ability to access some money to help them relocate. There are other issues, but this is the one that I keep hearing about. If I'm the one telling people there's something wrong and. Speaker 4: I think. Speaker 6: That it should be from the city. Thank you. Speaker 2: Thank you. Lee and Annabelle. Speaker 6: I'm a downtown resident. I'm here also as a member of the advisory board of Libra. And the message is very clear, amend and continue to protect the residents of your city. Do not repeal. Speaker 3: Which equals abandoning. Speaker 6: The residents of your city. In my downtown neighborhood, there are no less than five buildings in the last. Speaker 3: Eight months that have been. Speaker 6: Completely empty. That is more than 100 families that were my neighbors. They were kicked out. Speaker 3: Something was done to the apartments. Speaker 6: It wasn't easy to tell what and the rent was jacked up. So those are a hundred of my neighbors who had been forced out of Long Beach. Speaker 3: We have now a good state law. All we need to do is to make that. Speaker 6: Law absolutely. Speaker 4: Recognized. Speaker 6: Here and to keep the current amount and formula that we have for relocation. Speaker 3: Benefits. Speaker 6: That will put you standing with the majority of the people who live here in our town who are residents. That is what we ask. Speaker 4: Of you. Speaker 3: Tonight. Speaker 2: Thank you, Speaker, please. I was Stewart. Speaker 0: Yes. I hope you can hear me okay. My name is Hollis Stewart and I live downtown. Speaker 2: Also a gray. Speaker 0: Panther. And I belong to a lot of other organizations around here. And I'm here to say that, you know, amend this municipal code, 88.97 instead of, you know, dropping parts of it. Keep us. There is better addiction protection. We just heard from other people from a few minutes ago. Speaker 2: By the way, I'm a senior. Speaker 0: Citizen of the 80 years old in January. And I care a lot about these things because I see people my age being put out in the street and none of you should be responsible for that because you shouldn't be. The Grinch stole Christmas by getting rid of this protection we need for the people who are under threat. Thank you very much. Keep it amended. Keep it so that people are protected from eviction and from rent increases and keep the money up there so people can relocate when they do have to. Thank you very much. Thank you. Speaker 2: Myron Wallace right here. So before Cynthia speaks, Maria Lopez, Alex Flores, Jonathan Gibson and Gretchen Swanson. In that order, please come forward. Ray Lopez is here. Alex Flores, Jonathan Gibson and Gretchen Swanson. Thank you. Speaker 3: Good evening. City Council and Mayor Garcia. My name is Cynthia macias and I am a member of the second District and also. Speaker 6: The board president for housing Long Beach as a housing advocate who worked in good faith. Speaker 3: With this council to pass the tenant below. Speaker 6: This past June. Excuse me. To be honest, I'm very disgusted. Is sadly not surprised that you are would deliberately undermine all the hard work of fellow orgs and community members because this is what it looks. Speaker 0: Like to us. Speaker 3: You all claimed an urgency about keeping families and homes for the holidays and thus passed the moratorium. Was that done just to appease your conscience because you knew. Speaker 6: You would repeal. Speaker 0: Reload right afterwards? Speaker 3: If so, shame on all of you. Speaker 6: Of course, except Mary Sun has, because she was not here. But you all have a duty to your constituents, and I hope you do what's best for them, which is amending the Long Beach Reload Ordinance to incorporate state Senate protections in its entirety except to keep the Long Beach hire relocation assistance amounts, do surgery with a. Speaker 3: Scalpel, not a hacksaw. And as far as the senior citizens. Speaker 6: I work with these senior citizens all the time. Speaker 3: And it's not about the money. There's no ADA accessible. Speaker 0: Units. Speaker 3: For them as well. And we have to think. Speaker 6: About the bigger picture. Speaker 3: Not just the money. Speaker 2: Thank you. Thank you. Relevance, please. Speaker 3: Good evening, city council and Mayor. My name is Maria, and in the time of breaking glass ceilings, I'd say I'm undocumented, unafraid and unapologetic. I migrated to Long Beach at the age of three into District one, and now I'm the director of community organizing for housing lobbies and organizing with the Long Beach Tenants Union. I have been connecting with tenants through organizing for the past three years, and one of the biggest wins was our Tenant Relocation Assistance Ordinance. Tenants organized, unified came to council with their stories and their pain, and on June 11th, they took home a win to mitigate displacement for thousands of families in the city of Long Beach. A repeal of such fundamental policy that those directly affected advocated for. On the Week of Homeless Awareness. Veiled itself as a direct undermining of these stories and these families. This is why we asked for an amendment of this policy to keep the promise and commitment to the majority renters city. The amendment is simple incorporate this that the Tenant Protection Act in its entirety at SAP to keep the Long Beach hire relocation assistance amounts as it helps to mitigate the impacts for tenants. This is a common sense approach as it is completely legal feasibly under the TPPA because the amendment ordinance would be more protective than TPA due to its higher relocation assistance amounts. Again, when renters rise cities. Speaker 4: Thank you for your support today. Speaker 2: And next week or please. Speaker 0: Good evening. This is Alex Flores. I'm an attorney with the Legal Aid Foundation working out of our Long Beach office. I wanted to talk real quickly about the Tenant Protection Act and the fact that it allows to do it. Most of the speakers have been talking about, which is amend the ordinance. The Tenant Protection Act is clear. It is a floor. It specifically details what a city must do in order to make a more protective ordinance. Section g1b is very clear and it's very easy. What it would require is a city to pass an ordinance with an ordinance which says that they are passing the Tenant Protection Act with no changes, not making it weaker in any way that they're adding something higher like relocation amounts, which is an example already in the Tenant Protection Act itself. And three are binding finding that their ordinance is more protective because of that higher amount. So instead of repealing the relocation ordinance, what the city can do is simply pass that ordinance and make sure that these higher amounts of relocation, which have already capped a lot of tenants that have come into our office in their homes, that those tenants don't lose that protection. Thank you. Thank you. Speaker 2: Jonathan. Jonathan Gibson and Gretchen Swanson. Speaker 0: Good evening. My name is Jonathan Gibson. I'm a Long Beach resident and a Lafleur's staff attorney. I want to talk a little bit about the city's ordinance and how important it is. It gives two months of relocation assistance, whereas the TPA is a good start, only gives one month. Now, what does this mean for tenants? What we're seeing a lot is these no fault evictions for substantial renovations going through. And with the extra two months of relocation benefits, that means that someone can pay for their security deposit, first month's rent and moving costs. It's so much easier. The TPA, which is simply a four. When someone's facing eviction, these costs mount and this is incredibly important. Just one example we had recently was on Cedar Avenue, where we had tenants who had been living there for 30 to 40 years and they were evicted, but they were able to be given a soft landing by having this extra relocation assistance. And this should continue. It should not be abandoned. Thank you. Thank you. Speaker 2: Next up is Gretchen Swanson. Before Gretchen speaks, the following folks in the lineup is Ailsa Chang here, Andrea Donato, Myra Garcia and Roberto Lopez and Jordan Wynne who is here. Ailsa Chang. Andrea Donato. Please line up. Myra Garcia and Roberto Lopez and Jordan win in that order. Thank you. Speaker 6: Good call. Good evening. Gretchen Swanson, CD2 I am in support of my colleagues who just thought about maintaining and then building on the tenant protective effort here in the city of Long Beach. I want to speak particularly about the older adult and people with disabilities, a portion of it. First of all, the language is old. I was just recognized today by a board of county supervisors for the fact that I'm an expert in keeping older adults safe. So when I come here and look at something that is at best disingenuous, a security fund which they would get back, it boggles my mind that I live in this city that is not addressing the needs. There was a whole group that just walked out of older adults that are disenfranchized from a process of protection. So we need a well defined program, not this security deposit fund, and we need someone to reflect that. We now have a council member who is an expert who has lived the life of housing needs, rental housing needs for people with disabilities. Let's reflect that. Let's use that and do something meaningful. Let's go to older adults and people with disabilities and ask them what they need. Not throw a couple thousand dollars at them and hope that we get that money back. Thank you. Speaker 2: Thank you so much of the time. Speaker 6: Good evening, honorable mayor and council members. My name is Ailsa Tang from Long Beach Forward. Now this past spring and summer, housing advocates worked in good faith with this council to pass tenant relocation assistance. And last month we worked in good faith again with this council to enact an eviction moratorium. And we thank you for that. But now we're here to repeal what we all worked so hard to pass. That's not right. Look, the staff report is crystal clear. It says, quote, Generally, the state regulation will apply to more tenants than the city regulation. And the city regulation will require higher relocation payments when it does apply. Indeed, Long Beach tenant rule adopted by this council allows double the relocation than the state to pay. So the solution is to take the best of both worlds. The solution is to amend, not repeal. Amend the Long Beach Ordinance to incorporate the State Tenant Protection Act in its entirety except to keep Long Beach's hire relocation assistance amounts. This is the cleanest and most effective way to comply with both state law and this council's intent to provide two months of relocation assistance to Long Beach tenants , especially those who face no fault evictions due to rehab of their unit. Those families we just protected under the eviction moratorium. Council members. A vote to amend is a vote to protect. A vote to repeal. As a vote to abandon. Do the right. Speaker 2: Thing. Thank you very much. I decision not to please next speaker. I'm going to ask the rest of the folks who are here to line up. I know. I see Jordan went into the back after Jordan to be Marlene Alvarado. I think it is Malik Watson, Ivan Garcia and Andrew Montano. And that's the the final closing of the speaker's list is tomorrow. Speaker 3: Good evening, Mayor and council members. My name is Andrew L.A. and I'm the associate director of the Long Beach Interfaith Community Organization. And I'm here with the same. Speaker 6: Message to all my friends that have spoken. I will just like to encourage you. Speaker 3: To step up on the leadership, on renters rights. That's an area looking to. Speaker 6: An assistant was the. Speaker 3: First to step up. That Long Beach took really long time to protect tenants in in Los Angeles County. We are already talking about the right to counsel there at 3% in rent control cap. Speaker 6: And if you like the Long Beach, we are still. Speaker 3: Trying to defend the little. Speaker 6: That we have. So I highly encourage you to amend what we have to, as they have said, to keep the rates of the relocation assistant and to comply with the state law. Thank you so much. Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Myra Garcia. Speaker 6: We need an. Speaker 3: Interpreter. Speaker 2: Mr. Modica. Speaker 12: I defer to the city clerk on whether interpreted services were requested for today. Speaker 2: Why do we keep going? We'll get back to Promises. I thought we had an interpreter. Speaker 0: Here, but yeah. Speaker 1: There was an interpreter here for the swearing in ceremony. They did not stay for the entirety of the council meeting. We didn't receive a request in the office for a public comment. Speaker 0: Well. Speaker 2: So what do you want to say? But it comes in the months ahead. Okay, look, we'll do that a minute. Madam Clerk. We can just try to get a solution to that. Thank you. Very little. Speaker 0: Hello, many. Hello. I'm Mayor and City Councilman Lopez, project director at Libre, and I am here to speak against the repealing of ten and below. I think a lot of the colleagues have said, you know, that this was a huge victory for tenants, especially for tenants who are already being displaced. And some of the tenants that you helped protect the last like two weeks ago. And at the end, they they'll be affected once again starting January 1st as they will receive the same notices that they received due to substantial rehab. We are asking you to now repeal, but amend the ten and reload to protect the larger group of renters that fall under AB 1482. Stand behind your words from June and continue to protect tenants and your city. The same tenants that you help protect this holiday season will be affected by this repeal. All tenants deserve higher relocation amounts. Long Beach Re Low amounts are unique. Long Beach Unique. The right thing to do is to protect our seniors and also members of our community with disabilities and our tenants. I really do hope that you do the right thing and help protect the tenants of your city, especially the ones that you just recently helped protect. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome. Hi there. My name's Jordan Winn. I'm a resident of the second district. I want to echo the sentiments of my colleagues and urge you to not repeal this and to instead amend this. I wanted to address two points. One is a personal story. So, as you know, I recently moved from District seven to District two. I recently relocated, and I've been saving up for a while to actually do that. I wanted to focus in on the costs of moving. I moved into a two bedroom apartment and just to move in. Speaker 12: It cost about $4,000. Speaker 0: And if I were doing that, you know, in one fell swoop, if I was getting evicted, that would be much more difficult than what I actually had to do, which was save up for about a whole year to actually be able to do that. So I'm thinking of the families and people on fixed incomes, people who are working paycheck to paycheck, who are unable to pay for a new place to move, even with. Speaker 12: The time that they have in the lower state amount. So this is one of the important reasons that I think. Speaker 0: We should consider keeping our local element. The other thing that I want to say is this isn't the only time that. Speaker 12: We're going to have to talk about how we enforce TPA and how our. Speaker 0: City relates to it and the way in which our policies work around that. We're going to have to figure out enforcement mechanisms. Speaker 12: So I think it's much smarter to. Speaker 0: Amend rather than repeal. Don't do this haphazardly. Take some time to think about it. Don't throw it in right now and repeal it with. I like the chainsaw metaphor. We need to use a scalpel for housing policy. Thanks so much very much. Speaker 2: Our next speaker, please. Marlene Alvarado. Speaker 3: Is Venezuelan. Speaker 6: Alvarado, District one. Don't repeal. Speaker 3: Amend, keep the 2% monthly assistance of $4,500, especially for no fault eviction. If you need to save money because you know. Speaker 6: We're going broke. Speaker 3: You can take some of that money from the 48% of the budget. Speaker 1: For the police department. Speaker 3: Because according to 0 to 2000 people. Speaker 6: Become homeless with a 5% rent increase. So with the amendment to. Speaker 3: Keep the two month assistance, police services will be reduced with the senior and. Speaker 6: And deceptively household security assistance program. I would like to know how does a tenant qualify for this program? Speaker 3: How will the city ensure this program is rich and benefiting the city's most vulnerable. Speaker 6: Seniors and persons with disability? How will the. Speaker 3: Funding of this program be sustained over time? Well, the city come to fund the program. Speaker 6: In order to leverage state. Speaker 3: And federal funds. And I think it's really tacky of you to get rid of the $4,500 assistance program amend don't repeal. Speaker 2: Thank you link Watson. Speaker 0: Amendment Repeal Amendment bill. I can see. Hello, my name is Malik Watson, a son and a brother to a beautiful seven year old sister. My family and I are familiar to relocating to different areas and it's hard to find a stable home. We've moved to different areas in the city across the country for the past seven years I've lived in the riverside area, but now I'm back in, back in my home city I call home. And I am a part of the education system attending Long Beach Poly High School, even Central Elementary. Now that I've returned, I want to do my part and serve as an advocate for my community. You all yourselves have a connection to the city, whether it be because of your whether it be because of your position or due to your family. Just as much as you care for your family, we ask for you to care for us and amend, not repeal the ordinance for you to the ordinance for you to care for hours and amend, not repeal. Give me give me that. Just as much as you care for your family. We ask that you care for us and amend, not repeal the ordinance and incorporate the Tenant Protection Act, but keep Long Beach Haven relocation assistance amounts. Families are consistently displaced in the city and have difficulty finding another another home. This is why we need to hire relocation amounts to ensure our families remain connected and separated. I kindly request for you to amend, not repeal and keep the high relation amounts to provide justice for communities historically marginalized through racist policy practices. Thank you. Speaker 2: Thank you. Next up is Ivan Garcia. Speaker 0: Hello, Mayor. Hello, Council. My name is Ivan and I live in the First District. And I'm just going to start off by saying we don't need to send more people to live in the streets. We have too many of those people already. And by removing this protection, that would just only create. Speaker 11: That effect that we want to. Speaker 0: Avoid. Like as many others have said already, we all as a community have worked together to provide protections for these renters. That way, they don't have to save up so much money in so little time that they end up living on the street. And with that, I simply say that we should amend it. And amend it and look more deeply into it and make sure that we don't just repeal and therefore strip the protections away from these people in one fell swoop. And in this, like as someone else has said already, this is actually consistent with the TPA that was passed earlier this year. Therefore, in short, I simply say amend, do not repeal. And that's all for me. Thank you. Speaker 2: Thank you. Speaker 0: Andrew. Hello. My name is Andrew Montano with Long Beach Forward supporting the best large central Long Beach initiative. Over the past couple of months, I've gotten to witness families come together and pressure council to adopt an eviction moratorium to have them home for the holidays. Arriving at that building, you heard children laughing, crying, playing, saw them gathering around the table. We had set up outside waiting for their plate of food, not realizing the stress their parents were feeling. One of the small feelings of relief came when they realized they had access to an equitable amount of relocation assistance. If you repeal, you are harming those children who were in the arms of their mothers a few weeks ago. Where I'm standing right now, these tenants under our local law are eligible for 3000 to $325. Now, folks want to take that away and leave them with a third of that amount, not enough for a down payment, childcare , new rent, moving costs and many more expenses. According to a recent study, average rents rose 24.6% in a three year period and are likely to continue doing so in the future. And friends are rising and more people are rent burdened. Then the conversation shouldn't be around repealing our local law, but on amending it to incorporate the Tenant Protection Act and strengthening it further with our local relocation amounts and go as far as filling further gaps, like adopting a fresh right to refusal policy like the city of Berkeley to ensure families are able to return to the units after substantial repairs are made, which is the type of no fault notice to vacate that sparked our eviction moratorium. Again, amend, not repealed. Speaker 2: Also, there's another another Maria that signed up without. And we're going to go back to her home in San Antonio. Was there a second, Maria, that didn't leave a last name? And my miracle is miracles. Okay, so both. Both ladies, please come forward. Maria and Myra. Speaker 6: Good evening, city council and mayor. My name is Maria Dela Cruz. I'm a resident at the district and I was one of the tenants that advocated for the Tenant Relocation Assistance Ordinance. This law was the first time I ever saw something that benefit renters and made me happy. I met other renters also fighting, which was powerful and beautiful. Repealing this law will erase this and we don't want that. We also want to be able to keep our relocation assistance amounts as they are higher today. Listen to those tenants like myself that fought for this law and meant to protect tenants and offer more financial financial support. Thank you for your time. Speaker 3: I'm halfway through. So when I'm not through with Garcia, I think we need a central district, sort of, you know, if we want to modestly eliminate bazaar, inconveniencing maybe a mutual thing, which clearly, I swear you will not existed. But I mean, if you feel a little familiar. There are corridors of where we need to have it is Gucciardo Doral as Historias de la Familia in Lena Copperfield, Chipperfield Romero Little mural, those competitions as Historias Perabo their powerful installation. Ibaraki is the briefly Carolina city that is killing us all we know Karimov, Jerry Lee Pelosi, Kayleigh MCENANY, Fishkin, but oppo their kiranas countless country that is as he stands here. Being in the housing authority is to be important. Simply get him on with the local guillotine killing all channels for gun control, others locales health protection is there alley cat also chin they those that mean you don't say lethal well Keegan Bailey no no affect a catena seguro socially medical boys UK There were a lot mild already let's get dental health benefits of mutual support would be ample lay and then we won't get emotionally local you cannot give them any capable of killing of Lucero just. Have half of it translated. So the other one I'll do verbatim. Good evening. My name is Myra Garcia. I am a tenant and resident of District two. I was one of the tenants who fought for this law and saw it passed June 11th. It brought me much happiness to know that a law existed for the benefit of families struggling and with low income. It was beautiful hearing the stories of families who are tenants and finally breaking through fear. Everyone shared their stories to pass a tenant reload that reflected the needs of community. Today, we don't want a repeal of our hard work, but we want it. But we do want is for it to be amended so we can keep our amounts dictated by the formula of the housing authority. This is very simple. What we want is to keep our local amounts so that tenants who are struggling can. Can still be protected by the strength of 1482 and our higher amounts. Thank you so much for your time. Again, we want a local policy with the with the protection of the 1482 and the same amount, the Limited Tenant Relocation Assistance Ordinance. Thank you. Speaker 2: Thank you very much. Guests at a. One thing that that we didn't do as a staff report, which we jumped I jumped ahead to let me apologize for that and turn it over to Mr. Modica to do the staff report and then we'll move forward. And then I think that will clarify for the council kind of where this is at. So. Mr.. Speaker 12: MODICA Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So the reason that we're here tonight is to really talk about the tenant relocation ordinance, to give you a little bit of a history, and then the staff recommendation on to why we do believe that repeal of the city's local ordinances is in our best interest, and also to create a new program where we really are talking about providing additional assistance to senior and disabled. So on June 11th, 2019, the City Council adopted the Tenant Relocation Ordinance, and that really requires a rental property owner with four or more units to pay relocation assistance between 20 $700 and 4500. If you recall, there was a lot of community discussion that went into that. There were a lot of things that were either included or excluded, depending on all the public input that we heard. Essentially what it boils down to is if you receive a notice of rent increase of 10% or more in any 12 consecutive month, you would be eligible if you received a notice to vacate due to the landlords rehabilitation of the unit, you'd be eligible. And if you were in good standing and received a notice of non-renewal or notice to vacate, it's important to notice. Note that this is a tenant relocation assistance program but does not restrict rent increases and did not require just cause for termination. And so what happened after we passed ours, we spent a good deal of time really crafting something that worked for for our community, as we have seen in the past. When local cities take the lead on these big, big issues, the state often then comes afterwards and and kind of on the heels of a progressive city says, we're going to do something that will be applied statewide. We've seen that happen with polystyrene. We've seen or I'm sorry, with plastic bags, for example. We've seen it happen with minimum wage and that happened here as well. And so the state basically took effect, a bill that's going to take effect January one, 2020, and has two major provisions. Essentially, it prohibits annual rent increases of 5% or more. Plus the change in CPI or 10%, whichever, is lower. And then it also requires that landlords and they only terminate tenancies if they have just cause, which is significantly different than our local ordinance and provides additional renter protections. It includes at fault just cause is the tenant violation of a lease or a no fault just cause where the owner can terminate under a certain requirements. And so the state regulation also includes rent control and just cause provisions, which is significantly more protections for tenants than what the city ordinance had been crafted since it was a different framework. And so the dilemma is that if nothing changes, we're going to have two sets of laws on the books. One is the state law that applies statewide. And then there would be a city law that would basically be superseded in most cases by state law, except for in very slim areas. We do believe that this is going to cause a lot of confusion for both landlords and for tenants who don't know which one applies in which case. And that in general the relocation required under the state is going to apply to more tenants and actually be more money. There are certain instances where the city's ordinance would apply and have a small a an increase, a higher payment amount. And we'll show you what we expect those numbers to be. Just so you can get a sense of the magnitude. So to walk through the finer details, I'd like to turn it over to Patrick here, who will go through a couple of charts on how we believe the ordinances or the laws would work and, you know. Speaker 11: Would each work. Thank you, Tom. Mayor and City Council. This chart shows how the city relocation triggers are impacted by the state regulation. The first two triggers of the city's relocation ordinance basically will be rendered inoperable by the state regulation. That is, the relocation upon a rent increase of 10% or greater, or the relocation assistance when a tenant in good standing receives a notice of non-renewal or a notice to vacate. The third city trigger requires a relocation assistance upon removal or relocation of the unit, and that is effectively the only trigger that will be remaining now once the state regulation takes effect. The state regulation offers both rent control and just cause provision and applies to single family, duplex and triplex units. The city regulation effectively applies to apartment buildings with four units or more, but now only two units where tenancy is terminated until rehabilitation. Prior to adoption of the state regulation, about 49,000 units were covered by the city regulation. Based on building permit data that staff assembled. We estimate that 6.75% of rental units in the city are being rehabilitated annually. So the number of units now covered by the city regulation is actually much lower. 6.75% of that 49,000 equates to 3311 units. But in reality, we think that the actual number of units that will be vacated is much less. The state regulation will assist more than 69,299 households. The city. The city regulation includes a requirement that landlords notify the city when entire buildings are are vacated in the first quarter of implementation of the city's policy. That's August through October of 2019. It was reported to us that a total of 45 units were vacated. That is a small sample, but it's the only sample we have. That is true telling of the units that are being vacated in the market. And if you take that 45 unit number and extrapolated over the full year, that would result in 180 units that would likely be vacated due to rehabilitation. That's about 5.5% of the 3311 units. I'll turn it back over to Tom. Speaker 12: Thank you, Patrick. So while we are recommending, given those numbers and the way that the ordinances and laws interact, that we are recommending that you repeal it, but we also are making a recommendation that you enhance one particular area that we've really seen through the community conversations as being the biggest area of need. This is an area we would go beyond what the state requires and have a program in Long Beach set up for our seniors and disabled residents who can be, you know, have needs beyond what we believe the state is going to provide. And so what we're requesting is authority to create a senior and disabled security deposit assistance program for qualified lower income households. We are still working on this program. This you would be giving us direction to create it and come back to you with the final funding sources. We expect this to be non general fund but have about $250,000 combined out of federal home dollars, as are housing dollars and the state homeless prevention assistance and housing funds that we will be getting later in 2020. And so we imagine that this fund would be providing assistance to our most vulnerable populations and go beyond the state protections. The exact amount of subsidy and how that would work and where they would come. Those are all things that we're continuing to work on and we would give you a report back. But it was pretty clear the council really wanted to do this in the in the first part, but we didn't really have a mechanism to do it. So this is we've been putting our heads together to get to the goal of what you had said was one of your highest priorities in this. And so the next thing we're asking is the next steps. We are requesting that you tell the city attorney to prepare an urgency ordinance to repeal this code so that it can line up with the implementation date of the state law, which goes into effect January one. So we would repeal as of December 31st, you would direct the city manager to create that fund, that $250,000 fund, identify the funding sources and get that created and underway and report back to you that you would work with the city attorney to prepare the urgency ordinance and bring that back and identify and fund the program that we've talked about. So with that, we are available to answer questions. Speaker 2: Thank you, Councilmember Richardson. Speaker 8: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So, first of all, thank you to the public for coming out and speaking on this issue. It's been a we've been talking about this issue for a long time, and many of you iterated that. And I want to thank staff for really following and being a part of this conversation and picking up where the council wants to go. The conversation here was not about not about removing protections. When we started this conversation, the city manager mentioned this. When we started the conversation, there were no state protections. And as the state developed their protections, there was a, you know, a lot of disarray in the market and in fact, a lot of people. And there was significant interest in having a very clear policy and rules of the road on January 1st of January 2nd, and a very clear policy, the state policy, we did a moratorium to make sure people are protected until that kicks in. And then we're coming in today and the city staff is presented a repeal to go to the state policy in the areas where city staff heard from counsel, from the public that it needs to be enhanced. Seniors and disabled individuals, those you know, we've created a way to enhance one policy with enhance the policy with a local fund. It's not burdened by the public, not administered by the public and by the private sector, but administered publicly now in many ways. And I think I think staff are putting forward the table in many ways. In most ways, the state regulation is superior to our local law. More people are covered under the state law. Our policy does not have a hard just cause backstop. The state has a just cause backstop. That means that it protects more people than what our original Long Beach policy did. It also has a lower threshold on the rent cap. Ours wasn't a rent cap. It was 10%. But it wasn't a cap. If you pay higher than that, you have to pay reload. There is a cap in the state of 5% and it's a period in many ways for renters and what we have here locally. So the narrative of this is a take away. It is not. Now, the public has done a really good job in educating us on some some, you know, areas where, you know, we might need to do more work. The rules of the road here are about clarity. So the recommendation is to is to repeal. Now, as a part of the second part, where it says create a senior disabled household security deposit program. That's where the enhancement is and that's where the really the opportunity is. So on, you know, in the staff report, the line just below table, it says, as can be seen above, the city wrote The city regulation in the higher reload amount will only apply when it is asked to vacate due to rehabilitation. That's a narrow there's a universe and we did a little work. It's not really a big group of people. It's a small group of people that we that we know that would receive essentially one month of rent in the new law instead of two months. Right. And that's not what the intention was here. Right. So so I must recommendation. I'm going to ask Rich and I had a conversation when we looked at and we found these are the very people who brought this issue forward. The idea wasn't to cut you out the ideas we know we want to expand the protections to everybody and be under one law that a conversation the mayor had a conversation with rich about is it a way to make sure that what that difference is and that very narrow universe we're talking about can this find can actually can we bring back options, bring back a solution for this fund to help people under that very narrow scenario? We still have one policy. The rules of the road are the same, but we add an additional enhancement. Can we bring back options for that rich. Speaker 11: Mayor and council members? We certainly can. And I, in turn, have had a conversation with staff to ensure that that is something that we can do. So basically the direction, as I understand it, Council Member Richardson is in addition to an enhanced program for the elderly and the disabled. As staff recommended. Staff should also look into the addition of a city funded, enhanced either relocation payment or security deposit assistance for people that received re low under the state program because they received notice of termination of tenancy due to rehabilitation. We would effectively be trying to address through a city administered program and I'm sorry I'm going on long, but I want to be clear so everyone knows exactly what we're talking about. We would effectively be trying to address through a city administered program the exact people that would otherwise be getting a smaller relocation payment due to this repeal. Speaker 8: In our initial sort of review of where the gap is and where the staff report is really a very narrow group. And so if we can make sure that that group moving forward has access to that fund, so they essentially receive the same amount, whether it's in the form of down payment assistance or not down payment, excuse me, running issue in the form of security deposit assistance or in the form of a reload. We want them to be able to have the same amount and we want that to be a part of the fund, not something that we pass on to the landlord. Speaker 11: Exactly. That's something I think we can do. Speaker 2: Let me let me clarify one thing to just just to be sure. I think what's important here and I want to I want to just echo something that that Councilman Richardson said is the state policy in in 99% of the time is going much further than what we obviously adopted as a as a city. And what there is a and in fact, I know that some folks had mentioned that the state re low amount is less than the city amount. That only is the case in a very, very narrow piece of that whole pie. In fact, dramatically more people will get the higher reload payment that the state has than the than the city currently allows for. And so I think what Councilman Richardson is describing is there is a very small piece of the pie. It could be, you know, and obviously, depending looking at the numbers, it could change year to year. But it's always going to be a very small group of folks that in the current system of repeal would receive a different tenant reload benefit when in fact a vast majority of folks would almost all the time receive much more of the tenant reload. I just want to clarify that we think that is correct and. And so I think what what Councilman Richardson is describing is that it could be and you and I have discussed this number. This number could be as low as ten folks a year. It could be one building, but it happens in a certain year, could be 40 units a year. It's really dependent. It could be higher than that depending on what the building size is. But it's really on this issue of what do what does rehab on the tenancy issue and how that's affected by the higher we low amount . Is that correct, Mr. Modica? Speaker 12: Yes. So that's our understanding as well. I think that was well put that we really don't expect that portion of the city's law to to come into effect that often. We can certainly look at the request to modify and add those people who would be affected there into the $250,000 fund. I do want to point out that the way that we have identified some the resources for this, it can't be used for tenant reload. It is done for housing assistance for qualified households. So we would take them and put them into the as a as an area of of eligibility provided they meet with those funding sources. Or if we find that that's not a case, we'll have to come back to you on a different approach on how to fund that. Speaker 2: And I think, again, the request, as simple as just how do you address that, that small sliver of folks. Speaker 8: We want to make. Speaker 2: That small sort. Speaker 8: Of come home. We don't want. I think you're right. Speaker 2: I think that's I think we're on the same page. There are contractors. Speaker 7: Thank you. Sorry that came up fast. You guys are still talking. So I want to I want to say to the residents that are here today that this item, when we talked about it ago, that it was never an intent to remove protections, remove dollar amounts, or to loosen protections again, for for renters. And so I think when these items move forward quickly, that often we it takes us all a little bit of time to make sure that we understand what we're all talking about, that we all understand what the state policy is, what it is that we have in the books on the city side. And so I'm going to ask just a couple of more clarifying questions. So the mayor just recapped the fact that the state ordinance covers more people, and that is, in fact, true. Yes. Speaker 0: Yes. Speaker 7: And the dollar amount of reload for the majority of people. It was a comment was made from the audience that it was only one month's rent. Can you or Patrick talk through what is a very low amount for the state and what is it that we have on the books right now for the city? And I know that that Councilmember Richardson is addressing this. I just want to make sure we ask and get clear answers. Speaker 11: Councilwoman Mongo, the state's policy. Speaker 6: Go for it. Speaker 11: I'm sorry. Speaker 7: I've never. I've never. Never. Go ahead. Speaker 11: The state's policy offers one month's rent for relocation assistance. And so that would depend on the month, the rent that the tenant is actually paying and the unit that they're living in. So we don't know exactly what that is, but we do know what average rents are in the city. The city's relocation schedule is $2,706 for a studio apartment $3,325 for a one bedroom. Apartment $4,185 for a two bedroom apartment and 40 $500 for a three bedroom apartment. And it caps at 40 $500. Speaker 7: And can the city attorney talk through for me the urgency of this item? Speaker 11: Certainly. So to be clear, and I think it was clear in the staff report, but if this item, if you give direction to bring this item back next week as a repeal and an urgency ordinance, it would not immediately become effective with the intention, of course, I think by everybody is to ensure tenant protections through the end of December 31st until 1482 comes into effect. So if you do not adopt it as an urgency ordinance, then I think you're defeating one of the purposes of repealing, which is to not have two competing relocation regimes at the same time. If it's not an urgency ordinance because of the requirements of the city charter, the repeal wouldn't take effect until sometime in mid to late January. And so for that margin of time between January 1st and whenever it became effective in late January, it would be quite confusing for tenants and landlords. There would be two different relocation regimes that they would have to comply with. That is, in effect, why we're requesting urgency. Speaker 7: One more question. The Long Beach ordinance that we had passed, we had asked for notification pieces. And I'm just wondering, are those are we intending on those staying in place or will we have to return at a later date to ensure not only notification of buildings that are being rehabbed, but also I know that staff worked for a long time on making sure we had notification that would be provided to tenants about their rights and that we had asked landlords to provide that. Would a staff see that landing right now? Speaker 11: Well, our current ordinance still does. Still does that. But if it gets repealed, we have a lot of information on our website that could be enhanced to explain in greater detail what the state's regulation entails and includes. Speaker 12: And I believe in terms of the rights of all that, that has already happened. So we put a lot of that information out already, I believe. So that has, you know, that that's. Speaker 7: An ongoing process, right? I mean, you've got new people that move in. You know, we want to make sure that our landlords have that information. They're providing it to their tenants as well. Speaker 11: And lastly, AB 1482 has notice requirements as part of. Speaker 7: It as we had additional ones that I, I know there's a reason why we're trying to keep it simple tonight. And I know there there are a lot of things and I. It's frustrating because I know that we've had lots of conversations and for me tonight was supposed to be about following the state and then making sure that we kept in place all the things that Long Beach said we wanted to do. And so I'm trying to understand tonight for being able to make this vote and understand what next things need to happen to make sure we don't go back on our word after all the months of work that we've done. That's why I'm putting us through asking these questions. There were other notices, notifications around credit reporting around renters insurance. Those little things that I think were only really important to me. And I just wanted to know, do I need to come back with an ordinance to request some of those items? Speaker 11: Now, as I recall. Those items that you requested. I remember you doing that were not to be part of the ordinance and they're not part of the ordinance, those that was direction that the rest of the council supported to give the staff that correct. And the information didn't. Speaker 7: Need to be in the ordinance, but something that we will continue to do. Speaker 12: So those were in the information sheets that were sent out and those will continue to be available. Yes. Speaker 7: My last question is, when, Patrick, you were given the presentation, you talked about the steps that needed to happen, set out in G, one, B, which was pass the ordinance and possibly add a higher threshold that the city wanted to in a binding ordinance. In the recommendations that you guys have in front of us that says request the city attorney to prepare to repeal that it's got the senior disabled fun prepare emergency ordinance and then again disabled fund. Do we need to take a vote to do anything to make sure that the state policy is in fact adhered to in the city? Because that's what it sounded like when you gave the presentation at the beginning. Speaker 11: If I may, Councilman Pierce. No, I don't. I think the answer is no. The city does not need to do anything to ensure that a 1482 is effective in the city of Long Beach. I mean, it will be okay. Speaker 7: I just from the staff presentation, I thought that there was an action that we had to take. No. And so what I want to make very clear for the residents constituents is that. Speaker 6: Where. Speaker 7: There is a policy on the books, that is just cause, which is something we couldn't get done on council. So there's more rights. There is tenant rela, although it is not the same amount that we had talked about. And then there is a proposal on the floor to make sure that for that small subgroup of people that are been in rehabs have enough money to get them whole as well. And so I it's a tough vote. I'm going to vote yes tonight. But I want to make it clear that there are still rights and there is still relocation and that we possibly have work to do in the future. So that that is what I just wanted to ask those questions and make sure that everybody was clear, because I know a lot of us had conversations beforehand and there was there's no reload, there's no protections, and there are protections and we we can do more. And I think that we will do more. And so I just I want to thank all of our advocates for continuing to be brave and come out. Speaker 6: Thank you. Speaker 2: Thank you. Council member members, please. Gordon, cast your votes. Speaker 1: Motion carries. Speaker 2: Thank you. We're moving on now to item 22, please. Speaker 1: We've read item 2224.

Agenda Item

Recommendation to request City Attorney to prepare an urgency ordinance to repeal Long Beach Municipal Code Section 8.97 relating to Tenant Relocation Assistance effective December 31, 2019; and Direct City Manager to create a Senior and Disabled Household Security Deposit Assistance Program for qualified lower-income households and identify up to $250,000 in non-General Fund funding for the program. (Citywide)

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_12032019_19-1201

Speaker 1: We've read item 2224. Speaker 2: I'm sorry. I'm. We're going. I'm 24. I'm sorry. Speaker 1: Communication from Councilmember Pearce recommendation receive and file a presentation from Colby College of Business Administration on the Long Beach Small Business Monitor survey. Speaker 2: Councilman Pierce, did you have an opening comments? Speaker 7: Yes. I want to first thank Scott very, very much for waiting until 10:00 tonight. Super appreciate it. Scott and I had a great phone conversation recently about small business protections, and they've done a lot of great work in monitoring out of Cal State, Long Beach. And there's a lot of work that I think we can do in the city to ensure that we're protecting and supporting our small businesses. But before we get to some of those items in future months, we thought it would be great to hear from Cal State and also hear about the future surveys that you guys are working on. So thank you very much, Scott. Really appreciate it. Speaker 0: My pleasure. Thank you. It's been a long night, so I'll be very brief. I come from College of Business. I'm a professor in the Department of Marketing, and we do a survey of Long Beach small businesses. Once a year. We've been doing this survey since 2012, and I'm here to report on the latest results of that survey for you guys. I'm just going to get right to the results. You have the report sitting in front of you. What we found in this past year was a decline in expectations about the future, and the decline is significant. So there is some increasing concern among small business owners here in Long Beach right now. We also found that. There's a far fewer small business owners who feel that you're going to see a increase in their revenues over the last year. So there is growing concern about the future among the small business owners here in Long Beach. And so what we wanted to do is want to find out why and then work with the Economic Development Commission to try to figure out some solutions to these problems. So what we uncovered was a significant increase in the past year in concern about access to capital and financing and cash for business and and the ability to find and retain new customers. This is something new. We haven't seen this before. So we can attribute these increased feelings of concern to an overall feeling of declining expectations. And so these two areas are extremely important for small businesses, first, in terms of adequate cash flow and access to capital. When a business doesn't have that, what they tend to do is begin to cut back on things in the business, which reduces the quality of the product or service that they're offering. And when that happens, they begin to lose customers and it turns into a spiral and the business eventually goes out of business. And so it's very important for businesses to be able to have adequate capital in order to be able to acquire new customers and provide high quality services. The second area finding and keeping customers really has to do with the way citizens in Long Beach today are finding small businesses. Most of them are today are using their cell phones and computers to find small businesses. And many of the businesses today in our survey, you'll see many of the business owners today feel they don't have the time, the expertize, the financial resources to do this kind of outreach and marketing. And as a result, they're at a significant disadvantage to online stores and larger companies that have a better opportunity and more more resources. This is a significant problem. So if a small business today doesn't understand this issue and doesn't incorporate it into their business plans, then they're probably not going to be that successful. There's a little bit of a shakeout going on. Some businesses that are able to utilize these kinds of services are going to be the ones that are going to be successful. And so one of the things that we try to do at the university is to try to match up our resources, our students and our faculty with small businesses to help them in this particular area. Because without this support, they're not going to be able to find new customers, and they're not going to be able to create relationships with customers that are needed to maintain their businesses today. And that's the short of it. I want to be really short because it's been a very long night. And I appreciate your time. Thank you. Speaker 2: Thank you. I want to just add I just want to thank the partner college business and the survey. I've been following this survey since you launched it and I always find it. I read it every year. I appreciate the the publication you put out. It's got the data on it. And I think it's really good data for the city. And so I just wanted to personally just thank you for, for that work and and for your department, but also the entire college of business in the work they do on this issue. So thank you. Councilman Pearce. Speaker 6: To City. Speaker 2: Councilwoman Price. Speaker 4: Thank you. I want to thank you as well. I'm a fairly new small business owner. We're coming up on our one year anniversary. And I just turned over at turn to council member Pearce and said, I wish my husband was watching this right now because it's fascinating. And, you know, so much of what you said rings true to me in a way now than it would have just even a few years ago, because we're going through it. So thank you very much. I look forward to reading the full survey myself and sharing it with my husband and business owners in our community. Speaker 2: You have something else, Councilor Pearce? Speaker 7: Just wanted to say two things. One is I want to think a staff John, I know we've been talking about how we can kind of wrap our hands around small businesses and of a retro role. We've had three businesses triple the rents. And so when we talk about access to capital, I think we had the conversation around, well, what's that capital for? Is it only product? Is it rent? Is it what is that? So I really look forward to seeing the next survey and partnering with some of your students, hopefully in the future with some of our small businesses . So thanks for staying the long night. Appreciate it. Speaker 2: Thank you. And with that, we don't have public comment on this item. I'm saying so, members, please go ahead and cast your votes.

Agenda Item

Recommendation to receive and file a presentation from CSULB College of Business Administration on the "Long Beach Small Business Monitor" survey.

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_11192019_19-1169

Speaker 1: I have you down for consent. Next. So 27, please read the item. Speaker 0: Is there a mover and seconder for the concerned calendar items? Speaker 1: We're going to 27 and then consent. Okay. Speaker 0: Item 27 is a communication from city attorney recommendation to adopt a resolution calling for the placement of a general tax measure on the ballot on the March 3rd, 2020 Special Municipal Election for submission of an ordinance amending the Long Beach Municipal Code to increase the rate of the general purpose transient occupancy tax from 6% to 7% and making findings of fiscal emergency pursuant to California Proposition 218 Adobe resolution providing the filing of primary and rebuttal arguments and adopt a resolution requesting the Board of Supervisors to consolidate a special municipal election for a local initiative measure to be on March 30, 2020 with a statewide primary. Speaker 1: I think we had a pretty extensive presentation on this last week. This is just the documents that we already approved. I do have some public comments. Let me get to some to get to those who have signed up. If I can have Kelly Lucero, John Thomas, David Bunker and Cantrell and Christiansen and Lourdes Ramos, please come forward in that order. Speaker 3: Good evening. My name is Kelly Lucero, president of the Long Beach Symphony. And I'm back just to share with you what an exhilarating week this has been. This community is buzzing. My phone has been ringing off the hook with people so excited about the opportunity for you all to and for the voters to choose to strengthen arts organizations, to put diverse and cultural programs into our communities, and to better serve those children and families and our community as the grunion. Harry Solskjaer's said two weeks ago he wrote, The arts are the soul of the city. I'd like to thank you all for your enthusiasm, your creativity, your courage for making the bold decision. To feed the soul of this great city. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Mr. Sierra. Mr. Thomas. Speaker 4: Good evening, Mr. Mayor. Members of City Council, I want to thank you all on behalf of the cultural arts community that continues to thrive here in the city of Long Beach, both the performing and the cultural arts. This major will really help sustain and grow and cultivate the arts community for the future and in the long term . We're very lucky to have your leadership, your support and your vision to enact this agenda item. And everybody that I've talked to in the community is very, very positive for it. They realize the need for the revenue source. So we we thank you very much for your support this evening. Speaker 1: Thank you so much for your comments. Speaker 4: Mr. Duncan. Hi. My name is David Bunker. Speaker 5: I am the board chair of Long Beach Camerata. Thank you all for the opportunity to speak on this. For our audience and our city council, we are proud to serve the Long Beach as the primary provider of choral music here in the Long Beach area. Studies have shown that in the United States that more people participate in choral singing than. Speaker 3: Any. Speaker 4: Other artform. Speaker 5: And we found that to be an exciting aspect. And we also found that to be part of what Long Beach Camerata has been about as a community builder. Even within our own organization, Long Beach, Camerata Singers provides those musical opportunities to both the singers and its audience. We have The Kingdom Concert, which is an educational program. We have the new piece for Youth, which is a program for middle school individuals. The new TOT measure will help us expand these educational opportunities for the children here in the Long Beach area. In conclusion, I would like to thank all of you and particularly Mayor Garcia, Steve Goodling, for their work on this measure thus far. And we urge the city council to approve the measure for the ballot, and we urge the citizens of Long Beach to approve the measure in March. Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Ms.. Ms.. Kantrowitz. And then he'll be Ms.. Christiansen. Speaker 3: Good evening. And Cantrell. And as I said last week, I am totally in favor of all of these art projects. But I. In reading the ballot. I see that nothing is mentioned in there that this money, this extra hotel tax will go to the arts. Or anything else. In Long Beach. Not the libraries, not the police, not the. Roads. It will go into the general fund, just like measure a tax increase did. And so I urge you, when you put this on the ballot to add. That this. 7%, at least part of it will be used. For arts or some other thing than just putting it in the general fund. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you. And Christiansen, please. Speaker 3: So. Yeah. I kind of have to agree with Ann Cantrell. I mean, I don't know how many people are jumping up and down in Long Beach about a new tax. My sense of things is that what I hear is that we are the most taxed city, one of them at least in the state. I mean, we already pay so many taxes when we pass that other tax, we didn't really have to pay very much of it because we already had reached the max. So I know a lot of people that don't like to pay taxes to anybody. So I would think you would want to have a reason other than an emergency you got here, I guess, in the bill. So I think just to be asking for more money and not seeing where it's going isn't it's not very smart. If you want if you want it, then tell people how you're going to spend it. Of course, as an artist and retired art teacher, that would be a great way to spend it. But I don't think you're going to have much. Like, of course, if you put on that campaign real effort like you did for Measure M or that other one that you wanted and, you know, really push to send out all those mailers and spend all our money out of our regular general fund to get more money for the general fund. Maybe you could swing it. Speaker 1: Miss Ramos, please. Speaker 0: Hello, everybody. My name is Robert Ramos, president and CEO of the Museum of Latin American Art here in Long Beach. I have to say that in front of the Coast Guard sector, we are on celebration for these visionary project that certainly come together with the expansion of the city and the international obligation of our leaders. Diversity, inclusion and culture is part of the economic factor and the future of the city, not just of the future, but the city of now, of the citizens of quality of life. So I encourage everybody to be part of this marvelous opportunity and endorse these marvelous project. Thanks, everybody. Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Members, please cast your votes and this will send this to the voters in March. Speaker 0: Ocean carries. So Boehner can have it on. Speaker 1: Thank you. Speaker 0: Voted much. Voted Bush. Speaker 4: You. Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Thank you all. We will now go just two things. So we're going to do, uh, there's an item just to make sure we just get out of the way we're going to consent. And then item 28, there going to be a motion to change to the motion on that item.

Resolution

Recommendation to adopt resolution Calling for the Placement of a General Tax Measure on the Ballot of the March 3, 2020 Special Municipal Election for submission to the qualified voters of the City of Long Beach an ordinance amending Long Beach Municipal Code section 3.64.035, to increase the rate of the general purpose Transient Occupancy (Hotel) Tax from 6% to 7%, and making findings of fiscal emergency pursuant to California Proposition 218;

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_11192019_19-1147

Speaker 0: Motion she carries. Speaker 1: We're going back to item six on the consent calendar. Speaker 0: Item six is report from Library Services Recommendation to authorize city manager to execute an agreement and any necessary amendments with Long Beach Community College District to provide free Noncredit and certificate course at the Michelle Obama Neighborhood Library for beginning for a period beginning February six, 2020 through May 21st, 2021, District nine. Speaker 1: Thank you. Counselor Richardson, you wanted a presentation on this? Speaker 6: Sure. This is something we, you know, we worked on for a while, and I wanted to get a staff report. Speaker 7: Glenda Williams, our library services director, will give a brief report. Speaker 8: Good evening, Mayor Garcia. Speaker 3: And members of the city council. Before you tonight, there's an opportunity to have an agreement with the Long Beach City College to have some classes at the Michelle Obama Library. If approved, it will begin this coming semester, potentially in February. And we're very excited for this to move forward. Speaker 4: Thank you. If approved. Speaker 1: Okay, great. Customer Ranga. Anything? Customer Pearce. No. There's no public comment on this. Please cast your votes.

Contract

Recommendation to authorize City Manager, or designee, to execute an agreement, and any necessary amendments, with the Long Beach Community College District, to provide free non-credit and certificate courses at the Michelle Obama Neighborhood Library, for a period beginning February 6, 2020 through May 21, 2021. (District 9)

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_11192019_19-1153

Speaker 5: By the way, for the record, it's district eight. And that may. Speaker 1: Hearing out of number 13, and this will require an oath. Speaker 0: Item 13 Report from Financial Management. Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record. Conclude the public hearing and grant an entertainment permit with conditions on the application of Jade Restaurant at 6380 is Pacific Coast Highway Suite A for Entertainment with Dancing District three. This item required an oath. Please raise your right hand. You in each of you do solemnly state that the testimony you may give in the court now and pending before this body shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. So help you God. Speaker 1: Its co-owner. Speaker 8: Emily Armstrong and Brett Jacobs from Financial. Speaker 3: Management will be presenting. Speaker 2: Their report. Speaker 5: Good evening, honorable mayor and members of the city council. Tonight you have before you an application for entertainment with dancing for LBC Restaurant Group LLC doing business as Jade Restaurant located at 6380 East Pacific Coast Highway Suite A operating as a restaurant with alcohol in Council District three. All of the necessary departments have reviewed the application and have provided their recommended conditions as contained in the hearing packet. I stand ready to answer any questions Council may have, and that concludes staff's report. Speaker 1: I'm so impressed. Speaker 2: Mayor and thank you to our city staff for the presentation on this item, and thank you for taking the time to talk through this item with me yesterday. I'm glad to see that this hearing is before us and I look forward to this location continuing to be a great addition to the district. I want to focus on a few things here in terms of the restrictions that are being placed on this particular condition. First of all, it's my understanding that the type of permit that is being would be granted by action tonight would be the same as that which was given to Forbidden City, which was the restaurant that operated at this location prior to Jade's establishment as Jade at this location. This location is as very close to residents, specifically the Marina Pacifica residential community and as well as Bay Harbor. And I want to make sure that we're protecting the quality of life of the residents while giving this business an opportunity to be successful. It's my understanding that one of the conditions for this permit will require them to have to primarily stay a bona fide restaurant or eatery, and that they would not be able to transition into a nightclub or disco type of model. Is that correct? Speaker 5: That's correct. Condition number four states that and then more specifically in the industrial conditions condition. Number two also states that they can not turn into a nightclub. It's to maintain a restaurant use. Speaker 0: Okay. Speaker 2: And it's also my understanding from this and other restaurants that have come across this council for consideration of an entertainment permit, that as a restaurant, it would also not allow for live entertainment or music or dancing on the patio at any time. Is that correct? Speaker 5: That's also correct. There's also an additional condition. Number three, that specifically states live entertainment cannot happen or any dancing on the patio at any time. Speaker 0: Okay. Speaker 2: The other concern that have that I have and that residents have reached out to our office about is that, you know, obviously we know that sound can carry a long distance. So it's important to make sure that during the night hours the residents are not negatively affected by noise or the conditions that we're passing tonight. Also require that sound from the building should not be audible from 50 feet away in any direction. Speaker 5: That's also correct. It's condition number five. And it also stipulates that all doors and windows must be closed during the hours of entertainment. Speaker 2: Okay. And finally, I noticed that one of the conditions in here is that the permutation shall not hire promoters with the intent to advertise, promote or hold any entertainment activities consistent with nightclub entertainment. That is that also a condition that's part of this. Speaker 5: Correct? That's also a condition. Speaker 2: Okay, great. I know the business owner is here. I've had the pleasure of going to Forbidden City in the past. I've also had the opportunity to go to Jade and we wish them the best. And I know that they will be very responsive to any calls for service that we can get so that we can try to avoid any violations of the conditions. Any formal findings of violations of the conditions. So we'll continue to operate in a collaborative way with the business owner to ensure that there is peace and enjoyment of the residential properties in the area and not that that's not affected by this business. So thank you. I have nothing further on this. Speaker 1: On this hearing. I sure I know that you stood up. I see you on the speaker's list, sir. I know you are. You're the business. Are you the business owner? Okay. But you didn't sign up to speak. Is that because you wanted to speak? So I know it's your first time. So in the future, please sign up to speak. Do you have any comments? Okay. I don't control Ms.. Christianson. Nope. So, Mr. Cert, come forward and just state your name, please, for the record. Speaker 4: Good evening. My name is Rami Matar and I'm thank you for allowing me to voice my concern about the permit. And thank you. Council woman Miss Price, I think you addressed a lot of my concerns. Coming here, I. All I saw was just the request to entertainment. I am the closest resident in Marina Pacifica. I live exactly. Speaker 5: 120 feet. Speaker 4: Away from. From the press, from the restaurant. And I have an undercurrent of operation. There has been noise and I've complained at least a couple of times and I think the complied with my with the noise complain. However, I when I received the permit application, I was very concerned that. Speaker 5: I and I didn't know if it is going to turn into a nightclub. Speaker 4: Or they just wanted a way to legitimize the current operation, which I think include karaoke night or or some band. Again, I'm not here to, you know, like object to their business. I wish them success, but my well-being and my investment is also very important. And I trust the city in protecting my investments. Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Speaker 4: Thank you. Thank you. Speaker 2: And sir, if you can just hang tight for a moment before leaving, I'm going to have a staff member come out and give you our information and we'll also take yours. So if you ever have situations come up, you can also contact us so that we can also work with the business owner. Speaker 4: Excellent. Thank you very much, sir. Speaker 1: Thank you for coming down. Thank you. There is a motion in a second. Please cast your votes.

Public Hearing

Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record, conclude the public hearing and grant an Entertainment Permit with conditions on the application of LBC Restaurant Group, LLC, dba Jade Restaurant, at 6380 East Pacific Coast Highway, Suite A, for Entertainment with Dancing. (District 3)

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_11192019_19-1162

Speaker 4: And move on to the next item. We'll go back to the regular agenda on this. It's the programs. Speaker 0: Item 15. Speaker 4: Yes. We're going to go back to the regular agenda now. Okay. We'll go back to identity. Speaker 0: Item 15 is communication from Councilmember Pierce, Councilwoman Price Recommendation to receive and File Report on the Human Resources Audit and Trauma Informed City. Speaker 4: It's just pies. Spears. Speaker 9: Yes. Thank you. About a year ago, we put together an item with Councilmember Price and Councilmember Austin on our H.R. practices, requesting an audit and also a conversation around trauma informed practices for the city. So I'm happy today that we've got some staff reports and then I'll have a couple of questions afterwards. But I really want to applaud our city auditor and our team for a thorough dove into this. Thank you. Speaker 7: Thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor. Members of the council councilmember peers. We have three short staff reports, oral reports that we'd like to give as this item asked for kind of three separate things. One is the trauma informed should be led by Theresa Chandler, our interim deputy city manager. One is kind of a brief overview of the hiring efforts and, you know, that's an ongoing effort. But you have a large two from four in front of you that details the status report as of March. And then our city auditor would like to say a few words as well. So we will start with Theresa. Gentlemen, please. Speaker 8: Good evening, Honorable Vice Mayor and Council Members. Thank you for the opportunity to present on our trauma informed systems efforts. In 2015, the Department of Health and Human Services began working with community partners to explore the possibility of becoming a trauma informed city. In 2016, the group launched Trauma and Resiliency in Forum Long Beach, also known as Tree Shelby, a citywide initiative focused on reducing the impacts of persistent trauma in organizations and across systems. This network is a group of Long Beach professionals who are committed to holding the vision, setting priorities, developing and tracking data measurements and championing a trauma informed Long Beach. I would like to share some information with you on what a trauma and resiliency informed system actually is. But I must start with defining trauma. The continuous exposure to violence, poverty and other forms of disparity can have significant impacts on communities. Trauma can be defined as a psychological, emotional response to an event or an experience that is deeply distressing or disturbing. Immediately after the event, shock and denial are typical. Longer term reactions can include unpredictable emotions, flashbacks, strained relationships, and even physical symptoms like headaches and nausea. When trauma happens, it has short term and long term effects on the individual, on families and on the overall community. For many people in Long Beach, the continuous exposure to unsafe environments has resulted in higher rates of heart disease, respiratory illness and other health related outcomes. Persistent trauma not only impacts our community members and clients, it impacts our service providers, systems and the physical environment. Places and spaces where people live, work and play. Like schools, health care facilities, faith based organizations, social services and businesses play a key role in addressing the impacts of trauma within communities. How services are offered in these spaces actually play a key role in either reducing or enhancing the effects of being exposed to this trauma for their employees and service providers. The way in which services service providers hold, process and manage trauma will in turn have an impact on the experiences of community members who are seeking services. Many of these folks are trying to navigate complex systems while caring their own traumatic load. The Health Department and others recognize that a crucial point to interrupt the cycle of retraumatize is the retraumatizing of clients. Is supporting staff in addressing the vicarious trauma they might experience regularly in the workplace? In simpler terms, when a person walks in the door who is carrying a load of trauma and the staff person providing the service doesn't understand the effects of this person may be carrying. This can sometimes cause a domino effect of unsuccessful interactions between the two that may lead to more trauma for both the client and the staff person. Vicarious trauma is the emotional and psychological impact of connecting with the traumatic life events of other people. It often occurs without awareness. It accumulates over time and can change a worker's overall view of the world and people around them. This as this often affects a person's overall health and wellbeing as well. Resiliency, on the other hand, refers to the ability to cope with hardships and adapt to challenges or change. Resiliency develops over time and gives the capacity not only to manage with life's challenges, but also to be better prepared for the next stressful situation. The ability to remain hopeful is essential to resiliency and the process of healing. A trauma informed system is one in which all people within the organization recognize and respond to the impact of trauma. Traumatic stress on those who have contact with the system, including those seeking services, and us as service providers. This initiative is designed specifically to move Long Beach to become a trauma and resiliency informed city. The goal is that over time, collectively, we will embrace a comprehensive understanding of trauma and resiliency and incorporate this into our policy and practice. The implementation of the Tri Tre Alb initiative includes three core components training and education, policy and practice, change and evaluation. The goals of the pilot are to one begin with two identified systems the Health Department and the Long Beach Public Libraries, to adopt policies and procedures that enhance the delivery of services through trauma and resiliency. Informed approaches to convene a task force to advise the development of strategies to support staff in how to deliver trauma and resiliency. Informed Care and three Document Organizational Culture shift in the processes demonstrating how services are delivered and communities engaged for future replication. The Health Department and Library staff, as well as the City of Long Beach, Human Resources Department and the City Council offices, will receive training on these practices, the impact of trauma on ourselves and our clients, and tools for building resiliency in order to mean healthy, healthy responses in our work place. Relationships, training for h.R. And City Council will be prioritized and conducted in January 2020. Training will begin for health and library staff shortly thereafter. Additionally, the Health Department and library policies and procedures will be assessed for alignment with trauma and resiliency. Informed approaches and recommendations will be made for policy change. The evaluation component is designed to help us assess how well the training promotes learning and implementation of trauma and resiliency, informed approaches and the degree to which the policy changes are effective. This concludes my presentation. I'm available for any questions. Thank you. Speaker 4: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. One of the experiences. Speaker 7: So we'd like to have now, Alex Vasquez, give a short overview of some of the hiring improvements that we've been working on, along with our partners in the Civil Service Department. Speaker 8: Uh. Good evening, council members. Um. What was submitted was a copy of a two from four memo outlining the city's review of our hiring process back in September of 2018. The Council City Council asks, requested the city manager to provide a review of its hiring process and the turnaround time for hiring new employees. Yeah. The improving the hiring process has been a top priority for the city manager, human resources department and civil service department, as well as all city departments. Over the last year, the city has also engaged, utilizing resources from a few fellow to help us perform an in-depth analysis and mapping process of our selection processes. Attached to the two from four Memo is a PowerPoint presentation that we provided our managers, and it outlines our approach to this review and provides some data that we collected. And it also provides a listing of some of our findings and some of our changes that have already been implemented and basically our approach on a go forward basis. What we did was we took a basically a biomass approach and we brought all stakeholders together to evaluate our hiring process. It was a collaborative effort and it was fully embraced by both civil service and human resources, along with all other city departments and stakeholders. We did a basically a a review of the selection process and mapped it out and outlined each of the steps and attempted to quantify the amount of time it takes to hire an individual. One of the things I just wanted to point out in the PowerPoint, we also provided some statistics about our hiring process. And on on page nine, I wanted to point out that we also took a look at what types of employment do we have in the city and where are we experiencing significant issues with hiring employees? Approximately 59% of our workforce work in classified service. 35% are unclassified, and approximately 6% are in management positions. As I indicated in in this PowerPoint on slides ten and 11, there's a step by step. Depiction of the hiring process. We also took a look at our vacancy rate by department. On Slide 12, our vacancy rates were ranging between 3% to 26%, depending on the department. And there were various factors that. Were attributed to the vacancy rates. Some of them were based on some departments receiving additional positions at the time. We did this analysis and some of them were positions that were kept vacant or were hard to fill. Some of the key findings were that there were some challenges with filling vacancies and the amount of time it was taking to fill those vacancies. The amount of time it took to fill vacancies depended upon whether or not there was a civil service list available for hiring departments to utilize or whether or not the position was unclassified or classified. But in general, I think we all recognize that we could do better. And we have taken some steps to look at ways that we can basically eliminate unnecessary processes or expedite certain processes so that we can assist our departments in filling their positions. I can go into more detail about some of these efforts that we implemented to streamline the hiring process. But we're not done. We are still working together with civil service and we are also will be engaging the AI team this year to assist us in continuing the effort of streamlining the hiring process and basically quantifying those efforts. And I'd be happy to answer any questions. Speaker 4: Thank you. Speaker 7: And thank you, Vice Mayor, for our last presentation. We'd like to call up our city auditor, Laura Dowd, who will talk about the recent onboarding audit that she completed in partnership with H.R. in the city manager's office. Speaker 2: Great. Thank you very much. Vice Mayor and City Council Members. Our office was requested to perform an audit in this critical area of human resources. And given my own staff's workload, we did contract out with a audit firm to conduct this performance on it. And the findings really boil down to three areas that generally the city's onboarding policies and policies and programs are and are adequate at this time. And we'd like to say that the city has also implemented some very positive aspects in their onboarding program and some best practices that the team found as they did benchmarks with other cities . And so we want to give them a lot of credit for having a very good, especially pre-employment onboarding process. And we're also very pleased that the city manager and human resources department have been very collaborative in this process and in agreement with the recommendations and have already taken significant steps to implement the recommendations that the audit has recommended. I would just like to briefly give an overview of a couple of those recommendations that the audit made and one in regarding the pre-employment. There were two recommendations made, and one was the additional transparency to be provided by the Human Resources Department in their hiring regarding background checks. And this could reduce the uncertainty and frustration experienced by departments when one of their potential employees was denied and human resources has already trained personnel from the city regarding the background process and that what they do in making their decisions. The other was to perform a cost benefit analysis be performed regarding the value and relevancy of medical screenings for all employees. The City of Long Beach was only one of the six benchmark cities that did medical screenings for every employee for the post-employment on board onboarding. The city's post-employment approach is very is less formalized than the city's pre-employment onboarding steps, and the recommendations include for the city to develop a written onboarding policy. Or guide where in onboarding roles and responsibilities and expectations are defined and communicated to department managers, administrative officers and key personnel, and also to provide the city wide new employee orientation on a monthly basis. This has been a very successful program that the city has established, and so we recommend them to do it on a monthly basis, and they are doing that on a on a monthly basis. And it's been a very successful program. The other is to to have a little better tracking of the attendance at these new employee orientations so we know who's there and who's not attending and why, and to develop a policy that would standardize informal performance check ins of employment to ensure new employees are provided with sufficient feedback. And lastly, to develop an exit interview policy that would include a standard employee exit survey. Exit surveys and interviews can provide a valuable information to improve onboarding and employee retention. And then there's also a section on the elected officials onboarding. And we all know that onboarding is not only important to city staff and city management, but also for elected officials, as we are, and also for our staff's work. We're not subject to the city manager's onboarding policies. So the recommendations that the audit recommends is that with the mayor's lead, city council should adopt a policy establishing an official city council onboarding process and develop a comprehensive onboarding or orientation program and materials for council members. The second was the mayor's office should develop a separate onboarding document guide that is more tailored to Legislative Department at will employees providing pertinent information and guidance on various topics, including both requirements and voluntary steps. Essentially better guidance on what out will employees should know about city policies and requirements. All elected officials should encourage their new employees to participate in the relevant citywide onboarding activities, such as the new employee orientation. And that concludes my presentation. I do want to thank the city departments and the council members and the mayor and the departments and especially the city employees that participated in this audit. There were a lot of interviews that were conducted and surveys that were conducted. We received good feedback from the employees who participated, and we appreciate the agreement to all of the recommendations that this audit made. And I hope to assist in the collaboration of developing policies and procedures so that we can all fulfill the important duties and responsibilities that we have to public service. Speaker 4: Thank you. Mrs. Dao, thank you very much. Speaker 3: Thank you. Speaker 4: Are you through? Speaker 7: And that concludes our staff report. Speaker 4: Thank you. Speaker 9: Thank you, Elizabeth. Councilmember. Do you want to speak first? Okay, thanks. Again, I want to thank all the departments that worked on this. I know I'd kind of expected to see the recommendations and timelines in a PowerPoint, but that's okay. I think the information that was provided is really fantastic. I want to thank the work around trauma informed and really being able to explain that to the entire council and to our community that when we get those trainings and that information, we're better able to assist not only our community members that we get a lot of calls , particularly in the second with members of our community that might need a little extra handholding. And so I'm sure that this trainings will help us in addition to our staff. And so we'll really connect the trauma informed with our practices. What I read in the consultant's report, you know, I think highlighted exactly what we kind of knew, which was that we, you know, doing medical evaluations for every single employee, being one of only six cities that does that. I can tell you as someone that's hired a lot of employees here and it's someone that talks to a lot of workers when they go through that process, if somebody tries to get hired and they take anxiety medicine or they have something on that, they don't use that often, but they feel that they have to disclose that . Then they have to talk to H.R. about it. Then they have to go to their doctor and get it, get a letter stating what it's for. And often whenever we're dealing with whether it's our mental health, which all of us, you know, have mental health challenges at different times, it really has been triggering for a lot of our employees. So I really am happy to see that they recommend removing that if it's not needed in that department. And I'm assuming that some of the departments might be Fire and PD that really need to go through the medical. I'm sure there are other departments, but I did want to ask one question because it was brought up through our health department. It was brought up through several other community members. And I'm not doing this to be to trigger a whole debate, but it's really just a question. Cannabis is legal now. Alcohol's legal. We don't test for alcohol. Is the city going to look at a cannabis policy or are they going to continue that for the entire city? Are they exploring it only for certain members of our employees? Speaker 7: So we were also excited to see the editors recommendations about the medical. That's something in management that we've had questions about for a while. And it was part of the review that we were undertaking. And so this put a finer point on it and provided some data and some benchmarks. So we agree. One of the things that medical has done was reduce worker's comp costs that we do as a city, have one of the lower workers comp costs. But it also, you know, is an impediment to hiring because we're doing it for everybody and not as selective. So we are interested in some positions have to go through a medical and then others you can be more of in is a judgment call of which ones do we really want for workers comp purposes to go through a medical or not? To your question of of medical marijuana, that is something we're going to be looking at as we go through this. So it is illegal substance. And for some workers, it will absolutely be for forbidden because it's under DOJ guidelines and that type of thing. But we don't know the answer to that yet. But if we're not doing medical testing of every employee, we wouldn't necessarily need to do it through the background check. That said, you're not allowed to be intoxicated at work, whether it's illegal drug or an illegal drug. So we would still have the ability to do reasonable suspicion testing and those types of things to make sure if you're at work, you are not you are not inebriated. Speaker 9: Just like with any substance, alcohol, pain pills, anything else. So I just want to hope that we as a city are looking through that lens of trying to make it aligned with with policies as much as possible. Other things that I just want to highlight because they weren't talked about, other onboarding processes that they've done is around your driver's history. And so if you're not required to drive for your job or you do, you have to have that background check. And I know with one of our employees, that was something that was ten years ago that came up and it stalled her onboarding for four weeks. And so I really am happy to see, you know, this third party do this audit and give us some of those recommendations. Other points that I'd like to highlight in the report about some of the vacancies. I know that we had someone in public comment speak about our animal shelter. And I just want to highlight, I think we have eight vacancies or eight positions slotted for our animal shelter, but only two of them are filled right now. Is that correct? I'm sorry to spring that question on you, but. Speaker 7: I don't know if we have that today. Vacancies really are a snapshot in time. There are times when we're fully staffed. There's times when we have vacancies. We don't purposely hold vacancies, you know, under normal circumstances. But we also have things called vacancy targets that the council puts in the budget. So we may have eight vacancies, but it depends on the list and where we are in the hiring process. Our goal is to be fully staffed whenever possible. Speaker 9: Of course. And I guess when when staff comes back with a report later in the year on what they've accepted, is some of the recommendations really looking at are there opportunities like if we have a veterinary school nearby, is our Parks and Rec team able to work with that school to try to fill vacancies in that department working with our workforce development? Those are some of the topics that I wanted to to talk about on that. And then I am going to ask on some of the vacancies. Also, we know that sometimes we have attrition. Obviously, I know in the past we've had a tuition fund and I just wanted to get clarity and history on that very quickly. There's something to kind of retain some employees or upward mobility. Speaker 7: So tuition fund is one of the items that is in in the MCU. It's currently under a grievance procedure right now from IBM. So there is an active grievance that is going through the process on that. In terms of funding, it has not been funded since, I believe, 2005. So it was one of those things that went away could be 26, but it went away during the three year budget process as we did a three year plan. So we have not had active for for most departments, you know, funded program. Speaker 9: I know that I'm over my time, I will say that I want to make sure that the H.R. practices that the mayor's office has talked about for legislative are things that we also have for our city attorney, city prosecutor and our city auditor as well. Thank you guys very much for a great work. Speaker 4: Thank you, Mrs. Price. Speaker 2: Thank you. And I want to thank my colleague, Councilmember Pearce, for bringing this item, this the series of items forward. I think it's evaluating, allowing us and actually forcing us to evaluate some of our practices and make them better and adjust to adjust them to modern times and modern realities in the workforce. And I think it was very educational. I think staff for the reports tonight, I thought it was really great, especially all the work around trauma informed practices. I think I think felt the older some of us get, the more we realize childhood trauma impacts the lens with which you view the whole world and your reaction to things and your sensitivities and your triggers and the like. So the more we can create a supportive work environment where we're working at understanding the core of the person rather than the exterior the person, I think the better will be as a as a workforce. So thank you. Speaker 4: Thank you. Councilman Austin. Speaker 6: Thank you so much. I want to thank also Councilmember Peers. Speaker 5: For bringing this forward. You know, this could have been. Speaker 6: Literally three separate items all in once and but but very substantive. I want to thank staff. Speaker 5: For their very. Speaker 6: Very detailed report. I know a lot of work went into researching and and especially the city auditor the audit team for their work here. Speaker 5: I'm looking at and I think we all learn something here, particularly about being trauma informed or being a trauma informed city. But from from. Speaker 6: An employee standpoint, I'm concerned about the vicarious trauma, particularly on many of our our employees who who are dealing with very, very tough situations on a daily basis, not just our public safety, but parks and recreation, our health department employees. And I think this is something that we need to continue to watch and keep in mind. Speaker 5: And yeah, overall. Thank you. Speaker 6: Great report. Excellent item. Looking forward, I think we're going to be a better city administration as a result. Speaker 4: Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Nelson. And in public comment on this item. I have. I only have one, Mr. Cantrell. Very good. You. It's good you. Okay. And a question. No. Okay. The only one. Devon. Devon, you. Speaker 5: Good evening, Honorable Vice. Speaker 6: Mayor and City Council. Thank you for taking the time to hear this item. My name is Devin Ambler and I'm a representative of the IAM. So this report is through and the recommendations we think will move Long Beach forward so that we can continue providing world class services which our members provide on the daily. Speaker 5: This is going to give. Speaker 6: The employees the support they need to better do their jobs, and it's going to help management because we know that filling vacancies is very difficult. And to get your job done, you need those vacancies filled and that's really important. So we want to make sure that you're taking all of the recommendations very seriously. Speaker 5: But we did have a couple of notes here. Firstly, we actually haven't. Speaker 6: Seen any part timers at the new employee orientations monthly. We would love to have them there. So, you know, I know that we'd heard that they weren't coming to it, but we haven't seen them. So if we can work that out, they'd be fantastic. Make sure they're really part of the loop and are informed in everything. But also when it comes to when we're talking about judgment calls with medical testing and everything like that before onboarding, I don't like the term judgment call. I think we need sound metrics to make sure that people are being treated fairly. When you do judgment calls, that leads to disparate treatment, and we already know that certain communities are impacted by that more than other communities. But other than that, we're really thankful that this is happening. We think it's going to be fantastic for everybody, for the Council, for management, for the staff, and most importantly, for the communities we service. So thank you. Speaker 4: Thank you very much, Kevin. See, there's no more speakers now. Excuse me. Yes. Speaker 9: Smile when you look at me. I have two other comments. One that I was supposed to comment on earlier on the original recommendation. The second item on their request of the city auditor to conduct an audit of the process for employees, interns, volunteers, commissioners, elected officials to be informed of their rights as it related to discrimination, harassment and retaliation. I believe at that meeting, Councilmember Gonzales also talked about an online website similar to L.A. and I don't expect to report on that today, but I did want to flag it publicly and just say that we'll be following up with the H.R. department and how that's going. I know that there's an ethics audit coming, is that correct? What's the timeline on that ethics audit? You can just, like, yell at and I'll repeat it for you. Speaker 2: Next month or two. It will be. Speaker 9: Wonderful. Thank you. And again, with this item, we really just trying to make Long Beach, you know, the best city to work for, which I think is is a great goal for us to have. So thank you for your patience. Speaker 7: Councilmember We have an answer. Alex Bass was on the how many harassment trainings you've been doing recently. Speaker 8: And thank you, Tom. Well, I want to just share some information at the new employee orientation. When we onboard employees, they are provided with copies of policies and directed to where they can find the policies related to harassment, discrimination in the workplace, workplace violence and so on. And I also just wanted to share that so far where we're undergoing our campaign to train all managers and supervisors as required by state law. And to date, we've already trained 1198 supervisors and managers. And this year we were also mandated by the state to train all city employees. And today we've held 28 sessions and train 2548 city employees on prevention of workplace harassment. So in total, we've trained 3746 employees, and we're going to continue our efforts to ensure that all city employees are trained in this area. Speaker 9: Over halfway there. Thank you so much. Great work, guys. Speaker 4: Thank you very much. Let's see if there's more to speak as you please cast your vote.

Agenda Item

Recommendation to receive and file a report back from Human Resources, City Auditor, and Health and Human Services Department on the Human Resource Audit and Trauma-Informed City that was originally approved by City Council on September 18, 2018.

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_11192019_19-1163

Speaker 0: Russian case. Speaker 4: Now we're going to move to item 16, please, with the item club. Speaker 0: Item 16 is is a communication from Councilwoman Price Council member. So Pinol and Vice Mayor Andrew's recommendation to request city manager to work with police department and multi departmental team to report back on the feasibility of creating teams that are on call to work with city departments. Speaker 4: Thank you. Count on price. Speaker 2: Thank you. I'm asking my colleagues to support me on this item as our ongoing efforts to try to create an environment where homeless individuals are being offered services and having incentives to allow them to get into services with some provisions regarding their property in the city of Long Beach. As we all know, we're taking huge steps to improve our ability to provide assistance to those in need while also minimizing the impacts homelessness has to the communities. Tonight, I would like to have us look into the possibility of Long Beach taking another step to improve our ability to address homelessness. We have an amazing staff and city team and our homeless outreach team, our police department, our quality of life officers, our fire departments, heat heart teams, and they work tirelessly every day to get homeless people the help they need. We've seen over and over that getting people into services is the most successful way of helping them to make major life changes and long term transformations. Through rehab, shelter or bridge housing or through detox treatment, they can obtain the first steps they need to get on that journey to recovery and or the assistance that they need to make life time changes. It can be time consuming and difficult work to convince our first responders and our homeless outreach team to finally accept services. And we want to make it easier for individuals experiencing homelessness to be willing to accept those services. One of the hurdles that I have personally observed through many homeless outreach ride alongs is that people living outdoors do not want to park from their belongings. Their belongings can, in most cases not be brought to the treatment center, which forces the individuals to choose between getting help or keeping their property. We should be able to offer another option where we have a dedicated team that can be called to inventory, collect transport and store the property for people, giving them peace of mind that they're not giving up their belongings in order to accept services. Instead that the city is working to help make accepting those services less difficult. This could be done for any part of our multi department team that works to address the issue of homelessness from police to fire to our health department. This could also be used to assist police when conducting arrest or when quality of life officers are transporting someone to a treatment center or facility. It could be used when our Hart team responds to a call and we want to get someone into the help that they need. This could be used when homeless outreach teams meet with an individual for the 17th time and they finally agree that they're going to enter into a program that gets them back on the right track. But they don't want to abandon their property, which is incredibly reasonable. Any department who would want to work to safely itemize and store property would be able to contact a team, a city team for that purpose, making it easier for staff members, working to get someone into services to be able to focus their attention on the individual. Removing this reason for someone to refuse services helps us make it more likely and more attractive for people to get into the services that they need by accepting services on the spot. It also helps free up existing city staff working with homeless individuals to do their work and not be forced to spend long periods of time inventorying property. Further, this inventory team could help us be more proactive in getting public spaces cleaned up by giving individuals experiencing homelessness greater confidence and security that their property will be kept safely in a secure location. It's a major way that we can reduce barriers to accepting services, help our multi department teams be more efficient and effective, and improve the maintenance of our public spaces. And with the purchasing of the building that will become the navigation center, we have an opportunity here. As a city, we can be more efficient with our specialized staff in ways that help city staff be more effective in police work, public space maintenance, providing homeless rehabilitation services and maintenance of our parking spaces. I believe this team could this inventory team could really become a huge asset to the city as we continue to work together to better help the homeless and to maintain our public spaces. So I ask my colleagues to approve this item, which allows us to explore the possibility of creating inventory teams to assist our first responders. Speaker 1: Thank you, Councilwoman Price, Councilmember Supernova. Speaker 10: Thank you. Great report, Councilman. I think that this is all about giving support to those who do the outreach and giving them a broader range of resources to help folks. And who knows? With this in place, maybe that average number of 17 visits will come down. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you, Ms.. Mary Andrews. Speaker 4: Yes, thank you, Mayor. Council County Councilwoman Price. I think that this is an excellent idea to be able to help our homeless situation, because a lot of individuals do not want to depart from anything that they have created or stored. So I want to thank you for bringing this item forward. And I think any time that we can encourage homeless individuals to accept service is worth exploring. I am sharing with you all of the photos. If you can get a chance to see those. I have photos of this ongoing encampment along nine corridor in my district. I've gone out and spoke to these individuals. Some want to help. Some do not. But if they can make it easier for them to trace the transition and openness, this mechanism can help them. It's a lot of individuals and I know a few individuals pray to God that you never, ever have to be homeless, that you will be able to understand that a lot of these individuals. They're not really looking for help. But we're going to continue to stay and do everything we can to try to get them any kind of help that they need. So I thank you very much, Mr. Rice, for bringing this item forward, and I will totally support it. Speaker 1: I don't see any public comment, any members of the public here on this item here. So we go ahead and please cast your votes.

Agenda Item

Recommendation to request City Manager to work with our Police Department and the Multi-Departmental Team to report back on the feasibility of creating collection, inventory, and storage teams that are on-call to work with City departments so that those departments can efficiently maintain public spaces, conduct arrests, provide services to those with large numbers of belongings, and improve the ease for individuals to accept services knowing they will not be abandoning their belongings.

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_11192019_19-1156

Speaker 0: Council member Oranga. Bush and Kerry. Speaker 1: You think the agenda is complete? We're going back to the last two items. It'll be 19 and 24. So we're going to go to 19/1, then 24. The new business. And I believe we've heard all other items say correct. Speaker 0: Yeah. 19 and 24. Speaker 1: So I a number 19. Speaker 0: Item 19 is a report from Economic Development recommendation to approve the relocation plan for 684136845 Atlantic Avenue District nine. Speaker 1: Okay. Thank you. Mr. Richards, do you want a staff report concerning no compensation? No. Okay. So most definitely do have. We do have some public comment on item 19. So. Marsha Durbin. Harold Durbin. Freddy McGowan. Art Figueroa, Darren Erin. Tina Soso if you could all please come up. Those first six speakers. And we have over ten speakers, so it'll go down to 130. Speaker 6: I was like, We're going to use that report. Speaker 1: Okay, well, I guess we're going to self-report. So if I can just have you guys take a seat, please. We're going to we are going to do a staff report first. Apologize for that. Speaker 7: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. John Geisler, our economic development director, has a staff report that we can prepare. Speaker 4: Provide honorable mayor and members of the city council. Thank you so much. So this report actually pertains to what we call Atlantic Farms or 6841 through 68, 45 Atlantic Avenue. We recently purchased this property as part of a project to eventually build our homeless shelter. And I'm going to ask Mary Torres, our property services officer, to give you a breakdown of what the relocation requirements are for existing tenants in what we have for you to approve tonight. Speaker 8: Thank you, Mayor. Members of the city council. The item before you, like John said, was is the adoption of a relocation plan. The city did acquire the property this past July. There are current. The current tenants occupying the site are Eddy's Liquor One Residential Tenant College of Instrument Technology. KBIA 6845. And there are nine individuals who park their semi-trucks occasionally. Of those tenants, Eddie's liquor and residential tenant. The residential tenant will be vacating January 5th of 2020. KB 86845 is not being able is not being required to relocate at this time. Of the nine individuals who park at the site, only one has come forward to submit a claim for relocation benefits. And the city is currently working with the College of Instrument Technology in the Water Department on a relocation site. Under California law. Prior to any displacement of tenants, a relocation plan must be prepared and submitted for approval by the local legislative body. The relocation plan outlines the needs and characteristics of the displaced population, the available relocation resources and the city's program to provide assistance to each affected displaced party as well as the benefits available to them . The relocation plan must be available for public review and comment for at least 30 days prior to consideration by the City Council for approval. On October 3rd, 2019, a notification letter was sent to all onsite occupants, indicating the relocation plan was available for public review. Comments were received during the three day review period, which ended November 31, 2019, and are included within the relocation plan for consideration and adoption. The recommendation before you is to adopt the relocation plan. This concludes my staff report. I'm available to answer any questions as well as the cities relocation consultant Overland Pacific and Color. Speaker 4: Thank you. Is that it? That's fine. Could we have those speakers back up to the guys just place? Marcus Harrell. But he. You have a 90 seconds. You. How? How long? 90 seconds. Speaker 3: They cut it in half because we. Speaker 4: Have over ten speakers. Speaker 3: Good evening. I'm sorry Mr. Mayor is not here, but Mr. Vice Mayor, city council members. My name is Marsha Durbin, and I serve in the city of Long Beach as the director of the College of Instrument Technology, also known as City. We are one of the affected displaced businesses business owners at 6841 Atlantic Avenue in Long Beach, where a small family run business. And we have been very successfully training Long Beach unemployed veterans and homeless residents for more than 30 years. We worked for the Long Beach Pacific Gateway and other workforce investment agencies to train and place participants in a heavy equipment truck driver or crane operator career. We have a success rate of 96% employment and a good jobs that pay them good enough that they can buy their own homes, cars and etc.. Many graduates come back and tell us how they were able to buy a house or a car for the first time in their lives. Many were homeless. Most were collecting unemployment. And I see my time's almost over. We need what we need from you. We need more money for relocation. And we need a place to go. We have to get approval from the Bureau of Postsecondary Education for the new location. We don't have a location confirmed yet, and we need that desperately. We need your help. Speaker 4: Thank you very much. Speaker 3: Thank you. Speaker 4: Yes. Harold, please. Yeah. We started at the College of Instrument Technology and a joint venture with Long Beach City College 35 years ago. And unfortunately, I made a big mistake. I left Long Beach City College after two years because their emphasis of what their thought education should be and mine was different. We started the joint venture to have people trained, so when we hired them, they could actually go to work. We wanted the only thing that we'd have to tell them was where to punch your timecard and where the bathrooms were. We wanted them trained to that level so they were productive. Day one For the last seven years, we've had over 93% people actually going to work and. The last three years is 96%. And that's not internships, apprenticeships or enterprise zones. Those are not real jobs. They don't have to keep them after they get that federal or state funding. 80% of our graduates make 80 to 120000 after 20 weeks of training. When we were in Long Beach City College, they wanted a lesson plan for every day that put everybody in the same package. We left there because that is not productive. If you're a businessman, you would never do it that way. You learn every person to go at their own speed and their success rate. Our results proved that I was right. Thank you very much. Then the next speaker. Speaker 5: Very honorable counselor. My name is Freddy McGowan. I am a 2016 city veteran graduate. I'm one of the success stories. I served with the United States Marine Corps for nearly 21 years. I served around the globe as a staff NCO upon graduation. Prior to retiring, I didn't have a place to go. I was at the unemployment office and with my and I saw the city flier with my 80% disabilities, I didn't have the skills or the knowledge of where to go, where to be hirable. The so once I enrolled at City, City gave me the skills that I needed to succeed and society along with other fellow veterans that were homeless. And I am testifying on their behalf that they're not here because they're successful. Men and women out there serving again in this country are successful civilians. Thank you to city. I respectfully ask a long, long beach Long Beach City Council that enough relocation allocations be distributed so the city can remain successful in relocating. Also, US veterans are helping us all out. Thank you so. Speaker 4: Much. Thank you. Thank you very much, sir. Next speaker, I think we are. All right, guys. Speaker 5: So I didn't go. Uh, thanks very much. Look. Speaker 4: I think we have to figure out where. Speaker 5: I work for college measurement technology. Oh, sorry. You guys have cerebral palsy. Speaker 4: Excuse me, sir. Um, so Seattle has helped. Speaker 5: Me painting with women. But that's not where it's gonna stay and help all kinds of people. Speaker 6: From all facets of lives. Speaker 5: From Long Beach City to the surrounding cities. They've helped. Tons of communities get jobs in the crane industry, heavy equipment industry. And if that's not for available for the people, it's just a humongous disservice. Not only. Sorry, guys. Not only for them, but for my colleagues that are all sitting around me right now. Citi's relocation is one of the best things you could put money towards. City has done great things for the community that have potential impact for generations. Thanks. Speaker 4: Thank you very much, Darren and Tina. Speaker 5: How are you doing? My name is Dan Roy Aaron, and I'm a graduate and I'm also a truck driving instructor for the school. After completing the program in 2015 at Harmony. As an instructor, I appreciate you. The city of Long Beach would help see it and finding a new location so that we can continue to serve our community. The majority of the people that I train are people from the military, people who have been incarcerated for many years, people who have people that have many problems finding employment and people that come to the school that are homeless. I was one of these people because the city hired me. Now I can also give back to our community and you know, thank you for your time. Speaker 4: Thank you very much. In a place. Speaker 8: Hi, my name is Tina Swasey. So I am my Cathy Workforce graduate. Speaker 2: I worked for. Speaker 3: A major alarm. Speaker 8: Security company for 26 years and then administration. Speaker 3: And then I was laid off knowing that I was how do I knowing that I needed to be retrained. And then another field I found information on Katie and I started the trucking program. I graduated and Katie. Speaker 8: Offered me a position to train other students in trucking. So I've been working there for ten years. I'm an instructor. I prep the students for DMV on their brakes and future to get there as CDL. I am 59. Speaker 3: Years old and the city has no place to be relocated. It will jeopardize my job as well as my coworkers. I respectfully ask the Long Beach community to ensure. Speaker 8: That city receives sufficient. Speaker 3: Funds for a relocation. Thank you. Speaker 4: Thank you to the next speaker, Matt and Senior Principal Jacob. Speaker 8: Hello. My name is Francine. I've been. Speaker 3: Jabbed about Brexit. Speaker 8: Since 2015. I started CRT when I was about 20 with little experience in the work. Speaker 0: Field and. Speaker 9: Said he gave me that chance to grow as an. Speaker 0: Employee and most importantly. Speaker 8: Help people find employment. Speaker 0: It's been a privilege to have the experience. Speaker 8: Experience over 90% plays a role in each of their programs. Speaker 3: I really do hope that the City. Speaker 8: Of Long Beach is able to find a relocation facility, not just for my job for for other students that are unemployed and the veterans returning home. Thank you. Speaker 4: Thank you very much. Jacob here. Jacob. Jason. Oh, I said Jason. Excuse me. Yes. My name is Jason. I reside in the ninth district as as I have for nearly ten years now. I am a c i t graduate who graduated from the who was trained and certified at the location at 6041 Atlantic. They are what we call the Atlantic Yard. I had gone to school in Long Beach City College and graduated from there with the horticulture degree. I had had some problems in finding a steady job and so I decided to go to city. I was trained and certified there and the training that they provide is top notch when we go as to get our class a driver's license at the DMV, I was shocked at how many of the other trade schools had their students turning around and walking that walk of shame away from the DMV without even getting to go on the road. But City provides their students with the skills that they need to make sure that they are going to pass. And that is why their completion rate and job placement rate is astronomical. I mean, if you look at our community colleges, the graduation rate is barely 13, 18%, yet they are providing jobs, high quality paying jobs, which now actually work at Long Beach City College and have been employed there. And so I ask if you do go through it, I strongly oppose it. But if you do go through, please postpone it to allocate them proper funding. Thank you, sir. Speaker 1: Thank you. Next up is artist tutorial and an after party is Harry Durban and then Elizabeth Dawson. And then how to protect those folks in the lineup, please. Next up, artist guitarist Harry Durbin, Elizabeth Dawson and Howard Pratt. The police line up at the podium in that order right now. That would be great. Go ahead. Speaker 8: Good evening. My name is art historian. I'm the assistant director at the College of Instrument Technology. I work directly with programs such as Pacific Gateway to receive referrals. Speaker 2: And provide intake into our programs. Speaker 8: I'm also the liaison with the California State Bureau of Postsecondary Private Postsecondary Education. In the event of relocation, I will ensure that we are compliant with BP during this critical move in transition. I'm also the liaison with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the VA. We started discussions with the VA already regarding our move, but we can't move forward with any type of review or. Speaker 2: Approval. Speaker 8: Until we have confirmed training site and also they require BPP approval first. So as you can see, the 90 day notification is very stressful at this point because we don't have a secured site. So we ask you to consider that when you do give notification, having sufficient relocation, time and support will enable us to hopefully make it through the period we want to be in. Compliance and to work with the city and with the city of Long Beach is help. We hope to secure a site immediately, make this transition smoothly so it does not affect our students and we can uphold our mission, which, as you've heard, is helping our veterans are unemployed or homeless or underemployed reenter the workforce with meaningful careers. I respectfully asked the Long Beach City Council to consider the timeframe and to receive sufficient relocation allocations. Speaker 2: Thank you very much. Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Elizabeth Thorsen. I'm sorry. Eric Durbin, the mayor was with Belgium. Speaker 6: Hello. Harry Durbin. I want to thank Mary Tours and Mr. Kaiser for working with us so closely as they have been to help us to find a new location. And since they've been working as closely as they have, we have found some spots that may work out, but nothing that's concrete. And that's what our major issue is, is that we need to be able to let the BPP know which you guys are familiar with. We have to let VA Veteran Affairs know where we're going to move to and they have to approve the site before we can do it. We can't just sit and say, Hey, we're going to move there tomorrow and go there. So it's like she said, a stressful. Speaker 5: Process that we're very worried about because we want to be able to keep. Speaker 6: And to continue providing the high level of service that we've been doing for so many years, thanks to my family and and the efforts that my dad saw way back when of a person needed to be able to be trained and then go directly to work in a short amount of time. Our course has run from 5000 to $30000 that it cost for people that come. It takes anywhere from eight weeks to 20 weeks and they go to work. I mean, they literally get jobs. I had a guy that took my eight week course level one, but we got his class license and his heavy equipment certification. He went day one and started off with the union, starting off at $52 an hour. So it works. It works over and over again. That's my slogan that I tell guys. It's not about what you want to do. It's about what you want to do on the weekend. And so you can make enough money to do what you want in your spare time. Thank you very. Speaker 1: Much. Thank you so much. Elizabeth Dawson, please. And then Howard Pratt. Speaker 3: Good evening. Speaker 4: Mayor Garcia and City Council. Speaker 3: The College of Internet Technology is a school that has been located at 6841 Atlantic Avenue. They have been paying the rent. They have been training folks that are underserved from the city of Long Beach. They have a longstanding contract with Pacific Gateway training. Long Beach residents. And they do it successfully. Our issue is the relocation plan that you all will be approving does not have sufficient funding allocated for the College of Instrument Technology to relocate $20,000. If you take a look at the items for the budget that were put there, an estimate of $150,000. Speaker 4: This is a unique program. Speaker 3: They have equipment that is more than 20 tons. It cannot just be stuck on the road and transported to that Long Beach water site. It cost an upwards of $20,000 to move all their equipment. We are asking the council and the mayor that we can work closely with Mr. Keisler and. In order for the proper relocation of the College of Consumer Technology. Thank you so much to you, Mr. Pratt. Speaker 1: So Pratt here may know that we will close public comment and then go to Councilmember Richardson. Speaker 6: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So, first of all, thank everybody for coming coming down and making your case. That's what city council and democratic process is for. You know, I was just at the site just this morning, and I'll probably go over there and, you know, look at different things, you know, probably once every few weeks just to take a look. And, you know, I have a few questions for staff based on, you know, what the issues that you've raised. So. Mr.. MODICA So tell me about, you know, what the process was to determine what the amount of relocation is that these the tenants of the site receive. Speaker 4: Councilmember. Absolutely. So I'm going to actually have Mary talk a little bit about the process specifically for Katie that we're engaged in. And we also have our our consultant, OPC, Overland Pacific Cutler here to answer some technical questions if we need that. So I'll start with Mary. Speaker 8: Thank you. The the relocation estimates that are included in the relocation plan are based on a general assessment of the current condition. Once a suitable replacement site is located, then OPC works with the tenant to actually identify the costs that need to be taken into account for relocation to a specific site. So the relocation plan, again, is just a general assessment based on sort of an ideal relocation site. But once if I shouldn't say if, but if we can come to an agreement with the water department and get them onto that site, then OPC will work and identify the benefits and the costs that are associated with their moving expenses and then that will be incorporated into their their benefits. Speaker 6: Within this plan is the plan to help assist identifying a site and then identifying the relocation support to make sure that that transition happened, correct? Speaker 2: Yes. Speaker 6: Okay. I'd like to keep an eye on this. I like to keep an eye on this. I'd like to make sure that Mr. Geisler, we we communicate. We do a better job communicating the expectations with with the tenant so that we understand it. And just to you so first of all, you know, my family's been in the trucking business a long time. I know the way that trucking can transform lives. I know that, you know, there are you know, within the industry, it's very forgiving. You can have not the best record and go get a class A driver license and all that matters is a driving record after that. Right. And so, you know, I have folks in my in my you know, in my family involved in the business. I've been involved in the business, Reefers, Drive-In, you know, Sandbox, you name it. I pretty much know about the industry, so I get it. I understand if there's something we can do to help with this transition, and I understand that this is a bit uncomfortable. This is sort of a bigger picture issue that we have to address. And I know that this is difficult for a lot of people. So we want to make sure that we're fair about this process and that we're communicating and being clear about expectations. If there's something we can do, in my understanding, coming into tonight, that that there's potentially a site, there's anything we can do to make that happen. You have my support there. Thank you. Speaker 1: I think there's a motion in a second member. Please go out and cast your votes. Speaker 0: Bush and Kerry.

Agenda Item

Recommendation to approve the Relocation Plan for 6841-6845 Atlantic Avenue (Assessor Parcel Numbers 7116-019-029 and -036). (District 9)

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_11192019_19-1132

Speaker 1: Thank you. That concludes that item with item 24. Speaker 0: Adam, 24, is communication from City Attorney. Recommendation to declare an ordinance amending the Long Beach Municipal Code by adding chapter as amended by the City Council prohibiting the sale of certain flavored tobacco products within the city of Long Beach. Read the first time and lead over to the next regular meeting of the City Council for Final Reading City. Speaker 1: I do have some public comment. Did you want to do any comments first, Councilwoman? Speaker 2: I have no comments. Speaker 1: Okay. If these following folks could come forward, I think it's Hymie Rojas or Jimmy Rojas. James Nino. George Johnson. Sanjiv, come on. And Imran Khan. Mohammed, I sorry if I mispronounce some of those names. If you can just come forward in that order, please. I'm in. Rojas. James Nino. George Johnson. Sanjeev Kumar. Imran Khan. Muhammad. Speaker 5: He's come forward. Time I went to dinner. Speaker 1: James At dinner. Speaker 5: James Hi, James. Nino. I just want to thank the council for giving me an opportunity to voice my opinion as a small business owner. And thanks for actually taking in and, you know, revising the ordinance. I know now I'm a firm believer that one person or one voice. Speaker 6: Can make a change or a difference. And I just want to thank you guys and I'm in support of this ordinance. Thank you, guys. Speaker 1: Thank you. George Johnson. Speaker 6: On behalf of who could Chamber of Commerce, a small, grassroots organization, I would like to thank you on your proposed amendments to this ordinance, and we give you our full support. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you. It. Sanjiv, come on. Speaker 8: Thank you for. Speaker 3: Giving me an opportunity to be. Speaker 4: Here. So I'm a small business owner here. You know, I have a 7-Eleven franchisee, which I owns with my wife, Sue, who happens to be a 21 year Air Force veteran from the U.S. Air Force. We put all of our savings in here, and now it means we just need the. Speaker 8: Menthol cigarets are. Speaker 4: Regulated by the FDA. So we don't know how after having all this regulation made the difference, we are going to. Speaker 3: Make on that. Speaker 4: So the other request. Speaker 3: Will be, you know. Speaker 4: Looking to see, you know, how you guys manage. You can, you know, protect us that, you know. Speaker 3: We can still survive in the business. Speaker 4: That's my request. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you. Is the next speaker. Here is Imran. Please come forward. Speaker 6: The height of a city council. My name is Imran Khan and I too am a 7-Eleven franchisee. Me along with my dad. My dad has had the business in Long Beach for over 30 years now. We are in Belmont Shaw and, you know, we've been there forever. We've employed a lot of members of the community. We have, you know, always paid taxes. We you know, we we we also have a job. He was saying that we want to request that you guys look at the menthol cigaret ban because the tobacco sales are a big part of our business. And menthol cigarets, too, are, you know, a huge part of that. And I don't want to see my customers, my loyal customers that have been with us for, you know, ten, 15, 20, 30 years. I don't want to see them going to different cities to get their their product, you know, going under SEAL Beach or up to San Pedro. I'd like to see them as customers for our business, you know, taking a seeing a loss in sales. Not only, you know, the tobacco sales would lead to, you know, a decrease in sales and ancillary products. You know, people come in and buy their cigarets or buy sodas to buy chips to buy, you know, food items along with their cigarets. So if the menthol cigarets, if they can't come to our business for it, all their sales would come down. And we you know, I just want to make sure that, you know, that doesn't I don't want to see that happen. You know, and I also want to let you guys know that, you know, 7-Eleven, we do have a pretty good system of checking IDs to make sure that everybody is over 21. We have we actually have to physically scan their I.D. It won't even let us sell them, you know, any jewel product, anything. We have to scan their I.D. to make sure that they are of age before, you know, buying that tobacco product. And, you know, lastly, you know, with the increase in minimum wage, with the increase in rents, I don't think our business can afford, you know, any more loss of sales. So please take that into consideration. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you. There is a motion and a second on the floor. This is, I believe, the second reading. And so, members, please cast your votes. Speaker 2: The first reading, because we made some amendments, some pretty substantial amendments. So I'd ask my colleagues to continue to support this item again in an effort to continue to work with our businesses while the policy and safety concerns continue to settle. We have made this a temporary ban, which is a lot more mitigated than what most other municipalities are looking at. So I would hope that that would carry some weight with our business owners who understand the predicament that we're in. With that, I'd ask my colleagues to support this item. Speaker 1: Thank you. Please cast your votes, members. Speaker 0: Council member Austin, Bush and Kerry.

Ordinance

Recommendation to declare ordinance amending the Long Beach Municipal Code by adding Chapter 5.94 prohibiting the sale of certain flavored tobacco products within the City of Long Beach, read and adopted as read. (Citywide)

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_11122019_19-1123

Speaker 0: Motion carries. Speaker 2: Thank you. Now we're going to be moving on to item 11, which is the transit occupancy tax item. Speaker 0: Communication for Mayor Garcia recommendation requests City Attorney to prepare an ordinance establishing a permanent increase of the transient occupancy tax at the rate of 1% to be placed on the ballot on the March 3rd, 2020 municipal election. Speaker 2: Thank you. Well, I want to I want to first thank everyone for being here. I know that we have a a group of folks here to to speak and to support this this measure. And I want to thank all the work that's gone into this item up until today. We do have a presentation from staff that's going to begin in just a few minutes. But I want to just say a few broader comments, and then I'm going to turn this over to our acting city manager, Mr. Modica. We all know that that arts and culture is incredibly important, not just to our economy here in Long Beach, but to the life of cities in general. Cities and great cities across the world and across the country have a thriving arts and thriving culture. We also know, and I think, that this council should be very proud that over the last few years there has been a focus and a commitment to the arts and to our tourism economy, which I'm going to speak to in just a minute. When you look at the arts as our as an institution and as activity that happens across our community, the city has been very committed to to our arts programs. We know that museum for our Long Beach Museum of Art, which houses art the city's art collection, has increased over the last few years thanks to the work of the Council and the commitment of the community. We know that we've been working with the Museum of Latin American Art to ensure that their facilities and masterplan continues to grow. And that's something this council did through its budget process. We funded permanently programs like POW Wow, which has brought over 100 murals across the city to really create an outdoor gallery of pieces and incredible artwork and murals. And most significantly, the council, just about a year and a half, two years ago adopted a new 1% for the arts program on public construction projects. That helps bring additional funding to our arts organizations. Last year alone, that 1% for the arts brought in about $218,000 for additional programing through the Arts Council and through the work that they do as well as are major arts organizations. But as we discussed then and as we know now. For our for our arts institutions to succeed, there has to be public investment. The truth is, is that we shouldn't look at the arts as a private enterprise. And art should not be expected to turn a profit to succeed or to maintain themselves. The arts are what we call what we know as the public good and all programs that that all programs and folks that are that work towards the public good know that there has to be government and public investment for those organizations to succeed. The truth is that funding for the arts across the country is viewed and invested through this public good lens. And it's something that we've done in Long Beach, but also that's something that we can do better or we know at the same time beyond having this investment in the arts, which is critical. We also are driven by our tourism economy, and most of that economic output and input comes through in and out of our amazing hotels that we have across the city, but also the convention center, our convention center, our Terrace Theater, the Beverly O'Neill Theater not just housed these great performances, but are bringing in hundreds of thousands of tourists, visitors, people that that book, hotels that fill our restaurants, that shop in our small businesses and make our city run. The tourism economy is an enormous part of the overall Long Beach economy, and we're very grateful to the work that the CVB does that the board works on. Of course, under the leadership of Steve, Steve Goodling and the entire board, the convention center and our tourism economy is also critical. Over the last couple of years, we've been having discussions, myself with Mr. Goodling, the art leaders of our arts organizations, about how we can provide more stable and long term funding for not just the arts , but for the convention center as well. What we have in front of us tonight, which Mr. Modica will present in a minute, is a transformational opportunity to support the arts and tourism in Long Beach in a way that we probably have not been able to do in decades. And so this is an important presentation. I'm very thankful that so many art patrons are here tonight to support this proposal. And I want to turn this over to Mr. Modica to kind of describe the proposal we have in front of us. Speaker 6: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I think the mayor laid out the framework pretty well for the case of why we're here tonight. And I wanted to walk through some of the details. So the culmination of all those efforts the mayor talked about really ended in October 22nd when we received a letter that went to the mayor and city council and a number of other entities from the LBE CVB, their hotels, and our major arts organizations really outlining that need for a stable source of financial support for the arts and for the convention center. And in that letter, it was requested that we consider a 1% increase in the total, which is the transient occupancy tax, which is also known as the hotel bed tax. And we'll talk a little bit about how that works in a second. And really the concept behind it is to provide funding for student arts education programs, community arts, cultural programs, local museums and theaters, convention and entertainment center. And that was the request from the groups. And so what is a transit occupancy tax? It's essentially the bait, the bed tax. It is for any occupancy of a guest room in a hotel, a motel in or a short term rental like an Airbnb or a Vibro. Anything less than 30 days is essentially in our ordinance what is counted under a transient occupancy tax. It is not paid by Long Beach residents unless they are using those facilities as a guest. So if you were to go rent a hotel room, you as a city resident would pay it. Otherwise you are not paying that tax. Essentially it is it is collected by the operator and remitted to the city. And our rate right now is 12%. 6% is a rate that goes to the general fund, and 6% is the rate that goes to what is called the Special Advertising and Promotions Fund. And that's the fund that is dedicated to advertising, promoting the city public relations and special events that cause that call positive attention to the city of Long Beach. So what would a 1% total mean? Essentially, the the proposal here is to increase the general fund portion of the total to go from 6% to 7%. So a 1% increase. And what that means in terms of dollars to a visitor renting a room, it's about a dollar 80 to $2 more per night. Even though that's a very small amount to the individual paying paying that tax, it actually does add up because we do have a lot of people staying in our hotels. And so that would be approximately $2.8 million annually that would be available to be able to allocate to two programs. That number will go up and down to what is a revenue source that fluctuates. But right now, we're estimating it at $2.8 million. So how do we compare to other cities? This is a chart that we wanted to provide the council to show that cities charge different rates and they charge them in different ways. So there's something called the top, which is what we were talking about, the transient occupancy tax. It ranges from about 10%, up to 15% in Anaheim, and we are currently at 12%. We also have and other cities do as well a business improvement district where the hotels actually tax themselves. It's a voluntary tax that they come together and assess themselves that they use to promote tourism. In Long Beach and in Long Beach, that is 3%. In some cities, it's they don't have it at all. In some cities like Huntington Beach, it goes as high as 4%. And so when you add those two together, you have a total tax. Anywhere from 10 to 17%. And in Long Beach, it's 15. A couple of other cities do things differently. They don't assess a percent. For example, in San Francisco, it's a nightly fee of $2.25, which then adds to their 14%. And in San Jose, it's also a nightly fee of $2.50. And so the measure in front of you would put us at about 16% if if that were brought to the voters and approved, we would be at 16. And how does that compare to a city of Los Angeles? Well, different cities actually charge different amounts for their hotels. And so on average, we are still about $100 less per night than rooms in the city of Los Angeles when you consider the entire cost of the room and the taxes that are associated with it. And so arts and culture, I think I think the mayor did a good job, a really good job of going through the key components of why arts and culture are important to cities. They are critical for our quality of life and to our identity and well-being. They also have a direct partnership with tourism and our conventions. And people like to come to cities where there's a lot going on and there's a rich arts culture. And as the city grows, which we are. The arts need to grow. And, you know, great arts make cities greater. And so, you know, there is a lot of benefit to having, you know, wonderful arts communities in Long Beach and and to do even more, although right now we do not have any fiscal resources, really, for growing that commitment. Do you want to take some time to talk about the convention center? The convention center is a wonderful asset in Long Beach. It brings a lot of business. It brings a lot of people in. But it also is an aging facility built in the sixties and seventies. It needs to be modernized to really support the range of arts that are possible in our in our artistic climate, as well as the other things that really bring in revenue to the city. We want to become we are a preferred destination for many organizations, but really they keep coming because we provide that first level, first class level experience and we want to continue that. So we recently done some study out of the convention center. We have been maintaining it and putting in dollars, but it is below what we need to be doing to bring it up to a level that, you know, that is sufficient. We have today over $50 million in critical needs at the facility. And that's really just the bare bones, not even the things that that bring in additional business. So there is clearly a need there. And what you're being asked to look at tonight is also what's called a fiscal emergency declaration. This is very similar to what we did under a measure. And these numbers you've seen before. This is to really point out that the city does not have additional resources to invest in this area or even to invest in our basic infrastructure or other basic services. We are looking at shortfalls over the next coming years and do not expect that there is going to be room for enhancements. And so Proposition 218 requires that new and increased taxes and extensions voted on at a regular general election of the city unless the council adopts a finding of emergency by unanimous vote. And so that is what is before you tonight is to have that declaration of a fiscal emergency or at least give direction to the council or to the attorney to come back with that next week so that this can be considered in March 2020. Staff supports that. So the sooner these are in front of the voters, the sooner you're going to have clarity of whether the voters want to do this. And that helps us prepare for our and prepare for the next budget. And so next steps, if you give us direction tonight, we would be returning to the council on November 19th. There'll be a supplemental item to be able to get this in front of you next meeting because there is an upcoming deadline. The county's deadline is December six, 2019, where all of the documents and everything has to be together. And so we think it's prudent to bring it back on the 19th to make sure we don't miss any deadlines. And then if it's the emergency declared, it would be on the March 3rd ballot. And again, I want to reiterate that the council doesn't make decisions about whether or not the total gets increased or not. You would just be putting that on the ballot and it would be voters that are deciding whether or not to increase the tax. And with that, we are available to answer questions. Speaker 2: Thank you, Mr. Monaco. Great presentation. I want to just, you know, highlight the points I think are really are really critical. The first is that what we're talking about is essentially a increase that is not paid for by Long Beach residents and is actually not even paid for by the hotel itself. It is an added fee that get passed essentially to the person purchasing the night stay at the hotel across the city. In addition to that, we are on average already, even with this increase, $100 less than the average hotel room in the city of Los Angeles. And even with the total increase, we would be still 1% less than who we consider our nearest competitor, which is the city of Anaheim. So we are not in any way going beyond where our our our competitive level. Is it also as as is as we plan for the future, we know that we have approximately 600 hotel rooms that will be coming online in the next few years. And so the generation from this total will increase for our arts organizations. And I want to share also that at some point in the future, this Council will have an opportunity to actually have a discussion around how we structure the top. And as far as the funding mechanism. So that is not a discussion per se for tonight, but we will have that opportunity if the voters choose to implement this . But I want to just give you an idea of the impact. I know that Karen, for example, is here from A.C.T., which is an incredible professional theater company we have here in Long Beach. Just as an example, I'm at at her very best year, at her very best year, the city of Long Beach, I think it was one year was able to give her because of some redevelopment money and other funds, I believe it was a $100,000 master grant. And that was maybe 15 years ago or so that that happened. A proposal like this would have the capacity for Karen to receive that amount of money annually. That is transformational for an organization like ICG. If you're an organization like the museum, to be able to count on this type of stable funding, to bring in the type of shows and and support the kind of youth programs that it wants to do is also transformational. And I would add that goes on and on. I see friends here from musical theater West and Paul and I know you talk to me about the impact that this would have on your on your youth programs and so many others. And in addition to that, I want to, before I turn this over, is really commend the CVB and the leaders in the hotel industry that stepped up and said and could have said, we would like you to increase the 1% and it all go back into the convention center. But we we but we know how important the arts and culture is. And so we would like half of those funds to go directly back into the arts groups because of the work they do, in turn will end up enriching the city and therefore benefiting all of us in the end. And so I just want to thank to Steve and Imran and the board. Just thank you for for that leadership and and that ability to be inclusive within our arts community. And so with that. Before I cut someone fresh, join me do public comment versus do you want to go first. Why don't we do public comment? And then I'm gonna turn this over to Councilman Price. So I'm going to begin. And when I call your name, there's we're going to go in this order. We're going to start with Ron Nelson, then Madison Mooney, then Mujahid Kim, and then Imran Ahmet will be the first four. So, Mr. Nelson, you're up first. And if the other speakers could line up behind please, Madison, Mooney and Nguyen Kim and Imran on that. Speaker 4: Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, city council members. This is a transformational moment for the city, for the arts and the arts in the city continue to grow, but they're growing at a rate that is very exciting, but they're also growing at a rate that they really can't afford to keep up with, with all of our the nonprofit management throughout the city and that run most of our arts organizations, it's always challenging. And for us at the museum, it brings in it enables us to go in larger, greater exhibitions, number one. But number two, I also sit on the board of the California Veterans or the CVB, and knowing what the cultural tourism is and the impact it has on the city is rewarding to see it happen, but also an affirmation that it's happening and it's there and we just need to be able to support that and support that for all of the organizations that are here tonight and how many are here tonight, if everybody could stand from the arts. And this happens. Throughout throughout the throughout the year and throughout the day. What we bring back to the economy is big. What this brings to Long Beach, I think is even more significant. So I think in advance, this is definitely thinking ahead and it is forward in thought. And and quite frankly, we're all very grateful for this to go through. Thank you. Speaker 2: Thank you very much, Mr. Nelson. Madison money. Speaker 1: Good evening, everyone. My name is Madison Mooney. I'm the executive director at the Long Beach Playhouse. Your local community theater over in the fourth District. And we are in the midst of our 90th anniversary year. As an arts enthusiast, administrator, performer and patron, I am in full support of adding this measure onto the ballot of Long Beach residents. Dedicated funding for the arts and the Convention Center will do so much for the population that we serve in Long Beach and those visiting us from outside our city limits. With funding from this dot increase, the Playhouse wants to expand our youth arts education efforts from only having a summer camp to year round classes and workshops for children and teens of all levels. And just like the Convention Center, the Playhouse, the building itself needs a little bit of TLC. And with this funding, we would update and better our facilities to make our community members visit with us much more a much more enjoyable experience and providing a space for the arts across town on the east side of Long Beach. And as a long art standing, long standing arts organization, we know that attendance and donations can ebb and flow depending on so many different factors. So having dedicated funding can make everything run so much smoother. I, along with my staff and board of directors, hope this measure can be passed tonight and take the next step in securing a brighter future for Long Beach Arts. Thank you. Speaker 2: Thank you so much. We thank you. Speaker 4: Between Garcia and council members. My name is Nguyen Kim, a general manager of the Long Beach Airport. It is my privilege and pleasure to be here tonight and make a public comment. I support 1% tax increase in transit and occupancy tax for a couple of reasons. The first, it is for the infrastructure need at the Convention Center. We really need to keep our convention center to staying competitive so that it can bring more tourism and convention business to the city. For the second reason, it is to support arts groups in the city so that more members of the community could have access to everything they offer. It will eventually improve the quality of life of the people within our city. A hotel doing business in the city of Long Beach. As a corporate citizen, I strongly believe it is our responsibility to return for a cause greater than just the hotel ourselves. I'm not saying it does not have any impacts on the hotels. It may have, but I know for sure it is a something we can afford for a great cause for the community and the members of community. Thank you. Thank you very much. Good evening, honorary mayor and the council member, Michael. Speaker 6: Good evening. Speaker 4: My name is Imran Ahmed. I'm the general manager of. Speaker 6: The Long Beach Marriott and I also chaired the Long Beach Conventions and. Speaker 4: Visitors Bureau. And with this 1% increase, we are 100% less fortunate because as we all have said. Speaker 6: And, you know, I may sound like. Speaker 4: A broken record, but it is very important for any city to grow, and especially our city, because we we take pride on our conventions and the business that we bring in. And we all the hotels benefit out of it. In addition. All major cities in the in the world, as you have said, honorable mayor that are known for their arts and and their culture. When we talk about London, when we talk about New York or we talk about other cities, our cities, our city has that. Speaker 6: We just have to support it. And we appreciate your support. Thank you. Speaker 2: And that speakers are time limits Karen Desai, Chin Patel and Daniel Luna. In that order, please talk of limits can decide. Chin Patel and Daniel Luna. Speaker 4: Afternoon, Mayor. Members of the council. I'm Todd. I am a member of the board of Directors of the Convention Visitors Bureau, as well as one of the owners of the Breakers Hotel. And the Breakers. Speaker 6: Will be the only hotel in Long Beach. Will have a live jazz club when we open. Speaker 4: I'm the resident musician for our company. Speaker 6: And I have been asked by my partners to come. Speaker 4: Give our full throated support to this measure. The Convention and Visitors Bureau to the Convention Center really could use the money and visual arts. Theater and music are an absolutely necessary and indispensable part of our society. I'm also the parent of three local Long Beach musicians. Speaker 6: Do it poorly when. Speaker 4: It ROGERS And we can't support this enough. And we're we're thrilled to give our support. Thank you. Speaker 2: Very much. Karen Desai. Speaker 1: Good evening, honorable mayor and city council members. I'm Karen Deci, artistic director and producer of International City Theater, a dollar 80. A dollar 80 seems pretty inconsequential when you look at the return on investment and the impact you have upon the chance to make on the arts and on this community. And I can tell you from. Personal experience because I want to share some quotes with you because we produce five main stage productions annually. It gives us a chance to bring our diverse community together under one roof to better understand our shared humanity. We do six education programs that reach every district and every demographic. From age 4 to 104. We had a young man, 15 years old, view a production through our students two stage program. And he wrote on the survey. I found something inside myself that I didn't know existed. What a poignant, insightful discovery that young man made. One of our seniors for the low income senior program that we do that provides tickets and transportation to get them out of their homes, to keep them mentally and socially engaged. She wrote such a poignant comment about what the program did for her. She said. Forget problems, feel alive. You have an opportunity to continue that impact and grow it. Thank you so very much. Speaker 2: Thank you so much. Can you tell? Speaker 4: Hmm. You're gonna see our Long Beach City Council members, senior representative and give. First of all, I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to address you. I want to be brief. I'm here today to speak about the organizational on which they had to transform the lives of many low income students, particularly on the migrant education program of Long Beach United School District, where I'm a parent representative, which Angelica has been very kind, generous to, invited many of the families in our program to attend several beautiful concerts during the last three years. This is a very cross my heart, because many years ago I was walking with them, my son in the ocean . He asked me that What is that place? The Long Beach Committee said that, I told him, is a theater where they have chosen music. He asked me, Can you go there? And I say, no. I'm sure that tickets are expensive and you can afford it many years later. Part of the Mega Kitchen Program. What is your own invitation to go to a music Angelika concert for free? I couldn't believe it. The concert was incredible. It finally attended an event inside the convention center with my family. Many of us cannot even dream of attending this type of concert because of food. Because food and shelter take priority in our lives. But music and just comics makes possible. Our children love to put their best outfits and attend this special concert concert. I want to recognize missing Angelica to their generosity and inspiring my students to themselves as visions. If I was a family of four children in our program, who decided to become musicians in a sense of thank you very much. Speaker 2: Thank you very much. Speaker 4: Thank you so much. Speaker 2: Thank you very much. Next three speaker Daniel Luna, Dr. Felton Williams and Kelly Lucero. And then we have one more speaker after that. Two more after that. So next up is Daniel Luna. Dr. Felton Williams. Dr. Williams. Come on up. Speaker 4: Good evening. Honorable Mayor Robert Garcia, members of the city council staff. I'm Felton Williams here as a committee member for the African-American Cultural Center of Long Beach. We are in favor of the tax as a beginning organization in the city of Long Beach. And just a little bit about the African-American cultural center, the city. Speaker 6: The is to create opportunities for open dialog regarding issues of race and culture that will translate into. Speaker 4: Building a more cohesive and enduring city and nation. Speaker 6: As I stated, we are developing organization. We are we are in need of financial support as a developing organization. And again, we do support the tax. And I have my colleague here, Tasha, that's going to also say a few words. Speaker 1: Thank you for bringing this forward. And we do support this and we just ask that there is an equitable process when the time comes and inclusionary process. Thank you. Speaker 2: Absolutely. Thank you very much. Kelly Europe. Speaker 1: Good evening, everyone. I'm Kelly Lucero. I'm president of the Long Beach Symphony and a proud 32 year resident of the city of Long Beach. I know you all understand the importance of great arts in our great city, but I'm not sure you understand how precarious our funding is. I run one of the largest arts organizations with a budget of $3.2 million. Two thirds of our budget it funds people union musicians, vendors, staff, yes, artists. And about 10% of our budget funds, free programs in the community. We're proud of that. Until economic uncertainty hits like it did last spring, which jeopardizes our ability to make payroll, we had to scramble and end in the black with a $9,000 surplus. $9,000 and a $3.2 million budget is a very tight margin. And actually, thanks to the 1% of the arts, we were able to do it. I want to thank the CVB, the CVB board and Steve Goodling for presenting a creative solution. The funding would be transformative for all of us. Instead of panicking on a day to day basis about making payroll, we would be able to take that time and energy and resources and further invest it into this great community by providing more free programs for all demographics in our in our community. In our community. Funding would be reinvested into our venues, which is critical and will ensure that diversity and culture inclusion plans for our Native American populations and every other population gets a free, wonderful quality of life experience. Thank you so much for considering. Speaker 2: Thank you so much. And then if I can have a last three speakers come up. That's Gary Sheldon and Cantrell and Larry Goodhue. Please come forward. Miss Cantrell, since you're right here, you can come forward. Not very good here so just can't control. And Gary Shilton. Speaker 1: Good evening and Cantrell. And I am certainly in favor of this hotel tax being put on the ballot. I'm wondering if there are going to be restrictions on this money. All it says in your item on in the agenda is that the money will be remitted to the city of Long Beach. And I'm wondering if when you put this on the ballot, it's going to be restricted to the arts, culture, the convention center. If that's the case, then I would be totally for it. I'm not surprised that one of the partners from The Breakers is in favor of this, since you have allowed the Breakers to keep 80% of their. Jyoti, I believe it was for eight years. And if this is raised, they'll be able to keep a lot of this money that should have gone to the city. Thank you. Speaker 2: Thank you very much. Next speaker, is. Speaker 4: There something we can point? Speaker 6: Good evening, Mayor. Council and staff. Well, I'm kind of settling in. If you can turn to the second page of the the mayor's document, the agenda item document, and look at the 2.8 million here in the last paragraph. Maybe circle that or something. That's that's where I'm going with my thoughts. There's nothing I would like to vote for any more than this next March. It's an exciting opportunity for the arts in Long Beach. But the reason I wanted to point out that $2.8 million was I understand that that's what this 1% generate in additional I guess, additional revenue. It says additional revenue. That would cause me to think that the other 12% that that amount of money is what rendered this $2.8 million figure. If I do the math correctly on this, that would suggest to me that the current total is running at about $35 million a year. And the last I checked, I don't remember it being quite that high. So I wondered if in your questioning, in your or your or your speaking with the staff on this, you might double check that. But then even more surprising to me was the staff report from the interim city manager suggested that that's all that 2.8 is all going to the CVB side, which would suggest that the current total is generating about $75 million a year. So just my way of looking at the idea of the disconnect there in the numbers and before I go to vote for it, I'd like to. Speaker 4: Know a little more precisely what I'm voting on. Speaker 2: Thank you so much. Thank you. You bet. That concludes public comment on the item. So appreciate everyone's public comment. Let me turn this back over to the city council and Councilwoman Price. There's a motion and a second, Councilman Price. Speaker 9: Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and thank you very much for bringing this forward, and thank you to all of the supporters of this item who are here. I'm going to be wholeheartedly in support of putting that on the ballot. But also, once we move forward, I will be very actively supporting it and urging my community to do so as well. And the reason for that is as follows. As as a mother of two children who have been through the Long Beach Unified School District's arts programing. I am very well aware of that. But for the organizations that we have in the city that provide arts, outreach and education, many students would never have exposure to arts and education. Certainly they would not have exposure to the wide variety of arts and education that they get exposure to now. They visit so many different sites and get to see different forms of art, whether it's through museums, including our ranchos that they get exposure to, to, to just visual arts and music, arts and theater arts and all the different arts that they get exposed to. They would many of these students would never have the opportunity to be exposed to the arts, but for these outreach and education programs. So that's the key reason that I'm going to be supporting this item not just tonight, but for as long as I can and have the opportunity to do so. A lot of these organizations have been sustained year after year through the work of volunteers serving on nonprofit boards. And as someone who has been involved, you know, in behind the back stage, trying to raise money for these programs to continue to thrive. I can tell you it is incredibly challenging, especially with competing interests, hard economic times and just the vast number of operational, administrative things that are required for volunteers to be able to help raise funds for school, public education and arts programing. Many of the the individuals who serve on these nonprofit arts boards, obviously, they're residents throughout the city and within the region. But in looking at the lists, as I've been doing over the past few weeks, I noted that several of them, you know, live in my district. And there are people that I see day in and day out, and they serve on multiple boards as volunteers. And their only mission is to try to help find a way to bring art education into schools. The work that they do is just unbelievable. And in my opinion, it cannot be sustained in a city of our size with the demand and the growth that we're seeing in arts and and diversity in our city. They cannot be sustained with nonprofit support of fundraising. We need to have some city dollars that help support and sustain our arts organizations. The other area that I want to touch upon is our our conventions and visitors bureau. And I know, Steve, we've we've talked about it. His name comes up a lot. Steve Goodling is really a visionary and has taken us to another level in terms of our ability to recruit and attract visitors and conventions to the city of Long Beach. Enough cannot be said in words to highlight and underscore the work that he does. And I know that I've had several conversations with him over the last year, year and a half, about the fact that the convention center, in order to continue to be marketable and of interest to all those who are looking at competing facilities, has to maintain a certain look and it has to maintain a certain condition. And unfortunately, the city is no longer in a place where it can keep up with the demands of the convention center, especially not through our very limited Tidelands Fund. And that's a conflict that we've had for years now, where the resources that are needed for us to maintain operations and infrastructure in the Tidelands area continue to increase while our general fund dollars for those areas continues to decrease. And so we're not able to support the convention center in the way that we have in the past or the way that it should be supported. So this is a very creative solution. And I thank Steve Goodling and I thank our mayor for being creative and thinking outside the box. And again, I wholeheartedly support this. It's something that we frankly need to do. And it is not fair to expect. Art enthusiasts who sign up to volunteer to help promote the arts have to produce the type of budget that it requires to touch every Long Beach Unified School District student, which are in the thousands. They need help and we can help them. So thank you. Speaker 2: Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilmember Pierce. Speaker 5: Thank you. I wholeheartedly also support the step to put this on the ballot. The second district, obviously, we have the convention center. We have our small park, it park, our arts park. We have artists that live in unique housing. And so obviously for me, the second district is a place that will benefit greatly from having some dedicated funds for the arts. I know through the years we've talked a lot about investment in our downtown, we've talked about investment in the convention center and echoed the same comments that Councilwoman Pryce said. It often comes down to that budget season where, you know, is it is it pipes and infrastructure that we can't see that none of us think is exciting to fund? Or is it that exciting concession stand? And so I want to applaud you guys for coming forward with some ideas. I applaud the mayor for bringing this forward so quickly. I know it's been an idea for a long time. There are a couple comments that I wanted to make just about the the depth of our art community. Earlier, we we recognized someone that's been doing a lot of work with Art Selby, which is a very small grassroots organization that that has done a mental health work in the second District. We've got our Arts Council, which funds individual artists. Maybe it's our very first time ever receiving a dollar to do art. And we've got the Symphony and Long Beach Opera that really can talk about global issues, whether it's racism, whether it's classism, whether it's it's just sharing grief stories. And so it's a really great city to have arts, and I totally look forward to funding this. I want to say that I hope when it comes time that we are talking about equity. And the city came out with our equity toolkit very recently, a couple weeks ago. And so when that time comes, I hope that we can have a genuine discussion around how we ensure that the funds have that lens as we have that discussion. I have a couple facts that I just wanted to share. I know everybody's kind of already mentioned it, but our arts and culture organizations, they drive our tourism, they retain local dollars, they attract new dollars not only to our main streets, but to our downtowns and to our schools. As a mother of a seven year old, I'm constantly trying to think about how she can exceed expectations in the classroom and when she's playing with her friends. I looked up some interesting statistics today. Youth who consistently participate in arts programs are four times more likely to receive academic achievement, three times more likely to be elected to a class office, four times more likely to participate in math and science in three times more likely to be and to receive an award for school attendance. And so when we talk about funding, while we're talking about these big organizations, we've seen the programs that they bring to our to our youth and to our kids. And I think that's so important in making sure, again, that we have that discussion in an equitable way, that everybody's at the table is going to make sure that we hit this. I don't normally use, you know, sports analogies, but it's a homerun. And so thank you again for the leadership, everybody. I look forward to voting on this and having the discussion down the road. Speaker 2: Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Pierce, Vice Mayor Andrews. Speaker 3: Thank you, ma'am. Thank you. I think a lot of this, when we speak about tax, everyone gets a little nervous. But I'm sure I think Steve got in his group for coming up with an innovative idea to really be able to help our African-American culture tune. Because the fact that this would be a jump start for the culture that we have such a small amount of, you know, economic. Money is coming back into it because this year this 1% will mean so much, because the fact that you guys and everything, everyone realize that, you know, when you talk about art and culture, it makes the whole thing work. And Steve, you and your group makes it so wonderful to think, you know, out of the box and let them know that everyone would be able to share. And with this. And Dr. Felten, I want to thank you so much for coming forward and letting us know that we do have an African-American culture group that are really looking forward to this 1% tax kick back. So thank you very much. Speaker 2: Thank you. Councilman Austin. Speaker 7: Thank you. I think everything is mostly been said by our public commenters, but I want to voice my enthusiastic support for this item that will result in greater investment in our Convention Center, Convention and Visitors Bureau. But it also market our city in equally important. It will be an investment in boom for arts and culture in the city. The arts really do define our city. There's been no issue like arts and culture that I've seen that bring people together, that galvanize our community and excite the people in our city like the arts. And so this is a no brainer for me. I'm very much in support of it. And I believe when this is approved by voters, obviously it will have limited and very minimal impact on the residents of Long Beach. This is this is going to be great. And I just want to commend the mayor for his courage for bringing this forward. And Steve Goodling, who is a creative leader and himself a marketing genius. And I'm confident that this additional revenue for the CVB and arts will be a force multiplier for our city. So I'm happy to support it. Speaker 2: Thank you, Councilmember. We're going to go ahead and go to a vote. Members, please go ahead. And Castro votes. Speaker 0: Motion carries. Speaker 2: Great. Thank you very much. And I want to. I want to just I want to say I want to say first thank you to all the arts supporters are here. I want to echo something that Councilman Pryce said is, I see all of you work so hard all the time, all year at events, fundraisers at school events , programs for Long Beach Unified. And I know many of you, I don't normally come down also down to city hall downtown. And I want to thank you for coming here tonight and for being such an advocate for the arts and to keep keeping this important part of our city in the fabric of who we are constantly alive . And so thank you. And much work ahead of us. But thank you very much for all of you for being here. I want to I want to briefly do item number 12, which I know is also related to the convention center.

Agenda Item

Recommendation to request City Attorney to prepare an ordinance establishing a permanent increase of the Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) at the rate of one percent, to be collected by the operator from each transient with the room payment and subsequently remitted to the City of Long Beach, to be placed on the ballot in the March 3, 2020 municipal election, and any and all documents related thereto.

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_11122019_19-1124

Speaker 2: . And so thank you. And much work ahead of us. But thank you very much for all of you for being here. I want to I want to briefly do item number 12, which I know is also related to the convention center. Please please read the item. Speaker 0: Communication from Council Member Super or Not recommendation to increase appropriations in the General Fund Group in the City Manager Department by $23,156.50 to provide funds to the California Dental Association who will host Cares Long Beach in July 2020. Speaker 2: So we're superannuation to do public comment first or. Speaker 8: Actually I would like to ask Steve Goodling not to leave. I don't think he got enough praise on the last item. So we'd like you to stay here for for this one. I'll go ahead and make my comments first. And that is I'm asking for my council colleagues support to allow our office to spend $23,158.50 to bring the Cedar Cares event to the Long Beach Convention Center. Kate Carer's Allowance Volunteer. Dennis With the assistance of other health professionals and community volunteers to provide dental services at no charge to an estimated 2000 people at the event from July 17 through 18th, 2020. We have a couple of guests here tonight. Dr. Gary Glass Band is here and along with Steve Goodling, Dr. Glass Band brought this idea to me a couple of years ago. So what you're seeing tonight is the fruition of a project that has been very long in the making. And so, Dr. Glassman, if you would like to come up and say a few words about this, it it looks like Gary Glassman is ready to go to work right now. So thank you for being here. Speaker 7: Thank you very much. Not very professional clearing my throat. Speaker 2: No, actually, I know. I know. I know that some excited folks in the back as well. If we can kind of just exit quietly and speak in the in the foyer, that would be great. Speaker 7: Going to my Harbor Dental Society hat for just a moment. First of all, I want to thank the the city council, the honorable mayor, the vice mayor and Mr. Goodling, who we've actually never met, but we know each other. Speaker 2: And speaking to the mike, please. Speaker 7: Thank you. Briefly speaking. What I'm representing is the chair of the California Dental Association Foundation. In just from a housekeeping standpoint, if in your agenda item, the funds are not going to the California Dental Association, they're going to the California Dental Association Foundation. CDA CARES is a two day charitable event where we will treat approximately 2000 patients. There's no means testing, no questions asked. Anybody that shows up can receive care. We will provide $1.5 million in two days, 800 to 850 volunteers. Professionals such as myself, physicians, nurses, dental assistants, lab technicians will all volunteer their time. No one is being paid for this event. 1200 volunteers from the community will show up and volunteer their time as translators, providing food, doing maintenance on the line, anything that needs to be done, it's a it's a great coming together of the community . I've participated in this particular event all over California for the last seven years. We've provided over $26 million worth of dental care for free for anybody that shows up. And I have a slide deck at some point I'd like to share with the full council, but a city of the gravitas of Long Beach, of the presentation of Long Beach. Unfortunately, like any other city anywhere in the United States, it's said you can walk ten blocks in one direction from any major city and see what's going on with the rest of the community. And this is a community that we want to help serve. It's the homeless, it's the working poor, it's the uninsured families, it's the uninsured mothers, it's the uninsured children. They'll all receive treatment at this event. And to Long Beach is a unique venue in that it has a convention center where we could hold an event. We need 100,000 square feet to put an event like this on. And there's there's suitors all over the state of California that are interested in this. And because of our limited budget of the California Dental Association Foundation, there's only going to be one event next year. It's the first time in seven years that we've gone from two events to one, and the city of Long Beach was vetted and it's the appropriate venue. And because of your largesse, we've secured the convention center for July 17th and 18th, but this free dental clinic costs $500,000 to put on. We have to rent dental equipment to be here. It comes from the American Dental Cares Foundation. It's brought in on larger. 18 wheelers. We have to provide food, set up, tear down. We have to provide security, insurance. All the things, plus the dental supplies, all of this. And so I, as the chair of the Local Arrangements Committee, is tasked with raising $300,000 of this money, which is something that's new to me. We've had a quite a generous support from our supervisor. Janice Hahn has announced a couple of weeks ago that she was going to put $100,000 into this event. And she is our flagship sponsor at this point. And to date, we've raised over 153. Three. And we probably have commitments for another $80,000 from various dental entities. Anyways, I come before you to thank you and to clarify something. Why I'm here tonight. So. In addition to the money that needs to be raised for this event on, I appointed someone to chair what's called an in-kind donations, things like food, and we feed all the people in line. The 1200 or so patients. We feed all our volunteers. And so this person was in charge of bringing together in-kind donations. And I was told by the foundation in Sacramento that Councilman Super and I had managed to commit or wanted to commit $23,000 that goes towards the labor at the Convention Center as an in-kind donation. And I was just floored. So I called him up to thank him and he says, well, come down and speak to this a little bit. There may be other people on the council that are interested in supporting this cause to some extent. So I'm halfway there. I guarantee you will be there in force. We'll have everybody. I'll have all the the workforce will be in place. But right now, it's the rolling up the sleeves and raising the money time. So like I tell people, I want your time and I want your treasure, but right now, I want your treasure . So that's why I'm here. Speaker 2: Thank you very much. Councilor. Mr. Brown. Speaker 8: Thank you, Dr. Glass Ban. And thank you for your perseverance and staying after me for so long. And I just wanted to say that that the services go citywide. The fourth district is supporting this, but the participants will come citywide. And I also have to mention Steve Goodling. I had no idea how he would react to this idea when I brought it to him and he did not bat an eye. He was he was into it from the very beginning. So. Well, thank you for that. And also acting city manager Tom Modica, you helped us do an and it was just a pleasant surprise to see how everyone was on board from the get go. So thank you. Speaker 2: Thank you, Councilmember. Councilmember Austin. Okay. Before I go to counseling customer Pierce. Speaker 5: Yeah, I just wanted to say thank you to Councilmember Supernova. I know you and I had a conversation about this. My aunt is a pediatric dentist, so I spent six years working in her office. She very much tried to get me to buy to be a hygienist. Your work is very difficult, and I recognize what a labor of love it is that dentists come out and really do great service. So I'm not sure what our budget has right now, but I'm going to have Carla come out and speak with you and we definitely want to support and thank you, Steve. You always really do step up for organizations like this. So thank you. Speaker 2: Thank you. And I have two members of the public that want to speak and control and learn. Goodhew Knope and control? Nope. Okay. There's motion in a second. Please cast your votes. Speaker 0: Motion carries. Speaker 2: Thank you. We have three hearings to do and then we're going to do we have a time certain 630 and then we have public comment as well and we have a very long agenda after that. So let me begin with here, and we're going to we're going to go a little backwards.

Agenda Item

Recommendation to increase appropriations in the General Fund Group in the City Manager Department by $23,156.50, offset by the Fourth Council District one-time District Priority Funds transferred from the Citywide Activities Department to provide funds to the California Dental Association who will host CDA Cares Long Beach in July 2020. Decrease appropriations in the General Fund Group in the Citywide Activities Department by $23,156.50 to offset a transfer to the City Manager Department.

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_11122019_19-1118

Speaker 2: Thank you. We have three hearings to do and then we're going to do we have a time certain 630 and then we have public comment as well and we have a very long agenda after that. So let me begin with here, and we're going to we're going to go a little backwards. When to go hearing hearing item number nine please. Speaker 0: Report from Development Services and Fire recommendation received supporting documentation into the record, conclude the public hearing and declare ordinance amending and restating Title 18 at a Long Beach Municipal Code in its entirety, an ordinance amending various sections two titles three, eight, nine, 14, 18 and 21 of the Long Beach Municipal Code read for the first time and laid over to the next regular meeting of City Council for Final Reading. Adopt a resolution making express findings and determinations relating to the adoption of more restrictive code provisions where appropriate. And adopt a resolution to submit the ordinance amendments to the California Coastal Commission citywide. Speaker 2: Okay. Emotion in a second, Mr. Modica. Speaker 1: David Cram, superintendent. A building and safety will be presenting. Speaker 4: Good evening, honorable mayor and members of the city council. I'm David Cram. I'm superintendent of building and safety for City of Long Beach Building and Safety Department. And I have a privilege tonight to present to you the 2020 Long Beach Municipal Code update, which staff worked on it, and it's in front of you tonight. I have a short presentation to make. Every three years, the state of California adopts the. Latest edition of the California Building Standards Code and Uniform Housing Code to establish a uniform standards for the construction and maintenance of the building. Electrical Systems. Plumbing System. Mechanical System. Fire and Life Safety Systems. A 2019 edition of the California Building Standards Codes, was adopted by the California Building Standard Commission and published in July of July 1st of 2019. Multiple development services bureaus and other city departments, including building and safety, fire prevention, code enforcement planning, public works and other. And the Office of Sustainability have reviewed the codes and recommended the proposed local amendments. State law requires that the codes become effective at the local level. On Jan first of 2020. The 2020 Long Beach Municipal Code update involves some technical provisions of the codes. It involved some administrative provisions of the code codes and also some general cleanup of the language. When you update the codes in one section, obviously it has an effect in other sections. So to this rigorous process, staff has been able to update and upgrade our codes throughout, which impacted Title three of Language Municipal Code, the Revenue and Finance System Title impacted Title eight Language Health and Safety Code. It also impacted Title nine. Long Beach. Public Peace. Morale and Welfare. Title and also Title 14. Long Beach. Municipal Code. Streets and Sidewalks. Majority of the changes that were involved were entirely 18 alien courts, which as a result impacted other codes and other provisions. Some more notable items under the Building Codes era would be the sort of which will take permitting the expedited process that we are implementing and also upgrade and changes to the flood prevention and flood. Review of the projects that are in flood district. It also involved fire code, involved some other elements of the code enforcement. Tyler, 21 of the longest municipal code zoning, was also impacted or changed when it comes to the harbor permits and reference to the structural design requirements of the roof. Support for the photovoltaics systems. Final 18 covers, basically building and safety and health, but also includes the sustainability sustainability provisions of the code, such as electrical vehicle charging policy that we are coming up with, and also the solar photovoltaic systems. In order to put a staff to put this common issues in front of you. Several boards and several committees and commissions were consulted with, including Board of Examiners and Appeals and Condemnation. There were several meetings that staff presented the code updates to them Sustainable City Commission, Planning Commission and also Industry Partners for archery in order for his staff to produce recommendations together. The recommendations in front of you tonight are basically. What is putting that in his staff report. And rather than me going through the detailed discussion on the recommendations, uh, the trial code update changes are recommended for approval tonight. Uh, these code updates makes us. Design and construct per the latest and greatest standards that are available in California. And the is basically conclude my presentation for tonight and I'm available for any questions or answers that you may have for us. Speaker 2: Thank you. There's a there's a motion in the second Mr. Goodhew wrest control. You speaking on this item? No. Members, please go ahead and pass as the votes. Cast your vote. Speaker 0: Ocean carries. Speaker 2: Okay. CHEERING, Please. We're going to do a hearing here in ten.

Ordinance

Recommendation to declare ordinance amending the Long Beach Municipal Code by amending and restating Title 18 in its entirety, and adopting local amendments to the 2019 Edition of the California Building Standards Codes and the 1997 Edition of the Uniform Housing Code, all of which are known as the Long Beach Building Standards Code, read and adopted as read. (Citywide)

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_11122019_19-1135

Speaker 2: With item the the the ordinance with the time certain believe it's 20. The 20. Speaker 0: 22, 22. Communication from city attorney recommendation declare ordinance amending the Long Beach Municipal Code to temporarily prohibit no fault notices and evictions through December 31st, 2019, declaring the urgency thereof and declaring that this ordinance shall take effect immediately citywide. Speaker 2: Okay. Thank you very much. We have a motion and a second. Councilman Pierce. Speaker 5: I don't have any additional comments. I fully support what's in front of us and urge my council colleagues to do the same. Thank you. Speaker 2: Vice Mayor Andrews. Speaker 3: I'm told you supported him. We can move on with it. Speaker 2: Councilman Austin. Speaker 7: I support. Ready to vote. Speaker 2: Thank you. Before we go to a vote, we we have extensive speakers lists. As you know, the council voted on this unanimously the last time. And so I think folks would like to vote. But if you'd like to speak. Open it up for public comment. I would just let people know what the process is on these emergency declarations and ordinances. The council will vote as soon as the council votes. Per the occurrence conversation with the city attorney, then of course, I will sign the ordinance. I'll take a quick break. I will sign the ordinance quickly. Of course, I'm not going to veto the ordinance. And then it will go into effect immediately. So that's the plan right now. And so I want to make sure that we the quicker we do this, the quicker I'm going to sign it just right outside. All right. So if you have if you want to speak to this item that passed unanimously, you're welcome to do so. I'm going to call you up every one minute, Larry Goodhue. Kenneth West. MC Women. Alicia Flores. Gary Shelton. Please come forward if you want to speak. Janet Foster and control anyone from that group. No. Okay. Moving on. Cafe item. Ross, please. Please. Speaker 4: First. Thank you for having me, Mayor. Council Member of Staff. My name is Kenneth West McCrimmon. I live in District three. I mean, I was an active duty soldier. I have been in the reserve component since 2014. I go to Cal State University, Long Beach on vocational rehabilitation. Due to my disability in 2016, someone hit me with their vehicle when I was on my motorcycle. I have a broken body. That's the short explanation. I also have a traumatic brain injury, a broken neck, and my injuries from active duty were exacerbated. A year ago, my family and I notified our landlord about the need for a service dog with a doctor's note from my provider. Just recently, the owner of our building actually saw the dog and verbally informed us that we could not have a dog. I informed him that he was a service dog and that the management company was aware of the dog living in our address. A couple of days later we were issued a 60 day notice with no reason why. After speaking. Speaker 2: I'm going to let you finish up. Speaker 4: At this location. Time's up. After speaking to the management company, they said it was because of the demeanor of the dog. Our 60 day notice is December 31st. And to expect any family, especially a disabled family with 214 year old teenage girls and one year of son and a wife who is also disabled, that's unreasonable. Speaker 2: I think you should thank you for your service. Thank you very much. Speaker 4: I was only supposed to speak. Speaker 2: With the U.S. forward because Gary Shelton can speak. He is? Nope. Okay. So if I'm going to speak, please come forward. Is Janet Foster speaking or in control? No, please. Alicia. Speaker 1: Good afternoon, everyone. Mr. Van Dam. Nice to see you again, Mr. De. Thank you for everything you've done, Robert. See you again. My name is Alicia Flores. And the reason I'm here is because the advocate in me and I stand today here before you, just like many hundreds, if not thousands of people who have been a victim and affected by the city ordinance that came into effect on August 1st of this year, 2019, where a lot of people were evicted of their homes. And we were told that our rent was going to be skyrocketed from $650 to 1500 dollars. And if we didn't like it, tough move. There are so many homeless. There are several agencies fighting against homelessness, but yet landlords are creating more homelessness. And there are two buildings that. Had the same landlord. Those people we are curious and would like to know what's going to be done about it. People sleeping on the streets. Speaker 2: Thank you very much for sauce. Speaker 4: Thank you. Speaker 2: It's a fun exhibition. You're okay. Please come for you. Janet Right. Speaker 1: Kathy. Speaker 2: Kathy. Got you. Great. Speaker 1: Hi. God bless you. My name is Kathy ETIM. And again, I've spoken a few times here. Everyone knows me. I'm a street minister here. I'm an advocate for those who are elderly, disabled and homeless. And I thank you so much for already passing this. And I know you're going to sign it, and I thank God for that. It is an answer to prayer. I would just want to make a few points is that even after we do this, what happens next? What's going to happen to the people? The rent is still going to be hard for them to pay. They're in limited incomes. They're homeless, they're elderly. They have like I said, minimum income, rent control is definitely needed in this town. I can remember that I lived in Lancaster. My rent for mobile home park was $250. My rent here now is 600 for a studio apartment and my rent has not been rent raised in seven years. I thank God for people like my manager and owner. God bless you. Speaker 2: Thank you very much. Speaker 6: Stephen Moore, since you're a Democratic Socialists of America, Long Beach Branch resident of the Second District, a city is made of people and people who need safe homes in order to live. This ordinance is necessary to preserve the basic standard of living for the majority of the people in the city who are renters. Please vote for this moratorium to support your constituents and their families and to demonstrate that you believe that housing is a human right. Additionally, send a message to the corporate donor class of this city and their lapdog, Mike Murchison, that their day of gouging, days of gouging people for rent in the city, for substandard housing are over Speaker 2: . Our next speakers are Rosalba and Myra. Vilma or Jennifer going to speak? Anybody from that group? No one person to be seen forward. Is Antonio Zavala going to speak? It's okay. His way is way more. Can I speak? Yeah. Brando. Velasquez, please come forward, everyone. Just as a reminder, it's the second vote of of a unanimous vote last time. So I think council is ready to vote so that I understand if folks want to speak, come forward. Please come forward. Who's speaking. Speaker 1: In. Speaker 11: My office? Okay. Speaker 2: Please come forward. Speaker 1: Mirror my nursing when I'm noticed. Speaker 11: Good evening and welcome to La La Nina. Speaker 1: And here to ask you that, I will let you know that I'm hoping that this will pass. Speaker 11: And is here. Then, in the problem of Ontario's Ontario, Canada, said, look, I mean, I'm actually a multilateral and that is Canadian. Speaker 1: I'm still having problems with my landlord and they're still trying to evict me just because of the issues that I told you that I had. Speaker 11: Imogen Solomon think you've broken with her hand. Speaker 1: And all I have left is 14 days before I. Speaker 11: Come under the entertainment. That thing only her condition says, is capacity. That is. Speaker 1: As I told you before, I have a son who has six different disabilities. Speaker 11: He will this year. China's Vivien Leigh. Speaker 1: And I lived in this place for 18 years. Speaker 11: Naomi Barasa, who still considers Hinduism. Solomon You know, in this year, Chinese, I don't know. Speaker 1: Neither I don't feel is fair that they're doing this specially because they haven't fixed the unit in 18 years. Speaker 11: You've been there L.A. you percent. Speaker 1: I painted last year. Speaker 11: Yeah, really? To me. Apartamento. Speaker 1: I fixed my whole apartment problem. Speaker 11: I think I'm. Speaker 1: Still having the issue with rats and not just. Speaker 11: LA in the LA. Speaker 1: I'm asking you for help. You think he has. Speaker 2: Is resolved here? Stephen Lester. No, no, it will. We're going to speak. No. Okay. Vilma Silva. No. Jennifer Milan. Are you speaking for Jennifer? Is Antonia. Please come for Antonio. You'll be next. Speaker 1: Oh. Fishing with the sea. Speaker 2: Go ahead, Antonio. Your next. Speaker 11: But. Speaker 2: And you want to transmit very fluid. It doesn't. Speaker 11: And this is. When I started this. Good afternoon. My name is Antonia Ibn Ghafoor. Yet. And more in one more oratorio that is on a horse, Yanis, which I am Historia. So then Apartamento lady, sit on my way, you know, get me number to say going to go study homeless. The nicest person for you about a month and I know sinners so bad is one of those years festivals pharmacy going up again going to see dentist. Speaker 1: Which is going to yes I'm here to in support of moratorium for. For the for this item. And I know you've already heard my. Sorry, I just leave it up. I live in District nine, and I don't want to become one more homeless person. Thank you for helping us in keeping our homes around this upcoming holidays. Thank you for your help and assistance. Speaker 2: Jennifer. Speaker 1: Hi. My name is Jennifer. Me and I live in Salem is with my family and I'm here to ask for your support to pass any eviction moratorium. We've lived in our building for ten years and I received eviction notices. I have been evicted before with my family in 2010 and it was a difficult time. The families and I are very distressed for having to look for a new home, especially during this time. We shouldn't be looking for a new home, especially during the holidays are no time of the year. I ask for your support on this moratorium. Thank you. Thank you. Speaker 4: Thank you for doing this. Is when actually when. Speaker 2: Your next. Speaker 1: Move. Speaker 2: Is. Brenda. Brenda. Perfect. And then the next speaker is Alman. Selah here? Let's not speak. Is Dora? No. Go here. The Speaker of the House for Dora Maryville. Yes. No. Joshua Smith speaking. Joshua, come on. A swing, please. Speaker 7: Hi. Yeah. Wayne from Second District. And it sounds like you guys are kind of on board with it. It's a good thing that you're doing because it's not the good landlords that are going to be doing this. It's the the the investors and the speculators who don't care. And they're going to make homeless people. The city is going to have to deal with. So hopefully we'll have a unanimous vote in favor of this. Thank you. Thank you very much for the. Speaker 1: Good evening, council members and Mayor. My name is Brenda. I'm a resident of the First District and I live in 10th Street and Alimentos. I've been there for 39 years. I feel very emotional because this moratorium will protect me and my two girls. Milagros four and Genesis five. Housing has been hard for me and I hope that, yes, as you have acted on this emergency temporarily to protect families, we need to we need long term solutions, more tenants protection. Thank you. Speaker 2: Thank you very much. Speaker 11: We're not. Not just concealing numbers, Dorothy. No. So you're not leader of the. I could be one, not the Long Beach implicit as Helen Mirren waving. So Lady got up again, though I familiarize some yourself out of this the moratorium your leader the lacking many than scintilla responsibility ourselves Sabra Costello's difficulties problems then with the hint the person as Wayne asked Trevor honey Lucienne Parakeet Damian why don't you the landlords compromise Tito's marathon rispetto mucho they use our references and who hadn't? Is it your kind of country with a military base that your state is on the style compromise? So come on, Mr. Representante, please. Let's be on record. The most familiar is noise Prozac euthanasia is a specialist battery, surveillance, theo sequels, etc. It was that. Yeah. Values correlated to the guard. Don't they reveal ascendant or miss terrorists? No. Vamos. I can be another necesitamos citizen commentary la mort instead of Ethiopia. No, they promise that they campagna see no connection is whose death was illusory from the rage of fundamental para la vida. The devido to that personas could be be more sinister to that many symbols, then it would mean that opportunities that was going to give me that equal. Respeto is also said part of this to calm you down. They don't say Ms. youneedto congregation is no same with community leaders aimlessly chocolates. You only say you must presume Nando but unless it completely to spit out of the richest woman was done with that most solo so Muslim Pueblo near the. Speaker 1: Good evening council members my name is Dorothy no go and I'm a leader of I call I live in Long Beach in District nine. I'm here in support of my friends and family and in favor of this item. As a leader of the community, I feel a responsibility to let you know the painful difficulties and problems that our people face. They are good people who have worked hard to be good citizens. Many of those who are facing evictions are not elderly, who have contributed to this, contributed to this city for many years. As council members, you have the responsibility to support those who need you. We ask you to think about our families, those with special needs parents, grandparents, uncles and children. We don't want them to feel uncertain as to whether they will have a place to call home. Stop making changes, but changes by making mistakes. We need to grow and fellow feeling and grow in love with actions. Our home is a fundamental need right for all, and we all deserve better places to live. I'm proud to be part of this change. We're not alone. We are a united people. Speaker 2: And. Somebody tell me how long it's been. Joshua Right. And then after Joshua is is Marie Lopez going to speak? Now Jordan is Jordan going to speak? Jordan confirmed in last month that the battle is not about the Lopez speaking. No. Oh, yes. Yes. And Laura and Laura munoz. Yes or no? Okay. Just. And those are the last speaker. So please line up in that order and continue. Go ahead and bring up one. Speaker 1: I'm not Gonzalez. Speaker 11: I'm going to this kooky, same person. I told you you are so looking over the atlas can also look at Key in all of this and get them in and protect Hong Kong and control the rain. Tacoma in. Speaker 1: Los Angeles. Good evening, council members. I want to thank you for passing this moratorium and I ask it for it not to stop here, but also to keep going and game control and rent control in the. Speaker 11: Meantime, which has graciously as bedrock. Speaker 1: Is steaming. And once again, thank you very much. And I hope you're well. Speaker 2: Because I think you, Dr. Smith. Speaker 4: Hi, my name is Joshua Smith and the communications director with Housing is a human right, the Housing Advocacy Division of the AIDS Health Care Foundation. I'm also the communications director with the Rental Affordability Act campaign, which you'll be hearing more about in the coming year. I want to applaud you on behalf of HIV and HHR counsel in advance of voting unanimously to pass the eviction moratorium. I'm kind of just taking this opportunity to let everyone in the room know and also counsel know that due to the state of emergency currently under effect from the attorney general and Governor Newsom. Speaker 6: The entire state of. Speaker 4: California currently has vacancy control on every single rental unit, so it is illegal to charge more than 10% in between units currently throughout the entire state of California. So if you are looking for an apartment right now, you should make sure that it's not 10% more than the one that than the folks who were just paying for it. That's that's currently true. Now, more evictions that are no fault are currently illegal. Now, tell the whole state thanks. Speaker 2: Thank you very much, Jordan. Speaker 6: Hi there. Jordan Winn, second district resident member of the S.O.S. Board of Long Beach and the Everyone in Campaign. I know you all are about to pass us, and I'm very grateful for that. I just wanted to speak a little bit about what happens next. Actions speak louder than words, and as 1482 does come into effect, it is going to be up to the cities to enforce that state policy. We don't want to see the courts backlogged with people who don't know their rights, who are facing more than 10% rent increases by landlords who think they can sneak in by. So we need to make sure that we're able to enforce those laws. And secondly, pushing this further from protecting tenants is a great first step. But now we can move into helping get more affordable housing into the city, get more supportive housing into the city, and help both our people who are facing homelessness and people who are currently experiencing it by adding a funding mechanism of some sort to the city. So thank you so much. Speaker 4: Please pass this unanimously and I thank you for your time. Speaker 2: Thank you, Novato. Speaker 4: Hello. Council and mayor. My name is not Roberta Lopez. I'm the new project. Speaker 2: Director at Libra. Speaker 4: And happy to be here. And, you know, thank you so much for your support. Council members who I've talked to. I appreciate you for. Speaker 2: Standing strong with tenants here in the city. And I appreciate your leadership right, as we. Speaker 4: Keep people home for the holidays. But what's next? Right. Next year is a new year. And as 1482 comes into play, we're going to need. Speaker 6: A strong. Speaker 4: Mechanism that will enforce this new law. And thank you for your support and continue supporting tenants here in the city of Long Beach. Thank you. Speaker 2: Last week was warming up. Speaker 1: When I'm not just in your room. Speaker 11: Garcia Good evening, Mr. Roberto. You know this whole stuff. Speaker 1: It's not fair game. You know. Speaker 11: Ryan, I said, look, I lost families. Speaker 1: That the families really nosotros. Speaker 11: Because it's really not Jose cos. Speaker 1: Those, those houses belong to our. Speaker 11: Product losses. Those families focused on this aloha loyal. Speaker 1: We end up with girl evicted and. Speaker 11: Palermo's seniors are miserable. They know when they're going. Speaker 1: To go to sleep underneath the freeway overpasses with our children. Speaker 11: I went up a wrote and thought, well, I'm. Speaker 1: Very. Speaker 11: Poor. Those who are. Speaker 1: In this for the kids and the young. Speaker 11: Fatherless, but principalmente the parallel meuhedet. Speaker 1: And mainly for the women. Speaker 11: Yourself. And those worked. Speaker 1: For in the man in the. Speaker 11: Morning la tuna sandwich and minimal rent that. Speaker 1: You make a minimum wage to be able to pay the rent. Speaker 11: In those schools that is inevitably. Speaker 1: Evicted during the holidays. Speaker 11: Well, let's do this. And then I see in those promotional pierogi what they must do. Speaker 1: When you listen to vote, we all vote for you. Speaker 11: You know who's talking. And if not in so house. Speaker 1: That we be evicted. Speaker 11: Let's be located talking to and. Speaker 1: Asking you to use your heart. Speaker 11: As destiny. Nikos Tambien. Speaker 1: You have children also. Speaker 11: Being sent in a transit house as a commuter commuters is dumping something too. Speaker 1: But I just like you think about your children during the holidays. Speaker 11: Because your Lisbon did not. Speaker 1: Bless each one of you. Speaker 2: At the back of the courtroom. Speaker 1: It evening, mayor and council. My name is Maria. And in a time when everyone's living in fear, I say I'm undocumented, unafraid and unapologetic. On the day DOCA has gone to the Supreme Court. 25 years in Long Beach. And now I'm the director of Community Organizing for Housing, Long Beach and the Long Beach Tenants Union. This is a no brainer. Like you've all said it. But more or less, it's intended for us to continue talking. Right? Continue talking about the real impacts of displacement. Continue talking about what tenant protections really look like. And how we can support communities. Self-determination to really create vibrant communities. I want to finish off again to remind you all that housing is a human right. The net debt. Better than net. That's. Then head on that. Speaker 2: Thank you so much for your. Thank you very much. Okay. We have we have a motion in a second on the floor. Please go ahead, members, and cast your votes. Speaker 0: Motion carries. Speaker 2: Thank you. We're going to. Speaker 1: We need it. Speaker 2: I like I said before, I know normally we would do this within ten days. I'm going to just very quickly, we take a one minute recess and it has to be very fast. One where we need the votes. Speaker 4: We need the emergency vote, which just occurred now. We need to vote. Speaker 2: On the substance. And okay, let's do that to the second vote. Then when I would public comment was all conclusive in one once. We're not doing that. So please motion in a second, please. Speaker 0: Ocean carries. Speaker 2: Okay. Thank you. We're good. Thank you. We're going to be working this very fast. I'm going to just go right outside of the lobby, sign the ordinance, and we're going to come back. We're going to recess for literally one minute. We have a very long agenda. Okay. We're going to call the council meeting back to order in just, just a minute. So if I can have everyone that's going to remain here for the council. We're going to come back to order in just a minute. Okay. I'm going to have we're going to go back into the council meeting. Madam Clerk, can I get the roll call, please? Speaker 0: Councilmember Pearce. Councilwoman Price Councilmember. Councilwoman Mongo. Vice Mayor. Andrew's Councilmember. Urunga. Councilman. Your Compton member Richardson. Mayor Garcia.

Emergency Ordinance

Recommendation to declare ordinance amending the Long Beach Municipal Code by adding Chapter 8.98 to temporarily prohibit No-Fault Notices and Evictions through December 31, 2019, for residential real property built prior to January 1, 2005, declaring the urgency thereof; and declaring that this ordinance shall take effect immediately, read and adopted as read. (Citywide)

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_11122019_19-1117

Speaker 0: Councilmember Pearce. Councilwoman Price Councilmember. Councilwoman Mongo. Vice Mayor. Andrew's Councilmember. Urunga. Councilman. Your Compton member Richardson. Mayor Garcia. Speaker 2: Thank you. We are going we have a third hearing, so we're going to do the third hearing, which is hearing number eight. Speaker 0: Orphan Development Services recommendation received supporting documentation into the record. Conclude the public hearing and consider an appeal by supporters. Alliance for Environmental Responsibility. Adopt a resolution approving an addendum to the EIA related to the project at 131 West Third Street. Making certain secure findings and determinations. Adopting a mitigation, monitoring and reporting program and approve a site plan review. Find that the proposed vacation of a segment of. Speaker 1: Roadway way. Speaker 0: A vacation of portions of Pacific Avenue are in conformance with the general plan. District one. Speaker 2: Thank you. And we know this is a this is a de novo appeal. So the applicant itself has the burden of proof. We're going to begin with the staff report. Speaker 0: There is an oh. So if anybody who will be testifying can stand and raise your right hand. Do you and each of you solemnly state that the testimony you may give in the courts now and pending before this body shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God. Speaker 1: Christopher Coons, planning bureau manager, will be presenting the staff report. Speaker 6: And I'm going to introduce Marianne Cronin, who was the planner on this particular project. Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you. Good and good evening, honorable mayor and members of the City Council. Before you this evening is a request to receive supporting documentation to the record, conclude the public hearing and consider an appeal for a project consisting of the approval of a mixed use project located at 131 West Third Street in the Downtown Plan PD 38 Incentive Area. The project was approved on September 19th by Planning Commission and a subsequent appeal was filed on September 27th. The site is located on the east side of Pacific Avenue, between West Third Street on the south and West Fourth Street to the north. And Solana core an alley to the east in the downtown plan zoning district. The site encompasses six parcels and a portion of an east west alley away that is proposed to be vacant as part of the project for a total project area of 1.22 acres. The project site is currently developed as a paved at grade parking lot with parking spaces. Adjacent uses are typical of the downtown setting, including the historic Walker building to the north and hotel restaurant and multi-family residential uses nearby. The site is well-served by public transit and is in proximity to the I-70 ten freeway to the West. The proposed project consists of a new mixed use residential development. The project will replace the surface parking lot with two mixed use buildings, including one tower with 23 stories in height and one mid-rise building eight storeys in height with parking structures above ground and at subterranean levels in each building. The project includes a total of 345 market rate dwelling units and would range in sizes from studios to three bedrooms. There is no city requirement for the project to incorporate affordable units at this time, and the project includes approximately 14,481 square feet of retail spaces, over 500 parking, 563 parking spaces and 128 bicycle parking spaces. The applicant has indicated the project will be constructed in phases, which is worth noting for the provision of the open space for sale between the two buildings. During the first phase of the project, the mid-rise building would be constructed as well as the four Paseo alley improvements and adjacent improvements within the right of way. During phase two, the construction of the South Tower will commence. A tentative track map combines the existing lots and vacated portion of the alley into a single ground lot and create six vertical airspace lots between the two buildings. The site is within the height incentive area of the PD 30 plan area, a sub area that does allow building heights up to 500 feet when certain development criteria are met. The proposed development bonuses are subject to three criteria that have been established for this project and are included in the project description, which includes LEED Silver certified or equivalent green roof or eco roof with an option to for 31 to 60% of the building footprint to be for green roof standards as well as public open space option one, which is equivalent to 10% of the site, which would be satisfied by the open space paseo between the two buildings. The overall floor area ratio for the project would be 9.48, where a floor area ratio of 11 is maximum permitted with the incentives. The total height of the South Tower is proposed to be 269 feet above grade, and the North Mid-rise building would be built at 85 feet in height, which is within the base height limit for the area. As aforementioned, the proposed pedestrian paseo provides a mid-block pedestrian crossing and amenity space that satisfies the PD 30 criteria for a floor area ratio. The Planning Commission found that the project is compatible in design, character and scale with its surroundings, which include the adjacent mid-rise residential uses on the north side of West Fourth Street. The 23 storey tower would be substantially taller than the nearby mid-rise buildings, but the incorporation of offsetting building faces, balcony patio areas as well as other architectural features, would break up the massing of the building to soften the presence of the tower structure in the downtown setting. The project's form and massing have been designed to be respectful of nearby buildings while making a positive contribution to the streetscape and downtown skyline. Additionally, Planning Commission considered and accepted the addendum that was prepared for the project. The required findings can be made in the affirmative. Speaker 2: Okay. We're going to have the applicant presentation and the appellant. We're going to put a maximum time of 10 minutes if that's appropriate for both sides, unless there's an objection to that of the applicant. Mr. MODICA Did you want to have the applicant? Speaker 6: I think we have a couple more points that we have to make for the record. Speaker 2: Okay, sure. Speaker 1: Thank you. As noted on this slide. Pursuant to Secure the California Environmental Quality Act and the guidelines that were established, an ER addendum was prepared consistent with the program air for the downtown plan. And the EIA addendum determined that the project would not result in any new impacts that exceed those that were analyzed in the Downtown Plan Program air with mitigation measures incorporated. The appeal that's before you today asserts that the project introduces new environmental impacts that were not considered and that a tiered air must be prepared. Staff has prepared supplemental responses and subsequent to the filing of the Application for Appeal, which are included in your packets, that note that the use of a secure air addendum was determined to be appropriate for the proposed project. Its application was duly noted pursuant to the Long Beach Municipal Code. Five comments were received and are included in your packets before you staff finds that positive findings can be made in support of this application, and staff recommends the City Council adopt a resolution approving the ER addendum and upholding the Planning Commission decision to approve the project subject to conditions. The applicant is present and available for any questions you may have. Speaker 2: Thank you. Does the applicant want to make a presentation? In addition to that, please come forward. Speaker 6: Dale Goldsmith representing the applicant. I think it might be a better use of your time if I was to provide rebuttal of the appeal, given that the Planning Commission approved the project. Staff prepared a very comprehensive presentation and the appellant may raise some new issues. Speaker 2: And you'll have an opportunity to do that as well, if you like. So that's okay. We can we can keep going forward in the hearing. You'll still have an opportunity to do a rebuttal. Speaker 6: Thank you very much. Speaker 2: The appellant. Speaker 4: Good evening, Mr. Mayor, honorable. Speaker 7: Members of the Council. My name is Brian Flynn here on behalf of the Supporters Alliance for Environmental Responsibility. Here to urge the council to not approve the addendum for this project. Instead, send it back to planning staff for any to prepare an air. I'd like to use my time to quickly discuss two of the issues with which highlight why this. Speaker 6: Addendum is not appropriate for. Speaker 7: This project. First off, the city is improperly relying on an addendum. Speaker 6: Addendums are intended for minor. Speaker 7: Minor modifications made to existing projects. The plain language of the school guidelines on which the city relies do not allow for an addendum in the scenario and rather relevant case law in the school statute itself require the city to. Speaker 6: Prepare any air. And second, there is. Speaker 7: Substantial evidence that this project will have significant impacts that were not analyzed in the. Speaker 6: Downtown plan air and not analyzed in this addendum document. Speaker 7: So as to my first point, the improper reliance on the addendum section 15162 of the school guidelines explains the criteria for when an air has been certified or a negative declaration adopted for a project, and then whether a subsequent EMR must be prepared for quote, that project. Speaker 6: Here in air was developed. Speaker 7: For the downtown plan, not for this project. An addendum may be proper if the city were making changes to the downtown plan, but that's not what's happening here. You're analyzing a specific project within an area for which an air has been prepared. So no air has been prepared for this project. And by the plain language of the guidelines. Speaker 6: An addendum is not appropriate. Instead, when there is an overarching. Speaker 7: Programmatic air like the downtown plan, the first consideration is whether the new proposed project is covered by the programmatic air. The second consideration is whether the later activity, meaning this. Speaker 6: Project, would have effects that were not. Speaker 7: Analyzed in the downtown plan. Air Program. Speaker 6: Air may only serve to the extent that it. Speaker 7: Contemplates and adequately analyzes the potential environmental impacts of the project. Speaker 6: If a programmatic air. Speaker 7: Does not evaluate the environmental impacts of a project, a tiered EIA must be completed before the project is approved. And for these inquiries, the fair argument test standard applies. So in this situation, CPA requires the city. Speaker 6: To prepare an initial study to determine if the. Speaker 7: Project may cause significant environmental effects not. Speaker 6: Examined in the downtown plan program air. Speaker 7: And there is substantial evidence supporting the argument that this project may result in significant environmental impacts that were not previously analyzed in the downtown plan. Speaker 6: Air. So there is. Speaker 7: Substantial evidence in the record, some of it in that lengthy comment that you just received. Speaker 4: That the project will have significant. Speaker 6: Indoor air quality impacts, significant health impacts from emissions during construction. Speaker 7: And operation of the project and greenhouse gas impacts. We had a certified industrial hygienist, Francis Offerman. He looked at the addendum and concluded it's likely that the project will. Speaker 6: Expose future residents to significant impacts related to indoor. Speaker 7: Air quality, in particular emissions from the cancer causing chemical formaldehyde materials commonly used in residential buildings for flooring, cabinetry. Speaker 6: Baseboards, window shades, interior doors. Speaker 7: Window trim, door trim all contain an off gas formaldehyde. Mr. Offerman calculated that the future residents of the project will be exposed to a cancer risk from formaldehyde of approximately a 125 per million. The full time employees in the commercial spaces may be exposed to a cancer risk of 18.4 per million. And these calculations. Speaker 6: Are, even if the materials meet the most recent. Speaker 7: Standards from the California Air Resources Board. And these calculations both exceed the South. Speaker 6: Coast Air District's threshold of ten in 1 million. Speaker 7: Now this impact can be mitigated. It's pretty simple. It's done in other projects. You just require them to use no formaldehyde added materials that can reduce. Speaker 6: The impact of formaldehyde emissions. Speaker 7: To less than significant levels. In addition, there are significant impacts related to. Speaker 6: Construction and operational air quality. Speaker 7: The addendum determined that the project would result in a less than significant health risk from diesel particulate matter emissions. Speaker 6: However, this conclusion is not supported by. Speaker 7: Substantial evidence because a quantitative health risk assessment was never prepared for the project. The expert environmental consulting firm Sweep did a health risk assessment based on the data provided in the addendum, and they. Speaker 6: Concluded that the excess cancer risk to adults. Speaker 7: Would be 31 in a million. Speaker 6: To children. Speaker 7: 280 in a million and to infants, 240 in a million. Again, the threshold. Speaker 4: From the South Coast Air District. Speaker 7: Is ten in 1 million. And even if you use the less conservative, you know, those previous numbers all deal with that age sensitivity factors. Even if you use a more conservative. Speaker 6: Health risk assessment. Speaker 7: That the risk. Speaker 6: To adults is 31 in a million children, 93 in a million. Speaker 7: In infants, 24 in a million. So these greatly exceed the South Coast thresholds and the addendum never attempted to quantify this impact and now must do so in light of expert evidence. Speaker 6: In the record demonstrating. Speaker 7: The significant impact to human. Speaker 6: Health. Also issues with the greenhouse gas calculations. The analysis is deficient because it. Speaker 4: Relies on South Coast 2020. Speaker 6: Service. Speaker 7: Population. Speaker 6: Thresholds. It's improper because the project's construction and development continue beyond 2020. Speaker 7: It's not even become operational until 2021. As a result, the greenhouse gas analysis should have compared the emissions from this project to the South Coast 2035 efficiency. Speaker 6: Standard. Speaker 7: In order to evaluate the project's emissions from 2021 and beyond. When that threshold is used, the project's 2021. Speaker 6: Exceeds these exceeds the 2035 thresholds. And again, this constitutes substantial evidence that the project will have significant. Speaker 7: Greenhouse gas impacts that must be analyzed in. Speaker 6: An air. Speaker 7: So little time left. Really, the city should not approve this addendum at this time. Instead, the city should prepare a yes to proceed under sequence hearing provisions and prepare an air as required by law. Importantly, we're not saying that this project should never be built. It's just that when we do these sort of things, let's go through the proper environmental review to ensure the health and safety of the neighborhoods and the future residents. Thank you. Speaker 2: Thank you. And now we're going to hear the appellant, please. Rebuttal. I'm sorry. The applicant. Speaker 6: Please go ahead. Good evening again, honorable council members once again, for the record, Dale Goldsmith. I'm a lawyer with the law firm of Archbishop Goldsmith, the Dail back representing the applicant. I'd like to refer to two letters that were submitted today. I apologize for them being late, but we only got the safer letter. Late yesterday afternoon we worked late into the night to respond to it. And those letters, both from our firm and from the expert air quality firm of ramble, thoroughly refute the the late comment letter that was submitted yesterday. I'll briefly touch upon some of the issues in those letters regarding the claim that an ER is required or a tour de air. The city determined in its discretion as lead agency that the addendum was the appropriate level of seek review. It tiered off the downtown plan which analyzed the full impact of build out under that plan, including build out of the project site. So contrary to the comment, the the project was covered by the air and the city prepared the addendum to determine that and to investigate whether there was any project specific impacts that would be greater than or new beyond those set forth in the program. Air. The addendum and its expert studies provide substantial evidence that no such impacts exist, and therefore the addendum was the appropriate level of seek review. The appellants interpretation of the law is just wrong. There's a case called Monti Brothers versus City of Los Angeles with completely refutes his contention earlier. Happy to discuss that case further. In addition, as set forth in the program, this er was intended to streamline, seek review and avoid redundancy of the secret process. The program the EIR provides that projects that are consistent with the develop ment intensity. Intensity the plan shall not be subject to additional review except to the extent that they may result in project specific, new or substantially greater impacts. The project is fully consistent with the downtown plan. The addendum confirms that there are no such project specific impacts, so therefore under secure guidelines, section 15183 no further seek review is required regarding the assertion of indoor air quality impacts as set forth in the expert letter from Ramble, Safer uses a number of flawed assumptions in calculating these really scary numbers of cancer deaths. Indeed, unbelievably scary numbers. The flaws include a failure to include the voluminous regulations that have been adopted both on the state and local level, to address indoor air quality, including ones that limit the amount of formaldehyde in building materials. In addition, formaldehyde emissions decrease over time. The analysis didn't take that into account. It also assumed that workers would remain in the same job in that building for 45 years and that residents would remain there for a 70 year lifetime. Those assumptions are just overly conservative and quite frankly, not realistic. The Ramble letter confirms that the project will not have any significant air quality impacts regarding the health risk assessment. The appellant asserts that the city should have prepared a quantitative health risk assessment for the project's construction and operational emissions. Neither the city nor the South Coast Air Quality Management District requires health risk assessments or areas for short term construction activities due to the limited duration of exposure of emissions from those activities. According to the air district's methodology, health effects from air contaminants are assessed based on a lifetime that's 70 years. In this case, the construction would be 20 months, a fraction of those 70 years. Therefore, under the applicable methodology of the Air District in the city, no quantitative health risk assessment is required. In addition, the current SC HQ, M.D., HRA guidance recommends recommends an operational source HRA only if a project will generate a substantial amount of diesel particulate matter from diesel vehicles. So therefore they would call for such an assessment, for heavy fruit, for for projects with lots of heavy duty trucks, including truck stops, warehouse distribution centers, transit centers, ship hoteling IT ports and train idling. None of those uses are part of this project as projects in urban infill project consisting of residential and retail that will not generate a substantial number of diesel truck trips and therefore no quantitative HRA is required. Moreover, as set forth in the Ramble letter we submitted today, the crude screening level health risk assessment submitted by the appellant in their last minute letter yesterday is based on a number of flawed assumptions, including substantially overstating both the operational and the construction emissions and is simply not credible regarding greenhouse gas emissions, the appellant asserts. The Dentons GHG analysis should have used a decade old draft numeric threshold that was never adopted by the academy or the city, and indeed there is no applicable threshold. And therefore sequel allows the city's lead agency to come up with its own threshold. In this case, the threshold selected consistent with both the school guidelines and school case law, was consistency with applicable greenhouse reduction plans. The addendum concluded that the project was so consistent and therefore properly concluded that impacts were less insignificant. And keep in mind, this is an infill project that's well-served by transit. It's going to have a green roof and achieve LEED certification. This is the sort of project that represents smart growth and that will reduce greenhouse gases, vehicle miles traveled and impacts on the climate. Lastly, I just want to reiterate that the project will have a lot of important public benefits. It's going to increase the city's housing stock without displacing any existing homes. Elad Housing within walking distance of transit jobs, retail entertainment uses downtown. That will reduce help reduce dependance on automobiles, which will in turn reduce vehicle miles traveled and associated air emissions, pollutant emissions, as well as greenhouse gas emissions. It will provide public open space in the form of a pedestrian paseo, and it will promote sustained sustainability in water and energy conservation by including a green roof and achieving LEED silver certification or equivalence. In addition, it will implement and is fully consistent with the downtown plan. Therefore, we respectfully request that you deny the appeal and uphold the Planning Commission's well-reasoned approval of the project. I'm available for any questions you may have. Thank you. Speaker 7: Thank you very much. Speaker 2: And with that, that concludes the rebuttal. We're going to go ahead to any concluding remarks by staff. Are there any. Speaker 4: Preferable, only four questions. Okay. Speaker 2: We're going to go and go to public comment. Those are two here to speak on the hearing. So let me go to you here. No, I mean, is Brian Flynn, Leona Noble, Christine Boss and Lillian Chen, those first four speakers, please come forward. Brian Flynn. O'BRIEN okay. Liana, Christine, Lillian and Sam. Then those will be the first four. Speaker 1: My name is Lana Noble. I'm here tonight on behalf of the North Pine Neighborhood Alliance. I live in the Walker Building, which is right adjacent to this project. But I'm speaking on behalf of our neighborhood group. And we are not here around the environmental issues that have been raised by the appellant. But we're seizing this opportunity to tell you as our counsel, that having worked with staff and we appreciate the accessibility and the patience of the staff and working with us as a neighborhood group. But we have been consistently saying to anybody that we communicate with what our neighborhood needs is not market rate housing. We need affordable and low cost rental housing. And nothing in this project addresses that for us. Our other concerns about being next to a 23 storey tower are that you are going to have a major impact on commuter and daily traffic trash delivery and pick up, which is a horrendous problem. It's cowboy Wild West in our neighborhood because of all the private haulers that all of these day to day issues that are very real to us as residents downtown are going to be. Speaker 9: Exacerbated. Speaker 1: By this density. We support density. That's why a lot of us live in downtown. But this project does not serve the residents of our neighborhood. Speaker 2: Thank you so much. Kristine Boslough, Ian Chen, Sam for Zena for if I mispronounce some of these names. Speaker 1: Right. Good evening, Mayor Garcia. Council members and staff. My name is Christine Voss. I serve as the government affairs manager for the Long Beach Area Chamber of Commerce. I'm here tonight on behalf of our 800 members, leadership and community stakeholders to express our support for the approval of the Third Pacific Project. The Chamber has a long standing position of supporting projects in a similar scope. Currently, a main public policy goal of our organization is to support more housing development in Long Beach, especially housing that's located near public transit. In addition to the increase in housing, the project will also offer commercial and retail space, which in turn will create more local jobs in the downtown area, complementing our goal to support and encourage economic development in Long Beach. We support the project to Third Pacific because it will make the most of its location offering housing located near transit while simultaneously increasing jobs and walkability in the downtown area. We appreciate your time and thoughtfulness on these considerations. Thank you. Speaker 2: Thank you. Lillian Chen, please. Speaker 1: Good evening, everyone, and thank you so much for your time. And then I am Lillian Chen. Speaker 2: And 1/2. I'm sorry. Is Sam next? Yes, Sam, please come forward. I want people just to line up behind Sam present. John Connally is and. Oh, no, no, no, no. You're going to continue. I just need to call my folks up. Lillian Sam. And then is. Is John Connelly here? Okay. Is Ken controlling to speak to this? Please come forward in behind John and then call this rally right behind and control. Thank you. Speaker 1: I am the second district resident and my story of moving to Long Beach about a year ago has motivated me to stand here and tell you my story. One thing that I like the most about downtown Long Beach is that it's an incredibly walkable and transit friendly city. I have been living in Long Beach for more than a year and working in downtown, and I don't have a car. I take the bus, I take the metro to L.A., I take the bike, and I sometimes scooter with my friends. And I think it's a big part of my enjoyment in living in downtown Long Beach, which is why I believe that a project like this in the high density area in downtown Long Beach would encourage people to start using their car less and taking the transit more often. In addition, I really like the idea that more developments are coming to market as the streets start feeling safer and I start seeing more people on the street and it makes the city feel more lively and more pleasant to live in. So I fully support this project and thank you so much for your time. Speaker 2: Thank you so much. Speaker 4: Next week, please. Good evening, mayor, vice mayor and council members. My name is Sam Zina. I'm a resident of the second district. I also serve on the board of the DLP and I am an employee of Long Beach based on some real estate investments. I just wanted to vocalize my support for the project. I believe it's a tremendous contribution to the Renaissance. It's already well underway in Long Beach. As Long Beach begins to. Speaker 6: Transform into more of a Class. Speaker 4: A, you know, walkable, urban waterfront that people want to live, work and visit, I think it does fantastic things in terms of enhancing the pedestrian experience and creating new connectivity between area Pacific right now that's underutilized and pine, creating this great new pedestrian sale and activating the streets with new retail. In addition to that. Speaker 6: With the 345 units. Speaker 4: Going in in the 500 plus new residents that this will surely bring about. That's 500 new people that are activating our streets, contributing to our community and supporting local businesses. So, again, it's here today to support the project. Thanks. Speaker 2: Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. John. After carelessly Austin is going to come up and after ostensibly be Joannie Cunningham and then during. Speaker 6: Good evening, Mayor Garcia and council members. I'm here to talk about an issue that hasn't really been brought up other than the fact that 563 parking. Speaker 7: Spaces are supposed. Speaker 6: To be produced in this building. For any of you who live in the First District, as I do, you already know that on street parking is a nightmare and there's totally inadequate. Speaker 2: Preparation on behalf of the existing buildings. Speaker 6: To accommodate. Speaker 7: The people who. Speaker 2: Don't have assigned parking. It is a critical situation. Speaker 6: To watch people. Speaker 4: In the evening driving around looking. Speaker 6: For a parking space for a half hour, an hour. Speaker 1: Or more. Speaker 6: In the previous letter to our departed first District Representative, somebody was complaining that he was going to run against her simply because he couldn't find a parking space at night. This was in our local run, your newspaper. What we need is. Speaker 2: To establish a parking. Speaker 6: Program that meets the needs of the upcoming population that we now have. Speaker 2: As it grows in this area. Thank you. That's my statement. Thank you, sir. Next speaker, please. Speaker 1: Good evening. And Cantrell and I first learned about this project at the Planning Commission hearing, and I was astounded to find out that the city owned this property. Two parking lots. And now there's going to be a 269 foot building built. When there is no parking available. Well. There's going to be parking for 128 bicycle riders. I'm surprised that you can find. That many people riding bikes, living in this area. When there is not one affordable unit planned. For this building, you could have used the city owned property to build affordable and low cost housing, which is desperately needed. It's also not going to be a gold LEED. It's going to be silver, which means it's not going to have solar. Unless it's going to be sold or ready. But they are not having solar on the roofs. Those. If you're going to allow this to be built, I urge you to require some affordable units and premium. Speaker 2: Thank you so much and lead. Thank you very much. I closely. Speaker 1: Carelessly. I'm here in support of the appeal. I was really surprised to find out that there was going to be 23 stories built and another one with eight stories at market rate. We hear over and over again from the city how we need additional low income housing and affordable housing. And this is an opportunity where you could have made that happen. Additionally, there's the town looking looking at the Internet. I checked out the word gentrification and Long Beach and all of downtown is colorized to show that it's been gentrified. So that basically tells you the data is in and the intent is there to move low income people out. There's going to be increased traffic problems, potentially between 507 hundred more cars rolling out the driveway. I don't see how that cannot be an air issue. And if you look at the parking, there's 563 parking spaces, which I think should probably really be about 700. So you're going to have 150 people looking for parking out on that street. This seems like it's a bad experiment. I, I met a man named Jack Broten, who was a colonel in the Air Force, who was in the foremost air base close to Hanoi back in the days when I worked for Rockwell. Speaker 2: Thank you very much. Speaker 6: Mostly. Speaker 1: I'll tell you that story another time. Speaker 2: I said. Speaker 7: It's on him. Perfect. Speaker 4: All right. Good evening, Honorable Mayor and City Council. My name is Oscar Montoya. I am with the downtown Long Beach Alliance, and I'm here to speak in favor of the 13 Pacific Project. Some of you may know the downtown Long Beach Alliance is a nonprofit organization that manages the two business improvement districts in downtown. And our stakeholders are comprised of business owners, commercial property owners, as well as residents. And through that community based process, the deal, they came to support this project, particularly through our Economic Development Committee, which is comprised of business owners along in North Pine, as well as on Pacific residents in the North Pine area, as well as property owners. And they all unanimously, unanimously chose to support this project. We believe that the project aligns with the downtown plan. The downhill mine has served as a guiding document for encouraging impactful, community oriented and mixed use development. And Third and Pacific Project aligns with those goals. And moreover, we agree with the city's assessment that this project itself aligns with the development standards and the program air prepared in the downtown plan. One final piece to note is that we believe that the project will be able to connect both Pine Avenue, North Pine and Pacific Avenue. Supporting a lot of our new investment are new businesses along Pine Avenue and helping them. Speaker 7: To create foot traffic for. Speaker 4: People to experience what is happening in downtown. So I appreciate your time and the opportunity to share our support tonight, and we encourage the city council to vote in favor of this project. Thank you. Speaker 2: Johanna Cunningham and then Jordan Wynn, and we'll go back to the council. Speaker 1: Good evening, Honorable Mayor and City Council. My name is Johanna Cunningham, founder and CEO for National Short Term Rentals, and I'm here to express my support for the Third and Pacific Project. As a downtown business owner on Fourth Street, I'm excited to see the ongoing revival and investment in this downtown area. Particularly, I'm happy to see the site along Pacific Avenue between third and fourth Street being developed. The nearly 345 residential units will help bring increased resident traffic to North Pine and Pacific Avenue. The third and final project plan of 345 residential units assists in that goal by creating a consistent flow of pedestrian foot traffic by potential customers throughout this downtown corridor. I thank you for your time and I encourage you to support the project. Speaker 2: Thank you. Speaker 6: Jordan. Hi there, Jordan Wynn, recent second district resident. I actually just moved downtown and I have two concerns about this project. One is similar to the appellate. I do see that there are some significant environmental impacts that I do believe require an area that is more than just, you know, an addendum. I think that, you know, moving into this new neighborhood has me a bit concerned about the environmental impacts that the development will have on me as a new resident. And the second concern that I have is, of course, about affordable housing. One stat that's not really talked about very much is the vacancy rate in our city, and that is the number of units that are sitting vacant. It's very low, it's below 3%, which is considered not healthy for a cityscape. Many of that vacancy currently sits in our downtown area as certain units that are gentrifying. People out of the first and second districts are pricing up the market in sitting vacant. Unfortunately, I don't want that to be the case here. I do think it's a bit of a shame that there aren't affordable units in this development. I do support density and I do think that density is an important part of building an efficient and effective city of the future. But I also believe in affordable housing for all, and that housing is a human right. And so I urge you to consider those two things. Thank you. Speaker 2: Thank you. We're going to close the public hearing and go back to the to the council. I'm. The vote itself, of course, is to deny the appeal. That's correct. Mr.. Mr.. Mr. Mays. Correct. Speaker 4: That's not the recommended action. Speaker 2: Okay. And there's a motion and a second. Councilmember Pearce. Speaker 5: Yes, I had a few questions. One is on timing. Obviously, we don't have a councilmember in the first district. And so just wanted to be clear that this was a vote that we needed to, in fact, take today. Speaker 4: Yes. Councilmember under the municipal code, it's 2120 1504b. Speaker 6: This action has to be taken within 60 days. We're hitting that 60 days. If you were to fail to take an action tonight that the appeal would be deemed denied. So there is no opportunity to extend or delay this. We need to take an action tonight. Speaker 5: Okay. Thank you for that. Just a little bit of context before I make the motion. Obviously, with the downtown plan that happened in 2010, there was overall E.R. that was done as part of that. There was a process that said how many residential units we would have, how many hotels we would have as a community member on the outside of of city hall at that time, we advocated to include some affordable housing, some set aside, and we were not able to get those things at that time. And so it's my understanding that this item in front of us is in alignment with the downtown plan. Speaker 6: That's correct. This item meets all of the provisions of the downtown plan. And what's in front of you is just an appeal of a planning commission consistency finding. So we're not determining whether the project is good or bad or making a policy analysis. We are looking at the more narrow issue of whether it complies with the downtown plan as adopted. Speaker 5: Right. And I wanted to lift that up because we do have opportunities coming up, whether it's in PD six, whether we're talking about the land use element, where community members should be advocating for affordable housing as a general policy of the city versus project by project. If I felt like there was a way to have a discussion around including affordable housing in this project that is not in my district, then I most certainly would. But that is not what is before us today. And so, again, I applaud the affordable housing advocates that have worked hard on other issues and want to make sure that you don't mess up other opportunities to advocate for inclusionary housing. It is, you know, after reviewing everything and talking to several folks, I would like to deny the appeal and move forward with this vote today. So thank you. Speaker 2: Thank you. That's the motion that's in front of us today. There's Rosemarie Andrews and any comment on the second? Then the motions on the floor as recommended by staff. And it's to conclude the public hearing to consider an appeal. Right. And deny the appeal. That's correct, Mayor. Thank you. Speaker 0: Motion carries. Speaker 2: Thank you. That's the last hearing on the agenda. We're going to move on to the other items on the agenda, beginning with item 13, please.

Resolution

Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record, conclude the public hearing and consider an appeal by Supporters Alliance for Environmental Responsibility; Adopt resolution approving and certifying an Addendum (EIRA-02-19) to the Environmental Impact Report for the City of Long Beach Downtown Plan (EIR-SCH# 2009071006) related to the project at 131 West 3rd Street in accordance with the provisions of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), and State and local Guidelines; making certain CEQA Findings and Determinations relative thereto; and adopting a Mitigation Monitoring and Reporting Program in accordance with those measures set forth in the Downtown Plan; and Approve a Site Plan Review (SPR 18-038) for a project consisting of 345 residential units in one 23 story mixed-use tower, and one 8 story mixed-use building, 14,481 square feet of retail space, 563 parking spaces, and 128 bicycle parking spaces; find that the proposed vacation of a segment of Roble Way, a named alley, and vacation of portions of Pacific Avenue are in conformance with the

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_11122019_19-1125

Speaker 2: Thank you. That's the last hearing on the agenda. We're going to move on to the other items on the agenda, beginning with item 13, please. Speaker 0: Communication from Councilwoman Price, Councilmember Pearce, Vice Mayor Andrews, Councilman Austin, recommendation to request city manager to report back within 180 days on the feasibility and possible implementation strategies for an Internet based app program to help manage parking impacts during weekly scheduled street sweeping. Speaker 3: If I see a person in second then only public coming. It's quite. Speaker 9: Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I want to begin by thanking our public works department and especially Dikko for his amazing work related to street sweepers over the past few years and implementing the technology that's available. Obviously, we all know that street sweeping is not one of the most interesting topics that our city works on, but it's absolutely essential and it's so relied upon by residents to keep our streets clean and well-maintained. The Public Works team has committed to finding ways of improving the service by changing all of the street sweeping hours citywide to make it easier on residents. And that was a huge endeavor that resulted in very positive quality of life impacts for our residents. Our public works team has worked hard to upgrade our street sweeper fleets to ensure that they're using up to date technology and modern equipment. And so with this progress, we're now at a point where we have the potential to take another big step to improve resident experience during suite, sweep street, sweeping hours, and to use technology that can help manage the impacts on parking in our parking impacted areas during Sweet Street Sweeping. Parking is very difficult in many parts of the city, and allowing this item to move forward to create street sweeping app technology that allows us to be smarter and letting residents know when street sweepers have left the particular street or area is very important and promising. Our residents deserve this council to look outside the box and find ways of making their quality of life and user experience more positive and hopefully helping them reduce tickets and parking impacts in their communities. I ask my colleagues support and in this item and moving it forward so that we can explore what the options are for us and using our current technologies to enhance the user experience for our residents by making it possible that we can alert our residents when the street sweeper has passed their street so that they can be free to park in the area, especially if there's still an hour and a half or an hour left in the blocked out periods of time. Thank you so much. Speaker 3: Thank you, Mrs. Spears. Speaker 5: Yeah, I support this item. I guess I would ask. I'm. I'm curious. I know we have a lot of apps, parking apps for our meters and everything else. I'm curious if we can get some data on the usage of those apps, because I feel like a lot of my constituents, every time I bring it up a community meetings that we have these apps, they're not aware. So in bringing this item back, if we could just include kind of where we're at on some of those parking apps already. That would be. Speaker 1: Helpful. Thank you. Speaker 3: Thank you. Announcements open all. Speaker 8: Thank you. I support this item and I don't know if this rises to the level of a friendly amendment, but what I'd like to explore, what I've been asked about is will the app enable us to or enable residents to see the street sweeper coming? And is will they be able to see it 10 minutes, 5 minutes ahead of time to move a car as it approaches? So if that's not decided yet, I'd like to include that in the item. Speaker 9: Well, so if I can just speak to that. I was trying to tread lightly with this item because I realize that it could impact budgets and the like. So where I thought we could start is with whether we can get residents can get similar to a like an alert Long Beach where they can get a notification if they're signed up for the service after the street sweeper has left so they can go and park there if that technology is available, then of course, the next inquiry would be whether or not they can get an alert that the street sweeper is coming. So but that that is another phase. And I'm hoping to tread lightly on this as we move it forward. But I think if the technology is available for one, it should be available for the other. But I was hoping that this item could be limited to the Post. Speaker 1: Street Sweeper Alert. Speaker 8: Thank you. Asked and answered. Speaker 3: All right. Now I'm going to go back to the public because I didn't call the names out as Mr. Larry got here. Okay. Mrs.. Mr. Shelton. Okay. And Cantrell. Fine Cinnamon, because would you please cast your vote in? Speaker 0: Motion carries.

Agenda Item

Recommendation to request City Manager report back within 180 days on the feasibility and possible implementation strategies for an internet-based app program to help manage parking impacts during weekly scheduled street sweeping.

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_11122019_19-1126

Speaker 3: Line Item 14, please. Speaker 0: Communication from Councilwoman Price Council Member Pierce, Councilman Austin. Recommendation to direct City Manager to prepare a report on the status of retail commerce regionally and in Long Beach with a focus on brick and mortar establishments and provide an update to the city council. And 120 days? Speaker 3: Yes. Do you have any county council comments on this? Very good hill. Mr. Encontraram. Are you going to work on this? Right. Okay. Speaker 9: Surprise you. I asked my colleagues to support this item. As we have all seen, the Internet has changed just about every aspect of all of our lives, and there's no exception to that reality when we think about retail establishments and retail health in general, as we know almost daily now, there are articles and newspapers around the country talking about the end of retail malls closing nationwide as a result of Internet commerce and access to goods through the Internet. This has had a tremendous impact, if not already. I expect it will on many of our business corridors. We're not alone in this. The city of Beverly Hills has seen unprecedented vacancies on little Santa monica Boulevard. State Street in Santa Barbara has seen unprecedented vacancies just in the last two years on State Street, upper and lower. And we're starting to see that throughout the state of California in different business corridors. I'm hoping that our economic development department can really take a deep dove on this issue and figure out what is happening with retail and how can retail change so that it is more integrated with online commerce that we're seeing? I'll give you an example of a store that just opened in the third district at Second and PCH. It's called Nike Live. There are two Nike Live stores in the world. There's one in Tokyo and one in Long Beach, which is pretty exciting. And what Nike Live does is that they monitor online sales within the region based on zip code so that they know what people in the area are purchasing online and they stock the store with items that people are purchasing online to create a sense of community trends, community style connection. And that's just one way that they're trying to integrate online shopping with the brick and mortar experience. What are ways that our retailers, our current retailers can continue to stay competitive with an online presence of competing stores? So I'm hoping that our economic development team can come back with some ways that we can help modify the way we're doing things, some education that we can provide to our small businesses and especially our retailers. And some ways that we might be able to change as a city to allow businesses to continue to thrive. Whether that means changing regulations that we've held on to in the past in terms of parking, development, building, etc., to allow for companies to establish here in the city and to continue to help our business improvement districts thrive with both services, restaurants, with all services, restaurants and retail thriving alongside one another. So thank you in advance for your support, colleagues. Speaker 2: Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilman Austin. Speaker 7: Yes, I'm happy to second this item. When this was presented, I thought it was very thoughtful and hopefully so give our economic development department something else to do in terms of making us smarter as a city, in terms of how we we look at, you know, how we help businesses. I know I brought forward an item a few months back to study vacancies and vacant properties, and I think this is somewhat in line with that as well. And I think it would also be good and helpful to understand the the impacts of e-commerce on on sales tax revenue or potential lost sales tax revenue here in the city. Because that, to me, I think, is one area that that we need to look at as well. But I'm happy to support this. And perhaps we can we can have that conversation further in another time. Thank you. Speaker 2: Thank you. Our next step is Councilman Pearce. Speaker 5: I guess I was happy to sign on to this item. I think it's a great start to a bigger conversation. I am happy to say that I've met with John with economic development this morning and had some conversations similar. Just this week we had another two businesses on Fore Street. The AIDS food store and a barber shop have their rent increase over three over three times. So I went from $3,000 a month to $9,000 a month in rent. And so I know that while there's online challenges, there's also the rental market challenges as well. Additionally, I know that majority of our retail stores on Fore Street also sell online. And so what is the capacity of our local mom and pop businesses to get access to resources and support, to be able to understand how to go out and get new clients, new returning clients as well. And so I look forward to our many conversations to come. Thank you. Speaker 2: Thank you. Mr. Good here in control. Want to speak to this item at Sink. Seeing nonmembers, please. Gordon, cast your vote.

Agenda Item

Recommendation to direct City Manager to prepare a report on the status of retail commerce regionally and in Long Beach with a focus on brick and mortar establishments, including best practices and creative approaches cities are taking to manage changes in consumer behavior due to on-line shopping, and provide an update to the City Council in 120 days.

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_11122019_19-1131

Speaker 2: Thank you. Item. 19. Speaker 4: Report from Public Works, Technology and innovation. Recommendation to execute an agreement to contract with Arab increase in the contract amount by $700,000 for services related to the Civic Center citywide. Speaker 2: Thank you. There's a motion in a second. Ms.. Control. Miss carelessly, please come forward if you want to speak. Speaker 7: Mayor. Your staff report. Speaker 2: Mr. Modica, you want to give a quick staff report on this? Speaker 6: Yes, Craig. Back where? We have the staff report. Speaker 2: Think you may remember City Council. The item. Speaker 6: Before you this evening. Speaker 2: Is an extension of an ongoing contract that we have. Speaker 6: With Eric. Speaker 2: Eric has been the city's consultant through the development of the Civic Center project. We are close to closing out a few items and we seek their expertize in ensuring that the close out process goes smoothly. On the public works side, that includes finalizing all of the change order documentation. Speaker 6: The warranty. Speaker 2: Elements and the as built. Speaker 6: Plans. And on the technology side. Speaker 2: That includes finalizing some of the technology components, including how we move forward with. Speaker 4: The. Speaker 2: Finalization of the civic chambers. I'm available to answer. Speaker 6: Questions and it is as. Speaker 4: Well if you have technology. Speaker 2: Questions. Thank you. It's. Or. I'm sorry, Miss Cantrell. Speaker 1: Yes. And control and. I really am horrified by the fact that you're having to spend $700,000 more. For the technology at the Civic Center. This has become a. Dead whole that were throwing money down. And that's not to exceed $11 million. I'm puzzled as to where these funds are coming from. It says that 480,000 will come from funds available from the General Service says Fund in the Technology and Innovation Department. Is this something that's in the budget? Or I'm I'm really concerned about where we got. $700,000 more. And 224,000 are coming from the public works department. Does that mean that. The infrastructure. Our city streets and sidewalks will not be repaired because the civic center needs. More money. To close out your contracts. I would appreciate if somebody could answer where these funds are coming from. Thank you. Speaker 2: Thank you, Nick. Speaker, please mislead. Speaker 1: I've been musing over this extension of measure, and I started looking into it and finding the charts that showed what we're spending that money on. And there was something called structural. And then a friend of mine who's in finance said, Oh, that means structural deficit. And I looked up the definition of a structural deficit. And that means you're spending more than you earn or you have revenue for, and that it is a consistent problem when it's structural. So that means we have money problems already and we're not going to be able to live up to the promise of sunsetting measure. And then we look at this money pit that we're in right now. This building, according to the kafir, will cost $1,000,000,000 by the time we're done paying for it. So it seems like there's a lot of unnecessary spending going on when in fact we should be tightening our belts. And I'm really disappointed in this council in terms of I don't know that we have anyone with a business background in this group. That is being careful with our money. Anyway. I'm appalled. Speaker 2: Thank you. There's a there's a motion in a second. Please cast your votes. Speaker 1: Motion carries. Speaker 2: Next up is item number 20. Speaker 0: Communication from City Attorney Recommendation Declare ordinance amending the Long Beach Municipal Code prohibiting the sale of flavored tobacco products. Read the first time and lead over to the next regular meeting of City Council for Final Reading Citywide. Speaker 2: If there's a motion or a second, is there any public comment on this item? There is. Let me. Speaker 9: And I make a few may talk before public comment. Speaker 2: Yes. Let me let me just do this really quick. I just need you to organize public comment to give me what I didn't realize it was so lengthy. I'm going to come back to the stadium in just one minute.

Contract

Recommendation to authorize City Manager, or designee, to execute an amendment to Contract No. 33344 with Arup North America Limited, increasing the contract amount by $700,000, for technology optimization, closeout activities, and contract management services related to the Civic Center, in a revised total amount not to exceed $11,281,545; Increase appropriations in the General Services Fund Group in the Technology and Innovation Department (TI) by $480,000, offset by funds available; and Increase appropriations in the Civic Center Fund Group in the Public Works Department (PW) by $224,704, offset by funds available. (Citywide)

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_11122019_19-1132

Speaker 2: Thank you. We're going to go ahead and go to the the last item, which is this which is the ordinance. And we do have significant public comment on this. And so let me. I think we have over 20. And so I want to make sure that we first go back and start with Councilwoman Price and then we'll go from there. And then I want to make sure I'll so I'm going to I'm going to we're also going to reduce public public comment, obviously, because of the length. But Councilman. Speaker 1: Price. Sure. Speaker 9: And the reason I wanted to speak first is because there are a number of changes that I'm going to be requesting that be made and maybe that will eliminate the need for some of the public comment. But if not, that's fine, too. So first of all, I want to thank the city attorney for coming back to us with this ordinance so quickly. And I want to thank our health department for the great research that they did and the very informative, too, from Ford Memo that they produced for council members that is available to the public. If anyone is interested, you can reach out to our office. We brought this item as an urgency item on the supplemental agenda because we wanted to get the conversation started. And I'm glad that we're here now having this conversation. And of course, we all know that there's a lot of uncertainty out there right now in terms of what the public health epidemic is, what's causing it, and where we're headed as a country in regards to some of the regulations. I want to focus tonight's item really on vaping products in particular, because that that appears to be the area where there is significant uncertainty about what's leading to injuries and death cited in our own health department report, where CDC conclusions and statements explaining that flavorings in particular have been shown to cause serious lung injuries when inhaled. Additionally, there are serious concerns that chemical flavor flavorings, when heated, can be causing respiratory damage when inhaled. The goal of proposing this measure for me was literally to mitigate the amount of youth consumption that we see and potentially to save lives and prevent any additional lung injuries to residents of this city. Youth addiction, as we know, is a huge, huge concern as nicotine addiction in youth has been growing in recent years after decades of falling addiction numbers. A temporary ban works to make it harder for youth to get highly addictive products that are targeted to them with sweet candy flavors. A temporary ban also helps us gather more information on this health concern and monitor what the federal government and others are doing to research the current public health epidemic that we are seeing. Finally, a temporary ban is meant to be an accommodation to our local businesses. To say that we are looking to put a pause on this until federal legislation is more defined and we have finalized data on what this health emergency really is about. Many cities, in fact, almost all cities that have enacted a ban have enacted a permanent ban. But here in Long Beach, I want to be thoughtful and not reactionary. And I want to make sure that we have a temporary ban in place, but that we can continue to work with our health department and our businesses to figure out how we shape a policy moving forward that allows our businesses to stay in existence in a manner that is safe and protects the public from addiction and the harmful effects of vaping products. With that, the following changes are the changes that I'm requesting be implemented as part of the ordinance, which will have to come back for first reading because of these substantive changes. First, the intent of this ordinance is to ban flavored vapor products. Second, I'd like us to remove the tobacco products from the ban, including cigars, little cigars, chewing tobacco, hookah, tobacco, pipe, tobacco and snuff. I'd like us to exclude cigar lounges and hookah bars from the ban. I'd like to include language in the recitals to express that to the extent that this ordinance applies to minors, diversion and education are preferred alternatives to the imposition of criminal penalties. I'd like to expressly prohibit employees of a tobacco retailer from selling, offering for sale, or distributing any tobacco products containing a flavor. I'd like to increase the minimum civil penalty in a civil action from $250 to $500. And I'd like to request that the city attorney make the proposed changes and return the revised ordinance to the City Council for further consideration and a first reading. Speaker 1: Sorry. Speaker 7: Okay. Before I go behind the rail, I want to do a public comment because we have a significant amount of public speakers. Like the first caller, Mr. Larry Good. Hugh James Nino. Travis Anthony. Here. H. Sanjeev Kumar. Those are the first five. And we're going to do one minute public comment without objection from the council hearing on one minute. All right. Nice to see everybody again. Thanks for having me. Talk and hopefully we can continue this education. Speaker 4: And we've done a really good job so far. I know a lot of you met with us, more or less. Speaker 7: Everybody on this side. And we try to meet with you guys. And I know Councilmember Durango, we have a meeting on Thursday. A lot of new information came out on Friday and they said 29 out of 29 cases for the lung that they actually tested the lungs was vitamin E acetate. Nothing to do with our industry. Everything we sell is registered with the FDA. So if anything happens like this before they can pull it, we need to get a policy. If you can do this either. Speaker 4: Locally or state that there's a punishment to a child or a 14 year old that has a vape. Right now, there is no punishment at all. Zero. Speaker 7: So either them or their parents, someone should have some kind of a punishment. And I appreciate Councilmember Price meeting with us and talking with us and we can continue working together. And that takes a lot. Speaker 4: Council. Jasmine. Jade, I work for 7-Eleven. I'm the market manager for stores between SEAL Beach and El Segundo. I support my local franchisees and small business owners, including 27 elevens in the Long Beach area. 7-Eleven is a responsible retailer and as a former market manager in the Bay Area and also dealing with Santa Cruz, I've seen where some of these bands have failed, and I appreciate that you guys are looking at it in terms of the focus on Vape because as a father of a daughter who was in high school when she started to vape, I see where that's coming from. A 7-Eleven, a responsible retailer, just want to really quickly highlight some of the things that we do that maybe you should ask all retailers to do. We have employee training for all age restricted products we make available to our franchisees. We have a limited and restricted tobacco space. We have ID scanning on every single day product. You cannot buy vape without an ID in a 7-Eleven without the associate scanning it, and we actually participate in third party voluntary mystery shops. If everyone did this, maybe the product would be out of kid's hands. Speaker 6: Thank you. Speaker 12: Hello. My name is Anti-Venom. Me? I live here. I'm a 7-Eleven franchisee in the city of Long Beach. You know. Thank you, Councilman, for, you know, bringing up the whole issues. I just want to clarify one thing, which you probably when you said having, um. The changes you're making, are we changing the rules on cigarets to those menthol cigarets. Because that should be included in there, you know, be examined because they have been there for 100 years and. When you mention that, I think you overlook, you know, mentioning those that because we should be focusing on developing, we don't want the kids to be, you know. Doing that. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Speaker 7: Thanks. Next up, Stacy Brock. He meets Jaime Rojas, Shane Patel, Madeline Baron and Emily Baron. Speaker 1: Hi. Good. Good evening. I have been in business here for almost 20 years. I'm proud to be in Long Beach. I have generated a lot of tax dollars for Long Beach and I've created a lot of cities, a lot of jobs for the citizens in Long Beach. Most of all, I built a rapport with my customers, the residents of Long Beach and many travelers that came through Long Beach each year. I have many customers that live in Long Beach for most of their lives and have been smoking flavored cigars and cigarets. They came to my shop out of convenience and they loved to shop the local stores and support our local businesses. I've always complied with the laws ensuring that the products are not sold to minors. I understand that Long Beach is also in 100 compliant year to date for not selling to minors also. Now you're asking your citizens to go to an unfamiliar city, give them their tax dollars, and then come back home to Long Beach and be able to smoke in front of my shop. I'm not sure how that benefits Long Beach. I'm asking you not to them asking you not to be on the sales of traditional flavored cigars and cigarets, such as menthol, wintergreen and chewing tobacco. Thank you. Speaker 4: Good evening, council members. My name is Hamish Robertson. Speaker 6: With the National Association of Tobacco Outlets. We represent tobacco retailers who are past the quarter century. Speaker 4: As well here in the city of Long Beach. Councilman Price, I commend you for adding those changes. We also want to include. Speaker 6: In there menthol men and Wintergreen Cigarets, which have been around for over a hundred years. I stated earlier. We also want to ask in. Speaker 4: The process, this is the first major city that has not included a workshop with. Speaker 6: Retailers to get their input in the process. So we want to include that as well. Speaker 4: We're in full. Speaker 6: Support of what the councilwoman has mentioned and adding them in making those changes. And we hope to keep focus. Speaker 4: On what the issue is. It's THC, illegal, THC and illegal bootleg vaping. Speaker 6: The FDA in the past. Speaker 4: Three years here in the city of Long Beach have shown that code enforcement. Speaker 6: 97% success rate of retailers in the city of Long Beach. The issue has, according to the state, the FDA and local is not the retailers but online sales and adult and parents who buy and purchase for their kids. Thank you. Speaker 7: Thank you. Do we have Madeleine Baron? Chin Patel. Emily Baron. Brian Lee. Eva carbonara carbonara. Victor Sandoval. Speaker 4: Thank you. Speaker 1: Okay. Good evening. I would first like to commend everyone here that is involved with this proposal and personally thank you for showing interest in the subject and showing dedication in the use of language. I work with languages, youth leaders for tobacco control, a group of high schoolers who are invested and dedicated in tobacco education and restrictions surrounding the rise of vaping products among youth. Personally, this subject is very important to me, as it not only affects my life directly, but also the lives of my peers. I may not know all the statistics surrounding tobacco and vaping among youth, but I do know that I should not have to avoid my school's restrooms and fear of inhaling e-cigarette aerosols. I should not be able to purchase jewels or other flavored nicotine products as a minor, whether that be through schools or tobacco retailers. I should not have to watch my friends and peers grow dependent on toxic chemicals in my school because of the horrible withdrawal symptoms. Speaker 7: Thank you. And please state your name. Speaker 4: Good evening, city council members. My name is Brian Lee and I'm the advocacy manager at the American Lung Association of California. I'm also a resident of Long Beach District one. Our mission is to save lives by improving lung health and preventing lung disease. And our organization supports strong local regulations that protect the public from harmful effects of tobacco and secondhand smoke as well. There are two different e-cigarette crises occurring right now. The first is the ongoing high prevalence of youth use of e-cigarettes. The second is the outbreak of pulmonary illnesses. I also want to mention what the recommendations and changes. We want to permanently restrict the sale of tobacco without any exemptions. This we urge that this does not exempt hookah cigar lounges or menthol products. And we want to also clarify that there should be that the penalties are restricted only to retail sellers, not minors. Thank you for your time. It's tough work. Salutations. My name is Victor Sandoval, live in District nine and I go to Jordan Davis star Jordan High School. And I would just like to explicate my position. Speaker 7: I want to talk about how what happens. Speaker 4: When students smoke from vaping products. What happens is it at the brain stops developing at 25? Thus when they take these supplements into their body, when into happening, is that their their focus, their learning and their recollection faculties are impeded thus to generating. Speaker 7: Thirst, perpetuating it to generate behavior that will destroy them. I prefer this baby pass for them. Thank you. In the midst of the long. Mohammed Abdullah, Ahmed, Ishmael and Cantrell and Primo Castro. Very. All right. Moving on. Dr. Gina. Okay. Johnny. William. Aldinga and Amanda Staples. That those will be our final speakers. Speaker 1: Good evening. As a doctor of public health, I rely on the. Speaker 12: CDC. Speaker 1: And they have said that vaping is hazardous. I want you to imagine that the CDC determined that a toy being sold in Long Beach is a choking hazard for babies. Do you side with the store owners who want to sell the toy or do you protect the babies? The answer's easy. We side with consumer safety over profits. We don't wait for babies to die. We don't claim that something else is causing the choking. This is the same situation with vaping products. The CDC has determined that they pose a risk of acute and potentially potentially chronic lung injury. Let's get them off the shelves. Just like that potentially hazardous toy. It's simple to see the motivation of this vape shop owners and seeking a carve out of this ban for flavored products. They want to protect their own right to sell a hazardous product while restricting the sale by others. Speaker 7: Thank you so much. Speaker 2: Evening, members of the City Council. My name is Primo Castro with the American Cancer. Speaker 4: Society Cancer Action Network. Looking forward, Councilmember. Thank you very much for your amendments. Speaker 7: Looking forward to, you know, to see and read the new revised. Speaker 6: Edition of the ordinance. Thank you. Good evening. William Baldinger Coalition for Smoke Free Long Beach. I know there's been a lot of speakers I haven't been able to come. That's because we brought many high school students, those who are directly affected by them, by this ordinance, who need to be heard. So I applaud that. You have listened to the vape shop industry. Now I'd like you to talk to high school principals and pediatric pulmonologists and the people who see the effects of this epidemic on a daily basis. Those are the people who are affected by this this ordinance and who need to also be heard. Some arguments that we've heard in the past is that vaping is a way to end tobacco addiction. Vaping is tobacco addiction and that buyers will go elsewhere for their product. That's great. Let them go elsewhere. The incidence of. Speaker 4: Of of vaping among high school students. Speaker 6: Will go down as we push these products out of Long Beach, which is the only way we can protect our youth. Speaker 7: Thank you, sir. Speaker 1: Good evening, Amanda Staples with the American Heart Association. We are encouraged by this council's leadership, especially on this urgent and public health crisis regarding our youth tobacco epidemic. We're excited about some of the changes that the council has proposed, specifically around penalties that could be interpreted penalizing youth, specifically youth of color. I wanted to share that. We just hosted the Long Beach Stroke and Heart Walk just last month at El Dorado Regional Park. We had almost 4000 walkers. An overwhelmingly majority wanted to see a flavored tobacco ordinance here in Long Beach. A comprehensive ordinance that address all flavors and all tobacco products. And these are for Mercer. These are survivors. These are folks that prioritize health here in Long Beach, in their city. And so I just want to encourage you all that you do have a strong support here in Long Beach that wants to prioritize public health and address this youth tobacco epidemic. Thank you. Speaker 2: It's a man staples here that wasn't made of Staples. Councilman Price. Speaker 9: And I want to thank all the speakers that came out just just as a reminder. I brought this item as an urgency item to get the discussion going. And we have been listening to everyone. I've met with anyone who's reached out. I will continue to meet with everyone. The goal of this item was to act immediately to stop any additional incentive or access for. Speaker 1: Youth. Speaker 9: To vaping products. There are a number of issues associated with this topic and last time we had a discussion on this topic, it started to go in many different directions. I want to make sure that the purpose of this agenda item and why it was a supplemental item is clear. And that is as a result of the increase in incidents that we have seen related specifically to flavored vaping products and the mechanism of vaping. We brought this item to put forth as quickly as possible a temporary ban on the sale of those products in the city of Long Beach. As it's written, it will last for one year. Retailers will have 180 days to remove the items from the shelves. Just like many other cities have done, that seems to be the standard. They should not be buying additional product because they'll have 180 days to get rid of the product that they have. But this specific item is not about all tobacco products. It's about vaping products. We can have a discussion about all tobacco products. On another item, I'm happy to have that discussion and probably support it. This item, though, is an urgency item related to vape products specifically. There are a lot of uncertainties regarding the vape products and what which of the flavors or what aspect of the mixes is or the mechanism is causing the pulmonary injuries. There is actively research taking place and studies that are taking place that hopefully over the course of the next year will reveal to us whether it's the vaping mechanism as a whole, whether it's the additives to the flavors, whether it's the specific flavors, what it is that's causing the pulmonary injuries. And we'll have that period of time to be able to put forth a policy that will be inclusive of all of those factors. At this juncture, however, I think it's important for the city to act and to act. Speaker 1: Quickly to put. Speaker 9: Forth a ban that limits flavored vaping products. I do want to ask our health department director one question because it keeps coming up. Flavored cigarets. Cigaret flavors are have were banned I think in 2009. Is that. Speaker 4: Correct? As flavored cigarets were banned. Menthol is still there and the original motion was to include menthol tobacco as it is a way that youth are engaging in tobacco and nicotine addiction. Speaker 9: Okay. So and I know that that was an item that was an amendment that Councilman Austin made when we were last here. And it was in regards to menthol tobacco products. So I don't know if we want to include that in this and expand it beyond just the vaping products. But I think. What I'd like to do is limit this ban to vaping products at this time and give us some opportunity to evaluate. But I'm open to hearing the discussion of my colleagues and, you know, to the comments that were made in regards to, you know, listening to the vape shops. We're listening to everyone. And yes, we're going to take a measured approach as a city, but we're going to have an immediate ban once this council votes on it. And we'll have some time to study what the what the permanent ban is going to look like. And I think that's fair. And I think that's prudent. And I think it accomplishes the mission, which is to mitigate access of youth to these products. So thank you. Speaker 2: Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilman Austin. Speaker 7: Thank you. And I was happy to second this motion. Obviously, the health of our youth and discouraging them from picking up on that habits is really, I think, laudable. And I want to appreciate our councilmember, Susie Price, for for her leadership and her vigilance on this particular issue. I want to, I guess, ask the city attorney, how did we get flavored tobacco in the the original intent of what we put forth two weeks ago when we brought this matter forward, since it was sounds like the intent was specifically to vape items and we we somehow ended up with flavored tobacco. Can you can you help us recollect? Speaker 6: Yes, Councilmember, when this item was brought last week, there were, as I recall, two friendlies, one by Councilmember Richardson, that added tobacco flavored products. And then your motion to make sure that that also included menthol tobacco cigarets so that they were both accepted as friendlies to the original motion of vape products. And with that, it greatly expanded to include all of those tobacco products. That maybe wasn't the intent of the council last week. Speaker 7: I hear that. But also, with all due respect, they were accepted as friendlies two weeks ago. Are they not friendly now? Speaker 9: What I want to do is limit it to vaping products. I specifically want to exclude hookah lounges and cigar lounges at this point. Well, while we're doing the temporary ban. Speaker 7: I'm going to going to hold to two menthol cigarets. Again, I think it is a challenge. It's also you've heard from our health department director. Is is. I a Andre and you know, it entices you to get involved in smoking. And so I want to hold that. If somebody wants to amend emotion to to do something else, then the council is free to do that. Speaker 9: No, I'm okay accepting that as a friendly. Speaker 6: That currently as as I understand the amended motion direction menthol cigarets are included included not exclude. So we would need a motion to tell us or direct me to exclude it right now. Speaker 9: No, no. We want to keep it as as. Speaker 7: And so I encourage you support the counsel. Speaker 2: The motion in a second as presented. Let me go to Councilwoman Mongo. Speaker 1: So I just I missed a smidge of the conversation when I was trying to prepare and pumping in the back, but just. Is there any? So in my understanding there are other kinds of non flavored vape that are currently sold with THC that are not flavored, that are not covered in this ban. Speaker 6: THC and cannabis are not included in this current direction to prepare this ordinance. That is correct. Speaker 1: If our health director could tell me in the press releases that I read, those were specifically noted as potentially causing. The pulmonary issues, the lung issues. Speaker 4: The data around the vaping disease indicates that much of it comes from cannabis. There's also a percentage that come from nicotine. Yes. Speaker 1: And so I guess is there. Do we not think that the THC ones are getting in the hands of youth or. Why are we limiting it or is that open to an addition? Speaker 9: Certainly open to discussion. That's not something I've done any my I myself have not done any outreach on it. My goal was to ban flavored vapes, which is the national trend that's going on to address youth use. But I will say that the CDC recently stated that although THC was connected with some of those deaths, they still do not know whether it's the mechanism, the heating source, the extracts, what it is that's causing it. So I'm not comfortable going down. Of broadening this particular statute. Proposed statute, as it's worded, until we've done additional research and gotten more data on that, that's just not an area that I mean, if someone here has some data that the definitive data that they want to share and make up amended motion, that's fine. But that's not part of my motion right now. Speaker 1: So I don't hear support from the whole council on this. But I will say that in what I've read, what's been provided to me and when I lived in Europe. Back. More than ten years ago, vaping was around and flavored vaping was around and there weren't these injuries. And a lot of the things that I've read have not stated that flavored vape is the issue, but it's more the jewel and all these other things. And I don't know that we're targeting those devices as well as I would hope we would. Because when I go to a gas station to get gas and I see these products there. That scares me. I also had a. It's actually a Lakewood resident who was at a Long Beach location discussing with me that they because of the discussion we had here at the dais and how dangerous vaping is and how they're currently a smoker. They picked up an e-cigarette. And so I said, Well, there's a whole nother set of criteria and concerns related with e-cigarettes and. Especially an unregulated non FDA approved. All of these other things and so I have a serious concern about. The ban, as it says today, because of what I have read, it doesn't sound like the council has the desire to limit. All vape. Products except for those that are sold in vape specific stores, which and again the vape store in my district when they came into the district, I was nervous. I thought they were too close to a high school. I had all of these concerns, but they've never created an environment for our teens where they were welcome. They've never invited them into the store. We've not had any impact of that. So my research is different, but I'm hesitant to make an amendment at this time because it doesn't sound like the council was supportive of that last time. And so. I'll just again state my opinion and hope for a day when a bigger picture is available. Speaker 7: Councilmember Pearce. Speaker 5: Thank you. I want to applaud Councilmember Price for kind of focusing in on the areas that she originally intended. I support keeping menthol in there and not to make it more complicated, but as a 12 year old, I recall clove cigarets were the thing. Are those things legal still? Clove cigarets. Would you be opposed to including clove cigarets? I know it. Just as I remember all of us. 12 and 14 year old smoking cloves before we smoked cigarets. Speaker 7: They were called betis days. Speaker 1: So hip. I wasn't that hip. Speaker 9: I'm not opposed to that. I just I defer to the city attorney whether. Speaker 6: If the direction is to ban clove cigarets, we could add that language. I'm I'm not familiar with clove cigarets. So we're quite just talking to the health department about it. Speaker 5: They are definitely a flavor. Very intense flavor. If Councilmember Price's okay with that. Sure. Thank you. And I don't mean to piecemeal this. I think that we I applaud doing this in an urgency way. I think I would still like to down the road hear a full presentation from the health department. The cannabis industry has not been included, I think, in these discussions, and I do know that I've seen some of the numbers around THC and vape products, but I don't feel the urgency to do that today. So I support the item as is and hope that we can have a full council presentation from the Health Department and possibly include cannabis industry in that conversation when that time is here. So. Thank you. Speaker 2: Mr. City. Attorney, do you have anything else to add? Speaker 6: No, the. Just to clarify, it's the motion made by councilmember price adding clove cigarets. And this will include the ban of menthol cigarets. Speaker 9: That sounds good. And then if I could, just one more question. I know we touched upon it. The health department did do a really thorough tff on this. I wonder I don't know if they're prepared to do a report on it. Are you okay if the health department's if you could do a brief report? I think that would be fantastic, because I think it's much of the items that were listed in the health department report are actually incomplete contradiction to some of the statements that were made by some of my colleagues in regards to flavored products. So I want to make sure that we talk about that so that at any time, any council member who wants to bring an item back to add THC, we could start they could certainly do that. But I think it's important for the health department to report back on what you found regarding flavored vape products, not including THC , just flavored products. No, we didn't have a presentation yet. Speaker 2: There is a motion in a second. Speaker 9: And a request for a. Speaker 1: Presentation. Speaker 2: And the presentation request. Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm ready. I can. Speaker 4: We can speak to the to the items. So. So first. Speaker 1: Of all, e-cigarettes and other vape devices provide nicotine levels. Speaker 4: Ranging from zero mg to over 50 milligrams per milliliter in a cartridge or a pod standard CIGARETS average 8 to 10 milligrams of nicotine and the strength is reduced when burned. So many of the bait products offer much higher levels of nicotine than you would find in a regular cigaret. According to the Centers for Disease Control, e-cigarettes are considered highly. Speaker 1: Efficient, efficient. Speaker 4: Delivery systems for. Speaker 1: Nicotine and for. Speaker 4: Cannabis. Pod methods, which are utilized by Joule and other companies, utilize nicotine salts that offer a much higher level of. Speaker 1: Nicotine. Speaker 4: To be consumed. These high. Speaker 1: Levels are leading to increased levels of. Speaker 4: Dependency. Speaker 1: More frequent use. Speaker 4: And addiction among youth and adults. Speaker 1: Ages 18 to 24. Speaker 4: There's a lot of focus on youth under the age of 21, 18, up to. Speaker 1: Age 30 really are the areas where you're seeing. Speaker 4: Really increased youth and Nationwide's e-cigarette utilization has increased nearly 20 fold in less than ten years, and currently 29% of youth are utilizing e-cigarettes. Both the FDA and U.S. Surgeon General have declared youth e-cigarettes as an epidemic. Flavored tobacco products are driving the current. The current youth vaping epidemic. Over 70% of vapers are using the flavored e-cigarettes. Speaker 1: Flavors match the. Speaker 4: Taste of tobacco in both vape and all to end all flavored tobacco. Speaker 1: Products and make it easier for new users. Speaker 4: To initiate tobacco use. As of. Speaker 1: 2017, there are more than 15,500 different e-cigarette flavors available online, including cotton candy, gummy bears. Speaker 4: Juice boxes and many others. Speaker 1: Flavors that appeal. Speaker 4: To youth. And there actually federal law prohibits conventional cigarets. Speaker 1: The 2016 Surgeon General's report on e-cigarettes concluded that flavors are among the most commonly cited reasons. Speaker 4: That using e-cigarettes among youth and young adults, the draw is very concerning. As a levels of nicotine damage have damaging effects on the developing brain. Speaker 1: Brain development continues until at least the age of 25 or older. Speaker 4: Nicotine changes, brain cell activity and parts of the brain responsible for attention, learning memory and can interfere with emotion and impulse control. The younger a. Speaker 1: Person is when they start using nicotine, the more likely they are to become addicted. Speaker 4: And the more difficult it is for them to quit. Flavorings in e-cigarettes can pose your health risk for adults as well. E-cigarettes expose the lung to a variety. Speaker 1: Of chemicals over 40. And at least. Speaker 4: Ten of these around the California's Proposition 65 list of. Speaker 1: Carcinogens and. Speaker 4: Reproductive toxin toxins. While much is still unknown about the long term health effects of e-cigarette, aerosol studies show short term use of e-cigarettes increases. Respiratory resistance. Speaker 1: Impairs, impairs, lend function. Speaker 4: And daily use that. Speaker 1: Have double the risk of heart attack. Speaker 4: E-cigarettes are not regulated by the FDA. None of them are regulated by the FDA and they are not subject to any manufacturing standards. There's a lot of variability in the types of products and mislabeling. In 2018, studies found that 91% of e-liquids marketed as. Speaker 1: Nicotine free contain various levels of nicotine. Speaker 4: Overall, nicotine levels in e-cigarettes are highly variable and with many of them exceeding the levels of combustible cigarets. Many see vaping as a smoking cessation tool. Speaker 1: However, what we're finding is. Speaker 4: That they don't reduce nicotine consumption. And in fact, 80% of those who utilize e-cigarette. Speaker 1: Devices as the cessation techniques continue to. Speaker 4: Utilize e-cigarettes. Speaker 1: For continued nicotine addiction. No e-cigarette product. Speaker 4: Has been FDA approved for smoking cessation, though there are a number of others FDA approved on the market. Speaker 1: Currently there are licensed. There are 13 licensed vape. Speaker 4: Only shops in Long Beach and 490 outlets licensed to sell tobacco and other nicotine products. This includes duals and other things that we're talking about here that fit within this ban. Speaker 1: The Environmental Health Division currently administers the retail the tobacco retail enforcement program. Speaker 4: Which would which would fall under this work would fall under the program. Speaker 1: The Health Department's tobacco education program is leading vape education across the city, partnering closely with the school district to provide information to principals, school nurses, parents and student groups and conducting community presentations. In addition, it. Speaker 4: Facilitates a seven week long summer program for. Speaker 1: Youth. 23 graduated. You heard from one or two. Speaker 4: Of them tonight and they are developing messages to work in them in their communities. As of October 9th. Speaker 1: There were 44 local flavor bans ordinances in California. In terms of the in terms of cannabis, the baby has essentially found that we've had three cases here. Nearly 80% of those. Speaker 4: Cases were under the age of 35. The median age is 24. What they're really finding is a highly suspected link to the most pressing. Speaker 1: Concerns include cannabis. Speaker 4: Include the attractiveness of the use and method for young people. So basically the vaping of cannabis is highly attractive to young people. Speaker 1: The same study found that 22 in 2016 found that participants top reason for vaping cannabis was convenience, and to screen it. Speaker 4: For use in public places or for young people to screen is for use in homes. Speaker 1: And in schools. So they've done a lot of different research. Speaker 4: They don't know what it is that is causing. Speaker 1: The Vitamin. Speaker 4: E is one of those aspects, but it has. Speaker 1: Not been clarified. Speaker 4: Both for the vaping disease, but also the long term understanding. Speaker 1: And research behind what we find. Speaker 4: Being sold in any shop in vaping also has not been determined to understand the long term impacts. With that I open for for comment. Speaker 9: Thank you very much for that report. If I can just make a clarification of an amendment. So Clove Cigarets were actually banned in 2009, but the new version of of that trend is the cigarillos or the little cigaret, little cigars or cigarillos sig a r i elo. So I'd like to include those in addition to the menthol cigarets as the bans. Received quite the education this evening myself. Speaker 7: Okay. So, Harry, no further comment. Are we clear, Mr. City Attorney, on the ordinance and the amendments? Speaker 6: Yes, we are. Speaker 7: See no other comments from the Council. Let's take a vote.

Ordinance

Recommendation to declare ordinance amending the Long Beach Municipal Code by adding Chapter 5.94 prohibiting the sale of certain flavored tobacco products within the City of Long Beach, read and adopted as read. (Citywide)

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_11052019_19-1093

Speaker 0: Okay. Please cast your votes. And then we have now we're moving on to the hearing and then we'll go right into public comment. And so I'm going to turn the hearing, if we can. Please have. Mr. Modica. And then the clerk, please begin the hearing. Speaker 2: Yes. Speaker 11: Report from Financial Management recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record. Conclude the public hearing and approve an amendment to the conditions of the entertainment without dancing permit issued to Marina Wine at 194 Marina Drive, Suite 101 District three. Speaker 3: Oh. Speaker 11: There is an oath. Please stand and raise your right hand. Do you and each of you 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 3: Brett Jaquez and Emily Armstrong from Financial Management will be presenting the staff report. Speaker 12: Good evening, honorable mayor and members of the city council. Tonight you have before you an amendment to the conditions of the entertainment without dancing permit issued to relevant ink doing business as marina wine located at 194 Marina Drive, Suite 101, operating as a restaurant with alcohol in Council District three. At its meeting on October 15, 2019. The City Council granted an entertainment without dancing permit subject to approved permit conditions. The permit conditions approved on October 15th require that all doors and windows must remain closed during the hours of entertainment at the establishment. Furthermore, all authorized entertainment activities must be restricted from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Mondays through Thursdays, 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Sundays. After approval of the entertainment permit, it was discovered that the conditions were not approved as intended in the entertainment permit. As a result, staff recommends amending the permit with the conditions as contained in the hearing packet. I, as well as the police department, stand ready to answer any questions Council may have. And that concludes staff's report. Speaker 8: Finds anybody coming inside. Who? Mr. Good, you know. Speaker 3: Councilman Price Thank you. Vice Mayor So I want to thank staff for bringing this item back because as it was approved last time was not what I had intended. So I appreciate you bringing it back and I appreciate the call out for the two additional conditions, specifically the amendments in condition one and the amendments and conditions six . I want to confirm that the the entertainment permit is with no dancing. Correct. That is correct. So the expectation would be that there would not be any dancing on the premises or within close proximity to the premises as a result of this business. Yes, there. Speaker 12: Is no dancing allowed. Speaker 3: And then also, I want to confirm that alcohol cannot be carried into the courtyard or other areas of Alamitos Bay Center pursuant to the conditions of this permit. Is that correct? Speaker 12: So the conditions of the entertainment permit rely on their ABC conditions that's related to their alcohol license. So those ABC conditions trump the entertainment permit. Speaker 3: Okay, great. And then one other thing that I have. It's not a condition, really, but I want to just share that. I have talked with the business owner who is here today, and I want to thank him for being here. And I want to thank him for being engaged and for being, you know, a tremendous partner thus far. I have no doubt this is going to be a very smooth transition with this permit. But one of the things we talked about is I know that he's going to be updating his speaker system so that it is more conducive to this particular area in terms of where the sound is amplified. And I know that he expects to do that within the next three months or so. So although it's not a condition, I know that this entertainment permit is going to come back in about a year, I believe, for us to review or not come back , but it will be evaluated by staff in a year. And so I want us to be mindful of of that as being one of the. Agreements that the business owner has made in regards to working collaboratively and in partnership with the surrounding businesses. So with that, I'd ask my colleagues to support granting this permit as amended. And I wish our business owner the best of luck and marina wine. So everyone please go out and visit them and help them help support the business so that they continue to grow. Speaker 8: Fine, Councilwoman Parrish. Oh, and thank you. Could you please cast your vote or. Speaker 11: Motion carries. Speaker 8: When you move to a. And in 20. Speaker 11: Item 20 Communication from Councilmember Richardson, Councilmember Pearce, Councilmember Urunga. Speaker 6: I believe that some of the time certain. Speaker 7: For. Speaker 8: You and going to public comment there. Okay with that, we're move to public comment then we have a. Eight individuals have to speak with inside with the first three in this room. Could you please come up to the podium when I call your name?

Public Hearing

Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record, conclude the public hearing and approve an amendment to the conditions of the Entertainment without Dancing Permit issued to Relevant, Inc., dba Marina Wine, at 194 Marina Drive, Suite 101. (District 3)

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_11052019_19-1106

Speaker 8: Thank you. That concludes public comment. Thank you. Now we move to item. 21. Speaker 11: Communication from Councilmember Richardson, Councilmember Urunga recommendation to receive and file a report on the status of basic life support ambulance vacancies in the city of Long Beach. And request the city manager to explore and implement solutions to restore bills 12 and 13 to daily service as soon as possible. And prepare a long term plan that addresses staffing shortages for emergency medical technicians. Speaker 8: Councilman Richardson was speaking. Speaker 6: Thank you, vice mayor. Sure. So most recently, I was I and the city council was notified of some recent actions that need to take place in our fire department that impact our ability to deploy our basic life support units 12 and 13 based in north and west Long Beach. This has a small but an important impact on our ability to respond and transport patients to the emergency room. The purpose of the motion tonight is to discuss and receive a briefing on that situation, discuss what actions have already been taken and what can be taken to immediately restore vehicles 12 and 13 as soon as possible. And then to begin the conversation on long term solutions to address the staffing issues associated with the EMT positions of ambulance operator positions here in the city of Long Beach. So that this problem which occurred last year, occurred this year, during the last two months of the holidays, won't occur next year. And so at this point, I'd I'd like to hear your staff report. Speaker 8: Thank you. Speaker 5: Thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor. Members of the Council. So Javier Espinal, our fire chief, will be able to provide kind of an update of where we are with our blaze ambulances. We provided a 2.4 report on Friday, which is provides a lot of data and we can kind of get into that a little bit and answer your questions. So with that, I will turn it over to our fire chief. Speaker 7: Thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor. Members of the Council, thank you for the opportunity to provide this update on our basic life support ambulance staffing. Recent staffing shortages and Long Beach Fire Department's ambulance operator position have caused a change in the staffing model for basic life support ambulance deployment. On October 18, 2019, after having met and conferred with both the International Association of Machinists and the Long Beach Firefighters Association, Long Beach Fire Department elected to stop using mandatory overtime for ambulance operators to staff one of the city's two time to daytime peak bliss units. If full time employees are available or part time employees have signed up to work. This unit will be staffed. This action was taken to provide temporary relief to the remaining full time ambulance operators who were being required to work an excessive number of additional hours to fill the vacancies. The FDA provides two transport methods for patients who have called 911 for a medical emergency. Critical patients like those who are suffering a heart attack or a stroke and need immediate medical intervention are transported to a local emergency room by firefighter paramedics in one of the fire departments. Nine ALS paramedic rescues patients who do not require immediate, immediate medical intervention by paramedics, but who require or request transport to a local emergency room are transported by one of the BFD bellows ambulances, the BLR ambulances or staff with non sworn ambulance operators who hold an emergency medical technician license and are either full time or part time employees at staff. One of the five bellows ambulances, three of the bellows ambulances are staff for 24 hours a day and are currently housed at fire stations two, four and 19. Two of the bellows ambulances are peak load units and are staff during periods in which transports occur more frequently. Currently, a unit is housed at Fire Station 13 and a staff from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and one is housed at Fire Station 12 and is staffed from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.. VLS Ambulances are a citywide resource. Therefore, even though each BLS unit is assigned to a specific fire station, the Bliss units are out in the community more often than they are in their designated fire stations. Long Beach Fire Department typically hires one class of ambulance operators per year. And in past years, this class would graduate approximately 20 ambulance operators. This is typically enough to support the natural attrition that occurs in that classification. Ambulance operators are hired through civil service and applications are screened for qualifications and sent over to the BFD for review. Candidate candidate candidates are selected from that list and 60 or more slated for BFD interviews with firefighters of various ranks. The top candidates are sent to live, scan a thorough background process and a medical exam with occupational health before being offered a position. Once offered the position, ambulance operators complete a three week course that covers internal BFD policies and procedures, an EMT refresher and emergency vehicle operations. The ambulance operators also complete field orientation observation rotations with current ambulance operators. Part time employees are offered full time positions in order of seniority or an order of their performance in the ambulance operator class. Currently they all. BFD is experiencing a shortage of BLS personnel, as many fire departments are hiring for fire positions in addition to ambulance operator companies. The shortage is limited to FDA ability to cover all shifts on the 12 hour bill as ambulances. BFD Ambulance Operator Staffing filled a critical levels in September 2018. We conducted a hiring process and 24 candidates began the background and medical exam process. Of the 24 candidates. Only 13 completed the three week orientation class. The others withdrew from the process or were disqualified during the background. Medical or EMT refresher course. A second process was initiated in May 2019, and in this process, 36 candidates began and a total of 20 candidates completed the process. The civil service list for this position expired, and a new bulletin was published in June 2019. In August 20, 1960, candidates were interviewed. 36 moved to backgrounds, and as of today, 28 candidates remain in the process and those that complete backgrounds are being scheduled for medical exams. The background and medical exam portions of the process are typically slated for ten weeks based on part on prior experience. We're hopeful that we may be able to conduct a smaller class prior to the end of the year if we're able to move through the process quickly. If this is not the case, a class would take place in early January 2020. As previously mentioned, bliss, ambulances, transport patients who do not require immediate medical intervention by a paramedic when there are no bills, ambulances available and a patient meeting. These criteria requires transportation. An analyst unit is dispatched to provide transport. This typically places an A+ unit out of service during a period of typically 20 or 30 to 40 minutes. Other A+ units provide coverage in that unit's area while it's out of service. To reduce the number of mandatory shifts. The ambulance operators recovering the department stopped filling mandatory overtime spots on VLS 12. This unit was selected because of the five B-list ambulances. It has the lowest average call volume at seven calls per shift. Additionally, it has two paramedic rescues nearby that provide overlapping coverage in the event one is out of service. Further, the OB FDA proposes to rotate this reduction between Bliss 12 and Bliss 13 beginning in mid-November. It is anticipated that most of these calls will be absorbed by the other Bliss units. If no Bliss units are available. An elite unit would have to fill in further. The recent restoration of Engine 17 provides an additional citywide resource to provide emergency medical services prior to the arrival of an A+ or a B+ transport unit. These reductions in daily staffing are temporary and will be in place until the BFD is able to hire sufficient number of ambulance operators, which is expected to occur in January 2020. During this period, BFD will strive to maintain response times while continuing to meet the expectations of the community with regard to emergency medical services. This concludes our report and we stand ready to answer any questions. Speaker 8: Thank you. Yes. Speaker 6: Thank you. Just a thank you for that report, Chief. And you expanded on what was initially submitted in the two from four to the council. So thank you for giving us the most recent update and just have a few questions about the situation. So we had a call with our North local leaders last night and there was a lot of discussion about the difference between Alice and the Beatles. Would you just give a high level explanation of what Alice Rescue does and what a Bliss does? Speaker 7: So Alice is advanced life support and those are are paramedic firefighter paramedics that respond to typically heart attacks, strokes, things of that nature that need immediate intervention by a paramedic by higher level of emergency technician. The Bliss ambulances are more slated for transport of patients to hospitals that don't need immediate intervention by a paramedic. Speaker 6: Okay. So advanced life support, heart attack, basically it's a life or death situation. Basic life support will be an example of a basic life support call. Speaker 7: It could be a minor laceration, a fall with bruising pain of some type that doesn't require immediate intervention. Speaker 6: Understood. Okay. And you touched on this. It's the proximity to the ALS units and the three full time, because VLS units will limit the response time. But can you say that there will be no impact to response times, or will there be an impacted response times while we're in this situation? Speaker 7: I can't say that there will be no impact. I do anticipate some impact to the system. But as previously stated, especially with the VLS units, once they arrive and change shift in the morning, more generally than not they are out of the station and whether they get back into that particular area within a given number of hours is subject to run count. Speaker 6: Okay. And you mentioned in your presentation that you expect that this issue will be resolved and the unit will be placed, the units will be placed back in service January 2020. Speaker 7: I do. Speaker 6: Are there any factors that could affect the timeline on that, either pushing it beyond January 2020 or sooner than January 2020? Speaker 7: So it is we stated we currently are pushing as hard as we can through the background and medical process. There is a potential that we could do a class potentially earlier as far as going past 2020. I don't anticipate that being a problem. We have everybody in the queue as far as the medicals and the backgrounds and I think we're going to be set. Speaker 6: Sure. Thank you. Now I want to talk about the future. So based on our conversation, I know that this has happened at least once in the past last year, and then it happened this year. Mr. Modica, can can you would you talk about what your approach would be in responding to this, this motion to think about what we can do to either make the hiring system better or faster, or to build a bench or a pool, or to enhance or improve the problems that lead to the ALS being difficult, a difficult position to maintain. I know that there are concerns about the level, the rate of pay that these folks receive or whether it's a pipeline to a fire position or whatever it is. But how would you respond to this motion? Speaker 5: Sure. So we have been putting a lot of thought into this, and this motion helps us really hone in on it. We do. You know, one of the aspects here is it's a smaller group of employees than we do have. For example, firefighter. We have, you know, 100 firefighter positions and just dozens of these positions. Part of the reason that this program was created in the first place place was to be a feeder group into our firefighter ranks. So we know that this happens. We know that we we often have transitioned these people into other employment in long beach. We're going to be looking at working with civil service and with h.r. About planning out those academies. We're also, you know, knowing that there's going to be peaks and valleys sometimes where something like this unexpected will happen and see what are our options to either bring in additional support or having people on a bench or others that we can bring in to do that. And if there's any other solutions out there, we're going to be looking at those in the next month or two. So we we don't like to be in this situation. We always want to have full staffing whenever possible. It does happen in an organization our size and in this case is just a small, limited pool that can do that job. So we were we will be taking this seriously and trying to plan those academies so that this doesn't happen in the future. Speaker 6: Thank you. So that's the last thing I'll say is, is number one, I want to thank the residents who submitted comments on each comment and those of you who joined us. I see my neighbors, my Rohnert neighbors sitting here front center paying attention. It's incredibly important. So so Mr. Modica, I was going to say, Mr. West, Mr. Modica and Chief Espino, the more we can, you know, submit to form fours and keep the council updated, keep the public updated on this immediate restoration. But also the conversation about what we're going to do in the future, I think would be welcome. Folks want to want to know that we're on top of this and this won't be the situation next year. Is that okay? Speaker 5: Yes. So part of our response will be to come back and look at all those different ideas. We we've had some ourselves. We are hearing from others about what could we be doing. We're going to run those down. We'll make sure we give a report back. And as the chief mentioned, we're going to try a number of things to accelerate that date from January into December so that the it's narrowed as much as possible. Speaker 6: To make sure this is. Speaker 5: Due in writing. Speaker 6: Thank you. This is an issue not just for North Long Beach, right. All of the you know, the system is the sum of its parts. It affects response times across the city. We restored Engine 17 and they responded to a fire in North Long Beach on the 91 freeway last week. So it's all a part of the same system. I know the impact, the Westside North and citywide. Thank you. Speaker 8: Thank you. Fine. We're going to public comment. We're going to go to right now. That's he said he wanted to wait. Yes. We're going to go to Japan and come up. Mr.. Good to you first. And then we have, uh, Anita, in a way, Mrs. Harding. You would. Your next question. Speaker 1: Thank you. I fully support this motion. And I will use this opportunity as I tried to the last time we were at the council meeting. But the council, our mayor three times said, I already spoke on it when the public record revealed I did not speak on it. The thing to keep in mind and this is something I didn't know and a lot of people didn't know until about two or three years ago. Are they in heresy, dangers in fighting fires to the people that fire that fight those fires? These are the the long term effects on lungs excuse me and hearts from a lifetime of inhaling that smoke. It's debilitating. It cuts life short to short. And anything we can do. To address that we should keep in mind. And ironically, after last week's council meeting, of course, the issue became not just a Long Beach area issue or California issue or law in L.A. County, but it's a nationwide issue. These are the all the fires that nobody expected and so forth. So the that's front and center and should always remain front and center relative to those inherent issues that are extraordinarily difficult to deal with and cut the life short of our firemen. Thank you. Speaker 8: Thank you, Mrs. Bonita. Speaker 3: Yes. Good evening. Thank you. Vice Mayor De Andrews and our city councilman. My name is. We need a doctor Moore. I'm a resident in the ninth District representing the Collins Neighborhood Association. And the ninth District recently lost and just lost the services to Station 12, I believe it was seven years ago. And just recently those services were restored. Having these basic life support services reduced. Speaker 12: To like part time services or loss of them. They put. Speaker 9: Our. Speaker 3: Most vulnerable residents at great risk. We have several residents that are elderly, they're homebound, and we have several members in our community that depend on public transportation. So having these services taken away from them and if they have an incident for call, for service, where they have to depend on this ambulance service to take them to a nearby hospital, that's not necessarily maybe in that neighborhood, but is across town. These life saving services sometimes can be life threatening and critical to our most vulnerable residents. So I ask that you please consider something that is more of a permanent and long term solution. So our residents in District nine, as well as the other residents in the city of Long Beach, can have a better quality of life. Thank you very much for your time and I appreciate it. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir. Speaker 8: Yes, Mrs. Harry. She? Now I will go to the diocese council in anger. Speaker 10: Thank you, Mayor. And I want to echo the last person who made a comment there. Although our report says to explore alternative solutions to the temporary to a temporary reduction in bills. I think we should look at more permanent solution to that. I totally agree with that. I would ask the maker of the motion if he would be amenable to. Redirect a step to make a permanent solution to this. Speaker 6: That's the intention with a long term plan like fix it permanent. We don't want to deal with this one. Speaker 10: On the record that we're. Speaker 6: Looking on the record. Absolutely. Speaker 5: We understand that's the that's the goal. We want to get there as well. Speaker 10: All right. I have a few questions that regarding the the current status of where we're at and what brought us here. So Bill's services are sometimes provided by EMT. Emergency medical technicians are the ones or twos. One. One is that basically entry level emergency medical technician. If you're interested in getting to the fire service below a paramedic. Correct. Okay. The positions that we have here, are they part time positions or full time or a mix of both? Speaker 7: They're mix of both. Speaker 10: And when we come about to this situation where we're at now. How many hours? A full time EMT one would put in would be would it be a regular eight hour shift an hour firefighters put in 24 hours when they perform as often for as three, 4 hours. So. Valencia if we go in a shift, we shift and see shift. So red, blue and green, I think it is. How do they work? Speaker 7: The full time blazer operators work on the same schedule as our firefighters, but they are the only bliss the ambulance operators that are able to be mandatory back in the temporary positions or into the part time positions, I should say. So if you look at their calendars, they're working. 20 days or more, 20 days or more a month, and they're being forced back to work. It's not voluntary. Speaker 10: So is the coverage that the EMT, the bells serious ambulance, ambulance service providers? Are they mostly daytime then? You mentioned 8 to 8 or. Speaker 7: Correct. So the two units that we would look at closing any event we had, two mandatory people would be the part time. One of them runs from eight in the morning till 8 p.m. and the other runs from ten in the morning until 10 p.m.. Speaker 10: So you basically have air services at through the early morning hours or radio shifts. Speaker 7: You would have A.L.S. services throughout the day, 24. Speaker 10: Hours a day. But I'm saying that the majority of the you wouldn't have that many bells. Ambulance operators in the graveyard shift, we have mostly full time paramedic services. Speaker 7: Decorate the three at night. Speaker 10: You know? Correct. Also in also looking at this. Acting City Manager mauka. I'd also like to see we could get together with h.R. And Civil Service to look at not only the duties of the emt and what they do, but also look at some of the wage discrepancies that might exist. If we're losing ambulance operators to other jurisdictions. We're probably losing for a number of reasons. Obviously, 1/1 and foremost is pain. And I think that perhaps we should look at what's out there in the market. What can the market bear as far as paying these ambulance operators a little more than they've currently receiving? Now, I know it'll be an effect on our budget. However, if we're losing people and we're getting through the state of emergency, that's something that we need to address and we should address it as quickly as we possibly can. So I would also want to include a classification review, if you will, with including salaries so that we can look at a better long term solution to this issue here. Speaker 5: But yes, we do expect this to come up during negotiations. Now's the time to address these types of issues as we're going into negotiations with. And so we we are aware that these of the pay of these employees and recognize the duties that they do for that pay. So we will be looking at that. Speaker 10: And one more thing. I if I recall correctly, we used to have somewhat contract ambulance services, provide supplemental services to the city with that American medical services, I think was one at one time. You're in Long Beach, are they? We have no more contract ambulance services out there anymore that we contract with. Speaker 5: So we used to contract the service out completely and not have our own ambulance operators of several years ago we went to an in-house model rather than the contract model. That is something we're going to be looking at as well as for those supplemental times. If you, you know, can we do it with in-house staff? Do we have a pool of staff that can do it? But is contracting an option as well? So we'll be looking at that as part of the review. Speaker 10: Would contracting out the summit rephrase it? It's a terrible way of saying it. Would contracting with a million services be possible in the in the short term right now to address this current need? Speaker 5: We don't believe it to be possible in the short term. By the time we would have that and go through all of the meet and confer and everything required. We're going to be fully staffed already. So this would be more of a long term solution and would not be contracting out. It would be more supplemental services where we. Speaker 10: That's what I meant after. That's what I meant. Well, also, in perhaps in this evaluation, we can look at supplemental services, contract services as well for those times when there is a run of emergencies that would require getting a supplemental ambulance service to assist the city in that in that respect as well. What I want to revisit that in the short term. That's all I have. Thank you. Speaker 8: Brian. Thank you very much. We have no more comments on that. Can we please no more from you comes by and please cast a vote. Excuse me, Councilwoman Pierce. Okay, fine. Okay, good. Cast your votes, please. Speaker 11: Motion carries.

Agenda Item

Recommendation to receive and file a report on the status of Basic Life Support (BLS) ambulance vacancies in the City of Long Beach; and Request City Manager to explore and implement solutions to restore BLS 12 and 13 to daily service as soon as possible and prepare a long-term plan that addresses staffing shortages for Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT).

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_11052019_19-1105

Speaker 11: Motion carries. Speaker 8: Thank you. Now we're going to move on to item 20. Speaker 11: Communication from Councilmember Richardson, Councilmember Pierce, Councilmember Urunga. Recommendation to request a city attorney to draft an urgency ordinance for review at the November 12th, 2019 City Council meeting to prohibit no fault notices and no fault evictions through December 31st, 2019. Speaker 8: Fine. Thank you, Janet. Switching. Okay, fine. Okay. We're going to have public comment when I'm public coming in. Speaker 6: No, I'm ready. Speaker 8: Okay, let's go. Let's. Speaker 6: Let's cue the PowerPoint. Great. Thank you, vice mayor. So today we we're going to consider a the no no fault evictions. But I want to kind of start this conversation with a narrative of what has kind of gotten us to this point and that we are we cued up with the. There it is. All right. So as many of you know, AB 18, 1482, the Tenant Protection Act was signed by Governor Newsom October 8th of this year. This new legislation primarily does four things beginning in January 2020. Number one, it puts a cap on annual rent increases. It limits evictions without cause in the state of California. It offers relocation assistance or rent waiver in certain no fault cases. It sets noticing requirements to ensure tenants are communicated with throughout the whole process. And it sunsets in the year 2030. And, you know, it's the point of this law is to protect tenants. And it has good intention. It's a good intention law. However, it's created a significant policy gap that has placed residents across the state of California, including here in Long Beach, at risk. The time when the time between when the bill was approved by the legislature and the day the bill goes into a law, creates an unintended incentive for landlords to get ahead of this law. These laws that are being implemented January 2020 by raising rents set a sort of a flurry, a frenzy of increased rents or 60 day notices. So this law unintentionally creates the incentive to get it out before the deadline, get the rents up, or get the 60 day notice end before the deadline. This is a current problem and it will continue if unaddressed. It will continue to negatively impact Long Beach, the second largest city in Los Angeles County, where three we're almost three out of five residents in our city are renters. We know that this we've heard anecdotal evidence, but we've also seen real accounts, real documented accounts of strategies for landlords to to actually sort of game the system. You've got a quote here, you know, cited October 7th in The L.A. Times. It says, ways that landlords could evade rules that as of January 1st would cap annual rent increases for tenants at 5% plus inflation and require just call the evict is the quickly hand out no fault no fault eviction notices to tenants who play low rent or make frivolous requests. And this was a landlord attorney being quoted addressing other landlords, and it was covered in the in the Los Angeles Times. So we know that this we know that this is this is happening. So here's a timeline of major actions that have taken place in the state of California and here in Long Beach that have created this environment, this shifting legislative environment, that makes it hard for both landlords to navigate and for tenants to understand. So it sort of cuts both ways. So a list of these these actions. So the ones that are in blue sort of represent actions right here in the city of Long Beach that are along with city council has taken actions in black are actions that the state has taken. And then green is the proposed ordinance that we have tonight. And so you'll see a, you know, March 28th, the Tenant Protection Act of 2019 was introduced April 2nd. It'll be city lobby. City Council Adopts the initial motion to establish tenant relocation ordinance. June 11th, City Council approved that ordinance. August 1st, the ordinance went to effect. August 7th. Gavin Newsom announces his support and calls for HB 1482 and says, If you deliver it, I'll sign it. September 11th, the state legislature delivered HB 1482 and landlords are officially on notice. September 14th, three days later, proposed urgency ordinance. So October 8th, the Gavin Newsom signs AB 1482. November 3rd, six day notices can no longer be issued because they will expire in the new year. So they'll be effective. The new the new law would effectively make those unlawful. And then November 12th is when this potential ordinance will go into effect. And then January 1st is when AB 1482 will go into effect. So this just is to show you that there's a shifting there's a lot of actions that take place that sort of change the rules that created this frenzy, this enticement to issue these notices . Now, the dates within the red box, that's where the gap exists. So the gap exists basically between the time of 17 September 11th when the call went out, raise your rents now, evict now and potentially November 12th, when this protection would kick in. So there's a gap. So notices that came in during that time, a result of this this frenzy that was created by by the pending implementation of this state law. So we are not the only. So cities are stepping up to take an action to add additional protections to our citizens. And we're not. We're far from the only city. We're not the only city to consider taking this action. Several cities across southern California, across the state, are taking that same action to protect their tenants. Los Angeles City Council Spectrum has taken this action. City of Cudahy, Bell Gardens, city of Torrance. I had a good conversation with Torrance Mayor about it. You know, he had a dilemma, but he felt, you know, he fell on the side of this the right thing to do. City of Sacramento. Milpitas. Redwood City. Daly City. Santa Cruz. Just yesterday, the city of Pasadena took the first action and adopted the urgency ordinance of the same night at 1201 to add these protections. They took a step. They went a step further and they added actually a rent rent stabilization into the ordinance to said, number one, you have to roll your rent all the way back to March 2019 level and you cannot raise your rent more than eight point something percent between now and the end of the year until the state law kicks in. Today at 10:00 in the morning, Alhambra adopted an urgency, a, you know, an emergency and adopted the same thing at 10:00 this morning. These are cities that, you know, aren't don't you know, they don't have the reputation of being a, you know, uber liberal city or San Francisco. These are middle of the road, middle class cities just like Long Beach. Taking a look at an issue that impacts everyone, all of the renters within the city. And so. So compared to the approach some of these is taking or taking, the proposal tonight is really clean, simple, modest. Today's proposal proposed action requests that our city attorney draft an urgency, an order urgency ordinance to prohibit no fault evictions and notices on at our next meeting November 12th. To be clear, this doesn't stop evictions of individuals who are not paying their rent or violating the terms of a lease. This is no fault. These are people who are caught up in this frenzy that's taking place right now is simply says that through the end of the year, let's stop this frenzy, eviction that's that's impacting our residents and make sure that we keep our families in their homes through the holiday season. This is modest, but meaningful. But it will help us move into the New Year and continue our efforts as a city council to prevent homelessness. This is a crisis directly connected to homelessness. Thank you. So the last thing I'll say is last thing I'll say is, you know, wasn't a part of my comments, but I thought about it actually when I was listening to one of the folks who was speaking on the Belmont Shore mobile home situation about her personal life and not, you know, not really wanting that and wanting to speak up, but, you know, being compelled to. And I thought about my life. I thought about, you know, when I woke up this morning, you know, helped, you know, like we normally do get up, you know, get the kids ready for school, get ready for work. I had a meeting out in West Covina at 9 a.m. this morning, so I was driving. Right. I was nervous. I was nervous about this vote. I was nervous because I know that our city council has has had to deal with some very challenging things over the last couple of years. A lot of it linked to, you know, where people live or how they work or dignity. And I know that that's that's been the case. They've had to deal with some very divisive issues. And I know that this, you know, initially, you know, being on a supplemental item, being an urgency item, you know, it probably brought some of the same feelings back. But then I was reminded that I had a bed to get out of. I had a home to get ready and go to work from. And I'm not dealing with the stress of a 60 day notice delivered at the end of October that would have me on the streets at Christmas. I'm not dealing. That's not my situation. We have a responsibility to do the right thing and keep these people in their homes. It's not their fault. This is no fault. So we have a responsibility. Seek to add this protection to the people of our city, a majority renter city, the second largest city in the county, Los Angeles . I serve as I serve on the SAG Regional Board, the six counties with the second largest city in six Southern California counties. We have to do the right thing here. So that said, I submit the motion as written. Speaker 8: Thank you. Thank you, guys. And I think before we get started, we're going to take some time because I think I have to. Yes. Yes, I was. Now you want. Yeah. Okay, fine. Go ahead. Speaker 10: I didn't mean to confuse you like me or you. I want to basically reinforce the last comment that my colleague, Councilmember Richardson, said. At this time of year, this is the worst possible thing that we could do when we are looking at families who are going to be. Short on cash. We are going to be short on housing. You are looking at the holidays ahead and looking for celebrations and and having good times with family and get togethers. This is not a good time for this. So I totally support the moratorium to take place. And when it comes to a vote, again, I'm going to be there at the same way. I think that basically when we look at the the. Damage that this could do to families and putting them out, putting them out in the streets or in their cars or trailers or wherever, wherever they can find housing is in front of a front of a storefront or whatever. That's not good. So I totally support this and I hope that my colleagues will support it as well. Speaker 8: Hi. You know, as vice mayor, I don't think many of us in these cases really are looking for any applause because we know and what we do tonight is only going to benefit those who are out there in the street, who are homeless and knowing that we can continue to grow at the rate we're going now. So I'm hoping that this will pass. And we with no disrespect to anyone out there, we have 60 speakers. And with that, I would like to move it down to one minute to each individual so we can get everyone a chance to speak. Yeah. Speaker 4: Vice mayor. Vice mayor? Speaker 8: Yes. Speaker 4: I just want to make sure that there's no objection to that. Speaker 8: Yes, I was with no disrespect from them and actually from the diocese with one man to be okay. All right. Right on. Good. Okay, here we go. In this order, we got 60 speakers starting out with Mr.. Very good here. Now we have 59. Speaker 2: Okay. Yeah. Speaker 8: Okay. We're going to have five at a time. Step in. Victor. Norma. Molina. And Natalie, would you please come up in that order? 7 minutes. All right. Speaker 7: Stephanie Dawson, still a Democratic Socialists of America, Long Beach chapter. Speaker 1: The city is made of people, people from. Speaker 7: A variety of backgrounds who create the distinct neighborhoods that make our city unique and special. And now these people, your neighbors, the people you see every day in your parks who care for your families and serve brunch on, you know, for you on Sunday, Funday are being evicted from their homes. They have held a failed housing policies. This item is welcome, necessary and hopefully not too late to. Speaker 1: Reverse or at least negate some of the plethora of negative consequences. Speaker 7: Created by the downtown plan. There should be no carve outs. The apartment. The clients of Mr. Murchison and the Apartment Association created this problem. They should not get special treatment. This moratorium should be permanent. It should be a first step towards full and uncompromising rent control. Housing is a human right, and it's time that our policies in the city reflected this moral truth. Speaker 5: Thank you. Speaker 8: Thank you, Victor. We are better. We're normal. We're more. Speaker 1: Honorable. Vice mayor, members of the city council, and Victor Sanchez, director of the Language Coalition for Good Jobs in a Healthy Community. It's really important issue. We heard a lot about trust and the need to rebuild trust, right. That property management companies, landlords, those that are motivated by profit are taking advantage of vulnerable working class families. And that's really what this is about. It's about keeping working class families in their homes for the holidays. It's the easiest thing we can do today as a city is to ensure the. Speaker 5: Promise that the state has. Speaker 1: Passed in its bill packet back in September to close the gap so that nobody is left. Speaker 5: Behind. I just got done talking to a family outside. They're stressed out. Speaker 1: Not knowing whether or not their actual notice is valid or not, because that's a big concern, too. You can get a notice, but you don't. Well, you don't have the means to provide proof as to whether or not that's actually a valid notice but stressed out because now they had to find housing right before the holidays. The gentleman's a trucker. It's very difficult to thank you for saving your life when you don't have stable housing. We urge you to pass a motion with no covenants. Speaker 8: Norma. Speaker 12: Hello. My name is Norma Galindo, member of Birds Central. Remember of Star Center launch? I moved. Speaker 2: To a38. Speaker 12: Share window in 2004. I was current in a section. I began working in a mental health facility and ultimately battled mental issues myself, develop depression. My property owner unjustly evicted me because of my battles are facing 2015. We had to throw away our newly bought furniture and the. Speaker 2: Rooms we were hoping to grow. I took my property owner to court. Speaker 12: To have my deposit back. He then intimidated me from pursuing the case, which was made worse by my depression. I didn't have support because there is no right to counsel in eviction court and my husband's and I knowledge on the law was missing and we had. This is normal. I had a hard time. Speaker 8: Thank you. Yes. Only. Speaker 3: My name is Marlene Alvarado. I live in the First District and I am a landlord. I support. I'm 20. An eviction moratorium. Unscrupulous landlords are evicting community members as police response to AB, which protects tenants. Item 22 Eviction Moratorium Steps The privatization of Long Beach families, especially children. Unlike Scrooge, I would not put one single Long Beach child on the street for Christmas. Unlike unprincipled land, some unprincipled landlords, I would not kill the golden goose and evict a senior citizen who has put a renter out, who has been a renter for many years. Because I want to charge higher rent. Nor like King Midas. I would not wish that everything I touched turned to gold and evict hardworking families because they cannot afford to pay the speck of gold of higher rent that I require to prevent further homelessness and traumatization in families and senior citizens. Speaker 8: Thank you. Speaker 3: Pass a law. Speaker 8: All right, sir. And your. It's Russia. And you. Speaker 14: Okay. Speaker 8: Marvin. In Darwin. I lost five in a row. This as close here. Come here, please. An angel behind and you'll hear. Marvin Emmanuel. Go ahead. Speaker 12: Hi. My name is Clarissa Hernandez, and I'm here on behalf of my grandma. She and other residents in her building are members of the Section eight program. So under there notices that they got they they basically getting evicted because they're poor just like many of these people speaking today and families being evicted and being affected by the notices. The only fault that they have is poverty and lack of resources and support. So it is very important, as Councilman Richardson explained, you know, with the loopholes and the timing of everything, that this ordinance be drafted and be approved. Because, you know, going back to the theme in the beginning of this meeting, families important, you know, and we all want to have a safe home for the holidays and we deserve that. Speaker 8: Thank you. Thank you. Amen. Speaker 1: Greetings. But Mr. Andrews in, Councilman. My name is Marvin Duran with some a long term residents in city Long Beach, 50 plus years. I'm also an advocate for black people and other people of color. I would like to urge you to join Los Angeles in enacting an emergency law to stop landlords from evicting tenants before a new state rent cap just cause eviction protections go into effect in 2020. Evictions hurt our communities and in particular targeted our black women. However, social sociology professor Matthew Desmond, studying housing policy, homelessness and the policies of evictions, came to a conclusion that started stolen him. If incarcerated in Carter, incarcerated had come to define the lives of men from impoverished black neighborhoods, evictions was shaping the lives of women. Poor black men would lock up. Poor and poor. Black women were locked out. Thank you. Oh, yes. Sorry. Speaker 8: Alex and Gretchen. Is Alex here? Gretchen? Randall. Karen. In any order. Just come right out. We'll get you. Speaker 3: Karen Reside, resident of the First District and a proud. Speaker 9: Long Beach Gray Panther. We're here tonight because this is just simply elder abuse. Speaker 3: If you look at who's being evicted. Look at all those people from the mobile home park. Most of them are elderly people. They've worked hard all their life to have a stable retirement and the rug is being ripped right out from underneath them. Speaker 9: This is elder abuse, pure and simple. We know the landlords do not have our. Speaker 3: Community's best interests at heart. Nobody gave refunds on the rent increases that they did when the rent control ordinance was supposed to be passed. This is purely driven by profit, and it's destroying the fabric of our community. And to do it at the holiday time is just the cruelest of a cruel. And I urge you to do more. This is a good first step. But we've got to do more to protect our community because it's being destroyed. Speaker 8: Thank you. It's dawn here. Would you please state your name? Is Darwin here? Okay. Just come right up, Miss. And state your name, please. Speaker 3: I thought you said my name, but if you didn't, I'm sorry. Speaker 8: Just stated. Please push your. Speaker 3: Native Tushnet and I live in the third district. I've been a renter, a landlady and a homeowner at base. I'm a person who wants a stable and diverse community. As a senior, I'm particularly concerned about others in my age group. I can only imagine the pain and anxiety that comes with losing your home, and it's made worse at this time of year particularly. I'm approached almost every day. I'm approached by another senior who has been evicted with no cause. We are actually good tenants always. We've worked hard and we pay our rent and we have this kind of work ethic and responsibility that we keep. The state law addresses these problems, but it doesn't go into effect right away. And I thank you next weekend. Speaker 8: Please send your name. Speaker 3: Hello. My name is Cara McGraw and I am an attorney at Lifeline, the Long Beach office. In response to the term two, in response to the Tenant Protection Act or to cities regionally and statewide, have stepped up to protect residents who are at risk of losing their homes before the TPA goes into effect at the beginning of the New Year. These cities include Los Angeles. Pasadena. Bell Gardens. Santa Cruz. Sacramento. Alhambra. Cudahy. Daly City, Redwood City, Milpitas, San Mateo and Torrance. Some cities are going beyond eviction freezes and adopting rent freezes and caps as well. L.A. County and Inglewood have adopted local ordinances that are even stronger than the TPA and that are already in effect. If Long Beach does not join, it will fall behind regionally. Long Beach should join these cities in preventing its residents, including its most vulnerable, like seniors, disabled and female head of households, from being pushed out of their homes and becoming homeless over the holidays. A clean and simple freeze on all no fault notices and eviction. Speaker 8: Thank you, actually. State. Your name, please. Speaker 3: Good evening, Gretchen Swanson. I'm from Rose Park. We've been having a bad week. And it'll continue if we don't take action this evening. Someone mentioned Scrooge. That's how I think about this. I think about Charles Dickens, early 1800s, a Christmas Carol and all those ghosts. He didn't get the message until the end of the play. I hate that play. He is a slow learner. My city can't wait for this, and my neighborhood can't. So let's keep everyone home for the holidays. My city council should embrace the values of the holiday season. Don't be a Scrooge. I don't think you are. Vote for the eviction moratorium. Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you. And speaking. Good evening. My name is Alex Stress. I'm a staff attorney with the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles. Today, the city is being asked to act fast and protect its tenants against invalid and unlawful evictions and to keep them home for the holidays. It is not being asked to draft brand new legislation. For better or worse, the state already did that. What we are asking is to pass a clean interim ordinance. What is crucial is that it protects all no fault notices where tenants are in possession and where evictions have not yet been adjudicated. I hope that there is no attempt to carve out or exempt any more tenants as that would be. This city trying to rewrite a state law that's by that by its own terms cannot be watered down. What the what the city should be trying to do is include as many tenants as possible in their interim ordinance, not figuring out a way how to exempt certain tenants. I hope that other council members will vote for this interim ordinance. Thank you. Speaker 8: Thank you. Speaker 12: Good evening. My name is Brenda Velasquez. Good evening, Mayor and Council. God bless you guys. My name is Brenda. I'm a resident in District one. I'm a single mother. I have two children, three and four, Milagros and Genesis. And they have ADHD, autism with behavior. And I'm just asking for your help because I have a 60 day notice. Speaker 2: They know this too well, and I'm sure that can help. Speaker 12: And I've been slapped by my landlord and she hit my. Speaker 2: Daughter, my four year old, and. Speaker 12: She's having problems. Speaker 2: At her school for. And mother would do anything for her kids. I hope and I pray that, you know, you consider. Speaker 12: This and be on my shoes like I am right now. Speaker 8: Thank you very. Speaker 3: Much. Thank you very. Speaker 8: Okay. The next six speakers Perlis, Jordan, Cathy Andrews and Martha. Speaker 5: Hello. My name is Jordan Wynn. I am now a resident of the second district. I am here representing United Way of Greater Los Angeles and the everyone in L.A. movement, which is designed to help prevent people from experiencing homelessness. We had a big push in Los Angeles just a month ago in order to pass the eviction moratorium that they passed. And nobly, they passed that unanimously. I'm asking you all to do the same. Stand up with the tenants who are here in this room tonight facing these evictions right before the holidays. This is literally Christmas Eve. This is New Year's Eve. These are people who are on the tail ends trying to celebrate and live with their family, have a great time at the end of the year. And instead they are faced with greed and as many people have referred to already, Scrooge Yunis. So stand with other cities tonight and pass this eviction moratorium unanimously. Thank you. Speaker 8: Thank you very much. Africa. Speaker 3: Good evening. My name is Kathy and I am in the District six that I don't know. Speaker 9: My councilman, but God bless you. Speaker 3: It's obvious you guys are sensitive enough to know what's going on. Everyone is telling you it's because of the holidays and it's children. It's the elderly. I am. Speaker 9: A street minister who has the passion and love. Speaker 3: For the elderly, the disabled, the homeless and anyone else who needs some help. I want to love them and pray for them and help them. Speaker 9: And I'm an advocate for them. Speaker 3: But how do I help them? I don't have the I don't have the means. I don't have the money. Everything I do is for free and I don't ask for money. So what I'm asking is you guys, please just continue to do the things that you know are right. And it's not just temporary either just because it's the holiday. It's even after the new year. These people are being evicted because of other people want whatever they want, I don't know. But they become victims. And then my heart breaks for them. And I really do hope that you will pass this and I believe you will. God bless. Speaker 8: Thank you. Speaker 10: Hello. My name is Andrew Andromeda Hanna with Long Beach Forward. Speaker 5: Supporting the best starts since a Long Beach initiative, an initiative of families, caregivers and organizations focus on the birth to age five population. These organizations include home visitation, child abuse prevention and child care programs, even including members of your own health department. If these professionals realize that housing stability is a public health issue, I hope each one of you realize that as well. I'll read some excerpts from our eviction moratorium, some support letters submitted yesterday, and one of our leadership team members will submit it to you today. Trauma informed practices, however, only go so far in preventing adverse childhood experiences, according to doctors Elizabeth Bone and Dean Martin. When social policy becomes more trauma informed, it will be better able to promote the safety and empowerment of its target. Speaker 10: Constituents and ultimately disrupt trauma driven. Speaker 5: Disparities in health and well-being. To adopt an eviction moratorium and pursue other tenant protections, we are ensuring babies, children and their families are healthy and safe with a passion for life and learning. Please keep all tenants. Speaker 10: In all units. Speaker 5: In their homes. Speaker 10: I appreciate some of you for being vulnerable with me this weekend and I hope to have your support. Speaker 9: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Pearlie Piggy and I live at Providence Garden. I'm the vice president of our association, which we developed to help. Speaker 1: Our seniors, especially seniors. Seniors. Speaker 9: It's of a background backbone to everything that we do. Speaker 1: So, please, during this holiday, the next one and the next one. Think about the seniors. Think about your parents. Speaker 9: Think about the people that you have in your life. Speaker 1: They need to be home for Christmas. Speaker 9: And everybody need to be together in peace. Speaker 1: Thank you. Speaker 8: Thank you. Next week. Speaker 14: But I know she has me. Nobody is going to even go there to see Tono. Speaker 2: Okay. Speaker 14: Get all that silly council held on me. That much I will say so Corazon is coming in the saddle. Borromeo this will see horse imp inside a lazy. There was nothing else than a stack of money that. Speaker 3: Good morning. I'm sorry. Good evening. My name is Dakota. I'm from District one. And I would like to say, Councilmember Richardson, that I'm really happy that you touched your heart this morning to think about your children and how the children will be affected. And not just your children, but others children as well. Speaker 14: You could showcase this momentum. But instead this communist representantes boy that made a lot more than Mr. Familias. Either low capacity egg or nails. We be lucky. Well said here on again whether you want to think on it Carol. Speaker 3: And I think it's good that you are able to see as council members the pain from the families and how they would be suffering if they were to become homeless. And somebody said or mentioned something about living in a car. I don't even have a car. Where would I live? Where would I go? Speaker 14: We have Avenue Civic. I mean, we have an issue. But I get those things. Maybe I get no unique access for much of a family. It's kind of I mean. Speaker 3: I'll come live here at the Civic Center here so that everybody can see, because I'm not the only one. There are so many people here as well in the same situation. Speaker 14: As this case that no, god, I would not have been able to do this moratorium. Speaker 3: So this evening, everyone should vote in favor of this moratorium. Speaker 14: You and I, consumers and families. You estamos. That is the thing linked up with us on mass momentum established on me. Speaker 8: Thank you. One minute, please. Come on. You have to do something. Speaker 3: One more thing. I have interpretation. So I get one more minute. I get one more minute because I have interpretation. Speaker 14: Sorry, Mr.. Speaker 8: Hatari. Speaker 14: Yeah. Okay. Speaker 2: They gave it to. Speaker 14: You for Q&A. Speaker 2: No excuse for. Speaker 8: How she gave it to you. Speaker 14: Okay. Distrito. No Estamos. I think almost time of assumption did not. Speaker 8: Okay. Yes, go ahead. No, I didn't. She already gave it to you. Just. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Next. Okay, now we have Ozzy one and John one for. You have a question here. When one Garcia you have John Kendall. One force, Eric Bailly. Those people, please come up. Speaker 9: Hi. My name is Jan Ford and I live in the second district. We're all here because we love Long Beach. And there's something about Long Beach I'd like to point out. Look at the demographics projected for the United States in 30 years and then look at the demographics of Long Beach. Today, we're living the future of America and we have the chance to do this, to show the entire country how to do this right. Let's start by protecting the most vulnerable and hardworking of our neighbors who are being thrown into the street at the holidays. Please don't let this happen in our beautiful, vibrant city. Please vote yes for the eviction moratorium. Thank you. Speaker 8: Thank you. Thank you. Yes. Speaker 3: Hello. My name is Aaron Foley. I live in the first district. As you know, at this time, my district is without a council person. So I felt like I needed to come down here and appeal to the rest of you in person to please pass this moratorium. Being a renter in Long Beach is scary. It sounds dramatic, but rents are continually keep they keep rising, and affordable housing is few and far between, as is the existence of small time property owners and landlords that actually care. Each year that I have lived in my current place on Pacific Avenue, my rent has risen to a total of 25% in the past four years without any improvements. A couple of times, once due to a clerical error on their part, someone from the property management code slapped a three day power, quit notice in my mailbox without even a word to me personally or a phone call. Each time my heart was racing, my stress level, shooting to the sky, and a feeling of being so expendable, so palpable. And we were lucky to work it out. But not everybody is that lucky. Times are tough, and though we are lucky to live in Southern California, it's getting cold and there are so many people out there struggling. So please pass the moratorium, but also continue to work towards viable solutions for keeping more of our community from being replaced. Speaker 5: Good evening, members of the council. My name is Joshua Christian and I'm the eviction defense attorney with the Legal Aid Foundation for the City of Long Beach. I assume it was me that Councilman Adams referred to legal aid advocates, field calls from the community members every day. And in the last six weeks, those advocates have spoken to nearly a thousand individuals seeking legal advice. Out of a thousand calls, more than two thirds of them have been clients with housing issues, the number of clients with no fault notices is rising every week. And for every individual who calls our hotline, there are a dozen more who don't or who can't. And I know this because of my actual cases. It's not just people who say, I got a no fault notice. What do I do? What about my kids? It's also what about my neighbors? She's been here for 20 years. What about my whole entire building? Management companies are sweeping through communities with 60 day notices. There is an indiscriminate scramble to evict as quickly and efficiently as possible going on right now. So I hope that the Council will move forward with the ordinance and put a halt to this wave of evictions and give tenants the confidence that the law is the law and they are protected. Thank you. Thank you. Speaker 8: Hello. My name is John Kendrick. Speaker 7: I'm on the borderline of first and second district. Speaker 10: I'm also a board member with the Long Beach Gray Panthers and Library. Speaker 8: Here in the city of Long Beach. And I want to address the things that. Speaker 6: Was not said. Speaker 8: It is proven that by keeping people in their. Speaker 10: Apartments. Speaker 8: Is less burden on. Speaker 10: The system. We spend more money when people are homeless. Speaker 8: Especially if they're a senior or disabled. So if you're trying to save money, keep us in our homes. Speaker 2: Also, look at your mission statement. If you do. Speaker 1: Not vote for this recall, it's a. Speaker 8: Holiday or no holiday. Speaker 4: You're going to guess your. Speaker 1: Own mission statement. Speaker 8: And I think everybody here should read that statement, what it says. Speaker 10: And remind the city council and everybody in. Speaker 1: The city what it says, what we should be all about. Thank you. Speaker 8: Thank you. Next week, speaker. Speaker 10: Hi. Hi. My name is Ivan, who's writer is Juan. But it's Ivan. First District resident. Speaker 0: Resident. Speaker 1: Anyway, I just want to say. Speaker 10: That the state we AB 1481 may have left a gap that when spans from September to January. However, it's the responsibility of the city to actually close the gap, to ensure that, for. Speaker 0: One, families with. Speaker 10: Children and elderly folk are able to remain in their homes over the holidays. I mean. Speaker 0: What's worse then, instead of celebrating. Speaker 10: You're actually having to worry about living on the street, having to look for a place to live. Speaker 1: And that's not what the holidays. Speaker 10: The VAT, the value of the holidays are about. So what I'm saying is please support. The moratorium is good for the families, it's good for the children, it's good for the elderly folk. And more importantly. Speaker 6: It's. Speaker 0: It benefits. Speaker 10: Us as a as a city and as a community. Thank you. Speaker 8: Thank you. Fine. The next speaker will be Lillian Wang. We are merciless. We are so fierce. And my watching you. Please come forward. Is that Lilia? Okay. Bye, Wayne. Cialis. Speaker 14: My name is Leo Campo. I am a resident of the First District. Speaker 3: And I. Speaker 14: Am a mother of five. So I am a member of the Building Healthy Communities Planning Committee and based in Central Lombard, Madrid. My district has experienced many injustices when it comes to housing and myself. I've been in that position. So I urge you tonight to support, to keep their families for the holidays and also to take the lead. And when a moratorium for the rent increases. Nobody deserved to be out. Speaker 3: In the cold. Speaker 14: Nobody especially no families with children. Speaker 3: And we want. Speaker 14: You to support this moratorium and to keep their families and their houses. Speaker 8: Thank you, Nancy Reagan. Speaker 10: Hi. My name is Wayne, second district. Really awesome beginning there, Mr. Richardson. And you touched on a lot of things. It sounds like a lot of you were kind of lean in that way for the ones that aren't. We know who you are. They think about the money. And the money is that without this moratorium, there is going to be a whole lot more homeless and you folks are going to have to deal with it in one way or another so it'll save some money and put this moratorium in because that's going to save your money. Speaker 3: Hi. I'm Don Watkins. I am a business owner in the ninth district. I'm a homeowner in. Speaker 12: The fourth district. Speaker 3: And I'm a landlord for 15 years in the second district. And I'm also a member of Black Lives Matter who supports this moratorium. My entire family lives in the second District. I'm at Fourth and cherry. My mom fought them on a pair of my in-laws that fought in Tampa. My other best folks off of seventh and Ohio, others fourth and Redondo. And my son's oldest son's father, a fourth and one that he was evicted. The guy who owned the building, Larry, his grandson and my son played baseball together at Sterns Park. He had some hard times. He owned for a place with a house on the corner of Fourth and Walnut and was on a refi. Someone came in and offered a cash out by. He took it, left town. The guy increased the rent from 900 to 1500 dollars, left my son's dad homeless for several months. He's a cook with a teenage daughter. And we know we live in a capitalistic society, but there's a difference between investing for some extra money and being greedy as hell at the cost of causing mass homelessness and citywide trauma. Speaker 1: Good evening, Mayor Councilmembers. My name is Mike Murchison. I'm here on behalf of the Apartment Association Small Property Owners Alliance. I am a lifetime resident of Long Beach. I may not be in the majority this evening, and I appreciate the fact that nobody wants to be homeless during the holidays. I'm not advocating that you don't support an ordinance tonight. What I'm going to say is four facts. Number one, this was bought on the supplemental. There was no outreach to any of the business groups are going to be impacted by this from another perspective, none. I would encourage you on future ordinances, whether emergency or not, that you do appropriate outreach to the other side. Number two, you've got a situation that from November one to January one, 1482 applies. So doesn't really make a difference what a landlord wants to do. They can't do it because it's within that 60 day window. So if you're talking about the window outside of the 60 days, then by all means go ahead and do that. But think about this. Those tenants and specifically the ones have been reporting the Long Beach Post this evening have already been paid 50% under your own tenant relocation ordinance. They've already been paid. Keep that in mind. Thank you. Speaker 0: I want to make sure we got this, as did Marcel de Rivera speak already. And so Ms.. I think it says here, please come forward. Marcella Rivera, Suffolk Media. And then I'm going to ask the next group, please, if you can please get in line. Fred Sutton, Julie Sorrow. Maria, I think, says Luisa and Daniel Lamping, if you can please get in that order. So we have Marcel de Rivera, Sophie Ramirez, Fred Sutton, Sally, Sara maria Luisa and Daniel Lamping. Speaker 3: Thank you, Mayor Garcia. I'm sorry. I didn't hear my name earlier. My name is Maricela de Rivera. I am a ninth district resident. I'm incredibly grateful that my council member, along with my previous council member in District six, District two. Sorry. I love you too. I guess that's why I said six. Speaker 12: Brought this forward. I'm. Speaker 3: It's very hard to be here. Speaker 12: Because my husband and I come from very humble means. Understand what it's. Speaker 3: Like to be housing insecure and now have a better life. We are homeowners. This is our second. Speaker 12: Home we've lived in in Long Beach. We have a six figure. Speaker 3: Income family now. We are doing very well. Speaker 12: I'm a city commissioner. Speaker 3: Life is great. And we constantly think about the fact that if we did not have generational wealth that helped us become homeowners, we would absolutely have to leave Long Beach. Speaker 12: We would be homeless, too. My mother lives with us because even with our generational wealth, it's not enough. Speaker 0: Thank you so much. Speaker 3: Thank you for this, I think. Hi. My name is so Pachomius. I'm here on behalf of the four monks out here. Two of them were evicted, wrongfully evicted from 2100 West Wall Street. And in the process, two other monks are left homeless and they're now or camping on the sidewalk in tents in the cold on 21 street west Willow. And the reason why for the eviction? Well, first of all, monks cannot get evicted. They don't pay rent. Monks live off of donations and offerings of the people and the the temple that the they had 12 board of directors who are so hungry for power push the monks out because they were not willing to conform to to to their to their means of corruption and lies in order to gain power to to to make something bigger of the organization so they can get funded from the government. And so I would like to ask for for you to assist in this matter, because it's getting out of hand. Parents, grandfather, grandmother, they're being dropped off to protect the monks. Speaker 15: Thank you very much. Thank you. Speaker 7: Honorable Mayor and City Council. My name is Fred Sutton. I'm here on behalf of the California Apartment Association. As was mentioned, there are many cities that are looking at implementing implementing the AB 1482 early. The big difference between those cities in this city is they had not spent the last year working on its own local ordinance, which went into effect on August 1st. Those include on non renewals, financial payment, everything's filed with the city, so the city should be able to tell us. Speaker 1: How widespread. Speaker 7: This is and they can no longer be served. Undoing part of the ordinance doesn't really make sense. I think this is a perfect opportunity to rescind the entire ordinance effective January 1st, 2020 and comply with AB 1482. That should be the priority going forward. Is how does the local relocation fit with a B 1482? And I think that should be prioritized for January 1st. Speaker 0: Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Speaker 3: Good evening, Honorable Mayor and councilmembers. My name is Doctor Sully Saro. I'm a resident of the sixth district. I know Long Beach can do better and it can be better, and we need to protect all tenants. And so I urge you to pass this or a moratorium tonight. No carve out, and that it should include all tenants in all units, and that many cities, including L.A., are already doing it. And the city of Karachi is doing it tonight. And so because Long Beach cares about all its residents, I believe we must and should pass this so that that we prevent homelessness and that we can keep our families home for the holidays. Thank you so much. Speaker 0: Thank you very much. Let's look at this one. Speaker 14: And not just me. Nobody's Maria Luisa. We want to say even more representatives. This time I see the residents the longest relative, S.A. Ibrahim Yasmin with three step and sadness as familias stand up onto the set of this alucarda as much as they are not sufficiently cautious but are entitled appropriate that I'm just a little rent Dallas into the mass image of the nosotros not the name was instead the narrow papa gato the locus necesita. It's a lesson for commuters versus a stuffy window into Nakai the embarcadero point. That was then los gatos. It's not just a, you know, policy that might even be as easy as you say, Tony. That is also that as follows. When I said this Alcaraz de la Soto's Ojo, this was when I set up the casino session in Guam to read that this podcast will sit on. But I'm going to shut your. Speaker 3: Good evening. My name is Maria Luisa and I come here representing Best Start. I live in District six and I've been a resident of Long Beach for the last 20 years. I'm here because I'm worried and sad, thinking about the families that are going to be evicted, that don't have the necessary resources to rent a decent property . And since the owners abuse and ask for much more than people are able to pay, it's a problem. That's the reason that many families end up in the streets, living in the streets, and the cars are underneath a bridge. I'm also here tonight fighting for Miss Maribel Mireles and 16 units, eight of which have been evicted and eight that will be. And I'm asking that as soon as these units are fixed, which was the reason they were told that they're able to go back. Speaker 14: But then there's a renter who's. Speaker 3: Paying a fair. Speaker 14: Bit of property protection that others are keen to support and stuff such as Lazaridis and Okada. Speaker 3: And I ask you to please protect all of these people that will be homeless during these dates. Thank you. Thank you. Speaker 0: Before before Daniel comes up and like, let's call the next set of speakers. Please come forward in this order. I have a Jordan Dora two know. So Cynthia macias shamble. Yes. As Zo Nicholson believe it's Lilya Ocampo and Maria Lopez. So in that order, if you can please let it be Jordan. Dora to no. So Cynthia Macias Shamble. Yes. As AZO Nicholson, Lilly Ocampo and Maria Lopez. Speaker 5: Good evening. My name is Daniel Lampkin and I'm a member of Council District Two. I come here not just as a community member, but as someone who manages an affordable housing community in Long Beach, California. I am the manager of Covenant Manor, which is on Fourth and Atlantic. And as a result of my work, I'm a witness to the devastation of the homelessness crisis on a daily basis. Daily, I mean, hourly. I field calls on a constant basis from people looking for housing who are currently homeless or about to become homeless as a result of the 60 day eviction notices that have been given out . My work has become more constant. I deal with seniors, people who are in walkers, people who are in the most dire of situations. I would urge this council to vote unanimously for this moratorium. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you. Next speaker, please. Speaker 5: Hello. Council and mayor. My name is Jordan Doering. I'm a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, Long Beach. I'm here today. Not even to urge you to pass this emergency emergency moratorium because it's obvious just how strong it's going to be. I've got to ask, are you going to do what's happened in the past and put carve outs in it to have some families be homeless for the holidays? Or is it going to cover all tenants? Because for the past several years we've all seen it. A lot has been given away to luxury developers in the city, and it's finally time for something to be given to the tenants. For years, for example, the Affordable Housing Fund has languished without any type of funding or any money to supply that. The least we can do is make sure that tenants are not kicked out so landlords can continue to redevelop and get tax breaks to build new luxury buildings over the holidays. Thank you very much. Speaker 0: Speaker, please. Speaker 9: Hi. My name is Zoe Nicholson. I live in the second district. You know, I've stood in front of you for years now asking you for federal amendments, for U.N. accords and for protecting workers rights. Today, I came to give you something. I want to give you peace of mind. I want to give you a heart lit up. I want to give you a good night's sleep. You're going to do the right thing. I'm really proud of that. And I wish you all happy holidays for making sure that other people's holidays are with their family. Thank you. Speaker 15: Because next week the first. Speaker 12: Good evening. My name is Cynthia macias and I live in the second district. I'm a mother, daughter and organizer. Speaker 9: But most importantly, I'm your constituent. I have been evicted during the holidays, Christmas, to be exact, and it didn't affect me the most. It affected my children the most. And when I speak about my children, I mean it affected them. In school. Their grades started dropping. They couldn't focus in school. They even began to get bullied in school because kids will be kids. And being homeless is frowned upon, right? Excuse me. With this in mind. I'm sorry I had to cut it down and half for you guys. So, yeah, let me see. As a mother, this broke my heart. But analyzing this as a brown mother, I realized that intersection of oppression and housing poverty is a symptom of poor policymaking. With this in mind, we need to push forth long term policies that give the community abilities to stay in place. The right to return. And a path to a community owned housing. We need an eviction moratorium now and continue the conversations on long term housing solutions that benefit those most marginalized. Thank you. Speaker 15: Thank you very much. Thanks to the police. Hi. Speaker 12: My name is Chembur Users and I am 12 years old today and instead of celebrating with my family. I'm here to tell you about how I felt my family was getting evicted during Christmas in 2017, when everyone was getting Christmas lights and decorations out of boxes. We were packing our clothes and toys in the boxes. I didn't know where we were going to sleep or eat. What? I lose my friends at school. As a good student, I am very focused and prepared. But knowing I was going to lose my home, friends in school and friends school, I couldn't sleep. And that made it hard to focus in class. I don't know anymore. I don't think anyone should be homeless, especially not for holidays, when is supposed to be fun and warm outside and clothed. So please don't evict families during Christmas. Speaker 14: Thank you very much. We're not. No. Shows me. No worries, Dorothy. No. Go. Your botanicals return whenever they return. Speaker 3: My name is George Tinoco. I belong to the ninth District with Rex Richardson. Speaker 14: Ian is an old chap with Megan Blessing and Kathy also status tantamount to multiple are crucial, but don't get them been so we must get home now responsibility that Roger Garcia as in we took over here last time I was killed we put on a competitor. The Latino selection is to monitor their birth in a city and more commonly the Latin that I'm with different delta. Speaker 3: And tonight I'm very happy that you've all taken the time to listen to us. But we all know that it's your responsibility. Robert Garcia It's been a long time. So my writing you the last time I saw you was at a conference for Latinos, an action, you know, that the way we were was very different than right now I'm a mother so. Speaker 14: Madre that those communist system great one though thought I mean now my steria in social work getting me home business man in negocios Pedro me preoccupations can you tambien and a step is kiddo care you'll see an independent this the was very lamentably meant the aes de la Renta say you know but in my narrator. Speaker 3: And I'm the mother of two young people who are about to graduate my daughter with her master's in social work, my son in business and as a mother, I worry. I want them to be independent, but they are unable to pay the rents at the cost that they are. Speaker 14: See is as soon as he doesn't get affect that much of communism, the U.S. get on with risk of money that affect them as a partner. Kelly They are honest us is. Dorothy you must get. I told you at the end in thin air give me a big smile is having to give what instead of the central housing one get a memento. Nothing at all on the EU. Speaker 3: And it's a situation that affects a lot of young people, a lot of children, and even more in our community. We have to fight against this racism. But it's a fear that we have that's even more about being evicted. Speaker 14: What is honest and what are your let's be honest instead. Istomin is the partner doppelganger son on sun on group. Okay Necesitamos de la polio they and lament that they will not they will not a Latino they want to purchase American standpoint cumbia. If the Sistema get that don't give it out on so necesitamos competition carry that you know says Mother La caught up on anything and. Speaker 3: We're asking that you come together as a group. We need the support of everybody, not one because they're Latino and others because they're American. We need this broken system to change. We need your compassion. Thank you. Thank you. Speaker 0: And for having your local streets. The next group will be Gary Hightower better lopez Solana Singer in Savaii Mahi. I'm sorry if I if I'm not trying to do my best with the writing Carmen Mejia and Myron Wallen. So the next group after Maria Lopez will be Gary Heidrich. Norberto Lopez. Solana Cintron. Survi. Mejia. Carmen Mejia. Myron Wolin. And Maria Lopez is next. Speaker 3: My name is Maria. And in a time when everyone's living in fear, I say I'm undocumented, unafraid and unapologetic. I migrated to Long Beach at the age of three, and now I'm the director of Community Organizing for Housing Long Beach, and I organize with the Long Beach Tenants Union. Today we are here in support of an eviction moratorium. If you're here, support set up. I want to see your sign. We want an eviction moratorium for all tenants, all units and all buildings, because our community deserves to stay intact during the holidays, during each and every day in the city of Long Beach. So I want to finish off with a chant in Spanish, but it's pretty much says Housing is a human right. Then they're doing that. Speaker 2: Your food, then that's. Speaker 3: Their narrow dacha. Their. That narrowed that you could get past an eviction moratorium today for all tenants, for all units, for all buildings. Speaker 0: Thank you. I think I had Gary Hart next. It's okay. No, no. All right. You can tell you're going to. Speaker 5: So I'm just going to cede my time to a tenant meeting. Speaker 14: One of the. To me, number ten. Later. Garcia. Speaker 3: Good evening. My name is Myra Garcia. Speaker 14: So the residential district of Marisol in they only on this you say this capacity that is a problem other women really that. Speaker 3: I'm a mother I'm a resident of district two. I'm a mother of a child with 16 different disabilities and mobility problems in Elmira. Speaker 14: And Robert Garcia of Coachella, Mexico. Speaker 3: Not only Robert Garcia, the mayor, has heard about my case and knows my son. Speaker 14: Though, that you that me yourself the other way he seemed to me to tell him. Speaker 3: He agreed to help me on December 1st. I'm being evicted. Speaker 14: And because I follow the rottenness. Speaker 3: Around my house, there were eight rats one. Speaker 14: Day. The name of the future will be in the Tell Me More longer. We've been living. Speaker 3: In the same place for 18. Speaker 14: Years and the sun screaming under the weather if you're trying yours. And he gave you that reportorial problem. Speaker 3: And there discriminate against me. After 18 years, I called the city to report the problem. Speaker 14: In in front of the lepers. Nonetheless you that alphabetically certainly we had Matthew Departamento going to give us another look lady kidder. Speaker 3: And in front of the city supervisor, he said that he was never going to fix the apartment and he would never do what he was being told to do. Speaker 14: And he say, I'm out with VAC. You're not dealing with that. So American. Speaker 3: Citizen, I'm not an American citizen. Speaker 14: And you know that I still get those who stay there. Speaker 3: They have the same rights as all of you and me. Speaker 14: We didn't have the police. Speaker 3: It's very difficult living. Speaker 14: In this kind of system. Speaker 3: Discrimination when everyone is discriminated against us. Speaker 14: No, no. You're quite okay. Potentially. Speaker 3: I would like you to support the. Speaker 14: Local or. Speaker 3: The eviction law. Speaker 14: But Necesitamos we will conclude that we. Speaker 3: Need quality of life. Speaker 14: You will walk in May you the El Primero. They seem to think of me this. Speaker 3: And I'm asking again for your help on December 1st. I'm being a. Speaker 14: Victim. You're putting me at the end of this because I'm a single. Speaker 3: Mother and I will repeat, my son has 16 different disabilities. You met him. Speaker 14: You don't know me. Speaker 3: And I'm giving my my time to the next person. Speaker 1: Thank you, driver. Dr. Hutchinson. Good evening. Mayor Garcia, council members. My name is Gary Hetrick. I'm a resident of the fourth district. I'm also here tonight as president of the California Faculty Association and Long Beach chapter. We represent faculty members, coaches, counselors and librarians. And many and many of those folks are rent burdened and vulnerable, just like you've heard tonight. The stories we heard tonight are a little bit hard to follow. Excuse me. They're hard to follow. I have I don't I have no history of stories like that. But I want CFA to go on record as supporting the moratorium without any carve outs. I also want everyone here to know that that CFA is a union is not the only one that's supporting this moratorium without carve outs. Unite here Local 11 is also a supporter. You have CWA three, 24 is Teamsters 396 and I am District 947 are all supporters of this moratorium without any carve outs. I just want to end by saying there's no good time to push out a good tenant and this time is certainly not the best time. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Speaker, please. Speaker 14: When I notice you know me here. Speaker 3: Good evening. My name is Carmen Mejia. Speaker 14: Our having a large sovereign mi sovereign castle and. Speaker 3: Coming to speak about my case. Speaker 14: Thing going on in. Speaker 3: You. I have five children. Speaker 14: Tengo, cuatro disability. Speaker 3: Four are disabled going out this month. They have autism. Speaker 14: Comparable to my most. Speaker 3: Emotional problems. Speaker 14: Being only Nancy. Either way. Speaker 3: That I have a child in a wheelchair. Speaker 14: In my car, they have light up in us as a quarter of the year. Speaker 3: With a manager just called me four days ago. Speaker 14: Miranda that my father this but think. Speaker 3: I'm only allowed until December 30th. Speaker 14: Araceli me to get. Speaker 3: Out I. Speaker 14: Involuntary sale of problema ninos he doesn't care my name That is how Maria Pasado. Speaker 3: Nuevo. He doesn't care where I end up spending new year. Kamali Borja said what I'm going to do. Speaker 14: The whole point. This hero, he. Speaker 3: Said, I can go underneath the bridge. Speaker 14: In Neul then. Speaker 3: It's my problem, not his. Speaker 14: Joke. Girls have enemies. The rituals Lord show and you'll baby. And why you? Speaker 3: I'd like to know my rights. I've been living there for eight years. Speaker 14: In my pocket. Get him in the apartment. Speaker 3: And just because they want to sell the apartments. Speaker 14: It was not the same as a hotel. Speaker 3: It doesn't seem fair to me. Speaker 14: I may not miss Ninos. Can I look at the end in the Rachel at least. Speaker 3: I think my children so. Speaker 14: Resident then that I must battle I mean innocence without and I'm. Speaker 3: Just a resident. Speaker 14: I see those happy. Speaker 3: But my children are citizens. Speaker 14: Problems. Speaker 3: They have problems. Speaker 14: Out dismal artist opposite are. Speaker 3: For disabilities bad you'll. Speaker 14: Not receive all takes your march on me now that I. Speaker 3: Don't realize I mean anything Oh. Speaker 14: Mitra the whole trabaho them possum No, I'm guaranteeing one. Are you there? Speaker 3: I pay my rent to. Speaker 14: You mean in your case on say what? Speaker 3: Associate my husband's work. I don't get any kind of help other than for my kids which is Social Security ghetto. Speaker 14: Get them in. Yes, I'm going to. Sorry, todo. No, put all up on me Nina. For last hint. This could be any last Navidad itself real ly dubious It's amazing who stock leading. I know those Mrs. Aquino meeting absolute. I'm in denial No problem other laboratories. But you'll see at the end in Gaza. I don't believe in the angels. No thought that I'm not anymore, Grasshopper. We might not get that in moderate or poor people. Speaker 10: I'm glad to see a crisis. Speaker 3: And I'd like you to keep in mind all of this, not just for my children, but for people. Christmas is coming. The cold, the rain. I think it's unfair just to get two months when people aren't looking at the lives of people just because they're poor. They have a house, the owners do. But I believe that we have rights because we pay rent. Speaker 0: Thank you so much. Yeah. Speaker 3: Yeah. This, I think. And that's why we must support the cause of this crisis. Speaker 1: Just people. Speaker 14: When does a motorcycle stand at present? Speaker 3: Good evening to everybody that's here. Speaker 14: Present Estonia key for Cabangon when he said Portavoz the mujer familias. Speaker 0: And you're listening to me, he. Speaker 14: Said on Saturday. Speaker 3: And then this here tonight to speak my voice and to be the representative of other families. A bingo. Speaker 14: To me in a contactless problema category as Alabamian as me, Massena Amiga. Speaker 3: I'd like to tell you also. But the problem I have with eviction, she's my neighbor and my friend. Speaker 14: Nice. Comforting me problem. A common problem. Acadiana. Speaker 3: Yeah, my problem isn't as bad as her problem. Speaker 14: Better met domain temple the venerable our ESL portable the tantas familias damn facilitate the government because having the latter legend adolescence anatomy CEOs but or no keys, they need police. They won't know whether as a la diferencia but Atlanta's familiar Afghanistan estate by the sea and that the policy question and tone, says Jones. Speaker 3: I took the time to come here to speak as the representatives of all these families. It would have been so easy to stay at home watching TV, giving my children dinner. But I wanted to come here because if one person can make the difference, speaking for all of these families that are going through the same thing. Speaker 14: It present is going to let them go. Updated Colonel Corazon de La mancha brought forward to Mama's concerns here because I don't know the status she has got. The name of embodiment of CSK tenemos Constancio de Jager done with left calf at this concert Adore Me e there they sit tranquilly maintain no personal personal claro to Pasando el Pakistan must be our returned of castles left persona stand indifferent the seat left the honestly feces left eco lap and boy the most conscientious of today. Speaker 3: And before anything I'm coming to ask you with my heart in my hand that you be aware. If we feel bad about the way things are, we can go home and rest and sleep and act as if nothing's happening. But something is happening. We're seeing so many cases of things that are happening and I'm asking you to be aware. Speaker 0: Thank you very much. Speaker 14: That is necessary. Speaker 12: Thank you. Tulip. So my name is Susanna Kim. I'm the executive director of the United. Speaker 3: Cambodian Community, and I'm a resident of the fourth District. Speaker 12: 75% of Cambodian residents are renters, and Cambodian families are being displaced due to deportation and also evictions. Already, a few of our commune members have come up to us about an eviction notice that they received within this month. In addition, as members of the Everyone Home Language Task Force, there are members that sign a letter of support. And in light of these unjust notices and evictions, we urge the City Council to pass an urgency ordinance to enact a moratorium on notices and evictions, to keep Long Beach families and their homes for the holidays and those that undersigned. This letter from the Everyone Home Task Force members are Andy Kerr from the Measure H Citizens Oversight Board, the MSA, Los Angeles, Palm Beach, Foreign Ministers Alliance Center, Child Jewish Family Children's Services, Women's Shelter of Long Beach, Lomita, Community College and Children Today. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you so much. Let's be complete. Speaker 1: Hello, I'm Myron Wolin. I'm president of the Long Beach Gray Panthers. I'm here speaking in support of the ordinance. I would like that to be no fault evictions and that it becomes particularly cruel for the senior community. We're a senior advocacy group. We see seniors all the time. I run into them. I hear the bells that that they are evicted, that they are have rent increases. They are on a fixed income. They can't stand they can't take a rent increase because their income is fixed. I would urge you also to think about having a rent stabilization after you do this right thing. Hopefully you will do it. I hope that you will join other cities that retreat just in mentioned that have passed ordinances that we we should pass that make me proud of living in Long Beach make me proud that we make you proud of being involved in a movement that cares for people, cares for unjust evictions, and that will pass such an ordinance. Thank you very much. Speaker 0: I'm going to call the next set of speakers. Everything picked up in this order are. Nestor Escobar. Mario Medius Resolver. Ramos. Natalia Biran. Maritza a witness, Jennifer Milan and Yolanda Hobson. I'm sorry if I mispronounced it. Miss Escobar. Maribel Reyes. Presumably. Ramos. Natalia. Viviane. Russo voters, Jennifer McClung and Yolanda Hobson. In that order, please. And for an article, please come forward. Speaker 10: Good evening, everyone. My name is Ernest Isaac and I reside in District nine. We are being evicted from a residence by December 17th, a week away, a week before Christmas. That is why I'm here today with my neighbors and my community to let you know that I don't. Training is extremely important and must pass. It is unfair and unjust to evict residents from their homes for the purpose of increasing brand before AB 1482 takes effect on January 1st. Item 20 must pass in order to protect tenants from evictions. Now and in the future. We have vulnerable citizens that need our help. Our councils help, but mostly be part of everyone. And just like our council member, Rex Richardson would want us to. Thank you. Speaker 14: Thank you. It's good to please when I see when I'm not just me alone, but as Maribel Mireles, you're so part of the best staff and obviously the company that has got to catapult us to this. Your store, your keeper, is offering them the solution. Ease our little sticky note mission to solve the stuff. Keep me company that mithun S.A. means business if than me so organization is best are allow me to start Libra if the house in Long Beach Star Latino so NextGen is to ease jr Garcia has put up pianos. Yes no Ms.. Merkel is prosthetist Roberto Garcia tapioca por favor vote this off. Our National Medal of Integrity has another Richardson for Apple yet is the 16 is those he has a good opening you know the stairs I see though this hello huddle Roberto Dunga to Dennis Neto's I'll ask the taco I think about what do you do if does a quick massage like I said to Casado to me tranquilo nosotros? No, no, Satoru, start as not just a stump sandbag on the grass. Yes. Speaker 3: Thank you. Good evening. My name is Maribel Mireles and I come from Best Start Long Beach from the leadership group. And I brought a letter for all of you here we are all suffering. We're suffering the evictions. And I'm not alone. I'm here with my community. I'm here with the elderly. I'm here with organizations. I'm here with Best Start, Leeward Housing, Long Beach, East Yards. Thank you, everyone, for supporting us. And Robert Garcia, I ask you to support us in this matter, number 20. And thank you, Mr. Richardson, for speaking up. I know that you mentioned you have two two daughters, I believe, and you're thinking of them. And also Robert Wood. And God, I know that you have grandchildren as well, and you are here and you're all going to be going home calmly and into your own homes and into your bed. And you don't have to think about being evicted, but we do. We have to think about that. And I urge for you to support us. Thank you. Thank you. Speaker 0: So much. Next speaker, please. Speaker 14: She's looking to speak what has not been resolved. So residential district and highway patrol resistencia the of Cynthia quatro you'll be one is terrific. Patricia is going to esposo Emiko and as Mrs. Movement we try to lose our on a moment someone we trust. But I'll come in person and this is very alarming. Supremos But in contrast to what I've been through in this business, Mrs. a commitment to Familia Alegria has been almost to the crisis in very bad so desperate distress that Theo one that is the it's been in the swap for you in this area and one of the by said let's call it they seem for me it's you that good I'm also an ambulatory other salud. There are no hospitals in communities but a third that is a proposal. City fees. You ought to know what a crisis that is. Speaker 0: I'm sorry. In translation I forget that I don't speak Spanish. Speaker 3: My name is Rosalba. I'm a resident of District nine and part of the Resistance for 64. I live in the bill. I've been living in the building for three years with my husband and now we have a seven month old child. We were living calmly and peacefully, but now we're in this moment of frustration because of the changes in the past. It happened to me. We suffered in. In our homes. And I. And I can call it a home because that's where we would spend our time. We need such great support for our family. And now, thinking about the months coming ahead and spending the time with our family in happiness, we are now actually in anxiety. And to have to go through this during the Christmas time, it's such stress and frustration. We hope that all of you are supporting us in this moratorium and that some of you spend the time with your families. If if some of you were to spend the time with your families without a home to think of this, please. Thank you. We want a moratorium for eviction for everyone, for all renters, for all units, for all buildings. Act now. It can be done. Speaker 0: Thank you so much. Speaker 15: Next week, Officer. Speaker 14: All? No, not just all colors. E conceal. Speaker 12: You mean like sevilla's be one? C Fuentes isn't like water. Speaker 14: So it isn't like water for the cell walls. Speaker 12: E e knows that in Houston there was. Speaker 14: That much conditioners. John, this is it. So are you them? Speaker 12: Is almost anything against them. Guess them moratoria then they get faster. Speaker 14: Than them but thought they had this logos. But at the albinos. But at the dollars you need others. But at almost any you get a moratorium. Then there's the law. Speaker 12: E As you said before, the soil mothers solid data. Speaker 14: Those ninos e get the performance that you then cannot. Speaker 12: Single but on the it those but can use. Speaker 14: Performance in those boiling are you then. Speaker 3: Good evening mayor and council members. My name is Maritza Aviles. I live at 550, 64th and I'm part of the resistance for 64 because we are being evicted unfairly by West West Star I my conditions are we have cockroaches in our place and we need your help because a moratorium needs to be passed. We need to stop the evictions for everyone, for all renters, for all units, for all buildings. We want a moratorium for the evictions now. It can be done. And I'm a single mother with two children, and I need help because I don't know where I would go. Speaker 11: I don't know where to go. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you so much. Makes me happy. Speaker 12: Hi. My name is Jennifer Meehan. I live with my family in District nine and I'm here to ask for your support. Speaker 11: The eviction moratorium. Speaker 3: Evictions are a major problem, and this is not the first time we've been evicted. Speaker 12: We're facing eviction during this time of year where we're supposed to be celebrating the holidays in our home and are struggling and stressed to find a new place to live. We've had many great memories in our home and live and lived there for ten. Speaker 14: Years and don't want to leave our home. Thank you. Thank you so much. This. Yolanda when I noticed that the cops on me were convinced both time you don't see us or you. So, yeah, keep it up for you, you know. So are you. Then can we still see who's. See anything in the new knew myself. I mean, you don't mean sequels? No, no. Look, I don't know. Three. Then again, that was canon. Soon you'll see you. I mean, I don't know. I think I'm also too cynical. Don't be sorry to know that all these boys can and must get no support in on what it is us is moving through this thing. But I want to put a thought that was good to us. Speaker 10: This is. Speaker 3: My name is Yolanda Hobson. I live with my husband and my two children. I am here tonight so that you can support us in fighting for our rights, in not evicting people. I want you to help us out so that they don't take people out of their homes because it's difficult to find an apartment. We were evicted before and it was a difficult time. It's really sad when somebody takes you out with your children because I've gone through this with my family and I know how it feels to be evicted. We want your support. Thank you. Thank you. Speaker 0: Our next our next speakers are Celie Medina, Peter Portillo, Antonia Marva Castillo, and Devon Allred. In that order recently Medina, Peter Portillo, Antonia Marie Castillo and Devon Allard, if you could please line up. Is our soul here. Please come forward. Speaker 14: When that's not just health care reconciliation, said Medina. So just hit enter the language. Even now, including necesitamos parental moratoria, the disallow familia ticket in contest rental as the todos Camus's corporate donors they cannot select on the fees gratis. Speaker 3: Good evening, Mayor and council members. My name is Araceli Medina and I am a resident of Long Beach and am I am a good tenant. We need your support in the moratorium for the evictions because. So that families can stay together during the holidays. We all deserve this. And we would like this. Protect everyone. All the tenants, all the units and all the buildings. Now. Thank you. Speaker 0: Peter. Speaker 5: Good evening everyone. My name is Peter Portillo. As a resident of this city, I believe that all residents of the city of Long Beach should have the right to affordable housing and should not be thrown out during the holiday season for landlords to raise rent and profit from displacing families this coming year as a member of an underrepresented community, all while having the first elected Latino mayor of Long Beach, you should have firsthand knowledge that we deserve a right to affordable housing during the holidays and an opportunity to live without fear of being evicted. In order for landlords to profit from displacing hardworking citizens, I urge you to consider the moratorium for all to have a warm home during the holidays, not for not just for the privileged few at the top. Don't contribute to the homelessness problem that has already displaced many families within Los Angeles County. Please keep all tenants home. Pass this moratorium. Thank you. Speaker 15: Thank you. Antonio. Speaker 14: When I notice. You're so street. Don't know whether I mean Antonio Zavala, the civilian at least get a sense that yes, you can find APARTAMENTO and DCM, but it also predominantly celebrities. You see other people call me call me as also call me seahorse in honor study episode B that Foreign Minister CASA. Gillies Boyle This year was a yellow sun. Unless people can monitor the Long Beach and then in Macau negative in the past and the moratoria meaning it. Those who want to them as that is. But as is. Speaker 3: Good evening. My name is. Speaker 14: Antonia Zavala. Speaker 3: And I live with my husband and my children. And we received a 60 day notice that I have to leave my apartment on December 17th. What can I tell you? That what hasn't been said yet or already? I ask you to please give our community in Long Beach the best Christmas gift that you can give to pass this moratorium for number 20 and so that we can all enjoy our holidays. From District nine. Thank you. It is. Speaker 0: Necessary, Maria, to steal money from a. Speaker 12: Hi. My name is Molly Castillo. This is my mom. I'm a member of the First District, and I am part of the 1980 hybrid resistance. My family and I are currently going through an eviction for fighting against an unjust and illegal rent increase of 50%. My family and I have lived there for over ten years and we are now being displaced. We have, quote, just less money. And I move up to date is December 12th. Right before the holidays. Right before the holidays, we were given 45 days to move out. And this has taken a toll on all of us, especially on my mom, given the situation where we stand, having to stress about where we will live and everything happening right before the holidays. It is very emotional to think we will be homeless at a time that we're supposed to enjoy with our loved ones. My family and I could have benefited from this moratorium, but we're now being displaced. I urge to place a moratorium of all evictions for all tenants, for all units and all buildings so that they don't have to go through the same situation as my family is currently going through. We are language and we demand a moratorium now. Speaker 15: And our last speaker. Speaker 5: Hello, Honorable Mayor and City Council. Thank you for hearing this item tonight. Two things really quickly. Number one, I just want to thank everyone that was here to share their stories about this is a very important issue, not just here in Long Beach, but statewide. We are in the middle of a housing crisis that impacts lives daily here in Long Beach. And as a renter myself, as a representative of the majority of employees here in Long Beach, who the majority of them are renters as well that live within the city, I think it's an imperative for us to look at this situation and say the intent of the laws that were signed by the governor were to protect these renters and the gap in time had left them vulnerable. And we need to do our jobs to make sure that that does not take place and that everyone is protected, home for the holidays and well beyond that. So thank you for your time tonight. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you. I know that the motion has been made and for the motion of the second, I'm going make a couple of just a couple brief comments and then we have a couple of councilmembers that are cued up as well. I just want to first I had to step over to Cal State, Long Beach for a remembrance ceremony. So I apologize for that. But I wanted to come back and just first say that I absolutely support, first of all, what's in front of us this evening. It's it's one it's the right thing to do, but it's also common sense. There is obviously an intent in the law that was created by the governor, and no one wants to see evictions happen that really go against what the statewide policy was really all about. The tenant the tenant relocation ordinance that was passed by the council was the right thing to do. The statewide approach, the statewide approach to tenant protections that the governor and the and the legislature did was also the right approach and the right thing to do. And and putting together this moratorium tonight is also the right thing to do. I will also just add, there are some concerns, and I think, and rightly so, from both tenant groups that I've spoken with and also apartment owner groups about how our our tenant protection ordinance that we passed marries the statewide policy that also just got adopted and how those two marry and how we move forward. I just want folks to know that that that's something that this council is going to address in the next week, in a couple of weeks ahead of us. So we understand that. And we want we don't want there to be the confusion that there is. And so we want to ensure that the statewide the statewide law that is quite broad, it moves forward in our community, but also that we understand where there might be differences and how we can also continue to address the protections that this body talked about, especially as it relates to some of the unfinished business around additional protections for seniors and people with disabilities. So those are things that are moving forward and will be in front of this body in the next few weeks. So I just want to thank you all for being out here and your advocacy. This is a very common sense and proposals, and I want to thank the council members that brought it forward. And so with that, Councilwoman Pryce. Speaker 3: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So I support this item. And I will say that I think it's incredibly frustrating when we have this gap in time between state legislation and our local ordinances in terms of what happens during that period of time. And I think one of the things that really came out a lot during the comments was that I really do think we're going to need to do some sort of education on. Whether notice is valid and assisting people in understanding whether the notice is valid, because we're now talking about a very specific period of time, which I'll say. Before coming into the meeting tonight, I thought the item represented something else. I actually thought that because we're within 60 days of the implementation of the state law, that we would not it would we would not be able to implement anything locally because it would be invalidated anyway as a result of the state law. But I appreciate the clarification on that. But I do think and I don't know if this is something we want to think about as we move forward in talking about this item in the coming weeks, this issue, whether we can have some sort of an education program out there on whether or not notices are valid and how people can get that information quickly from a neutral source. I think that's really important. I do have a question for city staff on this. Do we have a database where we keep track of the number of people that have been evicted pursuant to our tenant relocation policy that went into effect on August 1st? I think that's when it went to effect, right? August 1st. Speaker 5: Yes. So as I recall, the ordinance, we had asked for that data because that is not data that the city has collected in the past, I believe it was, which helped me. It was a quarterly or monthly that we asked for it and I and we'll have to see what data we have collected so far. Speaker 4: What we what the tenant relocation ordinance requires is that landlords give notice to the city when a tenant relocation payment is made. But there may be several other termination of tenancies or evictions where tenant relocation payments were not required to be made. I don't know if if the city has yet started to collect the data for when tenant relocation payments have been made. If they have, there's probably not too many given the limited amount of time that's elapse between August 1st and now. Speaker 3: Yeah. So from August 1st until now, I mean, we tried to do some outreach in our district to see if there had been any. And when I talked with Councilman Richardson about this on Friday, I shared with him that obviously nobody wants to see mass eviction notices going out to thwart the intent of the legislation. I mean, nobody up here. So obviously, we we don't want that to happen. The concern, however, is taking away the ability of the landlords on an individual basis to make decisions about tenancy in a particular property, as were some of the issues that I that I shared when this item came to us last time is taking away their ability to be able to remove someone short of one of the nine enumerated. Items that are listed in in the California the state code. But I wonder. And so we did some research and we also did some research with newspaper articles and such to see if there had been any mass evictions in the city of Long Beach. We were not able to find any mass evictions in our district or others that had been reported in the city. But I know that when eviction notices have been given, there is a requirement under our approved ordinance that 50% of the relocation be paid within ten days. Of the notice. So I'm assuming and I read an article today that says that notices were where relocation, 50% of the relocation was paid. Do we have any way of tracking that? Speaker 1: We can certainly conduct some outreach at this time. We haven't had anybody come forward to talk to us about those evictions. We can certainly look. Speaker 3: But what the relocation payments aren't they supposed to be lodged with? Isn't somebody supposed to notify the City Councilmember Price? Speaker 4: I found this section in what you all passed in July. It's an annual report, so it could be the case that the city has no information on a single relocation payment and landlords would still be in compliance with their obligations under the Hilo ordinance. Speaker 3: But under our Willow Ordinance, if notice has been given, a 60 day notice has been given, then pursuant to the ordinance, the landlord would have paid half of the relocation fee within ten days of notice. Speaker 4: It's certainly possible that there are tenancies out there right now where half of a relocation payment has been made. Speaker 3: And if a 60 day notice was given on September 11th or after, and we move forward with this item tonight and a relocation was paid. What happens then to that relocation payment? The 50%, does it get reimbursed to the landlord? Speaker 4: It should be in. I think September 11th is not quite the right date. I think it would be September 13th. Speaker 3: Okay. Speaker 4: A saying, assuming that our office receives authority to move forward to bring back an ordinance tonight that would come back on November 12th, assuming that that is passed on November 12th. Any 60 day notices that had not yet matured, so to speak, would be rescinded more or less. And so I think if you go back 60 days from November 12th, you land on September 13th. Speaker 3: Okay. So if from September 13th to November 12th, anyone has been given a 60 day notice and 50% of the re lo given to them, they would need to return that relocation money. If they're planning on not vacating the property. Speaker 4: That's exactly. Speaker 3: Right. So I'd like to offer a friendly what happens. Is there a provision? Well, if we're going to be issuing are moving forward on a moratorium, what I would like it to include is that if a tenant has been given relocation money within this September 13th through November 12th period of time, and they decide to stay in the residence and not vacate the premises, they must reimburse the landlord as pursuant to our current ordinance. If they fail to do so, then that could be that would be considered cause for a subsequent eviction. Is that a an amendment that's agreeable? Speaker 6: Makes sense to me. Is that something we can do? Speaker 4: Absolutely. Speaker 6: We can sign the ordinance that way. Speaker 0: And I want to make sure I keep going along on the from the councilman in person. Things have accepted that. Can we move on to the backup? Sure. Thank you. Consumer. Speaker 9: We're still not used to these minutes on here. I had a great speech written, but I think that the tenants and the people that they came today really just spoke to the issue. I do want not just to harp on it, but I think it's important. We had one person speak against this item tonight and the comment was about the urgency. And as the only renter on this council that moved while being on council, it costs me $7,000 to get into my little apartment in the lovely second District. I understand the vulnerabilities of being a tenant. A single mom in the second District is probably the hardest part about serving as your council member. But the city has continued to grapple with the challenges of being a renter. We did in 2010 with the downtown plan. 2016, we saw rents go up. 2017, rents went up almost 11%. 2018 went up again. And we've consistently, as a council, tried to continue to talk about the issues. We've got great reports. We've got policies coming. We did tenant reload, which I thought was great, but that night was a hard night for me to go to sleep because I didn't feel like we did enough to protect renters at that time. And sure enough, what happened was my my phone was flooded. My emails were flooded with people whose rents went up or they had eviction notices. And so I'm very pleased to hear that the majority of people on this council support this. It's the right thing to do. I hope that we can take the moment as a council, as a community, to kind of learn how we make policy and recognize that sometimes we let politics. Myself, including all of us, dictate how we are going to vote and how far we're going to go on an item. But we continually come back to this council, Dias to try to fix when we don't go far enough when we should. And so I want to applaud all of you guys for coming out today, applaud my council colleagues and Councilmember Richardson for for doing what was right an agenda using this so quickly. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilman Austin. Speaker 10: Thank you. And I think this has been a very productive discussion this evening. For me, it's a no brainer. There's no conflict or equivocation whatsoever when it comes to my vote this evening. I will be voting in support of the item in front of us. Yeah. You know, a lot has been said about personal situations and, you know, you don't rent or you don't understand, you know, the the the where, where, where another person is. I am in constant contact with my constituents and I have a very, very diverse district, have people that are certainly suffering with financial issues with this housing crisis. I have family members who are dealing with these issues. And so I'm very, very empathetic and sympathetic to the to the challenges here. This is a what a weak impact. And so to me, you know, this is a holiday season. This is the best gift that the city council can give our residents is housing security. And so I'm happy to support this. I will like to say that that this new legislation, AB 1482, is something that we all should seek to understand better. And so I would hope that in the coming weeks that we can come together and continue to have this conversation and possibly even have a study session around the the impacts of this legislation so that we as a council have a greater understanding of it, but also the public as well as landlords as well. I think we have a responsibility to educate the public about the new law that that will be enacted in January. And so I'm hopeful that we can have that conversation in the coming weeks as well. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you. Thank you. Vice Mayor Andrews. Speaker 8: Yes. First of all, I'd like to thank everyone for coming out tonight. I think what this really shows individuals and the people in the city of Long Beach. When you get tired of being tired, then you're going to stand up and let people know how you feel about the way this city is ran. And we have to give a lot of credit to the individuals who are behind it. But you have to understand, you're in a place that you like and this is a place that you love. You were raised here, and by being in all of a sudden, you get that notice of, I have to leave. That's very frightening to everyone. And she's not the only one. I'm a renter. I sleep at night because like I said, when I know that things are wrong, I'm going to speak up on it. And I think you individuals out there have made it very clear tonight as to understand that we have a problem here and we must solve that problem of the homelessness and renters, because the fact that that's where you live, it's not just about Thanksgiving or Christmas. It's about every day that you live. I don't want to be out after Christmas, so I'm totally going to support this and I hope we'll all be able to get this thing kicking gear and taking care soon. And I want to thank the young men for standing up for not only for Latinos, our Cambodians, African-Americans, but everyone who live in the city of Long Beach. And thank you again. Yes, thank you. Speaker 0: Just got some more super now. Speaker 7: Thank you. It's been mentioned by Al Austin and Suzy Price, but anyone who contacted my office in the last couple of days knows that the primary concern for me is the educational piece where you don't have that, you have disinformation. And I know the Saddam came quickly. So that was kind of a natural byproduct. But I think that everyone, all parties here, all stakeholders have to be educated on any type of legislation, either from the state or our local ordinances. So I hope we take that to heart, and I hope we can make very strong efforts in that area. And with that, I'll be supporting the item. Speaker 0: Thank you. Councilman Pearce. Speaker 9: Yes. Just real quick, I wanted to just ask I know that there are some properties that have changed hands. City Attorney, If you could just meet with any new landlords have just purchased property in the next week if they reach out to you before coming back. So with. Speaker 4: Before coming back. I mean, you know, I've been I've been taking phone calls from constituents and advocacy groups on both sides of this issue. So I'll continue to do that. Speaker 9: I just want to make sure appreciate that. Speaker 1: You're. Speaker 0: Not from Richardson. Speaker 6: Thanks. I just want to just recap. First of all, thank you to the entire city council and everybody who spoke up. I want to recap what I picked up right now. So the two councilmembers mentioned that when the new state law goes into effect, they like to see the city have some local education land and as well as a potential study session. I support that. I think we should make sure that we do that. To me, that means informational on these TV or regular channels, so we make sure that we're proactively adding that education. There was a friendly amendment from Councilman Price. Did you capture what it was? Speaker 4: I think I did. I want to make sure that the motion secondary council member Urunga is good with it. With that. Okay. Speaker 6: Great. And can you recap what that was? Speaker 4: So the ordinance that comes back and by the way, for a little bit of context for the public and behind the dais. My my plan is to bring back an ordinance that substantively looks very similar to the city of Los Angeles ordinance. That's what you're likely to see on November 12th with that as a baseline. The addition will be that any tenant who has already received half of a relocation payment under our ordinance and who stays in the unit because the termination is rescinded due to what I think will occur on November 12th. If they fail to repay that below, then that will constitute a just cause for eviction and the moratorium or the prohibition on evictions. They will pass on November 12th, I assume would not apply to that tenant. Speaker 6: It makes sense to me would also say if in general someone, let's say someone already, you know, they receive that notice, they're willing to leave. Right. They've already found new place. Speaker 4: They can leave if they want the. Speaker 6: Full. You don't have to give their reload payment back if they're leaving. Speaker 4: Absolutely right. Speaker 6: That's right. They'll move forward. So I want to make sure a landlord, lord, and a tenant understands they do still have that option. Okay, we're. Speaker 4: Clear. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you. Well, thank you very much. Please cast your votes, members. Speaker 11: Motion carries. Speaker 0: Great motion carries. Thank you very much. We're going to go to item item 15, please.

Agenda Item

Recommendation to request City Attorney to draft an urgency ordinance for review at the November 12, 2019 City Council meeting, to prohibit no-fault notices and no-fault evictions through December 31, 2019.

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_11052019_19-1104

Speaker 11: Motion carries. Number 19 Communication from Vice Mayor Andrews recommendation to increase appropriations in the Special Advertising and promotion fund in the City Manager Department by $552.50. Speaker 0: Mr. King, he's not here, so please go and cast your vote. Speaker 11: Motion carries. Speaker 0: Thank you. We are going to go back and reconsider. I think mirna yoshihiro probably is here, so we're going to reconsider. Item 16 lester's any objection to a will to reconsider? Speaker 1: We need a moratorium. Reconsider. Okay. Speaker 0: So we're doing a vote right now to reconsider. Please please cast your votes on that. Thank you. And we now open up for comment, please. Speaker 3: Good evening, everyone. My name is Mana Yoshihiro. I lived at the Belmont Shores Mobile State for five years. Since last May, my family had has an ounce of family business in the sport fishing industry. My husband died of a massive heart attack last year, June of 2007, when I was only 45 years old. I left my job as a as an office manager the following year, 2008. For that, I worked who I worked for a dealership for over five, 25 years, and I managed five stores, five dealerships in the year 2002. I was diagnosed with the disease called Moyo. Moyo syndrome. After five years of living in the Machar's mobile estate, watching all the repairs and renovation, rebuilding the whole park the since year 2016 to the present time. I had sold my family family a sport fishing boat. And in 2010, in exchange for a commercial boat, which is a squid boat and a real permit, which was very lucrative during that time. Before my before my two brain surgeries, I had to sell the to two boats in order to sell my art just to pay for my surgery bills and hospital stays, hospitalization, rehabs in all . Now I'm living on disability, income and widow's benefit. No way in heaven will I be able to sustain myself. So on behalf of the mature residents living at Belmont Shore, I would like you to see if you could have how help us solve in this huge increase of our rent. Park management proposal. Retain the same amount of 355. Dollars per month. Credit plan which extended to two more years. That which is not not an it's a it's that is still an issue to all the residents living there. I had witnessed mature residents who had boarders living with them in order to make their payments meet to make their rent payments. Thank you. Speaker 0: Thank you so much. We have a motion in a second. If I can get those, please cast your votes on that. Speaker 11: Motion carries. Speaker 0: That concludes the regular agenda items, Madam Clerk, I believe. Is that correct? And I'm course. That concludes the regular agenda items.

Agenda Item

Recommendation to increase appropriations in the Special Advertising and Promotion Fund Group in the City Manager Department by $552.50, offset by the Sixth Council District one-time District Priority Funds transferred from the Citywide Activities Department to provide a contribution to California Families in Focus a non-profit organization, for support of their Gran Bailaton event, which is an exercise program being hosted in the Sixth District; and Decrease appropriations in the Special Advertising and Promotion Fund Group in the Citywide Activities Department by $552.50 to offset a transfer to the City Manager Department.

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_10222019_19-1069

Speaker 1: Some have folks are in the audience and I'm going to try to get to these at the start of the agenda as much as possible. We're going to go ahead and here, item 19, please be quick. Speaker 0: Item 19 is a report from the Development Services recommendation to initiate a visioning effort for the downtown Shoreline Planet Development Zoning District, District two. Speaker 1: Thank you, Mr. Modica. Can we get to just a short staff presentation? I think the. The staff reporters. Speaker 4: Who have been taught staff report. Speaker 6: By Linda Tatum and Christopher Coons. Speaker 9: Good evening, Mayor, and members of the council. This is a presentation regarding a proposed visioning process for the downtown shoreline area. And. Excuse me. The downtown plan is the success of the downtown plan owes a lot of its success to the effort that the city took to actually conduct a visioning process before enacting the plan. So we'd like to do something similar with the downtown, with the PD six area. The PD six is that area one of the most scenic areas in the city on the waterfront? It is. Let's see. Thank you, Tom. There we go. Pediatrics area was last updated by the city back in the 1980s, and it is the area south of Ocean between the Los Angeles River and Alameda Street there. And it contains some of the most visited sites in the city. And since the city's announcement or the city's selection for the 2028 Olympics, there has been an intense level of interest in development activity in the PD six area. So the city is going to take advantage of that interest and conduct a visioning exercise for this. This property and that process will be very similar to what we did for the the downtown plant. It was a very community oriented, a lot of community engagement. So I'll walk you through very briefly what that process will look like. The objectives of this process is to establish a stakeholder, a very strong community outreach effort. We would identify stakeholders to essentially establish a consensus about the future development within the PD six area. The other objective is to strengthen the connections between this area and the downtown. Right now there is. We could do a much better job of getting those that visit the shoreline area to come into the downtown and vice versa. So that will be one of the objectives of the visioning exercise. Fundamentally, the other purpose of this process would be to establish a framework so that we can subsequently prepare a specific plan. And it is the specific plan that will be very similar to what we did in the downtown in terms of establish some key goals and developing consensus around how we can best enhance that area and enhance provide the kinds of activities and spur investment in that area. And that process would essentially be led by a consultant and driven by a consultant and staff guided process. The idea would we would have a series of committees or working groups that would represent various stakeholder groups in the community and develop consensus around some of the topics and some of the objectives of the plan or of the process. We would also conduct economic trends analysis with the idea being to identify the opportunities in the area as well as some of the strengths that we can build on in the shoreline area. In terms of a timeline. Very briefly, we envision this to be about an 18 month process and that would start up early 2020. And the very next steps in this process is staff will be working with the city manager's office and with the mayor's office in the next couple of months. And we will be bringing back to council in December a very detailed work program and a schedule for this effort. We would work to start selecting a consultant to to guide this process, working with staff sometime in early 2020 and then initiate the working groups in the second quarter of 2020. So that's essentially an overview of that process. We look forward to engaging the community, resident groups, business groups, property owners, waterfront interests to make sure that as we establish some kind of a consensus about how we can best invest in that area and capitalize and have a specific plan in place by the time 2028 rolls around. And we host the 2028 Olympics here in Long Beach. That concludes the staff presentation, and I'm available for any questions. Speaker 1: Thank you very much. A great presentation. The only thing I will add is that obviously updating our are different plans across the city has been a priority. I really want to thank the staff for presenting this and bringing this forward. Anything councilmember pearce will agree, pd six is a critical piece of of our of our infrastructure and our economy and the area. And so I just want to thank you for the work, Councilman Pearce. Speaker 7: I too, want to thank you guys for the work. I know that we've done visioning just at the Rainbow Lagoon area and understand the process before us. Just like in downtown, when we did the downtown plan, we saw that it invited so much new developments. We see that we had, I think, up to eight cranes in our downtown over the last several years. And so we welcome this process again with this area. I'd like to just highlight that one of the things that has been important to my district is the fact that a lot of it is shared with tourists and making sure that when we develop these areas that we're really inviting the rest of Long Beach to come to our waterfront. And we're saying that this is your waterfront and everything that we can do to try to make sure that transportation is accessible, that when we're updating our plans, we're looking at community benefit agreements and things like that , ways that we can ensure that the development will be inclusive and diverse. So really looking forward to the process. Thanks for everything that you guys have done so far. Appreciate it. Speaker 1: Thank you. Councilman Richardson. Speaker 10: I support the study. Thank you, Councilmember Gringo. Speaker 6: I know you guys are ready to dot the I's and cross the t's. However, this is within the coastal zone. Is that correct? So we exist within our local coastal plan, the LCP. Speaker 9: Yes. This would require an action and approval by the the Coastal Commission. Speaker 6: I'm guessing that you're going to have a timeframe timeline to bring it to the Coastal Commission in the near future. Date in the future. Speaker 9: Yes, we will include that in the the memo that comes the council that outlines the process in some detail. We will kind of outline the steps of the visioning process and the subsequent specific plan process, because it's the specific planning process that will be subject to the coastal action, not the visioning process itself. Speaker 6: I just want to make sure that we are timely on this. Obviously the Coastal Commission has its own schedule and I want to make sure that we have the time to have an opportunity to where to count to the commission when we are here locally, whether Long Beach or somewhere in the in the southern region. Thank you. Speaker 1: Councilmember. Mr.. Good to hear any public comment. No. Members, please cast your votes. Speaker 0: Councilwoman Price. Councilwoman Mongo. Ocean cares.

Agenda Item

Recommendation to direct City Manager to initiate a visioning effort for the Downtown Shoreline Planned Development (PD-6) zoning district as the framework for a Downtown Shoreline Specific Plan that updates current development regulations and facilitates repositioning of existing uses and resources in the Downtown Shoreline area; and Increase appropriation in the Tidelands Operations Fund Group in the Development Services Department by $250,000, offset funds available. (District 2)

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_10222019_19-1070

Speaker 1: Okay. Thank you very much. Motion carries will move on to the next item. Thank you very much. And next item is going to be the firefighter and menu item 20, please. Speaker 0: Item 20 Report from Human Resources Recommendation to Adobe resolution approving the 2019 through 2022 IMO you with the Long Beach Firefighters Association citywide. Speaker 4: Thank you. Speaker 1: I'm going to have to turn this over to Mr. Modica, who will do the presentation. Speaker 6: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Members of the City Council, we are bringing our H.R. staff, and here they are. Alex Vasquez and her staff will give a short presentation. Speaker 3: Good evening. Speaker 9: Dana Anderson, who is our manager of labor relations, is going to give a short overview of this item. Excuse me, honorable mayor and members of Council over the past few months, representative from the City Management and the Long Beach Association of Long Beach Firefighters have held a number of media conference sessions regarding changes in wages, hours and other terms and conditions of employment. As a result of these meetings. A tentative agreement for a successor memorandum of understanding has been reached, which is before you this evening, for adoption. The major provisions of this tentative agreement include a three year contract from October 1st, 2019 to September 30th, 2022. General salary increases of 3% in the first year. 3% at the start of the third year. And a 3% six months later. A one time payment of $2,000 in the second year in which there is no general salary increase. A reopen her to me to confer regarding potential adjustments related to CalPERS pension reform. A bilingual skill pay increase from $0.80 to a dollar 20. The creation of a new hazmat first responder operations pay. The modification to current skill pays, including emergency apparatus pay, fire prevention and battalion chief certification pay. In addition to a new parental leave program that is conducive to the recruitment retention of a qualified and diverse workforce. A Battalion Chief Additional Step six equivalent to 2.5% above step five base hourly pay of the Battalion Chief classification. An agreement to convene a Joint Labor Management Committee to discuss issues related to the behavioral health benefits and services provided to the Employee Assistance Plan. An effort to improve services. The cost for this three year agreement is estimated to be 2.17 million for the general fund group and ten point to 6 million for all funds. The total structural cost increase resulting from the agreement is estimated to be 9.37 million in the general fund and 9.4 or 5 million across all funds. This concludes my brief staff report and I am available to answer any questions you may have. Speaker 1: Thank you very much. We do have a motion and a second. Let me first we'll briefly public comment on this item. Mr. Goodhue, anything? Nope. Mr. Pritchard. Richard. Here he is. Speaker 10: Rex Pritchard, president of Long Beach Firefighters Association. I just want to thank specifically Dana and Irma. They are tough negotiators. It was not an easy process at all. But this is a fair contract for both the city and us. It's going to really help. I believe the fire chief helped retain and recruit a diverse workforce and a highly competitive Southern California market, especially with L.A. City and L.A. County. So, again, we appreciate all the support and thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you. And before we turn over to the motion, I just want to just make a couple comments as well. I want to I want to just begin by by thanking our firefighting team. Obviously, Mr. Pritchard, his whole team and our rank and file firefighters are what we have in front of us for adoption is a fair , responsible and forward thinking contract of the process of negotiations. Negotiating is typically tough. And you certainly have in our in our case, a stellar fire department that we're incredibly proud of. I want to note that I very grateful that our negotiating team went in. I'm thinking about things that were also important to the council and our firefighters. It is very important for us to ensure that our firefighters, that entire team at the department are not just well compensated, but that they have the types of benefits and the type of support needed so that we can recruit the very best. And we should always want the absolute best for our firefighters and our public safety officers. That's why I strongly support this contract and why I'm very proud of the council for getting us getting us here. I also just want to note that one thing that's in this contract, besides some of the adjustments for some of our our firefighters so that they can receive a fair a fair, fair pay and around certain skills is I know that our parental leave program is also being added to this. And again, Long Beach is ahead of most agencies where we are offering a very, I think, forward thinking parental leave program for all of our firefighters. And and as we did for our police officers just a few weeks ago. And so, again, thank you to our firefighter team, our negotiating team. And I'm very excited to move forward and get this contract done and to ensure that our firefighters have the support that they deserve. With that, Councilmember Richardson. Speaker 10: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just want to take a moment and chime in to thank our negotiating team and our rank and file firefighters for coming together on a fair deal. It's smart and balanced. I recognize as quality public services, which is important to our constituents every day. And also one thing that I want to acknowledge, that, you know, a lot of our firefighters are are young folks and they're growing, you know, families. And it recognizes the importance of family medical leave. And that's important to our city. And I'm glad to see that they were able to come to terms on that. And so this is the kind of deal that helps us maintain our status as a world class city and a world class fire department. Thanks a lot. Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Councilmember Ringo. Speaker 6: I thank you better. And I think you said it all. You covered all the important points about this agreement. And I want to congratulate the fire department and Mr. Prichard for his willingness to negotiate. Negotiations like these are always tough, and they don't happen unless there's an agreement with the city. And I think I want to congratulate actually both sides, both teams working together on a tentative agreement that is going to work for the city. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you. Vice Mayor Andrews. Speaker 4: Yes, thank you, ma'am. First of all, I want to thank our firefighters and our team and everyone else who made this item before us possible. You know, our firefighters deserve this and so much more over the years that their role and responsibility have grown. And they have came to work every day and work with our community with grace. So the bargain is never easy, but work for us is worth it. So I want to thank each and every one of you for being a big part of this. Thank you again. Speaker 1: Councilmember Pearce. Speaker 7: Yes. I'd also like to thank everybody that worked on this. I know that negotiations are probably some of the the toughest moments with our city. Really proud to see that we're rolling out parental leave and that they now have access to four weeks of that, that we as a municipality are really leading on that it's good to continue to see it. And what's most exciting, I think, is the mental health support that we're offering our first responders. Obviously risking your life every single day on the job and knowing that you're you're also risking an increase of having cancer by 100%. Like, these are big things. And having Long Beach be a city that people not only come to and do our training academy, but that they stay. And we know with fire that this is one of the biggest challenges that we have. And so I really think that creating a robust agreement really helps us retain those employees. So thank you, everybody, for a fair contract. Speaker 1: Thank you. Councilman Price. Speaker 5: I want to echo the comments of my colleagues, and I think this is an appropriate time to just share the following experience that we just had in CD3 that underscores exactly how important the work our firefighters do is. So we just had a really significant sink hole in one of our communities in the third district. It may seem like that's not that big of an issue, but we had about 40 homes, did not have water. We had a huge hole in the ground that was about eight feet deep, maybe even deeper than that and very long. And we had fire was out there first. They were out there. They were on scene the entire time, having a presence there, letting the neighbors feel that they were safe, providing refuge if needed. They set up a command center with our police department nearby. And they and also our police department was there letting residents know that they were safe and that they were being watched over and they were being cared for. This is an example of city departments, multiple city departments working together, health, public works, water, police and fire. And they work together really well. But for me, there was so much piece of mind driving up or walking up the first day to the location, seeing our fire trucks there, seeing our firefighters there and seeing our police officers there. There's just such a sense of peace and safety when you see that and to be able to support public safety in our city for things like crime, but also things like sinkholes and emergencies where people need to rely on our first responders for peace of mind. And safety is just you can't underscore to mess with words. You have to be there to witness it. So I'm glad for that for this contract, because I do think it makes our fire service and the city of Long Beach competitive so that we can continue to attract candidates that are professional and competent and represent the city well. And I thank our firefighters for their service, and I really am pleased with our city team. So thank you to our team for your negotiations and for your communications with council. You left, you know, nothing unsaid you shared with us and we felt included in the entire process. So thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Councilwoman Mongo. Speaker 9: Thank you. I want to take this opportunity to put out a big thank you to the Long Beach Fire Department. Over the past few months, I've gotten to work more closely with the new command team, and I will say that I am thoroughly impressed with the way in which this department takes care of each other. There are departments across the region who are losing personnel at alarming rates because there's such a shortage of individuals that want to enter into this field and have the physical fitness and wherewithal to make it through an academy. And we are so fortunate that very few of our our our family fire, a family of firefighters, even consider it because they really do feel taken care of by each other. And I want to thank the city staff for their work on this contract. It is so important that we have a contract that is fair and balanced for our community and specifically for our firefighters and our police officers. So thank you. Speaker 1: You could hear what he did. I already did. Public comment, sir. I did public comment already. Councilmember supra you actually you spoke in support. Answer your. Now, you already spoke to the sign of. Speaker 4: Okay. Speaker 1: Next up is Councilman Austin. Speaker 2: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I don't think I can say anything that hasn't already been said, so I won't echo anybody's comments, but I will say congratulations to our city team for negotiating a great agreement with our Long Beach Firefighters Association. I think this contract will will certainly help us recruit and retain high quality fire service professionals moving forward and maintaining quality services in the city. I will just say that that I'm. Relate it to actually have this opportunity to vote on this contract, because I've been here long enough to know that it hasn't always been been this way. And so salute to all the parties for for working to get to an amicable agreement. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you. And counsel for. Speaker 10: And I'd like to to thank the negotiators on both sides city staff and local 372. Great job to hammer out a fair deal. I just don't want this moment to pass without recognizing what took place yesterday in the history of the fire department with the restoration of E17 17 and thanks to the chief, all the command staff and Mayor Garcia and my council colleagues for supporting that. It was a great day and that is one incredible firefighting force. When 17 and 17 roll out those bays. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you very much. And Mr. Good here you did. We have you on record that you did you did speak say that you supported it from your seat sir. When I called your name that per the clerk. Yes. So members of you have your you go ahead and votes. Sir. That's. Per the city clerk. Speaker 0: As we embrace mango, I keep pressing. Councilmember Richardson. Ocean carries.

Resolution

Recommendation to adopt resolution approving the 2019-2022 Memorandum of Understanding with the Long Beach Firefighters Association. (Citywide)

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_10222019_19-1076

Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Thank you all for being here. We're going to hear. She went 28 and 23. Speaker 0: I'm 23 is communication from Cam Smith appears Councilmember Durango Councilmember Richardson recommendation to create a childcare pilot program for meetings in the civic chambers using 3000 of second Council District one time District Priority Fund. Speaker 1: Thank you. Councilman Pearce. Speaker 7: Yes. Yes. I want to say that this is an idea that's been around for a while. I think a bunch of us council members have kicked around what it would look like to have child care provided at city council meetings. We know that in the city we often have families come to city council meetings. We often have families that bring their their children up front. I know when we had our breastfeeds month that there was a packed house. And so we wanted to provide a divide by nine funds that would allow us for a pilot program. And the reason we wanted to do a pilot program is so we could make sure that we track how many people from outside the city are using these services and then how many city employees. We want to make sure that this is something that's available right to city employees as well. And so I want to thank the city manager's office for working with us. I want to thank my staff for working with us. I look forward to hearing from the community members. Thank you. Speaker 2: Councilmember Durango. Speaker 6: Now you got to remember, Austin, I want to show my strong support for this item. I know people probably do not recall, but back in the back, in the seventies and eighties, even through the nineties, there were two classifications city called child childcare providers. And it was a program that was run through the Parks and Recreation Department that offered child care throughout the city. It was a classification that we tested during the employment process. Of course, after budget crises along the years, that program went away. So I want to thank Councilmember Pearce for bringing this forward. It's a much needed service that the city should provide. And we'll start here with the city council meetings and hopefully over the years we can grow our child care program back again into the glory that it was back in the in the late 1780s. Thank you. Speaker 2: Let's remember, Mongo. Speaker 9: Thank you. I just had a couple of quick questions. Are we thinking that this would be licensed childcare or babysitting? And how would it be paid for? Would there be a stipend? When people pay to A to utilize it? Would there be a differentiation between employees that need it versus. Public members that need it. I just want to make sure that some some of our employees work council meetings and some of our employees work during the day. And so I just didn't want there to be a. Favoritism or any of that to the staff that support us. Speaker 7: So the recommendation is using 3000 a second District Council one time funds. So my officers should be paying for this. The pilot program is for city council meetings and meetings held in this chamber. And so if somebody requests during those hours of child care because they're attending a meeting in this chamber, they would be able to request that per the item through the city clerk 48 hours prior to the child care services that we have lined up actually carry the insurance required by risk management. It is child care. And so you could bring your child regardless of age? No, not regardless of age from 2 to 13. So if your child is two years old, up to 13, you would be able to bring them here during business hours. I mean, not business hours during a meeting in this chamber to have child watch, we have a secure location that our city manager has worked to make sure we have a site that is appropriate. And I think that answers your questions. Speaker 9: Well, I get $3,000, but child care is expensive. So would the person who's dropping off the child also pay like a a deposit or a. It would be completely free. Speaker 7: It's completely free to the public and to our city employees that need it during those hours. Speaker 9: And you use the word child care, but. Would it be? Because I think child care, at least again, it's been a long time since I worked in child care, but I did work in child care. There's like age separations by group, right? Speaker 7: So when you have child care at a facility like something like this, that is it's done in public meetings in other places. Very often it is it's not that complicated. They bring a couple of different people. They are licensed. They have the insurance that they need and it's based on request. So if you have a request for two people, for two kids, then you have one staff person. If there's another request, there's another staff person. We're allocating $3,000. If that money runs out ahead of time, that is the time that will bring it back to this council to discuss. We've allocated this based on the number of of hours that we think there will be requests and added an additional amount to cover on top of that. Speaker 9: Okay. And so the the caretakers would be licensed, but we're not trying to license a site on a child care facility onsite. Speaker 7: Not at this time. But I would love to see that in the middle of this. But in between the library and here, when the middle part gets developed, I think that having a child care facility there that would be accessible to city employees would be absolutely something that we should strive towards. Speaker 9: I ask a lot of these questions because I've recently researched a little bit around being a county employee and having child care available to employees in that model. It is a licensed site and it is available to employees, but it also is available to the public and there's some preferential variances. And then there's also a recommended donation that allows the program to sustain itself over time for a longer period of time. And so I was just kind of trying to better understand. Especially coming from a budget perspective. $3,000 is a great donation to get it started. I just recognize that depending on the criteria that we start the pilot that visioning might have been on on a go forward basis. So the pilot you're hoping for lasts through. Speaker 3: How many months? Speaker 7: It's a 12 month pilot. Speaker 9: Oh, $3,000 for 12 months. Yes. Speaker 7: I don't want to go back and forth. I can reread the item for you if you like. Speaker 9: Respectfully, I have the opportunity to ask questions. I didn't appreciate that a lot. Speaker 7: You ask all your questions and then I'll queue up again to answer them. Speaker 1: Okay, so I'm here back. Let me let me just make sure we're where we're at. Did the motion get read in the. Speaker 7: We haven't had any public comment yet, but the moment. Speaker 1: Okay. Councilmember Turanga ah you did second. Okay. Let me do the public comment. Okay. And then we'll come back and this order, Larry Goodhue, Stefan Burson, Suelo, Maricela de Rivera, Lily Ocampo and Carmen de Marzo. Please come forward in that order. Speaker 4: Very good to hear the suggestions before. You are certainly good. I'm going to suggest this also. It's sitting, examining. Hiring someone trained in mental care to help guide some of our more problematic council members. I think that would benefit. In fact, if we had that long ago, we wouldn't have the problems that we have now. So if you're going to do this, let's go all the way and get some mental help for. Particularly the councilperson from the second district. And. Also. I'll hold it at that for the time. Well, with the exception also, of course, of the mayor. You know, he's facing the prison sentence he's going to be facing. He's going to need some mental health. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you. Also, Madam Clerk, I know we have over ten speakers who goes down to thank you. Our next speaker. Speaker 10: Stephanie. Awesome. So Democratic Socialists of America, Long Beach branch coming here in support of the strong support of this item. This is an issue of an excess of accessibility and public access to that. You had two public meetings. I believe $3,000 is the least amount of money that you could possibly delegate to this, especially given the importance of making sure that families were represented at these meetings. Speaker 4: We here at our organization, we prepared childcare at every single meeting because we believed that having our children there is accessible and required part of making sure the democratic process. Speaker 10: Whatever is necessary to make sure that this goes through. I think that you should be pursuing this because this is a basic issue of small business, small D democracy. Speaker 4: Thank you and have a good day. Speaker 1: Thank you very much, Marcella Rivera. Speaker 5: There's two of us and one hiding. Hello. Good evening. Speaker 3: I'm Maricela de Rivera, ninth District resident, the co-founder and director of. Speaker 9: Long Beach Breastfeeds and a city commissioner. And I am so very grateful. Speaker 3: To. Speaker 9: To Council Member Pearce. Speaker 3: A council member Turanga and my council. Speaker 9: Member Rex Richardson for bringing this forward. I have tried to model much as my grandparents did for us and then my parents civic engagement. Speaker 5: For my wild. Speaker 9: Non whispering children. I think it's really important that all people in our society are welcomed and included and whether that is very young children, very old people, people with different abilities, physical, cognitive and different languages. Just everything that I've seen today in this meeting is why I love Long Beach and I'm really excited about this program. I know that running a group that hovers around a thousand local Long Beach women breastfeeding and raising children in the city, I can say that civic engagement is something that everybody's really interested in and this is going to help. And I really, really appreciate you and your inclusion. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Speaker 3: Online. Menominee Escamilla Damaso Will Ecuadoran Literature Mosul's Ninos Emmanuel Aliquippa The Little Rascal steps into Long Beach in the stars central on this green damask with the ninos and Moses into personas Jesus familias but active within this Trojan that has gone important information and assume that much of the rest is going to Thomas and Maestros Miembros con opportunities this devil Garcia como estas sin embargo Lauren Jonas and us you that much are the basis on the sleeveless especialmente paper the los ninos same kids then después this better than the ample yet aguado personas maintain I must neto's eyes that on newness experimental quando a use opponent in courtesy Gonzalez Perla tanto no thursday releases a working la that is that Armando and Gwen tell as much as moreira's game for intent los padres yellow squee the daughters can look irritable ga versus familias carousel caressed appaloosa is baroque proportion then with other the ninos la proxima is giving grass is this is. Speaker 1: Thank you. Speaker 6: Hello. My name is Carmen. The Muscle, a grandmother and caregiver to three beautiful children and a member of Best our central languages leadership team best, our central Long Beach. We provide childcare to over 60 individuals and their families so that they are able to develop their leadership and connect to important resources and information in the city. Oftentimes we connect our members to advocacy opportunities such as these. However, city meetings are often inaccessible, especially because children get restless after waiting for so long. I've personally brought my two grandchildren with me to these meetings and have experienced what it is like for them to get restless and tired. So we were happy to hear that the city has taken into account the many barriers parents and caregivers face when trying to advocate for their families and looking into providing child care. Thank you for this policy and I hope to have childcare provided the next time I come. Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Speaker 3: Hi, my name is Lilia Campo, and I want to thank Councilwoman Jeanine Pirro, Jeanine Pirro and Robert Otunga in some form for bringing that item forth, because it is always better when we come and talk to you to know that our kids, we're going to have we're going to be in a place where they're not going to be like call or they're going to have a place where to play and to sit or to lay down if they feel, I hope, because right now my kids were with somebody that it was taking care of thing. But since you guys closed that outside and it's kind of cold, so I will really appreciate if you use your support for this item and. That will help to get more public anger and civic engagement. And that's it. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Our next five speakers, Andrew Manzano, Maria Lopez, Jeremiah Roseboro and town and city to really please come forward in that order. Andrew Manzano, Maria Lopez, Jeremiah Roseboro. And Town and city really. Speaker 6: Hello. My name is Andrew Montano with Long Beach Forward supporting the best central Long Beach Initiative. We would like to extend our thanks to the council members who sponsored this item. I remember last year in October, we brought parents out to support the LBC strategic plan, and many of the parents had to leave because their children were extremely tired. It's important we move all. It's important we remove all barriers to participation, whether it's language, access or child care. And when these barriers aren't removed, we are only allowing a certain demographic to be civically engaged. There is language in the agenda item that states all family related issues be put to the front of the agenda . I would like to highlight that issues around housing, immigration, environment and so much more are intersected with family issues. So lastly, thank you all for providing this item and I look forward to more parents turning out in the future. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you, Councilman Austin. I'm sorry. I'm looking at the wrong list. I'm really Lopez. Speaker 5: Good evening. My name is Maria Lopez. Speaker 7: I'm the director. Speaker 5: Of Community Organizing for Housing, Long Beach and the Long Beach Tenants Union. I'm also a very proud daughter of a single mother who worked really hard to give us food on our plate. Our shelter, pretty much our means to live and sadly was unable to be active in my school, was unable to be active even in my soccer games. And so when we talk about the work that we do in organizing, everything is centered on families. Everything is centered on the ability to bring the most vulnerable families that are struggling, complex situations, to bring truth and power to their stories. But they are unable to do that because we lack affordable childcare and accessible childcare and meetings like these. Right. It is important that if we center families in our policies, we also center them in the actions that we take on a daily basis, like meetings like this. Right. And so I really applaud the fact that we're taking on consideration starting a pilot program. Thank you, Janine, for the money. It shows a lot of pretty much proactive ness from your district and from yourself. And so I would encourage that from everybody else. And also realizing that family issues are interconnected. Like Andrew said, we have complex families and we're trying to have complex dialogs to be able to best serve them. So thank you today for your time. Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Speaker 2: Jeremiah how you doing, mayor? City council. How y'all doing? Most y'all know me. I'm a single parent. And in order for me to be in the in the room, in order for me some decision to be made, I have to be here. And I can't be here if I have to watch my child and we have to sit here for 2 hours. She gets restless, tired, sleepy, wants can be run around, can't make noise, can't do nothing. So therefore, I have to leave. Most of you guys who have kids, you know this. So this is this is a lot of a lot of common sense. So let's just put it all together, you know? So I'm trying to raise my two daughters and also trying to be civically involved in some of the decisions is being made that affects us. So I can't be in here being here. Listen to the beautiful mayor and the city council with these rules and regulations that I have to listen to and be a part of and watch my daughter at the same time. So let's use our common sense. Ladies and gentlemen, peace and love. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you, Jeremiah. And tell. Speaker 3: Good evening. I'm in. Hello. My name is. I'm told that I'm falling asleep at the mamba out of my state of central language. And at a rate the body body over in a healing center and then at least rewarded and wanted for posterity. Avenue, Long Beach, California. Nice little Israel 4 a.m.. The murder of the four children I hope is in danger. The City Council so many time when advocated with no Jew see, or when it was Cambodian genocide. I remember day I had taking my son with me to meeting with a different group and always the childcare. I think Turkey is a city council is important for family that to come and help the dear boy had to the this meeting sometime sometime when we come to the meeting there is no one to take care of them at home and then how to bring down is we want to parent to be and getting engagement with the city. We need to have the family especially when children get boring. Please provide childcare at the city council and under city meeting. Thank you. Speaker 4: Thank you. Speaker 1: So truly. Speaker 3: Well, good evening, Mayor. And good evening, all the city council members. My name's Atari. I live here and work here in central Long Beach. The reason I'm here tonight is trying to advocate for parents that lack of childcare. Say, example, like in the city council, we need a childcare service provider for the woman that family that attend city council meetings. Because I work in the community, I often seen moms and families that they are pressing about the issues and they want to attend the city council, city council to address the issues, but they cannot be here. So working in the community, I often hear a lot of story and also lack of childcare. Service provider to a woman who just having children and want to go back to work of woman who are on public service and want to go back to work. So this very important not just for the city council meeting and also for across the board, across the city in any meeting so that the city can provide childcare. Please. Thank you so much. Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Councilman Austin. Actually, Councilman, let me let me go back to Councilwoman Mongo because she had the floor when we went to public comment. So, Councilman Monroe. Speaker 9: Thank you. A couple of things. I'm a huge supporter of childcare. I actually worked in childcare. I want to take a first. Speaker 7: Moment to think. Speaker 9: But fell out of language. Breastfeeds. I'm a member of Lemmy's Breastfeeds. I read the stories sometimes at 3:00 in the morning when I'm breastfeeding. I'm also a pumping mom, so I often leave from here and go in the back. I want to thank acting city manager Mr. Modica, who, when we moved into the new building, quickly recognized there wasn't a breastfeeding option on this floor and made one available to me in the back immediately. And so I really want to appreciate that childcare is important. The logistics of what we talk about and what we decide to go forward with is also very important. I heard a couple of comments related to. Low income families. We have lots of resources available. And if the the child care provided is child care, not child watch, there's funding available. And so the types of questions that I'm asking aren't to be critical of the program, but more from my background and experience in working in licensed child care, starting a licensed child care site from nothing, and working through the CHC and again and all the different programs that are available, I think it's important that we be sure to leverage as much funding as is possible. Speaker 7: To keep a program like. Speaker 9: This going on an ongoing basis because $3,000 couldn't run my sight for a month. And so I recognize that this is just at night and that's great, but I see a bigger long term. I know that when we were building the Civic Center, I was approached by a couple of different licensed childcare facilities and asked what the vision was, was their space set aside and all of those things, what rent would look like, and those aren't within our purview. We handed that off to economic development. But as a mom and as a daughter of a single mother, I've been to a many, many meetings like this. And I think that child care is important, but we just have to make sure that we're using the right words and creating the correct expectation, because what I also am concerned about is the expectation that $3,000 is going to go very far. I think that it's also important for us as a council to look at ways for you to engage and be a part of the meeting very actively without sitting here for 5 hours. And so we need to think about that, too, whether it's Facebook Live or we have public comment, you can submit in advance. But what does that look like and is it engaging? Because oftentimes it's not. And so I think it's a whole a whole picture. So I'm supportive of this item and I look forward to hearing more about it. But I also recognize that. $3,000 might not go very far. And we need to think long term about what our options are in partnering. And so I'd be really interested in partnering with a licensed childcare organization or your child watch program like they have in a lot of our fitness facilities. But but also recognizing that there are programs that will pay for part of it. And so if there is a quote unquote fee for service, there are agencies and entities that will pay for that for them. And so to make sure we know what that is. So thank you. Speaker 1: Councilman Austin. Thank you. Speaker 2: Thank you. And I appreciate the public comment. I think I also appreciate the the impetus of this item. And, you know, many of you may or may not know my my wife was a staffer here at City Hall for many years. And my kids literally grew up in the old city hall in the back or in the offices while while she was working and I was working. And so the for for city employees, but also for folks going to public to participate, child care is always a consideration. I do agree that the $3,000 is a is generous from the second council district with priority budget. But at the same time I think it's grossly underestimating the cost of what this world will will be. And this is a pilot. So we certainly hope that, you know, we will learn throughout the process. I'm supportive of the item and will support it because I think it merits at least a study to look at the possibilities. But. In my my day job. I also have the opportunity to to work with a licensing program, analysts who who license child care facilities, who inspect child care facilities on a daily basis. These individuals are in and out of homes of providers. And it's not just the provider that it needs to be licensed is the facility that needs to be licensed. And so certainly I expect city management to do their due diligence right and contact the appropriate state agencies and get the right licenses to do this, because it's not as easy as just, hey, you know, there's a room and, you know, and a babysitter to go watch your children. There are liabilities that come with that. And the facility has to be completely up to code four four to protect the safety, obviously, of the kids. And then the the other piece of it is also, do we have any ideal and I'm certainly I'm sure that we don't have of how many. Children or what will be the capacity of such a program? You know, this could it could be three kids. It could be 50 kids. And I think those numbers really make a difference with the licensing agency. So just my thoughts, I'll support this item. I think it's a it's innovative. It's something that, you know, as I see a few children out in the audience today, it will bring more relief to parents who are engaged in the city process. But it does have, I think, some challenges that we need to get some answers to. Thanks. Speaker 1: Thank you. I'd like to call on Councilman Pearce. Speaker 7: Yes, thank you. So perhaps me talking while there are about 50 people leaving the room made it a little distracting in the beginning. So let me clarify some of the questions for folks. The $3,000 was based on many conversations with the Los Angeles Education Partnership Group that works with Long Beach Forward and often provides child care services to many of those that are in the audience today. That was based on an estimate of 10 hours a month. Now we know that there might be months that we go over. We also know there are months that we never use child care. And so it was based on 10 hours a month. And it is done as a pilot with the idea that we are going to ask them to make sure they share with us all the signs and information. And we've identified the areas that we would like them to to track so that we can say this is what a real program would look like, and that if we get an assessment, you know, that that $3,000 has been used in six months or we're getting a a flag of that, then we can make some adjustments and we can bring something sooner to the council. While this item is just for providing child care during meetings in this chamber, obviously I think all of us would love to see some child care facilities closer in downtown. We've only really had one down here. Most of us have kids and know how expensive that is and that none of those are open at night. And so this is just a quick item to get the ball rolling so that we can start doing that work. There's a lot more work that we can do to make sure families are involved in council meetings. And absolutely, I know many of you guys watch at home, but there are some items like whether it's it's reflow or something like that. You want to be here and you want to be present, but know that this item we did work on, we do have a group that's going to provide that. It's not required to go to an RFP because it's only 3000. That way we could get a pilot program up and running quickly. And again, we did have many conversations with city staff as well as a Los Angeles Education Partnership Group. So I think that that answers those questions. I do want to also point out it is child care. I thought also it would be child watch based on the group and the certifications that they have. It is child care. They do bring everything that they need to the city to be able to entertain those kids and engage them. I'm so sorry that I didn't do a PowerPoint or make it more clear in the beginning, but I'm really excited about this program. I'm excited to put forward some of those funds for this. And Mr. Good, you I never respond to you, but my mental health is tiptop because I have great health insurance here. And I, I go see my therapist every two weeks on Saturday morning. So thank you for your care and consideration every single meeting. Really appreciate it. Speaker 1: Thank you, Councilman Richardson. Speaker 10: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So I want to just comment in support of this item. You know, child care, child watch, whatever it is, it's expensive. I represent a district among the youngest districts in the city, and it's working families, people, they go to work. They want to be engaged in their city, in their in their government, in the decisions that impact their their lives. As we're here making decisions that then do impact their lives. And we have to think about the barriers that keeps people from being engaged in the decision making process. And it's unfortunate that we have to think about children as as as a barrier. But the reality is, you know, babysitters you know, babysitters are expensive and you don't trust, you know, everyone with your children. I don't. We don't. And, you know, not everyone has grandparents, things like that to count on. So if it's important to us as a city that folks have an opportunity to come down, if an issue truly is important to them that we have that service to offer, I think we have to go through the process of exploring it. You know, I agree 3000 is this is certainly going to cost more, but I don't want to sneeze at the fact that a councilperson said, look, you know, we're we're coming up with 3000 as a start. If we find out this costs more, we want to explore what that looks like. So I acknowledge that. Councilwoman, I appreciate you offering $3,000 of your one time district priority funds for this issue. I've seen we've done that on Kiva. We've done a number different programs is an important program. And I'd like to know if if the pilot requires more money so that we can we can talk about that in general . Again, child care is incredibly expensive in general. And I think it's just sort of a standard that we need to we need to begin to think about providing as we as we engage with the public. This is just the cost ultimately of cost of doing business. I don't know that it needs to happen at every council meeting we may need to look at. Sometimes we you can it might be a by request kind of situation. We've done that with language access and other things. We've piloted different things and we're in the new building. We talked council on Mungo mentioned this and I mentioned this to Tom, our city manager earlier. We talked about a child care facility and in conjunction with with the building. So we have been talking about this. And the response was we can explore potentially in the middle block a potential child care tenant there. You know, that may be a few years out. That might make it a bit easier if there's a facility on site that maybe we can contract on Tuesdays to stay open. But in the meantime, I think this is something that we can figure out. It's completely doable. I'm optimistic about this and staff and I want to see you be creative and figure out a way to make this happen. And I don't you know, it will be expensive, but probably not as expensive as as it won't be a number that will be incredibly scary to the city council. All right, thanks a lot. Speaker 1: Catherine Tauranga. Speaker 6: Thank you. During the interim of May 2nd in emotion and to now I checked with my chief of staff and our budget. Would you be accepting another 3000 for the CD? Seven? Speaker 7: Absolutely. Thank you for your positive. Speaker 6: Please amend the motion to include another 3000 word Kd7. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you. Councilman Mongo. Speaker 9: So just to know next steps. So there's $6,000. Is there going to be a memo coming back to answer? Specifics for us or because there wasn't a contract attached, it was a pilot. Do we have a contract? Speaker 6: So we were asking this to be a pilot program with direction to the city manager to be able to to put some of those in to get some of that input from the council on the details and put it together. So we need to understand the insurance. We need to understand whether this was child care versus child watch. We obviously want somebody a qualified and be licensed. The group that was identified is one that we are becoming familiar with that that they do some of this programing. And in fact, workforce development has been looking at using some of them through their federal grant. So we are taking all this information. We would come back with a report and do that research. How many events or how many? How long do we think this is going to last? What's it going to cost? And then we would come back with either a contract or. Speaker 10: A purchase order. Speaker 9: Thank you. And thank you for mentioning workforce development because they do have funding available for child care. And I'm glad we're going to use that. Thank you. Speaker 1: We're going to vote, but we're back. So, Councilman Richardson. Speaker 10: I'm not about to offer another three K. Just more comments. So you guys know, separate question about this, folks that I was probably queuing up for. I want to see the pilot kind of get there. But I was going to say, don't we have public agencies that do this within the city? Public entities? Speaker 6: So the ones that I'm familiar with is mostly the workforce development. So there and they're starting that process. We do have, you know, if you come into a drop in center or something like that in. Speaker 4: A parks, but those those tend to be at parks, you know, very specific. Speaker 6: We don't really do it just for public meetings and stuff. So this is a space that we're getting more familiar with. And the council has been asking us about this. So we're going to do the research and let you know what we can do. Speaker 10: Okay. Yeah, I just think it would be good if there's already something working that we can deploy here, figure out some economies of scale or cost savings to make it happen. I think it's probably the best, best way to go about it. Thanks a lot. Speaker 6: And that partnership with Workforce. Speaker 1: Thank you very much for that immersive discussion. Caster votes. Speaker 0: Councilmember Pearce comes from member Price. Motion carries. Speaker 1: Thank you, James, Nino, Larry Goodhue, Stella, Miguel, Ines and only winter them here. Please come forward. And that order. Is James. Nina here? Please come forward. Yes, go ahead, sir. Can I just set this down right here? Sure.

Agenda Item

Recommendation to request City Manager create a child care pilot program for meetings in the Civic Chambers, using $3,000 of Second Council District One Time District Priority Fund. Additionally, request the Mayor to put a time certain for all family-related policies to be heard before Council.

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_10222019_19-1063

Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you. And thank you all. And thank you all for being here tonight. We appreciate that. I don't think Stella is here. So that concludes public comments and public comment is now I'm closing public comment. So thank you all for being here tonight. We're moving on to the rest of the agenda item hearing 13, please. Item number 11. Speaker 0: Item 13 is report from Development Services. Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record. Conclude the public hearing. Declare audits. Amending Title 21 zoning regulations of the Long Beach Municipal Code. 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 ordinance amendments to the California Coastal Commission Citywide. Speaker 1: Thank you. There's a motion and a second to hear any public comment. I don't see him here. I think we have. Yes, Councilman Price. Speaker 5: Thank you. So we do have our first escape room in the third district. And the question that I promised the owner I would ask is there's no retroactivity provision as part of this, is there, in terms of permits and other regulations governing the establishment of such establishments? Speaker 10: Council Members So our land use regulations, generally speaking, are not retroactive. We were able to work with that particular proprietor to find a different pathway for them to open. There's also an escape room and Bixby Knolls, and there's an ax throwing facility in downtown that's in there to process right now. But what we're trying to do here is to provide businesses that weren't contemplated ten years ago, 20 years ago. But entrepreneurs and creative people come up with new things. We're trying to get our regulations so that the next escape room has a much easier pathway than that one in your district had to get open. Speaker 5: Thank you. I will let him know that he has escaped from the regulations. Get it as a joke. Speaker 10: Oh, love it. Speaker 1: Thank you. See? No public comment. There's a motion in a second. Open and close the hearing. Please cast your vote.

Ordinance

Recommendation to declare ordinance amending the Long Beach Municipal Code by amending Sections 21.15.660, 21.15.1070, 21.15.1090, 21.15.1620, 21.21.402, 21.25.806, 21.27.130, 21.31.215.G, 21.31.225, 21.31.235.C, Table 31-7, 21.32.220, Table 32-1, Table 32-2, Table 32-2A, 21.33.140, 21.34.225, Table 34-2, Table 41-1C, Table 51.276-1, 21.42.040.F, 21.43.020, Table 43-1, 21.44.140.D.3, and 21.44.600.I; by adding Sections 21.15.165, 21.15.195, 21.15.196, 21.15.197, 21.15.3151, 21.33.130.E, 21.45.115.5, 21.45.133, 21.45.134, and 21.52.280; and by repealing Sections 21.31.260 and 21.52.286, all related to zoning code regulations, read and adopted as read. (Citywide)

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_10222019_19-1068

Speaker 0: Ocean carries. Speaker 1: 18. Speaker 0: Adam, 18, is communication from Council Member Pearce recommendations received via a presentation from Voice Waves Long Beach on Youth Justice Research. Speaker 1: Thank you and good to you. Here is Chan Hobson here. Okay. Okay. So, no, there's there is no comment. Customer reports. Speaker 7: Yes. Thank you. We're going to receive and file a presentation from Voice Waves, a youth led journalism and media training program of Youth Leadership Institute, a statewide youth leadership and development nonprofit voice wave partners with Long Beach youth from the ages of 15 to 25, whose goal it is to raise awareness on community issues within our local neighborhoods. Trainings include digital photography, video radio, social media to engage community on important local issues. With this platform, youth are provided a creative outlet to be a vital part of our community. So we've invited them here today to give us a brief presentation, and I am very happy to say I attended their presentation. Speaker 3: Oh three, four. Speaker 7: Months ago in June and it was a packed house of youth and their families and just felt like the kind of community space that we wanted to make sure we brought up some of the work that they've done. So thank you, guys. Speaker 10: Blunt speak on. Yeah. Speaker 7: 1/2. Speaker 10: Oh, sorry. Okay. Speaker 7: Do they have their clicker? Speaker 3: Okay. Speaker 10: Okay. How do we use this? How exactly do we use this? Sorry, I just want to. Okay, cool. Hi. My name is Carlos. This is Michael Lozano. As the councilwoman said, we're representing voice lives and Youth Leadership Institute. And we're here to talk about some of the findings that we got from data we collected as a part of the My Brother's Keeper initiative. Here we go. So the My Brother's Keeper initiative was launched in 2014 to address opportunity gaps faced by young males of color and with the support of the Long Beach Department of Health and Human Services. Youth from Voice Waves and Youth Leadership Institute created a survey and a short form documentary to highlight how these issues exist today on the local level. And so we started this process in February and finished it up in June. And during that time, what you see on the screen where some of the headlines kind of just detailing some of the events that were happening at the time, that kind of. Expose youth to getting involved with the criminal justice system. And throughout the process, we also recorded a podcast featuring a discussion about preventing youth from getting involved with the justice system. This featured community experts such as members of Black Lives Matter. And like our documentary, this can be found on the voiceless website. Voice leads dot org, not dot.com. So our survey, we received a total of 197 responses from youth in Long Beach, and the survey was crafted by the youth involved in the My Brother's Keeper project under the Supervision of Wildlife staff. Our goal with the survey was learn more about the mental health needs of youth both before and during their involvement with the justice system. And as you can see above, a lot of our youth that were surveyed reported being between the ages of 14 and 18. Some were older than that. And they also reported mostly not having a job or being part time workers. And being on free and reduced lunch. Questions about. Give me a second. So questions about gender and about race are both left open ended. As you can see, gender there was a pretty even split with people identifying as male and female, almost 5050. And then with race, the majority of our responders were Hispanic or Latino. But I think there's a pretty good mix that represents the diversity of our city. Most of the world, not most say a lot of the youth. Have had their lives impacted by the criminal justice system. Either they themselves have been involved personally or they know someone who has a lot of their involvement involved, having been interacting with school officials or law enforcement. And we. Sorry about that. Among one of the most startling findings that we got from the survey is that 63% of the youth participants had experienced what they described as extreme stress or trauma in some frequency, with 31% of those youths saying that they experiencing it daily or weekly. And survey participants were also asked to describe how they cope with trauma and other negative emotions. On the screen, you'll see the most popular responses to that question. And for the rest of the presentation, I'm going to turn it over to Michael. Yeah. Speaker 6: Cool. Thanks, Carlos. So just to reiterate what Carlos was saying, it's clear that some youth in Long Beach, many youth, too many youth face a high frequency of trauma and intense stress in their weekly or daily lives. That's self-reported by the youth and lobbyist themselves. So given the stress, given the negative life events that occur in their lives, we have to ask the question like, where should youth go to find that release? And so the five most common coping mechanisms that youth reported. Number one was sleep. Number two was talking to friends. And the third most common coping mechanism was creative arts and music. If we notice actually as we engage in this conversation, we're going to realize how important it is to talk to your friends, that this idea of talking, this idea of socialization among young people is really important , especially when we talk about how young people cope with negative, negative emotions such as anger, sadness, anxiety or stress in their lives. So talking to friends is going to be an important factor for the following reasons. A separate question asked youth of all these different coping mechanisms that you rely on, which coping mechanism do you believe is the most effective? So by and large, you said that talking is the most effective way to deal with stress and trauma. Here's the problem, though. Only 17% of you said that they could talk to their parents or family about their negative emotions. There are negative life events or traumas. Only 9% said they could talk to a trusted community member. What about talking to a teacher or counselor? Only 2% of youth said they could do that. 2% out of 197 students. Young people are youth in Long Beach. We talked about what coping methods are most common and which are most effective in reducing stress and trauma. Now we're talking about frequency. Well, talk is important. So how often do youth get to actually talk about their emotions to other people? Unfortunately, we did have to find that one in three youth never talked to anyone about their emotions. Excuse me 1/2. Another 25%. Express themselves to others only every few months. Or a few times a year. Adding on to that, there's a lot of youth who say that there's not many places for them to go for help. Not many people to rely on for support. Given the issues, we actually didn't want one to just rely on like the trauma or focus on that, focus on the problems. We also wanted to focus on solutions. So these are some youth led solutions that the respondents came up with. We asked them, you know, on a scale from 1 to 4, what do you feel are the most effective resources in preventing youth from becoming justice involved? Number one, by far, having a supportive family. Number two athletics. Number three, access to jobs for youth. Number four, music, art and creative media programs. And there's a few other factors up there. That's the top ten, top ten ways that these respondents feel they could be prevented from getting involved in the justice system. The least effective methods. Youth probation. Youth prisons in school detention. Again, focusing on solutions, focusing on the future of limited youth. We thought it was important to come up with three recommendations given this important data that we came across. Increasing restorative justice resources and program visibility across Long Beach. What this what this does, it shifts our solutions, our way of thinking from punitive to conversations, which you said themselves. Conversations and talking is the key to healing is the key to prevention. And we also to a turn youth that are disengaged, that maybe don't find many resources across their community. They become engaged in the community by via restorative justice, via community programs. Recommendation number two, increasing mental health opportunities in schools for both students and their families. Because we saw such a low rate of students being able to talk to their families about their negative emotions. We think it's important to do family counseling in schools. Speaker 1: And we have just about 50 seconds left just on the timer. Speaker 6: Absolutely. Got you. What this does is shift silence youth from silence to conversation. And recommendation number three, we recommend supporting policy efforts at the local level, at local level that dismantle the school to prison pipeline that shifts our policies from punitive to preventative. For the sake of time. We could we could skip this. But if anyone is interested in a trilingual documentary featuring Long Beach youth and experts on these very issues, go to Tony. You are welcome. Youth Justice Doc. It's in English with subtitles in Spanish and come I made possible with support with the health department here in Long Beach. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Councilman ringing. Speaker 6: I want to thank you for making this presentation. You presented a lot of ideas there that I think many of us already know but need to reinforce, such as family and detention and probation, aren't real solutions towards dealing with issues that these may be encountering. So thank you for reinforcing that, and I certainly support your efforts. I thank you. And if I can be of any help to you as a mentor or as a person that can share experiences. I grew up in East Los Angeles. This is an example. I was surrounded by many gang members and was even recruited to become one, which I didn't. And my diversion with sports is an example. So thank you for your presentation. Thank you. Speaker 3: Pearce Yes. Speaker 7: I'll be brief. I just wanted to first take a moment to thank the council members that brought together My Brother's Keeper before I believe Council Member Richardson might have worked on that. So I saw that in the first slide and thought about how much work has been done to get to this point, to get funding for organizations doing this great work while its youth center. And I think it's really important that we as a city continue to talk about our youth as our constituents, and make sure that we as adults are talking about trauma and understanding that it is really hard for kids to talk to us as adults, as leaders in our community, as parents. And so anything we can do to partner with these guys more to talk about trauma informed practices, to talk about restorative justice, I think it's a great opportunity. So thanks for bringing. Speaker 1: Thank you, Katherine Richardson. Speaker 10: Thanks. I just wanted to just chime in and thank you both for coming out with the presentation. Look forward to talking with you and taking a deeper dove here. You know, you your organization and organizations like yours were the ones who were lifting up and talking about this work well before My Brother's Keeper. My Brother's Keeper came because there was a lot of focus from the White House, from the top that said, hey, we want to focus on this population. And now the leadership of the White House has changed. The national dialog has completely changed. And we're getting back to a lot of the rhetoric and the context that was had that happened prior to then. And what do we see? We see the same organizations that were here before carrying this message are the ones who are here now carrying this message. So I think it's important that while sort of our national discourse has changed, we continue to support the local organizations who are continuing to change the narratives around the circumstances and the lives of people who who, you know, boys and young men of color. So so thank you so much. I look forward to talking to you soon. Speaker 1: Thank you. There's a motion and a second. Please cast your votes. Speaker 0: Councilmember Richardson. Motion carries.

Agenda Item

Recommendation to receive and file a presentation from VoiceWaves Long Beach on Youth Justice Research.

LongBeachCC

LongBeachCC_10152019_19-1039

Speaker 3: Clark will move to item six in place. Speaker 1: Report from City Clerk recommendation to receive and file the elections plan for the 2020 primary nominating and general municipal election. Here to present information on future of L.A. County elections and the new voting system is Los Angeles County Registrar, Recorder County Clerk Dean Logan. Speaker 2: And thank you. Bring my book for signature. Those of you who don't know, Mr. Logan is now a published author. His book came out a few weeks ago. You remind us what it's called. So set. Have to look on Amazon. It's exciting. Speaker 8: Case Studies on elections administration is one chapter, but I'm very pretty appreciate that. Speaker 7: We got some stories here in Long Beach we would like to share with you. Speaker 8: So good evening. Council Members. Dean Logan, Registrar, Recorder County Clerk for Los Angeles County. I really appreciate the opportunity to to come to speak before you today and to share some information about the new voting experience that we are rolling out in Los Angeles County, starting with the 2020 election cycle. And before I get too far into it, I want to take this opportunity to to thank your city clerk, Monique Della Garza, and her staff, who have been absolutely integral partners with us throughout this process. And we could not be where we're at with the success of this effort and with the hard work that still remains ahead without without her support and all the work that she's done. So thank you, Monique, for that. So I'm very pleased to share with you that that after ten years of of work and research and engagement with the public, that we are ready to move towards a revolutionized form of voting in Los Angeles County. And when I say revolutionized, I'm talking about the voting experience we have in Los Angeles County from the perspective of a voter walking into a voting location on Election Day. The voting experience really hasn't changed since 1968, when punch card voting was first unrolled here in Los Angeles County. A lot of things behind the scenes have changed and updated since then, but from that voter experience, it really has remained the same and a lot has changed since 1968. And it is time for new opportunities, new options and new choices for voters in that voting experience. And we hope that through the work that we've done that, that we're doing this in a way that is going to increase participation, but also live up to the significance of that voting experience for our 5.4 million registered voters in Los Angeles County. I only have a brief period of time this evening, so I'll focus on on the significant elements of that change in voter experience. So gone will be the single day, single location, voting on a random Tuesday between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m.. And we're moving towards a vote center model where voters in Los Angeles County can go to any vote center in the county over a period of 11 days to cast their ballot, which means we will have two full weekends of voting and we will give voters the opportunity to choose to vote at a location that is either convenient or more significant to them. So if it's easier for them to vote close to their home, we'll have vote centers in that area. If it's easier for them to vote somewhere close to work, somewhere close to where they drop their children off at school, or somewhere where they go shopping on the weekends. That the idea here is to be present in the community and to meet people where they are. And so so if they watched a debate on television the night before and they feel engaged and they feel like they're ready to cast their vote, that while they're out in their community, they will see a place that's available for them to do that. So the vote centers are really the most significant change in that that allows voters to vote anywhere will open those starting 11 days before the election, four days before the election will increase that to a larger number of locations. And again, those are available anywhere in the county at those vote centers. You will also be able to register to vote and vote on the same day. You can update your voter registration. So if you had an address change or if you had a change in party preference, you will have the opportunity to make those changes as well, drastically reducing the the need for provisional ballots, which often extend the canvass period in our elections process. So we're very pleased to be able to offer that. The way that we will be able to do that is through the use of an electronic pullback. So when voters arrive at these vote centers, they will check in using an electronic tablet poll book. We will be able to access all registered voters in the county. This is also our security mechanism so that if you do go vote somewhere close to work and then you try to go vote somewhere close to home, we will know that you have already voted and and we will be able to prevent any any attempts to vote more than once. They this will replace the paper roster. So you may recall in 2018 we had some issues with our paper rosters in L.A. County. One of the great things about this model is over that 11 day period, it really gives us a better opportunity to to recover and respond to any unexpected conditions that might happen during the election process. Another feature that we will unroll that we're very excited about is an interactive sample ballot, and this is an option that will be available to all voters. It's option. It's not required. But just as we mail everybody a paper sample ballot, we will now make the sample ballot available as an electronic app that you can download on your personal device or access through our website. You can then go through your process and press make your preselections by marking those on your electronic sample ballot. Take that with you to the vote center, scan it into the voting device, and it'll pre populate your choices so that you can print your ballot and have an expedited voting experience. We think that's a game changer for voters who are used to interacting with their personal devices. It still allows for the security because the ballot that you cast at the vote center is that. Paper ballot that's produced app on the device. You can change your mind at that point. But we also know with all of the consolidation of elections, with the local districts and municipalities now on the even year cycle, that our ballot is going to be very long, especially in March and the presidential primary. It's going to be a long ballot. So the ability for voters to have that option, to have an expedited voting experience is particularly important. That ballot marking device that you will encounter at our vote centers is that is been a labor of service and a labor of love on this project. It is designed truly to be a voting solution for all people, meaning that that voters with disabilities can use the same voting device that all voters use. They will no longer be relegated to a single device in the back of the room that that the poll workers are less familiar with. Everybody will vote on the same device. It allows, to a large degree, voters to customize their voting experience. So it has audio capability, it has a tactile keypad. It has the ability for voters to select the language that they wish to see or hear their ballot in. It has an adjustable touch screen so that voters in wheelchairs or voters who are particularly tall can use the same device by adjusting it. And ultimately, the device produces a human readable paper ballot that is the official record of the ballots cast. That's what's going to come back to my office to be tabulated. So there is security and transparency involved in that can be fully audited and and recounted as necessary. So for us right now, we two weekends ago, we had a mock election. We opened 50 vote centers in the community, two right here in Long Beach to introduce this to voters. We're now in a four month period of rolling this out through public education and outreach campaigns. We have a demonstration center in your lobby. Thank you to the clerk's office for that. That will be live here on Long Beach through the end of this month. We have street teams that are out in the community demonstrating this everywhere we possibly can. Right now, that's really the point, is to get the word out, because while this was designed by and for the voters of Los Angeles County, we are all creatures of habit. And unless we get the word out, people will expect that voting is the same as it has been in the past. So any assistance and partnerships for for people who are here tonight, people watching, and certainly our partners in the city, we have staff ready and available to to assist with those processes. And we look forward to delivering a new and exciting voting experience that lives up to the significance of our electoral process for the March 3rd, 2020 presidential primary. And just to note that those vote centers will begin opening on February 22nd. So we are very close to that process. And in it, I understand there's a debate tonight going on on on television, but it does seem clear with our primary being in March that California is going to have a stake in the nomination process for the the presidential campaign. So we're excited to to roll this out and to do it in a way that gives our voters a chance to be heard and to be confident that their vote has been cast as they intended to do. Thank you very much. Speaker 3: Thank you. Public public comment time is there we have Mr. Good you excellent and Mr. Roberts and so is the individual to come up and speak. Mr. Good you accent. Next time we. Wobblies. Yes, this is. Speaker 2: I think they're behind me and ready. But my name is Amy Ericson, and I'm a resident here in Long Beach for my entire life. I'm here with the Long Beach Suffrage 100 tonight to thank our city clerk, Monique, too, for bringing the new voting machines to the city and allowing us to come and try them out. We've been putting the word out through our circle of women that has been put together. We also are here going to be here every month to honor women through this year of the suffrage. And this is the perfect agenda item to do that on tonight, because the 19th Amendment was really set up for making sure that everyone can vote. And I think that's the important piece of what we're doing this year as we're having our events, as you're seeing us in the community. It's to remind everyone that we are here to share the idea of getting out into the community and doing good work, but also voting for the things that we need and as well as working on the census. So you'll be seeing us working around that as well this year. And we wanted to be here tonight to honor our first women that we're going to honor throughout the year. And in this case, because yesterday was Indigenous People's Day, we wanted to honor, honor some tongva elders. I think that's important to be aware and honor the space that we live on here in Pomona and make sure that we are thinking of those people. So we have a great man here who's going to speak about his own mom, who was one of those elders here in the community. But I think it's also important for everyone here to know, as well as the council people that we are honoring women throughout this year that did things here in Long Beach over the last hundred years. There is an honorary there is a recommendation form on our website. We'd like each of you, including the council people, to bring up bring forward women that we should honor through your districts. We want to see every district honored in this way and anyone here in the audience to go and find that and share that with us. And we'll be choosing those and bringing them to council one or two at a time through each month. We don't want to take a presentation time or extra time. We want to be able to fit this into the regular work of the council, and we're going to find good moments to do that in each of these times . So thank you again. Some of the women of the suffrage 100 group are here. Appreciate them standing back there. If you see us around in our whites or in our sashes, it's because women are being talked about and honored in our city. We came to the library opening to honor Billie Jean King being there. And we appreciate all that you guys are doing as the council to help us through this year. I'm going to give the rest of my time to Louis Robles. Speaker 4: Some like me. Um, yo. Speaker 8: Yo MC Tax Tokyo Visa Pool. Good evening, Honorable Mayor. Speaker 9: Glad you could join us. And city council members, citizens. Speaker 8: Of Long. Speaker 9: Beach. Welcome and good evening. Happy to be here. My name is Louis Park. Epifanio Valenzuela Ramirez, Jr. Speaker 8: Just call me Louie. You have to remember all that. I'm a member of the one in your band of Mission Indians, a Hashim Em nation. We're state recognized as a native peoples of Orange County. Our traditional land extended from here in. Speaker 9: Long Beach, throughout, throughout Orange County, down into San Juan Capistrano. But more importantly, I'm a lifelong resident of Long Beach. I grew up in North Town, attended. Speaker 8: McKinley, Long Beach, Jordan, Long Beach City. Cal State, Long Beach graduate. My parents moved to Long Beach in 1948. They bought their dream house just on the other side of the airport because they wanted to be in the country. The north Long Beach of that time was pastures, open land. They have memories of coyotes, horses. Speaker 9: So that's what brought my. Speaker 8: Family to Long Beach. You know, but I'm going to take you back. Before Long Beach was one more city, before there was Rancho Los Cerritos. Before there was Rancho Los Alamitos, there were the villages of Tex Sanga, a Wanga, a manga Pavone, all Indian villages here within the boundaries of the city of Long Beach. Some of those were occupied until the mid 1800s, you know, and those. Speaker 9: Villages were occupied by strong. Speaker 8: Women. There's an old saying that when you want to get words, you bring in the men. But when you want to get things done, you bring in the women. And so it's been traditional that the women of the native tribes are the ones that got things done. And my mom was a strong descendant of that. My mom believed there were there were forth there. Three things you didn't you told my mom. You never told my mom. You never told my mom can't. Don't or you shouldn't because we're all things that she was going to push against and get through. My mom grew up one. Speaker 9: Of eight and she always. Speaker 8: Wanted to go to school, but she couldn't. She stayed home, helped raise her younger brothers and sisters. My grandma was a single mom. She went to the bank and sat in there. This is in the 1930s. She sat in the bank until the bank president would give her a loan so she could open her own flower shop . So she was a single mom and a business owner in the thirties and forties. So this strong spirit has been going on since Native women all to this time. And I think as we honor 100 years of suffrage, it's that strong spirit that started with the warrior native women that carries on today. And so from my family, it was just a real honor that my mom was was singled out. And my mom would say, I can hear her up in the stars going, I'm just one person. Speaker 9: Don't I'm nothing special, you know? And so I just honored all the grandmothers here, all the mothers. Speaker 8: You're the ones that get things done, you know. And so it's those same women that that pushed for suffrage and 100 years. That's just a blessing, really. But thank you for this time. Thank you for honoring my mother. And this celebration will go for a year. And you're going to hear a lot about some incredible citizens of our city. Speaker 9: 2 seconds. All right. Speaker 0: Thank you very much for all the stories we tell. The stories. Speaker 2: Good evening. Council Members Thank you again. I want to just commend our city clerk, Monique Delgado, for all the work and recommendations you're doing for the election plan 2020. It is definitely a plan that will bring more diverse communities to the election booth, underrepresented groups into the election booth and women into the election booth. And it's just amazing to have a city clerk at this time, at this 2020 time, when we celebrate the right to vote. We will send you a book on Lillian Valenzuela Robles so you can learn more about her work and many other women who made who gave women agency to go to work in their communities and then also represent the communities and ultimately have the rights that all other people have. Lastly, within this year, suffrage is an unfinished business. That is are our motto. That's what we represent, that this election plan is part of making suffrage hopefully one day finished. But as of now, suffrage is unfinished business. And thank you for your time. Speaker 0: Thinking of Suarez. I want to just to add, Mr. Logan, I saw most representation in the back. It is plain back there. I just want to just commend you and your team and just thank you for how available you are. You just you and your team do a fantastic job for the entire county. I know you have a great partnership with our Clark, but I also know that the amount of work that you all put in to ensure that we have safe and fair elections is really important. I know 2020 is going to be a huge shift in the way elections are are operated, and certainly with technology and the way the pulse centers will be working. And so I just wanted to thank you for your work and for just continuing the partnership. So thank you very much. Mr. Logan. Councilwoman Mongo. Speaker 2: I want to also commend you. I got to, as a county employee, attend some of the early meetings and to see a organization as large as the county of Los Angeles make critical changes, and to be so innovative and really think about keeping it lean and what does it mean and how do you honor our past and make sure that people have confidence in the voting system? It's really impressive work during a time when transitioning large systems has been seen across the country as very, very, very difficult. So cheers to you and the work that you and your team have done. Hopefully you'll stay with the register recorder for many, many more years. Speaker 0: Thank you. Councilor Pearce. Speaker 2: I yes. On top of congratulating you guys for job well done. I think it's always important to remember why we are doing what we're doing and we know that the city of Long Beach, there's been times when we've had 10% voter turnout. And so that this is not just to be up with technology, it's not just to kind of change the way that we've done things. It's to really make sure that we strengthen our democracy in the city, that everybody that is eligible to vote does vote and knows that there are different formats to get that information. And so I really applaud you guys for thinking outside the box on how to reach those difficult to reach communities. And I applaud the awesome women here today, and I look forward to seeing the diversity of women and people that have either been a part of the suffrage movement or people that are joining. So thank you guys very much. Speaker 0: All right. Thank you. And with that, please cast your votes. Speaker 1: Councilman Price. Councilman Austin. Motion carries. Speaker 0: Great. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Logan. And to everyone that that attended. Next up is item 27, which is the MWI lease.

Agenda Item

Recommendation to receive and file the Elections Plan for the 2020 Primary Nominating and General Municipal Elections.

LongBeachCC