Recommendation to request City Attorney to draft a resolution urging the Governor and Legislature to identify a sufficient and stable funding source for local street and state highway maintenance and rehabilitation to ensure the safe and efficient mobility of the traveling public and the state's economic vitality.
Okay. We did consent calendar already. So we're going to go on to, I believe, item number 19, please. Communication from Councilman Austin, Councilwoman Gonzalez, Councilmember UNGA recommendation to request the city attorney to draft a resolution urging the governor and legislature to identify a funding source for local, street and state highway maintenance and rehabilitation. Councilor Austin. Thank you. You know, as the council representative on the League of California Cities, they are moving forward in Sacramento with a with the legislature and the governor to develop a funding mechanism that will help fund our streets and highways throughout the state in a significant way. This campaign to support our Fix Our Roads campaign, which has legislation attached to it. And and there is there are a number of moves being made in Sacramento to to appropriate funds and identify new funding sources for for infrastructure, which obviously is extremely important to each and every one of us as council members in our districts that have significant needs for for road repairs throughout our communities. And so I want to thank Councilmember Roberto. You run efforts for signing on understeer. Obviously, he understands the importance of this. I would ask that the entire council support this thing and send a strong message to Sacramento that we are on board with the legislative and governor's plans to to fix our streets and roads. And I'd like to get a staff report on this from Diana Tang. Sure. Mayor and city council, as the councilman had mentioned, and the mayor was in Sacramento just yesterday actually advocating for funding for local transportation projects. This is the part of the state legislature special session. So while the special session while the normal session ends on September 11, this could or could not proceed beyond that time. I think that there's a general agreement that it will take about $6 billion for the state annually to maintain the existing streets and roads and state highways that are already in existence in California. And so the challenge now in the legislature is to find an agreement on how to raise the $6 billion a year. And in LA, which has been continually advocating for a 5050 split of those funds between the state and local governments. With that, available for questions. Councilmember Austin. Thank you, Ms.. Tang. And I also want to acknowledge Councilmember Gonzales for signing on to this a measure as well. I had the wrong one in front of me, so thank you very much as well. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Ranga. Thank you. And I, too, want to. Extend my thank you for including me in this. Love to partner with with Al. All with Cosmo Gonzales on this effort. You know one of the most. Frequent questions I always, always get is, What are you doing about my streets? And sometimes I have an answer, and most times I don't because the money is just not there. So I'm really appreciative of of this effort here that we need to get more funding into Long Beach. We need we have a lot of streets we need to fix. And I'm very happy to say no to this proposal. Councilwoman Gonzalez. Just want to thank Councilmember Austin for this. I know he's taken a lot of a a lead role in a lot of our state legislative matters. And I also want to thank Diana for her leadership in this as well. And I think we do always get that question. What are you going to do with my street? What are you going to do with my alley? What are you going to do with my anything related to infrastructure? So I think it's important that we're looking outside of the box aside from our our city general fund. Thank you. Councilor Austin. Hey, listen, I wanted to acknowledge our public works director and the great work that our public works department actually does on behalf of the residents throughout the city. We are making progress with our streets, with the limited funds that we have to work with. But I'm sure he would acknowledge if we were to get a windfall from Sacramento, it would make our situation much, much better here in the city of Long Beach. So I wanted to make sure I acknowledged the hard work of our public works department. Councilman Longo. I, too, want to echo the compliments to our public works director, and I do see this as a potential first step of outside funding. Should this get through. We would still be ten years away from where we need to be and we need to continue to look inside as well of what else we can do within the fifth District alone. We have $40 million of needed street repair, $40 million of needed street repair. And so while this could be a starting point, I think we have a lot of work to do. I appreciate this item coming forward and I hope that we can continue to collaborate and receive any ideas from our constituents. Thank you. Any public comment on the item signal? Please cast your votes. Motion carries nine zero. I mean, do item 26 next?