Recommendation to request City Manager to create a $5 million Personal Services and Fitness Resiliency Fund from the next federal COVID-19 stimulus fund package. This fund could be increased depending on demand and final federal stimulus bill.
Okay, well, look who we're going to. We're moving on to the regular agenda item 22. Item 22 Communications from Mia Garcia, Councilmember Muranga Councilman Austin Vice Mayor Richardson Recommendation to request City Manager to create a 5 million Personal Services and Fitness Resiliency Fund from the next federal COVID 19 stimulus fund package. Thank you. I just want to first thank the the staff and just the team for working on this. We, again, are very optimistic. And in conversations that I'm having with the Biden administration and the transition team at looking at a really robust federal package that will be coming to two cities and states very soon, obviously, in a matter of weeks. Now, we want to make sure that we have this program in place and ready to go the day that we receive resources from our hopefully next large stimulus package. We think it's going to be large. We think there's going to be significant support to help small businesses and other priorities that we will have as it relates to health. And so this fund matches the fund that we did for restaurants at the last meeting. And again, it is $5 million that we are setting aside for personal care services and fitness. And again, the dollar amount, of course, if we end up receiving a lot more, then we're looking forward to even providing hopefully additional resources. But we want to do is have these two funds developed and the process really ironed out. We know that, you know, whether you're have a barber shop or whether you're an institution or whether you're one of the many personal services, your industry has been hit very hard. Obviously, there were some shutdowns that happened earlier in the summer. But now, of course, we're back to a place where there is just no support coming in because of the additional closures that we've had to make. And so this will give this industry, which is very large in Long Beach, an opportunity to to get by. We want to keep these small businesses in our community. There's so many particularly independent and small gyms and trainers. They're doing amazing work and we want to be sure that they're supported as well. And so I ask for your support on this and look forward to the staff developing these programs and then bringing them back, hopefully together so we can get this thing adopted and move forward. And with that comes Murray Ranga. Thank you, Mayor. I think the proposal that you put on the table is an excellent one. I'm looking forward to hopefully getting the needed relief from the Biden administration. And they strongly support this. And I make the motion to. Thank you. There's a second by Councilwoman Mango. Councilman Mango. Thank you. I appreciate the mayor for all of his work on this in dialogs related to industries that needed support. This was one of those that was top of the list. I appreciate working with those in the industry and the many calls that we've received over the last several months. I especially appreciate those who have gotten together with me in a small working group, and I hope that that will be revitalized again. And finally, I know there are more industries that need help. We need to continue to work through the list and find solutions for each of them that really match their business needs. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman's in the house. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you very much for this this item. I think that it is very important, especially right now, we're seeing that some of these businesses have kind of been feeling neglected. And so they also need that our support very, very much so. I'm happy to support this item. And thank you very much for bringing this forward. Thank you. With that, that concludes the council comment. We will go ahead and go to any public comment, please. Our first speaker is actually Richardson. Hi. My name is Ashley Richardson. I'm the owner of the 9 a.m. kickboxing studio next to the high school in the fifth District. As you're aware, fitness studios have been hit extremely hard. So thank you for finally addressing this. But I'm really talking about the brick and mortar gyms. I recently listened to this piece where Mary Garcia talks about how successful his personal trainer is and the Zoom classes and all these at home virtual gyms that are coming about. But those don't grow the local economy. Those are also not the people who spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and the indoor gym faces jumping through hoops to get business permits and licenses, paying property taxes, sales tax while hiring and employing residents to keep the economy going. My story is not unique, but one that I hope helps you understand why we in the fitness studio space are going through. I have my gym just four months before the closure of March a lot and had added five new jobs, had 138 members were growing. I had to lay off lay off all of my five employees. We were able to pivot, offer online classes, but I still lost 85% of my best monthly income. June came, July closed again, and all of this fall just hitting only 40% of my monthly income. Building that on top of that, we moved out to a part brand workout when we could only have earned back a mere 50% of our monthly revenue month over month. Some of you may feel that outdoor workouts are great and I don't disagree. However, from a business owner standpoint, we have to pay our employees a shuttle equipment that we can move outdoors, set it up, break it down to size hours and for payroll expenses. Then we have to buy outdoor systems, outdoor lighting, flooring, cell phone, iPad hotspot, additional insurance that covers outside all of this while we're still paying rent cans, property taxes and insurance and business licensing fees, office space that we can't use. And it's just not sustainable. We never ask restaurants to move their complete operation outdoors. We never said Your custom chef has to move your kitchens outside. But effectively, that's what we said for fitness studios, plain and simple. How long can gyms endure this while every other personal service has been allowed open? We keep getting pushed to the end of the line. There's no data showing gyms or any more dangerous or deadly. The mental and physical health benefits that gym offer far outweigh those of any other personal service that's been allowed open. And according to several medical journals, exercise boost immunity by immobilizing or infection fighting immune cells. And those activated during and after exercise are the best friends we have. Even more so after speaking to multiple pediatricians and doctors here in Long Beach. The biggest issues we face after COVID has come and gone is the true and silent pandemic our children are falling victim to, and that's obesity. We have to keep the gym industry going here in Long Beach, not only with the idea of a popular brand, but we need to have a plan to allow gyms to open as essential businesses, whether through application permit process that we all know so well. We need a path to opening, sustaining and in order to offer the mental and physical health we all need right now, if our Long Beach Health Department can determine who gets the vaccine and when they get it. All of this outside of L.A. County's jurisdiction, then I'm confident the Long Beach Health Department can determine how and when . Long Beach. Thank you. Our next speaker is Christine Bass. Good evening, Mayor and City Council. My name is Christine Bass and I serve as the government affairs manager for the Long Beach Area Chamber of Commerce. I'm speaking today on behalf of our 670 members, representatives and community stakeholders. We applaud the Mayor for deepening the response to the pandemic and supporting our most vulnerable industries and our small businesses. Our cities, business, community and local workforce face unimaginable challenges during this unprecedented time, and we must do everything that we can to keep these industries afloat. Initially, it was predicted that the pandemic would have had the largest impact on the hospitality industry. But recent findings show that the pandemic has negatively impacted the personal care services, restaurant and fitness fitness industry. For this reason, we respectfully ask the Council to approve this fund for personal service and fitness centers. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. Think your next speaker is Mike Murchison. Good evening, Mayor and council members as a resident, a lifelong resident of Long Beach in the eighth District. Now, I appreciate the mayor's comments on the Resiliency Fund and his support for local businesses. I noted that there was 5 million for restaurants predicated upon the CARES Act funding. It's a bit concerning for the following reasons for me, not because the mayor is pushing for it. I applaud that. It's more about the fact that there are over 300 full service independent restaurants in Long Beach. So if they all apply for funding, that's only $12,500 each and that's not going to cut it. That amount goes down if you expand that list to the entire food service industry. In reality, mayor and council members, these independent restaurants to survive, to get through the next several months, they need about $50,000 to really make a difference. The other problem with receiving federal funding that goes through the city, through economic development. When you apply for a grant. You go through a process with the city. That process takes 2 to 2 and a half months to actually physically get a check. So while we talk about getting the money to the restaurants and all that through the grant process, the economic development staff is terrific. In reality, it's taking too long. The city needs to find a way to expedite that process, to get the money in the hands of these independent restaurant owners who basically have poured their lives into their restaurants and their businesses. Finally, I would also add the hotels have been impacted by this, not just the hotels in terms of ownership, but the employees, the tenants that live in Long Beach. They need some cares act money. So I would respectfully ask that the mayor and council look at the hotels in Long Beach along with their employees, and come up with some funding for them too through the CARES Act. Thank you very much for your consideration. Thank you. That concludes public comment for this item. Thank you. I think, Councilman Austin, I think you queued up for this item. I'm assuming not for the next one. Yes. And I just wanted to obviously express my support for this item. Thank you, Mayor, for your work, lobbying and working with the administration in advance to try to secure all this. The floor. It's a relief for that that will help many of our residents, business owners. I just want to just just highlight the intent here or get some some clarification, as I understand it, because I think one of the public commenters made a very good point. So the personal services and total. What would be the applicant had to tie or somehow show some nexus to brick and mortar business, as opposed to just being an independent personal service. Trainer or something like that. Well, let me add to that. I think now I think that's a good question. So I think the staff is going to come back with both of the programs because that is going to be a consideration when we look at the amount of personal services, the amount of brick and mortar versus those that are more, you know, do work not to a brick and mortar is substantially different. And so that's something that staff will look at. And one of the reasons why we're bringing this program and the restaurant program forward now, instead of waiting for the money to come in, is for the exact reason that one of the commenters mentioned that we don't want to wait like we did for the Last Cares Act money right then to create the program. We want it done now. We want the council to approve the programs. When the money's here, everyone's giving their input and we have a good system going. So I think those are good questions and hopefully staff will address those when those come back in January. Yeah, I just want to make sure that is going to the individuals that are that are hit the most, make those individuals whole, particularly those who have been impacted by the stay at home orders and an inability to utilize their facilities. Great. I think that concludes public comment and the item comment. Right, Madam Clerk. And so with that, we'll go to roll call. Councilwoman Cindy, House right. Councilman Allen. I. Councilwoman Pryce. Councilman subpoena. All right. Councilwoman Mango. I as a woman, Sara. I Council member Oranga. I am Simon Austin. I. Vice Mayor Richardson. All right. Well, in case.