Recommendation to declare ordinance amending the Long Beach Municipal Code by amending Sections 2.01.380 and 2.01.1020 relating to officeholder accounts, read and adopted as read.  (Citywide)
We're under ordinances. Item 16. Item 16. Communication from the city attorney's office. Recommendation to declare ordinance. Amending the Long Beach Municipal Code relating to the office holder expense funds. Read the first time and lead over to the next regular meeting of the City Council for Final Reading City Wide. There's been a motion by Councilman Andrews and a second by Councilwoman Gonzalez. This is a first reading of an item that's been taken up already. Councilman Councilwoman Price. Thank you. I want to thank the city attorney for putting this together. I am going to be opposing this item tonight and for the very reasons and concerns I shared last week, I respect my council colleagues. And on this issue, I think we're going to have to agree to disagree. Thanks. Thank you, Councilwoman Gonzalez. I'm on the opposite side of that. So I ask you now, certainly for continued support on this. I think that, again, we've we've talked about this a multitude of times, but, you know, the the large and this of our city, but also the positive impact that I see that it could be implemented into our into our communities is really essential. So continue to ask for support. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman Gonzales. Councilman Austin. Thank you. And I don't want to belabor the the debate on this, but I would just ask my colleague, Councilmember Price, is there any any is there would there be any appetite to to massaging and coming close to to to to to an agreement that that we can get 100% consensus on? Do you have any recommendations? Thank you for bringing that up. I you know, I'm concerned about the dollar amounts here that we're talking about. So if there was a will by the makers of the motion or the folks who are in support to come up with a compromise number, that lowers it a little bit. I would be in favor of that again. I don't want to belabor the issue either. And I have nothing but trust for my colleagues here. And like I said last week, my concern was more about the policy implications moving forward. You know, we we make decisions that last much longer than we're here. So that's my concern. But I don't want to belabor the point. I don't want to make, you know, make anyone feel uncomfortable if they feel very supportive of this. But if we were to lower the numbers, I think I'd feel a lot more comfortable with it. So our the recommendation on the floor and that was debated was to and I think amended by Councilmember Richardson was to triple the amount of officeholder accounts. And it's current it's currently $10,000. It would go to $30,000. And also the contribution limits would would be increased. I I'm curious to know what what would that number looks like in terms of what's acceptable would be it would be an acceptable number? Well, I think a compromise position, and I have no problem with the contribution amounts being raised. I understand the logic behind that. But maybe $20,000 would be a nice compromise position if people were open to it. Are you making a motion? Well, I'd like to make a friendly amendment. I wasn't sure that there would be a will and that would be accepted. But if the maker of the or if Councilman Andrews is open to that, I'd be making an amendment. So. So the maker of the motion has declined. And I trust that the second year of the motion. I have you, Councilman Andrews, as the maker of this motion today. So I think the maker of the original motion was was Councilmember Gonzalez or and then the amendment was Councilmember Richardson. But as point of order, we have to go by the maker of the motion for the first reading and the second or that those are the two individuals and need to be consulted. And so in asking Councilman Andrews, the maker of the motion, to consider the friendly amendment, he has declined and Councilman Gonzales has as well. Okay. Councilman Austin, anything further? I'd like to make a substitute motion and I'd like to make a substitute motion to reduce the the amount of the office holder account to $20,000 for city council and $50,000 for the mayor. Second. Oh. Oh, no word of press. Oh, you moved it. Okay. The substitute motion. Did you withdraw your motion, councilwoman? Pressure. The substitute motion was made by Council member Councilman Austin. And you're free to second if you wish. So the motion to substitute is to reduce the original amount approved by the council to 20,000 for council members and 50,000 for the mayor. It was the second year of the motion. Susie G. Second by Councilwoman Pryce. I have others queued up. Councilman Austin, is there anything else? Well, I'd just like to say that currently. I was I'm an important supporter of raising the limits for our officeholder accounts for every reason that has been stated over the last couple of weeks. I think it is necessary. I think it is is time. I mean Longreach is a big city and we have great needs and great demands on our city council members over the last time these officeholder accounts were raised. I believe it was 2007. That was seven years ago. I don't think inflation has gone up, tripled in that period of time. I don't think the cost of anything has tripled except maybe health care. But I don't think we're dealing with that. And so I do think doubling the amount is a is a fair compromise to get us gets where we need to be. Councilmember Richardson. Thank you, Vice Mayor. So so I want to thank my colleagues for bringing this up again. I would say that I don't know that a compromise is necessary, as we had a majority of council members who vote in support of this in advance. And I thought that we had a good, healthy, lengthy discussion there. I would say that there's a lot of context here. I think we consider that city council budgets have diminished significantly over the last decade. I remember when I began as chief of staff four years ago, we were able to have four staff people and then that was moved down to three. Now we're looking at we have less staff. And absolutely no supply budget in our offices. And that's that's that's a that is a reality in our offices as we have to find outside sponsors to help sponsor community events, help provide breakfasts or meals that are community assemblies, because we don't have the capacity in-house. So I think the work that's placed into having an office holder to go out and raise dollars to support these things, it's it's necessary. Secondly, you know, a number of the committee assignments that I was given upon taking office, they require travel. I was placed on the National League of Cities and was not able to go to that to that conference, the first Fed alleged visit. My budget could not support a trip. And actually, you know, our mayor's office denied us attending because our budget did not have the availability to go. So we had you know, so we had a healthy bit of discussion about this. So I feel very strongly that considering that there's been over a six figure cut in our office budgets to talk about raising on the private side $30,000 that, you know, to negotiate it down to 20 out of the sake of not having enough discussion, I don't know that that's really a fair conversation. So that said, I'd like to offer a substitute substitute motion. So my substitute substitute motion would be to go back to $30,000 and $75,000 for me, or $30,000 for city council and $75,000 for mayor. And to add in a CPI to build in a CPI consistent with the same levels that our campaign finance limits are in the election code for elections. There's been a substitute substitute by Councilmember Richardson and seconded by Councilmember Gonzalez. Okay. And that is to go back to the original. The original ordinance with the addition of the CPI. Councilwoman Gonzalez Yeah, I would add that, you know, our committee worked very hard. I think we're a committee that has done tremendous work, both myself as the Chair, Councilmember Turanga and Councilmember Mungo. We based this off of information based on adjacent cities. So this wasn't just an arbitrary number we picked out of the sky. This was information that we we we received from various cities that are our size, are larger, and we're pretty much behind the times. We're a little bit antiquated in our policies. And our main goal here is to reform a lot of our campaign finance policies. This was something that we could do and that was attainable. We all agree that the largeness, largeness of our city, the complexity of our city would certainly make sense for us to increase our officeholder accounts, both on the mayor side, the city wide side, and the city council side. And inflation, your rate hasn't gone up. It's not based on that, but it is based on a lot of our council budgets going down with RDA gone, with the discretionary funding gone, we do have to find other facets to be able to take care of our communities. And so I see this as certainly one of them. And so that's my certainly my stance. I believe that the substitute substitute motion will take care of that, and I hope that we can move forward with that substitute substitute motion. Thank you, Councilwoman Gonzalez. Councilwoman Mongo. First, I want to thank the work of the committee, the committee that. Councilmember. Yanga. And Councilwoman Gonzales. And I have worked extensively hard on. And I was most comfortable with a number closer to 20,000 as the committee originally debated and came forward with $25,000 for council members and 75 for the mayor. And so in the spirit of collegiality and continuing what Councilmember Austin put forward, I would ask that a friendly amendment come forward, which would be to restore to the original recommendation of the committee, as debated at 25 for council members and 75 for the mayor, with an adjustment for CPI to pull in the forward thinking this of Councilmember Richardson. So so as the maker of the motion, I have the ability to do that. I want to talk through your era here. I want to see if we can work this out right now. So the issue that I would take with this would be the increase to the citywide electeds would be a three times increase, whereas a citywide the increase to city council will be two and a half times increase. So would your friendly. So is your friendly. Are you interested in making it consistent at two and a half times across the board? So the reason. I remember that argument from when we first debated this at Hampton Park, the committee's research came from other comparable cities. Yes. And it wasn't to be proportional. The mayor isn't three times more demanded at events or community functions or anything like that. It came from looking at comparable cities and comparable officeholder accounts and the such. So I feel like the original intent of the committee at 2575 with an adjustment for CPI two, both would be the most logical. And a compromise. Between many people. I get that. And what I would say is, is there. So which cities and specifically more specifically, which cities of a comparable size are you comparing us to? So they pulled together a bunch of charts and brought them to the meeting. Larry Herrera brought forward documentation, which I don't have with me tonight, but I could have someone run up to the office. And Paul, do you remember Councilman? Anaheim was on the list, but I think Anaheim and I think our city attorney is up to speak as well. So maybe I. Have that. I'd like to know about Anaheim and Los Angeles, and let's just hash out this and figure it out right now. I know Anaheim is on the list for. Anaheim, almost a thousand per donation. If I might if I might weigh in. Councilmember Richardson, this is this right? Councilmember Richardson, may I address this? I know in the spirit of compromise, this is something that's been vetted by the committee for quite some time. It was vetted in a very healthy way the last time this came up on the council floor. So. There is a substitute substitute motion made by Councilmember Richardson, seconded by Councilwoman Gonzales. I have. Councilman Mongo, is there anything further? We're seeing the friendly amendment to restore to the committee's original intent of 2575, incorporating Councilmember Richardson CPI. I'm not in support of that. So no. Councilwoman Pryce. Thank you. I appreciate everyone's comments. One thing I want to point out, and I hope it's something that we can respect as a body, not just today, but moving forward is if an idea or a concept is discussed in committee. And no doubt every single member of this board, this council works diligently on their various committees. No doubt I have full respect for the work that comes out of committee. However, it is perfectly acceptable and appropriate for council colleagues who don't sit on that committee to question certain aspects of the findings and recommendations of that committee. That's actually our job and that's what the taxpayers have elected us to do. So. So I appreciate and I think last week I said several times that I appreciated the work of the committee and and my thoughts on the issue were no reflection at all on the work of the committee. Furthermore, if an item comes before us and then we give a recommendation and we have a debate and the recommendation results in an item coming to us for a first reading and a second reading. The whole point of that gap in time is to allow an elected body to vet a particular idea, a proposal, a change with their citizenry, with their community, to study up on it, to find out what the vibe is, to see how they feel about it. Because the decisions that we make, when I press this button here, this is a decision I have to live with. It's my conscience. It's something that I have to be comfortable with. And if I express hesitation one week and do some more research and learn more about it, I'm not tied to what happened the week before. That's the whole point. That's why the system requires a first reading and a second reading. So, you know, I've heard this in the past and I've tried really hard. I know it doesn't seem like it, but I do try to bite my lip when I hear things like we already talked about this. Why are we talking about this again? The whole reason there was a first reading and a second reading is so that we can have an opportunity to further educate ourselves. And if there's an issue that we feel uncomfortable about it to to to say it. And I started off this discussion tonight by saying we can agree to disagree. I don't want to talk about it any further because I didn't want to make anyone feel uncomfortable. It's my personal belief is that fund raising and raising the limits adds noise in an area that we don't need. And I understand. I don't I'm sure the committee did their research on what other cities do. And sometimes what other cities are doing is something that we can learn from and grow from and adopt in our own city. But sometimes we can simply say, we are Long Beach. We are different. We do things differently. We reject certain things that aren't healthy in other communities. Just because other communities are doing them doesn't mean they're healthy for us. And that's my opinion. So there are many things that the City of L.A. is doing that's fantastic and great and would be great for us to incorporate. There are a lot of things that are doing that I don't want to see here in the city of Long Beach. And I've had that attitude in my job in in every in everything in my life. You do what's right at the moment, not based on what everybody else is doing. So with that, I have a feeling I'm not going to be doing what everyone else is doing tonight, and that's okay. But when we're talking about, you know, we already went through this or this already went through, you know, every single time an item comes before us, it's an opportunity to express concerns, support, hesitation, whatever the case may be. That's my right as a member of this council, and I'm going to exercise that right. I'm not going to be bullied into. We already talked about it. Why are we talking about it again? I will talk about it until I feel like I don't need to talk about it any more. And tonight I tried not to talk about it. For the record. Thank. Councilwoman Pryce. I appreciate that. I think my comments were directed at Council Member Richardson in expressing my own opinion that that's where I'm coming from, that I felt that it was a thorough discussion and I'm satisfied with that. It is not to influence yours or anyone else's. But expressing my own, I oftentimes, as with everyone else, we all express our opinions differently, as you just did. And that was my way of expressing my opinion that I have great appreciation for the work of the committee as well as the discussion we had last week, and that I am satisfied with that. That is a personal opinion of mine and I hope that the remarks you just made, you will ensure that you regard everyone else's way of expressing their opinion that way. That was mine. City Attorney. Vice members of the council, just for a point of order. On the third motion, the substitute substitute motion to return the limits to 30 and 75 and add the CPI. If that motion is successful this evening, then it will come back for a first reading again on February 3rd. By adding the CPI adjustment. That's a substantial change in requires to come back two more times. So that just FYI. Councilmember Richardson, if I might ask perhaps that you can ask for a report on on the potential of adding CPI later as opposed to adding that. Would that would that keep it? That makes a lot of sense. Is that would that keep this as a first reading? The the problem with removing that as then it's not a substitute substitute. You're basically making the first motion. And so you would go to your second motion first. You know, you actually, Mr. City Attorney, it would be a substitute substitute to keep the the amounts. The same with the addition of asking for a report in 3 to 6 months, whichever the maker of the motion would like from staff or the committee on the concept of adding a CPI down the road. I would disagree with the chair. The the motion that would pass would be the item of the recommend the recommendation in your your original motion. The request for a report is is not what would be relevant for what you would pass. You would pass was actually recommended by council. So in essence it would be your original motion. Okay, what was the substitute motion? If you can remind me. The subsidy motion was to change the limits to $20,000 for city council and $50,000 citywide. Okay. We have a couple of more speakers that we can certainly take up the substitute motion and go back to the original if that is what ends up happening. Councilwoman Gonzalez. I'm sorry. Councilmember Richardson. Thank you. So I think I think most of my concerns were were vetted out. But I wanted to just say that by no means, you know, is this discussion implying that folks shouldn't bring up certain topics. I think it's fine. Absolutely fine. And I appreciate the fact that you, Ms.. Councilmember Price stated that she didn't want to talk about it. I agree. I don't want to talk about it either. Councilmember Gonzalez. Councilwoman Gonzalez. Thank you again. We welcome the discussion. You know, this is a really healthy discussion. I think what where you know, it may get heated at times, but I think we can all respectfully agree to disagree, like Councilman Price had mentioned. But I have to reiterate, you know, we're each representing about 50,000 constituents and $30,000 to me is but $50,000 individually in our districts, 500,000, half a million folks. And so $30,000 each to me is not really, really too much. So I'll I'll stand firm on that. And I respect the comments that have been made out there. But, you know, certainly I need to stand firm and what we originally decided. Councilmember Urunga. I totally agree with my colleague, Councilmember Gonzalez in this call for the question. Are we voting on the substitute substitute council member Richardson? I would love to get back to the original motion to vote on. So what I what I'm going to do is I'm going to withdraw my substitute substitute and I'm going to encourage my colleagues to vote no on the substitute motion. Thank you, Councilmember Richardson and I will do the same. I will ask my colleagues to vote no on the substitute motion. We are taking up the substitute motion at this time. Members, cast your vote. Public comment. I'm sorry. Is there any member of the public that wishes to address Council on item 16? Very good. The clerk has the address. First, I would suggest you hold off because I don't want to embarrass anybody. But I would ask I would think that if I. Each one of you had to stand up now. Insight sentence for sentence, what you're voting on. I don't think you know what you're voting on, period. All right. At the end of this day, nothing's going to, you know, a day, another week is not going to rock the boat. What I have serious issues with this and there's no issue with having a fund. Period. It's how it is. I understand it. Unless my information is wrong. Some of these monies are all of these monies could be if you wanted get to some political dynamic within to a labor union or to the Chamber of Commerce. Is that a that needs to be clarified, because if that is the case, that should not be done, period. It should be only for legitimate parks, neighborhood association improvement projects and things like that. There's an easy way to address the funding issue, quite frankly. Is, first of all, cut travel. This is the high tech age. You don't need to travel, period. We have emails, we have Skype. We have teleconferences. We conduct wars by teleconference. Your only reason for traveling is to try to build your political career, period. So go a couple of years without any travel. Secondly, you need to put sideboards on it so we don't have this type of thing. Again, the hymnal to hold know this hymnal of hosannas using taxpayer money. Or donations to fund some political hack or pipsqueak, period. You do have a serious problem. I understand that with inflation and shortage of money, but that's very easy. Just cut out your travel. Period. And if, quite frankly, I'd even cut out your automobile, aren't I? Did you get a bus pass, period? That's the way to solve that. But again, I before you vote. Stand up and recite exactly what you're voting on. If you do know it, you will have no problem. If you don't bring it back and think about it or think about it and then bring it back. Thank you. Members. There's been a substitute motion by Councilman Austin and seconded by Councilwoman Price. Please cast your vote. And this is on the substitute. Motion fails. All right. We are now back to the original motion. Made by Councilman Andrews, seconded by Councilwoman Gonzalez. Members, please cast your vote. The motion passes was five three. Thank you. Thank you. Members. Item 17.