Recommendation to declare ordinance making findings and determinations regarding contracting for work usually performed by City employees and authorizing City Manager to enter a contract with Plenary Edgemoor Civic Partners, LLC, for custodial, maintenance and security services, read and adopted as read.  (Citywide)
Thank you. It's an emotion and a second. Members, cast your vote. Motion carries. Thank you. Item 30 Report from Economic and Property Development, Development Services, Financial Management, Library Services, Parks, Recreation and Marine and Public Works. Recommendation to declare ordnance making findings and determinations regarding contracting for work usually performed by city employees and authorizing the city manager to enter a contract with Plenary Edge. More civic partners for custodial maintenance and Security Services read and adopted as read citywide. Mr. Modica. Staff report. Vice Mayor, members of the council, this is for you. Tonight is the second reading of the Prop l ordinance relating to the new Civic Center. So it includes the changes as made at the original reading, and it was delayed in coming back to you as the negotiations had continued with the IAM. And so it is before you tonight as this is the last council date prior to the deadline. Thank you. Councilman Price. I have no comment on this. Councilman Austin. I'd like to hear public comment. Sure. Is there any member of the public that wish to address the Council on item 30? Please come forward. State your name. Good evening. Members of the council, Richard Suarez representing the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. This evening, the city manager asks you to violate the MBA, the Myers Melius Brown Act. The IAM has a simple request that the Council does not break the law. And item 30 of the agenda. The city manager recommends that the council approve the property ordinance and execute a project agreement. The City Council must refuse to do this because it is illegal. The parties have not concluded bargaining over the contracting out of I am representative bargaining unit work relative to the Civic Center project. Indeed, the parties just completed a fact finding hearing last Friday on April 15th. And the fact finder will issue his report no later than May 6th of 2016. The AM is hopeful that the Fact Finders Report will provide critical assistance in bringing the parties to a mutually agreeable resolution of the Civic Center project. Contracting out the council should not terminate bargaining before the Fact Finders report is issued. In addition, under section 30 505.7 of the Government Code, the Council must hold a hearing on the Fact Finders report before it can implement the city's last best than final offer. Accordingly, if the city council takes action recommended in Agenda Number 30, the city will violate the MBA. The AM therefore demands that the city remove item 30 from today's City Council agenda. Furthermore, it must be pointed out that the proposal study is flawed. It is not cheaper to contract out. The report has intentionally inflated the cost of city provided services to make chases bid seem cheaper. The Council should order an objective, fair, properly study to be prepared. We've met several times over this issue and when we were at an impasse, we followed the law and the law said we go to a fact finder, which for all intents and purposes is a neutral. And this individual last Friday heard. For me, and it heard from the folks representing the city's position. As most times when a neutral is involved, he or she is afforded a certain reasonable amount of time to render a decision. This is the process. Invoking this agreement today violates that process. So we are simply asking that we continue the process and see what the fact finder has to say. And then based on that. The charter, I believe, based on the information that has been given to me, allows you, the council, to then take a vote on that decision. That's all we're asking you to do. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Very good. You see, Jess, just so I understand it, what we're talking about is maintenance. And the building that is going to drive us, everybody realizes we'll drive as further down the road to bankruptcy is. That's what we're talking about, right? So taking a few more weeks to study it. Really? He's not going to. Impacted. It may, hopefully. Slow us down that road to bankruptcy. So I would suggest. Stepping back. Listening to what was just. Imparted to by certainly one more knowledgeable on the subject than me. I don't know what the hurry is to. Go down that path of bankruptcy. But give it some thought, please. Thank you, Councilman Austin. It's just a really quick question for our staff regarding the bargaining process. How many bargaining sessions do we have on this particular matter with the. I believe we've had in excess of 12. And since when? Since I think we originally started the prop l process and the request for bargaining back in September, I believe, of 2014 2015. We did negotiations and meet and confer in December all the way through and through the last several months. Okay. And in terms of the mentioned fact finding, why were we, in fact finding. There is a provision in state law that once you reach impasse, there is the ability to go to a fact finding process. So can you explain to the public listening what impact path actually means? Sure. For that level of specificity, I'll have Alex Vasquez give a overview of the fact finding process. So essentially the fact finding process involves fact finding a panel, a neutral, a representative by the union and represented by city. Each side presents their case and the decision comes back before the council to take into consideration. So. So impasse means that after 12 bargaining sessions, we weren't able to reach an agreement? That's correct. Mr. Modica, is there any sort of financial implications toward regarding this particular entering into this agreement? There are. And I'd also like to add a little bit of history is we originally had some bargaining sessions or some meet and confer prior to the vote to get council direction to it, to move forward December 15th. We actually then took additional time to go back to the table and to do additional negotiations and did that throughout January, end of February before reaching impasse. We did notify our partners the IAM that on on January 28 that we had a hard deadline in order to, you know, that we had to make a decision at the end of April in order to keep forward and keep the pricing that we had secured for this project. Otherwise it would be a significant increase in price. And we had we also implemented what was called an early works agreement in order to secure additional time to try to reach agreement. So given all those factors, we do expect, A, that if we do not close by the end of this year and, you know, by the end of April that there will be significant increases in price in terms of interest rate fluctuation. And the contract that we have with our partner will. And a significant increase in cost for a civic center does not serve anybody's interest. Our city employees or the city or the taxpayers of the city of Long Beach at all. I do want to just raise my concern, and I think I raised it here several months ago when we were talking about moving forward with the Civic Center Project Project and particularly the the operations and maintenance component of this regarding a number of city employees who were subject to potentially being displaced. And I think the city council made a a I think most of us made it made it very clear that we did not want to see any of our city employees, existing city employees, lose their jobs as a result of this. Was that communicated at the bargaining table? Yes, absolutely. And if I may add, Councilmember Section four of the Prop L finding this evening states that city employees who whole classifications identified in the Appendix C of the Prop L study who are assigned to the Civic Center facility, shall not be reduced in our position, duties or compensation as a result of the execution of this contract. So we have a very firm commitment. Not only did through this process, we add back in the security officers, which were originally contemplated in the prop l, but that was the council decided to keep the security officers in the building. That's included in tonight's action, as well as that commitment that none of the affected employees and I believe there are eight would would be impacted in any way. They would absolutely have a job with the city. All right. Thank you. Councilman Gonzalez. Yes. Thank you. I think my question was Councilmember L Austin's last question. I just wanted to reiterate the fact that no employees currently will be reduced in hours, positions, duties, etc., in this realm. I know we had a few facilities maintenance employees who came to my office directly and who weren't hearing information from any side. And so I understand that there's negotiations going on, but, you know, this is their livelihood. So I want to make sure that this is, you know, addressed. And I see that here. So thank you for answering the question. I appreciate it. Councilwoman Price. Thank you. I want to follow up on some comments that were made by Mr. Suarez regarding legal procedures and aspects. It's my understanding, based on the item, as I as I've read it and reviewed it, that the recommendation by staff is to move forward tonight. And that's based on input from the city attorney, is that correct? Vice Members of Counsel That is correct. The firm has created an exception to the requirement of exhausting the fact finding process, and we discussed that within the bargaining unit with the city under operational necessity. And I think some of the comments made by the Assistant City Manager and our communications to the AM regarding the hard date and the fixed deadlines and the consequences of missing that date, meet the requirement of the operational necessity. And what are some of the consequences associated with the city missing that date? Some of those would include and I'll let somebody else maybe answer that has more. But a fixed price proposal would expire. The city would need to renegotiate the proposal and significant possible increases in the cost. The city could incur termination penalties and lose the value of the moneys expended. Regarding the design. It jeopardizes the project due to the fiscal constraints and all that. Mr. Conway. I think in addition to the financial impacts relative to a delay. To a project, there is also. The, I think, safety impacts in delaying the. Project as well. This is our fastest process to. Bringing a safe facility to the city. For its staff and its visitors. And any delay to that process. I think exposes us to potential liability. Great. Thank you. Thank you. There's been a motion and a second. Members, please cast your vote. Motion carries. Thank you. When a new business we have item 31 communication from Councilman Andrews, Councilwoman Price and councilmember super non recommendation to direct the city manager to support Senate Concurrent Resolution one or two, which would name the Los Alamitos Bay Bridge or any