Recommendation to authorize City Manager, or designee, to execute an agreement, and any necessary documents, subcontracts, and subsequent amendments, including amendments to the award amount or agreement term, with the CaliforniansForAll Youth Workforce Development Program to accept and expend grant funding up to $6,300,000 in California Volunteers - Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery funds, to provide the Economic Development Department, Pacific Gateway Workforce Innovation Network, in the creation of Long Beach Youth Climate Corps, a paid work experience program, for the period of December 6, 2021 through June 30, 2024.  (Citywide)
Thank you. We are now going to item 18, please. Report from Economic Development Recommendation to authorize city manager to accept and expend grant funding up to 6,300,000 for the creation of Long Beach Youth Climate Corps Citywide. Mr. Monica. Yes. We're very excited to be here tonight for this item. We do have a presentation as this is a significant amount. Of new resources that Mayor Garcia and a number of large city mayors were able to secure in the last year's budget for cities to really address youth hiring and youth employment. And also with the focus on the Climate Corps. So I will turn this over to our team. I think it's next team to give a presentation. Good evening, honorable mayor and members of the Council. I'd like to take a few minutes and walk you through the Californians for our award to the city of Long Beach that's going to help us implement the city's vision for for the Youth Climate Corps. So the governor's office made available through the through the last state budget surplus, $150 million in youth workforce development funds and. You got. One more? You want to go ahead. And just everyone. Just. I know it's hard, but it's as quiet as possible on the exit, please. That would be appreciated. Exactly. Nick, why don't you. Why are you going to start over? Gwen's sort of. Good evening, honorable mayor and members of the council. I am going to give you a short staff report on the Californians from Grant Award to the city of Long Beach that is going to help them implement the city's vision for the Youth Climate Corps. So I'm going to go through the background program development program design. The job placements that we're looking at and next steps for the program. The money came available through a $150 million that the governor designated through the through the last state budget surplus. The 13 largest California cities got a carve out of that based on population or size. And Long Beach being the 77th largest city in the state, received $6.3 million in in cost reimbursement funds. And the funds are there to support activities that increase youth employment, develop youth interest and experience toward careers in public service, and strengthen the capacity to act to address education, climate change and food insecurity. Participants in the program are aged 16 to 30. Many of you will recognize that this is an expansion of the age for eligible youth. Most of our funding, core funding and other competitive grants recognize youth up to about 24. This is going to expand our service delivery. Our folks are going to be low income, unemployed or out of school. Justice involved transitioning from foster care or engaged with the mental health or substance abuse system. In addition to that. All 75% of the program participants must have a multiple barrier. So two out of the three things mentioned above. And this is a very specific program. It's focused really on two things paid youth, job placement and all the placement must be in public agencies or nonprofits. And after the program concludes, the successful outcome, according to the grant funds are permanent, placing permanent placement in employment or continuous education. So as we put the program together, we reviewed many existing models, including our own blueprint for economic development, our youth strategic plan, our Climate Action Plan, our Long Beach Racial Equity Toolkit, the Racial Equity and Rec Iraqi Reconciliation Plan, excuse me, as well as the everyone in plan, the work we've done around boys and men of color in the city of Long Beach, and also the local hire provisions that were put in our project labor agreement and. This is. Right. This is out of order in in your presentation, but not in the slide deck is actually a crosswalk between some of those existing plans and our grant and the objectives there. So to ensure we meet the required outcomes, there are some key strategies that we put in place. So placement in existing city, nonprofit and crime, climate related programs that meet all grant requirements as well as timing. The ability to map the transferable skills of those placements into real world experiences and post labor market attachment. And foster stewardship by providing resources and diverse learning opportunities to the students. So as the budget is comprised over a two year period, we're looking at approximately 380 youth placements. Again, because we're going to 16 through 30 and some of the youth will have had experiences, whether successful or not. We're looking at everything from entry level to more technical and advanced occupations and that the youth will earn a subsidized wage in the program somewhere between 16 to $27 an hour. And most of our placements will encompass roughly 450 to 500 hours, that the placements will be determined in conjunction with open, open availability with with our partner departments and nonprofits. And it'll be determined during the intake at Pacific Gateway. Some of our partnerships that we're highlighting tonight for the program are in both the Long Beach Office of Sustainability, as well as the Conservation Corps in the city, and other CBOs that are concentrating on the highlighted areas of urban greening and natural systems services, urban agriculture in waste reduction and energy. And then we've also worked and had conversations with various departments around their opportunity to provide relevant placement to the participants. And we've spoken with development services. Our own department in economic development, of course, Health and Human Services, the Legislative Department. Library Services. Parks, Recreation. Marine and Public Works. So a few of the particulars to wrap this up will accept the grant funding here in May and immediately begin convening with our partner entities to engage around the placements. Program will kick off in the summer with actual actual placement and work for a good portion of our participants. And excuse me, the activities will be tracked and reported by Pacific Gateway through implementation using the same ID and mass and administrative tools that we use to track and report on all of our federal grant programs and abhors there and take any questions you might have. Thank you. I'm just going to make a few comments and then I'm turning it over to the to the council. I just want to first thank staff just the team at Economic Development and our workforce team. This is a great really presentation and then a nice job of kind of taking everything that we put forward to build this program. I want to just again, thank Governor Newsom, who deliberately put this program into the budget. That was a request that a group of us had made to try to focus and put more resources into youth jobs, especially for, you know, youth that are that are either struggling or have, you know, additional needs could be, you know, could be unemployed or justice involved. And so that that whole, you know, group of young people in a community they're going to benefit from these climate opportunities is going to be pretty significant. This is actually a pretty significant amount of money for a youth program. And I was I was trying to think of Mr. Modica. I was trying to think back, but I don't remember how long as I've been here, us investing this amount of money into a specific kind of sector of, of, of work for, for young people. And I think unless I was trying to look back and I just I don't remember that we've ever done that before in Long Beach as far back as I can remember. And so this is going to be a significant investment that the city is making, of course, thanks to the work at the state level. But I'm just really, really proud that we're going to be able to launch this program and good and get so many young people placed in some of these kind of green jobs and working with our partners. I wanted to ask, I know that we are partnering with our Sustainability Office, with the Conservation Corps, which was a request of the council, which I think is a really great opportunity and step forward. And I'm just really hoping that as we move forward that we're really doing a great job of outreach and that we're going into neighborhoods and communities where we're reaching out to young people. I think it's important for us to recognize that oftentimes the issue of climate is not accessible to lower income communities. And while we're low and community are the most impacted, it's oftentimes not not top of mind as far as as a as an issue that young folks they can be involved in and make a difference in. And so it's really important that the outreach component that we're working with, with with organizations on the ground, with faith communities, with our with with of course, with our schools, to just reach as many young people as possible to participate in these programs. Did you want to expand on how the outreach component might work or how we're going to actually reach young people? Yes. Thank you, Mayor. And I can confirm that, at least in terms of my tenure here as well, that this is the single largest grant award related to a specific focus area for workforce development, regardless whether it be youth, adult or disconnected workers. The outreach component is of critical importance for us. This is a program, again, where your entire cadre of participants are disconnected folks, disconnected from traditional systems. And also you're dealing with the challenge of the not using the for profit community for placement. So on both fronts, getting to community groups that there are trusted brokers for our youth to access information about entering the program is a part of the significant part of the plan moving forward, as well as engaging those groups around opportunities, they have to provide a meaningful work experience that aligns with with the program goals. So the outreach is is twofold in that respect. That's really great. I want to also just highlight when we talk about kind of job placements and possible opportunities, you I think you listed some, which is really great. I mean, a lot of these are also opportunities within the city to help on action climate action activities and you know, whether it's on the health side or on the library side, but I'm especially interested in this idea that we could have so many young people involved, particularly on the urban greening and park ambassadorship side, at this idea that we can have young people as park ambassadors in our parks across the city doing doing that level of work and ensuring that that, you know, teaching and learning about park stewardship and clean parks and and access to green space. And that's something also that's really unique from a workforce perspective. And so I'm just very interested in how that is going to develop. We have incredible parks space across the city. I also, you know, when you think about places like Eldorado Park or the Nature Center, especially in some of these larger areas, Drake and others, you do have an opportunity to to put some really great programing in place, especially, I think, in some of the larger kind of more urban forests that we have, you know, within the city. So anything else you want to expand on as far as like the park ambassador program and how that will work? I think you're right on with with the things that you've said in terms of the discussion we had. So we were we were convened cross-departmental before the application was developed by our DCM, uh, Theresa Chandler. And we had an opportunity to discuss the potential for departments to, to think through their plans for employment. We have had conversations with again all the departments that we mentioned. The Parks Department has had an ambassador program, I think, on the table for some time. This is this is a vehicle to activate it for them. So we look forward to being able to do that. And I think there are some some instances where with some other forms of specific gateway funding, we've started that out at a smaller scale to get people involved and engaged in the parks. And this is an opportunity, again, to open this up to more of the community and scale to the need here in Long Beach. In my last last two comments. One is just want to uplift the also the urban farming and food insecurity piece that that you note in your presentation. Obviously that is a lot of really incredible opportunity there and the already established kind of urban farms and food programs that we have in the city as it relates to this program, I think could be really, really special. And then finally, I just want to make sure that we're keeping an eye out. I didn't explicitly see it here and maybe just missed it, but I think one of the requests that I made and when we discussed the program was making sure that we're just keeping an eye on , you know, the conversation around the National Climate Corps program that is not fully gotten through Congress, but is there the framework there? And I know that when we had initially had discussions with the governor, that we were having conversations about that program and how could there could be some relationship between the two. And so as long as we're just kind of keeping an eye on that, I think that would be that would be beneficial. I think there's a few things to your point. So certainly the implementation implementation of SB 1383 in the city provides an opportunity for some relevant work experience around food waste, insecurity, the sorting of it, those, those types of things. The Climate Corps model that was provided, that was proposed in the President Biden's build back better legislation was a model we looked at while building up for this. And we certainly see some of the opportunity that is going to come forward to cities through the states RFP related to Community Economic Resilience Fund as opportunities for a longer term placement and employment and related type activities through the Corps to prepare students for that moving forward. Great. Well, thank you. This is going to be a, I think, a transformational program for so many young people. I'm really proud that we're going at this launch here in Long Beach. And do you want to do you wanted to share finally just the timeline as far as when the when you look at the next steps on the on the last on the last sheet here. We are sure you are feeling confident that this summer is when we're actually going to start the the placements, correct? We are going to begin engaging with the the individual departments and entities referenced in the presentation later this week and not later this month. And we do hope to have the first set of placements in place in the month of June. Great. And I would encourage you know, the team could also consider or think about how we're going to kind of brand the program. And, you know, is there going to be, you know, some type of logo for the program or, you know, are the are the are the youth going to get some kind of kind of T-shirt or some type of uniform that kind of brings them together. And that, you know, shows the breadth of the program, I think is at least something to consider for for for all of you as you're developing this. It would be great. And with that, actually, Vice Mayor Richardson. Thanks so much, Mr. Mayor. Thank you for walking us through the program. Nick, I think this is incredible to see almost 400 youth be able to engage directly in a program like this. I think what's what's really great is that these youth, who in many ways are more susceptible to pitfalls in society, are given an opportunity that will create a pipeline, a pathway for them to actually have career opportunities in the future. I think that says a lot about our city and the way we're thinking about how we're engaging opportunity youth. And I look at some of these criteria low income, unemployed out of school, unemployed out of school. We've done a lot. We talked a lot during My Brother's Keeper about disconnected youth, how you can make a meaningful difference in their lives by simply connecting them to the institutions that we already have, like workforce institutions. And if you're less if you're more likely to connect with an educational institution or workforce institution or get a job that pays a good salary, you're less likely to be connected to the criminal justice system. So I love that. I also love the crosswalk. I looked at it here. I know it was in the presentation, but it is here. The Strategic Plan Alignment. You know, this is a best practice braiding together the ways in which systems and programs work for an outcome. You're aligning our youth plan or climate plan, sustainability plan, equity plans, youth plans, racial reconciliation initiative plans to have a desired outcome. I think that's smart. That's a best practice that I think we should continue to follow as a city. I'm interested in seeing, I think, coming out of the pandemic. We certainly have some some need for some extra expertize and some extra help. I'm thinking about, you know, the garden at the Michelle Obama neighborhood library, which used to be a community group that helped manage. There's an irrigation system there. I think that was really a great project for them to take on. I'm thinking about coordination with Conservation Corps, who's doing more work at the wetlands, and they should be opening up at the end of the summer. Their Environmental Stewardship Center at the Forest Park. So I see an opportunity there to do more work along the river. I would love to better understand if there will be some alignment with some of our recovery efforts. We're investing significant resources in the food security and other things through our recovery efforts. I would love to see some alignment, some alignment there if we could. And then the last thing is really there's really a question I would love to see. I would love to see some real pipeline or certification that if if some of these youth are on a certain track, it could land them into jobs that actually do climate resiliency, installing solar or even some some of the climate resiliency work we have. There's going to be significant work on electric vehicle charging stations, electrification of our ports. If there could be a direct alignment of, you know, these youth, when they get out, somehow they land a job with some of the infrastructure work that that we have to, you know, have to undergo in Long Beach. And so I would love to hear how you're thinking about the strategic alignment there. That's a great question. And we have thought about it. So so we know some of the programs and or opportunities that that some of the partners you mentioned in some you didn't actually actually create. And I think I referenced the the local higher provisions of the project labor agreement. We know, at least in terms of the grand scale of this in Long Beach, it's going to be built by the trades. That's an agreement we signed and we're committed to for ten years. That agreement also opens up an ongoing dialog. So how do we how do we work with our partners in the trades to say, here's the experiences for your pipeline that are available right now? Can can you look at these skills? Can you can you look at these competencies that are gained within these programs? And can we start to brand some of this as legitimate through apprenticeship? And can we give those folks consideration related to our local hire provision? So there's a direct pathway from this to the, you know, the capital infrastructure projects that are that are going to occur in here in Long Beach and all of the other work in the region that the infrastructure bill and the like are going to provide. So we have thought about that and we think it's it's a direct connection to the signatory relationships we have with organizations like the building trades yet. Yeah. This could be considered a pre apprenticeship that gets them directly in. That would be a huge slam dunk. Thank you so much. Thank you. Councilman's in Dallas. Thank you, Mayor. First. Thank you very much for that wonderful presentation. I'm so excited about this program. One thing in particular that I'm excited about is not only will we be equipping and empowering our youth to address climate change, but it will also be a way for us, the city, to establish a model for the city that moves us forward in also offering more paid experience to our youth. And I think that the key word right there is paid experience for so many of these types of opportunities where we were only able to afford a couple and now will be able to give it to more youth. And I think that that's really what what really excites me. Having paid work opportunity helps in reducing barriers and increasing civic engagement for young people. The bottom line is that this program will be changing the life of so many of our youth. It is going to be so impactful on their on their confidence, self-confidence, and that's going to propel them to seek other future opportunities. And, you know, I'm just super excited about that. I also want to make sure that we you know, that we recognize that this program also comes with mentorship. And I don't think we put enough emphasis on how important mentorship is in the in the building of a youth. You know, like it's just so life changing. So I really want to acknowledge that. And I welcome those opportunities where our youth are going to be mentored and they're going to be taught and in particularly they're going to be paid. And so I think that's going to help in so many ways. And I agree with the comments that have been said here before. And I can't wait till till we get this program on the road. And I really want to be connected with you because I know that outreach is going to be important, especially to those individuals that qualify for this program. So I'm looking forward to connecting our offices and making sure that we reach all of the young students and individuals that will be able to to benefit from this program. I think we can make that commitment across the dias that will share the outreach plan with with all of you related to other folks who you believe we should be in contact with in your district. So we will do that. Thank you very much. Thank you, Councilwoman Allen. Yes, thank you, Mayor. Just a huge thanks to all your team, to Nick and Oscar and Meredith and Larry and Teresa. I know I'm missing some, but all of your team that has done so much, you know, that got us to this point. The amount of funding for this program is absolutely astonishing. It's transformational. So I'm just really excited. It's also been a privilege for me to work with your staff on designing this program for the city, and a chance to create youth employment and career pathways is just an absolutely huge blessing for so many of our of our youth . And I look forward to hosting as many as possible the Climate Action Fellows that are that are loud in our legislation department and I absolutely agree with the mayor. We should have, you know. Badges or are collateral or something. I'm just really proud of this program, so I hopefully that you can incorporate that as well. But thank you so much. Great work, you guys. Thank you, Councilman Sarno. Thank you, Mayor. So, yeah, I just want to add to my excitement as well as given what was said by my colleagues and the mayor, you know, I just kind of calculated it is a lot of money that is being invested in a youth program. But I calculated that if we're going to have 380 youth, it's really about with 450 to 500 hours. It's about 12.5 weeks, which is about two and a half months. So just enough to get a taste and maybe what it's like to be in these placements. Right? Because some of us, it takes us a minimum a year to acclimate into a job. And so I'm just curious about, in addition to mentorship, what will be additional workforce training or transitional opportunity and where they're learning to build their resume? Because we're working with many of the youth that would be in my district, which are low income, are unemployed, are just as involved, or so they have all these other challenges where they may have needs, services on top of making sure that they have and pretty much be job ready after their they've been in place. So just curious about that. Yeah, I think I think that's a great observation. I would say related to youth participants, given all the other factors in in a complex life, especially those of out of school youth, we find that most of them average somewhere between 20 to 30 hours a week at most. They won't burn through that at a full time clip. With that said, all the other supportive services that workforce offers will be wrapped around these participants. They'll be co enrollments with other programs that they're eligible for. Child care, transportation, other types of equipment or clothing related to the occupation will be made available to them. And then all this all of this off skill and other development workshops that we put on will be there. They'll also have the opportunity, if they're not ready for for full time sustainable employment, for them to go into a training or continuing education program will equip them around the suite of tools we have to increase their digital access and if they're so inclined to earn, why that why they learn. We have a couple of platforms where they can engage in training while they're actually simultaneously in the work experience. But we plan to deploy all of that. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman Price. Thank. So a couple of questions and the presentation was excellent. So thanks to both of you. How did we come up with the number 380? Then number 380 was were and the the wage ranges and the anticipated hours worked was a look at our our existing caseload of opportunity youth what it usually takes for them to have a meaningful work experience. Adding in that some of the folks who are now eligible under this program are in our adult caseload currently. So we factored in what the typical experience were for an adult was came up with a calculus in terms of. How people disconnect from the labor market and what they need to reattach. Just wrap that around. A total number that came out at 380 tried to average close to 500 hours of work experience and pay them somewhere around market value, which for what we would hope would be the next step in the labor market for them. So we we do think we'll be able to fill all 380 of these spots like we think there's enough capacity there. We think there's capacity and there's demand. I think we think about the the generation that we're going to serve as as very, very connected. But the pandemic actually had. Set an amazing effect on that. You know, they like to be online. They like to be chatting electronically. But there's there's a demand like we haven't seen from youth this age to to be in person, get in-person service, interact with individuals, know that they have a safe space and someone who cares about them to be with and look at their future employment journey with. So we're we're excited to offer this and we think the demands and the uptake is going to be so great. And then what is the term out of school mean? Is it somebody like is the age. 16 to 30? It is 16 to 30 out of school means not currently enrolled in a formal educational program. So would like summer vacation qualify for the 16 to 18 year olds? It does not. It does not. It does not. Okay. So so these are these in in terms of a term we used last week, these are opportunity youth. I see. So 16, 16 to 18 year olds would be the ones that are no longer going to school. That's correct. Okay. That would be that population. And then have we found some of the ideas for the projects to be awesome? But I was just curious on some of these like for example, on urban agriculture. Operating public orchards and fruit tree programs. Do we have a public orchard in Long Beach or are we going to create one, for example? I'd have to defer that that that answer. I'm not I'm not sure on that. I think that's an example Lynch lifted out of the Grant text. I think Linda's raising her, yes. Council members. We do currently in the City Sustainability Program, working with Larry Rich. There are some agricultural programs. And I think. The hope is that with this. Program that can be expanded to include. That that type. More robust type of urban agricultural program. Oh, great. Good. I wasn't aware of that, but I think that's a really great idea. And then the projects that we have. The city projects that we have, some of those will be eligible for these. Opportunities, correct? City projects? 100%. And we actually related to the number we need to serve, how we look at the city departments as our biggest asset and partner in providing these job opportunities for the youth. And good. And then how are we going to advertise this so that we can make sure we get the, you know, a high number of applicants and also CBOs that want to partner with us. Yep. So that there there has been some, some surveying done related to, um, interest in the program, uh, post the presentation to, uh, the, the sustainability committee. Uh, we're going to go through our channels, uh, with our partners in the workforce development ecosystem as well as working through, um, the Office of Youth Development, the Youth Service Network . Again, we've made the commitment to work through all your offices. So we're going to push this out through as many networks as as possible. We have strong relationships with the Ministers Alliance and the faith based network as far as sourcing for our other workforce programs. It's really the same approach, but amplifying it to ensure that related to sustainability and climate, that there aren't organizations who we haven't engaged with before that we're missing. And I would recommend also that we reach out to the Long Beach nonprofit partnership, because there's a lot of CBOs there that might do this kind of work. And also, we have a lot of sober living homes with people that are looking for jobs right now. That might be a good place to reach out to as well. Those are just my recommendations, but it's a great program and I thank you for the presentation. Thank you. There is a motion in seconds for public comment on this. There is Dave Shukla. Good evening. It's good to see that the terms of this agreement have evolved and are subject to further iteration. The areas of education, climate change and food security can either be co extensive integrated programs of immediate economic recovery, as a couple of the council members have already stated. Or they can be compartmentalized and at cross-purposes and of little benefit, practical benefit for the increasingly critical and time limited goals that the State of California have set on climate, including SB 1383. You should note that these are goals that have fiscal requirements broadly reducing pollution and climate forcing activities that are principally responsible for them across space and time at scale. I encourage all of you to check out a webinar by the Climate seven Climate Center that was given on the 27th of April titled Investing in Workers for a World Beyond Fossil Fuels. It's 80 minutes. You can find it on YouTube. As many people have noted throughout the process for the development of this Long Beach Youth Employment Corps. These two need to be real jobs, paid jobs, and they do need to lead to real career paths. Especially considering that the Biden administration has just requested $33 billion for what can only really be read as a down payment on World War Three and potentially making all of our efforts here moot. But City Manager Tom Modica, you said more than once that. This city's budget document each year is the principal expression of the city's values. So I do hope you hear me that this is perhaps a once in a lifetime opportunity for this city to shape what took years to build out in the dirty energy economy here. Mm hmm. In the novel. In many cases, in American human history. In the 1920s, 1980s, 2000, whenever it was 1940. These are things that are going to have to be rebuilt, reconstituted, reconstructed for climate resiliency in months. And the timeline is more than one other leader mentioned is pretty critical. Admit I was looking forward to that cross seeing what that crossed with most. But the one last thing I'd like to say is. You know, if this just goes into things like anaerobic digestion or helping the reef centralize the grid for their own interests. You're going to fail these kids and you're going to feel what limited time there is left to do something realistic for all of our future. Thank you. I conclude from a comment, I believe. So we have a motion in a second. Please cast your votes. I'm super not. Thank you. Motion is carried. Thank you. Item number 19 Please.