Recommendation to declare ordinance amend the Long Beach Municipal Code by adding Chapter 5.54 relating to hotel worker safety precautions, read and adopted as read.  (Citywide)
Thank you. With that, we're moving on to the next item, which is 42. Communication from City Attorney Recommendation to declare ordinance. Amend the Long Beach Municipal Code relating to hotel worker safety precautions read and adopted as read citywide. Okay. There's a motion in a second. Councilman Price. Thank you. If I could just have clarification from the city attorney on what the passage of WW will have on this ordinance, or vice versa. Yes, Mayor. Members of the Council. With the passage of measure WW. That measure is more restrictive and applies by its definition to hotels or as they define hotels in that initiative of 50 rooms or more. So all of the provisions of that initiative will go into effect pursuant to the election code after the county certifies and it comes to the city council and it's certified by the City Council ten days after that certification. WW will go into effect. So the impact on this ordinance that's before you this evening then would be this ordinance would apply in essence to hotels as defined in this ordinance of 49 rooms or less. And it will also be changed. This ordinance has a an application period or it applies to rooms of 50 or more. Immediately that will be trumped and overruled by measure. WW. So in essence, this would apply to the 49 rooms or less, and they would have up to one year to come into compliance with this ordinance. Great. So as for the public safety piece, only the public safety provisions of WW would then apply to hotels of 49 rooms or less. It meaning panic buttons. I maybe misunderstood that. I think they would apply to 50 rooms or more. The panic buttons the panic buttons that are required by this ordinance would apply to 49 rooms or less. Right? That's what I mean. So this ordinance would augment that public safety piece and apply to a broader group. In essence all hotels and would be required to have the panic button. WWE of their. Size, regardless of their. Size. Got it. Great. Okay, well, I'm glad to be passing an ordinance tonight that takes care of the public safety piece and leaves no one vulnerable regardless of the size of hotel they work with. And I urge my colleagues to support this. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Austin. I second the motion and hope we can put this issue to rest for a while. Thank you, Councilmember Pearce. That'll be so easy. I want to thank at this moment, I want to thank all the workers and the community members that made Measure WW possible passing with 62% of the vote. I know that we've had a lot of discussion here. I hope that we don't have to have a long part of a discussion. But I did want to highlight that there were three different things that were really important to me someone who values writing good policy, who's been a director at a public policy organization for a decade. And these three things were that it did not include contract employees, that the issue that's in front of us tonight does not include a retaliation clause as it is read in measure. WW And that the retaliation part as well as the notification parts are not included. And it's my understanding that if we included those tonight that there would need to be a would have to start the clock over again. Is that correct? That is correct. If we amended it with those provisions, as you've just outlined, it would come back. We would need to rewrite it and it would come back for first reading. Okay. And I do I think that, you know, there's a lot of conversation around all of the items and. WW And so I feel confident that constituents and myself feel that these are really important. I know that my colleague, Councilmember Price, and I have had a couple of conversations. I wanted to ask you if we passed this tonight and came back and I believe it's 31 days with amendments, including all of these. Is that something that you're okay with? I, I would be more than happy to consider any amendments. And I think having a no retaliation clause and applying it to all employees, whether they're contract or not, is totally reasonable. So I'd be I'd look forward to seeing the language of any proposed amendment. But I really do want to close the chapter on this ordinance tonight. And as with any of our ordinances and our muni codes, we can amend them at any time to make them better, more robust, whatever we'd like to do. Okay. I know. You know, for me, this has been an emotional process. And there have been a couple of things that we said were really important to us. One was not doing this before the election, and two was that it included these items that I feel like really do protect hotel workers and make sure that if you have a panic button, you're not scared to use it for fear of retaliation. So it's great to hear you say that you support those two items which are near and dear to me. I want to hear from my council colleagues before I take a vote on this item. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Richardson. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So two things. One, we just had a conversation about a motel ordinance that we're going to be crafting, and I'm sure there's going to be some outreach. And then this this ordinance going to pass tonight. Are there any opportunities to save some money and just have one outreach process that goes to, you know, all because we're talking, frankly, to all the motels about safety, really, that's the common denominator of safety. So can we have one? Is it possible to have one safety conversation as we go out and do outreach with city manager or development services? We just make a mayor councilmember. We can certainly do that, although these are kind of two separate items. So one would definitely be the ordinance that we just passed or that that you're dealing with right now. But I think we'd like to make sure they're on parallel passed, but we can certainly talk to folks at the same time when we're talking to them . I don't know what's going to be first when we get out there and talk to the the motels. But we can certainly do that. But I think ultimately we're going to probably do parallel paths to get the message across on both items. Okay. Because I think there's value. There's value if we're going to engage because some of them are difficult to track down and find some of these these motel owners, these operators, the small folks. I think it makes sense while we're there and we have their captive audience, if the city is going to require panic buttons for them while we're additionally requiring lighting or whatever is going to happen this new ordinance, I just think it makes sense for them to understand that all of these are important to the city, not, you know, one and then the other, and especially if we're talking each other the same way. That makes sense. Okay. Just wanted to make sure this wasn't way out of left field here and then and then the second part is just picking up the conversation. Councilwoman Pryce and Councilwoman Pearce, I'm you know, frankly, with the election behind us, I am looking forward to moving forward with one ordinance that makes sense. And I think it does make sense. I understand that folks want to move forward tonight. I get that. But what I'm unclear on those three things that you mentioned. And so one of them was, you know, if you're an employee, clean the housekeeper. If you're a housekeeper cleaning the room, whether you're, you know, paid for directly as an employee or you're a contractor brought in, the truth is just the same. You're going into a room with the same scenario. And so it sounded like there was consensus in your motion to ask staff to come back with these amendments. And 30 days we look at that when I understand that I would like to there is a there is a way here to adopt the ordinance and give staff direction to come back with it written out so we can evaluate it. No, I actually don't believe legally that that's an option. I, I agree. I think that tonight either your action tonight is either approve the second reading or tell me to change it however you'd like to change it. And we would come back and would come back for first reading. I think what I heard the councilmember from the second district say is, which I think is correct, is that this ordinance within 31 days after it's approved by the mayor would become effective at any point thereafter. You could amend it that day or bring back direct city attorney to amend with A, B and C or D, whatever it is you'd like to change. And we could do it at that time. So the 31 days was after it signed, after it's voted on. Tonight, it goes into effect after. You could amend it any time after it goes into effect. So any day after 31 days. So I guess my question would be, can we just give some direction and say bring that, you know, adopt the ordinance and then a separate motion in addition that says no, now we're post WW, right? We're post WW. There's an interest here in seeing some of those clarifications come back after it's fully implemented. So is there is there a way we can give directions? They make sure that this comes back after a month. I think that kind of brings people together saying both. I think the answer to that is no. I think you what? You either are going to approve an ordinance or are you going to tell me to amend it tonight? You can't do both. Okay. Good to see you, Tony. Thanks. Now some our. Councilmember Price. So I just wanted to say, I think once we approve it tonight and I know you know this, Councilman Richardson, so I'm not trying to like preach or anything. I'm just saying procedurally, I think what will happen is if we want to have an amendment, we'd bring a separate agenda item asking the city attorney to change the ordinance to include this or that. We've done it for a couple of our existing ordinances already that maybe needed some fine tuning in the language so we can make it better or broaden it or whatever we want to do after it's approved. And then we can give them direction at that point through a separate agenda item. And if I may, Councilmember Richardson brought up the point of the employee on the contract. I think in our ordinance, we do cover both the employee and a contract employee who's cleaning. I think where we have a difference with WW is how we define a hotel employer, and that's not including the contract. And so I if I understood the councilman from the second District correctly, that is something she would like to add to include that. Councilmember Pearce. So to be just to clarify on timeline, I think we all want to kind of put the heartache and the pain of this behind us. I really would like to to be able to to vote to support this. And I think to trust that the council is there and that so that's kind of the process part. So. We have 31 days after the mayor signs it, then we can bring back the ordinance. We can't bring it back sooner than the mayor signs it. Well, I think you could bring back an action agenda. Is it at the next meeting or whenever after the mayor signs it? We would probably bring it back after the effective date to amend that ordinance. We don't have an effective ordinance to amend until that time, but you could next week put something on to say we want to change it or in the next council meeting or whatever period time. And then the next question is on the timing. So the way that the ordinance is written is it's a 12 month implementation plan. So while it would be 31 days and maybe three months until we finally have a final change with the amendments, that's not to say that in those next three months, you guys are already going to have. This rolled out. That's a great question. I think what we would do is if. If it's approved this evening. The ordinance allows these hotels that will fall under this ordinance up to 12 months to come into compliance if there's something that's placed on the agenda immediately or shortly hereafter. We would wait because we don't know what the council's going to do if you're going to be changing or before we start sending out some sort of notices to the employer, we don't want send mixed messages to the hotels. So we would probably wait. And something else you could consider if you are going to amend it is to extend that period out. And it would you would start the 12 month clock again or you could change that, you know, period of time. That was part of the original motion to allow these hotels to have up to 12 months to come into compliance so that they can, if it's a burden on them to purchase or how they're going to do it. And then my my next question is for city manager. Have you guys. Thought about how your outreach as. I know that no outreach has been done yet to the 12 motels are boutique hotels on my district yet. There's been no plan yet. So given that it's a long time that they have 12 months to be able to actually implement it. We looked to basically do business licensing, reach out to those. The latest I don't have a number of how many are 50. And below, but just for. Scale, the. Number of. Properties that. Have 100 or below is 40. So we're looking at a relatively small population that we would reach out to each one of them, and we could do that in writing and say, here's what the the ordinance was passed, give them a copy of a. Of a summary letter, and then, of course. Provide the ordinance so we could do that whenever you're ready. And I would I would also just recommend if there is going to be changes beyond if the if the ordinance is adopted tonight and if there's going to be changes, then those should be submitted as soon as possible, I would say. And so I think that you don't have to wait for a signature. You can submit that agenda item. That's what I was looking for. I think, you know, as soon as possible so that we know what the final product is. I would think so. Any other public comment or I'm sorry, public comment on this item is seeing none. Let me go back let me go back to the council on the other council. Then let's go ahead and do the roll call vote by. I'm sorry, is there is there a comment, by the way, that a comment from Councilor Mongo or. Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. Sorry to interject myself here. You know, one of the biggest issues that we had with his ordinance right from the beginning was that it was our belief. My belief that it was for the structure, poorly written. They're not really as comprehensive as WWF. From what I'm hearing now is that if we were to adopt this ordinance, it would take us that much longer to reach a middle ground that would be acceptable to everybody. I don't see that happening. I think that this ordinance still has issues we still need to work on. Any of that is in fact what we want to do with the passage of WW. I think we have a good ordinance there that we can abide by. While it might be a good thing for the this this ordinance to pass to deal with the hotel, hoteliers that are 49 rooms and under is still not it's not as comprehensive as we had been arguing for for the last year. So just to let you know that I'm not supportive of it and that's where I want to. Okay. Thank you, Councilmember Councilwoman Price. Thank you. And I appreciate Councilman Randy's comments. I do want to take a moment to thank and appreciate the work of Linda Vu, the attorney who helped draft this ordinance. I completely disagree with Councilman Arango regarding whether it was poorly or properly drafted. I think it was drafted very well. And ironically, much of the language was exactly the same as WW. So a big thanks to the city attorney's office for ensuring that there was consistency and synergy on the public policy piece. I want to make sure that our city staff gets the recognition they deserve for doing the work that we've asked them to do, even if we don't agree with the premise of what they were asked to do. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. I do have a broader question, Mr. City Attorney. Maybe this is to the city manager. It's just more of a compliance question. I know that, you know, regardless of the outcome tonight and if this passes and then the broader question about all the hotels, including the smaller ones, is do we have a strategy on the compliance side? I think there is some compliance language in the law in the broader WW language. And can you just speak to that? I've had some questions about that. Yes. Maybe the WWE does have a self help, basically section and enforcement mechanism. This would be fall under city staff through code enforcement and business license to enforce the provisions of this if there are violations by the hotels. And we can do that through administrative lines, through citations. And so that's how this ordinance would be affected. But as far as WWE is concerned, though, isn't there also a compliance piece that the the city is responsible for in the larger measure, or am I wrong? Currently there is is not. It does allow the city to consider adopting rules and regulations to if necessary. That's one thing after the implementation. If if, you know, we get down the road and have some experience with this and we believe that there's additional measures that the city needs to take to make sure that the hotels are complying with it. The city has the council has that ability to do so. Okay. Well, thank you. Let me go back, Councilwoman Gonzales. Thank you. So I just want to be clear as well that we will move this if this should pass and move forward, then if there is interest in create. So we. So basically we would have to create another agenda item versus just making the amendment tonight, but yet we would still be on the same timeline. The timeline would slip a little bit, right. Because if if it passes this evening, the process of it becoming effective begins in the 31 days. Clock would begin probably tomorrow. The if there's another agenda item to now modify what is adopted this evening, we would make those changes. It would come back for a first reading, a second reading on the amendment, and then the 31 days would start. So I don't have a calendar in front of me, but if we depending on when this proposed amendments come, if there's a three identified, they'd be pretty quick too for us to be able to return that back to council. And I know I can't predict the future. On what would happen if we move forward with another agenda item. But I just think that to have amendments now seems like it would be a little bit more expedient versus waiting for an agenda item. Hopefully it passes and then waiting some more time to get that implementation done. So I just wanted to be clear on that. Okay. Thank you very much. I too think that although we had a city staff member who generously provided language for this item, we appreciate that certainly very much. I do also think that there were components missing relative to the W.W. item, and I, too, am glad that voters certainly decided overwhelmingly about that item. So thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman Councilmember Richardson. Just just one additional thing. So I think and I liked that the conversation got really narrowed to just what's the difference between, you know, this and WW and what I'd like to see. So we move forward with this ordinance tonight. But what I actually see is just a very brief to form for that just outlines the differently the to to help support the crafting of what the amendments are. Because really we're talking about two or three very narrow changes that make that aligns it with. WW The differences between this ordinance and WW. I think pertaining. To the public safety. If you're only talking about. Yes, there is the other provision of the work search. Yes, yeah. Without talking about that piece, just talking about the safety side, I'm really interested in how they're like seeing the language or how they're different. So can we have just the two front four come back just talking about the differences in those two. Yes. Okay, Councilwoman, you go with that. The memo. Okay. So you set that friendly. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. See no other comments and no other comments from the outside. Location. Madam Clerk, please call the room. Councilwoman Gonzalez. Councilmember Pierce. Councilwoman Price. Councilmember. Super Now. Councilwoman Mongo. Vice Mayor. Andre. Councilmember. Councilman Austin. Councilmember Richardson. Did we hear from. I think that was everyone but Councilman Mongo. Councilwoman Mongo. I. Oh, there she goes. I better say that. Okay. Thank you very much. Motion carries. Moving on to the next item, 32.