Recommendation to authorize the City of Long Beach to sign an Amicus Brief in support of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Council 31 in the matter of Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 31 (United States Supreme Court).
Motion carries. Thank you. Moving right along. I don't. Number 21, please. Communication from Mayor Garcia. Councilwoman Gonzalez, Councilman Andrews, Councilmember Urunga, Vice Mayor Richardson. Recommendation to authorize the city of Long Beach to sign an amicus brief in support of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council. 31 In a matter in the matter of Janice versus AFSCME Council 31. Thank you. I'm going acknowledge Councilman Austin and. Yes, thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor. I'm going to have to recuse myself because I do work for the AFSCME. And so, yeah, I work as myself and I'll be back shortly. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So I had a conversation with Mayor Garcia about this item. And this is an issue that many of the many of us have tracked for years. And it's the it's an attack on a fundamental, fundamental public sector sort of standard called agency shop. And that's in question at the Supreme Court. And so agency shop essentially ensures that all employees, no matter whether you sign a union card or not, you are entitled to the benefits of whatever that contract is. So if if there's a contract that says we're getting out raises that ensures that whether you sign a union card or not, you're entitled to those rate wages because you have you sort of have been you are entitled to that right. As a part of that bargaining unit. And so public sector governments have been sort of built around this and, you know, over the years. And it would fundamentally change giant change the employer employee relationship should this this Supreme Court decision go go a certain way. And so this motion is the request that the city of Long Beach go ahead and participate in the amicus brief, which allows us to give our perspective on the issue. And so that's the motion. I'm fully supportive here. And so next I'll hand it to Councilwoman Gonzalez. Yes. I, too, want to thank Mayor Garcia for bringing it forward. I'm also in in staunch support of our members that ask me, and I look forward to seeing what comes next. But I certainly support this. And thank you. Thank you, Councilman Andrews. Yes. Yes. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I also support the mayors, you know, for bringing this item forward, because I would like to say that this is an incredibly important case for local rights and workers rights. You know, this city should be able to negotiate with these workers without interference. You know, our system has had their system here. Long Beach has worked successfully, and you shouldn't fix what hasn't been broken. So I'm proud to support this idea and I will keep Long Beach locally managed and organized. So I want to thank the mayor again for bringing this forward. Thank you, Councilmember Anurag. As a son of a long time union member and brother of Teamsters members as well. I think that support of this measure is very critical to the continuation and strength of unions in the country. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Price. Thank you. I, too, want to support this item and thank my colleagues for bringing it. I've been a member of a public employee union for 19 years, and during that time I've held leadership positions in my union. And I know that the amount of work that goes into the negotiations that union leaders engage in benefits all employees , whether they're actually participating in the union actively or not. Therefore, I think costs should be compensated and that it's only fair that we have this practice be allowed to continue. So thank you. Thank you. Is there any public comment on this item saying no members, please cast your vote. Motion carries. All right. So before we move on to our second public comment, I'd like the Mississippi city attorney. I'd like to recall the item that we we continue. So I want to move to reconsider that. A motion. To reconsider is in order for. That item. So I move to reconsider the item. Second. Well, I don't think you can second this. Got it. Okay. Councilman super knocking. So I'll move in second. The reconsideration. We have to vote on reconsideration before we have to take public comment. And vote on the motion to. Reconsider. Okay. So it won't show up on here, but the motion is myself and Councilmember Suber not. Is there any public comment on the motion to reconsider? Item number 20, which was the item 18, item number 18 saying no public comment. Members cast your vote on on the reconsideration of item 18. Motion carries. Okay. Item set, please read item number 18, please. Communication from Councilwoman Mongeau Councilmember Super nor Councilmember Urunga recommendation to request the City Manager to work with appropriate staff to report to council within 30 days on a potential MRU executed between public safety and water and gas departments. Councilmember Mongo Thank you. I feel like this is a great time for us to look at all of our options related to how things fit together. I appreciate my colleagues for at first choosing to delay this as I was at jury duty and under the judge's direction, unable to leave the courtroom until I could come here as fast as I could. So thank you for that. It means a lot that we take a hard look at the options available in terms of properly accounting for how our services are allocated and paid for. And so I appreciate all of those who will support this item, and I firmly ask for their support. Thanks. And I'll just I'll just add, I think it's important that we continue to review since we are a large, dynamic city and we have enterprise funds in different enterprises that operate differently, that we do regularly update this because we want to make sure that all of them are staffed correctly in public state from a public safety standpoint, and that our public safety folks recoup those costs. So I stand in support, and even though I'm not a signer on this, I stand to support Councilwoman Gonzalez. Yes, I support this as well. I think Councilmember Mongo for bringing it forward. I just have a couple questions. Although I don't see the chief here. Is he not here? Which chief? Chief? Three. I thought we would move this item. Okay. Never mind. Well, then I will hold my questions for later. But that's okay. Thank you so much for bringing this forward. Thank you, Councilmember Pearce. Yeah, I had a couple of questions too, but it's something I'm fully in support of. I've talked to both our chief and some of our firefighters and also looking at making sure that across the board. Here we go. I'm going to give it back to Leena. Then I'm going to let Lena Councilmember Gonzalez ask her questions first. Yes. Sorry we pulled you back in. Thanks, Chief. Just a couple of questions relative to this item. Do we currently have any existing employees of fire and other departments? Vice Mayor, Councilmembers? Yes. As a matter of fact, the fire department has employees in place with both the harbor department and the airport currently. Yes. Okay. And then do we have I know that there was a I don't know if it was on the 2013 to 2014 agenda item that covered the same topic. Is there an update to that? Councilmember I don't have an update to that. I know this this topic has come up in the past, but we could go back and pull the data on that and find out where that stands today. Okay, great. Thank you. Those are my questions. I appreciate it. Councilmember Pierce, you're back up. Thanks. I was going to ask about how many enterprise funds are not included currently. Is it just the ones that are listed in the agenda item? Sorry. Should be. I think we're I think the gentleman asked for a report back. Right. Okay. So I my question was to point out which enterprise funds do not currently partner with fire or PD to put money back in directly for that area. So I know like with the airport, those funds go directly back to the airport. And are there other departments that those funds do not go to? So I look forward to the report back and understanding more which which areas of the city we might be able to have an opportunity to support our critical services. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Grant. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I see this as an excellent opportunity for some cost recovery that are very apparent, does a lot for other departments when they go out and they fix things or stop fires or doing whatever it is for other departments, and I think that they should be compensated for and they should be able to recover some of those costs. So I'm fully supportive of this item. Thank you. Councilmember Andrew. Yes, thank you, Vice Mayor. I'd like to thank our councilwoman, Mrs. Mango, for bringing this item forward, because I can remember back in the past, about 2013, this was a common sense measure, and I share that we would have taken care of this in the years since. But they're here. We are here again. You know, these enterprise activities must be sustainable in their own right. And with our city financial forecast to experience an increased strain in the coming year, we must act appropriately. This is a responsible budget allocation management, just like any family or small business, and we must pursue it. And I want to thank you again for bringing this forward, Mrs. Blanco. Thank you, Councilmember Sabrina. Thank you. The language of this item indicates a 30 day response time. So I just like like to ask city staff if they're. If they see any impediment to getting back to us within 30 days. We certainly can report where we are in 30 days. No worries. No worries. Okay. No worries. Thank you. Thank you. Any public comment on this item? Okay, well, I'll take it back behind the rail. Councilman Mongo. In consideration that this is a continuation of something that's been discussed quite extensively in the last several weeks. Years? Well, even more extensively over the last several weeks. You said you'd report back on where you are. Do you or do you have any hesitation of meeting the 30 day deadline? We won't know. And we'll get into it. We'll look back at the reports that we had in 20 1314. And if we can't come back with a final solution to bring to the council in 30 days, we certainly will report to the council where we are and when we expect to come to conclusion. Then let's you and I check in at 14 days to make sure that we're on time. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. See you. No further public comment. Members, please cast your vote. Motion carries. Thank you. I think it's record, guys. All right. We're moving on to our second public comment. Any members of the public would like to address the city council? I was saying none. We'll go ahead. And you? Well, it's on the wrong screen.