Recommendation to conduct a Budget Hearing to receive and discuss an overview of the Proposed Fiscal Year 2022 Budget for the departments of Fire, Police, and Parks, Recreation and Marine.  (Citywide)
We're going to hear all of the presentations at once. And then after we go through all the presentations, we'll do all the all of the questions at once and then any any public comment, and we'll go from there. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. It was our pleasure to give you an overview of the budget last Tuesday, we transmitted that officially to the mayor and city council and the public. And now we're looking to really dove deeper in some of the key departments. Today, we want to go through three key departments, the fire department. Then we'll go through our police department and then Parks, Recreation and Marine. So I will turn it over to Chief Espino and his team to go through the fire department presentation first followed by police, followed by Parks and Rec. It's. Thank you, Mr. Monaco. Good evening. Mayor Garcetti and members of the City Council. This evening, I will be providing a brief overview of the fire department, highlighting the key services that we provide to the community and some of our recent accomplishments. Additionally, I will share our focus proposed budget changes and some of the major challenges and opportunities that we foresee for the upcoming fiscal year. The Long Beach Fire Department delivers fire rescue, emergency medical services, marine safety response, hazardous materials response, and non-emergency response services. We provide a 24 hour operation 365 days a year. Our personnel are well-equipped and highly trained to mitigate all emergencies. The fire department strives to make Long Beach a better place to live, visit, work and own a business. Additionally, we work to ensure the safety of the community through proactive fire prevention activities, including code enforcement, fire investigation and proactive community outreach. We also provide training and education that is essential to the delivery of our core fire and rescue services. I would now like to present some of the fire department's accomplishments and highlights for the current fiscal year. Over the past 12 months, we've responded to over 80,000 fire, emergency medical services, marine safety and other emergency incidents, a 5% increase from last year. Since many incidents require multiple units to respond. These 80,000 incidents equate to more than 155,000 unit responses. Included in this number are over 55,000 medical calls and over 7500 fire calls. This number has steadily increased over the years, approximately 35% since 2005, when the department had even more resources. This number also includes hazardous material responses, airport responses and other non fire responses. I continue to be very proud of the work that the men and women of the Fire Department do for the community. Since the first days of the pandemic, they have come to work every day, answering every call, despite the danger and potential harm to themselves. In January of the third year of the pandemic, our first responders provided uninterrupted emergency services to the community during the COVID omicron surge. While nearly 100 fire personnel were in isolation. Our arson staff remained very busy. As a number of arson related fires continues to increase. Arson staff investigated 381 arson fires, which resulted in 78 arrests. These numbers continue to increase. One of the driving factors for this is the sharp increase in outdoor fires, specifically those near freeways and rivers. These types of fires have increased by 320% since 2018, from 199 to 637. As in all fire responses. These fires require a large amount of fire resources for a prolonged period of time. In an effort to reduce the number of injuries to fire department personnel caused by heavy lifting. We have purchased and installed an innovative patient lift system on all of our ambulances. With these lift systems, one individual first responder can safely and efficiently load a patient weighing up to £700 into an ambulance. Expanding our partnership with the state of California. The Long Beach Fire Department took delivery of a Type six fire apparatus from the State Office of Emergency Services. This apparatus is being used for statewide mutual aid incidents as well as local all risk events, emergency incidents and disaster responses. This apparatus is currently in Northern California assisting in the McKinney Fire, which has caused four deaths and is at 55% containment. In the current fiscal year, we've received over $4 million in Homeland Security grants through a combination of urban area security initiative, state homeland security grant program and port security grant program funds. These funds allow us to make one time purchases of equipment that is critical to our mission. Grant funds also support training to staff in many in many of our specialty programs, such as Hazardous Materials and Urban Search and rescue. Of the 29 local fire agencies that compete for these grant funds, Long Beach typically receives 20% of available funds. For comparison purposes, Los Angeles County and Los Angeles City fire departments, who are approximately seven times our size each typically receive 30% of available funds annually. In our continuing effort to eliminate bias and foster an environment of diversity, inclusion and equity staff from our Diversity Recruitment Program partnered with the City Manager's Equity Office to deliver the racial equity one on one course throughout the fire department. To date, over 70% of staff have received this training, and our goal is to have all fire department staff trained by the end of fiscal year 23. We continued our participation in Jordan High School's Public Safety Pathway Program. Through the efforts of our Diversity Recruitment Program in partnership with Long Beach Unified School District. We are introducing more students each year to the possibility of a career in the fire service. This is one of our long term strategies for increasing diversity in the Long Beach Fire Department. The Diversity Recruitment Program will also host the second annual Long Beach Fire Department Female Firefighter Career Workshop later this month. This is a one day event that prepares candidates to succeed in the fire recruit examination by providing information on the application and testing process. It continues to be a popular and highly successful event. But. Through the efforts of our Fighter Diversity Recruitment program, we graduated a diverse class of 20 firefighters. We also conducted multiple ambulance operator academies, resulting in 40 new ambulance operators. Two staff are increasingly busy basic life support units. Additionally, we conducted a successful Fire Engineer Academy with 16 promotional candidates in an effort to reduce the spread of COVID 19. Fire department staff from our Fire Boat program partnered with the Department of Health and Human Services to provide COVID 19 vaccinations to crew members on commercial ships that were docked in the Port of Long Beach. Additionally, fire staff continues to assist the health department with their mobile vaccination clinic, reaching those who are unable to get to vaccination sites. Finally, over 900 youth participated in the Junior Lifeguard program this year due to the proactive outreach efforts of our Marine Safety Division in recent years. This summer program, which has been in operation since 1969, continues to grow in number and diversity. The fire department has several major areas of focus for fiscal year 23. The first is to address the steady increase in coal volume and to maintain or improve response times to fires, emergency medical and other emergency responses. We are working with our medical director to analyze and provide recommendations. For adapting how we respond to incidents and perhaps what incidents we respond to in an effort to minimize response times. Innovative solutions such as telemedicine and alternate destinations may be explored. Firefighter safety and behavioral health continue to be significant issues in the fire service. Firefighters are under a tremendous amount of stress working on the front lines during the pandemic, witnessing tragic events firsthand and working long hours. They and their families are impacted by all of this. The health and Safety of Fire Department staff is one of my highest priorities as fire chief. To that end, we have trained peer counselors and made the services of mental health clinicians available to all staff. We need to ensure that everyone in the department is aware of these services. Remove any stigma associated with obtaining help and increase these services as funding allows. Another priority is to increase diversity in all ranks of the fire department through recruitment and training opportunities. Programs like the Female Firefighter Career Workshop prep sessions and the Fire Services curriculum at Jordan High School are all part of our short term and long term solutions to improving the diversity of the department. A significant focus area for the fire department in fiscal year 23 is to maintain staffing and resources to meet service demands of citywide growth. The demand for fire and emergency medical services will increase with the vertical density in the downtown areas and throughout the city. The continued increase in EMS calls and the increase in outdoor fires, especially those near freeways and rivers. The anticipated retirement of our leadership in the management and supervisory ranks creates a great opportunity to develop the next generation of leadership. This has always been a focus of mine and it will remain so in the next year. Officer development efforts include participation in the Leadership Long Beach Institute and Executive Leadership Program, USC, Sol Price Leadership Program and other local and regional training. The Fleet Services Bureau continues to update fire's front line vehicles that respond to fires, emergency medical services and other incidents over the next three years. We will replace ten fire engines, one airport crash rig, hazardous materials vehicle and our mobile command center. I want to thank the Fleet Services Bureau for their support and partnership in this area. Another focus area is to improve compliance with mandated fire prevention inspections. This includes hotels, apartments and residential care facilities. To help us to meet these requirements. We've hired three additional civilian inspectors approved in the fiscal year 22 budget and are now fully staffed in this area. Finally, we continue to streamline the fire plan check review process to meet service demands while ensuring the public safety. Despite the pandemic, we have been able to keep up with the workload and are committed to this continued level of service. We are currently collaborating with the Department of Technology and Innovation to increase efficiencies through an electronic inspection program. Other fire agencies who have used this technology report significant increases in efficiencies up to 40%. The Fiscal Year 23 budget includes several important investments for the fire department. The first is to structurally add measure funding of 609,000 to provide the anticipated city match for the Schaefer Grant to help fund the continued operation of Engine 17, which has been funded through one time investments since October of 2019. This amount represents the difference in the cost to operate Engine 17 and the amount of grant funding we're expecting to receive. We expect to find out whether we will be funded by the end of September if the city is not awarded the grant. Staff will revisit the measure, plan allocations and bring back to the City Council an alternative funding approach for Engine 17 operations. Additionally, we're requesting the addition of an administrative analyst to improve our admin administrative investigation and public records processes. Public Records Act requests continue to steadily increase. Fire staff currently handle 1400 requests per year. Since fiscal year 20, the City Council has supported the Fire Diversity Recruitment Program with one time funding. We are grateful for this support, which has resulted in the implementation of community partnerships and short and long term strategies to improve diversity in the fire department. The proposed fiscal year 23 budget includes structural funding for the fire captain, who functions as the diversity recruitment and partnerships coordinator. This ongoing structural funding is critical for the continued long term success of this program. The next two investments are program enhancements that are fully offset by revenue in fiscal year 22. The city began a partnership with the UCLA Medical Center in which a Long Beach Fire Department firefighter paramedic staffs UCLA's mobile stroke unit along with a stroke neurologist, critical care nurse and CTE technician. The Mobile Stroke Unit responds as part of the 911 emergency response system and delivers proven stroke therapies to patients in the field, improving immediate patient outcomes and reducing patient long term disability. The fiscal year 23 budget proposes to add this position structurally. Finally, we are proposing additional non-career lifeguards staffing to provide the staff support needed for our growing junior lifeguard program. The cost of the additional staff are offset by the increase in Junior Lifeguard program revenue and our agreements with the Long Beach Unified School District. Outside of the summer season. These lifeguards will be available to staff COVID 19 testing and vaccination sites. The fire department continues to work closely with public works, management and staff to improve our fire facilities. This slide provides an outline of these facility improvements. First is a relocation of fire station nine. The five year plan includes partial funding for a new fire station, which will be strategically located on Long Beach Boulevard to better serve the community. Improvements to fire stations 11 and 13 are also planned. These addressed deferred maintenance as well as kitchen and bathroom renovations. Funding for Fire Station 14 will address workforce privacy needs, deferred maintenance and energy efficiency upgrades. Finally, the plan includes partial funding for the expansion of the David Rosa Regional Fire Training Center. Improvements include additional space for classrooms and offices and workforce privacy renovations. The department will face several significant challenges in fiscal year 23. First, as I mentioned earlier, service demands, staffing levels, the pandemic and the types of calls that we see have led to firefighter safety and behavioral health concerns. Increased development, specifically vertical density in the downtown area and throughout the city will increase service demands, leading to an increase in emergency responses and response times. On a related note, the Department will also need to begin preparing for the upcoming emergency service demands brought on by the 2028 Summer Olympic Games, which will significantly increase the daily population in the city. We have front line safety equipment that is nearing the end of their useful lives and are in need of replacement. Items such as the breathing apparatus that the firefighters use are due for replacement in the next couple of years at a significant cost. The fire department will continue to explore additional grant funding for these items. Similarly, our first responders work 24 hour shifts, living in and responding from fire stations and marine safety facilities, some of which are old and have significant health and maintenance issues. A plan for repair and replacement of these facilities, including identifying a funding source, will be necessary to respond to this challenge. Finally, wildfires throughout the region and the state continue to pose a challenge as they grow in size and frequency. We also have several opportunities coming up. First, while anticipated retirement of our leadership in the management and supervisory ranks creates somewhat of a challenge. It also is a great opportunity to develop the next generation of leadership. As I mentioned earlier, the fiscal year 23 budget proposes the continued support of the FIA diversity recruitment program. This structural funding provides a great opportunity for us to continue our short term and long term relationships and recruitment strategies with the goal of increasing the diversity of our staff throughout the organization. I want to again thank the City Manager and City Council for your continued support of this program. Another opportunity is the potential for grant funding to support training for our specialized programs such as Hazardous Materials, Urban Search and Rescue Fiable Program and Airport Rescue and firefighting. As well as to support the acquisition of needed equipment, including breathing apparatus and personal protective equipment. Finally, we have an opportunity for improved efficiencies in the EMS system. We are working with our medical director in the Los Angeles County EMS Agency to explore the possibility of implementing alternate destination and telemedicine pilot programs. Thank you for for front for providing me this opportunity to present the fire department's fiscal year 23 budget. We're available to respond to any questions you may have. Thank you. We're going to have to move on to the next presentation. The next presentation will be if you wish. So I'll cover just a couple. Thank you, Mr. Modica. Ms.. Tatum. Good afternoon, Honorable Mayor and members of the City Council. I'm very excited to be presenting the Police Department's proposed FY 23 budget. My first as Chief of Police for our great city. The last few years have been unprecedented. Our police officers and professional staff have experienced increased anxiety and feelings of depletion, yet they return to work each day to serve our entire Long Beach community. They do this because their work has purpose. They do this because they are needed. Although some have chosen to leave the department or the profession altogether, the vast majority, the vast majority have chosen to spend their entire careers with the Long Beach Police Department. I believe this is because we're not your typical major city police department. We're large enough to be a world class organization offering specialized services and innovative training, but small enough to maintain close relationships centered around problem solving and innovation. Our mental evaluation teams, quality of life teams and outreach programs such as neighborhood walks are excellent examples of how we listen, learn and respond to the needs of our community. We know that we've made mistakes and we're not perfect. No person, no group, and no police department is. However, regardless of the circumstances or situation, the police officers and professional staff of this department continue to be here each day, providing a multitude of services to our community. They listen. They engage. And they strive to enhance the quality of life for all people in our city. In the face of a nationwide pandemic, rising violent crime rates and unprecedented attacks on police officers, their commitment to serve is unwavering and inspiring. They're always willing to do more to ensure everyone in our community has opportunity to thrive. Every year we discuss a variety of public safety services we provide, including emergency response and calls for service criminal investigations, including victim support and advocacy, and safeguarding our public while protecting critical infrastructure and key resource locations from international and domestic threats. However, we should also discuss the resources we dedicate to our many partnerships and collaborations, like working with the City Prosecutor's Office on Alternatives Incarceration. Partnering with community organizations such as TIP, the Trauma Intervention Program to provide support to people after critical incidents. Collaborating with the Fire Department and Emergency Communication Center to better link public safety responses. Or joining with our health department as part of the city's interdepartmental team addressing homelessness. These and so many other partnerships are the reason we're able to do the work that we do. Here you see the call volume we're currently experiencing, which further exemplifies how hard our officers are working. Year to date, officers have responded to over 100,000 calls for service, which is nearly 600 calls a day. Although we've had to make several operational modifications through the years, our response time to priority one or emergency calls continues to be one of the best in the nation at an average of about 5 minutes. Like many major cities, we experienced an increase in violent crime at the beginning of 2022. However, we remain focused and resolute. We developed strategies and our employees adapted to several operational changes. Our efforts have resulted in a notable downward trend in violent crime. And after starting 22, 2022, with a 17.4% increase, we've now seen that number shrink to a 5.4% increase year to date. The accessibility of firearms has also contributed to some of the violence we're experiencing this year. Our officers have worked vigorously to address gun crime in the illegal possession of firearms. Oftentimes, they do this at great risk to their own lives. As of June, we've had a 16% reduction in shootings, and we've made over 350 arrests for firearm related crimes. That's an increase of 6% over last year. 51% of these arrests involve people forbidden by law from possessing firearms. And this year alone, officers have seized over 450 firearms, which includes a 23% increase in the recovery of personally manufactured firearms known as pimps or ghost guns. Moving into the second half of this year, we'll continue analyzing data, identifying trends and strategizing on creative ways to address gun violence and other crime. The most devastating crime we experienced is homicide. And while every homicide is tragic, we are not dissuaded and we continue to work toward bringing justice to the families and loved ones of victims . Among our accomplishments, you'll see we have a homicide clearance rate of 77%. This is well above the national average, which is a park which is approximately a 50% clearance rate. There are many factors that contribute to our effectiveness in this area, including a rapid reaction and response by patrol officers, immediate follow up by our Special Investigations Division and the excellent investigative efforts of our homicide detectives. In addition, when communities trust the police, people are more inclined to become witnesses to violent crime. We understand this, and all of these factors combined are necessary to achieve the results we're seeing. I'd also like to highlight the work we've done to address dangerous, illegal street racing exhibitions known as street takeovers. Recently, the City Council supported our efforts and voted on a street takeover ordinance to assist us in combating this extremely hazardous trend. In addition, the police department joined other agencies to work collaboratively and improve information sharing. We deployed extra resources to serve as a visual deterrent, and we conducted proactive traffic enforcement whenever we became aware of a pending street race street racing takeover event. To date, our officers have issued 240 citations related to street racing takeovers. We've also continued our work supporting city efforts to address homelessness. Our community outreach response and enforcement model consists of quality of life officers, the mental evaluation team and Los Angeles County clinicians, along with many of our other partners, are doing amazing work. Year to date, they've offered services to over 5000 persons experiencing homelessness and have found temporary and permanent housing for over 200 people. The wellness of our employees is a top priority and must be supported through strategy and practice. We're making tremendous strides in addressing employee wellness and overcoming the stigma associated with trauma in law enforcement. We've onboarded a new administrator to strengthen our worker's compensation and employee leave programs, and we're implementing a structured peer support program along with trauma resiliency training. We also recognize the intersection between employee wellness and community wellness, and we continue supporting trauma informed care in a variety of ways, such as having community liaison officers available on critical incidents, facilitating and coordinating responses from TIP volunteers, and engaging with our health department to provide emotional support to those impacted during a traumatic event. I can't discuss Officer Wellness without acknowledging that one of the biggest challenges facing law enforcement today is recruitment and retention. And unfortunately, the Long Beach Police Department is no exception. Staffing shortfalls in a diminished interest in the profession are plaguing our department. Hiring, training and keeping police officers has never been more critical to the evolution and advancement of this organization. We're constantly assessing recruitment efforts and working to implement ways to reach future police recruit candidates, including those from underrepresented groups in law enforcement. We've signed on to initiatives like the 30 by 30 campaign with a focus of increasing female representation to 30% by 2030. And thanks to the recruitment and hiring efforts of our employees, we've increased female representation in our next Academy class by 114% over the prior class. We've also continued our collaboration with civil service, working on new projects such as our newest recruitment tool, the HLB PD Fit Truck, which is now used to engage community and potential recruits at various events and parades. To help increase our communication, transparency and engagement, we've developed a community advisory committee to help inform and shape department policies, and we engage our neighborhoods through division, specific events and commander forums. Our Office of Constitutional Policing works to ensure practices match policy through ongoing collaborations, such as our Current Data Analysis Project with the Center for Police Equity. And our media relations team has created a communications plan to better engage the public by delivering information more efficiently and effectively . We've increased our social media footprint and even created a daily crime blotter on our department website. As we move beyond the tumultuous past few years and as our city now experiences an economic health and public safety recovery, we realize that the Long Beach Police Department is well positioned to expand on past advancements and explore new transformational opportunities . Today's FY 23 budget proposal reflects a unified vision for the department focusing and prioritizing in the following key areas crime and homelessness. Acknowledging and supporting employee and community wellness and enhancing internal and external communication models. Built on a foundation of accountability, trust and transparency. Although we're proposing many unique and creative changes, the police department's structural budget request for FY 23 our cost neutral to the general fund offset by a strategic reorganization that realigns the Department budget and operations to address current and anticipated needs and provides a more efficient coordination of police services. To fulfill this vision. Significant focus and structure are needed. That's why I'm proposing the creation of a new bureau in our department. The new Collaborative Response and Engagement Bureau, or CRC for short. This bureau will be overseen by our newest Deputy Chief and focus on goals that enhance collaborative public safety models and build meaningful relationships between the police department and the public. Kerry will be responsible for many of the programs and partnerships that currently promote these goals. And the new bureau will consist of two divisions the Community Outreach Response and Enforcement Division and the Youth and Community Services Division. Kerry will prioritize efforts aligned with disrupting primary factors of crime through relationship based community policing models. To accomplish this, we propose the addition of 20 new police officers comprised of 16 new bike officers, four per patrol division assigned to divisional areas such as open spaces, parks and corridors or any areas in the division with immediate public safety needs and for additional quality of life officers to augment our citywide efforts to address homelessness. These four quality of life officers will join our current cadre to form two officer teams. Each team will represent a specific patrol division while also maintaining the ability to work as a single quality of life officer when necessary. For altogether as an entire eight officer quality of life unit for large citywide operations. All 20 police officers will be able to respond to calls for service and service patrol officers as well. Youth engagement is critical to successful public safety. The Department proposes moving the Community Engagement Division under the CRC Bureau and renaming it the Youth and Community Services Division. Additionally, we propose to structurally fund a police cadet program of up to five cadets annually. The cadet program will introduce law enforcement careers to young adults and help establish a pathway for future PD, police officers and civilian employees, all while providing paid work experience to our community's younger demographic. We're proposing additional department adjustments to assist us in supporting community needs and organizational growth while providing fair, just and ethical policing in our city. Will accomplish this by expanding the scope of the Internal Affairs Division and renaming it the Professional Standards Division. The division will add a new professional development section with two new civilian police investigators, while the Internal Affairs section will continue investigating allegations of misconduct. The Professional Development Section will focus on employee development and professional success to reviews of early warning signs and identifying areas for improvement through retraining or counseling. To better reflect the mission of being a data and form department, we proposed reorganizing and renaming the Administration Bureau to the Strategic Initiatives Bureau. Under the Strategic Initiatives Bureau, the Office of Constitutional Policing, OCP will be expanded from three four years to nine FTEs transferred from other divisions. This increase in OCP staffing will help us broaden their scope to include the manual orders and policy section responsible for ensuring policies are aligned with legal mandates, best practices and community expectations. Also under strategic initiatives were adding two administrative aid positions to the Public Records Compliance Division. Their workload is increased by 46% since 2019, and it's expected to continue to increase based on legal mandates. Effective communication shapes both the delivery and perception of services we provide. That's why I'm proposing a communications division which reports directly to the chief of police. The communications division will include our current media relations team and executive communications administrator. In order to replenish our ranks. We're currently recruiting candidates for back to back to back police academy. Class 96 begins on August 29th with 59 recruits. Class 97 is scheduled to begin in the spring of 2023, and we anticipate being ready for a third class sometime in FY 24. In addition, we're proposing a new administrative analyst position to focus on expanding inclusion and advancement efforts and to further support labor relations and move new initiatives forward. A clean and professional workspace for our personnel is central to maintaining a workforce that feels respected and valued. This budget proposes increasing the hours of current staff and adds two new part time employees so we can provide evening and weekend custodial services at our facilities that operate 24 hours a day and seven days a week. Finally, responsibility in the Business Operations Bureau has grown significantly and now includes oversight of department fleet and body worn camera programs. We propose adding a contract and grants officer to provide dedicated oversight in support of department wide operations. In addition to structural programs funded through our operating budget, I'm grateful to the Mayor and the City Council for their proposed additional investments in public safety, including funds for two years of outreach and cleanup along the river beds and additional overtime funds for crime and violence prevention. Additionally, as part of the city's new five year infrastructure plan, we're thankful to receive one time funds necessary to start the rebuild of our police academy. An initial funding for a new crime and evidence lab. The challenges ahead must be met with sufficient resources to manage the rigorous pace of requests and expectations that exist in today's law enforcement environment. We've weathered some of the most dramatic increases in violent crime in a decade. A stream of unfunded legislative mandates with unworkable timelines and antiquated technology and paper processes that hamper operational efficiencies. This, in addition to an already exhausted, stressed and disillusioned workforce, exasperate the challenges. But in these challenges, we find opportunity. The ability of our employees to serve through crisis and remain vigilant during difficult times is impressive. Yes, I'm concerned about our capacity for the challenges ahead, but I'm also encouraged by the service and resilience of this department and all those that work here. We look forward to developing new strategies that promote relationship based policing, models that engage our community and that build partnerships to reduce crime and improve everyone's quality of life. We're committed to promoting fair and equitable systems in all areas of the department. We'll continue exploring ways to leverage new technology and improve operational efficiencies to help modernize our services or seek new grant opportunities that enhance employee and community training and develop partnerships with research and educational institutions. In closing, I'd like to again express how honored I am to lead the officers and professional staff of the Long Beach Police Department and how appreciative I am for the dedicated service they provide each day. Our department will continue to evolve and move forward, building on our existing strengths and taking advantage of opportunities for growth and renewal. Our priorities around crime and homelessness, employee and community wellness and open communication will help guide us further into 21st century policing, while also supporting the shared responsibility of public safety in the city of Long Beach. Thank you. Myself and Bureau Chief Josie Murray stand ready to answer any questions they can. A presentation, please. Good evening, Honorable Mayor and members of City Council. It's my pleasure to present to you the Department of Parks, Recreation, Marine and Animal Care Services 2023 proposed budget. The proposed budget will allow our department team members to continue passing forward their passion to bringing joy to all from infants to older adults and our companion dogs and cats . The department's key services are aligned to implement the Department's Strategic Plan, which was adopted by City Council earlier this year. The Strategic Plan focuses on park equity, community identified goals, values and actions to guide operational staffing and budgeting decisions through the department. The Department is committed to providing a vibrant park system where everyone is welcome and can thrive. Our dedication is further reinforced by performing maintenance and stewardship for all of our parks, facilities, beaches and open spaces. We're very proud to further promote responsible pet ownership and the humane treatment of animals in alignment with our Compassion Saves model. Saving every treatable animal that comes into our shelter requires significant resources, and we work hard to provide care for our furry friends. We're fortunate to have the largest municipally run marina system in the nation, and it's our goal to make sure our marine facilities and waterways are fiscally sound in order to repay bond debt and be of excellent quality for the enjoyment of our local boating community. Developing strong partnerships that supplement and complement our award winning parks and recreation programs continues to benefit the community. For example, we've been able to take our partnership with the Boys and Girls Club at Martin Luther King Jr Park to the next level with an amazing transformation and upgrade to the gym. Thanks to the support of the Steph Curry Foundation and under armor, another dimension of the project is Snoop Dogg's underwriting of a marvel comic artist to refresh and enliven the facility's décor. Partnerships can also help fulfill community needs, such as our relationship with food finders at Admiral Kidd Park. Nearly half a million Long Beach residents benefit each day by services and programs that are offered by our department. 6 million visitors travel to Long Beach each year, many of whom enjoy our nationally acclaimed parks, beaches and open spaces. The department has the capacity to contribute to the local economy by having events at our facilities, parks and on our beaches. The scope of how large our department is and the diversity of the amenities and services we offer take a strong, supportive workforce at the peak of our busy summer season. Our department is a local workforce powerhouse, employing over 700 staff, many of whom are experiencing their first job ever. We're extremely proud of the many accomplishments this past year, including the completion of our strategic plan. All year, staff collaborated with our partners, provided recruitment and training of our employees, and processed thousands of permits and reservations. Staff also secured 11 park grants totaling over $28 million. Grant funds afford us the opportunity to provide community services, new amenities, and new and improved parks. I'm happy to report that Animal Care Services reached a very high adoption rate of 60% and achieved a live release rate of 92%. Our increased focus on the FOSTER program has resulted in many positive outcomes. This could not be done without our dedicated staff, volunteers and community partners. As our department eases out of COVID restrictions and we see our programs returning to pre-pandemic levels, we're very proud of these accomplishments. We've implemented violence prevention programs for youth through the Long Beach Recovery Act and provided free in-person programs for youth and seniors, as well as camps when schools are out on break. Once again, we participated in a great partnership with Long Beach Unified School District to offer meals to school age children by the end of this summer. Well, that provided 54,000 meals to youth through the summer food program and an additional 62,000 meals to seniors this year. Through our senior nutrition program, our department stretches across the entire city and is able to serve all of our Long Beach communities. As a department, we continue to focus on enhancing park access throughout the city and improving our parks, open spaces, beaches and marinas. We've been very busy this year with reopening Lincoln Park and Harry Bridges Memorial Park, celebrating two new playgrounds at Recreation Park and Colorado Lagoon, as well as a new floating playground at Alamitos Beach. We also introduced beach access mats at Alamitos, Granada and mother's beaches. A big thank you to our collaborative partners at Public Works Department and the beaches and marinas. We maintained a 94% marina slip occupancy rate and successfully performed the annual beach renourishment. We completed 4500 maintenance work orders to repair and improve facilities, grounds and equipment in addition to upgrading irrigation and the landscape of Daisy Lane. And transformative improvements at Sunnyside Cemetery. Well, we are extremely proud of all our accomplishments this year. We're very excited about the proposed investments for fiscal year 23. The budget proposes to establish the Park Safety Ambassador program, which adds a second shift team to address park and restroom cleanliness and safety. A team of six maintenance assistants and a supervisor will be able to lock gated mini parks and all freestanding restrooms at night. At 39 parks, this innovative approach will promote cleaner and safer park restrooms. The proposal allocates park ranger funds of $575,000 in the police department and incorporates the budget into a larger initiative and approach in the Parks, Recreation and Marine Department. Our department will establish the Park Safety Ambassador Program that will expand coverage of park facilities and promote cleaner restrooms. The gated many parks and parks with freestanding restrooms that will be serviced throughout this program are shown on the map. The Park Safety Ambassador Program will offer expanded coverage and maintenance of parks, allowing staff to lock gates and restrooms, making observations regarding overall park etiquette, encampment activity and the presence of graffiti to enhance this program. The budget proposes one time funds of $600,000 for new park restroom infrastructure upgrades and door replacements with automated time locking doors. This investment will further support safe and secure park restrooms. This initiative will involve citywide collaboration with several other departments for the most strategic coordination of resources, safety for staff and residents, and synergy with the citywide collective approach towards addressing public safety. Additionally, new positions will further support the Clean Restroom and Safe Playgrounds initiatives. For maintenance assistant positions will be added to support core services in park facilities. Also proposed is additional staffing to monitor park usage and permit compliance to ensure patrons are aware of and adhering to park regulations such as the recently adopted Kids Zone Ordinance. Overall, this plan would take the city from 3.5 FTE covering five parks to 12.3 budgeted positions, covering 39 parks and funding for restroom infrastructure upgrades. These strategic investments aim to enhance the cleanliness, safety and the welcoming quality of our parks. I'm happy to say that the proposed budget includes enhancements and one time funding for maintenance. Urban forest management will be enhanced with funding of $400,000 to establish a seven year cycle of tree trimming. The budget also includes a one time resource of $1.8 million for dead tree removals. In our efforts to address weed abatement in a more environmentally friendly way by eliminating the use of glyphosate in parks, funding to support using alternative herbicides will positively impact the quality of our grounds, maintenance and landscaping. To keep parks and open space usable and clean. Each year we deploy services for special park cleanups to address encampments, illegally dumped items and other waste. We're happy that one time funds are proposed to continue and enhance these essential services next year. The proposed budget also includes a structural investment in water for irrigation. This allows us to keep our parks green due to previous water rate increases and increase irrigation levels for healthy park landscapes. These maintenance investments align with our strategic plan and are a critical part of providing safe and accessible public spaces. Other proposed critical investments are in our Animal Care Services Bureau. The proposed budget adds staffing in several critical areas. It adds for maintenance assistance to provide increased shelter. Custodial services. Internal and external customer service will be enhanced through realign clerical positions and an upgrade of our volunteer leadership position. To advance. Compassion saves a budget increase of nearly $500,000 for contract. Veterinary services will support the medical costs needed for animal care services. This investment will help save lives and increase positive outcomes. Our strategic plan highlights the need to offer meaningful recreation programing and events. The Long Beach Recovery Act funding will continue to allow the department to provide violence prevention programs such as Be Safe Hoops after Dark Mobile Recess and other teen programs, as well as senior fitness programs. Investments in our aquatic facilities will keep pools open for residents, community groups and visitors, which can also generate revenue. The budget adds a general maintenance assistant for pool maintenance and one time resources for pool equipment. With the aging infrastructure of our pools, these strategic investments will greatly benefit our users. We work hard to provide access to healthy recreation opportunities in safe environments for the community's youth teens, adults and seniors who use our programs throughout Long Beach . Within the next half decade, over $97 million are proposed to be invested in our parks and recreation facilities as part of the proposed budget. A new five year infrastructure plan includes many park projects such as new playgrounds at Hartwell, Howden and Silverado Parks and Park Improvements at 14th Street, Cesar Chavez and MacArthur Parks, just to name a few. The plan also includes facility improvements and animal care services, several park community centers and the Martin Luther King Jr pool. Other infrastructure projects in the plan will support improvements to green belts, park restrooms. And our community gardens. Other projects in the plan include improvements to athletic courts, fields and turf. We're delighted to have so many park projects included in the new infrastructure plan. Even with many strategic investments next fiscal year, there are still challenges. Deferred maintenance, along with the continuing impact of vandalism and the abuse of our facilities, continue to be challenging. We collaborate with our partners to address the safety, health and environmental concerns related to people experiencing homelessness in our parks and on our beaches. These challenges must be addressed to enable us to provide core services and safe facilities for our community to enjoy while remaining empathetic towards the unhoused. Keeping our spaces clean and safe takes a lot of resources. With rising costs for equipment, services and materials, maintenance of our facilities and grounds requires our department to prioritize resources. Given that our services are deployed in parks, beaches and waterways, environmental sustainability and climate change are serious issues that the department must keep at the forefront of future planning. We are proud stewards of our natural areas that are home to urban wildlife. We continue to consider animal health and well-being as the foundation for all we do at Animal Care Services. It is a challenge to provide every animal daily care and enrichment according to their needs and in alignment with compassion saves. Of course, all of our services cannot be provided without people. Our department is a people driven department. Recruitment and retention of a diverse, dynamic and skilled workforce is paramount to our service delivery. It can be a balancing act of resources to strategically address critical priorities while looking to the future. I thank the city manager for including in the proposed budget strategic investments, which help to address many of these challenges. With challenges do come opportunities. New projects, parks, playgrounds and equipment provide us with the opportunity to address unmet needs of the community. Community engagement is a cornerstone of park equity in that it helps us learn where and how we can make strategic investments that will benefit our communities. Parks, stewardship and partnerships continue to prove to be very beneficial for our department. Seeking and successfully obtaining grants helps us to offer scholarships for programs and classes, beautification of our park spaces and future park development for our great city. New revenue generation can help to offset costs of services. However, we must be cognizant when setting fees. To be sure, essential park programs are affordable, equitable and accessible. We'll continue to explore more partnerships, collaborations and funding opportunities. Our participation in the Lower L.A. River Recreation and Park District is another opportunity to help promote open space and connectivity for the benefit of our community, as well as other communities along the lower L.A. River. By increasing inner jurisdictional coordination and maximizing our resources. Development of master plans provides with community provided with community input on its needs and wants. Strategic plans, vision plans and feasibility studies have all been useful tools to really look at how a park meets the needs of a neighborhood. Parks provide many benefits to the community, such as encouraging physical activity, improving health and fitness, and mitigating against air pollution. We look forward to optimizing these opportunities to create a park system for all. After all, people make parks. Parks make Long Beach and parks make life better. Honorable Mayor and Members of City Council. I thank you for your continued investment in Parks, Recreation, Marine and Animal Care Services. Your support helps us meet the needs of the communities across our city, our dedicated employees, and I thank you for your support. And this concludes my presentation. Thank you, Vice Mayor. We are available to answer questions on any of the presentations. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and thank you to our department. Heads will now take public comment before we to order council deliberation. If there are any members of the public that would like to speak on item seven in person, please line up at the podium in Zoom. Please use the race hand feature or dial star nine now. We'll take an in-person first and you'll have 90 seconds. Good evening, honorable mayor. Vice Mayor, Council. I'm Natalie Gonzales. Long Beach City Employees Union President for iam local 1930. As you've already heard, we have critical staffing shortages in almost every department and are at risk of no longer being able to provide essential city services. Members are working overtime hours on a mandatory basis in a number of divisions, one of which is under investigation now. Our members have been given more duties and less resources, more stress and less compassion. This continuous and accelerated loss of institutional knowledge impacts our efficiency through low morale and elevated call outs. We can't continue to place the burden on our backs to subsidize the mission of our city with our mental and physical well-being, our family time, or with our pocketbooks. We hear all the time about the cost of paying employees more, but no one seems to discuss the costs of not paying us proper wages. Simply put, we're asking you to put in cost of living adjustment to your budget for our members. In addition, we're asking you to invest in keeping your current employees. Now, recruitment without appropriate retention policies is ineffective. Retention is investing. We spend money on recruiting and training for members to leave. And then we started zero again. City budgets are the guys we use to invest in the issues we value most. We can talk numbers, we can talk line items in a budget, but we're more than just at ease on your Excel sheet. So I'm asking you to be bold, take the long view on this budget. I applaud your investment in infrastructure, but remember the people who deliver the work. I know the challenge is never easy, but the cost of inaction is severe and I am happy to take questions. Thank you for your time today. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, Mayor. And City Council. My name is Natalie Mifflin. I'm a nine woman dispatcher on the PD side of the pack. I have worked for the city of Long Beach for. 28. Years. Today, most of my colleagues. Are here with the story of our department, and I ask you for your help. The truth of this story is that we are suffering and so are the community members calling 911. We've been chronically understaffed for as long as anyone can remember, and these shortages have become. Critical. Threats to our communications infrastructure. Currently, our members are working over 2200. Hours of overtime, mandatory overtime. In a month. So far this. Year, which is only been seven months, our members have worked more than 24407 hours of. Mandatory. Overtime. That is a lot. We are public safety. The consequence of error in our position is very high. It is a high stress, high trauma job that leads to burnout. And psychological harm. Even at the best of times, with these chronically extended hours, this job has become a danger to our bodies. 15 of our 31 employees on the PD side of communications have some level of medical restrictions, some of which are severe. That restrict them from working overtime. Every time another member has to go on a restriction, those of us who are not. On one can find ourselves working 3 to. 416 hour. Days in. A row. One of our members recently worked 88 hours in one week. That kind of hours and working conditions are not sustainable. We know that all of our brothers and sisters. Throughout the city are experiencing similar shortages, and we stand in solidarity with them for a cost. Of living adjustment. But we are also asking that Council take a real look at how our emergency communications are being. Operated and funded. Thank you. Your time is up. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Speaker What? Mayor and City Council Members My name is the honorable, our whole summer city employee of packing and I am member. We're here to support our colleagues and to ask for your support as well. I was hired in November of 2012 as part of the city's first attempt to consolidate both call centers. We were understaffed then, and we're understaffed now. We went from working 18 hour mandatory to 16 hour mandatory. Aside from working the weekly 16 to 24 hours of overtime, my center also suffers from having to work on our days off. We're understaffed. Underpaid and overworked. It's now at a point where we are terrified to get behind the wheel and drive home after our shifts. Some even like to sleep in the dorms because it gives us more sleep. We go our workweek without seeing our families having to pay for extra childcare and meals for ourselves and families. And yet, even with the overtime, we're still not meeting the state requirements. California requires that 95% of all night long calls be at within 15 seconds. However, we're falling short of that and too that at a rate of just about 77% for 2022, approximately 4% of our 7000 calls this year are. Held for over a minute before. You retell. I personally have my wife call 911 yesterday and we had about a minute before she reached a dispatcher. I helped the man keep from getting stabbed by a woman armed with the kitchen knife. This is a terrifying reality for residents such as myself. We stay committed to serving the constituents of Palm Beach. However, our pleas for help have been continuously ignored by city management and has now become detrimental to our health and those experiencing an emergency in our city. We ask for you to make this a priority immediately, not only for our health, for our community as well. And view and execute the place. Hi, my name is Michelle Sellers. I've been with Long Beach for three years as a dispatcher. My experience as a dispatcher has impacted me in different ways, including becoming hyper vigilant. I came in right before the height of the pandemic and civil unrest, watching the victims faces on media, hearing the college screaming at the top of their lungs, or a victim gasping for air after an injury or all types of stressors that we deal with. A variety of us constantly work 14 to 16 hour shifts, eating our lunches on our break breaks to on our desk to take calls is more frequent option rather than leaving our desk. At this point, I have just defaulted to telling my friends and family that I would most likely not be able to make an event or simple dinner due to being held for overtime. The stress has affected my body as well, causing my hair to fall and causing me inability to bear children due to high stress, high levels of adrenal and cortisol levels. My husband was hurt from all the call entries typing quickly so I can take the next caller. The calls are constant with little time in between. This is a disservice to the Long Beach community. We have 31 dispatchers now, including myself. That's one dispatcher per 14,711 people in Long Beach. It's not just our job. It's our livelihood, too. There's dispatchers that have families and children to take care of, along with others that take care of older, disabled adults. With the increasing cost and inflation, the quality of our livelihoods outside of work also declines. My request is that you please take care of us the way we take care of the community and compensated to equip the demands of this profession. Thank you. Thank you. Let's keep the peace. Good evening, Vice Mayor and city council members and staff. My name is Michael Jubilee. I'm a resident of Lakewood. I've been employed with the Long Beach Police Department for over 24 years. In those years, I've seen many changes. We are short staffed and overworked. Though I enjoy my job. Law enforcement has changed. The stress of being overworked and underpaid is then placed upon my family. After working my regular hours plus overtime due to staff shortages, no one wants to work with us long term because people get burnt out and because of the monetary pay is not enough. According to Out of Reach report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition dated July 22, the average California in L.A. County needs to earn an age of 3931 per hour. And in Orange County, it's 44.69 an hour, according to the city's salary schedule. The website of today's top step is 30, 79, an hour and so forth. Top pay is 35, 85 an hour with current housing, fuel cost, etc. The ability to make ends meet is difficult on the current salary, especially being a parent of three, one in elementary school, one in high school, and one who just turned 21 but is not able to move on his own due to high cost. I'm sure I'm not alone in this situation. Please consider a cost of living pay increase as soon as possible to aid with the continued rising costs in California. Thank you. Thank you. Next, keep the police. Good evening, mayor and councilmembers. My name is Jeanette Marie and I work for. Long Beach Police Department as a marine patrol officer. I've been with the city for 23 years to be an asset. So Special Service Officer for Marine. Patrol, you are required to complete a lot of arrest and firearms course to be able to enforce. The laws. Marine Patrol definition is we enforce laws in the marinas and beach areas. We provide services for the boat owners in our marinas that pay for slip fees, the laws, ordinance, rules and regulations that we enforce. Our California Harbors and Navigation Code Sections. California Code of Regulation, Title 13 and 14. California Vehicle Code Sections. Long Beach Municipal Code Sections, California Penal Code Sections and California Code of Federal Regulations are starting pay at step one is $21.79 in our highest pay rate. At step seven is $29.44. You reach the highest pay after working for approximately five years. I have worked. For the city for. 23 years and have reached my highest pay, making $30.78 for the past 15 years. I have been an acting supervisor for this deployment and get a higher class pay of a dollar for taking and taking on the responsibilities of a supervisor. I would normally make at least $3 more if the. Position was open. We are down six officers and a supervisor as of today. In the next few months it will be eight officers. Inflation and cost of living is at 10% higher than what our salary is today. Making overtime is every cent lower than what our cost of living is. We can't afford to live in this city. Thank you. Your time is up. Thank you for your time. Next speaker, please. Good evening, ladies. My name is Blake. I also work for Long Beach PD, Marine Patrol Officer. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you. Marine Patrol Officers Cover Alamitos Bay, Marina, Shoreline, Rainbow Harbor. The launch ramps could only be permitted to assist police officers on a beach. We also have two special events. We are currently understaffed by six officers and one supervisor. Our officers work 20 to 40 hours overtime every week. We are absolutely overworked and underpaid. Our officers are tough. They step seven that they reach five. We, after five years working on the field, maxes out at $29.44. We hire recruits, try to hire recruits from the police academy who fill out the starting pay is $36.65. Our officers who have been on the field for five years, they have to train these police recruits who are coming in at higher pay than our top pay for our officers. We have officers who have quit the field training program because they don't feel that this is fair, that they have to train officers, future officers, for signifying significantly. Less money than what they earn. We have responded for in the month of April and May, which orient our. Thank you. Just one more thing, if I may. When the city under the pandemic needed extra funding, the city asked our officers to furlough our time and help to save labor costs. We did that. And now our officers and our employees like you are asking the city to do this for us. Thank you for your time. Hello. I'm Tatiana Williams. I am the president of Olive Court Italy. And I have a lot on my heart just from hearing the public comments before me. And with that, I will work with my councilwoman on many of the other ideas that I have. I'd like to thank you to the officers and to the pub, the Parks and Rec. That won't be that spoke. I've used all of your services. I appreciate every thing that I heard today and everything going forward. The one comment that I would like to make, especially for the fire department and for the police department, is we can recruit, we can graduate, we can train officers and firefighters. And that is a big investment emotionally and financially. If there's not opportunity, if there is not a sense of belonging, that work is for naught. So I would ask you today, please, when you recruit people with brown skin like me, when you recruit women, please also make sure that there is opportunity and that there is a sense of belonging. Because when those people go out and they put their very lives on the line and then they feel like you don't belong. Put your life on the line, but you don't belong. It does something to them. That's all I have to say today. Thank you. Thank you. Let's keep the police. Son. I can face six district residents. It is easier to build strong children and to repair a broken man. That is a quote by Frederick Douglass. It's something I always am reminded of when the budget season, because I'm always thinking about the children. I'm an advocate of children because I was a child once. And so I know how this works, the cycle of life. With respect to today, I'm here to advocate for the department that makes the most sense in terms of trajectory in my life, which is Parks and Rec. I think that we have a phenomenal director. I've got to be honest, I wasn't a real big fan of the last one, but I think the one we have today, he's he's doing a great job. And I think for him to do an even better job, he's going to need more money. This is a surplus year. This is a historic year. There's never been this much money floating around. Shout out to Gavin. And I think that right now we need to dedicate some of that money towards our park spaces. There's a lot of disinvestment over the years throughout various parts of the city. I can only advocate for my part of the city. I grew up at Kings Park. We have right now $1.8 million dedicated towards the implementation program. I think the director would agree we need more money. We need about 3.5 million. So let's get that. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening. I'm Karen Recite. I'm the president of the Long Beach Gray Panthers and we are in sympathy with the employees. I am always impressed by the extent of caring and. Knowledge that our. City employees put forth. They are not always treated with the respect and the dignity that they deserve. That's why we're. Losing some really. Key people within our city. And I'd like to see that changed. But I want to talk about seniors, because. Nobody hardly did. In their presentation, Brant mentioned a couple of things. We're not using all our resources when we have tight budgets, we can't afford to waste resources. Seniors are a huge resource untapped in our community and in training in place. I've had seniors tell me that the paramedics come to pick them up and they're discussing how hard they should try and revive them. They need to be trained on how to deal with seniors. That's just not appropriate to talk to seniors like that. Police. I have so many issues. In my building. I talked to had the. Prostitution is a problem. In all the buildings, not just mine. So it's something the police department needs to begin to deal with drugs. We have people that are addicted. They try and come in and steal people's medication. The buildings are not secured. They're not safe. So let's look. And you can see included parks. We need the seniors strategic plan done. I think is worth more than the animals. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Lee Charlie, district one. I just heard that the really nice presentation and I want to say thank you. I read the statistics and I want to say that just in my district at 9:09 p.m. this Saturday, a woman was shot in the upper body. And so crime is still very relevant and very important in our parks, especially Great Park. But I want to talk about two things. First of all, the money, 2.4, 2.4 million to clean up the river beds, over $3 million to clean up encampments. Can you maybe look at solving and addressing the issue of housing and getting these unhoused people jobs and stop spending millions and millions of dollars? Second thing is these time locked doors. I mean, a homeless advocate just today, these these these doors that the parks are these are time locked, are magnets. And I'm going to tell you that it takes our driver's park. They don't tell the people when they're when these locks are going to the time's going to go off. They're magnets. And almost every day a homeless person is locked in the bathrooms and can't get back out into the morning. So they're vandalizing and sawing off these doors and that's a waste of money. So please reinvest them reimbursed at these time locked doors, the restrooms. Because I'll tell you, the more money you spend, the more homeless people we're going to thaw those off. It's going to be an endless cycle of waste of money. And please, please, please stop wasting money on doing homeless work with this encampment sweeps. You move a homeless person from there to there. $2.4 million. Why don't we start and address that issue of homelessness and instead of spending millions to just move them around? Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hello. My name is Laurie Logan and I live in the Washington. District, Washington neighborhood, which is in District one. And I noticed you. Bundle three. Budgets. To one minute and 3 seconds, which means that you're really not looking for much community input. So I'm forced to bundle my comments. So I can basically say the police. And the park and our community, they both are the West Division. They harass and they kick it out. If we complain and there's no community engagement, they're not even doing meetings and they basically leave. People feel unsafe to leave their houses. So clearly we can't go to a park. Now that leads. Into the park. I made calls to the. Director. To improve the 14th Street Park and he doesn't. Return. Calls or emails. He's very not responsive. The park. Too, needs to engage the community. And not use nonprofits to speak for us. Because that's the problem. That they're speaking for. Us. So that's it. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening. I wanted to talk about I spoke last week about the overpolicing of our Long Beach community, and I want to speak on that today especially. It was a part of the budget today. I find it interesting that both the mayor and the city manager mentioned last week that they were referring to the racial equity and reconciliation report. And that very report talked about that the city of Long Beach, the number two reason that people believe they were experiencing racism was through police profiling. In addition to that, in that same report, it was found that the top reason or the top response to helping our community was to reduce police funding and instead invest in community and social services. That very same report also stated that they were looking for police officers to explore higher standards of education and also look at methods of exploring anti-racism and also racial sensitivity. Yet none of that was referenced in the budget meeting today. I know there was a lot about professional development, a nice social media post and a nice mobile cart for community events. But there is no commitment to anti-racism. There's no commitment to acknowledging that black lives do matter in the city of Long Beach. And if that makes the police department uncomfortable or city council members, and that's a real problem that really needs to be acknowledged not just in the police department, but in the city as well. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hi. Good evening. About this budget here, I can commend the fire department and all the things that they're going to. I agree to that. The police budget needs to be stripped because they only make up 2% of our community, yet they get 50% or more the general fund. And that really doesn't make any sense because like I said, they only make up one or 2% of the community. They only stop 1% of violent crimes, rapes, murders, so on and so forth. The other 50% of the time, they're nonviolent crime, and 50% of that time is actually even write a report. So what are they really doing besides hassling intimidating people and dragging people out of their homes because they're living on the riverbed and living on the street because we don't have enough affordable housing. I spoke last week again about building houses. They're not you have units available until the city comes to terms with the fact that the reason why we have crime, drugs, if people want to talk about those things, is because we're failing people at a level and not giving them take care of their basic human needs. How about even a toilet? The bathrooms being locked, where people are being locked in and or they're happy to defecate and urinate on the street? Come on. Police budget cut at fire department. Given that the Parks and Rec. Yeah, do that thing too. But in the meantime, in between time, y'all need to get straight with this. What was that? The housing envelopment law that was established in 1969. What it made, it mandated for the city to provide housing for all of their community residents. We're gonna leave that curve ball there. Where's the budget on that? Where is. It? Thank you for your time is up for that. Thank you. Thank you for your time. Next speaker, please. Hello. Good evening. My name is Rodolfo Cortez. So, first of all, on this item of the budget, I really wish that actually the mayor was here to listen to the community's concerns, because, I mean, a mayor has so much you know, he doesn't vote, but he does, you know, sign and kind of serves as the voice of the city. So why is it, you know, we're hearing about all sorts of concerns about the budget and he's not here to listen. And then I especially want to bring this up right now, because I was censored on social media by the mayor for talking about this, for talking about the budget, for talking about how he's using money here in Long Beach and how he wants to use money, how he wants to get to D.C.. So I'm very concerned about that because like, look at all of these numbers. Like, people you you know, you guys are bringing up, oh, there is the fires on the highway and it's next to the river. So you're implicitly obviously blaming the unhoused people, right? So that's what you're doing. You're attacking those who are suffering under the system, and that's just egregious. What we actually need is a major investment in the community, in housing and education. And why are we not talking about that again? Why is he not here to talk about how he's going to deliver for these things for us in Congress? Why? You know, why is that? Come on. We need housing that's truly affordable. We need education that's truly affordable. And we need to stop being censored on social media from the mayor's office. Thanks. Thank you. Next, could you please. Hi. Good evening. My name is Tiffany, and I proudly serve the city of Long. Beach as a. Fire dispatcher for 24 years. For 22. Of those years, I have been a. Supervisor and a trainer. And we not only produce, we not only train, but we develop leaders in dispatch. It's frustrating when you watch other dispatchers leave and they they leave with our training model. They leave with our leadership skills, and then they go to work for departments. That consistently. Pay more and work less mandatory overtime. It's very hard to watch that. We need a competitive salary to not only. Attract entry level dispatchers, but we need it. To keep the seasoned. Dispatchers we have happy. At their current jobs. And to serve the city of Long. Beach. It's just if. Not, it's just a vicious. Cycle of retraining. And then that leads to burnout, low morale and loss of more, more employees. Our staffing has been critically low for too long. There are times that I've been. So exhausted after working long weeks that. I didn't remember driving home. And it's hard to admit a competitive salary. It keeps staffing up. It keeps. It means more family time. And I'm not talking. I'm going home to my family. I have enough time to sleep, shower, maybe eat. But quality family. Time for. The dispatchers. I'm a single parent of. A disabled child. It's very clear. Your time is up, ma'am. I think you. Make three times. Next week at this. Hello. Honorable Vice Mayor and City Council. My name is Devin. I'm a business representative for the Longview City Employees. I am 1930. You've heard a lot of stories here today from city employees. I was the first time many of you have seen this many city employees come down to city council. They're you're talking about their issues because they're very serious and they're very important. And not just for them, but to continue giving the services that the community needs and to make them more robust than they've been. Right. I'd like to address a few things for staff that wasn't able to make it for positions that weren't able to be here in the police department. Our admin staff are constantly under filling positions and doing duties way outside of their responsibilities for way less pay. The park ranger program, I guess, is being cut. We were not notified about this or they did not discuss this with us. We found out in the budget presentation that's a missed opportunity to save money and keep security services the same in the city because they cost less than police officers and care services. I really appreciate the investments go in their direction. We need a lot more. The animals are suffering. The people are suffering. I invite all of you to come down with me and tour the animal shelter. It's not good. And our ambulance operators, vice mayor, you know, it's been rough getting coverage there right in the ninth district and places. We need to invest in them. They're making $15 an hour. They're doing the job of paramedics, not just transporting folks. So thank you. Your time is up. You can do that. And also, really quickly, I do support our groups over here going for the $25 minimum wage. Thank you. Thank you. Next, could you please. Hello. My name is Patrick Gleason, and I live on Cherry Avenue in the sixth District. I was disappointed in the police budget before and it's really disappointing now to know that 40% of our city budget is not even getting to the front lines and the dispatchers who run the department. So you would benefit by focusing on crime prevention and to prevent crime, you should expand investment into the root causes of crime, which are poverty, pollution, lack of education, high unemployment, discrimination of all kinds, social inequities, and lack of opportunities that cause crime. But police don't prevent it. They respond to it. They investigate it. Sometimes they solve it. It's really frustrating to hear the police budget expand year after year. And once again, it's not reaching the people who are kind of. Responding. So when crime is up, police tell us they need more money to fight it. When crime is down, they tell us they need more money to keep the peace. But then we see spending on tear gas and we see spending on armored vehicles and helicopters and lots of things that are buzzy and exciting, but obviously neglecting the people. So I encourage you to think about that and really focus on root causes. I know you all know this. You know the root causes of violence. You know what the good departments are? Health departments, education. Youth parks. Great opportunity with this budget. Don't just chase the ambition. Thank. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Dave Shukla Third District President Thank you for the opportunity to speak on the presentations. I'd like to reiterate a question that I asked the Budget Oversight Committee during its presentations earlier today on revenue sources. Specifically, since the price per barrel of oil is considerably higher than was budgeted for fiscal year 22, exactly how much surplus is there ? You know, if it's averaging $90 per barrel and it had been budgeted for 55, uh, back of the envelope estimates is that that's a yearly surplus of about $200 million. It would be helpful to know how much of that is already being allocated for which departments and which programs. Thank you. Thank you. Next week, the police. Good afternoon. My name is Nelson Grundy. I am resident in District one. I wasn't going to come up here today. This is my first time in the city council meeting and I'm extremely impressed by the engagement from the public. Normally I've been in different meetings and very few people are on the audience, so I'm very, very encouraged by that. Having said that, I appreciate the council putting this this meeting here forth and I appreciate putting the budget forward now. What I'm seeing, however, is I believe there seems to be some sort of a disconnect between the folks, as the gentleman mentioned a couple of before me, the folks in the trenches. So I'm asking you if possibly some of the employees, city employees, were considered when this budget when some of these budgets were were authored, if there was maybe a poll. How can we, as people on the trenches do a better job or how can we better be used? How can we better be? How can we better use our skills? And of course, compensation if need be. There's a lot of beautiful, trendy, beautiful bullet point feel good bullet points of some of these budgets. But I don't think anything was mentioned as far as like what they're doing to take care of, of, of their current employees. Um, I think it's important before setting up a budget and putting it forth, it would be good to pull the audience rather the public, including the city employees. And lastly, I would really like to use this to segway into a larger point in stating that we should really importantly bring back the representative government. The gentleman in front of me, Vice Chair, with all due respect, sir, you're stretching and you're moving around. Thank you. Your time is actually. Deep about their problems. Thank you. I think that's a little disrespectful. But with all due respect, thank you very much. Take care. Thank you. Do we have additional public comment online? We have two members in Zoom. And a Christiansen. Your time begins now. Okay. I wanted to. Comment. I was googling of salaries of 50 city employees make over $200,000 a year. I think we ought to create a system where there's the highest paid city employee cannot make more than a certain amount of times more than the lowest paid and have some trickle down of the city money. To. Employees. I would like to comment on the park budget and a good presentation from our park director. As usual. I am alarmed about tree trimming. Apparently now there is going to be a cyclical tree trimming in parks, and I would only ask that it not be done during nesting season and that trees, especially palm trees, not be trimmed annually so that we can provide nesting sites for birds and roosting sites as well. I would point out that you can save money by doing less. And a great place to do less is in our parks. You don't need to be mowed. They don't need to be edged as we watch constantly. They don't need leaf blowers in them. Every second a leaf could fall, you know, and it would still be okay. Sections of the park could be returned without batting bright green lawns, especially on artificial turf. But even the lawns could. Be restored as natural meadows. So if you, you know, and that saves a lot of money and it saves a lot of water. So that's just one suggestion. And then my man can thank you for your time as a service. Our next speaker. Steve Hoy. Your time begins now. Yes. Good evening. Hopefully you can hear me. My name's Boy. I live in the third district Marine Stadium. Just wanted to share an incident last Monday that we had at our home where we had a man climb up our fence in our backyard, threatened to kill us as we were sitting in back. And it was only that our dog saw the man and started barking, that he stopped jumping over. And I wanted to just report that it took the police nearly an hour to arrive to to our home. And unfortunately, the man was never found. He had gone behind the boathouse lane building. So our guests were with us for my son's wedding from South Africa. He immediately asked where we had our gun, which we don't have, and he mentioned that the response time was rivaling his third world country policing response times. And I just wanted to just reiterate the importance that we support our police, both financially and in the work that they do is vitally important. And as we hear people talking about defunding police and all that's really doing is discouraging our officers, I have three friends that are officers that are all can't wait to retire because of the environment. So I think we need to get behind them. We can we can find alternative policing ideas. We can solve root causes that people have talked about, but we have to support our police. So I urge you to do so. Thank you. That concludes public comment. Thank you. And we'll take it back behind the rail. First of all, thanks to everyone who came out and spoke during public comment. It was very well attended. And thank you all for your service to our city and to chiefs Espino and he Bish and Brant. Great job on your presentation. I'll just add a couple of notes, then I'll go through go through the council comments. We have five or six council members queued up on fire. I'll just say, you know, thank you for the accomplishments that you listed. I'm interested in continuing to follow particularly, you know, this progression to now fully funding or structurally funding the firefighter diversity program. That's a program, you know, that is important. And the council will pay some attention. And I remember when we began funding that with one time. So we want to continue to see the progress. Best of luck there. We also want to continue to understand and see progress on the Junior Lifeguard program, which I know is now connected to North Long Beach and other areas of town on, I would say Chief he bish it's this is your first budget as as chief. And I definitely see your fingerprints all over this thing. Some of the things that you mentioned early on when you expressed your interest in and you became chief and you talked about better communication, and I see that you've, you know, presented a new you know, a new apparatus around communication, your passion for community and community engagement. So this new bureau, the collaborative response and engagement, I think that's a good thing. And I would encourage you to continue to invest and see how we can build trust and congruence and partnership with the community. I love that you now have named the Community Engagement Division, the Youth and Community Services Division. I know we used to do things like police, athletic leagues and, you know, you know, the power center and things like that. And I think this is a step back in that direction, which is great. I think Professional Standards Division states very clearly that you have a goal of being a best in class, the police department, and that it takes not just investigating when things go wrong, but investing in mental health and professional standards and training as you move forward. So. So I want to just recognize those things in your budget. I also just want to want to note that, you know, I'm glad to see the community policing investment. That's something that's been important to the city council. I, you know, the community walks was something that, you know, I witnessed and participated in in North Long Beach and fully support this this city wide expansion of this program, along with the quality of life onward to the Parks, Recreation and Marine Branch. I think we're you know, you're building a lot of a lot of respect in the community. And I saw you last night at the hoops after dark lunch, and you have a true passion for the community. I think that's evident in what we see here. I would say we should continue to invest in you know, we talk a lot of times during the summer about budgets and programs like that, but then sometimes the community comes out and says, that's great, but we also want this right. And I think it's been very, very clear that whoops, after Dark is a program that that needs the city's focus, its ongoing focus. So we want to continue to support that program and see how we can expand it to other groups across town. So I'd love to see some moves after dark on the West Side or North Long Beach. So it's a great program, but I think the highlight in this budget is the focus on clean restrooms and safe playgrounds. This is something that I can tell you is a challenge. The fact that we can't we don't have the ability today to lock our bathrooms at night sometimes since we can't, you know, there have been situations since we couldn't lock them. They just stayed locked all day while people are using the park during the day. And I don't think that's okay. And and we invest in our restrooms and it seemed like two months, three months later, they're back in bad shape. So I think it's going to be smarter for us to be able to invest in keeping our bathrooms clean and safe and our playgrounds as well. So I just offered those brief comments. I'll you know, if I have further questions, I'll be sure to follow up with you in our briefings. We're going to go through the counsel list I have. I'm going to read off the list first. I have Councilwoman Sara, Councilmember Urunga, Councilmember Price, Councilmember Austen and Councilmember Mongo in that order. So, Councilman Zoro, you're recognized. Thank you, Vice Mayor Richardson. I also want to thank Fire Chief Espino and Chief Heber and Mr. Brant Dennis for the great presentation. I know that there's so much more in your budget than you could possibly present in the short frame of the time that you have. So I encourage those who felt like it wasn't enough as far as an opportunity to have dialog to come out to our community budget meeting. That's going to be this Thursday, August 11th, as well as next week in the following week. And there is a lot and I just want to just start out by saying how much I appreciate seeing the investment in infrastructure for our fire department around equipment, as well as making sure that we invest more in diverse recruitment. It's really important, and I know that the fire department's been working hard on making sure it's diverse in gender, racial and ethnic and ethnicity as well. And the other thing I want to also congratulate Chief Heber on is six months, I think is about six, seven months that he's been chief. And I think that it really shows that you are being creative with the budget we have. I agree with the vice mayor that it's important we see investment in community policing because it is about engagement and building relationship with the community. But I think more so that that you're kind of switching up the restructuring in so many ways. That's really emphasizing around the thing I know we've had ongoing discussion about around transparency, accountability, and that shows because you're making huge investments in communication because that reduces and that increases in transparency by sharing more about what's happening on a regular basis, not just social media, but newsletters and emails and also getting boots on the ground and our police officer out in the community to build their relationship and to get to know the beats in the community as well as our businesses too. And also making sure that officers are reflective of those who are the community that they're walking in as well. So I really appreciate the creativity that's being taken around how you're doing engagement. And I see that and I appreciate it because that's some of the stuff that I've been I know that has been asked for. And the other thing I want to note is that, you know, we've come a long way in thinking we are going to go into a $36 million deficit to now closing that. And so I do appreciate all of our city staff figuring out how to make sure we continue to provide the services we do, but also make sure we consider how we appreciate staff at all levels for their service and the work that they put in, especially as we continue to recover from the pandemic. And just want to make sure to comment around parks, Rex, Marines and Animal Services how much that is also part of our public safety continuum because it is part of our violence prevention based on the whoops after dark program that was just mentioned by the vice mayor, as well as many other services and program to making sure we activate our parks, to making sure that we get young people and our elders out into the park doing programing. And I hope that, you know, the investment plan that's been shared is really making sure that we continue to get people to come out and be in our parks keeping it clean. I'm just really proud of how much that's going to be invested in improving MacArthur Park, thanks to Senator Lena Gonzalez, as well as making sure we create a vision plan bill, a dream for King Park. This coming very soon and where we want to hear back and how we can make this place the park better that work for everyone. Getting the funding we need to finally finished building the Kim the Killing Field Memorial Garden with the Cambodian Veteran Memorial Monument to making sure there's a place for Cambodians to remember the genocide and honor those who have passed. So there's just so much to this budget that I think is about adding and adding to values and adding to people's lives and adding to culture and also making sure that we connect more in person than we do online. And that's what our parks do for us as well. So there's much more, does it definitely say about the budget? But I just want to thank staff. All your hard work and then it day in and day out every all of our city staff, you really do make our city run and and definitely make it better. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Urunga Thank you, Ms.. Mayor. And I want to thank also staff for the great presentations you brought forward today. A lot of information in there. And I think it really shows that they're listening. You're listening you're listening to the comments that city council members have made. I know we meet on a regular basis talking about what our region is and what our needs are and what we see or what we would like to see from each department in terms of their services and the the infrastructure and the hiring. And. And one of the things that came out tonight in terms of the public comment, it was a recurring theme. And the recurring theme was about retention. And it's something that is very important, obviously, to our employees. And and I hear it as well from the from the unions themselves, police included, how they feel, stressed how they feel on the and on. And I'm not saying undesired. What's the word I'm looking for? Unwelcome talk, don't talk. But, you know, the point is that I think nothing says about retention than salaries. And I. Think we might want to look at. It and i guess it would be directed more to the city manager and to our h.r. Director. In terms of when was the last time that we did a compensation study for our for our salaries in the city? Because I know we continually it seems like the year in, year out, we're at the lower part of the median as opposed to being at the median in salaries. And we can't I mean, a city our size with all of the resources that we got, with everything that we've got going for us, which is great and we're . A great city. We're still, you know, either at the at the median or below in our salaries that we pay our employees. And I. Think that we need to finally address that somehow. In the next. You know, I'm not saying it's English because that's not something that we could do right away. But obviously start looking at. How we can. Raise our level of. Quality of our salary to get more. Retention. People just want to work with us. I mean, I've seen and I heard it today. You know, employees who've worked for. You know, 15, 20, 30 years with the city and yet, you know, they're capped out, but they continue to work with us. And there are, of course, others who left us because there's no growth there for them. So I think we really have to start looking more seriously at and how we can provide better retention. Services, if you will, for our employees. And of course, salaries is a big part of that. I mean, you feel good when you going to work and you get a nice. Paycheck where you can go. Back home and entertain your kids or buy them a nice dinner. So I think we need to look at that again. In regards to a compensation study, perhaps, Mr. Walker, you might want to. Look at that. And when was the last time we did one, do you recall? So as we did negotiations with our contract with AM, I believe was in around 2018, we did some preparation as part of that. If you remember in Closed Session, we talk a little bit about where we are in terms of the marketplace. We are currently in a long term agreement. We just did a I think a 2% increase just last year. We've got a 2% increase for our IAM staff coming up in September and then there's another 1% increase coming up in April of 2023 and then the contract ends after that and it'll be a chance to look at some additional negotiation. But we can get you the specific information on compensation study believe that does if it's any different than what I told you. You know, I think that, you know, we should do one of those studies every five years or so since our economy changes so much. And it's in flux at that point to keep up with what's going on in the real world in regards to how. Far a person's salary can go in terms of their quality of life. But other than that, you know, I love the presentation for Parks. From Police. And Fire. All the great. Things that they're doing out there in terms of retention, freeze at recruitment. And. Partner retention. But I mean, we still need a lot more to do it. Obviously, we're we're making some gains in some of the restructuring and reorganization that's going on in all three departments in regards to answering the call for needs that the. Residents want to see is great. And so I'm looking forward to further discussions with the budget. This is just a first. Review at it, if you will. I know there's going to be some. Deeper, more. In-Depth discussions about more specifics as we get as we go with with the the study that equipment has. So I'm looking forward to that as well. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Price. Thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor. So a couple of things. I'll start in the order that we did our presentations tonight. So for fire, you know, I wanted to talk to the chief a little bit about the increase in activity in Alamitos Bay. We are getting more and more calls for service in Alamitos Bay, and this is mostly a lifeguard response issue, but also a marine patrol issue. So I wanted to talk to the chief and perhaps the PR director on how this budget reflects the increase in boating activity in the bay. I know that may not be an issue that affects everyone, but it certainly is an issue that affects a lot of residents and renters who maybe don't have the money to have their own boat, which is most everyone. So they're doing a lot of the rental businesses. And so that conflict has really come to fruition in a big way in Alamitos Bay. And I kind of want to get a sense from the chief and perhaps even director Dennis, how does your budget reflect that increase in activity? Because I really didn't see that reflected in the proposed budget. Thank you, Councilwoman, for your question in regards to our budget currently. I can tell you that we have currently. Hired up a security. Company to help us out there. Now, let me just Bay, specifically with the with it and the activity that we're getting after. Dark Chief Medina actually came up with the idea, and I think it's a fantastic idea to get somebody to dissuade those folks from being out there. But it is a team approach. The security guards are only meant to identify folks that aren't supposed to be there when they're there. And then we notify PD. They come in and they assist us as well. Going forward, we're going to have to look at that. In the upcoming budget. We have budgeted. For additional lifeguards, which is going to help us. But it may be that we're going to have to just change the way we do things in the evenings. Okay. So I'm not talking specifically about the the with it y the way we've we've shopped it around and we understand that the correct pronunciation is with it too, although we keep calling it the wee bit, I don't know. But we and our team, we call it the whip it. So the whip it is one factor. And I think Chief Medina has done a really great job with the innovative ideas of how to control some of the evening activity. But what I'm talking about is the increase in activity in the bay. I think we're putting a lot of stress on our lifeguards with the activity in the bay, and I don't know that we really do not have the support that we need for our lifeguards on the bay. There's bridge jumping going on. There's a lot of activity with the boat rental companies going on. And Chief Medina has been unbelievably amazing to me as a partner in trying to figure out how to increase the lifeguard presence there. But, you know, he can't do it alone. So how does the budget support him? So at the current time we haven't specifically address that with our budget chief. Medina is doing everything that he can with his current lifeguards that he has. They've increased the patrolling and we're going to continue to do that and look at next year and see how we can increase those numbers even further. But there's nothing. Concrete right now. Okay. I get that. Chief Espino I get that. I understand that. But perhaps this message is for the city manager. Oil is trading at way over the budgeted $55 a barrel that we have. We've been talking a lot about the Tidelands budget. I fully expect that we will be listening to the community on these issues and considering the changes that we've seen in activity along the coastline in the bay. And I can tell you and I so appreciate Chief Espino and the limitations that are placed upon him, and I know he's probably not going to say this in the way that it needs to be said, but we need more resources to go to our lifeguard division. We have people now, we've got the with it in Alamitos Beach. We've got the women in Alamitos Bay. We've got increased activity in the bay with boat rentals. And we absolutely need some more resources to our lifeguards. We just simply cannot continue to do it with the resources that we've had in the past, because I think everyone will agree that COVID was a game changer in terms of recreational activities throughout the city, but especially along the coastline, which is a good thing. I think Councilman Ranga would applaud the fact that people are using the coastal amenities more so than ever before, and that's a good thing. And we want to make sure that every resident in the city has access to the coast. But in order for us to be able to accommodate that increased use, we need to have more support for our Marine bureau. So a marine safety division. So, Chief Espino, you don't have to say it because I know it puts you in a difficult position. But I'm sharing with the city manager that we absolutely need more resources for our Marine Safety Division in the fire department. And I'm hoping that the city manager can take a look, a look at that and see what we can do to augment those resources in terms of innovative proposals to the chair of the BMC for ways that we can augment that budget. So thank you, Chief Espino. But I think know, I think Chief Medina will tell you that he gets probably more calls for service and more community meetings than he probably can share with you. Councilwoman, your time is up. It's it's really a lot for one person to handle. Understood. Thank you. Thank you. So with that, I want to move on to fire. And I want to thank. I mean, I want to move on to police. And I want to thank Councilwoman. Your time is Chief. You are? Councilwoman? Yes. Your time is up. Wow. Okay. I'll recuse. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Alston. Yes. Thank you so much. I want to just say thank you to all three departments who gave presentations today. I'll just try to, you know, highlight a couple of things that I've heard and a few questions. But if you can get everything in within 5 minutes, if not all with you. I'll go and order. Start with the fire department. This fire department is top notch. Thank you all for your great work, Chief, and your department. There are a few things that I wanted to just. Just get some clarification on. You requested a position for do the administrative investigations, the love for you to follow up on that, explaining more about the functionality of the position and why of it in terms of administrative investigations, what type of investigations will they be doing administratively? Internal or external? Just curious about that and then the related the issue of diversity and thinking in a full time position. I think obviously we want more diversity in our fire department and what our same in every department, by the way. I would love to know the results of the diversity recruitment over the past couple of years since we've had this position in place. So will be, if you can put forth a memo to the council to show how our diversity is improved for this period of time, that would be greatly appreciated. But I'll let you respond to the administrative investigation question about that position. And Councilmember, if I can ask a clarifying question, was that specific on fire or other departments? That was a fire. That was a fire position in the fire presentation. I was writing notes for. Understood. Got it. Councilman Austin to ask for an administrative investigator or an administrative position to do administrative investigations. Yes. Thank you for the question. Specifically right now, our admin officer is conducting all of the administrative investigations. Quite a lot of paperwork, quite a lot of bandwidth is needed for that. So we looked at the fact that we have investigations that are both internal and external. We found it to be very, very important for our department that we were able to to get through these, expedite, getting through the investigations, do a good job with the investigation. So we asked for an additional position to help out with the investigation process and also to help out with the PR process. We've, as I stated, were receiving 1400 praise per year. And so the only way that we're covering those periods now is with overtime throughout our department, with other civilian staff. And so now having a dedicated administrative assignment for that person, that's going to help us out quite a bit down the road. With your other question. Thank you for that clarification. And also, I had questions at the end, and you may not have to respond to that tonight, but please provide the council with some sort of data or information memo to highlight the diversity achievements in recruiting department over the last couple of years since we've funded this position. That's it. That's all. I'll move on to Penny. I want to just say to Chief, he this your first budget. I want to just salute and say this was an excellent presentation. It was encouraging to hear and I applaud the creative reorganization and thought that you put into the department and we're really addressing and listening to the needs of the system today. Much of what we see in this budget and which I'm trying to do with the department, attempting to do with the department, is this is in response to a lot of what you've heard from the community, but also of the council. And and I think that really what we're doing today needs to money in many respects. I believe that models, you know, should change, particularly in government of police department and every department. I mean, if we we can tweak our models to make them more efficient and more responsive to our public. We're doing the right thing. So I'm encouraged by what you're attempting to do with this budget proposal. Obviously, there I have some questions. I want to go into some detail at some point, and you can probably do that during the DLC. But it is it is encouraging to see this focus on on better communications of wellness internally and externally, thinking about the community, but also the officers and obviously crime. And you mentioned homelessness. Well, I will put on your you're something to think about and then I'd like to see accomplished in that no chief has been able to do in my ten years on the city council, and that is to open our Northwest Police station right from work to business station and basically maybe all of the stations to make them more serving to the community. You can spend all your time is up. I'm sorry. But let me finish my point. Thank you. I think in doing so, we do go a long way to better engage our community and improve accessibility to our public safety officials. And so I'll get to Parks and Rec. I can't wait to talk to you guys. Thank you for the time. Thank you. And I couldn't agree more. Councilmember Mongo. Thank you so much. What excellent presentations tonight. Having been on the city council for eight years. I know that there are things that come up year after year and changes that we make and some of them are minor. This year I feel like I see major changes in the right direction and I'm really, really, really impressed with the work that you guys are doing. First and foremost, I look through the budget book and I see the policies are at the front like we as a Budget Committee discuss and how important that is for all of us to be reminded of the policies that we adhere to as a council that we all agreed upon. Next, I really want to applaud fire. There are lots of questions that I've asked year after year related to grants, related to percentages, related to opportunities. And I feel like every single one of those questions was answered in your presentation tonight. I think that the community has asked the same questions over and over again, and I think that all of them are answered in advance this year. And so I think that that will be a huge success for us. I want to finish by giving a focus on Parks and Rec police great budget. Thank you for all that you've added. I can definitely see your mark on this, Wally, but with Parks and Rec, what a great budget to talk about the real big steps that this Council has made related to eliminating the herbicides in our parks, making sure we have water to water our parks, and then the park restroom issue, park restrooms have been something that I have just harped about year after year after year. We come up with creativity. I remember when I was first elected, I had a staff member who now works for Culver City PD, and on Saturday mornings he would do an inventory of what was needed. He would go to Ace Hardware and he would literally buy soap and toilet seats, not 20. He covers paper actual toilet seats that had been stolen the night before so that our kids who needed to use the bathroom during the day would have something to sit down on. And now for Parks and Rec to take ownership of their parks in a meaningful way is just so great. I want to echo the comments of Councilman Sara. I know these are truncated meetings, but our community budget meetings are really where additional information and feedback can be provided so that our city staff hear you. Thank you so much to everyone and just what a great budget. I'm so proud of the work you guys are doing and the focus on infrastructure and how we're going to see that develop over the next 12 months budget. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman Allen. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I really appreciate all of the presentations. I was just telling. Councilman Ringa I really appreciated especially appreciated his comments. You know, I think we as a council have always been really concerned with workers, whether they're health care workers, grocery store workers. And that's always really important to us. But we also need to take care of our own. And, you know, we need as we start these meeting confirms. I just I think that we just need to think about that. This is our city family. And I just feel like even the years when long time ago, when I was a police officer, I always felt like we were one of the most underpaid in the state . And so I just think that we need to look at that and recognize that we've got some work to do there. I also want to recognize all the speakers that came out tonight. I know there were a lot of. You know, concerns. And we have some work to do. But I'm committed to listening to building trust and to addressing the issues that are important to so many people. I'm Chief Habash. Thank you for your amazing presentation. And I just want to thank all of our officers for all their hard work. And I know it's a tough and demanding job. So thank you. And I under I really just appreciate all the sacrifices that you make and you your families make to protect our city. I also appreciate hearing the department's continues to prioritize building strong relationships with our residents and community and and still addressing crime, homelessness and also our employee wellness. That's the important things. Also the fire chief. So there you. Are. Thank you for your presentation as well. I appreciate your work. I know that our response times are really extremely fast, which save lives, and it's great to see that our focus for this year is to continue to improve those response times for all emergencies and minimizing. A fire loss. So I also like reading about your mental health and wellness initiatives. And also, as you know, many conversations that I've had with you personally, I love to see that, you know, you're looking at hiring more police women. And I loved hearing about your the workshop that you'll the female firefighter career workshop. That's all really good stuff. So thank you for sharing. That with with everybody publicly. Brant, someone said so many nice things about you. I agree. You're amazing. We're so lucky to have you and our Parks Recreation and Marine Department. And it was also wonderful to hear about all your accomplishments throughout the year from the openings of Lincoln Park to making sure that all of our beaches and marine areas are free of trash. And. And just maintaining all of our park facilities. It's a lot of work. You've got a lot under. You're under your umbrella. So I just really appreciate you. And also, I was reading the river debris was removed from the harbor areas and you were targeting 1500 tons and you end up doing 2500 tons. That's really just really incredible work. So appreciate appreciate you. I'm also excited about the about the pilot magnet door program. So I know we've had a lot of issues, especially out at Bixby Park. So just I'm excited about that. And let's see if this can solve some of the the, you know, the issues that we're having out there. And I'm also looking forward to seeing all the improvements over at Bixby. Park as well as. Well. So just appreciate all the department heads. Thank you so much. And we're so fortunate to have each and every one of you leading our departments. And and then I do. Have I know my time's. About to be up, but I do have some questions regarding 911 and just some of the issues that were brought up and this remote occur. So maybe in the days ahead, we can just, you know, clarify some of those those those issues. So thank you very much. Great work, everyone. Thank you. And just to follow up, we are working on a separate memo on 911 dispatching and is answering some of the questions that we've gotten about the status of that operation and. That should be out fairly shortly. We heard some other input today. Will be sure to address some of those. Make sure the council's got that information. Thank you. Just to clarify, is the dispatch all in the police department or don't we don't we have it in the disaster preparedness department? Yes, it's actually not in the police department. All dispatch is in disaster preparedness and emergency communications. When are they presenting engineers? Are they. Scheduled to present. Right now? They are not. But if that's the request of the council, we can talk about that a little bit as well. Okay. Thank you. Next is council members and has. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I just want to literally echo everybody's comments. I know that everybody has made some fantastic comments here. I want to thank the three percenters, chief, chief and five year female chief who have this. And, of course, Director Denis for their great presentations. I think it's very important that we as as the council, take into consideration all of the hard work that is being put into all of these budgets and also take into consideration all of the comments that were made from our audience as well. So thank you, everybody, who came to speak. I very, very much appreciate your comments. I know that. First of all, Chief Basch, I, I'm just so, so very proud of you and all that you have accomplished in this very short time of being our chief. It's been amazing. I know we've done some incredible work together. It's really great to have a strong partnership with you. And I think that also with Parks and Rec, I'm just so thrilled of all the work that that we've been doing together in trying to upkeep our parks and make them a place where where our community can enjoy. And I know there's still a lot of work to be done, obviously, but I'm really, really excited to be working together towards that goal. There's some really, really exciting things coming our way, and I think that that's very, very important as well. I just wanted to make sure that I also. You know, acknowledge the fact that, you know, there are like I think it was Councilwoman Allen that mentioned this, that along with Councilmember Dunga, that we are always, you know, champions for our workers in in the city. Me personally, you know, hero pay was very, very important to me. But we also got to look inside, you know, in our homes. And it's very important to be able to feel good about what we have in the house and how we, you know, compensate all of our employees who help us make the city run as efficiently as possible. And as we all know, this pandemic has hit us hard and especially within our employees. And I just want to reiterate to all of our city employees at all levels that you are a priority to us and that. You know, we can. And I think it's very important that we continue doing that and to continue finding ways to to be able to do that. I think it's very, very important. I also want to say that it's also very important to me that we do see more activities for older adults, not only activities, but programs and ways to help our seniors. One, because they are a big, big group in our city. And also because it's we're all headed in that direction. So I want to make sure that they also feel supported by us and by this budget. Again, I want to thank all of my council colleagues for all their very, very informative and very wise comments and and suggestions. And I absolutely support all of all of what has been said. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Price. Bank? Very much so. A lot of great feedback there. I wanted to go to police now. The five. Was it am I correct that the slide that you put up, Chief Bush said that 5.4% increase in violent crime. Is that correct? Thank you. Councilwoman? Yes, that's correct. 5.4% increase year to date. That is after starting this year with a 17.4% increase in violent crime in January. Okay. And we're talking about violent crime. How do we define that as that pursuant to what qualifies as a strike offense? No, Councilwoman, it is from the federal UCR data. Part one Crime and violent crime is categorized based on those guidelines. Okay. Do you think you can send me an email with those guidelines and we'll make those available for our constituents because we get asked that question a lot. Absolutely. Thank you. You talked a little bit about recruitment. I will say I'm in the law enforcement industry, so I talk with police departments all the time. And I know that recruitment is an issue statewide, probably nationally. But I will say it's a little bit more of an issue in Long Beach. When I talk with police officers from other areas, I asked them a lot of times, you know, why don't they apply to Long Beach? And what I hear repeatedly is that, you know, we're not paying competitive salaries for police officers. We're just we're not in terms of what what is being paid in the region and. You know, the level of support for police officers fluctuates depending on politics and things like that. So they don't feel like there's a consistent set of support for them. And I think that's really something we need to focus on as a city and, you know, as elected officials, like, do we support our police officers or do we not? Because I think it's important for them to to feel that, because retention and recruitment is a huge issue. And I think that's a structural issue that we need to think about, not just for this year or next year, but for the years to come. And I think that's something that we just need to have on our frame of mind in terms of how do we recruit the best and the brightest. We can talk all day long and have a lot of rhetoric about what that means, but what does that mean in terms of who were attracting to actually the fire chief? I love the creation of the new bureau. And I just want to take a moment. All politics aside, I think everyone here knows that the city budget that was prepared by the city manager that was submitted to the mayor's office that no council member was privy to. Officially on on July the first involved your recommendations. For this community policing proposal and your recommendations for the bike patrol officers that you referred to as the stop program. That was your idea. And I think it's really, really important. You don't have to comment on it. But for us to acknowledge that on July the first, when this budget was presented to the mayor's office with limited accessibility. Your proposal for community policing and bike officers was the proposal that made it into that budget. It is your proposal, and I want to thank you, Chief, for listening to the community and working hard to make sure that your proposal made it into the budget. Those of us watching know that this was your idea and we're really grateful for it. I want to talk to you a little bit about the professional development section that you're creating. Can you talk a little bit about how the ABLE program, which is something that came forth to the Public Safety Committee when I was chair of the Public Safety Committee, which focuses on bystander liability, fits into that program, and how programs like bystander viability are going to help with some of the public trust issues and culture change issues that we've been talking about. Thank you, Councilwoman. The ABLE program is that that grant opportunity will be coming to council on the sixth. But we've already started our programing for able within the department. ABLES ran out of our training division, so that's under a separate bureau where Internal Affairs now the Professional Standards Division will investigate misconduct but also look into body worn camera early intervention programs and find ways to address behavioral issues that can ensure employee success and growth we're able is separate from that, but all connected on on demonstrating our commitment and investment in our employees in this department, in this community. So able is still moving forward and that's going to be a department wide operation, a department wide roll out for all of our employees, where the conversion of the Internal Affairs Division is more specific to that, and adding another layer of what we do within that division to ensure our employees can be successful. That's wonderful. And I think anyone who's watching tonight, if you just Google the terms by standards ship liability, you'll find that that is an incredible resource. There's a ton of white papers on it in terms of police reform, and I'm so grateful that our police department's participating in that. I want to ask you a little bit about cameras. We have cameras all over the city. What is the plan to get those cameras tied into the police department? I get this question all the time. Do we have any funding for that? Thank you, Councilwoman. The camera system in our city is under the Department of Technology and Innovation, so that's under a separate department director. However, the police department does have access to security footage, and we do use that, as I've spoken about that before, for the investigation of crimes and developing investigative leads and that type of thing. So the city camera structure is run out of the Department of Technology and Innovation. Okay. All right. We'll save those questions for them. And then the other thing I just wanted to put on screen and price love all the innovative programing that we're doing. I like the allocation of new staff as I see it in the proposed budget. But one thing, Chief, that we. Have a moment is your time is. Up. No matter what district residents live in, they want to make sure that they have. The best. Response times. And that's the one thing I think probably me and all of my council members, all my council colleagues can speak to unilaterally is that residents can. Always price your time. Making sure that when they call the police, there's someone that's going to respond. And I think that's really important. And I know if you can just make sure that you're focused on that. Councilman Price, your time is. Up get some folks is response time and I think we need to focus on. Thank you. Councilman Allen. Yes. So I have a question probably for I think is probably for Tom. Can you speak specifically about turnover, cost and recruitment versus retention spending? I just want to make sure that we're looking at flexible ways to keep valuable employees and avoid having to replace them at. You know, even greater cost. Yeah. So it certainly is a challenging time right now to both hire a new staff and and keep our existing staff. People have a lot of options out there. It's a very low unemployment rate. And so people are able to move around and and move from job to job. We see that. We love to keep our city employees here as much as we can. Part of our strategy and programs is we do have a lot of promotion activities right now as we do have open positions. We are looking to promote our city employees, but we're also looking to bring on additional city employees to keep hiring going and make sure that those who are here have some support and aren't always having to do overtime shifts. We heard clearly from our employees, you know, I think you've heard this from me several times. We have a lot going on in our city. We do care very much about our workforce and try to manage their workload because they are being asked to do a lot of extra time, extra work. One thing that we did last year is we created our new performance incentive that would never existed before for anyone that was not in the management ranks. And so that's available to all employees. And we've been using a fair amount of that to acknowledge amazing work. What I get feedback from employees a lot is not just on the dollar amount, but it's just the recognition. We sign a certificate. Everyone who gets one of those gets a certificate from the city manager. And it really does help, I think, a little bit with morale. In terms of retention, we do have in our contracts, we've been trying to structure these as long term contracts so that there are projected increases and those are coming. We mentioned some of those and then of course, we did do equity adjustments in our AM contracts and others for not just every position across the board, but those where we were having some specific issues and we can go a little bit further into that. But yeah, one of the other things we're doing is we are investing in this budget, in civil service and in H.R. we have a number of efforts going on right now to try to streamline our hiring processes and also to bring more resources to civil service so that they can do, you know, open up our our our list faster and higher, faster, so that we can help support employees by bringing people in to make sure they're not having to do other jobs for those that are vacant. Awesome. Thank you, Mr. Murdoch. I also want to know. Looking at the police budget so it looks like it's not much of a change. Here we are. So is it already what we're talking about, additional officers like and the bike officers, is that already planned in this budget currently? Yes. So the budget proposal includes 20 new officers, 16 bike officers and four quality of life officers. Okay. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you, Councilman Mongo. Thank you. My zoom had a quick blip. So if another council member stated this already. I just want to take a quick moment to acknowledge our dispatchers. I heard staff come to the podium tonight to discuss the demand on our dispatchers. And dispatch is a very, very straining occupation. And I would like to see us look towards better supporting our dispatchers. I would love to see. Obviously, pay is a component, but pay is a part of a negotiated process. There are still other things that agencies have done for their dispatchers that have been helpful, including refurbishing restroom rest areas because of the stress and the quality of their break times that is necessary. There's lots of other things we can do, and I'd really love to see an investment in that. Thank you. No more comments. Thank you, Councilman Austin. Thank you. I'll just follow up with my comments. I did appreciate the presentation by Parks Recreation Marine. Again, one of our asset departments that's public facing that. It's always engaging for a community. I think most people experience our parks have a positive experience and that's positive for the city. Much of the public comment and I did appreciate hearing from our city employees because of week after week after week. There's a common theme not only in our city but for us in our society, and that's workforce challenges of recruitment and retention is a it's a serious it's an issue that we have to grapple with as a city council, not just with public safety and police and fire, but what our employment ranks in the city. And so I'd like to see us obviously give a lot more attention to that, because obviously we want to ensure that all of our city employees are coming to work and feeling dignified and respected for the work that they do. I'm really interested also as well, remember with the dispatch emergency dispatch operators of 12, 18 hour shifts. That's really happening. And I've talked to the director who's shared with me the challenges that he's having with with hiring and retaining employees and that as well. So I think we need to take a stronger look at that. But also, I'd like to see us in all positions, you know, look at internal career ladders in recruiting internally, filling positions internally. People should not have to be feel like they're stuck in the role that they're there in forever, particularly in a city like Long Beach that has so many options for you to learn as well as as an employee. Right. And so we should be when you talk about diversity in hiring. Yeah, we want to know what it looks like, but we also want to know that we I'd like to know that we're looking at our candidates internally and promoting people within team to maintain a culture of of of excellence. So those are my comments. I look forward to obviously continuing the conversations around, you know, the X's and O's and the dollars and cents of the budget. But we also need to promote a solid workplace culture. I think we're moving in the right direction, but we need to look within to build people up as well. X. Thank you. Council member Super. Thank you. Great presentations. By Chief Steven and Espinal and Director Denis and also great. Presentations by our. Dispatchers. Fantastic job tonight. And I'll just say here, I would like to see a presentation. By Reggie Harrison as part. Of the budget process or at least bring us a wish list, because I'd like to see this fixed as soon as possible. And I just have everything's been covered, I think. But I just also. Wanted to thank Chief Espino particular for this statistics that he brought forth. These are things that I knew anecdotally. I'm not sure what term he used on on point. They call them vegetation fires. But I know over the weekend we had. The 405 freeway shut down at. Lakewood Boulevard due to a vegetation. Fire. And then I think about 21 hours later, there was a flare up of the same spot. Two weeks prior. We had a. Vegetation fire. Adjacent to the nature center that shut down the nature center for a day. So the stat I heard, Chief, was. 381 arson. Investigations. I know that's probably different types of fires. But the number that was so staggering to me of these types of fires. You went from around. 200 to over 630 and that in that range of more than 3% increase. So what I would like to suggest is that we need some type of effort here. And it might. Be that all the departments presenting tonight and the city manager's office, if we can have. Some type. Of fire prevention effort, I don't know what exactly it is, but somehow we're taking a look at this issue because if we don't, I don't see it improving. And what we can do in terms of prevention would be something I'd like to look at. And so I thank you. Thank you. Councilman Price, I'm not sure if this is the custom on price. This is from before I transitioned. Wasn't sure this is. No, thank you, Mr. Mayor. I recused because I think I'm perfect. I was. I was in the middle of talking when I think my mic was turned off, so I just recused. So. Yes, thank you. So I just have a couple more questions. So going back to police. I know police doesn't oversee dispatch, but when people want to call for police response, they call dispatch. And sometimes they don't know that our internal structure makes dispatch a different department than police. And so a lot of times, if they don't get a good response from dispatch, they attribute it to police. And our dispatchers are under tremendous stress. I cannot even imagine how difficult and challenging their work is. So I agree with Councilman Super not anything we can do to be further educated on what we are doing to support them and give them the tools that they need to succeed. We get so many calls from residents and emails from residents saying that they were dissatisfied with dispatch. And sometimes I find myself getting very defensive on behalf of our dispatchers again, because of my line of work on a daily basis. I know the stress that our dispatchers have and they're getting faced with a lot of questions that are beyond just general police or fire response. And so making sure that they have the right training and they have the resources so that it doesn't fall on their shoulders entirely is critical. And so anything that we can do to support our dispatchers, I'm more than happy to do. They deserve our full support and beyond, frankly, because they they are the first line of defense. When residents call for help for 90% of the calls to the city, their touch point is dispatch. We cannot forget that their touch point is not the council office or the city manager's office or any of our departments other than dispatch. 99% of the calls from residents throughout the city that Touch City Hall are through dispatch. So we need to make sure we support our dispatchers. So I want to transition over to PR and fantastic presentation. Brant, I know that whoops. After dark last night you and I were talking and I did not realize this is your third budget. You came in during COVID years and so it just flew by. But you did an excellent job on that presentation and I know you're working really hard. There's a couple of things I wanted you to expand on, but first I wanted to say our bathrooms. I know you know, Mr. Janice, that I did my own personal audit of the bathrooms and I had myself and staff point to different bathrooms and looking at their condition. And we really need to make sure our bathrooms are clean. I mean, they just that has to be a focus for our city because taxpayers aren't feeling like they can use the restrooms when they go to the park or with their children or by themselves, and they feel like the bathrooms are not accessible to them, then we're really rendering those who use those public facilities useless to residents , and we want to make sure that we don't do that. Residents should be able to use the restroom. You go to the park. I know this is a mom of two kids. You go to the park for an hour with your kid. The chances are either you or your child is going to need to use the restroom. And if the restroom is is not in a condition, you're not going to use that. And I think that's one of the core services that the city has to provide. So I'm really grateful for our investment in bathrooms. But can you, Mr. Dennis, talk a little bit about the Rancho budgets for for both Rancho La Cerritos and Rancho Los Alamitos? They are in the budget. And I would like you to talk about them specifically, and I would like you to also touch on Pickleball. So if you could talk about those two things, and I think I will be done with questions after that. Mr. Mayor, thank you. All right. Thank you, Councilwoman Price. So I do want to make a comment regarding restrooms. So I'm very optimistic and fully committed to this new initiative with the Park Safety Ambassadors. I think our park maintenance team has worked very thoughtfully to craft together second shift and have all the resources that from the get go, we'll have trained team members out there really doing the best job to secure our restrooms overnight and also maintain them because bottom line is we want them to be safe, clean and welcoming. So I think your comment about young families in particular nature will call and certainly we want our restrooms to be available. So the ranchos in the five year infrastructure plan, as I met with both the executive directors and their boards, they are identified as a top priority and for obvious reasons, because of the beauty of their historic structures, a fire detection and suppressant system. And they've worked with actually the same internationally acclaimed engineer for those systems that are very sensitive to the for the Rancho, the Adobe walls and some of the historic attributes where you want to have a system that's effective but not that obvious. So they have gotten to about 100% final design level, and we had recommended allocating $600,000 for each of the ranchos. And I think that was a. Very important high priority improvement for both of those great facilities. Pickleball I know we have a TFR for the citywide pickleball master plan summary that's going to be distributed. I know over the past week or so we've made some really great are we call although we call them low hanging fruit improvements but we introduced for new dual use or dual straight courts out at Marina Vista Park. We've gotten really great accolades from the Pickleball community there, and we're also moving forward with some improvements at Somerset Park and returning some attention back to Bayshore and College Estates is a little bit more challenging, but we're trying to be thoughtful to the neighbors. But the growing interest in Pickleball citywide, I think, has been very surprising and it's also very significant. So in the five year infrastructure plan, you'll notice that there were dedicated pickleball courts proposed for Veterans Park to Forest Park and also recreation park adjacent to the Billie Jean King Tennis Center. So we're thankful for that. And I also always like to give a shout out to our Long Beach Pickleball Advisory Group. They're self-identified ambassadors that have a great passion for what I call their nucleus groups that are scattered all over the city. Now we've got a new group that's formed up at Halton Park and also, you know, good news while we were at Hoops After Dark, the Salvation Army, it's a new facility or gym at Long Beach Boulevard in spring. Last night, two Saturdays ago, they actually added pickleball striping to their basketball courts. So they're anxious to work with us to have a pilot, three months league to see if there's enough interest in that part of the city. So I think that's the best update I can provide on my favorite sport. Now talk about and I do like basketball too, but but pickleball is important to a growing number of people. Do you have any other questions? No. Thank you so much. And thank you for your show, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Thank you to all the councilmembers for the comments. We were going to go ahead and receive and file. There is a motion and a second, a roll call to receive in the budget hearing. And it just gets continued, of course, to the next budget hearing. Councilwoman Cindy has. A. Councilwoman Alan I. Councilwoman Price. I. Councilman Sabina. I. Councilwoman Mongo. I. Catwoman. Ciro. I. Councilmember Muranga. I. Councilman Austin. Hi. Vice Mayor Richardson. Hi. The motion is carried nine June. Thank you very much. We will. We're going to go and do. Audience 27 And then the aquarium bond items. AUDIENCE The 27 is the first reading of the ordinance, please.