Recommendation to Reconsider Award of the Contract for the Publication of Legal Notices and Consider Providing Direction for Funding Options to Assist the Alameda Sun. (City Clerk 10022020)
and so July 20th, I'm sorry, wrong date. And so basically there's two things before you to consider tonight. There is one thing the contract and the second thing, funding options. So basically the council does have an option to terminate the existing contract with the Alameda Journal and could then, you know, pursue entering into a contract with the Army to fund and then the funding option. There are basic funding that I think I could turn it over to, Mr. Butler to outline the options and kind of discuss what funding I think they've had to. And and just before we get into that, do we have public comment on this item? Yes, we have at least one speaker. All right. Okay. Ms.. Butler, go ahead. Hi. Hi. Nice to be back. So we have given us some examples of the types of funding that we can provide as a city. For example, we could use general funds to do a general sponsorship for the news paper, or we could support the Sun with. Ads for our. Shop, local campaigns, restaurant week and other local events. Or we could sponsor a section in their paper. We could say it's sponsored by the city as far as funds that they have received from the city grants and things like that, they have not received grants from the city. They did apply for Almeda Strong and they applied for the COVID 19 grant that their lottery number did not come up. And those were two separate funds, right? The COVID 19. Crisis. What was the maximum that they could have received from each of those sources? So they could have received 7500 from one or the other. If they were qualified, we would have to evaluate their their application to see if they were qualified. And were applicants able to receive funds from both. Or just just one? One. Okay. Okay. And then I believe there may have been some other funds that they received from the state or federal government. Is that. Correct? That is correct. They received PPE, and I would just try the paycheck protection plan funds. And. That was a. Federal loan that could turn into a grant. Okay. Thank you. Counsel, any clarifying questions for Ms.. Butler before we open that public comment? Okay. Let's hear from our public speaker or speakers, please, Madam Clerk. We have one speaker at Chuck Capellini. Good evening, Speaker Capellini. Good evening. Not a mayor and city council members. Thanks. I'll be fast. I know you're trying to get through the meeting tonight. I'm here to encourage you to reconsider your early vote and award the contract for the publication of legal notices to the Army. The Sun. The Army. The Sun is locally owned and operated, and they are a vital part of our community. Six years ago, I began organizing the Alameda Spelling Bee, a citywide spelling competition for Alameda. Students in spelling bees are traditionally sponsored by local newspapers. I reached out to the Alameda Sun to see if they'd be interested in getting involved. And within just a few hours. Eric Cause The Sun's founding publisher responded that the Sun would absolutely be willing to step up and be a sponsor of the spelling bee. And Eric himself even volunteered to be a judge for the competition. In the ensuing years, the Sun has remained an important sponsor of the Almeida Spelling Bee. It provides free space to advertise the event, and they've been they've covered the event every year, including by displaying the winners photos on the front page. I share this story as an example of how the LME, The Sun, unlike other publications distributed in Alameda that I'm aware of, is engaged and active in the city in ways that go far beyond what other publications do. The Sun's pages feature stories about Almeida's history on a regular basis, and the publisher regularly conducts historic walks of the city. The Sun provides an outlet for city government, including updates in the library's other services, as well as regular front page column by Mayor Ashcraft. In fact, I suspect that the Alameda Sun may be the city's most important outlet for informing Alameda about news from the city government. So the fact that the sun is locally, locally owned and operated really does matter. And the legal notices contract goes a long way in helping this paper to survive. So when considering which publication the city should trust the legal notices contract, it's important to weigh the other values and value that the sun provides to our community. And of course, if there are alternate ways that the city can support the Sun, financial or otherwise, I'd encourage you to pursue those paths as well. Thank you. Thank you. And do we have further speakers, Madam Clerk? That was our only speaker. Okay, then we are going to close public comment at this time and we will hear from the council. Councilmember Dave, address your hand up. Yes, thank you. I think we talked about the reasons why we believe we need to consider reversing our decision. So I would encourage us to go immediately to a decision. And the thing that I would move is that we move to terminate the contract with Alameda Journal and award the contract to Alameda Sun and also invite the Alameda Sun to to obtain their sources of funding described in the three bullet points in the staff report, capping it at no more than $19,200. That's additive to the contract itself, by the way. So just to be clear. Okay. Thank you for your comments. Councilmember Herrera Spencer. Second, the motion. Was that a motion? Yeah, that's the motion. That was the motion at second. Okay, then we'll open for discussion. I'd like to lead the discussion. Okay. I will. I think this is a case for we can have our cake and eat it, too. And I'll tell you what I mean. I don't think we should terminate the contract with the Alameda Journal to provide legal notices. And the reason for that is they have the more extensive circulation, and that's important when we're providing legal notices. And I don't want to see us pit one small newspaper against another, albeit one is even smaller than the other. But they're both small newspapers. And in an era where we're seeing a lot of local journalism just fold and not be able to carry on, I don't think we need to in any way be punitive or adopt a punitive stance towards a newspaper. But I do think that we can certainly provide some forms of financial assistance to the Journal The Sun. And I mentioned briefly when we were talking about ARPA funds and ARP offenses, we all remember were there to assist businesses and entities to recover from the impacts of COVID 19. And certainly COVID 19 has has impacted this small local newspaper. They were they did get the paper money. And presumably, if they didn't lay off any staff, it converted into a grant. The ability to apply for either the city's COVID 19 relief funds or the strong was just by lottery. And your number came up or it didn't. And I guess we have expended those funds, is that correct? So we'd be we'd be looking from two other sources. But I would I would recommend that we follow the the first bullet and the alternative, keep the contract with the sun, with the Journal and provide direction on funding to assist the Alameda Sun. And I liked all of the things that Ms.. Butler mentioned to us that we can take money from general fund. I would add we can take money from ARPA, we could place ads for restaurant week, we can sponsor a city or a city section. I think a number of our departments I know I do a monthly column, by the way, my monthly column runs in the Journal as well as The Sun. And because we know we're trying to get the word out about important topics as widely as possible. But I know the city attorney's office and our public information officer and probably others recreation parks, I think all two informational pieces. So I do want to see us assist the sun. And I think it's a matter of how much money we'd like to allocate to doing that. Because remember, the contract isn't a price specific. There's an estimate that if the number of ads continues at the pace at a previous level, it would be about 46,000 a year. But that's not a guarantee either. We may be able to provide some guaranteed income anyway. My thoughts? Anybody who wants to weigh in who hasn't yet. Okay, back to Councilmember Harris Spencer. I just want to say, in the interest of time that I believe this meeting is at midnight, we have 14 minutes to go. So I'm looking at this correctly. There's a motion and a second on the table. I think it is critical that we terminate the contract with the Journal and award it to the Sun, I think , and that's what the referral was. But so that I wanted to try to move this along. Thank you. Well, you know, in the end, when you mentioned time and time is running out, something that I made a mental note of after we didn't finish the consent calendar until almost 9:00. Is that moving forward? I'm going to go back to something I've done before, that when items are pulled from the consent calendar, we're going to move them to be heard at the end of the regular agenda item because it's just not fair to make our staff and any public speakers have to hang around this long to have their items heard. I want to hear from the entire council, though, before we vote. Vice Mayor Vella, we haven't heard from you and Councilmember Knox. Well, I don't think we've heard from you either. So. Your thoughts. Councilmember Knox. I am happy to speak. Yeah, well, I want to. I have a different perspective. I don't think we're talking about funding two small hometown papers. The Alameda Journal is owned by a Denver hedge fund, and they have 100 papers and 200 other publications nationally. The Army, The Sun is a local one and I continue to support them. If for some reason we wanted to continue running the ads in the Alameda Journal, I think that the number in the the original staff proposal was $46,000. If we want to commit to funding $46,000 in support for the Alameda Sun as well, I'd be happy to look at that as a as a way. But I think that, you know, right now I my interest, you know, I didn't vote to move the ads to the Alameda Journal. But if for some reason that bet that there's an interest in keeping the ads there, I would be willing to support something that also provided the funding that we were talking about for the Army. Do something about it for us back in June. If not, I'm happy to support that. The motion that's on the table. Vice Mayor Vella. But I continue to have the issue with the circulation and the whole point of the legal notices and until we can find a way to expand that. So, you know, I'm happy to, you know, look at the other options relative to the grants, advertising, things like that. My position hasn't changed. I. My sense of things is and I and I agree that they are not both hometown newspapers, but my sense of things is, at least for me, wanting to help them out, I think is separate from making sure that we have the legal notices. So I just want to make my position clear on that. I don't I would not support moving over the legal notices and then also giving them aid or assistance. But I would be open to talking about the, you know, the options that Ms.. Butler added. Thank you. And. Okay. So. Are we? Is this a do we need to bifurcate this? Because the the there is the recommendation that we reconsider the awarded the publication. And. Funding options for the son. I I'm not sure. Well, I certainly can't support all of that, that we're going to avoid them the contract and give them all this other financial assistance. I mean, at some point, would would the city be the major funder of this local newspaper? And that raises some concerns in my mind. Councilmember SAC Yeah, thank you. I think that's a good point. I think, quite frankly, I think the cleanest thing to do is simply to terminate the contract with Alameda Journal and award the contract to the Alameda Sun without providing additional funding to the Alameda Sun. I think the contract is the funding. And Mayor, as he Ashcraft, I appreciate what you're trying to do. I really do. But in this case, I think we're just going to have to go with one provider who we believe to be. And each of us are going to have different opinions as to who we believe, but who we believe to be reflective of of the needs of Alameda residents. And so that's why I'm I'm just going to go with one legal notice provider and and change my vote from previous to the second bullet point. So that's the motion. Okay. And I appreciate that. I always appreciate our dialog. And also just and to be clear, we're doing this to support a local paper and not because they will provide their superior service of more extensive legal notices, because they won't. But we want to help keep them in business, but that's pretty generous and that's as far as we go. So the second year of the motion, are you in agreement with them? I'm happy to second that. Thank you. Okay. We had a motion. We had a second. Any further discussion? Saying. Then let's have a vote. A roll call vote, please. On Florida. Yes. PEREIRA Spencer. I. KNOX Right. I. Bella. I'm going to vote I. But I really hope that we can find a way to expand the legal legal notifications, because I think it's we need to do that. Mayor Ashcroft. I will reluctantly vote I and I'm going to look at this as a trial period for a year. I expect that this is a pretty, pretty significant infusion of funds to the sun. So we'll see what they do with them. Okay. Trace by five. So when your contract. Okay. Thank you, Councilwoman. Not quite. All right. Just related to this that I'm wondering if we want to one of the reasons we have to do this is our charter actually requires us to have a newspaper, a record, which is a very outdated thing. It doesn't allow us to necessarily use online and other sources as our as our record. I'm wondering if you want to give some direction to it over the next few months. Consider bringing something back to the ballot that can be a part of a clean up in the 2022 election. There may be other items that people are interested in, but since it's something we. Can yeah, we can talk about that in charter. I think we're kind of creating a bucket of things. Okay. With that, let's move on. Thank you. Good. Good point. And that that will be considered that so let's let's call it close out. But we're not going to be very clear. We're not giving that direction to staff because that was my question was very in giving direction to staff to do that. I am. Vice mayor. I was just going to say I'm comfortable giving broad direction to staff to figure out if there's alternatives for writing a broader legal notice and what that would entail. We just don't want to get in trouble with that. Would you see? Yes. Okay. All right. So keeping it general direction. All right. Thanks, everybody. Okay, let's move on then to the next item. We're closing the item and we're moving on to council City Manager Communication, Mr. Leavitt. There you go.