Recommendation to increase appropriations in the General Fund Group in the City Manager Department by $10,000, offset by the Third Council District One-time District Priority Funds transferred from the Citywide Activities Department to provide a contribution to the Long Beach Rowing Association (LBRA) at 5750 Boathouse Lane for the creation of a free Youth Learn to Row Summer Camp targeted for students attending Cabrillo, Poly and Jordan High Schools; and Decrease appropriations in the General Fund Group in the Citywide Activities Department by $10,000 to offset a transfer to the City Manager Department.
Right. Very much, Karis. Now we will go on to item 13, please. Communication from Councilwoman Price, Councilwoman Zendejas, Councilmember Urunga, Councilman Austin recommendation to increase appropriations in the City Manager Department by 10,000 to provide a contribution to the Long Beach Rowing Association for the creation of a free youth. Learn to Row Summer Camp. Price. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'm super excited about this item, and I actually have a few people that are going to be calling in to speak about it. This item came about after we had the Coastal Commission meeting about the pool and one of the Coastal Commissioners and I know Councilman Arango will remember this, made a comment about competitive swimming and she talked about how she was a competitive swimmer and making opportunities for people who wouldn't have access otherwise to learn how to be competitive athletes. And it really got me thinking about Marine Stadium and the history of Marine Stadium as an Olympic venue and the city of Long Beach and the sport of rowing. I'm not sure how much my council colleagues know about the sport of rowing, but I didn't know anything about the sport a few years ago. Before my boys got involved in it. We used to see the rowers on Marine Stadium all the time, but had no idea what it meant to do that sport. Since my boys have learned about the sport, I've learned a lot about the opportunities in that sport in terms of collegiate admissions aid and collegiate scholarships, especially for female rowers. We've seen a huge boost in the last few years, ever since rowing became an official NCAA sport. Teams are now allowed to give out 20 scholarships per year, and with rowing being an equivalency sport, those 20 scholarships can be divided in any way that a coach wishes to. Rowing rosters are typically large in size, and plenty of scholarship opportunities are available in 2015. On average, NCAA D1 teams have 39 rowers on scholarships, with some teams having up to 50 student athletes receiving some sort of athletic aid. An 80% 85% of collegiate rowers were members of either a high school or club rowing team in the city of Long Beach. We don't have rowing as a high school team. And so the only way students in the city of Long Beach throughout the city could participate is through participation as a club sport, which is incredibly expensive. So this item provides a free summer camp at the Long Beach Rowing Association is going to help us administer. They're going to provide the boats. They're going to talk about it in just a minute. And it's for the students that are interested. So we've already reached out to Cabrillo Poly and Jordan administrators. They've been super positive. We're targeting students from those three schools because those are the high schools that we see a lot of underrepresentation on in terms of rowing scholarships and aquatics scholarships. And the administrators have been very, very supportive. We got our first applicant and accepted yesterday, so we're really excited about it. We're probably going to have 15 to 16 students. And for those students who participate in this program, if they decide they like the sport, I'm going to personally fundraise one year scholarship for each of those students that comes at $8,000 a student for participation in the annual club sport. So I may need some of your guys's help in fundraising for those students, but I'd love to give them the opportunity to do a year of college rowing to see if they're good at it. And wouldn't it be great if we have athletes from all over the city on college scholarships for rowing, especially our female athletes? So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Christina Dugan, who should be on the call to talk a little bit about the program. Kristina Dugan, please press star six. Hi. Thank you, Mayor, for the time to talk about this program tonight. And of course, thank you, Councilwoman Price, for your overwhelming support and is bringing this program to council. My name is Christina Dugan. I'm a resident and business owner of the third district. I've been a member of Long Beach Rowing Association since 2007, and I'm the regatta director for Elvira. I've been on the board. I work with the club on many of our programs and trainings. It's located the feeder, our Rowing Center, located on Alamitos Bay Marine Stadium. The Rowing Center is home to Long Beach Junior Crew. California adaptive rowing program, also called Cart and Beach Crew. From Colby, Oprah, Endeavor, Chen, Vance, rowing and sportsmanship. Sportsmanship through its members inclusion of the community and programs we provide learn to run programs and are an Olympic and national training site. But let's get into this program. I am so excited to coordinate this program called Row the Stadium, with the help of Councilwoman Pryce and then the volunteers who are members of V-Ray. They will be hoping we have two boats set aside. There are two boats, eight students. Eight participants are in the boat with the coxswain, who steers a 62 foot boat. It's huge. It's so exciting to be on the water. And I have to tell you, the ultimate goal of this group is to row the stadium. Every you should have this opportunity. High school students, young men and women looking to attend college are being encouraged to attend college, can have opportunities open up for scholarships and admissions. I'm not going to go much into this. Councilwoman Pryce went through all of this. But as she said, our first participant accepted yesterday. She found out from the College and Career Center from Cabrillo High School that other participants are excited to participate and asking about this. What is the program? Well, the stadium is a six week program. It'll meet Saturday and Sunday for 2 hours each day at our two rowing center, teaching the fundamentals of rowing both on and off the water. I'll be running has volunteer coaches, lunch drivers and experienced adult rowers will be working with the participants for dry land and on the water. But another part of this program, several current rowers who rode with LBJ will be participating in the leadership portion of this program by being junior coaches and working with the participants weekly. These two young people have developed a dry land training program, have helped to develop the name and logo for this program, and will also be in the boat with the new rowers to help them on the water, peer to peer coaching and team building. From their perspective, with the supervision, of course, of head coaches is really important to the program's success. Rowing is so close to my heart. Youth. I have run programs for many, many years. I am. Thank you. Our next speaker is Christina Durian. I know that she just spoke. So I think your next speaker is going to be either Kian Pryce or Gabriella Schaub. Thank you. Deborah Schwab, please begin. Hello. I'm Eric Garcia. Council members and constituents of the Long Beach community. My name is Siobhan. I've been growing as a part of the Long Beach Junior Crew program for about four years now. And during that time, I have learned so much about the sport and the opportunities available for competitive colleges, and this is especially true for female rowers. As Councilor Price says, rowing is a sport that has traditionally been targeted to male athletes. But that trend has changed. And today, female athletes throughout the nation are recruiting more and more for the sport. I thankfully had the. Opportunity to attend the Long Beach Junior Crew summer camp back when I was just 12 years old. And these camps ultimately were the reason why I fell in love with the sport and led me to develop a strong athletic ability, maintaining a fun and enjoyable environment with others. We are fortunate to live in Long Beach, a city but as hosted rowing in the Olympics and may someday host the Olympics for the sport again. And therefore, rowing is a big part of Long Beach, its history and our future. This camp will open the door to the youth from throughout the city and hopefully many more athletes throughout the city to learn this sport free of charge. This will open up future opportunities for our local athletes to continue to shine as they transition into college. I am excited to be one of the youth counselors in this program and thank you in advance for supporting our efforts. Thank you for listening. Thank you. John Price, we begin. Hello, Mr. Mayor. And Council. My name is Kim Pryce. We often talk about opportunities and people taking advantage of. Opportunities that are provided to them. But what I have learned. Is that something is not. Really an opportunity if you don't know about. It or if you. Don't have a real chance of participating in it. I feel that way about the sport of growing. I I'm fortunate to live near Marine Stadium or. Rowers enjoy. This Olympic. Site every day. My brother and. I have grown up seeing rowers practice their sport at this site. We started to learn the sport. Our family learned about how many college scholarships and opportunities there are for high school athletes who row. But not many people. Know about this sport. Rowing is an expensive sport to learn and. Practice, and that is why the opportunity to grow is not really an opportunity for everyone and only an. Opportunity for a small group. Of people. That needs. To change. I'm excited to currently. Participate in Long Beach Junior. Crew or learn the sport and encourage inclusion and help in a healthy lifestyle. We want to. Expand that beyond just the youth who are currently. Part of the team. A Rose Stadium camp will offer any student who would not otherwise have the opportunity. To learn the sport. The opportunity. To participate in a free introductory summer camp. So students who participate and who want to continue to score would be eligible. For a one year membership to join object. We are grateful for the administrators at Cabrillo Jordan and Poly High who have already taken time to learn about the camp and send their referrals. Thank you very much. Thank you. That concludes public comment. Thank you, Mr. Clarke. And I'll just conclude with the other thing that we're going to be providing through private dollars. So it's not part of this item is a transportation voucher. So any student who needs transportation, we will provide them vouchers with their preference so we can do Uber, Lyft or bus passes. We will provide transportation for anyone to participate in this program. And as you can tell, I'm super, super excited about it. I would love it if we had a few students from Long Beach get a full college scholarship for rowing. And wouldn't it be great if they someday came back and became Olympic athletes? And hopefully we host the sport of rowing in Long Beach in 2028? And I hope that this program helps shine the light on what we're doing in Long Beach to make the sport accessible for everyone. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilman's in the house. Thank you very much, Mayor, and thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much, Councilwoman Price, for introducing this item. And to all of my colleagues who supported it is super important to ensure that all of our youth have access to these types of programs that can grant them the amazing opportunity to develop new skills that they will be able to enjoy for the rest of their lives. Traditionally, these programs have not been accessible nor affordable to our students who live in the Westside or in the Washington neighborhood and in surrounding areas as well. This is why it truly, truly warms my heart to know that this role summer camp is targeted for the students, local students here at Cabrillo Poly and Jordan High School. And I'm I'm even more pleased to know that this is something that they can potentially take with them to college as well. And thank you so much, Councilmember Price, for sharing that transportation will also be provided for these students because that is a huge thing and a huge barrier for our Westside students to actually participate in opportunities like this. I'm super excited to support this item and for this program, and I'm committed to supporting programs like this that are aimed to empowering the youth. Thank you very much, Councilwoman Price. Thank you very much. Next up, we have council member Ringo. Thank you, Mary. Thank you, Councilmember Price, for bringing this forward. Anything that provides added access to our coast is very, very welcome. And I really appreciate you bringing this forward, especially with all the fundraising you're going to do in the end, the travel vouchers. I mean, that's awesome. Thank you so much for bringing this forward. I think our kids will love it for it. I will love you for. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Austin. I thank you, Mr. Mayor. And, you know, I just want to take this opportunity to thank and salute Councilmember Price for bringing forth this very innovative program that, in my opinion, will really expand access exposure, but also open doors of opportunity for young student athletes who probably wouldn't have had it otherwise been exposed to this this amazing sport crew. I can tell you firsthand that college scholarship, athletic scholarships are life changing for student athletes or for parents, for families of student athletes. And to expand that, those opportunities are amazing. And I can just just I have two nieces who are involved in aquatic sports on sport scholarships. One went to university, too, Pacific. The other one is at Cal State. Long Beach is a water polo player today. Lastly, my son is also a scholar athlete on scholarship playing football. These these opportunities are very rare. But when when a kid has that opportunity, when a family has that opportunity, it it is one that is amazing . So this is a small investment that that could pay big dividends of a long term. So, again, congratulations. Thank you for bringing this forward. Councilmember, you can count on my office to help you with your outreach efforts and and assist in any way we can to make this a success. Thanks. Thank you, Councilman. Next up, I have Vice Mayor Richardson. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just want to chime in and say thanks for intentionally calling out Jordan High School and Cabrillo. My experience is when these kids win, when the olive branch is extended and opportunity is extended, they take advantage of it. And I've seen some from, you know, Jordan High School. I work really closely with them. I see some great opportunities and some great success stories come out of there. So I just wanted to say thank you and you have my support. Please don't hesitate if you need any help with your ongoing commitment to this program. Thank you. Thank you. That concludes the council comments. I think we've done public comment. Just just to add to what everybody said, just a phenomenal way of reaching out to folks for an amazing sport. And I agree, we are going to get rowing for the Olympics. That's the goal. And a lot of folks are working to make sure that that happens. And we we are the world class Rowing City and have the history to prove it. And I think one of the best rowing facilities anywhere in the country, especially for for hosting these larger events. And and what we do currently, I mean, just take any on any given day, you can just go out and watch Marine Stadium or to the river and you just see folks, young people rowing. And it's just one of the I think the kind of the beauties of of that of the neighborhood as well, and of seeing all these young people enjoying a sport and taking care of themselves and really appreciating each other because it really is an every in every way team sport were there where, you know, people are learning and supporting each other. So I think it's phenomenal and a great way to reach out to young people. So thank you for that. That concludes public comment and council comment. So we'll go ahead and do a roll call vote, please. District one. Hi. District two. I District three district. I district for. My. District five. I. District six. I. District seven. I. District eight. All right. District nine. By. Version carries. Thank you. Next up is item 14, please.