Recommendation to authorize City Manager to submit to the City Council purchase transactions for critical technology infrastructure needs.  (Citywide)
Okay. Thank you. Thanks again. And we're going to go ahead, go back to the regular agenda item 29. Report from Technology and Innovation Financial Management Recommendation to authorize the city manager to submit to the City Council purchase transactions for critical technology infrastructure needs citywide. Mr.. Mr.. Mayor. Council members, this, as the city Clerk pointed out, deals with critical infrastructure in the technology arena. We've already had a study session regarding this subject with the city council. It's been on the council's agenda a few weeks ago, but it was like 1130. Postponed till today. So here you go. Basically, we were looking at the history of financing in Long Beach and dealing with technology. In 2001, we were facing a $103 million deficit. It took 3 to 4 years to deal with that, but we stabilized the budget and dealt with that. In 2008, we faced the greatest recession since the Great Depression. That took a long time to recover from, but we did that as well. During the past decade or so. We focused a lot on streets, sidewalks, buildings and roads, but not so much on technology. During the past couple of years, we've conducted a major review of technology and infrastructure, technology, infrastructure throughout the city. This review is turning out that we have big needs to be the 21st century technology city that the community council commissioners all want us to be. We've discovered that we've had some critical technology needs that are imperative for us to deal with things like a new fiber network. Things like replacing outdated technology, replacing outdated equipment, security cameras, and dealing with the issues we're facing with those a brand new CRM system dealing with cybersecurity and electronic document management systems. So I also want to make it clear that we want to do this in a fiscally responsible way. For example, in our fiber buildout or replacing our outdated technology or even in transitioning into electronic documents, we want to know that. We want to make it clear that if the private sector can work with us for cost efficiencies, such as public private partnerships, will be open for innovation and working with our partners throughout the community to do that. So at this time, I'm going to turn it over to Brian Stokes, our director of technology and innovation. He's going to walk through the operations that I've just noticed here, and then I'm going to turn over to our finance director. John GROSS is going to talk about the funding. And the funding here is significant. It's a potentially $60 million of purchases throughout the next several years. This is something that won't be dealt with here in 2018, but certainly will be dealing with in 2019. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Brian. Thank you. Good evening. Honorable Mayor and City Council. At a special City Council study session on October 24th, staff presented a report outlining four critical technology infrastructure needs the city is facing and at this time to ensure we can reliability reliably and efficiently service our residents. Tonight, we'll discuss the details of these critical needs, as well as the estimated cost and potential financing and funding. Currently, staff is seeking approval to bring forward for Future City Council consideration. Three of the four key categories of unfunded critical technology infrastructure needs. First is installing a fiber optic network so city buildings can save on current and future communication costs and to form the basis of a potential future digital inclusion, replacing outdated technology that's becoming unreliable and will not support new systems or the new civic center and furnishing needed systems to make key critical city needs and prevent malicious system attacks. Data loss and service outages. The total of these three items come to $67 million. The remaining 21 million is in a fourth needed category, replacing our public safety communication technology, which is not being recommended for action at this time, as additional information pretending pertaining to extended support is anticipated to become available in the next few months . If the recommended action is approved, staff will finalize the specific purchases secure vendors through existing and new contracts for bids, secure funding and financing, and in conformance with the mechanism outlined in this letter. A Return to the City Council for authorization of individual purchase transactions. To create a plan for action for expanding the city's fiber network. We completed a citywide fiber study that addresses the needs for faster data speeds between city facilities in order to accommodate the new technology systems that we are currently in the process of implementing. It's like a giant. You cannot you can't be talking inside. I'm sorry. You need to go outside, sir. Thank you. Please continue. Thank you. As I was saying, this is addressing a need for faster data speeds between city facilities in order to accommodate the new technology systems that we are currently in the process of implementing as well as those planned for future installations. We've also addressed and documented the current city fiber assets and infrastructure. We've evaluated fiber network approaches in other cities and we developed preliminary engineering and financial analysis. These also integrate dig wants approaches that the City Council has outlined. We also identified opportunities for incremental strategic investments in expanding the fiber infrastructure. The recommendation is to create interconnections between city owned buildings and departments with high bandwidth infrastructure to ensure seamless and inter-departmental communications. This fiber network will be a cost effective way to provide redundancy, increase capacity for both current and future connectivity needs, while also providing the economic and physical framework for future expansion and potential private investment. This initiative is expected to provide a net cost saving, including debt service, by avoiding future communication costs that the city would have to incur in order to leverage the new systems currently being implemented. The city will also begin the design and engineering of a fiber backbone throughout its process. We will solicit proposals and alternatives from communication providers that may offer opportunities to lower the investment cost. In addition, we will be concurrently exploring private partnerships for future expansion of this fiber network. For additional broadband services to build the businesses and residents. When we talk about our existing fiber network, this map shows the red outline of where the city currently has existing fiber facilities. In this slide, we're adding the blue line, which shows current fiber construction representing the installation of fiber along the Metro Blue Line, Second Street, as well as a partnership we currently have with Crown Castle. Slide eight represents the proposed fiber network by adding approximately 61 miles of additional fiber, with the potential to interconnect over 135 city facilities. As next steps. The Technology Innovation Department will develop and issue a request for proposal to engineer, design and construct the completion of the city building fiber backbone network. TII will also begin the process of upgrading existing telecom circuit speeds in order to support the immediate departmental needs of the current application, such as OLB Coast. Also at the October 24 study session, staff identified $431 million worth of outdated equipment in this category over the course of the past year. Thai public works and an extensive team of construction, engineering, design and technology consultants work collaboratively on developing a modern technology plan for the new civic center and citywide systems. This assessment, comprised of a wide array of technology, infrastructure and systems that support city operations and concluded that the technology infrastructure currently in place is that of life and not capable of being transitioned to support the new civic center as well as cities business needs that are expected. After more than a year of that joint planning, dozens of city and non city personnel and a sizable amount of planning and evaluation of citywide infrastructure. A breakdown of that outdated equipment cost is listed in the table below. You and I can go into more detail around these later if needed. As previously stated, the city's technology infrastructure is at the end of life and is not able to reliably support the new systems that are being installed to meet city business needs. In addition, with the new Civic Center soon to be completed, this technology will be required for occupancy and will be needed to enable senior seamless transition and provide the essential foundation needed to build a better Long Beach. For our next steps here. The Technology and Innovation Department will finalize equipment lists and incorporate the necessary details to bring purchase requests for specific items forward to City Council. As purchase recommendations are finalized and recommended, vendors are identified. In addition to the critically needed infrastructure detailed in the previous section, the city also needs investment in three key technology systems. The first consisting of a customer relationship management system or CRM. This will improve our community and residents needs to make inquiries, requests and tracks statuses that is intended to be a major upgrade for Go Long Beach to also received and from informal proposals from 16 vendors for both cloud based and on prem models that help initiate the development and issuance of an RFP for this CRM. As evidenced by recent events locally, nationally and internationally. Cybersecurity is also a major issue worldwide. The Technology and Innovation Department has conducted a preliminary cybersecurity assessment that has identified numerous security areas across the city's functional areas. These areas need to be addressed to ensure compliance with state, federal and contractual requirements and better protect the city from cyber attacks that threaten both our data and our ability to operate. As a next step will initiate the development and issuance of RFPs for our cybersecurity initiatives and bring back those options. The Council. In addition, the city has conducted a physical inventory of paper documents and identified that the city has over 67 million paper documents citywide, and we've created a roadmap for digitization. Recently, T.I. has issued an RFP this past August and is currently in the process of reviewing the submitted proposals. We will also come back to council to award a contract. This process will be a phased in implementation with a timeline that also coincides with the move to the new civic center. To those further into the financial and funding aspects of this presentation, John GROSS has prepared a detailed breakdown, which you will now review with you. Thank you. Thanks, Brian, and good evening. Mayor and council members, I'm going to kind of walk you through the financing and funding and all the numbers, of course, are estimates at this time. The funding, we don't have quite enough cash or enough cash to do these all these projects and this equipment and the fiber. So we're going to be funding this kind of like a person in individual dues, does a new car loan. We'll be using equipment leases, we'll be using cash for installation and implementation costs, kind of like a down payment where we need to if we don't have enough cash, we may do a small enter fund loan if enough cash isn't available. Most of these costs, as the city manager talked about, are f 1.19 costs, not F 518 costs. There will be some costs. And in FY 18, as we move forward, these needs are pretty newly identified. And so we weren't able to include them in the f y 18 budget. But again, most of the costs will be an f y 19. We'll use cash where we can in terms of the funding to minimize ongoing debt service. The debt service will be built into the annual budget. It will likely be a permanent structural cost and all that will be painful. It serves a one major benefit. Council has always been interested in resolving unfunded infrastructure costs and unfunded maintenance by putting this into the budget. We will have permanent funding for this equipment, so when it gets old, we won't have this problem again. We'll have debt service built into the budget to replace the equipment. The operating costs will also be built into the budget and the annual costs will add to any shortfall. Because we do have a shortfall, they'll be absorbed or at least were expecting one. They'll be absorbed in future budget by revenue offsets available or by reducing other expenditures. I'm going to talk a little bit now about the detailed of the three areas that Brian talked about. The first one is the fiber network. The cost of their fiber network is low compared to the savings, the operating savings that are going to occur by having our own fiber network between city buildings. As a result, it's desirable to bring this network up as fast as possible in order to get the savings. We're talking about 11 million, $11.9 million to finish the network with a half a million dollar net annual general fund cost. There is a portion of the network and the outdated equipment. And even when you look at those costs combined, the annual general fund cost is about $1,000,000 for the first few years. But once we get communications speeds up, which will be probably within two years, we'll actually have a net savings in the general fund of around $250,000 a year, and that includes net debt service. So even with debt service, our overall costs should go down. Equipment is the single biggest area. It's 43.1 million, I think. Brian didn't mean to say 431 million, but it's 43.1 million. Just the decimal point that is to replace the outdated equipment to ensure the technical needs are met and to avoid potential delays and costs in opening the new civic center. That will translate to about a $4.8 million annual general fund cost and also about 6.6 million in general fund one time cash. That's an area where we may need to do an inner fund loan because it's not clear yet that the general fund has that kind of cash. For the technology systems. As Brian talked about, it's $12 million or $1 million for the customer relationship management system, 4 million for cyber security and 7 million for idms. In other words, the paperless processing that has an impact of about 1.3 million and annual general fund costs and ¥4.3 million in cash total. We're talking about $67 million that the manager talked about, but 49.6 million in loans for all funds and about $10 million in cash from the general fund. The total annual cost is about $10.4 million from all funds. We have been able to move a very significant portion of the cost, a little less than 40% over to non general fund funds, which really lowers the impact on the general fund. And that leaves us with a $6.6 million impact on the general fund. Again, most of that probably beginning in 19. In terms of future steps, the Budget Office is planning a December 19th update on budget status. And from from December on, if this is approved, the technology department will be submitting and purchase recommendation specific purchase recommendations to the council. These recommendations will consist of lists of equipment to a large degree. So they're going to be very technical. So it's probably a lot better to ask questions today than when those details come during F five, 18 and 19. Again, if this motion is approved, there will be limited staff action, temporarily increasing leasing a data line speeds as needed to make sure our equipment survived. We'll be updating council on mobile radios and other critical infrastructure needs during 18 and in the Fy19 budget process. As promised, we will have a listing and discussion of the overall all of our unfunded needs. So our recommendation is, is to proceed with a motion authorizing staff to come forward with actual purchases over the next few months . And there are a lot of individual points where addressing critical technology infrastructure with this we are moving into the 21st century. So all the things that the Council wants us to do, we actually have the framework to do it. It's a permanent solution to unfunded technology infrastructure. Something that is rather exciting eliminates about $2 million in costs we would otherwise have, eliminates equipment failure, and allows us to move into the new civic center and have the data center updated and provides a very strong foundation for future digital inclusion and improved access to public internet and wi fi. And with that, we're open for questions. Thank you very much. We're going to go ahead and go into some questions first. So let me start with Vice Mayor Richardson. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I want to thank everybody who put together this presentation. It's a lot of information. We have seen a lot of this come in. So we were ready for this conversation. I think updating our technology infrastructure is smart, is the right thing to do. And and but the angels and the details. So I want to start just with the map of the fiber network. Thank you for outlining it in those three categories of what exists today, what's currently under construction and what we're proposing under this plan. And so it's a dramatic difference. I see that. And I'm going to focus on on my area of town. You know, we did invest in fiber when we did the Michelle Obama library, when we did the Atlantic Avenue Street Project, when we invested in Artesia, we invested in fiber. But there are and I see there is a plan to connect all the way, connect fiber all the way east to Ramona Park. But one area that that sort of has a physical barrier is cut off in the city is the area around the Coolidge Triangle. So it's divide it from the city by the by the seventh in the L.A. River and also the 91. So that's the area, the College Square, Neighborhood Start, King Longwood and Coolidge Triangle. So what are the things that we can do to make sure that that area that that has a big physical barrier? Is there some technology or some something that we can do to make sure that that that area is not left behind as we make this investment? Yes. With this approach would be is as we defined this backbone would be able to provide to other partners a lateral off of that in order to meet those needs. So that's possible and that is a plan I didn't see it accounted for here. But is that something you're saying is very fairly simple to do? Or does it require changes to this plan? It would not require changes to this plan. The plan is meant to be built upon. So once this is implemented, we have the capability to go beyond that, whether it's engaging those specific specific areas, other economic development areas, as well as providing more opportunities for digital inclusion. Yes. And that's within the parameters of the finance set here. Like we wouldn't need additional finance. We can do that within what's being proposed. We would build the underpinning technology here, and then we would look for partners to come in to provide that additional lateral infrastructure. Yes. Okay. So this this takes a step to make sure that we get there. Okay. That is correct. That makes sense. Next, I know that we work together on one of the early fiber projects making Atlantic Avenue between the Michelle Obama Library and Highland Park, the first Wi-Fi corridor. But and it was a test. It was a pilot, but we always intended to go back to it to make sure that we are filling in the dead spots. So the closer you are to the intersections, you have a great signal. But the farther away you get from the intersection, you have dead spots. It's important to us. It's a part of our strategy for the Atlantic corridor to activate the corridor and create places that folks can, you know, tap to tap in the Wi-Fi and create these these active spaces within the funding here. And we I know we've talked about some of these, but within the funding here, is there enough allocated to fill in those dead spots and make it a really active corridor? So so in between the intersections and perhaps across the street and some and wrap it around Jordan High School to Artesia Boulevard. Can we do that within this funding parameters? With this parameters would be extending that line. What else we are doing is currently, as we talked before, we are currently mapping out those empty heat. We're doing a heat map of that area and we're providing those services in order to accommodate that request. Yes. Okay. And what and what is what is the timeline? I know we talked in loose numbers and like, what will be the anticipated timeline? Should the city council move forward with this plan. For which piece for this plan or for your request of. Just this this specific part lighting up Atlantic Avenue. For for us with Atlantic Avenue. If you're going down further, we would issue this design specs over the next few months to have them come back to see what that would entail. After that point, we would issue the ability to try to begin the construction, which will happen probably by the fourth month of next year. Yes. Okay. So within the first six months of next year, that's that's good. That's a good timeline. The other thing I would say is in terms of financing and funding, so we it sounds to me and Mr. GROSS, you feel free to recap it, but we are somehow the ongoing costs, we're going to ultimately save money by taking in sort of a contracting in some of our services. Is that correct? Yes. Yes. The fiber network, it's not so much contracting in the fiber network allows us to avoid additional or lease line costs as we put new systems out there. We estimate at TIDE estimates that will save about $2 million a year. Okay. And so ongoing that so are ongoing. So will will save money there and that that. So are we making a commitment? So is our general fund making a commitment beyond what we've already allocated to commit? The total commitment that we're talking about is the $6.6 million a year. That's our estimate. And that would avoid costs of of $2 million a year. Okay. Well, just to be clear, are you saying beyond the $2 million is a $6 million general fund commitment? Yeah, on that, yes. Okay. So so I would say so if there's six $6.6 million in general fund, this action we take tonight does not necessarily encumber us. We still would need to go through our regular, normal budget process to evaluate how we how we would pay for this. Is that correct? Yes, we would we would build this into our budget projections for FAA in 19, and we would have to work on balancing the budget at that time. These costs would would be presumably be being incurred by that time. And so if let's say that casting a vote to include this $6 million into the budget and we come back and it's a budget that has cuts, we can go back and say nothing about this vote tonight stops us from saying, hey, you know, we don't want to cut any services in other areas. We may want to roll back some of this technology stuff that we that we encumbered that that were you're telling me or are you saying that we're going to we're going to, in fact, trigger cuts by casting his vote? The the estimated cost is $6 million annually. Probably the significant portion of it would hit in 19. Probably not all of it. Probably the rest of it in FY 20. And I imagine that the commitments based on what we heard the TID director say, those commitments would probably the bulk of them be made in fy18 meaning in the next 12 months. So probably by the time the flight 19 budget was being considered by City Council, these commitments will have been made for the most part. So we're locking ourselves in before we figure out how to pay for it. So you're saying. To some degree that happens? Yes, we we would be doing that. That's that's part of the reason for this discussion today and why we're saying there is an urgency and a critical need here. So I obviously want to hear from the rest of the city council members. I think we should we should definitely move forward with updating our technology, but we should do it in a way that honestly doesn't encumber ourselves in a way that, you know, we don't have the means to pay for it. So I would ask that so well, have we evaluated all public private options to diminish our ongoing costs? Have we done that? Part of this process would engage them during that timing of the RFP. We have not foregone that conclusion. If there's submittals for that process to help offset costs within the fiber infrastructure, then yes, we would entertain that. But there's other costs that are the majority of that, which is critical for us to maintain city services beyond what a public private partnership can provide. Okay. And just outline for me one, one, one last time. What are the critical infrastructure needs that cannot they cannot wait. And again, that cannot wait until we have a plan to pay for it. Pretty much these areas, when we look at the outdated equipment, these are critical needs areas that we would be incurring either way, even if we stayed in this existing civic center. It's critical for us to maintain our operations, our communications. This would be our priority category to have this completed. Okay. Well well, thanks a lot. And I'll thank you as I see it on screen. Thank you. So that's it. I'll hold the rest of my questions. My thoughts here are yes. And in theory, I want to be supportive. I want to upgrade our technology. I think a lot there are a lot of benefits to us in making this investment financially. There are benefits to us sort of a I'll use my term contracting in some of these services, but I think we definitely, certainly need to need to, you know, do a little bit more work on the front end with the city council to make sure that we have a good plan, a plan that we can all stand up and and stand behind in the face of our residents. And it may be just an honest conversation about within the context, the budget of of what this actually means. If we don't have that, then I would hope that there's some way that we can put ourselves in a position to where when we have that conversation in the budget where we we aren't too far along in the process to hit the pause button or stop if we're not comfortable with what this means. You know, we we went through a process in this last budget. We got a lot of things done, but there were some things that we had to do out in the open, like some of our underperforming, you know, afterschool centers, for example. I would hate to have to continue to do things like that for technology. So so my hope is that we can get some of this done in a way that allows us some options around budget time. I'll put it that way. Thanks. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Councilman Gonzales. Yes. Thank you both for the presentation. I just have a few questions. And of course, I'm a big believer in making the investment for technology on all of these fronts, because I know how much it's needed, both on hardware side and just, you know, software and all the back end work that we need to do that is very antiquated. What type of grants at this time are we leveraging, if any, for to offset some of these critical needs? Through our review. The grants are most likely for the mobile radios and the mobile radios. We are not putting on the agenda for approval at this time for a number of reasons. One, we want to look at the possibility of grants. And, two, we're asking the vendor to extend the warranty period that may bias a little time. So grants are most likely for the mobile radios, the U.S. grant for the other items, the equipment. That's extremely unlikely. Probably the same for the systems, the the fiber network, as Brian talked about that we're open to options. And in councilwoman also there are some areas of technology that we are able to use a protocol to E-Rate. It's mainly around library services and that stuff where we're able to buy some equipment at a much reduced rate and we have incorporated those costs into this proposal. Yes, great. And I'm glad we brought the fiber network up, because I do believe there's opportunities, whether through grants with various vendors or or just a public private partnership, as vice mayor was mentioning. And I think that's going to be very critical. And I would also like to see the fiber network as we begin that process and discuss, you know, ongoing how it evolves and places we can add, you know, my the the area that I constantly talk about is the Washington neighborhood that has, you know, very little access. And I know that as we evolve, hopefully that neighborhood will be included, some sort of a you know, some way. Which brings me to another discussion with security cameras. And I know as we are upgrading that that hardware and figuring out kind of a backup, you know, data, and that's very critical. Perhaps there's a way once we get that up and running to obtain wi fi similar to vice mayors area where we can provide alternative options, whether if it's not fiber and some sort of option for these places that are serious dead zones for the city, economic development residents, etc.. And I really I'm going to be pushing for that quite a bit. I really am, because I think that it's it's super critical. And then on the issue of cybersecurity, I know I was glad to know that we honored cybersecurity one month, but I would like us to talk more about that because it is absolutely a major issue and we can take a lot of preventative measures. I also want to know well, hopefully as this evolves as well, measures to educate our city staff on some of the issues that they can find themselves upon. As we know, there's Sony executives that had data completely obliterated, you know, within that large corporation. I think it's it's not impossible for it to happen here in the city. And so I think we absolutely need to educate our city staff on on on those issues as far as. Okay. Talked about that and then our CRM system, how are we? I know everything is sort of, you know, in preliminary stages right now, but how close are we or what is that looking like? Can you give me a little bit more in depth? Because I think this is also I know everything is critical, but I use a CRM every single day and I know how important it is for contact management, constituent management and for so much of what we do here in the city. So can you go a bit further with that? Sure. For for us, with regards to CRM, we're scheduling a June time to issue the RFP in order to solicit a system and go back to start the implementation of that. It would be a phased approach as well, targeting critical areas such as the council offices and so forth in order to meet that demand as we phase it in to provide services back towards organizations like Public Works and allow incoming tickets and so forth to be the next replacement to go Long Beach. Great. Wonderful. And then the last thing I'll say is, I know this is kind of small comparative to the whole big picture, but again, with city staff, I think to set us apart, you know, conferencing tools that are I don't want to suggest anything but conferencing tools, workplace communication other than email I think will set us apart as a city. And I'm sure you know what some of those are, but I think that will be very critical as we start to communicate in a different way internally. So great work on this. Thank you. I look forward to seeing more. Thank you, Councilwoman Mongo. Could you say again when the RFP scheduled to go out in. June of 2008? Okay. I'd like to make a substitute motion that the RFP that was already procured and paid for by the city go out in January. I don't understand why the RFP that's sitting that we've already paid a consultant to pay for. Can you. Name it? No. No clapping, sir. Thank you. Assistant city manager. All right. Hold on a second. Could you tell me the. Way you got to where you need to start talking to me to be asked to go outside? No talking from the audience. All right, sir. Pay for it. Okay. Can we please. I'm going to ask you if if you do one more outburst, I'm gonna ask to be removed. So one more out person and you can ask me to remove. You've been talking the entire meeting. Thank you. One more person, you'll be removed. Mr. West. Mr. Modica, I have it on good information that we have a RFP that was already procured and utilized an outside vendor to create. Could you please give me that information and tell me why there is a delay till June? Because I believe that the RFP we have that we paid someone to create will no longer be valid by then. And so, yes, we did bring on somebody to help us create that RFP. We can certainly look at going faster than June. I think June. Is what we are looking at as we have a number of different high priority projects, including ERP and all the others. So it was trying to balance that workload. We can certainly if that's something the Council is very interested in, look at accelerating it. So we will work on that. When was that completed and given to our office? When was this procured? I don't have it at the top of my fingers that it's probably several months ago. Where we completed it, where we did the initial. So, Mr. Stokes, what has been the delay and why did we procure a CRM, RFP and not put it on the street? One, we did not have funding for the CRM yet at the time. We've done a study what was done by Stern Consulting in order to find out what was the best solution or possible solutions for us to do in order to implement a CRM solution. They have drafted up a draft RFP that we would go ahead and finalize that's there and then we can issue that RFP in order to try to select a vendor and then initiate issue a contract in order to implement that system. Okay. Thank you. So we do have one part of this motion which is on the floor will be to do the CRM RFP in January. The crux Mongo is are a second on that and there is a second as well. Mayor, if I may, I understand the current motion. There was no as far as I understand the motion and the item this evening was in the future to submit purchase transactions and critical. So is the substitute motion only to issue an RFP in sometime in January? No, I think the substitute motion is going to be is to as part of this motion, I some other council on mongo clarify, but I believe it's as part of the motion. I would like to make it as part of the motion. I can make it as a friendly. I'm happy to do it as a substitute. So it's essentially the motion before us with the addition of Councilwoman Mango's motion. I feel that the taxpayers have paid for this consultant to do the RFP. It is our duty to at least put it on the street and give vendors an opportunity to bid it. I think that the continued delays are just not acceptable. We need some results. I know that there are several organizations who are open to bidding on it. I know there are creative partnerships that have been done by subsidiaries of many different organizations that have work both in L.A. County and our neighboring cities. They have products that have been created at little cost on a licensing model that can be expanded. I actually had planned to come here tonight and thank Mr. GROSS and thank you and all the time you've spent with me in my office. And I'm just so shocked by the answer to the question that it would be acceptable to tell this council that an RFP that we paid four months ago. Would take 12 months to get on the street. I just I don't understand it. And we need to reprioritize. And I think this goes back to I appreciate that cybersecurity is an important thing, but maybe we need to overhaul and look at what the priorities are because perhaps we shouldn't have hosted a conference. Perhaps we shouldn't have done some of these other things. This has been a priority of this council for three years. Three years. And so I want it to be taken seriously. My substitute motion is that that RFP is on the street before January 31st. Otherwise, I'd like it to be an item on this agenda for us to do a review of the IT department at that time. Q The substitute motion is the motion as presented by staff with the addition of the RFP coming out for the CRM system by the 31st. Is there a second? So, Mr. Mayor, can I engage absolutism? Yeah. Just want to. Want to engage here quickly. Well, I just want to make sure I have a speaker's list, so I do want to get through the speaker's list. Okay. She asked, would this be friendly or a substitute? Sure. That implies some level of exchange and it doesn't afford it to wait to the end of the speaker's list. And you were the original maker. I understood it was a substitute. And so. It wasn't a friendly. Gotcha with me. Yeah. So there's a substitution. Frustrated. I went straight for the substitute. Yeah, I heard you say substitute or I'll make a friendly, which is why I chimed in. But it's okay. Okay. So there's a substitute motion, which is essentially the main motion by summary that you had with the addition of the January 31st CRM date. Councilman Preston won't speak to that or. Councilman. Okay. Okay. So let me just go and go through the speaker's list and councilman, actually. Councilman pressure next. Oh, can I finish asking my questions? Sure. I should have put that one at the end because I didn't. Have we looked at opportunities for leasing our equipment so that we wouldn't have to be in this position again? What kind of leasing options do we have for. Technology is changing so quickly, it's almost unreasonable for us to be buying this quantity and quality of of technology knowing that it'll be out of date so quickly. I can I can comment on that one to to a degree. And maybe if I don't handle it at all, Brian will go answer the rest. One of the things we're doing here, even though it's it's adds to the operating budget is putting in a structural. If council approves this a structural funding of the debt service that buys the equipment, the equipment will, in fact, be bought on a lease. So you are absolutely correct. Okay. And then when that lease is up, we will have money in the budget to buy new equipment, the newest and latest, or actually change the type of equipment if the technology has changed. So we think this approach really addresses what you're talking about, and it goes a long way to solve our funding needs. I think I get confused because you say leasing and buying. In the same sentence. Sorry. Buying it or releasing it. It is a lease to buy. Okay. So and at the end, we'll probably throw the equipment out, but that's it's technically a lease with an ownership at the end. And what exploration have we done on bring your own device policies that have been adopted across the region? There's so many security measures available now by offering employees a small stipend of I know in L.A. County, I think it's $40 a month, then people who are already purchasing the equipment for their own personal use. Then through the Microsoft 365 program, which I know we deploy here, they have access to that both at home and here, but it would be on their own device. It reduces a lot of our costs and then they receive the stipend to update and maintain their own devices. I feel like we're kind of moving in that direction overall as a employer in that we expect people to have a driver's license and be able to move around the city. Why would we not start to move in the direction of offering a stipend to expect individuals to bring their own device that meet certain criteria? We currently do a bhiwadi for mobile devices. We offer a stipend there. But with regards to computing, we don't have a policy right now to allow other devices in with regards to laptops or PCs. And on the mobile devices. What percentage of the city staff use that? I can get you that information. I wouldn't know that right now, but I could get that to you. That would be great. I think that the incentive has to be great enough for employees to be willing to do that now that the laws are very clear on what is and is not discoverable. And it's a great time to move into that. I had two questions on fiber, and I think that you answered these for me when we met last week, but I just wanted to make sure to. Verbalize them because I want the community to know that these decisions are open and transparent. So has staff. What is the long term plan for us to own our own fiber backbone or a way to work through private, public, private partnerships? Or are we bringing that back to council for a decision at a future time through either an RFI or what does that look like? Our recommendation right now is to provide a city owned fiber backbone that interconnects city facilities. Through the process of that RFP. We will solicit other private partnerships that are there in order to try to see if there's an alternative or another solution that we could address. And that's what would be brought back to you. If for some reason that does not pan out, the direction would be at a minimum to interconnect the city facility. So it offers both those opportunities. Understood. So your preference, though, is the city building the backbone at this time with the option to expand through public private partnerships? But should the RFP or RFI bring forward a option of a private partner that is more financially beneficial and or timeline beneficial or whatever the criteria we decide, then you'd bring back an alternative to your current plan. That is correct. Understood. Thank you very much. Thank you, Councilman Price. Okay. So I have a few questions and just observations. They're probably not as technical as what we've been talking about, and I'm happy to support Councilman Mango's request to expedite the RFP process. But of course, I'm also open to hearing what staff's reservations may be on that. I did want a second so that we can further discuss it as an option, but I don't think I'm as as plugged into the details as I should be to feel strongly one way or the other. And I'd like to hear from staff in terms of what the feasibility of expediting that process would be. So maybe you can just think about that for a minute while I throw out a few softballs. So our Sunday library hours, I feel like, have been a really great way to provide access to people all over the city, to the computer, to the software programs and of course, to the Internet. Do you know whether all of our libraries are equipped with computers and wi fi access? All of our libraries? Yes, our libraries have that access. In fact, we recently have upgraded the broadband speed to all libraries, to one gig circuits. Okay. Have we given as part of this process, have we given any thought to increasing the budget for the libraries to allow for more stations? Because every time I go to the library in my neighborhood, there's a long waiting list. Well, Sundays are the only day I can go, but there's always a long waiting list of people waiting to use the computers so that they can get Internet access. That seems to me to be kind of a more financially viable way of getting immediate access to residents who may want to use those city services. Is that something we've considered at all. When we looked at equipment? The library, if they want to expand that service, that's something we could entertain. But what was designed here was solely for infrastructure, for city facilities and the new civic center. Those requests come to us from the library, and the library puts in their budget a request that we certainly would supply. Those are work on those. So how involved is the library on this discussion of digital divide? They're incredibly involved in what's going to happen at the library with putting computers and things again. Note that the library has been incredibly involved in two world class libraries just this past two years, whether it's Michelle Obama or the new library. So they've been you know, Glenda and her team have been at the table all along. This was moving forward with the two new libraries that said the rest is for the rest of the libraries, the branch libraries, it'd be budget time. Okay. And the reason I asked that is I understand that we're trying to limit the scope of the discussion we're having tonight. And I appreciate that, because this certainly is something that has legs and could expand very quickly. But I think the conversation we're having and the priority that we would place on this topic has a lot to do with resident access. And resident access is is a much bigger issue, involves a lot of different departments. So that's why I'm wondering how engaged were we in these discussions? Because for me that that does set priority quite a bit. We do have an innovation and technology commission. Have they been engaged in this infrastructure needs and do they have any recommendations? Yes, we talked about this at our last meeting. They're supportive of this initiative around fiber, around the technical needs assessment that are being done. And they also provided a lot of the background with regards to CRM. They're looking at right now, they're also highly engaged with digital inclusion in the digital divide components of this. And in reviewing your staff report and I haven't obviously committed it to memory, but we were you were recommending option one in terms of the path that we would take as kind of the first phase. And you would reference different cities and different options that they had encountered. And you you indicated that San Francisco and I think you said on Ontario, to a lesser degree, is following that option. One model, is that right? Santa monica. Oh, Santa monica. Okay. And in that option, one model is that investment for that initial infrastructure, a city investment, or how much private infusion into that initial phase do we have the option to participate. In the initial design? And the initial option is city investment, even even with the other city. The intent would be, as it expands to cover other services that are beyond what the city is requesting to do of the interconnection of our infrastructure, those would be looked at for public private partnerships in those areas. And why would the initial structure infrastructure have to be city only? It's at a minimum, as we mentioned earlier with Mongo, we would look at other alternatives as we go out and prevent the OR present the RFP if a solution comes forward that could provide some additional private investment. As we do this infrastructure, we're not saying we're not inclusive to not entertaining that. Okay. So I would. Great that that sounds good. So now going back to Councilwoman Mungo's substitute motion, what is the feasibility of expediting the RFP process? I think it would be probably about six, six months or so. What's the feasibility of that? If I can maybe make a comment from a financial viewpoint and then maybe turn it over to to Brian. My concerns, I think I think we have the message very strongly and we agree about the importance of fiber and getting getting something out on the street. But there are a number of factors. One is the in fiber and it goes right into getting the fiber out as fast as possible. We need to keep our data line costs down. We we want to minimize the cost of leasing with our budget situation. And the fiber network gives us an opportunity to do that. Another issue that we have out there that I'm very much attuned to is the need to replace that $43 million worth of equipment, which is which has a very tight time frame in order to be put into the civic center and stay operational and not and avoid additional costs because we don't have equipment in time in the civic center idms which we the debt document management system is also on a tight time frame because we want to be as paperless efficient as and efficient as possible and also not put too much paper in the new civic center, which was designed to work in a more paper free environment. What I'm getting at is that from a financial viewpoint, it might be something to to ask as an alternative. Yes. To push the fiber, but to maybe ask the technology department to say what can be done, maybe a little more flexibility on the timeline, because I have some concerns is as the project sponsor for the ERP project, that technology is really stretched with ERP and other projects and it might probably is difficult to do all of this at once and maybe consider asking for a TFF that says how fast can you do that without interrupting other things and minimizing the overall cost to the city? That that would just be a thought. Councilmember, if I can interrupt now, too. So John was giving us more of a macro global picture. So if we just want to focus on the CRM, which I believe is the question that that's before us tonight, that if we already have an RFP on that, couple the reasons and we'll get into that later and explain, explain later and I'll get more educated on it so that we have it pushed ahead is because we haven't had the funding and also because of some of the things that John has been saying. But one of the reasons we're here tonight is to get authorization to go forward with all of these things. So given the fact we're here tonight, I see no reason whatsoever. As Councilmember Mungo pointed out, that if we can dust off a request for proposals at City Hall Shelf right now, put that out immediately, come back. And if it if it comes back and meets our needs and we can deal with that, we'll bring a right to the council. If we have issues, once it goes out, then we certainly will be chatting with the Council about that. But I, as a city manager, have no issues whatsoever responding to exactly what Councilmember Mungo put forth. Thank you. I'm sorry. That counts one person in additional. No, I appreciate that input. Thank you. I've nothing for. Coulson for Supernova. Thank you. My questions will be even lower tech than Councilwoman Prices. But first I have to comment on what Mr. GROSS just said. He said, I quote, I have some concerns when Mr. GROSS says I have some concerns. Councilmember Supernova has some concerns. So I'm taking that as not a ringing endorsement of the financial proposal here. If I can interrupt and I'm going to say this before John says that when so Mr. GROSS has said that numerous times. What Mr. GROSS is saying is they're very, very busy and don't have you know, they're they're all the staff is just we're just doing so much right now with the civic center, with the ERP system , with other things that are happening in the finance, the budget alone. So I mean, Tom and I meet with Mr. GROSS, Miss Erickson, every single Friday for 2 hours a week for the past several years. And one of the key things that we try to do is keep our finance department healthy. And one of the things that and I'm interpreting, Mr. GROSS, that they're busy. And that's, I think, what he meant by that. And John, say whatever you say. It's too bad he's not here to speak for himself. So I'll move on to the next question. I will just comment that I think that while I don't think I misunderstood Councilwoman Mango's motion as to deal with the fiber as opposed to the crime, and so that was my mistake and that was really what I was directing my my comments to. So I have absolutely no concern about the Sierra. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. And you understand there's a lot of money on the table here, so I want to be absolutely sure we're very clear on this. Another question and this is from my constituents has to do with the civic center now. Now, the Civic Center train had already left the station by the time I was elected. And Mr. GROSS, I know that you were late to the party here also on this, but. Well, first of all, let me ask, what is that dollar figure we're putting into the civic center here? The this this equipment. They it's it's kind of a the data center happens to be in the civic center. So when we build a new data center, we have to put equipment in it. So I think that's maybe a better way to answer the question than. Right. So so can we hang a number on that? I think of that amount, about $40 million is going physically going into the civic center because the civic center is the center data point for the city. Understood. And this might take speculation, but do you know if if that investment was considered at the time the civic center itself was considered, or why are we encountering this at this late date? We joined in the assessment of when I came on board after the Civic Center was defined and we looked at existing technology that is currently here and it's come back through those assessments that it does not have the lifecycle capacity or the capability of supporting the new systems that are going forward. With regards to whether or not the Civic Center was going to be built. Okay. So let's say three or four years ago, the plan would have been to take our equipment from here to the new building. And an assessment assessment was done where that would not be cost effective or feasible. Okay. Thank you. I'll just I'll just very briefly, I don't want to go over our meeting that we had eight days ago, but one of my big issues is we have constant nagging problems around technology. And some of these fixes could be simpler and far less costly than what we have on the table. The part that disturbs me the most is we could make these this huge investment and still not fix the nagging little problems. So I was a business consultant for 30 years, and once in a while I would get I'd have to tell a client, you know, your problem is very simple. You have way too much what you don't need, but not enough of what you do need. And that's my fear here, that at the end of the day, we all have the exact same problems, be it cameras, eyes on Anaheim or other businesses. Maybe they don't fit the right profile to get wi fi. So as of this point. I. I remain unconvinced that this is a good move for council. Thank you. Think you got somebody, Ringo? Thank you, Barrett. Quite an interesting discussion that we're having here. But one thing that stood out with me and by the way, I want to thank staff for meeting with me yesterday. You guys had. It would be nice if we could. Go ahead, man. Yesterday, regarding this whole project is the one that really stood out to me was and we're having a discussion tonight the fiber network component of it and the the need for that and slides six through eight are really indicative of what we need to do in order to connect the whole city. Talk about what's there was a proposed and when I look at at. The recent. Slate of articles that came out recently in terms of the digital divide and especially when you look at my my area in the West Long Beach. Area, there's a big gap. There and big need for fiber and for communications network and for Internet access in the West Army. CHEERING We're talking about community that is a working class community that has basic needs in terms of fiber, internet access, even cable for that matter. And so my concern with with what's going on with with this. Component of it is that we. Might already have connections out there. All we do is access. Is an example. We have what spectrum? Verizon, AT&T, people who already have fiber connections in those areas. And the discussion that we're that we had that I heard a little while ago about. Our building, our own, where we would need to do that, where we're going to. Reinvent the wheel with all we had to do is access what might be already there. So the only the only concern I really had was we what councilmember among those substitute motion is that I think it rushes it and pushes it into an area. You know, this is going to be one of the biggest investments we're going to be making for the future. For the future of the city, for future. Communications. And we have to do it right. And we need to sort of step. Back and reevaluate it and look at it more closely. I think that's what we should do. I'm not sure that we need to have a January. 31st deadline to send out an RFP that may not even be ready to be sent out. I mean, we yes, we we might have paid for it already, but is it ready? And and on top of that are our vendor potential. Vendors who RFP some. People are going to submit proposals. Are they ready? Have they been oriented as to what is in the RFP, what's what does exist and what are going to be some of the requirements that we're going to have for them to fill that RFP? So I'm not I'm not convinced that that that so that's what pushed it further is that is that could have an idea if I could step in just for this conversation right here. First off, what Councilmember Mungo's suggesting is the CRM. The CRM is not going to be related to fiber. So the CRM is a standalone component that again, we have no issues with that and it is not going to be related to the fiber discussion at all or net neutrality, all that kind of stuff as we go forward with fiber in the city. You are absolutely right. There is a lot of fiber in the city, whether it's Verizon, whether it's Southern California, Edison, there's a lot of fiber in there. So one of the things that we will be doing is we can put our own fiber in and own it and then have a payback system in five, six, ten years and we own it and amortize it. Then we can utilize it or we could lease fiber from people. We've had those discussions with folks to do that with spectrum. And if it when we put the RFP out, we are going to talk to these people. We already have had conversations with spectrum that if someone can put together a public private partnership where we could actually use your fiber and in somehow make it cost neutral for us for owning and put in, it would be much quicker of course, because we could just go access it. But again, we would have to have some kind of revenue neutral system where we're just not renting for the next 50 years as opposed to paying it and owning it in five, six, seven or eight years. So those conversations are out there. We're putting it out there to the private sector. Our hope is that the private sector can respond, if not with a public private partnership, something that's that's innovative, that's been done somewhere across the country where we can jump in and save a lot of money, save a lot of time, and just utilize the fiber that's already. So I want to make it very, very clear that we're paying a lot of attention to that. We're going to like listen to that. And in my opening remarks, if that's available to us, whether it's for document imaging or any of the technology replacements that we're doing, and even as Councilmember Mongo pointed out, the lease to buy, I mean, we'll look at leases and things and, you know, maybe, you know, we'll be in a situation we're going to have to lease in five or eight years as opposed to structurally put it together. But we'll be looking at that stuff to. To do as much savings as we can in this. Thank you very much. That kind. Of answer I wanted to hear because I mean, there is. Anything that I wanted to do is obviously, as. We know, we're going to be making. A big investment here in the next few years. But if there are some ways that we can. Limit that big. Expense on us and build and towards that trip Piper partnership, that would be absolutely wonderful. And you just mentioned something else that I was going to ask about, and that is in terms of the electronic document management system, I know that we have a local vendor here in Long Beach that is excellent, or at least that has been a leadership, a leader in that area. And I'd like to see a lot of our of our contract guys. You know. Be local. I mean, they have a lot of local impacts on it because I think it's it speaks. Volumes for us that for Long Beach, that we have companies in Long Beach that can do these kinds of things. Not only locally, but globally. And if we can do that, that that'd be wonderful as well. So my my view on this, obviously, this is our first hit. We're going to be having more discussions on this as we move forward, especially as we get closer to completing the new civic center and and completing this whole network of of communication systems. But like I say, if we can't, we don't need to reinvent the wheel to do so. And if we have people locally to help us out doing it, let's use that. And that would be my emphasis at this point. Thank you. Catherine Ashton. Thank you and certainly enjoying this conversation. I'm learning a lot and even from my colleagues, I've got to say and thank you staff for the very, very detailed presentation. This is what we were looking for, I think, a few weeks ago back. I think the critical needs outlined here are pretty overwhelming. And from from a number standpoint, when you look at where our budget is today and what has been already projected, this certainly will have an impact on our on our on our budget moving forward. And so, you know, I'm taking into account Vice Mayor Richardson's questions and concerns as well. And going back to Councilmember Sabrina's points regarding the Civic Center and, you know, the the deal that went into the public private partnership to create the Civic Center project that we have right now. It was a design build, finance, operate, maintain. If we were to finance and build this critical infrastructure need, who's going to maintain it? Is this going to be maintained by Johnson Controls in our new building? No, no. That is not the one of the that that that is a possibility. But one of the concerns we had and I had is is is finance is just what Councilwoman Mungo talked about is that the equipment is going to change a lot. And it's not clear it has a very short life. It's most important that we have the cycle, the equipment cycle that Councilwoman Mango's talking about on the financing. However, we did ask our P3 partners to see if they could do a better proposal and we are waiting for information. I will be surprised, pleasantly surprised if they can do better, but we did ask them. So I would just like to elaborate on that a bit. Just just so there's a little more understanding about technology in the new Civic Center project. What we engaged the project company with in the building was for them to own the infrastructure. And what I mean by that is all the lines and wires and everything that's going to move the technology through the building is part of the P3 structure. What is not included is the equipment. So when you plug a PC into a data port, project, company will own everything up to that data port, but the city will own the PC. Think of a telephone switch in a in a telephone closet. All of the lines connecting those data switches are owned by project company and will be maintained by Johnson Controls. But the technical piece of equipment that telephone switch itself will be a city equipment and a city asset. Same with the telephone handsets. And think of a conference room where you're going to put a monitor on the wall of a conference room. The monitor would be a city asset. The wires connecting that monitor to the system would be maintained by Johnson Controls. So that is essentially how we carved out the project. So infrastructure is part of the project company. The equipment itself is is a city asset. So thank you for that clarification. So would the fiber network be part of the infrastructure? So that's a yes and no answer. The fiber that's within the building would be part of the project company's responsibility, but the fiber leading to and from other assets, for example, connecting the library, connecting the public safety, building other assets into the data center itself would be a city responsibility. All right. Well, I appreciate that. And I'm encouraged that there is at least a conversation with the the the the maintained maintenance portion of our 3 p.m. with the Civic Center. I'll just just say that I think, you know, for us to be the city we want to be, we we're going to have to invest in technology . And I think technology citywide needs to be factored into our our overall livability score. And I know our city manager, I know the city council mayor. We pride ourselves and working to be a one of the best livable cities in the country. And so we have to, I think, address our technology needs. We talk about equity. We talk about access to information. I think this is this is one of those areas that we can we. We can't overlook and we can't we can't we can't take baby steps on this. You know, we have to be bold as well. And so I would encourage and support, you know, staff to be as innovative as possible. I'm not sure we're completely there yet, but I know that there are private interests out there that can help us meet these needs. And I would encourage that those conversations, I would encourage us to move in that direction. I understand the need to to move quickly on the CRM. That's that's already in process and I'm comfortable supporting that. But and I just needed to get some clarification on some of those points. So thank you very much. Thank you very much. RICHARDSON Thank you. I'm not that familiar with the CRM, RFP. I had no idea there was one drafted on the shelf. No clue. But it sounds like City Manager West is on board. City council is on board. The timing doesn't make it matter as much to me, but I was hoping some other things came up through the council conversation because I didn't want to be the one I really sort of focus in on it, but I'm going to. So owning the fiber makes sense. That's just a smart play. Owning it makes sense. A question for me is, so how does how is this going to work? Because it's going to be ongoing like line of credit or something. And as we buy technology, as we go and purchase technology, we we sort of sort of cash in. How is the actual financing going to work? Mr. Rose Very good on these different pieces. Very good question. This for the most part, will be the standard type of lease financing that periodically comes before the city council, such as with the fire trucks, with PCs. We routinely use exactly the same mechanisms. So let let us say that there's going to be an equipment to purchase, to fund the data center, provide equipment in the data center. That would probably be one of the first things because the building will be ready to receive that in the next few months. You will get a list of equipment in front of you and a vendor, and that is part of that transaction that comes before you to consider. There will also be a leasing arrangement through a master lease agreement that council has approved in a previous previous year. We bid out the master leases. So we have a company, Bank of America, who currently does the master leases. You would see that at the same time in the same council letter spaces. So so help me understand. So from a cash flow standpoint, we, we have the cash to carry this and we just budget for it every year through an existing mechanism. I think think of a car loan in that we don't have the cash to pay for most of the equipment. We borrow the money from Bank of America and then we would start paying them in fy19 we would have a down payment, what I would call a down payment, which is about that $10 million in the general fund, that cash we would have to come up with. And we think we can come up with most of it. So so given I mean, it's a big it's a big price tag. 40, 40, 43.1 million. And what I don't want to do is if we're going to you know, the city council sounds like we're on board with 43 million. What I don't want to do is say we're on board with this and then and actually aim too low. And frankly, some of the things that we're talking about that we need, we don't we aren't able to address in this number because I don't know that we will come back while this council's on the city council to come back and do additional technology. So how do we arrive at 43 million in terms of priorities? Because I know Civic Center is a big priority for the city, but I know there are and I know the fiber network is a big priority for the city. When I look at, for example, where it talks about security cameras, it's talking about the main library, the civic center at 2.1 million will now be the appropriate time to talk about enhancing our security cameras in our parks and our, you know, human trafficking corridors, our high crime neighborhoods would now be the time to talk about that . So we're going to address it in one swoop, because in my opinion, the average person in general likes technology. But, you know, to the residents who deal with stuff, a lot of times it's what have you done for me lately? How this impact me. The Civic Center still not a tangible thing for them. So I'd like to see, you know, something tossed out to the neighborhoods here, called out in this 41, 43 million, or it could become 44 million because, frankly, it's not going to it's not going to make me an. You know, it's not going to make that much of a difference on the ongoing financially, but on the front end it will make a difference. So what are the things we could can we include, say, additional funding in this for security cameras outside of the civic center, space. Vice mayor and council members? I would think at this stage that if indeed we go forward with our fiber network or do more work with, you know, companies like Crown Castle or Spectrum and things like that, I think it's definitely it's definitely an imperative from the city council that we install more cameras throughout the city, especially in parks and neighborhoods and things like that. What this is going to do is hopefully allow us to put the cameras that we have out there online to make sure that they're working perfectly and also be able to put more cameras online. Right now, this situation doesn't fund the actual cameras, but it's going to fund the the actual conduit so that the cameras we put in are going to work. And we can come back later and talk about like how cameras are going to get funded throughout the city, but it's definitely going to fund an infrastructure. So when a camera does go on, it's going to work. I get that. But I thought there was $1 million for equipment that's already placed in. You know, excuse me. Time is telling me it funds. How many? About $1,000,000. There's 1 million. Mind if you don't. Mind the council number when you look at the $2.1 million that are listed in outdated equipment, right? Yes. We have around $1.4 million that's being set aside to drive cameras around the Civic Center campus. Yes, that's what you're talking about. There's also an additional around $700,000 that's there that will be citywide. Looking at those initiatives that we're trying to modernize some of the broken equipment that Mr. West was just kind of talking about. In addition to that, we also, as part of our normal budget, are looking at certain measure aid dollars in order to improve and enhance the system throughout there. So when you ask for certain requests, we have an additional 200,000 that's not represented here, but that's represented in our day to day operations. So when you ask for a camera installed, we have the capability of doing that. So what I what I would say is, I mean, frankly, we're having a conversation, we're having a budget conversation outside of the budget. That's what we're having. This is a list of things that were a list of things that are needed. Now, I'm going to argue that what I'm going to say is 43 million investment invested here. What I just heard was 770. So $700,000 to the actual equipment that people interact with, not the actual in the ground fiber. I think we need to bump that up. I think we need to bump that up and increase the actual things people care about. If as a part of this, we know they're going to deploy, you know, a hundred new cameras throughout the city tapped into this fiber network. That's the kind of thing that will get the average person excited. Then we can have a conversation about over the course of the next year, where are those security cameras going to go? You know, wi fi is a lot of conversation about lighting up corridors and wi fi. I get it. Those are exciting things that have a very little cost. Once the once fiber's there. So so what I'm saying is from your bone here, Mr. City Manager, what can we do necessarily? Manager What can we do in terms of throwing something, you know, out to the residents that that they will well understand and appreciate in terms of infrastructure investment, aside from walkie talkies, aside from, you know, fiber, which is great and I support it. And I've spent on one time zone, what can we do? Can we is there room and capacity here? Mr. Rose and Mr. Pack to increase the $700,000 that goes to actual equipment in the neighborhoods to increase that number. So vice mayor, councilmembers, rather than add to the significant number that we're talking about tonight, let us commit to go back and look at some type of a value engineering where we could accommodate more cameras into this into that while still, you know, while still paying for what we need to pay that to actually have a technological city. So what we're putting on on beforehand are things that are absolutely essential. But again, we will look at this value engineer, see what we can come back with beyond the fiber that makes the cameras work. What kind of numbers can we come back the next time we talk to you? How many cameras or how much can we set aside for cameras throughout the community? We can certainly do that. Yes. Okay. Because what I don't want to happen is what happened with bike share, which was a commitment to the entire city, that when the time came to expand it up north, north to four or five, seventh district, eighth district, ninth district, something happened, right? Something happened. They didn't get there. And here we are a few years later, we made a commitment in the spirit of let's do the right thing for the city. And frankly, it's just not there. And what I, what I, what I prefer and you know, I like what you're saying. You if you think you can get it in here, more of these sort of and these are the cheaper pieces like adding a camera is one of the most inexpensive things you can do once you have the backbone in place. I want to make sure we we are. Not, Hey, this is what we're going to get. And at the end of the day, you know, you're out of luck when the time comes for this additional equipment. And, you know, you know, I may get, you know, folks rolling their eyes and I'm talking about uptown, but yes, I'm talking about North Long Beach. I want to make sure North Long Beach and in these other areas are included. And that, you know, we get the technology we need as a part of this expanse because we're all going to pay for this in the general fund, and I'll make sure that everyone can benefit from it. So it sounds like you're going to come back to city council, am I right? You can come back with some thoughts on how to expand those pieces. They're relatively inexpensive. And for 43 million, that's that's not not a big bone at bone to ask for. We'll come back with ideas for that. Absolutely. Okay. That said, I can't help myself regarding the comparison to the Bikeshare program. We because well, I just want to we were doing all this let's remember that we had a bike share program that that disappointed that we had to fire because they did their job. So I, I can't promise that we're going to hire somebody, whoever the best company in the world, and they just go back or disappear from us. So I don't want to be unfair, Mrs. Amanda. I completely understand. All right, but Mr. Beck is listening, and he is working on those bikes. Right? At the end of the day, we need to deliver for our residents, all residents and all night line districts. People need to see that. And when 360. Are going to be ordered. Thank you. That's what I want to hear. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Mangan. And I got to go to a public comment and then come back to the council. Well, I just want to thank Mr. Richardson for pointing out this is a budget conversation in an off budget area where the Budget Oversight Committee has strong rules about budgeting and no decisions on any funding are being made today, but rather. Just some estimates being thrown out and each individual item would need to come back to the Council for consideration and any expenditure that would be made after. In a different fiscal year should go before the Budget Committee. And furthermore, to Rex's credit. The ninth District is not in any way not getting its fair share because you've represented them so hard, so ferociously, that I don't even know how to stop spending in the ninth District, quite honestly. Then don't stop. Well done. Well, I have one more question about the scanning project since it was brought up by my colleagues during this. What is the timeline and status of that project? Right now, we're in the final stages. I think they're down to the finalists that will be in the process of award and then come back to you within the next. February, February. So we already have all the decisions. You have a committee that is evaluating the responses. Have they been evaluated yet? Yes. We're down to the final two finalists and they're currently going through that process of reviews. And then we'll go through the normal process to award and bring it back to you. And we have budgeted for that in this year. The budget for that project is in the critical needs. So it was not budgeted in this year. I thought a portion of it was must have been the RFP portion. Okay. Any concerns about. The theorem going out by January 31st and nothing has to be completed, but it needs to be on the streets advertised and in process by January 31st. No, I mean, again, we don't have an issue moving forward that it's just a matter of implementation and so forth. But we can look at finding ways to try to accommodate that in a phased approach. Any particular desire to respond to why we've had this document sitting on a shelf and it has not gone out, nor have we been briefed on it or it's. The wave again as before. It wasn't an item that we had current funding for. We did an assessment and part of that assessment to find out what type of CRMs would be viable to the city. Part of that project was to draft the RFP. We have that respective draft and now that we move closer to looking at funding for this, we can issue that RFP. And just to add to that a little bit. Yeah, this was a little bit backwards because. Normally we wouldn't have even brought on a consultant to do that level of work, of detailed work until we had the funding. But realizing that this was a huge priority, trying to find ways to move it forward, this is a very irregular one for us. So we didn't make that investment. It has been completed for a while, but it has all been waiting on funding. So this is the discussion that we're having now. So we are ready. But it is, as you note, Councilmember, very irregular for us. Are there any other projects that are waiting on funding and technology that we should know about? I think everything we're talking about tonight. Okay. Well, as long as they were included in this, because in our meeting, multiple meetings, no one had said June before we could have had this conversation outside of this meeting because. We've met multiple times on this presentation and no one's mentioned June before. That was a huge surprise and a huge disappointment. And so I am excited to have the support of my colleagues in ensuring this is on the street in January. Thank you. Thank you. Counsel on pricing. Then we'll go to the public. It's real quick. This raises an issue that I actually wanted to ask about, but I forgot, and that is our scanning project. Have we stopped work with our current provider, our vendor for scanning projects? Because I know that we've talked a lot at Public Safety Committee and in other forums regarding some efforts that our city prosecutor's office and other offices are taking to have some data collection. So we haven't stopped work. Who is our who? Our current vendor. But we have multiple vendors that provide that service. But we haven't stopped any type of process or so forth within the department for any type of imaging or scanning. So no projects with vendors like laser fish have been stopped as a result of this proposal process that you're aware of. Okay. Because I want to make sure that that whatever we're working on in terms of progress isn't halted because there are you know, it's a little bit of a domino effect in terms of something that halts in one area. It impacts our ability to collect data and others. So. Okay. Just wanted to confirm that. Thank you. Thank you. We're going to go before we go to the public. I just haven't had a chance to make any comment, so I will make a couple. The first is I we need to use this opportunity where we make these investments in technology. And this is a major investment. But we all know we want to have a 21st century city. We want to be ahead of the game. These are the kind of investments that oftentimes you don't get to see, but they're very important. We have this level of investment to make today because we haven't been making it for the last 30 years. And so we have let all of our systems fall apart. We're doing our time cards on PE on paper. This is in many ways we have moved forward in so many areas. But for whatever reason, the investments in technology, especially when the recession hit, all got pushed to the bottom of the list. And so here we are today. And so I appreciate the work that technology and innovation has done. The city manager, I know this is a critical needs, but I would ask that as we look to these technology enhancements and the investments that we also think are about our local tech community, I mean, there are clearly, clearly software programs and other types of services that were that will have that will be nationally national vendors that are specialized in this work. But I just hope also that oftentimes when you invest this amount of money into a project of this size and scope, you are also able to support the local tech community and the local vendors and larger companies like the larger pieces of the world, like others that do some of this work. And so I hope that we're reinvesting these technology dollars into our community so that we strengthen the technology sector within Long Beach. This is an opportunity for us to also support the local tech community. And I would implore us to please, if there's an opportunity to please do that. And I hope that's something the Council would support as well. And let me say finally that I think if. Mr. West. You've heard from the Council the importance of CRM. You've heard it from me for many years, and I think I hope that we can get to a point where we stop arguing about how important CRM is and we actually implement CRM. And I know that oftentimes management also has a list of priorities that are important. But I hope that you and you're the team is heard loud and clear that this system is a priority of mine and it's a priority of the council's and we need to get it done. So with that public comment. Karen reside as someone that uses the city system on a daily basis and nobody's talking about productivity. And this is one of the main advantages of having technology. I can tell you, I spend about 6% of my time waiting for downloads on the city's horrible, slow system. I work at a partner, so Parks were based at the Fourth Street Senior Center. The the technology is embarrassing in our community. We cannot move fast enough to increase speed and access to technology. Our communities are being left behind, particularly our lower income communities, and our seniors are being isolated because they don't have access to technology. There hasn't been any discussion about that. I understand about building a backbone and plugging into that, the fiber optics and having to do a conversion to spectrum over at the park office. I can tell you there are big differences when you move to fiber optics. Whatever we can do to speed up this process, because you're going to save so much more money in the productivity that's going to be produced in the people that have access to the system. And partnership parks is also switching to a CRM system by the end of January. And I'm concerned that these slow speeds are going to, in part, impact our ability to be productive in using this new system that we hope. Switching to a cloud based system will give a lot more people access to critical information within the park system. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker. Good evening, honorable members of council. For the record, I'm Chris Swecker, CEO of Laser Fish. I've been in this in the IDMS and ECM industry for 31 years. I know all of the players and excuse me, with the exception of us, all of them have either no record or a bad record. We came to Long Beach and we've been it's been a privilege to serve the city for the past ten or 12 years. During that time, we've scanned we've automated converted to digital documents. I don't know, for the police department, about ten terabytes. For the other departments, probably an equal number. Brian, perhaps you can verify this. We have a we've made Long Beach our home. We are a private company. We have no outside investors or venture capitalists or hedge fund managers to whom we have to answer on a regular basis. We only answer to our customers, and their satisfaction is a primary concern to us. We came to Long Beach and as we don't have any outside investors, we pour all of our profits into the company and into Long Beach. We are right now we purchased south of us about an acre and a half, rather, I'm sorry, 1.7 acres of land on which we will be building a 90,000 square foot building to employ high level, high wage employees who will who attend schools necessary and bring all kinds of value. I've noticed tonight there's been about 2 hours discussion on homeless issues. The antidote to homelessness is prosperity. And that's what we bring to this city. We have about 100 people working here of about 300. We have about 400 worldwide. And we're growing. We're expanding in. Thanks to our relationship with with the city of Long Beach and all of the cities in Southern California, with the majority of them of the Digital Cities Winners Award are using laser fish. We've been given awards for our work with the Long Beach Police Department and Prosecutor's Office, the Impact Awards. We're now working on an integration of G.I.s with our system for them. I just don't see why we are. There are is there is an RFP out to replace us. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Thank you. Once again, my name is. Demi. Rogers. I own. A couple of. Homes in Long Beach. I grew up in Long Beach with the exception of four years when I lived in Saudi Arabia and two years when I lived in Argentina. I just attended an event in Los Angeles at the Los Angeles County Museum Arboretum, the Arboretum and Botanical Gardens, or I purchased a. Vase created by the author of Thor and the director of Thor, and he sold all of his rights to Disney. And I bought this vase that he created. Thank you, sir. It's called the Dan Rogers E-ticket. So this is going to fill it with oranges. Thank you. Something related to this. Point to you. It's going to be on display until this given Sunday. And I want you to attend the exhibit. It's called Memories of Nature. Sir, you might expect. It's not we. We're we're. We're talking about technology. You're. Mike is off, sir. So no one can hear you. Are you working with. Thank you. You're Microsoft. Maybe later. Probably a couple of hours. Thank you very much, sir. All right. And. Thank you. Finances? Yes. Your 41 million. Should be the down payment on his expansion of the r t as transit of the Pacific Railway. So this is. This is ah, this is a different topic. That is not this topic. So can you can please grab a seat and we'll have you come up at the end of the meeting. Thank you very much. Ah, we have a motion in a second, Councilman Mongo, that we're going to vote over here. I just want to say that I appreciate. Mr.. Mr.. You can take a seat. I'll get you at the after. I appreciate chris, the CEO of Leaves a Fish Coming Out. It's my understanding that we're expanding services, not replacing the services we have. That's absolutely true. Okay. And that per the agenda item brought by myself and Councilwoman Gonzalez that we have a process in place where local vendors are looked at with additional consideration because of the additional prosperity and influence in the economy that they bring. We certainly are doing that. Yes. Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Good. Then we're going to vote. Very quickly that the answer to your conundrum, I think it's best solved by Councilman Price's kids getting together with Rex Richardson's kids. They'll sit down and figure out how to do it and come back and show you how to do it. Thank you. Thank you very much. Members is going to cast your vote. From the property. From motion carries. Okay. Thank you. We are now going to item 30.