Recommendation to authorize City Manager, or designee, to execute a Consent Letter and a Project Specific Maintenance Agreement, and any other necessary documents required including subsequent amendments, with the State of California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), for access to Caltrans property to offer and provide social services, targeted maintenance, and relocation assistance to people experiencing homelessness, consistent with the business operations of the entity, for a one-year period, June 15, 2021 through June 14, 2022, with the option to renew for three additional one-year terms, at the discretion of the City Manager.  (Citywide)
You we're going to go back up now to item 30, please. A report from Health and Human Services and Public Works. Recommendation to execute a consent letter and a project specific maintenance agreement with Caltrans for access to Caltrans property to offer and provide social services, targeted maintenance and relocation assistance to people experiencing homelessness citywide. Thank you. I know we can have a short we can just get a short update. Mr. Morricone, this would be great. Yes, this has been something we've heard from the entire council mayor community about working better with Caltrans to get some enhanced maintenance. So it was an agenda item. It came to the council. We've really been working well with Caltrans. I hope you've seen some big improvements out there and this is the next step. So we've been working to actually take over some of those sections now that we have some additional resources in the Recovery Act and we're excited to be here tonight. We're going to be coming back later in July to really talk about cleanliness in the city and all the different efforts. So we can get more into it then. But I do want to give a a quick overview of what this item is. So, Diego. Good evening, everybody. It's nice to be out. And see everyone. I'm just going to take a couple of minutes to go over some of our our discussion about our agreements with Caltrans. So the project specific maintenance agreement that we are. Developing with. We've developed with Caltrans will allow us access to Caltrans property to offer and provide services, certain maintenance issues and connecting people experiencing homelessness to their. Services and housing. And this is set up for at least one year, and we're looking at extending it beyond that. Next slide, please. Public works in conjunction with the Health Department has been meeting with Caltrans BI monthly to discuss. Strategies. On how to improve the esthetics and appearance of freeway off ramps and on ramps in and out of city Long Beach locations. We selected the locations 22 different locations based on need and ease of access for staff to get in and do some cleanups and offer services. This will allow. Caltrans more time and resources to maintain. Other areas while we take care of these 22 areas. We'll be working with Caltrans for these cleanups for the next couple of years. Next slide, please. So as I said earlier, we've identified 22 locations throughout Long Beach in which the clean team will focus their efforts. And these locations, as I said earlier, were based on access, ease of. Access and ability to provide assistance. We are creating a flexible agreement. So if we identify other areas throughout our process or we find that. Maintaining these 22 areas becomes routine. And we have the capacity. To expand under the current funding. We would be able to do. That and we'll work. In conjunction and we expect to continue our regular. Meetings with Caltrans to address these issues. Next slide, please. So you can see here at these locations, a clean team will focus on a litter and debris removal, graffiti abatement and connecting people. Experiencing homelessness to services and housing. These particular pictures are from the Clean team's most recent clean up on Shoreline. Drive at the terminus of the 710 Freeway. Thank you very much. And we're here to answer any questions. Thank you very much. I'm going to turn this over to Councilman Mongo in just a minute. Is there any public comment on this item? I don't believe so. No public comment. Great. I just want to just just make two notes, I think. One just for the council. So they are aware we are going to be having a word with staff to schedule a fairly extensive study session on cleanliness and our Clean Language initiative as it relates to the entire city. I believe that's going to be July 13th. Is that right? Mr.. Mr.. MODICA Yes. And so at that meeting, we're going to get a pretty comprehensive report on not just the MEU as it relates to Caltrans, but all of the work that's happening around cleanliness, the additions of staff for clean teams, the deep cleaning that is happening across the city, the need for corridor cleaning and enhancements as well as of a large list of of initiatives that the council kind of voted to move forward on over the last few years, as they all relate to cleaning and ensuring that the city is really coming back from from the pandemic. We know that our our clean teams were one of the areas that really suffered as it relates to staffing during the pandemic. And at the same time, we also produced a lot more trash as a city. I believe we pulled, I think it was maybe 25% trash or something that I read that we're producing more, is that right? About 25% or am I giving the wrong number? It was about 27,000 tons is what it was. So we're producing a lot more trash and we normally had been as well. So that that did create a, you know, a very difficult challenge. And we're and I haven't begun to notice really a change in a difference. So so I just want to make sure everyone knows that that is on its way, that major report. And in addition not to be confused with the LA County, because I did want to make sure that to be clear, this MEU is with Caltrans . There are other areas that are county spaces that we're also working right now on getting an MRU with L.A. County to address those areas. So I'm often asked, for example, about the 710 entrance to the city that is not city property, that is L.A. County. I'm also often asked about some areas actually out in District five, over in the eastern part of the city by neighbors pretty often. And those are also L.A. County, some of those areas. So as just as a reminder for the council, we will be also bringing forward and I know Mr. Monica and Mr. Lopez and the team are working right now on an L.A. County agreement also that's separate of this. But this is a, in my opinion, a really important step forward. I want to also add that Governor Newsom has put in his in his budget at our request, as if we were the first city to make the request to try to put money into the budget for his clean California campaign. And we led a coalition of mayors to get that into his budget. That is also in his budget. And so Caltrans is providing additional funding for some of these locations statewide. It's my assumption that we're going to be working with the governor's office and Caltrans to getting that funding for our Caltrans locations and others across across the city that they can focus on. Considering our city was the one that led the effort on that, I would expect that we would see some of that benefit along with all the other big cities. So I want to thank Mr. Lopez, just the whole team, for leading this effort. And so very, very, very positive development. Councilman Mongo. Thank you. I want to thank Diego and Mr. Lopez as well. If you could turn to slide three, please. I think they do it in the back when we I think they have. To do it in the back. If you can get us the second. Okay. Everyone knows how concerned I am with trash and public health and public safety and encampments and what they've done to parts of our city. And I have been meeting with not only our city staff, but county staff and Caltrans staff for as long as I can remember. My staff consistently meet with them. We work through graffiti cleanup. We work through encampment cleanups. And I. When I proposed the idea that we clean up for them and that they pay for it or pay us, pretty much. City staff laughed, and I was discouraged from bringing this council agenda item forward. And if not for the support of my colleagues, I cannot say that this item would be here today, because in in our meetings with Caltrans, depending on what division of Caltrans, we are very lucky to have great relationships. But this has never been done before. And the idea that it was even possible and I appreciate the nods was. We really had to change our frame of reference. And I think that a lot of this is possible because of some new collaborations and some funding that we had never had before. But but I want to say that I want to thank my staff and their persistence and the partnership with public works. Without which, this would not have been possible. And I can't wait to do it with more agencies and and get to a point where we can take ownership of any area that's within our boundaries, even though it is not our property. And I think that this is also true of some areas of our city. And I've heard Councilmember Austin make excellent comments about this in the past, about our absent landlords in the city as well, because trash does accumulate on their properties and we need to have a mechanism by which we can clean up and appropriately fund the bill when negligence has been made to ensure that we have the ability to keep our city looking its best and healthy for everyone. Encampments aren't healthy for anyone, and everyone knows if you've come to any of my homeless committee meetings that we provide the services and resources through outreach along the way. It's not that we're taking these people and just moving them along. We really do provide them opportunities and so we do it right. We are a model that is followed across this country and it is because of amazing people like the three of you, a Teresa, Tico, Eric You guys are fantastic and thank you for your leadership on this. Tom I know there was a lot of reluctance. The but I'm glad we got here and I see it happening more and more throughout the region that people want to do like us and be like us. So thank you. Thank you. I'm sorry that the next screen is. Vice Mayor Richardson, I think. Where's the screen? Durango. Yep. It's just. There you go, Councilman Ringo. Thank you, Mayor. And, you know, Councilmember Mongo, you can be so correct about all this. The seventh district is crisscrossed by two freeways. The 405 and 710, and a river runs right through it. So you got Caltrans on the freeways and then we had a county with the river. And so there's a lot of challenges that that I hope east in my district with residents who constantly see the the build up of encampments and the trash and the desire to want to have a clean city and a welcoming city. When you come in through our corridors to make sure that it's clean, I'm glad to hear, Mayor, that we're going to be having a study session on this coming up in July, because I think it's very important that we try to support our staff in trying to keep our cities clean. But more importantly, I think it's one of the things that we that is that is about Long Beach. When you want to come here, you want to see a city that's vibrant, that's that's dynamic in that and that's clean. And you accomplish that by making sure that we have the staff to work with us to keep that. And I'm looking forward to further discussions with the county to also get into an agreement with them. And Mr. Modica, you've heard it from me many, many times that, you know, this is a county territory. Either they clean it up or we or we clean up and we charge it. And we've done the same with Caltrans when the on ramps and off ramps are just unbearable and just a blight as we see it. So I'm glad to see this motion going forward and I'm looking forward to more discussions on on the rest of the city and the other efforts we're going to be looking at. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor Richardson. Thank you. So I think this is incredibly important. It's been important for a long time. You know, the 91 freeway corridor's been a real area of focus. It only touches the North Long Beach ninth District community and intersects the 710. But it's it's been an issue in 91 for a number of cities along the corridor. Just, you know, I remember years ago taking, you know, it's different legislators, three different assembly members, long 91, taking those assembly members on and off every onramp in a in a Caltrans van to show them the conditions of the ramp. This was these were this was well before the pandemic, you know, just January. A coalition of cities along 91 submit a letter. Mayors and council members along 91 some in a letter to Caltrans about this very this very issue was a very significant, serious, serious issue for the 91 corridor cities, the 17 corridor cities and clearly across the city. I want to thank. I like that we're heading this direction. I want to thank staff for taking steps toward this in this direction. I want to ask a question to just raise up. I see the nodes here and many of we've talked about the different nodes that are referenced here. But one node that I want to make sure we have the flexibility to cover and include is the Atlantic in Artesia for the 91 and Atlantic corridor. That is the entryway to the that is the entryway to the Uptown Business District. Where the vice mayor is talking to the staff. Also where you. Put it, I'm sorry. On the screen, just the text. Of the map. Okay. Well, this corridor. The 91. Okay. All right. There it is. So when we look at the 91 close to that 9117 intersection, it's just a patchwork of infrastructure that is left a lot of dead down space. I'm particularly interested in Atlantic and Artesia, where the 91 in the Atlantic corridor meet, because that is the entrance to the Uptown Business District and entryway. Very close proximity to the Atlantic Bridge community. So it requires a lot of focus, particularly to stay in control of the business issue. So I just want to make sure I see if other nodes are there. I see the seven two. I mean, I see the Long Beach Boulevard 91. I think I see a node there. But I want to just ask what flexibility you have as you negotiate with Caltrans to make sure that that is that site is included . Thank you, Councilmember. Mr. Vice Mayor, I appreciate the question. Certain criteria were given to the city of Long Beach by Caltrans to help select these. But we have ensured. Flexibility to be. Built into the agreement to allow us to address other areas as well. Okay. So let me just make sure that is raised up. That's an important corridor. Important intersections in the north Long Beach community. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman's in Dallas. Thank you, Mayor. One of the things that I think is very important is partnerships. I'm so happy to see that we have a partnership with Caltrans. I think that's a huge deal. I know that, you know, having several main streets coming in and out of my district, you know, it's really, really important to have this kind of partnership. Not too long ago, one of my residences car was completely totaled by a car coming down one of our streets off the freeway. And he was inside minding his own business, and his car was completely totaled. But, you know, so partnerships like thing like this, I think will help us in the future in addressing some of those concerns. I do have a couple questions. Do we have a plan to address our worst streets when when extra funds become available? For instance, my business district, the streets haven't have gotten to a point that they're so expensive to fix that there is no time frame for when they're going to be addressed. So I guess when. I'm getting to some requests of staff to go back to the image, just keep it keep the image there of the map. I'm just getting a couple of councilmembers that they want that. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And second question is, do do we have any idea of when the bond that was recommended will be coming back to a council? So Councilmember, I think those are both questions about street repair and this is more kind of the cleanliness of the onramp and on off ramps. But we did do a two from four on the on the bond, and I can certainly send another copy on that. Mm hmm. Thank you for that clarification. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Austin. Thank you. First, let me just say, I do appreciate this item. I'm encouraged by this. This is a long time coming. We've been kind of pointing the fingers during the governmental salute for four years on this freeway, always, you know, when agencies pointed to the other. And I think this is a real, real testament of of interagency collaboration and what can be possible now when residents call and they complain about an encampment or trash debris, we're going to own it and we're going to be able to control our own destiny, destiny and the image of our city in a lot of ways. So I'm encouraged by this and certainly more courage if there's some funding behind this to help pay for this. So with that, I just wanted to say that I appreciate the the work of staff. This is the shows that we've been listening and we're looking at innovative approaches to to to solve the problem and not wait for the next agency or the next person's responsibility. We're taking it on ourselves. And so I think that that says a lot about where we're going. Thanks. Mr. Bennett. Mr. Mayor, if I can add to that just for a quick explanation. This has been in the works for many years. So we've talked about this and we've always wanted to do this and it always came down to resources. So one thing that's really changed here is the Recovery Act and the ability for us to actually hire up and do this work. We were always worried. We're always willing to take it on, but Caltrans would never pay us. And if we sent them a bill, they wouldn't pay that either. So this has always been about getting the resources so that we weren't neglecting our neighborhood streets by doing Caltrans work. So the Recovery Act is what really made a lot of this possible and a lot has to offer. They may end up reimbursing some of us. Right now, that's not guaranteed. But if there is state money, we said we're willing to do the work. We still want Caltrans to be responsible in certain areas. This is their property. We're just assisting. And I do think that our job, our teams are going to make a noticeable difference. But we also need to make sure Caltrans is still doing their job. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'm going to turn it to councilman in just a minute. But you you actually said a few things. I just wanted to add or clarify. So just just before we move on, I just wanted to clarify a few things that I heard. One is that this is being fully funded by the proposal that we that was in front of this council on adding clean team resources to the Recovery Act. Isn't that right? That's correct. Okay. So just just to also be clear, so from the council, I think remember those $5 million that we put in there for clean it cleaning initiatives? That's where this that's where this is going at, not just this. I think we're going to hear on the 16th the master plan from the city as to how our all those resources are going to be spent in addition to what we're already doing. So that's fantastic. I also just had a question for whether it's for Diego or Eric or or for you. Mr. Modica is the are we overlain because this is a city expense that we are picking up the money that the Governor has put aside for Caltrans on ramps and off ramps. It's a significant amount of money in the budget. In fact, we've seen probably images or media of him, you know, cleaning sides of freeways that's promoting this initiative that's going to be, I'm assuming, overlaid on top of what we're doing to get more kind of more cleanliness or what's our approach with that? Yes. So I'm I meet with the Caltrans director now every month with Theresa. And we've been talking about how to do this. They do not have access to that state funding yet. And so the agreement we've been negotiating allows us to get reimbursed if they get money, but we're not waiting for that. So we're building a budget, an approach based on the Recovery Act money. If they are able to reimburse us, then we can use that money then to do this work and then we can free up those recovery dollars to do additional clean team work as more to do either. A, you know, we use it in the Recovery Act and we get additional resources to do more areas or we're or we know is we don't get reimbursed basically either we get reimbursed or not. But either way, we're going to get more, more, more work done than what we see on the on this map from the Caltrans , in my view. I also want to clarify that just because this is a Caltrans, in my view, it doesn't mean that Caltrans is not responsible for all the other off ramps and off ramps. This is just the ones that the city will be responsible for or that will provide additional levels of service moving forward, correct? That's correct. And we also, you know, some of these are prioritized. You know, some of these they're not getting to because it's one or two encampments. Those are really good ones for us where we can engage in work on those. These are some of our most difficult encampments as well, and they require lots and lots of resources. So we still want Caltrans to work on those. And then we really think we'll be effective with a lot of the litter cleanup. Just faster and more responsive. But homelessness is still going to be a very major challenge because we have a lot of service resistant individuals at this time. And have we have we thought about it? Because I know that what we're looking at in front of us takes significant resources, which is why it's not, you know, more often or more off ramps and on ramps, I'm assuming. But as resources become more available, is there a possibility that the M.O. you think could be could be increased or additional spaces could be added? Is that correct? Yes. Can some of these were chosen with safety in mind if it needs a foreclosure in order to get crews out there, that really is a safe spot for our city employees to be. That's really a Caltrans responsibility. But we can certainly do more if we have more resources. Great. Thank you. And then that's I think I think that's really the one note I'll just make is I think that. Be the entrance, the 20 to seventh Street entrance, that that Caltrans entrance as you're going into the city from the six or five of the 405 is also, you know, one that Caltrans oversees. I know that's one that we're very interested in. And also upgrading and doing some signage long term and some other work. And so that's certainly an area that I think we should always keep, keep an eye on. And I know that it's a really it's a really important entrance point, as are others in the city as well . So. Well, thank you. I'm a conservative councilman, Mongo. I think Councilwoman Allen is next. I'm after him. I think I have. I have men going here. But let's go to Councilwoman Ellen. Thank you, Mary. Just really quickly, this is just a common sense agreement, and there's absolutely no reason why we all wouldn't support this. And we all recognize the homeless encampments along our freeways, the seven, ten and the four or five or the 91. I'm also excited to hear about the the county agreement. I think all of these collaborations are just huge. So I definitely know I feel that we need to get Long Beach cleaned up and I'm happy to know that we have the resources and to get this done. So just great leadership on this. Thank you, Councilman Mongo. Thank you. I appreciate everything that was said today, and I know that a lot of agenda items by this dais often come from great work that starts with staff over years of time, and then a councilmember hears about it and wants to add their stamp or seal of approval or opinion, and we bring it to the Council . But I do want to say that, Mr. Modica, while I'm a big fan of yours, what you said today was not the way that I remember it. I remember several meetings where Councilmember Suranga and I had funding available to clean up Caltrans areas and we wanted the city to do it. And we were continually told that we could not enter those properties without we had liability issues, we would never be able to get it done. Then Councilmember Super not and I wanted to clean up certain areas and the same was said we had some funding available in our council offices. The communities were really asking for responses and we as leaders on this dais were working really hard to find solutions. And I recognize that it was all not within your area. But while I appreciate that the city staff may have been working on a form of this, I don't know that we were really asking for specific designated off ramps. I don't know that any one councilmember couldn't add three additional off ramps to this. And I know Councilmember Richardson, he's probably the best out at every agenda item he brings forward. He wants two more off ramps or two more things. He's always fighting for his constituents, and each and every one of us could do that. But when when you hear what the mayor just said, I think it really is the root of what we were asking for, which is as any resources are available, we want to have the ability that if our city staff have the resources , we should be able to have the ability to enter into Caltrans area and clean that area up. And I appreciate that through dialogs, an exception was made for Councilmember Super not in my clean up and there was a way that Caltrans eventually cleaned up councilmember Franco's and I issue but this really was an apex of an agenda item that was rooted because there was continually issues where we could not find solutions. And without that and I appreciate Diego in his presentation earlier that talks about that it was really driven by a council agenda item because sometimes it does take a policy by this dais to to make that move. And if additional resources are available, I hope that the memo was written or I have the motion, I'd like the memo to include that it doesn't only include these off ramps if there are additional resources that Councilmember Richardson is able to bring to the table to do a specific cleanup in a specific area that may cost $40,000 because it's gotten to a certain point like the one that happened between councilmember supervisor and I. We want to be able to do that. We don't only want to be limited to the blue dots on the screen, any area of our city that needs help that we have funding for, we really want to see that. So thank you, everyone at the dais for all of your comments today. I think they're very poignant. And I just want to say one additional big thank you to our clean teams. And while I'm very fortunate to have a side of the city where our residents are out there cleaning up regularly, painting polls and doing all that they can when the clean team comes in, I mean, it makes such a big difference in our alleys and our corridors. They're just they're miracle workers. And I just want to say thank you again. Thank you, Vice Mayor Richardson. Thank you. Before we wrap up, just a couple of things. So one, I think what's different here is that the homeless issue on the on and off ramps is significantly worse than what it was before. And this won't meet. This won't be just cleaning up the on ramps. It will take significant work with getting access to the on ramps to go and address the actual encampments and make sure that I mean, because what I see on the a91 for you is different than when, you know, my predecessor, Councilman Neal, was having the very conversations, these very conversations about taking over the on ramps. And it was a public works conversation then. It was about, hey, if we spend our resources here, we're already behind on the on our own jurisdictions. And that conversation was before I or most of us even joined that join the council. I think what we need to hear, what I'm interested in hearing is that by getting access to these sites, we can go and do our homeless outreach work. Because the complaints that I see, our neighborhood associations have already gone and done adopt a high rate on some of the 91 off ramps. They're already doing some of these work at the homeless on ramp and the homeless situation with the encampments have been completely abandoned by Caltrans. And that's been the nature of the letters along the 91. And I'm just speaking to the experience in North Long Beach here. Homeless outreach is what I really want to see is getting access safely to reach out and engage from that standpoint. So for me, it's not about when this originated or whatever. I think this is about where you have a very different circumstance on off ramps. And I want staff to be very, very clear that the expectation isn't just picking up later here in access to deliver services and ensure that people are not creating these massive embankments on, on and off the freeways. I just wanted to be clear on that before we wrap up. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor, if I can respond to that quickly. And so, yes, we totally agree with that's part of the reason we want to be out there. And we've been offering our assistance to Caltrans with our outreach workers so that we don't have to rely on lahsa. And we and that's how some of those have been have been addressed. But that is going to be the bigger challenge is there are some very large encampments, very service resistant people. And part of the menu is we're not allowed to just go on their property and do whatever we want. We need to also follow their rules. So they do have some rules about and that are different than ours about how they treat encampments, the level of severity. I think it's just being out there is going to make us more nimble and especially with the ones and chooses, the ones that we can easily get to, the larger encampments that we still have to go through Caltrans process. So I do want to temper expectations that this will not be an overnight fix, but I think this is so much better than just relying on another agency. So but those are those are definitely are our priority that what we have now is not acceptable. Thank you very much and great work again to the team. I we look forward to this MRU and I know we're going to focus on these property agreement, but we're always looking at expanding as we as we move forward. So thank you very much. Please cast your votes. Motion carries 33, please.