Recommendation to authorize City Manager, or designee, to execute an agreement, and any subsequent amendments, with the Long Beach Unified School District, to staff School Resource Officers, in an amount not to exceed $218,071, with an estimated net cost to the City’s General Fund of $54,518; and Increase appropriations in the General Fund Group in the Police Department by $218,071, partially offset by contract revenue. (Citywide)
Thank you very much. Let me go back to the agenda, which we did all consent items -12. If so, if I can please here. Item 12 on the consent. And I think the vice mayor has to recuse himself. So, Madam Clerk. Recommendation to authorize city manager to execute an agreement with the Long Beach Unified School District to staff school resource officers in an amount not to exceed 218,071, with an estimated net cost to the city's general fund for 54,518 and increase appropriations in the general fund in the police department by 218,071. Partially offset by contract revenue citywide. Thank you. There is a motion and a second on the item. Please cast your votes. Was no public comment. Oh, Councilman Pierce. Yeah. Thank you. I'm sorry. I had requested. Sorry. No problem. That's fine. I requested this to be pulled. Even if. Even if it didn't need to be. Just to ask a couple of questions. We've got a middle school in my district, and we know that the kids that go to the middle schools are residents in our city. And while school resource officers have sometimes been funded by the city and sometimes the school district, I wanted to get just a little bit of background because I do get a lot of calls about some of the bullying and things that happen, particularly in our middle schools in my district. So if we could just have a little bit of background on that, I have two questions. For Commander Laura Sarah Saleh and give a little bit of information on how we use as heroes, but also how we use other police officers when we have instances of concerns in the. School. Thank you. Good evening, Honorable Mayor and City Council. The Long Beach Unified School District is contract with Long Beach Police Department for Police Services through the School Resource Officer Program. Due to budget constraints within the school district, funding for the School Resource Officer program has been reduced over the past years. The school district has requested to maintain one school resource officer at Pali High School for the 1920 school year term. The city of Long Beach and the school district maintain a cost sharing agreement. The city is reimbursed up to 75% of the cost for the school resource officer during the ten months when the school is in session . This agreement will result in reimbursement revenues totaling $163,553. That concludes my report and available for questions. Great. Can you answer for me how many of these positions have we funded in the past? And then can you answer for me how they work with our police officers outside of school? So if there's a situation that happens right outside of the school with whether it's a bullying or fight, how how did this officer work with our PD? Good evening, Council Member Pearce. In regards to positions that the school district has paid for in the past, we've had up to four school resource officers for a variety of high schools in the city. And in regards to the second question you're asking, we have an outstanding relationship with the school district and their school security. Any time there are any challenges on campus or around the campus, they don't hesitate to call us and we consistently work well with them on dealing with a variety of issues. Just this last year, going into this school year, we have a yearly meeting regarding police security related issues. And there was a lot of concern because if I could take you back about a year ago when we had the the Parkland, Florida school shooting, our threats to schools increased. At that time, we were being called as a police department, not only as initial responders, but to investigate a lot of these threats. We were working with closely with the L.A. County District Attorney's Office to resolve a lot of these. And the the teachers were very concerned about the students and what was going to happen to them. Obviously, some student or I'm sorry, some parents want to hear that the students were arrested and dealt with appropriately. But at the end of the day, the welfare of the children, both from a safety perspective of the ones being threatened and even the ones being doing the threatening to make sure that they're getting adequate resources, mental illness services and things of that nature. So between multiple agencies, we have a very good working, collaborative relationship that we enjoy. Okay. Thank you for that. Is this the request that was brought forward and how we get to this agreement? Was that done at the school board level or was that through through L.B. USD staff? The school board ultimately votes and makes the final decision. It's a recommendation from the Long Beach Unified School Staff. Um. Okay. Thank you for that. And just the reason why I asked again is because we've had a lot of bullying videos of gang violence with our junior high and my district and we've been working with the school board member and the principal and our neighborhood associations, but I wanted to make sure I asked those questions publicly so that we have a good next steps for our community members to try to make sure that we're working better to secure our our schools in the areas around our school. So thank you for that report. I appreciate it. Yes, ma'am. And if I can add something really quick, you just reminded me we do get videos that are reported. I'm sorry. Actually, I take that back. We get videos that come to our attention. Mm hmm. And one of the most frustrating things for us as a police department is most of these incidents are not being officially reported to the police department, and we're usually playing catch up. So for anybody who may be listening to us out there in our community is to stress that the minute somebody finds out that there is either violence, the threat of violence, that they notify either a school administrator as soon as possible or the police department so we can immediately address it, either respond to it, investigate it, and make sure it's resolved so that, no, none of our children get hurt. Thank you very much, Chief. We have a motion and a second. So, members, please cast your votes on that item. Motion carries. Thank you. We're going to go back now to public comment and then we have the two hearings. The first set of speakers is, I believe Carlos via Larry Goodhew, Western Frontera and Jose Nanda, and then we'll do the next set.