Recommendation to receive and file a status update on implementation of the Language Access Policy.  (Citywide)
Item 16 is a report from Development Services with the recommendation to receive and file a status update on the implementation of the language access policy. Okay. I'm going to have to sort of staff for. A report. By senior council members. This report will be given to us by Angela Reynolds, our bureau manager Planning. Good evening. Vice Mayor and council members today said a number of initiatives have occurred to further the implementation of the Language Access Plan. Our policy at the direction of the City Council, the LEP has been updated to include the TID excuse me. The Tagalog language, as directed by the City Council staff, has also developed a language line pilot program in the Department of Health and Human Services. The pilot program will last six months and staff will document the utilization of language line for limited speaking persons who primarily whose primary language is Spanish, Carmi or Tagalog. The city's Department of Human Resources is currently compiling a report on the current level of bilingual staffing at the city, recruitment efforts for bilingual staffing and translation, training for existing staff, acting as interpreters or translators. The city has also selected a vendor to provide written translations, Spanish and Tagalog for public meetings and hearings. The City Council and Charter Commissions received a memorandum from the City Manager in November 2013 advising them that Spanish Comite and Tagalog notices be placed on minutes and agendas, outlining the availability of oral interpretation and written translation in compliance upon request. The following departments have recorded telephonic messages in English and Spanish. Development Services. Health and Human Services. Fire and police pending available funding in 515. All departments would comply with recorded telephonic messages in all three languages. Yesterday, a city council office for forwarded staff being myself a copy of the Long Beach Language Access Compliance Report authored by Language Access Coalition of Long Beach today. The Coalition has not provided this report to staff. However, I did read it and I have a few comments on that. This report brings several issues. First, the two form four issued by the city manager to the City Council on November 21st, 2014, did not state that the policy was not implemented . Actually, it was a report on the status of staff efforts to meet the council's specific requests made as part of the original motion back on August 13th, 2013. Second, it states that tonight's status report indicates that staff has not implemented the policy as requested by the City Council. I think it's clear from the status report that I just gave you that the city is working on the policy and working towards full implementation as requested by the City Council. In a large city like Long Beach. As you know, there are many moving parts and the implementation of a policy that affects all departments takes some time and analysis to achieve. There has been some confusion also about what constitutes vital documents. The policy states that upon determination of the city manager and to the extent that funding is available, city departments may translate written materials that provide vital information to the public. So currently, because it's unfunded, there is no there's no specific funding allotted to this policy. However, we do consider vital documents to be agendas and minutes. And as I mentioned earlier, and these documents are available currently by request. The final issue is in regards to disallowing children to translate for their parents. The city attorney has determined that there is no law that prohibits children as interpreters. However, we understand the issues with this, and the city will strive to provide translation services in lieu of utilizing interpreters, child interpreters when possible. The continued implementation of the LEP will require additional general fund resources that are currently unbudgeted and unfunded. Prior to the adoption of the policy, the city spent or was spending approximately $900,000 annually on providing some of these language access services to the community. If the policy is fully implemented, the LPI will result in an estimated additional cost of $453,567 to the general fund, which will most likely recur annually. And that concludes my report. Okay. Thank you. I'm going to continue this over first to Councilmember O'Neill. Thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor, and thank you to city staff. I think you have. Come up with a very comprehensive program, as was stated. This is we're treading new, new ground here. And I would first like to commend Councilmember Andrews for originally bringing this forward and also commend this council for taking this on. I think in a state like California, where nearly 45% of the residents are less than English proficient, this is a huge endeavor by a major city. And as was stated, it's going to take some time to adhere to all of the things that the policy has laid out. I do have a few questions. And again, I want to commend city staff for what what they have come up with so far. I think there are some tweaks that we could make that I believe are cost neutral that would benefit it and move the policy along further. But I would like to hear from my colleagues in regards to the vital documents which besides agendas and minutes, are there any other documents that are used currently throughout the city that we could look at translating into other languages that would be beneficial? Councilmember Neal, there are a lot of vital documents that the city puts out. And in the policy which I'm trying to flip to now, which is part of your agenda packet, there is a list of what we considered and what counts are considered and adopted as vital documents. Just give me 1/2. So you can see on page two of the actual policy under smarmy are written materials disseminated to public including but not limited to brochures and outreach materials. And it goes on through eight other items. Okay. My my question, I think is in regards to these items, are there some documents that don't change? That may be the same for 2 to 3 years that we could possibly translate that would fall within this category? We can definitely look at that. But just to understand that there is a cost associated with that through a third party vendor for translation and it's about 3 to $4 a page. So there is a cost associated. The departments would have to absorb it. But I can go ahead and take a look through here and see if there's some things that maybe we can do that don't change. Okay. And I had a question in regards to you talked a little bit about the plan for bilingual hiring goals. Can you explain where we are on that? And what is the plan moving forward on how to address this issue? We've been staff has been working together with human right excuse me, human resources. Who are the folks that obviously are in charge of staffing and the types of staffing that is required? They are preparing a report for us that hopefully we'll have in the next few days that actually lays out a plan for that. Okay. My next question is in regard to the language line and you laid out where we were. Now, the languages that are being used on the language line pilot are what. They are, Tagalog, Spanish and Kami. Okay. I think originally our goal was was the language line was to be a catch all. And that is. And how long will the pilot last for the pilots? Going to last for six months. Yeah, and I did. I must say that I did read your motion and I did ask the table and I. I apologize if I didn't get that correct, although I think I did. But I think I think we're on the right track and we can address this and move forward again. I commend you for the work that you've done. This is a very fluid policy. And as you stated, it's going to take some time to get from where we were to, you know, ultimately where we need to be. I commend you on the work that you've already done, though. And I had another question in regard to voice mails. Now, have we gotten to the point where voice mails are the major department? There is an option if Spanish press one, or have we gotten to that point? Well, I know that the several city departments, councilman that I mentioned do have that for Spanish press one. The English the message starts in English. And then it's just sort of like when you call 411, get that to it in the Spanish language, press one if that's what you want. And then from. So what about the Combi and Tagalog have we have we know. As I stated in my report, lacking of funding has not allowed all departments to do that or really any departments. So I think that if we were to fund part or some of this, we would make sure that all departments had all the languages. It's actually more expensive than you think to make those recordings. Well, could you explain to me why that is cost prohibitive at this time to to do the recordings in the different departments? Why it's cost prohibitive. It's I don't have. I guess it's for the is in regard to the follow up. Yes. That's that's where I was going. I don't have it right in front of me. The initial putting together of the script and then the reading and the rereading and the checking of the script is all something that is done once. But then the follow up is what actually gets expensive and who follows up and and additional staffing needed for those kinds of things. So what are the plans to move forward in that area? Have have we talked about that or is there a roadmap on how we get to that point? Councilmember Millett Neal, I think that's one of the more difficult ones that we're grappling with. So we're trying to deal with those issues within the policy that we know we can implement more quickly. And so we have been focusing on those. As you know, we are going to be required to be reporting on a regular basis. We are not able to give you a timeline yet on what it would take for us to do that. We currently do have a couple of departments that have recorded messages in English and Spanish. That is currently in place. Now we would have to identify those departments that do have recorded messages and the value of of converting those into different languages. And then again, the follow up. So that would be on a department by department basis. It would not be something that would be easily rolled out citywide all at once. Okay. Well, I would like to hear from my colleagues on the air. I have an idea that possibly and I'm sure the next council will have to deal with this, maybe there would be some one time use to help convert this and move this along. But I would like to hear from some of my colleagues before I come back and address this concern. Andrews. Yes, thank you. I'd like to thank you, Councilman Neal, for really going and asking the. Questions, which you did, because. You know, it was November 2011 that it was first brought this item to the City Council to address the needs of inclusive language, access, policy and honor the true diversity of our city. The process has been a long one indeed. You know, for the last three years, we have had a lot of discussions with the community. We have approached many organizations and explained that the policies involve evolving one. Today we have another great step in front of us to access in this evolution. This includes the reflections of the Language Lion Policy Program on the upcoming city budget. And I would. Like to move to receive. A move and receive involved with this. I just wish that it came a little earlier because, in fact, it could have been in last year's budget, but it will be in this year's budget. And I think we we're working very hard to make sure that this is done right. And I'd like to thank all the people who are coming out tonight to address this issue. And thank you. Okay. There's a there's been a motion to receive and file. Is there a. Second? Actually, I don't believe that's. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm going to have you next year. Okay, so there's a motion on the floor. Councilmember Lowenthal. Thank you. I have a couple of questions. Councilman Andrew's motion was to receive and file. Correct. This is just a status update. There's no action that's requested. Is that right? Yes. Okay. So just a couple of questions I have along the lines of Councilmember Neal, and I appreciate that those questions were raised. One item that I did not hear about and if it was mentioned during previous council meetings, I apologize for the redundancy. Have we looked at Google Translate for our website? Councilmember. Yes, we have. And we've actually piloted that in neighborhood services a year or two ago. And for actually document translation, it's still not quite perfected. So if you say put an English document in and ask it to translate it in Spanish, and then you have somebody who speaks Spanish and writes and read Spanish, read it, it's not always correct. So I, I would like to request that we actually look at it as a very low cost, sort of a stopgap measure. I realize it's not perfect. It does offer 44 languages and I use it at my transit agency in the city of Santa monica. The only caveat is if your website is very graphic based as opposed to text based, that's difficult to translate. And so we'd have to look at our website to be sure that some of those what appears as text is actually text as opposed to graphic. But it is I do think that the community can acknowledge and forgive that in a in a stopgap phase, that it's not perfection, but it's something in 44 languages through such a simple tool is something. And my public agency in Santa monica did it. I made that decision overnight and did it. And it's very useful and I think that would be useful here. We can't forgo the good for the perfect. I'd like us to be at a good place while we're working toward perfection. Councilmember Lowenthal We can definitely try it. We can try it again. And then in our next six month update, we can let you know what we've done with it and and that type of thing. And if, you know, if we stay away from sort of the legal documents, but just public information, I think what people are looking for is to be able to participate in government and have access to basic public information. And so the vital documents are clearly important, and there are advocates in the community that can help individuals with vital documents. But when it comes to just public information, where we don't always want to have to work with translators or advocates through Legal Aid Foundation because their resources are limited, I think, just for that basic information. So. Mr. City Manager I'd like to actually see that as opposed to just neighborhood services, to our master website, our home page, and allow people access to basic information. Absolutely. I'm going to turn over to Amy for a second. Was this discussed with the group? To go to Google. No, it was not. We would obviously talk to tech services as well because we are in the process of updating the entire city website as well. So we can certainly talk to tech services. So we'll get back to you immediately, but that will be our attempt to do that for the entire city. Okay. And I know Councilman Andrew. So Councilmember Neil's raised the issue about using children as translators. And just from my years of working in domestic violence, there are issues that are very sensitive that we don't bring our own children into those conversations. And to do so because we have a language barrier is really violating our really our charge to children in general. And so I would want us to be very careful about that and not suggest that it would be okay because of cost limitations. Thank you. Thank you. Johnson Johnson. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Well, first, I want to thank all the advocates who worked so hard to get us where we're at today and also staff. I think we have made some progress. Clearly, we have some more to go, but that's what continuous improvements all about. What they were here taught me so many years ago that in government we seek to continually improve as a great management tool. My thoughts are, it sounds like what we need to do is help management get the job done. And so perhaps this should be part of our upcoming budget. And I guess my question to you, Mr. City Manager, is, are there some low hanging fruit? Maybe not everything here, but a couple key things that might move us a little bit further forward that we may see as part of the budget and obviously haven't done it yet. But is that something you'll be contemplating and presenting as a budget in the coming months? Councilmember Vice Mayor We certainly will be looking at that low hanging fruit. I think that Google applications is a low hanging fruit. I know that's very inexpensive, but we'll also be listening to what the council gives us tonight or with the audience, and we'll bring that forward on a budget and cost it out. Okay. Well, thank you. It's the city manager. I think. I do appreciate your fiscal prudence and I do think mid budget year it's challenging, but I think it's part of the budget process. If there are some core documents that we can have translated, certainly it's not feasible to have every document translated, but there are some key documents. Maybe that community can help us understand what those are. I think we would show some good faith to the community to move the ball forward, even if, as Ms.. Lowenthal said, you know, we shouldn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. So thanks to everyone staff and advocates for the progress we made and look forward to making more progress. Thank you. Councilmember O'Donnell. Yeah, I was just going to comment. This could be this could be built in as a component of the new website potentially. What is that coming? I know that's a couple of years late, but. That's why I don't believe it's a couple of years away. As you know, we had until late. Oh, a couple of years late? No, I believe it's a few months late. Basically, we had some funding issues. We found the funding. We had some software issues. And I believe I don't see Curtis in the audience, but I think maybe you can get the word out to me seven from now. Sure. You know, it's a short, a long time, but. Thank you. I'm going to open up to public comment on the item. There is a motion on the floor. If there's any members of the public that want to speak, please come forward. As you speak, please identify yourself. For the record. We witnessed instead of this Miembros Zircon Salesman nominated Gary Shelton BPO in Premiere Distrito. You can see other lists in the Omega Usado. And we are squealer and we trabajo también. Emile God durante los ultimos anos. But I won't do that. What I'd like to say is I only came down because of the mention of Google Translate. And I appreciate what you're saying, Councilmember Lowenthal, but it is insulting the way Google translate translate things. If it were to be used, it would need editing for every utilization. I commend the council member from the seventh District when when he was first in office or sometime shortly after he decided to use Google Translate for his city council website page. And the first time that it was used, it was attempting to make the announcement that there would be a meeting for the seventh District on the city budget. But what it said in Spanish was that it was going to have the seventh meeting on the district budget. Pretty simple information for the public to not even understand what they really mean. They might want to go to that meeting, but it wouldn't be what they were expecting. So with all due respect, I would say leave Google translate out of it unless you have good copy editing to follow up on it. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, Honorable City Council members, city staff and all the community residents who came out today. My name is Alex, Montano says. I'm with the Filipino Migrant Center and I live in the first district here in Long Beach. Once again, you know, I'm representing the Long Beach Language Access Coalition here, which is a whole bunch of different community organizations, individuals and grassroots groups who are really trying to make sure that there is language accessibility here in the city. We want to congratulate and commend all of you, all of the city council members, the city staffers, everybody, the community residents who have all come together to make sure this thing was passed. It really was a historic thing that the Long Beach language access policy was passed back in August. And really, there aren't that many cities who have something as progressive as this. And also part of that really is the compliance hearing that was part of this policy, not only for accountability, but also to make sure that we can improve upon the policy. Right. I'm not only how far we've gone, but also how much further can we go? Not only can we do it, but how much better can we do it right? And so that's why at least the Language Access Coalition decided to bring in our community residents to help with this process, to give their input. And that's what we did a language access test of the language access services here in the city from January to March of this year. And we did find that there are several things that do need to be improved, which came out in our status report and all of our different community members will be attesting to what those things are. But based upon those findings of the things that we feel need to be improved, we came up with these several recommendations. But number one is to fully implement and fund the policy as directed by the Council last August to include Spanish, Carmine and Tagalog on those main voicemail messages to make sure that there is training for staff on how to speak to limited English proficient speakers and how to work with interpreters to make sure there are translated by vital documents in Spanish, Kumai and Tagalog, and to make sure there is a clear plan for bilingual hiring goals, especially for Kami and Tagalog, to make sure that that language line pilot program can be used for all those languages, not just Spanish, come on in Tagalog. And to make it very explicit, to limit the use of children as interpreters, to just emergency situations, to allocate those necessary funds for the ongoing implementation of the policy and set a clear timeline for the biannual or quarterly compliance hearings. And so for us, we really feel that, you know, I know that we all here really value the diversity here on our city here in Long Beach. And I think that when we can fully implement this policy, that's where all of us, all of our diverse residents can truly say, I am from Long Beach and my voice matters. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker. Please. I would like. To speak in Cambodian language. Sure. Do you have a copy of some. Of our. To get you to call her in particular architectural. For most, I would like with deepest respect to say thank you, to give you my gratitude to everybody that was here and and with great honor that we can be a chance to be here. Thank you. Would you mind if you also maybe introduce himself for the record? I got to qualify, panel, but if I had to more than five time my name. Kim Thorn. That's a 15 I translated to B, C and I all of I am represent the P.A., my parent association. Thank you. I looked up to look at your pathetic book. My dad wanted to be broke. My, like, ruined beatnik attempt rock my ma. No, my dad who knows how my Pol Pot crackling feel my tongue pick me apart Moriches are all chopped up Got middle school, no school? No, hardly anything. I want you to focus on the calm. I have none beat that they came from the killing field. Especially of the killing field. They had no chance for ten years, already have no education, no school, no English or anything. How something I need that bitch up. By our men nowadays. By how? Now that we have interpretation. No longer resume probably here. In the Department of Health. Concerning electricity and. Gas. Utilities, especially electricity and gas. Neighborhood. Neighborhood Department. Housing. The local ongoing housing. In the housing. Top my man cop more prior how can I come notamment talk matter to got more granularity. Even though lonely the language access has been implemented, I have not received the actual interpretation or the translation on the documents. We broke my June that mama wrote no raincoat quack of room stand up over not adopt augment education of the. Because a Cambodians who have been living here, but especially within the last ten years, are in shortage severely of education. Hide your chest also. Ah, look, Joy, my team found the tape wrong. Please think about and consider the Cambodian plight. How to check. Go to Maui. Met my mom. Sharon, come here. You're going to meet more besides my mom. Than what my. But there are. Hundreds of them. And I urge you, it's my recommendation not to have children interpret for the parents, but they do not speak to my language. I sold my dad, got some crack. Heart knows that someday telephone may not be met. That won't write much my life answer. And also with the voicemail please have a you know, a recorded message of Cambodian language or the Khmer language. And thank you very much. Thank you, sir. Next week or two. Hello. My name is Laura Merrifield and I'm a second district resident. I'm also representing Building Healthy Communities and the Language Access Coalition, which I've been part of for about two years now. And first off, I really would like to thank the Council for their hard work, for their leadership in adopting this policy. I mean, and I'm like Council Member Johnson's, you know, commended the progress of us being here tonight. And I myself am happy that we are here at this point where we're talking about a policy that has already been passed. So that's, you know, something I'm very happy about. And I'd also like to thank the staff for the work they've done in implementing it so far. I am here to talk about some of the concerns our coalition had regarding some of the policy items, the things that we feel still could use some improvement as we move forward with this policy and its actualities. For residents like Laquan Kim, who are using this every day, the biggest I mean, one thing for us, again, is the language line pilot program. Our understanding that is in this full language access policy that covers Spanish, come on in Tagalog, that language line is a catchall for those languages, not already included. And I think that as the policy aims to be fully in place, language line will be broader than just those four languages. So we would encourage looking in to having all languages covered by a supplemental program like that, not just the ones that would already be within staffing means again on the translation of vital documents. That was another concern of ours that these documents largely have not been translated. And I think there's most likely ways to look into translating the ones that our community really is using. And besides just meetings in minutes, you know, those those forms, documents, brochures, most access by our community members. We also, you know, think that it's very important to have training for staff and and to have our staff be aware of how to interact with interpreters, but also even staff who are not bilingual, how they can properly work with our limited English proficient community members. So it's great to hear that some training is already going, but we encourage, you know, to keep working with our staff, to really be friendly representatives to our community members. Another concern is, again, that's been echoed several times is the use of children as interpreters. We still think that if the city has this has is saying that it's something they strive not to do. We feel like that can be put into policy. Again, we just want to make sure we have an update on our but we make sure we have all our bilingual staff and we set goals for that and that we have a clear timeline for how this policy will continue into the future. And finally, budget is a large thing that's pressing over us. And, you know, we want to make sure that the funds are in place for the full implementation of the policy. And so those were our overall concerns. But we're here to work to make this actually a real living policy for our residents. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hello. My name is Steve SIM. I'm a staff attorney at Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles. I'm also a member of the Long Beach Language Access Coalition. I'm also a resident of Long Beach and. The eighth District. And I am a Cambodian American. I you know, I was born in the refugee camps. I came to Long Beach every weekend whether I wanted to or not, from the San Fernando Valley. And I also speak Spanish. So and I deal with work with a lot of low income clients in the city of Long Beach. So I'm well aware of a lot of the issues and the vital documents that need to be translated for many of our community members. I just passed around the compliance report. I just want to highlight a couple of things. So we did have 100 tests, 110 tests conducted by LRP residents, and those were mainly by walk in I'm sorry, by phone calls, because for many of our residents, to walk into a city agency is something that's very hard for them because they're aware of the stories where there's no one there that can they can understand them . And these were in the following departments Health Department, Utilities, Housing and Neighborhood Services. And some of our key findings were that more than half of our residents weren't getting connected to bilingual staffers. That's that's an alarming number for us. If you have a 50% chance of going in there, you have a problem with your utility bills and not getting any service. And that for many of us, we access many when we have a problem, we usually call a number. And it's an automated system. It's very rare that you talk to a live individual and for most of the voicemail services weren't translated. And some of the, the, the, the agencies that were translated that had Spanish. Perhaps those translations predated the language access policy. So I think to this date, I don't think there has been any new translations for any of our city services. And if they were able to access. Well, I want to take your attention to really briefly just one of the charts. Yeah. 56 out of our 109 respondents did not get access to a bilingual staff member. And when they were connected to the voicemail, most of them did not get appropriate or useful information because it wasn't translated in their language. And in terms of remedies that we can take in this fiscal cycle would be the implementation of language line and using whatever discretionary funds are available for training of staff. Definitely working with our LRP residents, it's not just it's about money, but it's also just having the right attitude and the right state of mind that we're not going to turn anyone away. It doesn't matter what language they speak. They're a resident of Long Beach and their voice matters. All right. Thank you. Good evening, council members. My name is Nicole Cabana and my Long Beach resident here in the fourth District. But I'm also here as the Coalition for Good Jobs and a Healthy Community. I think, like my colleagues here have said, that we live in a city that's, you know, full of people with diverse backgrounds. And today, as city leaders, you know, you have a key opportunity to send a message to residents, to let them know that we welcome and encourage monolingual speakers to utilize these public services, be strong civic participants in the community. And I just wanted to let you know why the Coalition is in. Support of the. Recommendations that have been raised by the Language Access Coalition. We know that 83% of hotel workers here are actual residents here in our city, many of them speaking both Spanish and Tagalog. And it's vital for workers. To feel welcome and respected and also understood when they're using public services or when they're trying to come to public hearings like this. And we want to. Ensure that residents feel that City. Hall is accessible to them. I wanted to read a letter on behalf of Derrick Smith, who is the political director of. Unite Here Local 11 Dear Mayor Foster and Members of City Council. I'm writing on behalf of here Local 11, which represents. More than 20,000 workers employed in hotels. Restaurants, airports, sports arenas and convention centers throughout Southern California. Unite Here boasts a diverse membership comprising of workers from many immigrant communities, as well as high percentages of African-Americans. Latinos and Asian-American workers. We fully support the. Recommendations put out by the Long Beach Language Access Coalition regarding language access for all city. Residents. Language Access is a vital piece to resident engagement, to safety and integration into our community. We thank you for. Your time and consideration. Hello. My name's Alison with the Long Beach Immigrant Rights Coalition as well with the Language Access Coalition. And there are just some concerns we would like to address. One of them is concerning the cost of this policy. In August, staff was directed that funding should be in place for this policy for last year's budget. And although we are trying to look for pragmatic ways in order to address some of the issues, we do want to make sure that there will be many funding for this policy. Another concern is concerning the human capital and the cost of it, not funding this policy. As Councilwoman Lowenthal mentioned, we do want people to have access to basic government needs and information, and without them being civically engaged, there's just no way to tap into that, those people. And so we believe that this policy and making sure that that funding is there for them, as well as these pragmatic ways of helping them address their issue. Right. And another thing, we do not agree with staff that there would be this cost of 450,000 a year. And we do believe that there would be some onetime costs for some of these issues. And as this program becomes up and running, those costs will decline as well. And finally, one of our last concerns is agendas are important, but we believe the reality is that a lot of residents don't read agendas. Re One of their primary concerns is rather brochures, applications and complete forms when addressing city services. So we would like to thank you for your efforts and everything that you've done to make sure this policy fully this policy is fully implemented. But these are some of our concerns. Thank you. Good evening, City Council. My name is Georgette Rivera. Are you a second district resident? I am here with the Language Access Coalition and also representing housing in Long Beach. A lot of my my fellow fellow workers, colleagues and residents already said everything that I possibly could say. So I'm just going to try to wrap things up. You know, we are I am totally grateful for a city council and city staff for all of their work in passing this progressive policy. And it's also one that's not just progressive. But I think, as Councilman de Andrews had mentioned, is representative of our diversity. And that says something truly to be to be applauded. You know, and I also want to I want to echo what Councilwoman Lowenthal said about child interpreters. I think that we can still be a little bit stronger on our language. Yes. Granted, there might not be a law that forbids it, but we have to think about sort of the the pressure and the responsibility that is placed on a child to be able to adequately, adequately and responsibly translate something that they're that their parent needs to know. That's a lot of pressure, and that's something that we shouldn't be placing on our children and our residents. So we should be a little bit stronger. And I think I urge city staff and council, too, to be a little bit stronger on on that policy. Vital Documents is also something that has been brought up. And I think that this is something that we would like to open the door to city staff to work with the community to try to identify what some of those documents might be. And we're constantly knocking on the door to try to work with city staff to to to talk about these things. I think that if documents are vital to the community, they should be heard from the community. What those things are, you know, so, you know, we're we're an open door policy here. Let's talk with sit down and hash this out. Also funding, we've already talked about that. And I want to I want to highlight that the success of a of a policy such as this is is going to be dependent upon education and outreach if we're already based in a community that has the sentiment that we don't have access to these type of services because there's no interpretation or translation. I urge the city staff to incorporate into its plan what kind of outreach, what kind of education are we doing to be able to educate our residents that these services are now available? And that's something that we to as the community and this coalition can also help with. Again, another item that we can bring to the table and help city staff to to try to implement. This is about, I think Councilwoman Lowenthal mentioned again, is this about our residents participating and being civically engaged and having a voice? Our slogan is Our voice matters. And because half of our population here in Long Beach are lep, you know, the language, language in limited English, proficient, we should make sure that their voice matters. And these services are integral in ensuring that that happens. Let's get them involved. Let's get them engaged and let's get them participating in our great city. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Goodhue. Let me give you a as the address a little different tact, if the budget can. Before me to do it. I think the city should offer English language classes in English only. That is the best way to ensure that the residents of this city covering the full spectrum of countries they may come from, what language they speak will have one language spoken here, and that's English. Now work with the school, the educational systems, whether it be at the college level or at the elementary level. But I think it is a waste of money and it's an imprudent use of money to try to cover the entire spectrum. Of the various different English language if you really want to help the people. It's like teaching somebody how to swim. You throw them in the water and let them swim. Have somebody there to help him teach them the English language, period. Thank you. Thank you. Please. Hello. My name is Warren Brandt. I'm from Los Angeles, California. This is a different matter. I come to the city of Long Beach like I was a couple of weeks ago. I guess a lot of trees. Richardson, this is right here. Oh, sir. We only take and comment on this item right now, so I can I can. We can take that at the end of the meeting. Oh, okay. Thank you. I got some great information for you. Thank you, sir. Any other comments on the item before us, Councilmember Neal? Thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor. And I'd like to thank everyone that has participated in this process up to this point. And again, I'd like to thank city staff for, you know, creating a policy that is a good start. And as they stated, you know, this is a very fluid process. So this is something that we're going to be evaluating for years to come. Also thanking my colleagues for moving this forward. But I would like to offer a substitute motion, and it reads as follows. I would like to identify vital documents such as complaint forms and applications, things that do not change, that could be easily converted into the major languages that we've talked about. And also, look at the viability of voice mail on main line departments. Have the have staff report back to us at a compliance hearing in July of 2014. There's been a motion and a second on that item. So this is a substitute motion that adds the items that Mr. Neal talked about. See no other council comments? May I ask a question to the original maker of the motion? Mr. Neal, did you just want the original maker to incorporate that into the original motion? That would be fine if the original maker would adhere. When we asked Councilman Andrews. I only bring that up, Councilmember Andrews, because this is your item. You brought this up. I want to honor that. And yes, I thought they were really trying to overlook that. But I'm going. Oh, no, it's thank you. Yes. No. I think everyone wants the same thing for our constituents. But I do I do want to acknowledge that that point. No, fine. I can accept that. Thank you so. Much, Amber Andrews, except said as a as a friendly amendment. So there is one motion on the floor, which is the motion by Councilmember Andrews. Please go and cast your votes on the item. So. Mr. Vice Mayor, it wouldn't be a friendly amendment, correct? Because the original motion was to receive and file. So with this would just be the motion that was stated. In addition to it. Okay, fabulous. That. Yes. So, Mr. Vice Mayor, if just so we understand, so we'll come back and schedule something in July and we'll come back and give you the costs associated with the things that you're talking about that Councilmember Neal's commenting on and with potential facilitation to put that in the budget. Yes. Okay. There is a motion on the floor, so no other comments or questions. Please cast your votes. Motion carries eight votes. Yes. Okay. Next item. Item 17 is a report from Development Services and Financial Management with a recommendation to adopt resolution authorizing the city manager to execute an agreement with Howard CBM for the provision of building rehab services.