Recommendation to authorize City Manager, or designee, to execute all necessary documents to enter into an agreement with Art Center College of Design, a California private nonprofit educational institution, to develop a campaign related to unhealthy behaviors surrounding HIV and STDs, for the period of January 1, 2017 through December 31, 2017, for an amount not to exceed $80,000.  (Citywide)
Which increase. Okay. Let's go ahead in here seven real quickly so we can get to the study session. Madam, quick. Item seven Recommendations to Authorize City Manager to execute an agreement with Art Center College of Design to develop a campaign related to unhealthy behaviors surrounding HIV and STDs for an amount not to exceed 80,000 citywide. Great. Mr. West. Yes. Our Health Director, Kelly Colby, will make a quick presentation. Good evening, Mayor. I'm mayor and city council members in the city of Long Beach. We have been seeing an increasing rate of STDs and HIV infections. In fact, we've seen rates increasing by 47% for chlamydia and for syphilis, 97% and gonorrhea up to 115%. The rates have been really going high, as well as an increase in infections in HIV, though some of those are some of the highest in California, second to San Francisco. So we know that we are really doing a lot of great work. And we've been working very closely with L.A. County in its work around bringing Prep, which is a prevention opportunity for HIV, as well as doing a lot of outreach campaigns. We have a grant in right now to L.A. County to also connect to, you know, to bring in additional resource for HIV outreach, connecting, testing and moving forward . So we have a lot of the work going on, but clearly the weather patterns are right now that we need to be doing some additional systems, doing some shifts in the work that we do. So what the screen allows for as we're requesting to work with design matters, which is at the Pasadena Art Center, and basically they pull together experts in the field and students in innovation as well as part of our team to really start to look at different ways and different opportunities to reverse the trends that we've been seeing. So we'll be working closely with them and our community partners, including the care clinic, the center being a star and others to really to sit with Pasadena Design Center, to really come up with a new and innovative approach. It will be starting in the spring and move into the fall and will be coming back with a with a new a new campaign process to move forward. So we're very excited about this opportunity and we look forward to working with our team members. Councilwoman Gonzales, anything to your motion? Councilman Austin. Councilman Price. Just real briefly, I know we have a busy meeting tonight, but I just wanted to commend the health department. And Kelly, with your leadership, this is a tremendous opportunity to think outside the box and be creative. I can't think of a situation where we've partnered with a group like this, a design, a creative entity like this, to help us deal with a public safety public health issue that's affecting our community. So I'm very grateful that you're doing this. And it's it's a great intro for an item that I will be bringing your way via council in January. So thank you very much for this collaboration and for bringing this idea to the council. Thank you. Thank you. Any public comment on this item? Case C nonmembers, please go below. I have a public comment. I'm looking for the up here. I'm up here. I'm sorry. Okay. Sorry. I think the money should be better. Used to look into why it is that when the gay rights movement at the end of the 1970s was raising end to power, and then all of a sudden somebody created something called AIDS HIV. I think the money should be spent to investigate how it is. This appeared out of nowhere. They lied to us and said a monkey bit somebody. What a bunch of nonsense. You know, the truth of the matter is, is that there's a holocaust going on in our country and it's against LGBT people, and they really need to find the real reason and the real people behind making people sick and killing all these thousands and thousands of innocent people. It reminds me of what Hitler did to the gay people in Nazi Germany. Only they're not rounding them up and putting them in gas chambers and burning their bodies. What they're doing is they're poisoning the virus and the virus can be spread to anybody. And what they need to do is find out how it is this virus magically appeared when the gay rights movement was raising up into power at the end of the seventies. And the truth of the matter is, we're going into another dark time with Donald Trump and his dictators who are going to he's picking out a cabinet of the most anti-social or anti-gay people that I've ever seen. If we think we have a problem with HIV and AIDS, what they need to do is find out, yes, educate people about their health. We all know that. Okay. But we have to do that. But the thing of it is, is that there's something very wrong in our country where we all complacently sit around. And, yes, I'm against an international airport, but what about the lives of people? Isn't that a little more important? It seems like money has become our God and people are worshiping the almighty dollar rather than finding the real problems in our society. Why it is that people are having trouble surviving in our society and how to do better, and that somebody has to stand up and speak out against it because it's not going to correct itself and pray. And the gay away doesn't work. They've tried that for thousands of years and they also, by the way, burnt witches and gay people in the Inquisition. And as far as I'm concerned, AIDS and HIV is just something manufactured by some sick human beings who knew how to manufacture viral warfare . Yes, that's what that is. We have the capability of killing everybody many times over with the amount of poison that this country has generated. And if you don't know that, Google it. And the thing of it is, is that we're heading into another dark age. Thank you, sir. Time's all up. Sorry about that. Thank you very much. That concludes the public comment on item seven of the last item on the consent. No other public comment. Members, please go ahead and cast your votes. Motion carries.