Recommendation to direct City Manager to identify immediate one-time resources available to implement a Parks, Open Space and Median Drought Response Plan to preserve the City's trees and landscaping through the summer months and the end of Fiscal Year 2018.
Motion carries. 26. Are we doing 19 or skipping straight to 26? We're going to come back to 1986. Okay. Communication from Councilman Austin, Councilman Andrews, Councilmember Urunga, Vice Mayor Richardson. Recommendation to direct City Manager to identify immediate one time resources available to implement a parks open space and median drought response plan to preserve the city's trees and landscaping through the summer months. Thank you, Councilman Nelson. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Unfortunately, this year we had a historically low rainfall here in Long Beach and what is budgeted for irrigation. The city relies on rainfall for more than half of the water needed for our parks, open spaces and medians. As a result, our parks have received far less water than they need this year and result in many of our party's parks are very obvious. I've received numerous calls and emails from residents about the yellow and brown grass in our parks and large areas of dirt where there used to be grass. And my staff has actually gone out and taking photos of conditions in some of our parks around the city. Obviously, this is not an acceptable condition for our residents and our parks, which are treasured assets for our city. Some of our best efforts and best programs happen in our city parks as we enter the summer months. We're inviting our residents to utilize parks through a number of popular events, such as concerts in the parks, movies in the parks, summer Fun Days and the Be Safe program, not to mention the countless picnics and family gatherings that will be taking place. The lack of water for our parks is impacting the quality of the experience that our residents will have at these terrace events. Not only that, if we don't address the lack of water now, the cost to the city will only increase down the road with the need to replace large areas of grass and trees that may die. I request to have brought forward this evening with my colleagues as the request is very straightforward. We're asking the city manager to identify one time funds necessary to close the budget needed to water our parks for the remainder of this fiscal year to preserve our landscaping and trees. And I'd like to ask the city staff if they can provide a report on what steps they've already made toward thus far toward this plan and what can be implemented to respond to the drought we've experienced and the impact on our parks. And I want to be very clear before staff gives their report. I want to thank my colleagues for signing on, because this is an issue that's not only affecting my district, but both parks throughout the city. And and I don't want to point fingers and blame anybody because we don't control Mother Nature. We don't control the fact that that, you know, we did not get enough water this year through rainfall. But I do think that this is a situation that does merit our attention. And we have to do something now to preserve our assets and resources as a city. So with that. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman Rocks. Well, I think we have a most of the second. Call me. Yeah. Okay. Well, I think this is a good a good item. And I would just say we all know that we're in a drought and we have a massive park system. And we have to sort of think about if we're going to expand resources on water, where does it make sense to do it? Some of our parks, you know, we we've stopped doing, you know, afterschool programs and things like that. I think it makes sense to sort of shift the water as well to the places that we've shifted our strategically shifted our programing to because those places do require additional water. Just this past Saturday, we had our Uptown Jazz Festival well-attended, best attendance ever. And, you know, we survey we conducted a survey. And, you know, it was what folks want to talk about weren't the things on the survey. They want to talk about the grass, how the grass at the park was in bad shape. And some people were upset because they've been to this park for seven years for the jazz festival. And this was either ever and we addressed it. We talked about the drought. But the reality is, I mean, we're a big city. We can shift our resources to make big things happen in our regional parks are our programs. Parks are the ones that receive a lot of use. And I couldn't think of another analogy for this because I'm a Trekkie. I think of when, you know, when the enterprise is starting to go down, they shift their power to the you know, to the main life support services. I think we have to think about shifting our sort of our water to the parts that need it most and the parks that have the most demand on it. I think that's what this conversation is about, and I look forward to what staff has to say. Thank you, councilman. Awesome raising this conversation. And I know that there there are some things that we can do to make sure our main parks, our main parks, our main medians are open space. They you know, they we do save that grass. Thank you. I have a series of councilors I want to speak. So, Mr. West, I'm not sure that you just responding in general or. We have a staff report. Councilor. Did you ask them to be their staff report? Okay, then let me go ahead and do the staff report. Our interim director, Steve Scott. Okay. Good evening, Mayor. Members of the City Council. I want to thank you for bringing this item forward for discussion this evening. And we, too, agree that, you know, the current drought conditions are not ideal and we absolutely do not want to see our parks browning and becoming dirty. And so thank you again for bringing this item forward. I just have a couple of slides to supplement tonight's discussion on the drought impacts to our parks and how we've kind of shifted some of our resources to address some additional watering cycles that we can provide over the course of this summer. So with that, as you all know, water is critical for a thriving landscape for parks, open spaces and medians. Properly landscaped areas result in safe playing fields, healthy trees and plants and cultivates the esthetic Long Beach residents have come to enjoy. The department is responsible for the care and maintenance of close to 1000 acres of parklands and open spaces. And according to the California Department of Water Resources, on average, 47 inches of water is needed to sustain the vegetation in our Southern California climate. We work towards meeting the landscape need through rain and our purchased water or irrigation efforts. So far this fiscal year, we have received less than two inches of rain. Mother Nature has not been kind to us by comparison. During the difficult drought years of 2012 to 2016. The city received as much as 7.9 inches of rain during a drought year, almost four times as much as what we've received so far this year. And when you combine that limited rain with our budgeted $2 million irrigation line item budget, which purchases close to 21 inches of water , we can expect only about 23 inches of water resources or 49% of plant need and recall, that's about 47 inches. So 49% of plant need. We're getting through rain and irrigation. So the next couple of slides just kind of depict in a few different ways really the severity of the drought that we find ourselves. The blue bars on this chart represent the 47 inches of water needed to sustain plant life. That red line across is essentially shows 13 inches and that's what the city receives on average during non non drought years. So you know, outside of the drought we can expect close to 13 inches. But really what I want to show here are those green bars. That's the actual amount of rain that we've received since 2012. And, you know, just about every year, with the exception of 2017 has been bad. But I really want to highlight 2018 less than two inches. I mean, that that green bar is barely legible. Next slide, please. So this chart helps to illustrate the water resources against the 40% 47 inches of plant need for the past six years. The light blue bar that you see at the bottom of all of those bars represents our irrigation budget. And you can see that that's been relatively flat since 2012, but that's despite the annual water rate increases that we've had and the new park acreage that we've added over the years. And so that limited water budget has been spread even more thin than in years past. The dark blue bar represents the annual rainfall discussed in the previous slide, and then the green bar represents the amount of resources that the department has found over the years outside of the $2 million budget to put towards our irrigation needs. And then obviously, the red there is the shortfall that we're experiencing to meet that 47 inches of water needed for our plants. Next like so over the years when annual rainfall and the department's water resources do not provide the necessary amounts of water, the department thoughtfully focuses on managing the shortfall and implements a series of short term strategies to help stretch the supply of water throughout the entire fiscal year. It seems like every year prior to the summer months, the department reviews water usage to date and evaluates water need through the balance of the fiscal year to determine how the remaining supply will be used. This leads to a prioritization of water use for heavily used areas where the department essentially tears irrigation with a focus on providing those limited water resources to areas of high use and active uses, including our heavily programed park areas where we might provide, you know, some of our park programing during the summer. Our sports fields receivable sites, those are the sites where people can reserve a picnic area and come and enjoy the parks, special event venues and newly developed park areas. This prioritization and touring of water resources actually began during the drought years earlier this decade and has been a way for us to manage those limited resources. Unfortunately, as part of this hearing, though, we do experience some of the browning and dying of grass in some of those areas that are receiving less water resources. Looks like. So this is the slide that I really want to focus on because there is some good news on this slide. And over the last few months, we've worked hard with both the city manager's office and financial management to identify both budget savings within our existing budget and one time resources to help supplement our existing water budget this year. And I'm happy to report that we've identified a little over $800,000 in newly identified resources to put towards additional water. So what does that mean? It means we no longer need to tier the water usage this summer. We're going to have the resources to be able to now ramp up again the water not only in those heavily used areas, but also in those lesser use areas. So the community will see greening at our parks, sites and open spaces over the coming days and weeks. We've already begun this process of reprograming our controllers to apply these additional water cycles. And so again, we will start to see greening continuously throughout the course of the next couple weeks and summer. And then I just also want to point out that we are once again utilizing a summer reclaimed water truck that is going to help us apply needed water resources to our median trees. And then lastly, I just wanted to point out a couple of our long term strategies. Obviously, this has been a historical structural shortfall that we have budgetary. And so we are working through the annual budget development process to help address this historical shortfall. We are also working with our partners such as the Water Department, to implement water conservation strategies and upgrades to some of our infrastructure and technologies that will help us better manage our limited water resources. And so that very quickly is kind of where we are right now. I want to leave you with that. With these additional resources, we are going to be applying additional water cycles to our both high use and lower use parking in open space areas. And we will see greening coming forward. That concludes my report. Thank you. Thank you. I have a long list of council members. I want to speak. I just want to just say one thing. I really appreciate, obviously, the the focus on water conservation that the city has had in general. We actually lead the state on water conservation issues. And one of the top cities to have addressed particularly we had the drought with the governor and his mandates that we can implemented across the city. So I'm very appreciative of that. You know, at the same time, having, of course, parks that are not properly watered, not only cause issues with access for families, but as we know , it causes it could cause real damage to trees, especially trees that have been in place for four decades and not receiving enough water. I'm also grateful that we were able to find the resources to make this investment. But I also just want to make sure, just to the team and particularly the parks management team, that, you know , we shouldn't get to this point where all the trees are dying. The issue gets brought up. The council agendas are set and now we're going to fix the problem. I would much prefer that proactively we come to the council and say our trees are in jeopardy. Our parks across the city are looking embarrassing and embarrassing and in very bad shape and we need a larger request. And that was done during the budget process last year when you guys came last year and said we need more, more money in the budget for watering. And that was a great move and the council acted on that. But the current shape of the parks is the worst I've ever seen them, and I've never received as many complaints from our community on the on the upkeep of these parks. And so I just I just want to ensure and I appreciate Councilman Austin greatly for kind of we've all this has been an issue for all of us. But I'm glad that you agenda is that to provide this forum. I just want to make sure that it doesn't it should not take this type of action. We need to address this. And the second there's a problem, come to the council and we will find ways to ensuring that our trees that are our parks don't end up in the shape of the currently and including those medians. And so I just wanted to say that we've had a lot of concern on that. Councilman Mongo. Thank you. This is something that when Councilmember Austin let me know it was coming on the agenda, I let him know that my office has been working on this for several weeks. Many of you don't know that 70% of the acreage of the parks are in District five. Up on my screen in front of me, I have a line by line budget of Parks and Rec and what has been spent year to date. And I think one of the important things to discuss is that 800,000 didn't come from thin air. I mean, it was something that was budgeted for other things. And so within Parks and Rec, I appreciate that they've made the tough decisions on where to move some resources. We have a very tight budget and even considering how tight the Parks and Rec budget is and considering every single year that I have been on this Council , additional funding has gone to Parks and Rec every year. And if you read the articles in the paper, we almost have double the funding per resident for our parks programs as other cities as the median. A median city spends just over $100 per resident and we're at 208. And so we are really doing a superb job and our parks do continue to win awards. But as the mayor said, when I reached out to your office three weeks ago, it shouldn't have been. Well, we've stopped watering or we reduced water. It should have been, hey, in three weeks, we're considering some changes that are going to impact you and your district and you and the residents. And here's what we propose. Can we get some input? Do we need to agenda? Is this where are we? Here's what our thoughts are. And those are your decisions to make it until a policy is made by this council. And so I think that will have a better perspective when it comes to Bossy this year. And I appreciate that. Every year Parks and Rec comes and asks. But I also want to say, and it's in my newsletter this week, that the time has come for every single park to have an advocacy group, whether it's Pan Am or Hartwell or Eldorado. We have groups of people who occasionally are super involved, and then it falls off. But one of my my big concerted efforts in this next six months is going to be an ad, an organized advocacy group at each park. And we've prepared some things with Park, Parks and Rec. We have had several meetings about a grid system where we could better tell each other where the issues are, because with almost a thousand acres of park and I don't I'm not sure if people really have the grasp on how big an acre is. It's multiple football fields. I mean, we're talking about I mean, how many football fields in a row is it really we say, Mr. Scott. It's approximately 45,000 square feet. So I can't. And so even if we start, it's great that we have all these beach cleanups. But starting. In this next six month period, we're going to park cleanups. We shouldn't be busing our children from all different parts of the district on Saturdays all the way down to the beach. We appreciate the beach. We want to clean up the beach, but we have a lot of parks and rivers and lakes and duck ponds right here in the neighborhoods that people live in. And those park cleanups on the first Saturday of every month are going to be a huge, concerted effort that I hope to hear a lot of feedback. So please stay tuned in this week's newsletter. And we have a lot of exciting information that's taken months and months to work on. I appreciate having worked with Parks and Rec over the last few weeks, and I also appreciate Councilmember Austin for agenda laziness. I know it is frustrating and I know we can do more, but to do more we really have to be organized. And so I look forward to working hand in hand with the neighbors on on their organization, because, as Councilmember Richardson said, resources have to be shifted. We can't each year know what Mother Nature is going to give us in terms of rain. And in the years like last year when they had additional funding and Parks and Rec came in under budget, what we should have done, in addition to just allocating additional money for this year's water, is we should have started a trust fund for water. We really should have started an idea where we can set aside a water fund for the future and buy at a different rate. So thank you so much for the work you've done, but a lot more has to be done. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Ranga. Thank you, Mayor. And I want to congratulate you and your efforts as well. And look and recognizing that we have a problem. Councilmember Austin and myself share a park. I think we're the only two districts that really have split a park and have lots of rules park. And we're going to be sponsoring our first concert in the park coming up in a couple of weeks. And it's you know, it's embarrassing when we're going to have our first concert in the park and it's dry. I mean, it's almost dirt out there. And and we're expecting people to take their blankets and their lounge chairs out there and enjoy the music. And it's somewhat bittersweet because when we go to the park and you put your blanket down, you want to be able to enjoy the music in a nice, comfy place where it's green all around you, and this year it's not. So I'm very glad to support this this item here we have a lot of park. I rescheduled an event at Silverado Park that I want to have outside, but when I saw the conditions of the or the grass, I think that that that there's there's no way that I can support this. So we had to take it inside. And I don't want to do that. I don't want to be put in that situation to have to make that kind of decision to where I want to have an outside event and have to move it inside because of the conditions of the field. So I fully support this item and I'm glad that the staff has reviewed it and looked into it. And I agree with the councilmember Mongo that, you know, you know it it's all 2020 now. But this is something that we could look at in the future in terms of if, again, we had this opportunity to target some money towards water for our parks, I would certainly support that. And and on top of that, I have a lot of meetings in in the seventh District and a lot of our trees in the medians are also dying. I had, unfortunately, the decision to make it two years ago. Daisy, Daisy tree. These deadline, we had to basically bring down a number of trees because, well, both of age and disease, but only just because of the drought. They were just they were just not being sustainable anymore. And we had to to cut them down because of the drought. So I hope that we can turn this around. And I hope that once we get our our most project in place, that we can use some of that recycled water to go into other places in the district that are in the city that are in desperate need of recycled water. And I hope that we will be able to do that. So thank you, Cosmo Rosser, for bringing this forward. Thank you, Councilman Hooper. Now. Thank you. I, too, would like to thank Councilmember Austin for bringing the item forward. And thank you, Mr. Scott, for the presentation. And I would also like to commend you for being reactive to at least what our office has brought to. And thank you, Mr. Owens. Also, we had an emergency situation in the Stearns Park a couple of weeks ago, and you guys stepped up and and took care of it. I did speak to the city manager yesterday. We have special circumstances in some areas that might concern like a public health issue. And our office would be willing to fund that, too. As I've offered to you folks before, that's going to need to have a special circumstance. I think all my colleagues have said, you know, please come to us and ask this and I think we can support you. So, again, thank you very much. Thank you, Councilman Andrews. Yes, thank you. I would also thank constant council members in bringing this item forward. You know, it is a serious matter and we need to address it with proactive measures. You know, because the community has, I think, been very patient and understanding, you know, with the drought restriction and the shortage. But, you know, our parks are not looking appealing today. You know, I've seen kids in six discipline, you know, in the dirt and in the desert they pick up on it is a concerned you know I think anything we can do to help. I would really ask that we get on that as soon as possible because I was out at the park with our concert in North Long Beach, and I think afterwards it was like, what is this? It wasn't about the music is about the dirt and the dust we had there. So as soon as we can address this issue and take care of it, I want to thank the Parks and Rec for really letting us know that they are going to do something about it. And thank you, guys. Again, thank you for being so proactive. Thank you. Councilman Price. You know, I would like to thank my colleagues for bringing this item forward led by Councilman Austin. So thank you. And I want to just start off by saying I want to thank Steven Scott for doing the presentation. He's had a very challenging role, although he'll never admit that because there's been a lot of changes in leadership in that department. And the the drum that's been beat for the last few years has been lack of resources, lack of resources, not by Mr. Scott. And that's incredibly frustrating for those of us who go out every day and try to serve the community the best we can. I met with the former director of the department in 2016, shortly after the city auditor's office came out with recommendations through their park maintenance audit. And at the time, I requested Slash, begged, pleaded for some sort of plan moving forward in terms of what the future was going to look like for irrigation, for planting, for maintenance, and was told that that was that was forthcoming. It's definitely something that we were going to be working on. To this day, we don't have a strategic plan for the maintenance of our parks and our medians. And I understand the department has gone through a lot of changes. There are limited resources. I think this is one of those situations where I'm saying, how come? How can I help you? Help me? What can we do? Because we go out there and we literally get killed at every community meeting this park, which is our brand new park that we were so proud of, the right of way . It's on the cover of the Long Beach Business Journal. It doesn't look like this. It does not look like this today. It's it's I there have been times where I've told that I've been told that medians, the plants are supposed to look dead. I've literally been told these things on multiple occasions. And I'm not an expert and I've deferred to the experts on many occasions. But it's incredibly disappointing. And with all due respect to my colleague, Vice Mayor Richardson, I agree. We need to shift our resources. And I know you aren't trying to say this, but I hope we're not implying we should be shifting our resources to where the programing is, because some of us who don't have a lot of programing in our parks and have. Repeatedly asked. For more programs like we don't have afterschool programs in the third district, they were taken away over my objection, please don't. Now take the water away because we don't have an after school program. And I know that's not what you were trying to say, but what I don't want to do is pit us against each other in terms of what parks are, programing, what don't. This is a very political process. And look, we have programs and some parks and we don't have programs in other parks. And I would love to have an after school program in my district somewhere. But the level of programing shouldn't equate to how much resources we get in terms of irrigation. Just because I'm not offering an after school program in any of the parks in my district because that's just not available to me. Doesn't mean we should cut off irrigation for those parks because all the kids in that neighborhood have, frankly, is the grass because there is no programing in their parks. So what I would. Really like to challenge our Parks Department to do and through our city manager with the arrival of our new program director, is think strategically about what the future is going to look like, because this is a conversation that we continue to have individually as council members. With. PRM during our briefings, and we're able to Band-Aid situations here and there. But there's no overall space of comfort where we feel like these issues are going to be addressed proactively. Mr. Scott is aware we have a resident who emails us almost, you know, weekly about grass dying in a. That's received less and less irrigation. That's a prime has been fantastic and working with us, we're probably going to have to replace the grass there to make it drought tolerant. But these piecemeal approaches, I think, are probably not the most efficient way to do it. I don't know. I challenge our city manager to help us figure it out. But each of us individually going to the director of PRM and asking about this park or this median, asking for more water or asking for an additional plant or two. It just seems like there might be a better way for us to approach it with a more streamlined process and some level of comfort that we can have as council members in terms of what we can expect, so that when we go out to the community, we can say, here's our irrigation plan, here's the maintenance plan. This is consistent. It's going to remain consistent because I think this is one of the things in my personal opinion. Parks, infrastructure and public safety are the things that most residents agree on in terms of what they want in their community and so to be good in their community. So I think this is an area for us to really focus on. And I would I would suggest that that maybe looking at the park maintenance audit might be a good place for us to start those discussions of what the future looks like. Again, PRM has done an amazing job with the resources that they have. They are incredibly responsive. Kelly and Hurley are both here. They are tremendous partners to us. Their inability to be able to keep these parks and medians alive has nothing to do with them, has nothing to do with their work quality or their work performance. It's an issue of resource allocation. And so I just want to make that very clear that the team is fantastic partners, they do a great job, but we should not be having to defend against dead weeds and explain to people it's the natural cycle of the plant to die and it may never grow back. I just people don't believe that. So we and nor should they. So I think we need to we really need to maybe ask. For a little. Bit of compassion and empathy in terms of, you know, you prm you deal with PRM issues. We deal with every issue that residents are concerned about. We do the very best we can, whether they want to talk about infrastructure, public safety, parks, airports, taxes, whatever. We do our very best to bring whatever limited expertize we have on those areas to answer questions. This is a major area where every single one of us is getting hit hard. We're getting hit very hard on this issue. And there's got to be some empathy and compassion for what we do when we go out to the community and we try to convey a sense of confidence in the government that we're going to be taking care of these things. And so I know this is a little bit of a rant. It's not meant to be. It's this is just an issue that's very important and so timely, especially when Jack Cunningham, our chief of staff, put this in my mail to read. And the first thing I thought of when I looked at this is this park no longer looks like this. I mean, Jack's here. If you don't believe me, you can ask him. We we send multiple emails every week about this park. It's true, right, Jack? Right. Yes. Okay. So, anyway, I thank you for indulging me and allowing me to share that. I think what I'm really asking for, what it boils down to is I would like to see us have a strategic plan for park maintenance and I will be asking my colleagues to support an item reflective of the same. Should we not start to see some changes where it's not incumbent upon us individually to have these discussions one on one, where we should be talking about this broadly, how it benefits every park in the city. We shouldn't be shifting water from one park to another. We should be thinking about how we water all of our parks. So thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilmember Pierce. Thank you. And I want to thank Parks and Rec for also bringing forward your presentation alongside this item. You know, I don't want to to go too much. I think I'll echo the same thoughts that my colleague said, same thoughts as the mayor said. It's unfortunate that our parks are in the situation that they're in. I know that there are some hard decisions that we've had to made at Kara Park. We had a historic tree that was a beautiful tree that we had to to take down. And I know that's been a huge impact for the community members there. I agree with the strategic plan and I want to push as I'm not sure I need to bring back another agenda item to talk about it. But outside of a strategic plan, looking at what additional resources do we need to plan for as a city? You know, I'm not sure this is the answer, bond measures or anything like that, that we can actually invest in our parks as a whole across the board, not only for infrastructure. Water. I know that there's a countermeasure out there around reclaimed water that we need to be looking at. But just really pushing ourselves as it seems like we've done a great job reforming many things in our city and that this is the one area that we consistently come back from and that, yeah, it impacts every single district , no matter if we have small pocket parks like Arts Park or larger parks like Bixby Park. So I look forward to seeing our parks come back green and seeing hopefully a staff report come back around the audit that was done. Appreciate that. Councilman Gonzalez. Yes, thank you. I think this has been a really good discussion. You know, it brings up the more global issues, as Councilwoman Price was mentioning, about just esthetics in our in our city. And that is the very first thing I know that we just constantly hear from our residents about on top of all of the other layers that we're hearing. So I agree with everyone. Everyone here, I absolutely think that we need to think a little bit more creatively and have a plan. And I appreciate as well that each of you have been so responsive to my office and the many asks that we've asked you day in and day out. A few things to think about. Absolutely. I know we have, I believe, smart irrigation in a few locations. Is that correct or what does that look like currently? Yes, we have. 28 sites that are under smart or central control, kind of a combination of both. And we have 90 ready to go out to bid probably in the next three months. Okay. And will that I'm assuming this will be included in that plan as well, just as far as maybe getting us to 100% or getting us somewhere close so we can be at a little bit more innovative and then, of course, a little bit more of course, a lot more efficient with our water usage is that. We have approximately 187 clocks in the parks. Alone. And the the the next phase, so to speak, will get us to about 80%. We'll be able to reduce the actual total number of clocks with this program. The other thing is it takes me approximately four weeks to go out and program these clocks. I've spent a large amount of staff time over the last four weeks bring these water systems were moved back out over the last two weeks to and to them as we've located water sources but the the smart controllers are the web based control allows us to do that in several hours versus four weeks. So we have prioritized that program to assist us with programing the water. Okay, great. And I would just a couple more things. So the National Recreation and Park Association, I've been on that website like religiously over the last six months or so, just reading about what other cities are doing. So just a food for thought for my colleagues to look at some of the cool things that other cities are doing and finding areas for inclusion, innovation, etc. And I know parks, I'm sure you are reading it religiously as well, but there's a lot of good stuff in there. Secondly, I'm actually kind of of the mindset that we may perhaps in this plan and I appreciate my colleagues bringing forward is possibly including our sustainability and Parks Commissions , just to add another layer to garner some ideas from them. And we do have some new commissioners. We also have a climate action plan that could contribute to this as well. And I think it would be good to just add that to the to their agendas, just to offer some some feedback from them so I can add a friendly amendment for that. Also making this a friendly amendment include our commission's parks and Rec. And I think the commissions would be great. Yes. Awesome. I appreciate that. And thanks again for bringing this forward. And thank you park staff for your work. Thank you, Vice Mayor Richardson. Thanks, Mr. Mayor. A couple couple more questions that came up from the discussion. So the will be must count. Councilman Rangel brought up lbe must. So is that going to create additional opportunities for us to divert, you know, cleaned up recycled water from the L.A. River? And is that are we going to prioritize our parks? Are they going to the parks adjacent to the river? And we thought about that. Is that an opportunity for us? So I'll take a crack at that. So, yes, that is the ultimate goal. We are funded for about a $30 million project from Caltrans. And what that gets us is the building, the treatment facility, and it's really designed to treat runoff. We'll be creating a wetlands as well so we can store some of that water. At the moment, it won't immediately be able to use for portable like up and down the system, but that is eventually the plan. We'd love to get that into the system. There are some technical capabilities with that we need to figure out with the water department. Okay. And just so the public understands, can you just give us like three sentences on what LP must actually. Is sure will be must is a very innovative project to treat stormwater so instead of water that is dirty coming off all of our streets and dumping into the L.A. River, we would instead captured at the pump stations, bring it down to a central treatment plant, clean it up to a to a level where you can put it back for irrigation. And eventually we'd like to expand it to multiple phases. So we're capturing a ton of water that we can use for irrigation on the West Side, which does not have access right now to reclaimed water. Okay, next about medians. So majority. All but two medians in my district have been converted to drought tolerant. I think we should maintain continue to do that. The two medians that still remain one of them will be converted to drought tolerant and the other one will not. And that will be the one that will remain. And we would hope that that since we've gone through I mean, we should think about sort of rewarding converting those medians to drought tolerant. It saves money, saves water, allows us to divert to your other medians. So we should be thinking about, you know, where are councilmembers community supportive and how can we encourage and incentivize that conversion? Because I know some communities just don't like it. And I have that in my district. Some neighborhoods like the converted look, some do not. And we want to be able to think about how we incentivize that because we're on this topic. I'm just going to mention the drought tolerant landscaping some some are front of some of our public buildings we should take a look at, too, like, for example, the new fire station 12. They're drought tolerant stuff. You know, some of the love has died. The Michelle Obama library a lot of that they're drought tolerant stuff is is great so we should think about what you know how can we learn you know I mean these are within a mile of one another. What's what's the difference? You know, is it broken? You know, are we treating it differently? Is the contract different between a public work site or a park site? But we should really think about that. And then lastly, I just wanted to touch on the comment about the strategy. I just want to clarify for Councilwoman Price the point, and I'll try to use an anecdote to to explain it maybe wasn't the best anecdote, but the point isn't, you know, what political tool can we use to get more water for my district? The point is, you know, or you know anything about my parks or more needy or poor than other parks. The point is, everything's going to have to be on the table because there's finite resources. So we have to think about what the strategy is. If a strategy is look at parts that are utilized and say, hey, we want to make sure that if we have additional it goes to these parks over others. Those are tough conversations, but the public expects city council to have. So just to be clear about what I'd like to see, I have some of the fewest parks in the city. I get that. But if you were to ask me, I think the public would tell you some of our parks are more heavily utilized than others. And if we had additional resources to invest, I think that sort of community context of what we actually use and we care about all our parks, but some of them, some of them are a little more high profile and those we should make sure that we're paying attention to. So I've got Coolidge Park, I've got the Forest Park, Ramona Park and out in Park. But Hampton and Ramona are the two sort of larger parks that majority of the programing and majority of activity takes place at. So, you know, I want to disarm anyone. This isn't about, you know, using any political whatever the language was, political thing. This is about choices. We're going to have to make some tough choices. And I want to inform that with some sort of community mindset about what's important, some community context. But thank you. Thank you, Councilman Mongo. So I appreciate your comments and Vice Mayor Richardson. But I'll also add that a lot of the funding and grants that are available in CDBG areas for median turnover is not available in the rest of the district. And so incentivizing is great, but a benefit given to those who abide by a program that exists. We don't use we haven't used CDBG for our conversions. No. But there are other programs too like this that with Mary Knight, maybe not in your district. And and under her leadership, there was money available for median exchanges, and they were not available to not one median in the fifth District. And so just to ensure that the context also around, as Councilwoman Pryce talked about every day in Hartwell Park, there are there's not programing in certain areas. And there's heavily utilized areas of our parks. And so we just have to come up with a plan. I think that in my discussions with Steve Scott, our interim director, we've talked a lot about how this plan, how we're going to have a strategic plan for the department, how we're specifically going to talk about long term maintenance goals and how those discussions will be better had. Once we have the feedback from the RFP that's out right now, that puts any of the contractors that provide that maintenance into a objective and standards based contract, which we have not had in the city ever to due to the fact that we're hiring contractors for millions of dollars. And there isn't a grading criteria by which they succeed or fail, where by which we would have financial penalties for contractors who don't meet our expectations because our expectations are so vague that anyone could meet them. I mean, these are serious things that our council has had to start the process on tackling, and I'm proud that it's taken us two years to go to RFP on that contract because we've had to have a lot of hard discussions about how small a park, how small of buckets can we break the city into to get more bidders on these contracts so that more organizations can really be at the table to provide those services? And I just I only actually cued up just because I also wanted to say a big thank you to Hurley, because as the trees are dying and they are falling down in our parks, a call to your team really gets people out there quickly and in all of our interactions, our staff and our community have had with you and your team. And they've been very polite and informed and transparent. And I think that's one of the most important things, is honesty about what is really happening and what we need to do. And as a city, we also not only need to talk about park trees, but but city trees and median trees. A lot of our trees were all planted at the same time. And so if at this time we are able to turn over a third of our trees and do adopt a park programs and adopt media and programs where we could start replacing the ones that are at end of life so that five years from now, not everything will be an end of life. We kind of have to get out ahead of it. I think that needs to be a part of that plan. And so I look forward to working with Parks and Rec staff on that. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Austin. Thank you very much. And I want to thank everybody for their their input, their comments. It's clear that that this issue is is resonating citywide. I want also thank our Parks, recreation and Marine staff. They they they do the best they can. I want to echo Councilmember Price's comments. This is a resource allocation issue. This is this the question before the council. And so tonight, we are giving our staff the resources and tools they need and the decisions making they need to to move forward and to hopefully rectify a problem that we have and have identified with with the maintenance of our parks. I want to just say that that there also has been a lot of new parks development. And, you know, I've benefited from that a bit in my district. And we're seeing, you know, several acres of new wetlands restoration through the the forest wetlands as well as Molina Park being developed, as well as Davenport Park being developed. And so Parks, I'm attentive to to to to the maintenance of those parks, but also the future of wood planning and strategic planning that we're going to have to do to make sure that we're maintaining those parks. The reason I brought this item forward was not because of my parks, particularly in my district or any particular area of the city. This is I recognize as a citywide challenge. And it's clear that all most of the council members of all, not all nine of us are facing these challenges. And so I recognize that that any sort of resource, a strategic resource allocation, that we we empower our city manager and Parks and Recreation Department to to to move forward with should should address issues in all nine districts. And so I certainly hope that that will be the case. And I would ask for a unanimous vote here. See me. Thank you. You can read your public comment here just a second on this issue. But before we do that, just to just also end on a good note as well, I just want to say obviously thank you to the staff. I mean, obviously, this is an incredibly important issue to everyone. I think it's you know, when all this comes out, I think you realize that there's a huge conversation happening in the community that needs to be properly addressed. And so I'm sure that that will that that will happen. And I really want to agree and I'm glad that this idea of the kind of more. Strategic thinking about how we look at our park master plan has been brought up a few times. I think I support that and I think about kind of what we're doing right now in public works around around infrastructure and around the Clean Long Beach Initiative and how we're using innovation and investment and kind of strategic conversations to really drive that, I think, in a way that the city hasn't done in the past. And I think that a similar approach to our park system could really see a great impact. And and I want to know it we haven't said it tonight, but, you know, yes, we're having all these issues. But again, the Parks Department and our parks were ranked as one of the best park systems through the walk score list that comes out every year as far as being walkable and being accessible. And that remains true. And so we're very proud of that. Public comment. Anyone come forward? Then we're going to go to public comment, general public comment after this. Larry, you do. I think this council can take great confidence and. In the fact that Hurley Own is involved in this. I've known Hurley since 19. In the early 1980s. And you will not find a more diligent, more competent individual. And that department should understand that. Notwithstanding that, let me make this suggestion. Obviously, I like green, lush grass as well as a lawn to lay down and have a picnic on. But there's some other alternatives, i.e. in the water boating in the Marine Stadium. If there are if recreational needs are not met on land, come down to the Marine Stadium. We have ample selection of opportunities, notwithstanding the destruction of the criminal the criminal conduct of our mayor and taking down to us and his complicit fellow travelers that will be going to prison. There are opportunities there that the Marine Stadium and the other boating dynamics can provide. If you're used to parks, don't meet up, are not currently up to your standards. But as I said, I have no hesitation. I have no question whatsoever that if Hurley is involved in the issue, we could not find a better individual in helping to address it. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Thanks for your time. My name is Andrew Carroll. I live in the second district. I think it's really important subject. So I'm glad the city council has gone back and forth on this several times. I wanted to say, first of all, to Councilman Pryce, that I actually really liked the standing desk and I hope to see that used more in offices across America and in schools, etc., etc.. So thank you, I guess for sort of introducing that to. The very progressive. Yeah, there you go. You got to take what you can get, I think. And so I'll I'll one that I'll extend my hand on that. All I wanted to say that there is a lot of money available to the city if it if money is a problem. I think we all know that parks are also an economic driver, so they create economic value. We put a lot of money into our parks, but where does that money go? Of course, the park itself doesn't have any rental value because it's public property. You can't do anything private with it in the sense of income, but the value of parks actually spreads around into a catchment area around the parks. So areas with nice parks tend to rent for more money on any kind of catchment area could capture some of this value, which is essentially windfall gains for private owners, mainly banks . We're not talking, you know, homeowners really in the city we're talking about in London banks, any kind of catchment plan could capture most of that public value and redistribute it to other areas of the city. And then you could have plenty of money to fund your parks. I mean, there's actually been studies done by Stiglitz, who actually won the Nobel Prize for four for this theorem, that the exact amount of money you put in to public investment shows itself in land value. And if you tax that land value, you can sustainably fund public investment, which is a really cool concept. Joseph Stiglitz, again a Nobel laureate, observed that this isn't strange. We already have catchment areas in Beaumont. Shaw, for example, they funded their beautification project using that, but that was from from parking. But it's a similar economic concept. The city can do that. Another thing I encourage is to spread the funds around to the city. So there's this back and forth between what areas are might be getting more of the resources, maybe excuse me, getting more of the resources. One way to deal with that is to capture some of this value and actually spread it to different parts of the city instead of letting it stay in one area. If one part captures a lot of value, send it over to a different district. That can be easily done. Another thing that could be done is to reduce or rather stop the tearing without tearing. You encourage every resident in the city to view parks as all our parks instead of just their park in their neighborhood, because there's no more tearing. So essentially all parks get the same amount of water, get the same amount of resources based maybe on mileage, square mileage, or, you know, some even concept and is objective, easily understood, debated in a public forum, decided upon. And from there on, you can encourage maybe some of the more privileged residents who have a little more organization to know that when they're fighting for their park, they're really fighting for all the parks in the city because any funding that is increased for one park ends up going to all the parks. So those are some of the ideas that I would like to throw to the staff and to our city council. And if you have any questions about resources, I'd be happy to provide them. Thanks. Thank you. Next speaker, please. I'm taking an excerpt from one of the oldest documents in our world history. Second Chronicles seven. When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain or sin, pestilence upon my people or locusts to devour the land. If my people who are called by my name. Well. Humble themselves and pray and seek my face. And turn from their wicked ways. We'll hear from heaven. And I will hear what land? Those of you who remember when prayer was in school. Who remember when your parents taught you to pray or the Catholic nun had you recited prayer every morning. Who are older now? Some of us. But it is that God that has shut the rain for you. It's that same one. So let's connect the dots here. Some of us who have alphabets behind our names, DS and BS, embassies, busses, whatever. What do you. Whatever you have. I have a couple. It's that same God that has caused you to be in a drought. That same one. So now you counsel people. And you're over districts of people who are like you. We're taught in schools by Catholic nuns and priests or pastors. And so now that we are in positions of influence, we want to act like what they said then was not true now. But it is that same God now that has caused the heavens to close. And if all things we don't have rain, the sun comes up every day. Darwin and Freud haven't taken credit for it. The moon comes out every night and the stars in their season. But tonight, we have no rain enough. Well, our grass. And he is again saying to us tonight that same God, if you will consider what I consider important, I will send the rain again. But you will not have rain for quite some time. I personally, along with people who are not in here, have asked that the homeless be more upgraded in their care. The homeless are agreeing with me tonight. Do something because you won't have rain for quite a while. I've asked. Because some of you with the funding in this city that you have had and made legally or illegally, you have withheld service to the poor and the homeless. And you bring up reasons why not to increase their funding. Thank you, Mr.. And that concludes public comment. Members, please cast your vote. Motion carries. Thank you. We'll move forward now to public comment. We have ten speakers here, Larry Goodhew, Jeff Lawrence, Thomas Stewart, Janet Tennant, Matthew Nokes, Laura Herzog, Robert Lucero, Letty Hernandez, Adrian Wences and Marina Rosales. So let's start off with Larry Goodhew.