Recommendation to receive and file the recommendations of the Economic Development Commission and the report from the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation titled "Considering Minimum Wage Policy in the City of long Beach: Theory, Practice and Potential Implications;" or Direct City Manager to provide additional information relative to the implementation of a minimum wage policy in the City of Long Beach; or Direct City Attorney to prepare an ordinance for the implementation of a minimum wage policy in the City of Long Beach to be returned to the City Council for its first reading. (Citywide)
Councilwoman Gonzalez. Vice Mayor Lowenthal. Councilwoman Price. Councilmember Superman. Councilwoman. Mango. Councilman Andrews. Councilmember Muranga. Councilman Austin. Councilmember Richardson. Mayor Garcia. Thank you. So I need everyone to please, please sit down and quiet down, please, so we can get this started. Thank you very much, madam. Kirk, if you can please read the item, it's up, please. Communication from Economic and Property Development and Financial Management. Recommendation to receive and file the recommendations of the Economic Development Commission. And the report from the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation. Or direct the City Manager to provide additional information relative to the implementation of a minimum wage policy or direct the city attorney to prepare an ordinance for the implementation of a minimum wage policy citywide. Okay. Thank you. I'm going to turn this over, obviously, to staff. I know they have an extensive presentation. I also believe as part of that presentation, we're going to have the EDC present, the report that this council commissioned as part of the study. And then we'll go into obviously council comments, public comment, deliberation, that whole part of it. I do want to just one note. Unless there's any objection from the Council just for purposes of making this efficient and because you're going to get a presentation at this hearing. If we don't mind, once EDC does their report, I'm going to I'm going to open it up for the council to ask all their questions of ADC as well as staff. And we get all those questions out of the way before we get into public comment. So unless there's any objection from that, that's a that's a direction we're going. It sounds like everyone's fine with that. Okay. So let me turn this over to the city manager. Mr. West Mayor, council members. Back in August, the city council asked us to look into the possibility of putting forth a minimum wage policy. Since that time, we've engaged the L.A. EDC, the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation. You're going to hear that report tonight. So this is going to be primarily from our director of Economic and Property Development, Mike Conway. Bureau Manager Juan Lopez Rios. And then we also have Christine Cooper of the L.A. DC, who will participate as well. So I'll turn this over to Juan Lopez Rios. Good evening. Garcia members of the City Council on behalf of the Economic Development Commission, the Department of Economic and Property Development is pleased to bring forth the Commission's recommendations for consideration by the City Council for the implementation of a minimum wage policy for the City of Long Beach. As part of our presentation, Ms.. Christine Cooper, senior vice president with the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation, will provide an overview of the report commissioned by the Council titled Considering Minimum Wage Policy in the City of Long Beach. On August 11th, 2015, the City Council directed the city manager to request a report from the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation, L.A., EDC, regarding the implementation of a minimum wage policy in the city of Long Beach. On September 15th, 2015, the City Council authorized the execution of an agreement with the L.A. EDC for a report which would review similar studies and other literature regarding a minimum wage policy review. The best practices of other municipalities relative to their minimum wage policies. Review the economic environment and socio economic conditions of Long Beach. Review the potential movement of jobs and workers across municipal boundaries and survey a random sample of 600 businesses to understand business response to a minimum wage policy. The scope of the report also included a public outreach and participation model in the form of six public meetings held throughout the city for the receipt of public comment on the issues and concerns regarding the implementation of a minimum wage policy. Three of the public meetings were held on September 29th, October 5th and October 29th, 2015. Prior to the release of the report and were hosted by the Economic Development Commission, the Office of the Mayor and the Economic Development and Finance Committee. The report was released to the public on November 13th, 2015. Following the release of the report, the remaining three public meetings hosted by the same entities were held on November 17th, 20th and 24th 2015. The EDC was in attendance at all six public meetings. Ms. Cooper will discuss the comments and concerns raised in public testimony as part of her presentation. In addition to its regularly scheduled meetings on September 29th and November 24th, the Economic Development Commission scheduled two additional special meetings for December 14th, 2015 and January 6th, 2016. These special meetings allowed for the continued discussion of the benefits, detriments and unintended unintended consequences of increasing the minimum wage and provided for two additional opportunities for the continued receipt of public testimony. The Economic Development Commission also received two formal presentations the first from the Economic Roundtable regarding their October 2015 report titled Long Beach Raising a City That Works Forever, and the second from the Long Beach Council of Business Associations. Regarding their December 2015 report titled Survey on Organizational Impacts of a Minimum Wage Increase in Long Beach. Supplemental information was also provided to the Economic Development Commission for their consideration, which included a memo providing the business survey results from the L.A. EDC report in a weighted format by size the firm and a memo from the city's Department of Financial Management presenting possible fiscal impacts to the city as a result of the implementation of a minimum wage policy. At this time. It is my pleasure to introduce Ms.. Christine Cooper from the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation. Thank you so much. Garcia Council Member Dr. Cooper? Dr. Cooper. Yes, thank you, Christine. It's my pleasure. Here to talk about the study that we performed for the city of Long Beach in its review of consideration of minimum wage policy. There was scope, as you saw, we did review the literature related to minimum wage policy in municipalities at the state level and both theoretical, academic and empirical evidence as to the effects. We did look at other policies that have been implemented in other municipalities and where they were going. We estimated the impact in Long Beach on both employees and employers and we conducted a survey of Long Beach businesses. And as one said, we did attend every open forum meeting to hear the comments that were provided by both the residents, workers and the business owners. So just to start talking about Long Beach residents and the characteristics, just a few data points that the report does have quite a lot of data, but rather than than spend a lot of time on that, I just wanted to share some of them with you. The age distribution is kind of an interesting data point that we like to look at because it gives you an indication of whether the city is growing within or not. If you have a large, younger population, these are going to age into it working adults. And so we see that 70% of the residents here in Long Beach are working age. 15 to 64. Actually, the age distribution in Long Beach is not much different than L.A. County. The reason we compared this to L.A. County is because in many of our meetings, we heard that the characteristics of the City of Long Beach was different than elsewhere. And actually, we found that it's not that much different from the L.A. County average. In fact, you're a little bit younger. Yeah. Household by size. This is another indication potentially of the standard of living. There's 162,000 households in Long Beach. The, you know, a larger number of households, a percentage of households with many residents might indicate a lower the standard of living. Again, here we find that Long Beach, the average household size, is 2.87 residents, which is less than the L.A. County average of three. Households by income. The median household income in Long Beach is $54,511 compared to the Los Angeles County average, our median of 55,746. So it's a little bit lower, but not so significantly lower budget expenditures. We like to look at this because, again, we hear everywhere in the Southland that housing consumes a large portion of people's household budgets . And this is quite true. In Long Beach, the average household expenditures are just less than $70,000 compared to the L.A. larger L.A. Orange County region of about 79,000. Almost 38% is consumed in housing, almost 14% in transportation costs, and 12% in food. Now there are many employed residents. And what do they do? We separate these out into three different categories of occupations white collar, blue collar and services. So white collar is really sales, office management and professional type of work. Blue collar is construction, production and transportation and services is repair and maintenance. Food prep and serving. Community Services. Office and administrative. And architects, actually. So this distribution of occupation, occupational type of employment for the residents of Long Beach is also very similar to the larger Los Angeles County average. We look at poverty levels as well, the individual poverty level here. This is a ratio of income to poverty level. Individuals who live in a household household income determines a poverty rate. So any individual in a household is in poverty. Is is in poverty. The individual poverty rate in Long Beach is 21.1%, which is higher than Los Angeles County. Approximately 17.7% of households in Long Beach live below the poverty level. And I think you will hear that the poverty level is is quite low and very difficult to live on. So that's the residential characteristics. But we also like to see what kind of jobs here are provided by businesses. So this is showing firms and employment by size of of of employer, by size of company. So we have very small firms, 1 to 4 or 5 to 9, 10 to 19. And the blue bars are showing how many firms there are in these business sizes. And the the the beige bars are showing what percentage of jobs are in those companies. So, for example, very small firms, 1 to 4 employees account for 54% of all firms in language, but only 7.6% of employment. And that makes sense if there is a small firm doesn't have as many employees for the aggregate, IT firms with between one and 19 employees account for 84% of firms and 26% of employees. So this is important when you think about considering what a small businesses and how how many employees the policy might impact. The employment by industry. This is also quite typical of a municipality. The largest industry sector is education and health. This is mostly social assistance, mostly health, but most of that is social assistance. Professional and business services includes a wide range of different jobs and businesses. The government sector is fairly large here in Long Beach. Leisure and hospitality is also quite significant. That, of course, is mostly restaurants. Food, food, food prep and serving retail trade typically takes up approximately 10% of employment. So they're not. All jobs in Long Beach are held by Long Beach residents. So this shows us where the workers who work in Long Beach actually live. So of all the people who work in Long Beach, 25.8% live in Long Beach. 11% live in the city of L.A.. Another 31% live in other parts of L.A. County and so on. That the number of of actual workers in Long Beach who live in Long Beach is about 42,700. So this is 165,000 jobs. Approximately 74% are held by outsiders. We can look at the flip side of that, where we see where long people who live in Long Beach, where do they work? And there's about approximately 186,000 people who live in Long Beach and work somewhere and 77% of them commute elsewhere. So these are kind of important considerations as you think about what kind of a policy you're going to implement. We did estimate the potential impact of a minimum wage increase at the time when we did the study. There wasn't a policy that was actually developed or proposed, so we assumed that a policy similar to that recently adopted by L.A. City and L.A. County would be the one that you would be considering. And that one, you know, did go from ten, 1050 in July of this year to $15 in 2020. So, of course, in order to do that, we have to assume a certain number of wage growth over time and job growth over time. And we also assume that when you raise the minimum wage to whatever level it is, $12, say the people who had been earning $12 already, would also receive some increase. As as as you move up the scale so that there was a wage compression effect. So this were these were our estimates for the cumulative impacts of the minimum wage increase that we saw at $12, which would have been implemented in 2017. The number of job holders impacted in Long Beach would be approximately 33,000. That would represent approximately 18.5% of all job holders in the city. An average annual increase in earnings of each individual would be on average, $940 a year. And the aggregate increase in the wage bill for all those workers, including those subject to wage compression, was $30.9 million that we did also estimate for 2020. And those numbers are, of course, higher. So in the best case and I'll talk about that in just a moment. If all existing earners or workers who were minimum wage received this increase in earnings. 33,000 workers would earn an average of $940 more more per year at $12 an hour. And 45,700 workers would earn an average of approximately 5000 per year, which is a significant increase. So well the impact on workers, then we would assume and can expect that some will earn more and will spend more. They may work harder because they're earning more and they will probably be happier. More people may join the local the local labor market because they would be induced to join the market at a higher wage rate. And perhaps it's it would offset additional costs for transportation. But some may be pushed out of the out of work in the formal market or may have to work informally if they have to compete with better workers at those rates. So we also know that an increase in labor costs is going to be an increase in business costs. So the aggregate wage bill for $12 per hour at a minimum would be approximately 30.9 million in Long Beach. That's going to be have to be borne by businesses. And again, more at $15. This does not include other wage related costs, such as workers comp or payroll taxes, which could probably add another 10 to 15%. Well, employers, you adjust. If. They are faced with an increase in costs. There are just a number of channels they can choose. They can pass cost increases through to their customers through increased prices. They can choose to increase the productivity of their workers. And there's a couple of ways they can do that. They could hire better skilled employees or they could assist their current employees with better machinery, replace them with some machines to some extent. So those are ideas of how businesses might improve the productivity of their labor at a higher cost. They could reduce costs. But as many businesses have probably said, if there were costs that they could reduce, they would have done so already. So when they're thinking about reducing costs from an increase in labor costs, they'll likely try to offset that with a reduction in other labor costs, such as benefits or overtime, and they can absorb costs through reduced profits. If they can't find an adjustment mechanism and their costs are increasing, they're just going to take a hit. So if we think about that, the worst case. 14,000 workers are directly at risk of losing hours or jobs or being substituted if that if the minimum wage was $12. These are directly affected workers. These aren't the ones that are or that would be impacted through wage compression. And 20,700 workers would be at risk of losing hours or jobs or being substituted at $15. And we really don't know how much that would what the balance would be here. So Long Beach businesses did reply to our survey. It was the goal was really to to learn what their perspective reactions would be. It was a telephone survey. 600 completed surveys were received. The survey was segmented by firm size because their responses might have been different for smaller companies and larger companies. We also segmented by geographic region because we did hear that the South Long Beach businesses were different than the North Long Beach businesses. I will say that a lot of the responses were in undecided. They really didn't understand, didn't have an idea for sure of how they would respond. The results were a 95% confidence interval with a sampling error of plus or -4.1%, which is a little bit larger of a sampling error for the subsegments when we when we break it down. So what did the businesses believe that they will do with their workforce, or how many will this one here? How many actually have minimum wage workers? 40% of respondents have minimum wage workers. This is kind of interesting. 60% of respondents did not have minimum wage workers. The current minimum wage, which at that time was $9, but another 27%, did have workers between nine and 1325, which is the next step. So we were asked to provide results. Weighted by firm size. So these I'm showing these results as well. They did not significantly change. We could have weighted it as well by respondents that actually had minimum wage workers, or we could have weighted it by the geographic location of the firms. But we we reported all the results. Most minimum wage workers in Long Beach are full time and most of them are permanent. How would businesses? Would they reduce employment? 67% of respondents said they would not reduce their number of minimum wage workers. 30%, although, were undecided. 76% of respondents said they would not reduce the hours of their minimum wage workers, and the remaining were undecided. And 78% of respondents said they would not invest in automation. And 20% of those were also undecided. How about relocation or closure? We often hear that businesses will move to another location to avoid the minimum wage policy. 80% of respondents said they would not relocate their business. The remainder were undecided. 100% of respondents, reflecting the perennial optimism of business owners, said they will not close their business. There were no undecideds in this category. 89% of respondents do not expect their profits to increase. Would they increase their prices? 70% of respondents said they would increase their prices. 78% believe the minimum wage workers will be happier and more productive, and 49% will add duties to their current workers. So in the aggregate, we know that some workers will be paid more. Some businesses will face higher costs. But there really is no definitive evidence supporting the balance of effects so that we can find out at what level everyone is made better off. So I'd just like to leave you with a couple of thoughts. One is the idea that hiring better skilled workers over the lesser skilled workers is probably going to impact those with the least skills the most. And those are the ones that we'd like to help the best. There has been there will continue to be a long term trend towards automation and efficiency. As we have seen through the 20th century and the 21st century, we're just becoming so much more automated. And additionally, marginal firms facing increased business costs will close and those remaining will be more efficient. And you do have to think about the regional dynamics as there are other constituents, other municipalities in your region that will impact the results in your city. So not all firms can raise their prices if they have competition right across the border. And you will be competing for labor, you will be able to choose more labor, but you will have to compete for the best. So just a few notes about the open forums and I attended every one of them. The first three forums before the release of the study, there were approximately 50 speakers, half in favor of or speaking on behalf of workers and half speaking on behalf of business. There were three more after the release and approximately 80 speakers. There were the ratio of workers interest versus business interests was about 2 to 1. Several individuals spoke at multiple forums, and the general themes were very consistent. The employees and workers, if you have been at them, you will have heard many personal stories of hardship, difficulty of making ends meet, working long hours, how more income would impact their lives and their families. You would have heard many discussion of misclassification and wage theft issues, which are clearly illegal. You would have heard that raising wages would impact local spending. You would have heard students and nonprofit organizations. Speak out against exemptions. And by the the last few meetings, you would have heard consistently about the Long Beach way, which was a coalescing around four major themes $15 wage paid sick days, no exemptions and city led enforcement. Similarly, had you attended them and heard all of the speakers, you would have heard the small businesses feel. Small business owners often feel as if they are at one with their employees. They have very thin profit margins and would find it difficult to absorb higher costs. Nonprofits express a great deal of concern about their reimbursements, which may be fixed so they wouldn't be able to raise their costs and their service levels may be impacted. Price increases and reduced employment. These were common responses that businesses faced and expressed. Restaurant owners spoke out frequently about their tipped employees and not having full compensation considered as a minimum wage and leveling the playing field. Excuse me was also heard quite frequently too. To make this a statewide issue. Rather than a competition between jurisdictions. So I think that's broadly the study. Thank you, Christine. Thank you. I know we're going to have questions from the council on the study. And as soon as we finish up this part of the city presentation, we're gonna go back to you, doctor. Then we'll go. Will continue. So back to see stuff. Go ahead. Yeah. Oh, Christine has it. On January six, 2016, the Economic Development Commission met to consider all relevant data and testimony and deliberate over benefits, deficits and unintended consequences of a minimum wage policy by a unanimous vote. The Economic Development Commission moved to forward the following recommendations to the City Council for its consideration of a minimum minimum wage policy in the city of Long Beach beginning January 1st, 2017. The minimum wage shall be 1050 per hour beginning January 1st, 2018. The minimum wage shall be $12 per hour beginning January 1st, 2019. The minimum wage shall be $13 per hour. Small businesses and nonprofit corporations shall receive a one year delay in implementation. And small businesses are defined as 25 or less employees. In addition, the Economic Development Commission requests the City Council's consideration of the following items in its discussion that the City Council will take a leadership role in seeking to change state legislation regarding tipped employees and evaluate whether this can be controlled at the local level. Consideration for sick days and wage theft enforcement. Consider requesting a report to be presented to City Council in 2021, evaluating the impacts of a minimum wage policy following full implementation to consider and explore actions that would help mitigate negative effects on businesses and training programs resulting from a higher minimum wage. The Department of Financial Management analyze the potential risks and fiscal impact to the city of a minimum wage ordinance, as there is no concurrent ordinance. In effect, major assumptions were made due to limitations of available data in order to estimate the fiscal impact. The analysis assumes the adoption of an ordinance mirroring that of the city of Los Angeles for areas where analyzes staff costs, contract costs, enforcement costs and small business incentive costs. At a $15 per hour minimum wage. The structural increase from fiscal year 17 to fiscal year 21 for staff costs is estimated at 1.5 million and all funds 1.4 million of which is in the general fund. These are costs due to increasing city employee salaries to minimum wage. Contract cost impact is potentially between 1.8 and 3.2 million in all funds approximately 339000 to 531000 of which is in the general fund. These are costs from city contractors potentially passing on their increased costs for staffing. Enforcement options fall into three categories. Option one is state enforcement providing minimal fiscal impacts to the city. Option two is a combination of state enforcement, augmented with city efforts and communication, outreach and support. Option to fiscal impacts are estimated between 431,000 and 725,000. Option three contemplates a support and enforcement model based on the county's model. Option three fiscal impacts are estimated at 1.3 million. Incentive programs fall into two categories. Incentives to only new small businesses provide for a fiscal impact estimated at 444,000. Incentives to all small businesses provide for a fiscal impact estimated at 4.1 million. Tonight's recommendation proposes a minimum wage of up to $13 per hour by 2019. By 2012, for small businesses and non-profits, the total structural increases from fiscal year 17 to fiscal year 21 of a 13 per hour minimum wage are as follows. Staff costs are estimated at 850,303. In all funds, 798000 to 54, of which is in the general fund. Contractor costs are estimated between 558,001.2 million. In all funds, approximately 115 to 202000, of which is in the general fund. There is no change to previous estimates for enforcement or incentive programs, depending on the actual provisions of any proposed minimum wage policy. City staff will review and revise the fiscal impacts accordingly. This concludes our report for this evening. I would like to thank Chair Colonna and the members of the Economic Development Commission, the staffs of Long Beach City College, the Expo Art Center, Admiral Kidd Park, the Bay Shore Neighborhood Library, the Department of Technology and Innovation. The Office of the City Clerk and the members of the Long Beach community for their participation in this endeavor. At this time, Christine Cooper from the Landsea, Leah Ericson from the Department of Financial Management and I are available for any questions. Thank you. Thank you. Let me let me just start, obviously, by thanking city staff. I want to thank particularly the L.A. EDC for the incredible work you guys did and a lot of work. And we appreciate that. And of course, everyone that was involved in the process. All of the the the advocates, the workers, the businesses, the students, everyone that came to a hearing, whether it was a roundtable or a larger discussion. I want to thank you all as we as we begin this discussion tonight, what I'd like to do right now is I have a someone that's cued up the vice president who actually introduced the original motion. And vice mayor, if there's no objection, I'd like to see first if the council has questions of the L.A., EDC or staff on the report so we can kind of get through all of those questions first and then before we move on to you and to the public. Are you okay with that? Okay. So let me begin. I'm just going to read as you've queued up here, if there are questions or you can stay in the queue for for the future. But I'll just go through these. So let me start let me start here. Councilman Richardson, you have any questions at this point for L.A. EDC? I'm okay with your direction. Okay. So, Councilman Mongeau. I guess I would need some direction on if this is for L.A. EDC or if it's for our own city attorney. I received several emails to my office and interacted with many members of the community, even at some of the forums, requesting a discussion regarding the concept of total earnings as an exemption. Are there any court cases on the concept for or against total earnings? And could you advise us a little bit about what that means? I think that's a question for Mr. City Attorney. Mayor and members of the council. The the short answer is no. There are no cases on point that would say that you could do a total earnings exemption. On the other hand, there's no cases on point that say you can't do it. The the the most recent version of the total there was a total earnings exemption and a lot of cases. Not a lot, but several of the cases talk about a tip credit and whether a credit is is legal. And there's various opinions on that one. The Legislative Council opinion, which was asked when City of Sacramento was considering something similar, said that they thought that that would be preempted under the law. They did also say in their opinion, though, that there are no specific cases on point, but that was the opinion of the Legislative Council. The most recent proposal varies a little bit. It talks about a total earnings exemption. Our officers met only once. We just recently received this proposal on January, I believe it was seventh. We had one meeting with the attorney who was suggesting that this is a possible alternative. But even he admits there are no cases that support that. This is his opinion. It does take into account total wages as it's as he was proposing it. The minimum wage standard established under a total earnings exemption would apply to any employee whose total earnings for the pay period, or at least the amount specified in the local minimum wage. And then when you apply that, if it doesn't equal that during the pay period, then the employer would have to make up the difference. And total earnings would include tips and wages if that person that under this scenario would be a waiter or a working at a restaurant that was tipped employee, maybe a different type of tipped employee. It would also include other types and classifications of employees. So for the enforcement, setting aside the enforcement issues, which could be significant if you're looking at this every pay period and then maybe two weeks, they don't meet the minimum wage and they have to be made up in the next two weeks. They do. If you do it during the month, over a month, then you average it. There's some issues there. But but bottom line, no other city has adopted this type of an exemption in California that we could find. And there is no case law that says you absolutely could do it. So it would be subject to a challenge, I believe. And and I don't know what the courts would rule on. You mentioned that it would apply to many different types of employees. I imagine things like delivery services, those are very popular in the new economy services such as nails and hair and all of those. I do see it being a broad group of employees, probably a large number that lie in the 1 to 4 employee range. As mentioned in the latest report, I have only heard about this directly from people who came to the forums. I did not meet with any Fed attorney and I would since you did. What would be the qualifications of said attorney and why would they be any different from our own attorneys? Do they have a background in labor law or. I don't really know. I mean, I received a letter from several different attorneys offices. That's absolutely correct. The there are many opinions out there on both sides of this issue that have been presented to our office. This attorney presented his opinion. He portrays himself as an expert in the labor and wage law area. I have no reason to doubt that. But it is a different proposal than what other cities have looked at. This is new, as I said. And so it is his concept that we were looking at. We were just asked to look at various proposals. So one of the things that I think I've mentioned before, but it's a new year, so a new time to mention it is that I was very active in my employment through the VOA program, formerly known as the We Are program. And there have always been some disadvantages in California in terms of that federal allocation of funding for youth employment programs is based on ours at the federal minimum wage. And so California employers and California youth specifically are disadvantaged because we are not apportioned a greater amount of funding in. Proportion to what the variance in our minimum wage. So I know that I brought that up at Federal Legislative Committee. I hope that we will pursue that in our upcoming federal legislative trip so that entities that choose to make these steps towards pulling people out of poverty are rewarded, not disadvantaged, when getting federal allocations. That being said, until we pass said opportunities or get the federal discretionary funds or distribution of funds related to that changed, what are we able to do in terms of a youth wage in Long Beach, where I know there are some differences in the federal opinion? I know sometimes it goes up to age 24, sometimes it only goes to age 21 based on if there are foster youth and sometimes only 18 if they're not disadvantaged at all. What would be the thoughts on a youth wage in Long Beach? Either studying it at the state minimum wage or at 85% of whatever we do end up passing so that our our youth are not as disadvantaged and our federal funding can stretch as far as possible. I know we've worked so hard to gain the doubling of these internships, paid internships, many of them. And I would be remiss to think that those youth would not be given those opportunities should the wage go up. There are other California cities who do have a youth wage exemption or a, as you said, a percentage for a certain number of hours worked. Or there are different options that are a policy decision for the council to adopt, which we believe would be allowed. I hope that we can talk about that more as the discussion goes on tonight. I know that specifically when we were doing allocation of funds by nonprofit organization that would help place these youth. One of the challenges we always had was that we would have to disperse that funding in allocation allotments that aligned with a certain number of hours that the Rio aboard the Wheat Board chose to be. Impactful in the youth's lives. You could cut the hours back to 5 hours a week for 11 weeks, but that's not the same experience that these youth could enjoy. Should we be able to give them the 25 hours a week that we felt was a more robust plan in the Summer Youth Employment Program? And I know not only here in Long Beach and our strong Web board, but the L.A. County Web board, the South Bay switchboard, the the Lakewood and cities adjacent to us and the L.A. City Web Board. I know that we've all struggled with this. So I hope that members who have spoken to me about this from each of those boards have a proposal in mind, because I'd really like to find a way where our youth are brought into the workplace and then quickly escalate it up to the minimum wage . But again, one of the important parts of this is those that are supporting families need to make a bit more. But if it's too high, then those entry level jobs aren't really available for people to step into those higher wages. So. Lastly, I think that I hope to hear from people today. I know L.A. EDC made a recommendation related to identifying how businesses can be helped with incentives. I've sat in on many meetings of other bodies who have passed the minimum wage ordinance related to what those incentives could be. And I'm still forming some opinions on that, and I'd love to hear some creative ideas. And we've already offered people who start new businesses or grow their business in Long Beach waiving their business license fee for one year. But I think that we need something even more robust if you're going to continue to grow your business and meet the $15 an hour minimum wage or you currently have no employees at minimum wage, you're already paying above and beyond. What can we do to reward those businesses so those that step out in front of those things and are really moving forward, bravo to them. And I look forward to hearing from my colleagues and the public. Thank you. Thank you. Customer to Productivity Questions for Staff for the L.A. EDC. Yes. Right off the bat. I'd just like to say that I've had a lot of questions about, well, why don't we wait to have something happen at the state level so we don't single out? I know we have a Sacramento lobbyist. I know we have intelligence there. Is there anyone on staff who can tell me what is on the horizon for the November ballot, possibly out of Sacramento? Mr. City Manager. And if not, I can chime in from. So the issue of state minimum wage has been raised for several issues. It constantly comes up to this point. There has not been enough votes in the state legislature to put that on the ballot or to not even the ballot to pass it as a as a state law. There is always the opportunity to put it on a ballot. I don't personally have any knowledge of whether that's being circulated right now, but that's certainly something we can check into. Well, just to answer that, not to say anything that isn't already in the press. So feel free to look it up. So there's two two things that are happening in the state legislature right now. There will be a reintroduction of a statewide bill to go to $13 in the assembly. That was actually a bill that was floating around last year. I'm sorry. I started on the Senate side, which is a mark Leno bill to go to $30 statewide that is being reintroduced in this session. And so that, I think is a dollar a dollar a year until you get to $13. I'm pretty sure that's that's the details of it. But it it's it's a mark Leno originated bill that's happening in the legislature on the state referendum ballot side right now. There are two groups that are publicly are planning on filing measures, both of which go to $15. One is a $15 at 2020 and the other is a $15 at 2021. There are some differences when it comes to sick days on those two measures. There are there are currently both competing measures and, of course, are going through the secretary of state requirement on signatures and so forth. But if those qualify and what is most likely but most of the commentators say is that the the two groups are will likely, if they work things out, combine and actually propose one ballot. And so having the two competing measures, but it is highly likely that you'll have one or two measures on the November 2016 ballot, at least that's what's been reported in, you know, in any of the press. And so that's the I think the status of the the assembly, the legislature and the state referendums. Mr. Mayor. Yes. Mr.. And as Chair of the State Legislation Committee, I want to just point out that we do support the city of Long Beach is on record of supporting a minimum wage increase statewide. And back to Councilmember Super now. Okay. Thank you. I have another question that I get asked a lot is what is the impact to our general fund in terms of the city's own employees? Calcium Councilman Supernova. The cost to the general fund is 1.4 million for the city's employees, and that would be a result of the employees currently below $15 going to $13. However, the cost is only. But 800,000. Okay. Thank you. And then just one final point, and I don't want to be nit picking, but it just struck me when Dr. Cooper framed the aggregate issue of the 30.9 million impact borne by employers. Because I'm a private sector business consultant, most people think of me talking about businesses, but this one jumps out at me that , you know, if we're talking about home health care for fixed income seniors, if we're talking about daycare for working parents, if we're talking about home health care for disabled fixed income individuals, we're really talking about a wage increase that is borne by customers, individuals, not necessarily business. So I guess that's more of a comment. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman Gonzalez. Any questions for. Yes, just a couple of questions. I want to first thank our city staff and L.A. EDC for this great report. I think the devil really is in the details. It's important that we really look at this information. It's very impactful. And so a couple questions for our city staff first. So what types of business incentives would be? Offered if we were to go through with a minimum wage incentive program. But it doesn't state exactly. I mean, is there any thought to what we'd be offering our business? Councilmember Gonzales. Some of the one of the things that we asked the EDC was to take a look at what other cities have looked at in the Lacey, L.A., EDC to come up with some recommendations. What they kind of found in their survey is there's a couple of common denominators that cities use in terms of financial incentives . They didn't find that any city really offered any financial incentives, any of the other cities that we looked at through a telephone survey. But what they did look at are things like a shop local campaign or a business to business campaign, getting businesses to buy from other businesses in Long Beach so that we all those those dollars stay here. They also looked at expanding the preference program. Long Beach has a local preference program, but also expanding that to include hiring, educate educational institutions and seeing if they would participate as well. And then also to do some online tools and make it easier for businesses to interact with the city. And that's something that we're actually very interested in and are working with our I-Team and our innovation team on. We've also provided some information for you in the packet to answer the questions about if the city were to provide a fiscal assistance, what would that cost are roughly, our business license is roughly about $400 for the average business, but we get about 11,000 businesses a year. So if we were to do a and a rebate, I believe it's about four and a half. $4.1 million if we were to do if we were do the majority of businesses in Long Beach, ultimately, if we were to do a smaller incentive, for example, one like a one year deferral for businesses, that could be for new businesses that could be around $450,000 a year. Okay. Great. And state enforcement. You know who would be our liaison here on the city side as far as which? I mean, with whatever option we were to go with, there would be have to be someone on our side to be able to to work with the state in that. So who would that be? So we looked at three different models for enforcement. One is very similar to Measure N, where it would essentially be really not much of a city role. The second would be creating a liaison type office. It would be in financial management where we would have roughly two people and some education and outreach staff and materials and assistance . And then a third model would be actually having a full enforcement. So we we're recommending the middle model. Given just the state of the budget and that it's and we would have two employees that would be able to answer calls and help be that ombudsman. If somebody called and said, how do I have a problem? What do I do about it? We would be able to connect them with the Department of Industrial Relations, who would be who would do the enforcement and handle that as part of their workload? Okay, great. And then I have just one question for the L.A. EDC. I had been, of course, doing research and looking at the Congressional Budget Office information. They had pretty detailed information. I'm wondering if it's possible to project a lot of great information, but how many low wage employees would be would potentially be pulled out of poverty and go above the threshold if we were to increase the minimum wage? Do we have that number? I don't have that number specifically for Long Beach residents. Yeah. 1/2. I just want to make sure vast majority of everyone's being great. But please, there's no talking from the audience or. We are working people. We don't have to. Okay. Ma'am, I understand that. And fortunately, this is the public process. And so but I can't what I can't have is I can't have outburst during the hearing. And so please, ma'am, we just got to go through the hearing. Time for the council so that the people can. Ma'am, that we. Can get up to. Though. Ma'am. Ma'am, that's. Well, unfortunately, ma'am, we have to be respectful of the process. Okay? We which is the public, the form. Okay. We actually need to continue the meeting. And so we cannot continue those outbursts. I'm serious. For now. That that's the council will take its deliberative time and this public comment coming up. But I want to thank everyone else for being very respectful of the process so. Far to the public. Okay. Thank you. So Council, ma'am, if you're not going to remain here, if you continue the outburst, we have to be respectful of process. So, Councilman Gonzales. Yes, it's my last question. How many low wage employees would potentially be moved and go above the threshold if we have that information here, of course, in Long Beach. So we did not estimate that specifically. As we noted, a lot of Long Beach workers who would be impacted are not Long Beach residents. Okay. So it's a little bit of a difficult thing to estimate. Okay. And I would also say that many people in poverty don't work and so would not be impacted by a minimum wage policy. Okay. Well, thank you for the information. Thank you. Next up, I have council member Austin. Thank you. And I'll be brief. I'll do my best. There were there were a couple of points that jumped out at me. And Dr. Cooper of the you mentioned a survey of 600 businesses, and there was a significant number of undecided. I don't know if you gave us a percentage of undecided. Each question actually had five choices. Very likely. Somewhat likely. Undecided or no answer? Not likely or not at all likely. So it was a five point scale. Each answer had a number of different undecided. And so, you know, when you look at the survey results, we not all respondents actually had minimum wage employees. So many of them may not be impacted by the policy. So I think a lot of those answers fell into the undecided column. Okay. Thank you. And I think the next question is for for Steph, there was a visual regarding staff costs for implementation of the minimum wage. And I'm curious to know exactly what those costs would be and how you came to that, those figures. Councilman Austin. What we did was we estimated the number of employees who are currently below $15 and also $13. And then we looked at what the cost would be if they were placed within the minimum wage each respective year. And so the incremental cost. Starts out at just roughly $5,000 for. Next year of Y 17. And it grows each year to it gets to the 1.4 million in the general fund by a by 21 for $15 an hour and then. 800,000 for the $13 an hour. And that would be. By FY 19. Okay. And I guess that the the my, my, my final question would be how would the wages of workers who are engaged in collective bargaining be impacted by such a minimum wage policy? Well, I don't believe that's part of your policy. So they would be not I mean, they would they would be affected, as is any other employee, as far as I know. I mean, I don't know what you've been. Um. So, so. Considering. If someone belongs to an organization and they are covered under a collective bargaining agreement and those wages are negotiated in agree and such an agreement, does the minimum wage policy here supersede that? Unless you exempt them. Okay. Thank you. And I don't believe that's been suggested. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, we have Councilwoman Price. So just a couple quick questions for staff. Can you go over for us the recommendations that were presented to the Economic Development Commission from COBA? Councilwoman Price, we don't have that report with us at this time. I have a copy of it. Well, I just wanted to make sure that that the copy that I have includes their full recommendations, because I'm not sure that that was included. I know that the ATC actually considered those recommendations in reaching their own recommendations. Is that right? Yes. Okay. So I think it's important to kind of talk about it because that formed the basis of some of the discussion. So my understanding is that their recommendation was 1250 an hour over the course of five years. This wage includes medical benefits, paid sick days and paid time off. A one year delay for small businesses with under 25 employees. A two year delay for nonprofits. And then a youth training for 21 year old and younger workers to be paid at the state of California minimum wage rate. Was there anything else that they included that that that I may have missed? If you know or if anyone knows. Kels. Councilmember Price. Not to my recollection. Okay. The other question I had was I know we talked about. Organizations that have a set reimbursement rate, like a federal reimbursement rate. And we those were categorized under kind of a non profit category. Is there any category for businesses that provide a service that gets reimbursed by the federal government at a set rate, for example, health care industry? Did we give any consideration at all to mitigating the impacts of a minimum wage increase on those businesses? I think your current policy suggestion is for all nonprofits, so not a separate category for specific in-home services, I think is what you're. Yeah. They wouldn't qualify as a nonprofit. They may not. Mm hmm. So in those situations. I think that's. A question for staff. As well. Did the EDC consider those businesses at all? Because as we just saw from the report, the largest employment sector in our city is health and education. So a lot of those businesses and service providers rely on federal reimbursements at a set rate. Councilmember Price I think a number of comments were made when Coba made their presentation to the EDC and also from a number of the forums that were presented and comments from the audience that indicated that there is concern among some of the state mandated firms that they would not be able to recover some of the cost because they were contracted for a period of time. And that information was communicated to the EDC. And those deliberations occurred over two rather extensive community meetings that occurred. So that was part of the deliberations. But I don't believe that it survived into the recommendations to city council. Okay. And then to the city attorney, this discussion that we're having about tipped employees and wage calculations for tipped employees. In light of the research, the legal research that you and your staff have done, could you take us down a realistic path? What would be a foreseeable path for us if, in fact, we were we were to adopt a policy in that regard that no other city has adopted? What what could we as a council and the citizens of the city expect to see in terms of our future, 6 to 12 months? Well. If the decision of the council would be to include some sort of a tip credit, I believe for the foreseeable future we would be in litigation. The the issue is whether it violates Labor Code 351 and there are opinions on both sides and I will readily admit that there are some legal firms out there that believe that it would be a legal path that the city could take. The more recent opinions that we've seen and it's our opinion that it it raises an issue of preemption with Labor Code 351 that the courts have not ruled on, that we would have to seek and defend it in the courts and probably through appeal in order to get a decision from the courts. The city of Long Beach could do that. The other option, of course, would be some sort of legislation to clarify the field. But there is not there isn't that benefit right now. So it's an unknown. And so a tip credit. I think there's more opinions out there now that believe it would be preempted. Mm hmm. The other issue, and I think some of the more recent opinions are not recognizing that, but but are going in a little bit a different direction, that that kind of moves away from the actual wording of tip credit or applying directly to just, you know, say, restaurant employees. But it's more tipped employees, not just restaurants, but for a total earnings exemption, which wants to look at the taxable earnings of that person and divide those earnings by the hours they worked and compare that to what it is that the minimum wage is in the local jurisdiction. That's also kind of a variation of it, but it is different. And there's also no legislation or case law that that identifies that and says that that's allowed by cities. Now, in terms of the research that you've done, have you found that this this argument or this proposal has been made at other cities and rejected? Or is this a situation of first impression for the city of long, which I imagine not. But what could you share with us? I think the answer is both. The tipped credit has been discussed specifically in the city of Sacramento. It was presented to the legislative. There was an opinion out of the legislative office that admits that there are no case law on it. But what felt that it would be preempted? I'm not sure exactly why the city of Sacramento decided not to adopt it, but they did not include it in their adoption of a local minimum wage. The total earnings exemption. To my knowledge, has not been considered by other cities. I believe it was presented to the city of Pasadena, but I don't think that they've acted yet, and that's the only information of this particular one of the cities, that of local cities in California that have adopted a local minimum wage. No city has adopted either a tip credit or this total exemption earnings exemption. And that includes Santa monica with their recent vote. Yes, that is correct. They did not. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Customer. I think I would want to. You don't have any questions at this rate. Okay. Are there any other questions from councilmembers for the EDC or staff at this time? Okay. Perfect. And of course, this will be claim up to four more questions later on if we have if those come up. So let me turn this now over to. Thank you very much. And we'll continue the hearings. Let me now turn this over to the maker of the original motion on the issue, which was Vice Marie Lowenthal. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I wanted to thank everyone for being here today and for your patience, as well as Dr. Cooper for her presentation and our own staff, for their diligence and presentation of the hard work that they've done for these several months since we've made this motion. As the mayor said, I had brought this motion forward a few months ago, and it is something that really is, in my opinion, the next installation or the next chapter of what our city has been doing for quite some time. When I brought this motion forward back in August, we had great deliberation at that time, and the Council took action and instructed, instructed our staff to work with the L.A. EDC to conduct the study that they did. I want to first thank the council members who coauthored this item with me. I want to thank Councilwoman Lina Gonzalez, Councilman de Andrews and Councilman Rex Richardson. It was wonderful to be able to come forward to our council with strong support of authorship, and I know that there were others that would have authored it as well. The original motion set a process and asked the L.A. EDC for Research and Business Survey. This evening we heard Dr. Cooper report back on the highlights of that study and that process, and I'd like to thank the L.A. EDC for their work and study and and truly their deliberation on looking at this from a Long Beach perspective . And while the comparisons are useful and helpful to our surrounding cities, it has been very helpful to be able to see ourselves as ourselves and how we live, how we work, how we spend our money, where the greatest impacts will be when we take one action or another, and where the greatest impacts will be if we take no action. And that's been important to hear. I authored the original item because The Gap. The gap continues to grow between the wealthy and the poor, and we continue to deal with the impacts of a growing class of residents living in poverty. I know that that is not something that's new to any of us. It's something that we've all paid attention to. We recognize it is at times easy to look away. But I do know that we are represented by a council that finds it very difficult to look away when the disparity can be so vulgar. What we did was we encouraged a very methodical and logical approach to the issue that included the impact on small businesses and nonprofits. And I believe that's what's actually exactly transpired in these last five months through our public roundtable discussions, staff reports and commission meetings. And I wanted to really emphasize we've heard this from other speakers, but that the community process truly worked. And the process that the staff engaged in together with the Economic Development Commission truly worked. The Economic Development Commission, I have to say at this point, I want to emphasize how hard they worked and the hundreds of workers as well, the small business owners and stakeholders that spoke in front of the commission over two hearings and two policy meetings. These were all individuals in their own right, have very, very, very busy lives. But they had committed and continue to commit to this public policy debate because they know they know that it will impact the entire city of Long Beach and more than the city of Long Beach. We have workers here that don't live here that sustain families elsewhere. And so that commitment does not. It is not overlooked. It's something that doesn't go unnoticed. While we've all signed up here behind the dias for another full time job, none of you as individuals do. And when you do, when you do stand up and contribute to the public process, it's something that I, I deeply value and I'm very grateful for. So I'd like to thank all of you, especially the Economic Development Commission, for the work and all of the members of the community that participated in it. I want to go back a little bit to the disparity that was highlighted by Dr. Cooper in her report of the study. And as I had said before, it isn't anything that is new to any of us. But sometimes when we hear things just very specifically to Long Beach, I think it strikes us differently. We do feel very personally about where we live and and the city we live in. When Mayor Foster first ran, I think many of us remember he talked about Long Beach being a tale of two cities. And at that time, he asked us to consider, collectively consider. The income and wealth disparity in Long Beach. And that was ten years ago. And I'll submit to you today that it wasn't only Mayor Foster's concern, nor was it just the council's concern. The residents of Long Beach shared that concern, too, and since 2006, we have seen great struggles throughout the world and really our nation. But if I just look at Long Beach, we have we have experienced great struggles as a city and as individuals. We saw the greatest economic recession since the Great Depression, and it struck everyone. It didn't strike us all equally, but it did strike everyone. In Long Beach isn't unique to the disparities that Dr. Cooper highlights from the L.A. Economic Development Study. Global inequality is growing. Should that matter to us for this conversation tonight? Absolutely. It is all relative and it's related. And we learned yesterday with a new study that was out that half of the world's wealth now is in the hands of just 1% of the population. And that's significant. Thankfully, that's not the case in Long Beach. But when we look at our local example and we look at how desperately some of our families live, we have to be concerned whether it is as drastic a figure as the global inequity is or it is not. And the level of income concentration, the disparity has fluctuated throughout history. That, too, is not new. But what's new is we have an opportunity. We have a collective conscience and an opportunity to correct some things that need to be corrected. And so when we look at this opportunity to do this and we think about the Long Beach way, and some of us have come into this conversation only on this issue, but many of you have been in a larger conversation in the city of Long Beach that I say goes back a decade. And what that conversation is, is raising the quality of life in the city of Long Beach. And I'm going to look right at Councilmember Tonya Reyes Turanga, who was here on that council at the time. And she can attest that this is not a new conversation for any of us. We have incrementally brought forward policy changes and supported initiatives and advocated on behalf of raising the quality of life in Long Beach, not just for the residents of Long Beach, but for the good men and women who help us live our lives the way we do, the way we would like to do. And so one major example of that, and there are so many other examples that attest to that is Measure N, which was the living wage ordinance that we passed, that the voters passed. Council put it on the ballot and the voters passed that. And that was to raise the income, the wage for hotel workers in the city of Long Beach. And that was significant. And at that time, we had heard that there were fears by business owners that we may end up shuttering hotel rooms, we may end up seeing great losses to our hotel industry. And that actually was not true. In fact, they actually they ended up posting greater earnings since that time. And so what that tells us is when workers do well, the city does well. And when we ensure that our workers do well and that they are able to support their families and be able to engage in the activities that that kind of liberty affords us, we know that our entire city does well. These minor changes and major changes end up impacting our entire economy. And I'm confident about that. And that's something that gives me great comfort when I look at policy measures that will have a great financial impact on businesses. But as Dr. Cooper had alluded to, and I think Mayor Garcia had alluded to, these businesses are comprised of workers and these businesses operate on the patronage of customers. And we are all the same. We are workers in one place and we are customers in other place. And it is an ecosystem type of an economy that is really dependent on one another. And so. What I'd like to do, Mayor Garcia, is ask. The city attorney will ask you actually and then the city attorney. If I could make two motions and perhaps he would consider allowing it to be two motions. Did you. You had mentioned to me that you wanted to go to the public first. I did. And then want to come back to that. After I do. Okay. So. So let me let me do that and let me open this up for public comment and please line up. Yep. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's okay. I know, I know. Everyone's been waiting. That's okay. So just as a just as a a reminder, 3 minutes timer is up and. Absolutely. So what we're going to do is we guys should please couple of things. Number one, some just ground rules here. If you need translation, you'll obviously get double time. Okay? So don't worry about that. And I'm going to also allow the the young woman who's in the front here to go first so we can just let this lady go first. You're in the front and then we'll go from there. When I started, McNamara wrote The Ramones before us until joining us again last rather Long Beach Swing Madras Ultra, the cuatro e who also resident there. Colombia's Trabajadores El Pollo Loco. Hi. My name is Rosa Ramos. I've been living in Long Beach for 28 years and I've been a resident of this country for 28 years. I work at a local. All yesterday against the thought of that billion dollar, let alone mental salario meaning walk ins a all this purchase or you know, trabajadores trabajo will duro. But I also think that I mean, of course I'll say I am a killer, though, because along the borders of Pakistan, I'll send up Osaka. Maybe I'll go mystic running up and thinking about what I've been doing over the course of my solo musical spectacle Mozart, Miranda Tanto, Problema and La Familia, you know, collective musical story and not so friendly. Miranda Polo on the guitar. Mala This is the only set on the border, so. So I've been working in Long Beach for 28 years. Would you mind putting that mike up here? Yeah. Thank you. I've been working in Long Beach for 28 years, and at. At one time I was not working because I was married. But because I was a victim of domestic violence. I needed to get a divorce and work on my own. I never realized how hard it was to work for minimum wage. And that's why I'm here today to petition the council to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, because it's so important for people who work this hard to be able to live and. Give their children. A space to live in. That is hospitable and also. YouTube guitar, macabre musical. Your soul is in trouble. No, no, no, stop! Arapaja told the Mirror into Ibarapa local as well as command, operational control, economical. Start the nicotine also under the trouble it is supposed to work at and around the research protocol for current until those gospels get any RSS are the only sequel. No, not. I mean, yes. Capella and Tanto compromise are potatoes. Well, bipolar Lucas. That outlaws mistrust of you. I don't work very hard. And when I got my first. Minimum wage job, I realized I needed to get a second job and a third job. Thank God that my children did not demand much. Just a few. Shoes and the occasional expenditure that I couldn't afford but I had to do. And thank God that they were not as demanding as they could have been. Outlets like ours and El Pollo Loco Caffé Trabalhando Eva's Melon Quatro. Another month it dollar via veces cuando trabalho cuatro minuto. No, Malagasy not taekwondo. Yeah, my, my. They sent me a lot of it was a econo trabajo say societa ora la mer the ora cameron Allison Madison. Buy a bunch, said Prabhakar, Pakistan. You know the trouble I want to improve ACKERMAN. So I work at Oil Local. And sometimes when they give me 4 hours, they only give me 4 hours and they don't give me my ten minute break or they tell me to clock out and leave before I need my ten minute break. And then when I get 6 hours, they give me my half an hour break, but they don't. Give me my ten, my ten minute break. And in addition to that, I also experience wage theft as a result of that because of the 10 minutes that I don't get. Is in benefits is pork out it out as a commentary someone on me said on Wednesday Rukia to a gecko little medical burger you're not running on benefits your bananas are calories. And once I had medical problems. I had to get medical because I have no benefits, even though I've been working. There for over 20 years. You're not so you're not familiar. Regular common while one of the feathers myriad yoke of stress through horse and a lot of people joining us good thing what give me the name guy is highly local and mythical where you go is it good? Are you planning on cynical musical polka palooza? Glorious Gargano goes on along many more than normal cancer. So for 28 years I haven't been. Able to live as a normal family. Because I've never been able to take my children on a vacation. Like many of you, I'm sure take for granted. For 28 years, I haven't been able to have a normal family life. Oh that's the end of your salary or month and. BERGMAN And that DENIRO Nelson Mandela. KINSELLA And after trying to dole out a load of almost all of them unless you love the long spaghetti we won't keep bugging Miranda. I keep our bolo huggy comb like a compromise. Camelot told the American I'm not a killer paragliding the Long Beach Pirates impresarios Donald General other wacky. I got me. So I'm asking you to raise the minimum wage to $15 because I spend all my money here in Long Beach. I pay my rent. I eat in Long Beach, I do everything here. And $15 isn't enough. But that's all we're asking for now so that I can just survive it. I'm being your portal is that simple. Crystal Trabalhando Musical Finance. Tallahassee Tonya Temple follows Paris, the incredible epitome of what makes it don't last through here. Get us a list Gustav alias presto zero here came up with a miracle Amanda cuando savalas quella cuando yaga yogi sirup But I want less I'll spare this I don't know those stories, madame. I'm not going for anything kinesthetic, is there nothing? I don't know. Still Olivia Gomez that gave it to me though. It's the only rhythm. So the only reason I'm happy that I had to have this surgery. Is because normally I cannot see my kids because of my three jobs. And now I get to see my children in the morning and in the afternoon because I had this surgery. And I ask you, which one of. You would want a life like this making minimum. Wage. Do it for a day. Of those people get used to this thing on consideration, that is the polka sycamore that trust the music more, just better. So it must be the mental eagle. I know this does not represent the owner. Familia is a Cadillac plan and beside me as a travel. Hello, it is. And I think the more you're in it in them and that is so is it dumb associate mentors on mutual lows that's not a parliamentarian poquito economists when they got those. Thank you you can translate that because. I ask you to raise the minimum wage because this life is a hard life for me and I need a raise in the minimum wage so that I can live a life that's a little easier and please. And and so that I can actually spend more money in Long Beach. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next speaker, please. My God. God. Ma'am. Guys, please. We have to be respectful of the speakers that are speaking in front. Please. Yes, sir. Mayor, council members. My name is Richard Roberts. I reside in the second district. I'm a program coordinator for Central China. Central China supports the raise the minimum wage in the state of Bellamy. We believe this would allow citizens in our city a living wage and bring economic growth to our city. Since our offers job training programs for youth aged 16 to 24 years old, at the end of the trainings, youth are offered pay, work experience. These pay work experience offer young people valuable skills which make them employable. We are requesting that the City Council would consider providing workforce agencies and limits with an exemption from raising the wage . If our work experience rates were increase, it will it will limit and minimize amount of you will receive pay, work experience opportunities. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Mayor. Council members. Good evening. My name is Ivan Juarez. I reside in the sixth district at 2046 seventh Avenue. I was released from prison on June 13th after serving three and a half years. In August, I enrolled in Central Charge Youth Diversion Program. I have since received certifications and forklift hours. So has proper confined space, CPR, also 30 and Construction, Safety and Health. These certifications have allowed me the opportunity to gain paid work experience. I learned communication skills, how to operate machinery and how to be safe in any type of work environment. Before I went to prison, I never had any. I never had a job or held any responsibilities. At the time I was incarcerated, I had a five month old daughter. Today, I have full custody through the Paid Work Experience program. I learned skills that have helped me gain permanent employment with Central Time. I am a community outreach specialist. I go into the community and provide other young people with information about how centralized programs can help and provide new directions in their lives. Through job training opportunities and paid work experience. Paid work experience allows young people like me the opportunity for employment when most employers are not willing to take that chance on this. The Paid Work Experience program allowed me to demonstrate to the employer my newly developed work ethic how I am a hard worker. I am responsible and a good man. Today I have a new outlook on life. I stand here a new and changed man. I am proud to be employed by Central China. Proud of my achievements, but most importantly, proud at the ability to financially support my four year old daughter. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, counsel. My name is Mike Pimentel Jr. I'm local president of the United Steelworkers Local 2801 representing health care workers at Lumberton Moore Medical Center. We represent 1600 members, approximately which 300 of them are Eve's workers. And for the nutrition workers that don't make $15 an hour that are starting wages, only 1019 for this company, Sodexo , who Lunch Memorial. Subcontracted out the. Work with, which is Sodexo, who made $1.9 billion in profits last year. And we can't even get $15 at the table right now. We're in the labor dispute with Tedesco at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center, and we are going back to the table on February 4th and fifth in regards to wages. So we urge matter of fact, our members demand that the council vote yes on the $15 an hour along like L.A. We're no different from Los Angeles, and that's why we're I'm here to represent the working people. I also want to give an experience to my mother, who's also a housekeeper at the hospital where 28 years for this company and doesn't even make $15 an hour. That's why we urge we are demanding the $15 an. Hour for all workers in Long Beach and so we. Can spend our money here and give it back to the restaurants. Owners that are are not and that are not in support of this so that we can spend our money back in restaurants. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hello. Good evening. Honorable Mayor Garcia and City Council. My name is Darryl Alvarez. I've been living here in Long Beach for about five years with my wife and my three year old son. I support raising the minimum wage, the Long Beach Way, which is $15 per hour city rule. So city led wage enforcement. More paid sick days and no exception. I support this because I experience working in reporting care and didn't receive an accurate paycheck. I worked at a body care bonding care 7 to 8 years ago. And and time has passed. Basically, I was on the clock 24 hours a day. I should have been paid at least $15 an hour. And a boring care paid at $8 an hour. But I also didn't receive the full amount of the $8 an hour. I had to live with a £200 elder up to his full wheelchair because he had fallen at a late night. Yes, it was difficult and I should have filed a complaint at that time, but I didn't really realize in how much I should have gotten paid because I didn't have a family and have a bigger responsibility. I personally was a victim of a wage theft or a low wage. It's actually embarrassing to share this publicly. I'm sharing this information so that other people will know I will not be experiencing any more wage theft. Raising, raising, raising past the minimum wage up to $15 an hour would definitely be helpful for families, friends and our community. This project would also provide benefits and responsibilities. Because inflation's an extra. Expenses are rising. Income earners aren't able to save and get out of debt as soon as possible. We all know it is very important to be financially protected because emergency and other sudden expenses is devastating. We are very excited for our community with an increasing income earning and avoiding wage theft in the city of Long Beach, California . Where there's where there should be the land of the free. We respectfully fight this right with our hearts and minds in our focus on city council leaders to act and pass this law. Thank you for listening again. Mayor Garcia and City Council. God bless you all. Thank you, sir. Next speaker, please. Good evening. Council. Council and mayor. My name is. Cynthia Silver on this. I am not a resident of Long Beach, but I consider this my second home. I graduated from Cal State, Long Beach, and I have been a student intern for Central Asia, and I give a lot of my success thus far to this nonprofit organization and to the opportunities that they provide the city of Long Beach. They help the youth. Becomes something when they think they're nothing or they see there's no outcome of their community. They give them the resources. They give them the education. And they give training. I am one of the participants of Central Cha as well, and they helped me accomplish my biggest goal, which was becoming an aunt. Yeah. Sorry. Thank you. Congratulations. That's wonderful. They open. The door through this organization so I can in turn be able to get my bachelor's degree. When other people, even in my community. They were for they weren't. Taking in students. And I'm very. Grateful to them. That's why I have returned. To help them in any way possible. And just to. Know that our community starts from the bottom. The investment should be in the youth, which is going to ultimately give back to the community. And in order to help other people accomplish their goals and just live day to day, we need this. We need this improvement in the community as well as the whole nation. But, you know, Long Beach is a huge city. And like Dr. Cooper, we're just like L.A.. L.A. is a huge county, huge city. So with the help of you guys and this little step, which is a huge step to many of the communities, we can move forward and help other youth and community members accomplish their goals and become successful. And thank you for your time. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Good evening, everyone. My name is Julio Perez. I currently present the ninth district. I a I'm a career high school graduate. Afterwards, I went on to Cal State. Fullerton, received my bachelor's. Degree in political science and Chicano studies. I currently work. For. Central Asia and I'm here to support the minimum wage increase. I would also like to echo what my colleagues said and and just. Be mindful and conscious for us as a nonprofit organization to hopefully be exempt from. From that wage increase to. Pay these youth. I myself receive paid work experience after I graduated from Cal State Fullerton. Afterwards, I transitioned. And worked as a. Paralegal. And I recently came back to work for Central Asia as a case manager. And also a. Program coordinator for our Immigration Department. I've also seen this firsthand working with youth and seen that the paid work experience is. Is truly invaluable. So that's just just a few of my thoughts. Briefly. Thank you very much for your attention. Thank you. Next speaker. Please. Good evening, honorable mayor and council members. My name is Chris Marker. I work as a registered nurse at Long Beach Area Hospital. When one becomes ill, they should not have to worry about starting or continuing on a disciplinary track, being fired or being financially unable to provide for their family. It is unconscionable that today, with all we know about preventative health care and how diseases spread, that workers are expected to make a choice when they're sick, potentially going to work sick and spread the disease among their coworkers, potentially contribute to the length of time of that illness for themselves, or potentially face repercussions for having too many absences. As a health care expert is very concerning that a worker with a serious health threat like cancer might go undiagnosed because of their inability to take off work to be seen. It's important to note that each of us has daily contact with each other and with the workers that paid sick sick leave would benefit. These workers are our baristas, our cashiers. They prepare and deliver our food. They care for our children. They clean our offices and buildings. They provide immeasurable every day valuable services. And they need your help now. On the other hand, employers will find that providing sick, paid sick leave will benefit them in the long run. When workers are encouraged to take care of themselves and not report to work ill, negating the spread of germs to coworkers and their families and enhancing productivity. I think the vice mayor pointed out that there was increased productivity and profits among the hotels when they raised the minimum wage for those workers. We need to eliminate the stigma experienced by female workers who are generally the ones earning less than end up staying home with the sick child. Paid sick leave would be an equalizer, allowing for parents to share the responsibility. Low wage earners could benefit from the many changes addressed here this evening. A higher minimum wage, better access to health care, stable schedules, etc. but that at the top of that list is paid sick leave. We ask that you support the $15 minimum wage and paid sick leave. Excuse me. Sick leave. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Mayor. City Council. Council members. My name is James Ford. I'm a resident of the second district. I'm actually. Yes, the second district. I am. I'm representing the. Reverend Metro Ray Ray Raheem, who was called away by a pastoral emergency. She's the minister of the. Unitarian Universalist Church of Long Beach here. And our congregation in. Long Beach is a member of the Faith Coalition that has been supporting this. $15 an hour minimum wage proposal. We see this as a moral issue. You have heard the numbers. You've crunched the numbers. You know that there are pluses and minuses involved here. We are enthusiastic supporters of the. Businesses of our community. It is time to be equally. Enthusiastic for the workers. $15 an hour simply means dignity. We've heard so many stories of wage theft. We've heard stories where the legal wage is so low, it might as well be wage theft. What we need at this point is leadership. You are our leaders. We look forward to your leading us into that Long Beach dream. That Long Beach way, dear ones, do it tonight. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Next speaker, please. Good evening, Mayor and City Council. I appreciate all the hard work you've done on this and it does not go unnoticed by me. My name is Ron Caulkins. I have worked in Long Beach for 52 years. I own and operate West Coast vital services for the last 35 years, and I probably believe I'm in the minority here . But let me tell you, I did not know how this minimum wage issue came before the city council, but I do now. But I ask that the council vote no on this proposal. I understand the need and the passion of those people that support it. But in my opinion. A mandated wage and benefit package can not only be harmful to the businesses, they can create a loss of business in the loss of the jobs of that business. All of my employees received more than minimum wage. But not when I first heard him in. I have nobody comes into my shop. It has applications that qualify for what I do. I bring them in, I train them. I give them $0.25, $0.50 or a dollar an hour or more. All my employees get holidays, they get vacations, they get medical, they get dental care. And I match their Roth IRA. No. Ten years ago. Japan had a loss of value in their currency, which they never recovered from. Now China is having a loss in their currency when their currency loses values. Ours goes up. But they can no longer afford to buy American made products. That could result in layoffs across the nation because we need to create a job market that is competitive worldwide. We need to make the Long Beach market alternative and more attractive to outside manufacturers. We need to create a job market to feed, clothe and house the undereducated. We need to help the small business to be and to grow. In Long Beach after World War Two. Our servicemen came home to pursue the American Dream. They built homes, highways and bridges. But they also started small businesses. They worked in their kitchens, their garages, their barns, in their backyards. Oftentimes, they were self-taught, but they had a love of creation. They made many sacrifices, but they created jobs. Some of them failed, of course, but many thrived. Probably none of us will be a Walter or not. Or Steve Jobs or Bill Gates. Hold on a sec. Let me, sir, finish up. Ma'am, we have to let every speaker has a right to their 3 minutes, please. Okay. Go ahead, sir. Our responsibility is to help the youth of this city. We have to educate them. We have to give vocational training. We have to create them and give them the skills and build to enter the job market. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. You're. You can go next. Jeremy, let the let the lady behind you go next. Absolutely. Go ahead. Good evening. Dr. Lowenthal, I've lived in your district for eight years. I've lived in Long Beach since the shipyard left. Shame on you. Most of the people ahead of me have said what's on my heart? What's in my soul? What pains me? What gives me a headache? I've been a community activist in this community specific. Lee, the East District. For the time that I've lived here and in Bixby Knolls. Shame on you all that look. That are brown. That look like me? Shame on you all. We voted you all into office and you have not done the work that you were hired to do. And don't get it twisted. You work for the citizens of the city of Long Beach, and you work for the citizens of the city of Long Beach. Into the mike. Please don't man me. What do you want me to call you? Give me my time and don't speak. We listen to you for an hour and 15 minutes. Let me speak without interruption. Go ahead, ma'am. Okay. Don't do it again. Thank you. Thank you. And that's exactly what this is, is blatant hypocrisy and disrespect. You are both and fire. And I understand you're leaving and you're not running for reelection. It's time for you to do bigger things because you are a warrior. And all of you. And with all of that had his back and you that we are your cell phone. You know, this whole entire council needs to be fired. You all brought. And I've been here through Beverly's administration and Bob's administration and now Robert's administration. Hypocrisy. Okay. 22 seconds left. You all brought? A slave plantation that makes trillion dollars a conglomerate around the world. Wal-Mart. So this community. I help build in Wal-Mart when it got here. And that. And I've worked for numerous conglomerates, and that is the biggest plantation slave plantation in 2016. That exists in this United States and around the world. Shame on. You. Time is up. Thank you. You need to be fired. You don't dare tell me time is up. I less than half hour about bullshit. All right, that's enough. And actually. That's 15 minutes of the same set. So we're taking a everyone that's in line right now. He's wanting to. Stay in line. Can stay in line. We're taking this part as a reset. Sack, Robert. Okay. Thank you. The fact. Me. You know what, Rick? How has that? Okay. I want to thank everybody else for for being respectful. Please come forward next speaker. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor. City Council Staff. My name's Jeremy Harris, senior vice president, orbital area Chamber of Commerce. And tonight I'm here on behalf of the Chamber leadership. Long Beach businesses. And then also, most importantly, the Long Beach Council Business Associations, also known as COBA. I want to thank you. I want to say special thanks to Councilmember Price for reiterating Cobra's proposal. I'll get into that as well. And then also Mr. Conway for his due diligence and on our proposal as well. But I'll jump into that. So tonight, we welcome the opportunity to give comments on the proposed EDC recommendation. That's before you. But let's talk about Cobra's process and our proposal on the minimum wage policy. This included an extended business outreach done in concert with the Mayor's initiated public outreach program in my city by the City Council Approved Report and study as prepared by EDC. It was critical for COBRA to do its due diligence for its members and nonmembers, the business community that oftentimes is underrepresented in a process such as these. We understand there's a momentum for increasing the minimum wage around the region and in parts of the country. However, momentum alone should not be the reason to enact an ordinance. It should be data driven and testimony from those who bear. The burden of such an ordinance should be accounted for. While no process is perfect, it's important to take into account the process of trying to provide an economical answer to an otherwise very political and at times emotional issue. We understand there are a number of factors to consider after completing our outreach of targeting business owners and nonprofit leadership. We'd like to enter into the record and respectfully recommend the following key points for your consideration. Tonight we have four concise key recommendations as supported by our outreach efforts. These are one a $12.50 hour wage to be implemented over the course of five years, which includes compensation such as medical benefits, paid sick leave and time off to a one year delayed implementation for small businesses defined as 25 and under three. A two year delayed implementation for nonprofits 501c threes. And number four, a youth implemented wage for individuals 21 years and younger to be paid at the state of California's one a minimum wage rate. To get there, COBRA met with businesses and nonprofits, as I'd previously stated through focus groups and study and surveying. In short, our report was based on the data collected at these meetings, along with that survey. After issuing our findings in a report released in late November, COBRA. Solidified these recommendations with. Our stakeholders. This included the Chamber, Downtown, Long Beach Associates, L.A. Biz Fed and numerous, numerous business improvement district organizations in the corridors here in the city. We believe this is the direction Lombard needs to go if we indeed choose to join other cities with an increased minimum wage policy. We believe this is the Long Beach way, as Long Beach as unique to other cities. We are not the same as those others. I thank you for the time tonight under these comments. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Good evening, Mr. Mayor. City Council, my name is Jimmy, resides with Georgia's Great Cafe. You know, I've been through this process a few times with with the mayor, and I've been to more meetings than I care to talk about. I mean, throw some glasses on here. Yes. I say it is the first thing to go. I just want to start off on a personal to let people know, you know, my background and little understanding of what we business owners go through and then some some fine points of what I think with this should go and should lead. You know, I'm I'm an immigrant here. I came here in 1980 as a 15 year. 15 and a half year old boy. I got my first job in McDonald's as a dishwasher. Never went to college. My family lived under the poverty line until we opened up our restaurants. When I say that, I mean five years into our business, I never felt like I was mistreated or. Badly in any way. My my family struggled through those things. We struggled together. We made it work. And that's just the personal story behind what you know, what my story is for. And I can see this country be the greatest country in the world, because where else could a young man born in Africa come in and do as well as I've done in this business with my family and create the wealth we have for our family? And not just my family, but we've employed over 220 people. We started as a operator who employed two people, and in 16 years, we're proud to say we employ 220 people. I sympathize with the people that are living under the poverty line and not getting the money they think they deserve or the people that are being held hostage under wage theft. That shouldn't happen in this country. We shouldn't have people living under poverty anyway. There were so many points I wanted to get through. But the most important point I want to get to, I'm sure some of the people they will talk about carving, I mean, leveling the playing field, entry level jobs and things like that. But if we're going to do this a long beach way, let's just not say the words. Just do it the Long Beach way. You know, if if Mr. Parkin says that the carving on tipped employees hasn't been done or we don't know, this can be challenged. Not more than likely not. Let's just draw the line between and do it. If you're asking us to risk and to sacrifice. I'm asking you to risk a sacrifice with us. You know, there's been many, many conversations about carving out tipped employees. My my tipped employees make anywhere from 20 to $50 an hour or more above their minimum wage. I don't think minimum wage was designed for people like that. So I urge you to strongly consider doing it the Long Beach way and going after the opportunity to carve out tipped employees or. I guess. Tipton, please. Thank you very much. Thank you, Jimmy. Next. Nice restaurant. Next speaker, please. I'm Mike. Hungry for some euro or something? Okay. Next speaker. Okay. You start. Okay. Well, good evening. My name is Sandy Garcia. I'm a junior Renaissance High School for the Arts, and I'm an interim with Californians for Justice. And we're a grassroots organization that works with youth to win campaigns for justice in our schools. And we believe that young people are the leaders we need to create the healthy, just and thriving schools all of our communities need. My name is. My name is Jordan. I'm a sophomore of Renaissance High School for the Arts, and I'm also an intern with California for Justice. With prices increasing all the time, people are having difficulty making ends meet, especially when earning a minimum wage that keeps them in poverty. Having less income means that families and individuals are struggling to pay the bills and necessities they need. So how can we choose to go against what's best for small businesses and the economy? Raising the minimum wage would benefit the economy as people would have more money to spend. And if we wait? If we raise the minimum wage to $15, people would earn more money and be able to spend their money here in small businesses in Long Beach. Also, many people would have had to resort to stealing and thus the crime rates would decrease. Because if more people. Are earning more money and they'll be able to afford whatever they need. But if not. A lot of people that I personally know would resort resorts to stealing. And thus. Instead like having like a little job, they would earn the money to actually need for. Necessities like myself. I don't have a well, I do have a job, but I also sell candy bars on the side to, like, pay for my necessities, like food. I'm going into college soon, so I need to pay for that. And, you know, it's a dollar, so. Start right here, right now. Okay. The question we want to ask is why should age separate us? Why should people under should people under the age of 25 shouldn't? They should also get the new $15 minimum wage. Because the youth are a major. Consumer group for local businesses. We we go to the movies. We, you know, we go shopping. We visit trendy restaurants, coffee shops, etc.. We contribute a large part to Long Beach economy. $15 for all. Thank you. With the help. Thank you. Next speaker for. Good evening. My name is Veronica Rodriguez. Quincy. I like your Colombian pen. Thank you. And I'm here to represent and read a letter on behalf of the Human Relations Commission. Dear, honorable mayor and members of the City Council, the Human Relations Commission's purpose and function is to promote goodwill in order to maintain civic pride and tranquility and enhance and improve mutual understanding and respect for all citizens in the community . It is in this context that the Human Relations Commission submits to the Long Beach City Council the following recommendation to direct the City Attorney to prepare an ordinance for the implementation of a minimum wage policy for the entire city of Long Beach. That includes a pathway to $15 an hour, cost of living, annual increases to be reviewed after the first five years and comprehensive wage enforcement. The Human Relations Commission over the last several months has discussed the impending City Council vote to raise the minimum wage. Members have attended public forums, heard public comments and reviewed findings from the Economic Roundtable and Economic Development Commission's recommendations to Council. There is no denying that poverty is inextricably linked to the health and well-being of residents and the city overall. Poverty does discriminate. While poverty affects people of all race, class and genders, its largest impacts are on people of color. According to the U.S. Census, 24.3% of Latinos and over 20% of African-Americans in Long Beach struggle to make ends meet. All across America, cities are taking bold steps to ensure people can live a life of dignity with the ability to provide food and shelter for their families. In 2012, over 64% of Long Beach voters gave hotel workers a raise to $13 per hour. Paid sick days and tip protection. That same year, San Jose voted for a raise for their entire city. It became clear that there was strong support throughout California and nationwide to close the income gap. As Mayor Garcia asserted at this year's State of the City, no one should have to work two jobs to put food on the table. Long Beach was a leader in 2012. And this movement to to close the income gap. Today, cities across America are increasing their minimum wage. Regionally, the city and county of L.A. and Santa monica have all passed a pathway to a $15 per hour minimum wage. The wage level was not random. Several studies have shown that $15 per hour is the least amount a single family needs to afford the basic necessities to live in L.A. County. Cities such as Seattle have demonstrated that higher wages are better for the entire community, and as a modern city, we must continue to embrace progress, just justice and human dignity, and not shy away from it. The Commission urges City Council to adopt a minimum wage policy that truly affirms human dignity and equity. Thank you. Time. Time is all up. Thank you. Thank you so much. Next speaker, please. Good evening. Good evening, everyone. My name is Cody Schiller. I'm a sophomore from McBride High School and a student leader with California for Justice. I'm here to speak on behalf of the youth of Long Beach in support of raising the minimum wage. During these couple of months of public hearings. There's been mounting pressure to exempt specific groups of people from getting the $15 minimum wage by 2020. These are tipped employees, people working nonprofits and everyone, 25. Now, imagine this city. The city ordinance gets passed. Now you have a youth employee and an employee that's over 25 working in the same facility. Same facility, doing the same thing. Wait. They're doing the same thing and one gets paid more than the other. Don't you think this would create tension in the workplace? The youth would be discouraged to do that. To do the youth will be discouraged. To not do their job and to not work as hard at it because who want to work their job if they aren't getting paid as much as the next person. Let's say this not. This scenario of. Raising the wage to $15 an hour for people 25 and over can also play out in another way in which companies are actually hiring more people under 25. Under 25. That's great, right? Hiring more, you know. Companies can very easily choose to hire more employees under 25 in order to save money by paying them $10 an hour instead of the $15 an hour that everyone should be getting paid. You know what this sounds like? Legal exploitation. Am I right? Look at this. This way. I'm just working as hard as the other guy. I'm not getting paid the same. Come on. Let's make this a minimum wage raise for everyone. Why do I think anyone under the age of 25 should get a raise in the minimum wage? It's funny you ask. In my situation, I'm planning to be more of an independent person in a sense that I want to see how it's like to be an adult and paying for my own things and how to manage money. By 2020, I'll be in college. I'll be a college student working a minimum wage job, trying to pay my books and tuition. Working for $10 an hour won't do. Lucky for me, I have supportive parents, but others don't have that and they actually need the raise in the wage. This can help students support their family that have fallen into hard times. But they'll having to. Take up more than one job because, as we know, two jobs are stressful as it is and then through school and endless hours of homework you have into the mix. This can be too much for a person to take resulting. In this drop out of us, drop out of a student. Therefore, the minimum wage should be for everyone and shouldn't exempt youth. Let's raise the wage. The line between. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Thank you for having us. Like many here, I've been here about four and a half hours. My cell phone battery has died. I myself don't have family waiting for me, but I know that many people here do. And so I appreciate, just as we listened to you all debate how to vote on a study or even offer an award named after Martin Luther King to an oil company, we're grateful that you are giving us your undivided attention on this important issue. My name is Trevor Griffey. I'm a lecturer in U.S. history at Cal State Long Beach. I live in Belmont Heights. I gave testimony in support of a minimum wage increase last year, which is strange the way it sounds at a neighborhood forum in Belmont Shore at that event and a news coverage and op eds I've read in the city council talk about the city council's deliberations about increasing the minimum wage. I've been disappointed by the role of speculation in the way it seems to be crowding out informed debate. I've heard critics of a minimum wage increase say that it will increase unemployment for low skill or young workers, that it will accelerate automation of low wage jobs, that it will have a negative overall impact on retail and restaurant industries, that it will undermine nonprofit and social service sectors, or even that it will hurt the whole economy. But what I often don't hear in all of this criticism, which I've heard from newspaper columnists, from a few city council members, from business groups, and by wealthy conservatives who live in my neighborhood where the average housing prices over $1,000,000. I haven't heard evidence. I haven't heard the actual studies of actual experience where they've raised the minimum wage, where they said in this place, this terrible thing that I'm telling you would happen in Long Beach happened. I haven't heard it even in the Le D.C. report. If you take a close look, they give a whole host of speculative possibilities about what could go wrong, but they don't go so far as to say that they will go wrong. And that's because, one, the economics is contested. But two, in many ways, we don't actually have a precedent for increasing the minimum wage one third and knowing exactly how it will play out. So as a result, I think the city council is wise to phase in a minimum wage increase. And I think you've been sound and you're thinking in that regard. But at the same time I'm concerned about the choice to not go all the way to 15 and some of the discussions of exemptions, exemptions to minimum wage laws. And I saw this because my hometown is Seattle. I moved here only a year ago. Create confusion about wage rates that make it difficult for the law to be enforced because workers often don't know what exactly the minimum wage is. If they don't know, they don't know when their boss is cheating them and their boss might not actually tell them in what category they fall. The second point is that I'm concerned that failing to get to 15 is a failure of nerve, a capitulation to business community fear mongering without evidence more than rational policymaking to serve the interests of Long Beach residents and workers. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Good evening. My name is Diana Cruz. I'm a 10th grade student, McBride High School. I'm in the ninth district, and I'm a soon leader with Californians for Justice. A higher minimum wage is extremely important to everyone. Long Beach. However, when we say everyone, we mean everyone. In my opinion, it's kind of ridiculous to not apply this great new policy to workers under 25. I strongly believe that if we are to raise the minimum wage that it should be. Applied to everyone. I don't understand why people younger than 25 year olds wouldn't get that higher wage, especially because they're college graduates who are forced to get minimum wage when, while they're struggling to combat student loans, this huge portion contains so many different groups of people who have taken up a job for a reason. These are high school students who have to take a job to help support their families or young parents who are just trying to. Find a way to make ends meet. To take a livable wage away from them is unfair. I understand that this is supposed to decrease the amount of competition youth. Face against the adults in getting a job. But there will always be that competition. They used to work should not be devalued. Our city can. Not be in favor of exploiting youth by paying. Them less for the same work that adults do. This has caused much more hardship for students in general. In just two years, I'm going to be headed to college and to pay tuition, textbooks, board and health, housing. It's going to be expensive, and I know I'll. Probably have to take a job in addition to schooling, but I have to divert energy from studies. I want to be able to support myself with it. The same dilemma is occurring for so many college students and making high schoolers question if college is even worth it at this point? Higher education should be the end goal for all of our students. But why are we making it so unattainable with a higher wage? It becomes something more tangible, a goal that's more realistic. By supporting a 15 wage for all, we are supporting the. People most impacted. This especially means our students. As college tuition becomes greater and greater, we must consider the students attending them. So no, they shouldn't be exempt because they still have those. Pay, even if they are young. A youth work. Is worth just as much as adults. Thanks for listening. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hi. My name is Joseph Dove, and I'm here representing Clergy and Lady United for Economic Justice. I've been working in the food service industry for over a decade. First as a dishwasher, then as a prep cook, and then as a chef. And up until last year, I worked two full time. Jobs just to pay the bills. I live in the fifth District in Long Beach. It's not the most expensive district in Long Beach, but at just above minimum wage, like I've heard, a lot of employers say that they pay their employees. It still doesn't cut it. So the excuse that the pay more than minimum wage doesn't exempt them from having to acknowledge the fact that their employees still live in poverty. And one thing that hasn't really come up much is paid sick days. In the foodservice industry, it's a very unregulated market, despite what a lot of cities try to do. What that means is that a lot of employees who would prefer to call in sick because they don't want to spread germs everywhere usually don't call in sick one because they can't afford to because they don't get paid sick days. And two, because a lot of employers will legally fire them for not coming to work, even though they shouldn't be there because of health reasons. So paid sick days is another thing that the council should definitely consider when raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. I've heard a lot of business owners say that they're afraid that businesses are going to close, that jobs are going to be lost, revenues are going to go out of the city and the economy is going to collapse. As the professor who spoke just before me mentioned, none of that is has been substantiated by facts. However, the OECD report by Dr. Cooper showed that most businesses say that they are not going to cut employees, they're not going to cut employee hours, they're not going to move towards automation, and they don't think that they're going to be closing their doors. I believe those 100% of businesses say that they're not going to be closing their doors. So we need to go on the facts, not just stipulations and fear mongering. An independent review by the Department of Labor of over 64 studies showed that there is no real negative impact for raising the minimum wage. Somebody asked. I can't remember. Who was it? Asked. I think it was Councilmember Gonzalez. How many Long Beach residents would be impacted by raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour? And nobody knew the answer. 15,000 Long Beach residents. So this is something that the council needs to consider $15 an hour because 13 is not enough. 1250 is not enough. 1250 and five years certainly is not enough. We need paid sick days. We need citywide enforcement of these changes. And we need no exemptions for anybody. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hi. Good evening. My name is Alejandro Gonzalez alone. I'm the lead organizer with Californians for Justice. We're here as an organization to support raising the minimum wage to $15. Given that in our city, a lot of working families really depend on their wages and making sure that we change the conditions of poverty to eliminate that. That should be the Long Beach way in reference to the youth working with the high school students. A lot of them, I think even hearing from some folks in the audience or even in previous hearings, there's this an assumption that youth don't work. There's an assumption that youth, you know, like they don't really need to earn that much money. But the reality with the students is that many of them see the struggle in their family. Some of them may be the only person who can legally work in this country, and their parents are actually dependent on their labor. A lot of students that we work with actually share that. They're in the process of looking for work now as they're in high school. So the reality is, is not at an age when at a certain age, when people need to work or an age above 25, it starts at a young age since even their junior high or high school. Another thing, we also work with youth that are foster youth. For a lot of folks that are foster youth. And the conditions. May not be the best in the families that they get to be in. We have one youth who actually chose to be emancipated just because of the conditions were very unbearable. He's not 25, he's still a high school student. And for those students that have to now depend on themselves and work with this decision of exempting the youth, you're also hurting those students to have a better quality of life and to be able to sustain themselves. So as you make your decision, you need to see the students holistically and the diversity of our youth that they are the folks that could bring the money that they need for their family or for themselves in four years. The youth that I'm working with right now are going to be in college. And the reality is that college students have to work because we don't have the loans or the scholarships or the grants that are needed so that we could just. Focus on school. And so by you deciding to exempt students or. A youth under 25. You're hurting a very important population and you're limiting their ability to even sustain themselves. So I urge you, no exemptions for nobody. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hello. My name is Creditjason Pharmacist District. I want to apologize on behalf of the woman who was very, very blunt, you know, because some of us African-American women don't act that way. And it's kind of hard for us to get jobs because the statistics say that we are hostile women, that we act certain ways. We can't get a job. Now, I need your support. Thank you. And so with that said, I have a 13 year old daughter, and I would love for her to work for the city of Long Beach after my first job here in Long Beach. I love the city of Long Beach. I been for 32 years. I look up to all of you guys as leaders because we vote each other in and I know for ya to understand that coming from a poor family or a high rich family, you see any growing up, you see, and you have cousins and uncles and family members who couldn't make a living. And so what your cousins do, they go out and sell drugs they've gotten so their body, we don't want our youth doing that to their selves. We want our youth to make is living so they can help their family. You know, I'm saying for part, helping her family, making money, managing Sean, our young youth, they can provide for themself and stop worrying about stressing out mother and father. Oh, I need this. I need that. Or why you can't get this. Why do so-and-so have those type of shoes and I can't get it? We shouldn't stress as parents. So we're about providing for our kids. We should worry about paying our bills, make sure our life insurance are pay. Make sure our kids college tuition is paid. Also, oh, $2,000 on my student loans. I want my daughter growing up paying off to not have the idea to all student loans right now if you are do you should know how it is so why not start our children now profiting from them struggling have the pace too long. When they get a good job, they should be able to worry about, focus on making it better for themselves, for their family and a future. So that's all I got to say is please raise $15 for our children. They need it. They need it. Thank you. Next speaker, please. When I noticed that months ago, I had a misnomer, this one. Okay. So I want to let the gentleman who is at the mic have his 3 minutes like everyone else. So, senor, please go ahead. Yeah. Sir. Number one, Solano. Okay, hold on 1/2. Hold on 1/2. Okay, everyone that's at the mike deserves your 3 minutes uninterrupted, so let's respect everyone at the microphone. Okay, senor. Sir, please continue. You know, when? I'm not sure. I mean, none of us want to know that I was going to commit a rapida. Ms.. Bhosale even with a cane, along with things, as they say in Tanya's main container, Tehran. Me, Peralta or Mi Familia? Good evening. My name is Juan Solano. My wife and I have lived in I've lived in Long Beach for a long time. I would love to retire. And spend time with my family. It was intentional at the end that the procurement and maintenance at the end of the order. They don't allow mental. I've been working 20 years in KFC and there's never been a change in the minimum wage compared to how I have to live. I will. I will look to see where. You'll be able concise personas in the parliamentary cameras. I do what I can in order to survive. I live with six people in a two bedroom apartment. Where I know nothing will happen. A compendium of taboos. Every day I go to work. In on the bus. I can't afford to get a car amendment. Let me remain solidly in. Sync with the. No. For me to ask those. In 2015. I couldn't afford most of my expenses. You cannot do this. This is the authoritarianism. Kinship. Kinship. Aurora. I would ask. That you, as our representatives, demand $15 an hour. For workers. Colonial. Colonial level. A similar thing of. I intend to show in person. So the intent of the witness provided the. We make this. Area below a third of a silver. Every year we do New Year's resolutions. And they're usually vain and for individuals. But this year, I would like you to give me a resolution. Iraq policy. That. Same as attractive to Trabajadores Como para la salud de la Ciudad a long beach. To do something for the people of Long Beach. To make Long Beach better for the working people in Long Beach. Once the Valley of the Kings is always poorer. She was lucky to heat up with in a complimentary salario integrale. There's an fir made up across. A salary of $15 an hour for workers and paid sick days. In place as common ground. Popular can talk Taco Bell as in millions and millions. But back on the Long Beach. These fast food companies get millions of dollars of profits. But we are the ones who bring the money back to Long Beach. The animals get up and their assistants are pulling up. But I, we read it. We have to we have to rely. On public assistance in. Order to just survive. It this animal will look total shedding. So you do not know this is the type of career that any minimum wage worker has to deal with. It's not a solution as compatibly as your personal case and negotiable. We're going to stop right there. You cannot do that, man, what you just did. So we're going to take a recess and everyone that's in line. Stay right where you are in line. The rest of us council is going to take aa1 minute recess. Okay. Thank you. I just want to speed up. Okay. So I said okay. So. Okay. Listen. Okay. Thank you all very much. We're going to pick back up. And. Go into a roll call here. Councilwoman Gonzalez, Vice Mayor Lowenthal and Councilwoman Price. Councilmember Superman. Here. Councilwoman Mongo. Councilman Andrews. Councilmember Muranga. Councilman Austin. Councilmember Richardson. Mayor Garcia. I'm here. Thank you, sir. I'm gonna let you start from the beginning. Then I wanna make sure you get your full time. So if we can just. Then I'm going to start it, clock over and just right from the top. And I want to thank everybody else for their patience, sir. You know, minimal when I think I'm totally in denial. Like Ian for the longest time was lucky. And always, I'll give you the Bahamas. The money that we make here. In Long Beach. We spend here. We live here in Long Beach. Can't afford to go anywhere else. The dynasty was penniless upstairs. Go see that massacre of 1513. And I will do my palaver. It is a boiling. You know, there's. I would ask. You gentlemen and ladies to please you guys have the last word and to please. Yes, you can raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, mayor and council members. My name is Gary Hetrick. I'm professor of sociology at Cal State University Long Beach. And I live in the fourth District and I'm here to register my support for the Long Beach Way policy 15 by two, 20 paid sick days, comprehensive city led enforcement and zero exemptions. And my support is based on extensive research that shows these policies work. Since the first policy of this kind was passed in 1988, dozens of studies have analyzed the effects on employers and on employees. Despite variance in practice, increasing the minimum wage tends to produce similar outcomes. Public Policy Institute of California study shows that increasing wages reduces poverty and generates more full time positions. There's also little evidence that these policies are disincentives for businesses, and research by the Brookings Institution shows that higher minimum wages generate lower employee turnover and higher worker morale. This, in turn, leads to productivity improvements, which helps explain why increased wages only produce modest increases in prices roughly around 5%. So what does that mean for Long Beach? The Los Angeles Economic Roundtable estimates that by 2020, the city raising the city minimum wage to $15 an hour will, among other things, lift thousands of workers out of poverty, create over a thousand new jobs, generate almost $70 million, and increase public revenue by increase sales and employment, reduce public assistance expenditures by $78 million. These potential results strike at the very heart of the challenges created by the structural changes we have faced in Long Beach over the last 20 years. We need to stop the race to the bottom. Therefore, we should act now to implement a $15 minimum wage with comprehensive enforcement and enforcement and no exemptions. Thank you for the opportunity to speak on this important issue. Thank you, sir. Next speaker, please. Good evening, Mayor. Council members. So, everyone, my name is Josephs and I'm a senior at Cal State Long Beach living in the second district. I'm also a member of Unagi and Long Beach and a volunteer with a Filipino youth high school program on the West Side in the seventh District at Cabrillo High School. A lot of times they can't go because they're working and they're not working for spare change or spending money. They're helping their families with rent, food, medical bills. Some of them have started families of their own. The members of CAFTA that spoke a few minutes ago are exactly right. If job discrimination for gender or race and age are legal, why would wage discrimination against age be okay? I also have grandparents that have been working as caregivers and care homes for over ten years. They're almost in their seventies. So when you worry about senior citizens losing out by this and like having not having enough money for for health care, please do not forget about my grandparents, because they're senior citizens, too, who are forced to come here due to no jobs in the Philippines. Please do not further marginalize already marginalized communities by allowing exemptions on the new minimum wage. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker. Good evening, mayor garcia, vice mayor lowenthal and members of the council. My name is james stephenson and I'm the managing partner at BOVO at 144 Pine Avenue. We're a member of the Kone family of restaurants, which operates about 26 locations, mostly in Southern. California, along with three in Maui. As we continue to expand our company and look for opportunities throughout Southern. California, including here in Long Beach, we are certainly concerned with increasing costs of labor. Perhaps more importantly, though, we are concerned with the inequities of increasing minimum wage without taking into account total earnings of our team members. Generally, the only team members at our restaurants that we pay the current $10 an hour minimum wage. Our servers, bartenders and other employees who also receive tips. Servers at Bobo Kitchen and bartenders often make upwards of 15 to $18 an hour on top of the $10 an hour that we pay them. As for the cooks and dishwashers in our kitchen, we generally receive little money, if any money in tips due to certain legal restrictions . We pay them above the minimum wage in the range of 11 to $14 per hour. Therefore, when the California state minimum wage recently increased to 9 to $10, the only employees. At our restaurants are. Required to get a raise where servers, bartenders and other tipped employees who have been. Making as much as 25 to $28 per hour. When you include their tips, the cooks and dishwashers were already above the minimum wage and generally. Did not receive a raise. The obvious response to this may be we'll give the cooks and dishwashers a raise. However, as you may know, the restaurant business is one of very low. Margins and very, very high failure rate without raising prices to a point of scaring away our guests who are not able to increase the the hourly wage of our kitchen staff. For these reasons, I'm here in support of including the total. Earnings as a part of your proposal for an increase. In the Long Beach minimum wage. I truly believe this is a fair proposal and one that will allow us to compensate all of our team members in an equitable manner. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Next week. Good evening. Mayor Robert Garcia and City Council members. My name is Kevin Garcia. I'm here on behalf of Project Alpha as a member. I'm sorry, as a supporting member of the organization. I was asked to speak on behalf of the wage to $15 an hour. Also, I know a lot of you guys are already bored, so I'm going to keep this light and area like a fart, so I'll get to move in. As a local worker of the city of Long Beach, I believe increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour opposed to 15 I'm sorry, $13 an hour would be very beneficial not only to those individuals, but also to the city of Long Beach. I used to work for a franchise for which I worked for three years, minimum, which was a fast food restaurant. As a young Hispanic male at the age of 18, like I mentioned, I was there for three years. I strive for success and in the end I did achieve. Unfortunately, it was a fast food restaurant. I could barely make ends meet. It didn't pay much of the bills, but at times I did have some money left over. And when I did have the money left over, I came to our beautiful city of Long Beach, which I'm here 24 six, because the other day I'm in San Pedro and in here I definitely invested my money in our local restaurants or shopping outlets and theaters giving back to the community. Recently, I've been given the opportunity to lead and train a team of 75 individuals who took on the Obama challenge to get those citizens of Long Beach who do not have health insurance, to get them covered on a daily basis. We are reminded how blessed we are to work along with Molina Healthcare and to be getting paid $15 an hour. So my employees are well aware of that and they're looking forward to this new lobbying process, having them for exactly two weeks at them. This campaign, I can truly see that these interviews. The Jazz are extremely gracious of the amount of money that they're getting each day, you see. You can see in their eyes that they're hungry to work. They want to continue to work for that $15 an hour. In fact, they're so hungry that they even asked to work ten, 12, 15 hours. But we're on a budget that we try to keep it below 10 hours. Like like I was mentioning, $15 an hour, I believe will truly motivate the citizens of Long Beach to go out and look for employment and give back to the community . I've seen how this $15 an hour have changed the lives of 75 individuals, and I hope to see it change the lives of half a million people. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Greening a major Garcia and city council members. My name is Daniel Norris and I'm a truck driver here in Los Angeles and Long Beach Port. I'd, I, I'd been working for Pacific and Transportation for the last eight years. During the whole time I have been misclassified as independent contractor. I have work for days, Keith, sometimes working for 14 hours per day so that I can afford all the expenses that they force show me. Many times these charges are more than what I make during the trips, which means that I take home a negative check. In other words, that means they're out of the company for working for them. I have fought for. Years to change these, but I can do it alone. Fortunately, me and my coworkers Pacific and I had filed claims with the California Department of Labor. After about a year, they have judge that their company has illegally deduct these charges from my wages in the amount of over $180,000. Overall, the company owes $7 million to other drivers like myself that have filed claims. The company has retaliated against us, but not by not giving us work, forcing us more and more into debt, more and more into poverty. Today is an important day for the city of Long Beach and the thousands of workers that work day in and day out. All workers of Long Beach deserve a voice of $15 because that is the right thing to do. Do you have the opportunity to leave thousands of workers out of poverty and help to eliminate waste theft due to do the right thing? Raised the wage the wage to $15 with no exemptions, enforce the wage and provide workers with paid sick days. Only through these we can make sure that working families have the opportunity to truly fight for. Thank you so much. Thank you, sir. Next speaker, please. Good evening, Mayor Garcia. Good evening, council members. My name is Tiny Little Nelson Niue and I am the founder of Project Alpha. Again, we are a Long Beach nonprofit providing reentry services for formerly incarcerated Pacific Islanders, Asians and the LGBTQ community. I'm here tonight to speak on behalf of our Pacific Islanders, as well as our nonprofit. We are in support of raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. And for all of us, not for some of us, but for all of us. I have been a part of this coalition to be a voice for my communities, especially those formerly incarcerated, that have difficulty attaining employment. In August of 2015, Long Beach City Council approved research and explored raising their wage with the LAPD and its report with its recommendations. And tonight, I ask that you honor what we initially fought for, and that was to improve the quality of life for all Long Beach residents through the raising of the minimum wage. We, as a nonprofit, have committed to paying our staff a livable wage of $15 an hour. And while the L.A. EDC report stated otherwise, there are nonprofits in support of $15 living wage, and we have been one of them. Project The Lopez Board of Directors and Management agree we will ensure that all of our staff is paid a livable wage, even if it means not having a merit increase. I am confident that other leadership from other nonprofit profit sectors excuse me. I'm confident that other leadership from other nonprofit sectors will not allow our services to suffer because of the increase in a livable wage. I am confident that we all have an accountable plan, which means an effective review of disbursement. This month we have been fortunate enough to see and accept the Obama challenge with Covered California and to see 75 employees being paid a livable wage of $15 an hour. And to see the desire, the willingness to show up, to work and to see the transformation that is happening truly is remarkable. Although temporary, $15 an hour has created an impact not only in their lives but in our community. I ask that you take a look not only at $13 an hour. Take a look at the plan that has been presented before you. Let us do it. Long Beach his way. Each and every one of us. We have never been exclusive, but inclusive. No exemptions. $15 an hour. A comprehensive wage enforcement plan and paid sick days. Please raise the wage to 15. Thank you. Next speaker, please. When does notice me? Number two, Snyder Torres saying miembro the rock eat restaurant. Hi. Good evening. My name is Senators and I'm a member Iraq and I also work in a restaurant. So my dress altera ee Consuelo Gonzalez Aluminum Gonzalo Minimo Nomi complete opera sobre TV entonces piva ula. I also am a single mother with a I make the minimum wage when the minimum wage I cannot have ends. Me and I have the need to ask for public assistance. With most. When when ill Pensacola kills cancer. Less than an hour on we stand to look at an incumbent that being sick as a boy. They are, said Padilla said sobre todos los personas. The news the negocios copyright Duncan Comércio Gallery. Laura Noyce, mutual lista, mutual castano, Nintendo and Princess Sono Cellulari are this organism poquito masa and nobody will stand prescient others look on. I salute them, but who knows? We have a very low wage and with the cooperation of restaurants and small businesses to give us this little break, because literally it's not a it's not a lot what we're asking for. And this will give us a break into living, having a substantial living. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Well, I don't just mean on breast cancer. You know, your stories represent and the heroes who need us and control their lives. Hi, my name is Roselle. And, you know, and I am here to represent the campaign of women united against the abuse. Of power, the uproar over unallocated incremental. Salary and many more. In Long Beach. Your minimal the cancer dollars or. Comp protection is the other forum. Without exception. I am here in favor to prevent increase in the minimum wage and Long Beach minimum wage to $15 with protections paid sick days and no exceptions elementary salary or. Minimal salaries for beneficiary AKC this year the million resident this the Long. Beach getaway in Las Vegas. You that. Accommodates a small kid interested in Long Beach saga those will maintain. Raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour will affect almost 17,000 residents that work and live in Long Beach. And this will help 6000 and 6500 workers in Long Beach that to come out of poverty by the year 2020. Los Ingresos on. Autos in Long Beach, Sacramento, running in the cuatro siento cinco me Jonas. He Cassie Siento trained on me Jonas one year after avocado toast get I'm being. Beaten in Long Beach. The annual income of these workers in Long Beach will increase around $405 million, and almost 130 million are going to go to workers that also live in Long Beach A330. Another language for this uses, I use common casino. I've been working at the Hilton Hotel in Long Beach for six years as a cook. You you know, that was meals. That the calories the hotel because I mean if Sharon approves. Any and all those meal those incremental. Cost a lot of the lobster avocado. To the terrace like in Long Beach, I am one of the thousands of workers, hotel workers that benefit from the approval of the proposition. And in 2012, that increased the salary of the work of the hotel workers here in Long Beach. Gracias, Alameda Diner, la familia. Como la mise en scene, a composer wannabe long before. Perino's la familia. Thanks for this measure. Worker families like mine have been able to have a dignity and have a better life with their families. See an. Embargo. See an embargo? Either muchos problemas Cubans or Fidel. There's l'approbation. Dinner for Carlos hotels and lobbies. And retailers over the. Bazaar lately. However, there's been a lot of problems since this proposition came up because hotel owners in Long Beach have been trying to avoid this law on a. Number of hotels, hotels and lobbies. Also within a number of hotels. Are these mean? Although even though the revenue of hotels and their earnings have been increasing, long beach, the number of worker the hotel workers have been reduced. As significa. Gan incremental Los Gatos. Trabuco hotels and Long Beach this mean that are the over the hotel workers in Long Beach have been open work. At Amazon Los Gatos, Trabuco Posadas Las Mujeres extravagant in la induce wrote a letter saying for internal. Conditions in seguros the trabajo also. Sexual can move boka protection. I said of the overwork and the heavy day of work we were in. The work in the hotel industry face very unsafe working conditions, sexual harassment and very few protections. Entonces si i commentators highlighted that the Los trabajadores the Long Beach betterthan being okay. But not the hero on como your he told those mes companeros get the trabajo cameras and maestro of this Gonzo's. He conditional. Said the trouble. So then there is a need to us for to return the minimum wage to workers in Long Beach because. But also we need to protect workers like me and all of my coworkers. They deserve meal breaks, respect and safe conditions on the job. Baltimore. I'm being the famous operative here. Al Pacino as dispose of. No, no. There's your love. L.A., the Mondo. And we also have to protect the person that gave us the chance to be in this world. Maria Callas mother is the owner of the Nosotros. And I say and I mean the mother of it's and every one of us. We were lost. We went through a horrendous bereavement. Maharis. Gracias. We were looking. That's a real it. Thank you. Next speaker, please. I am the next speaker for the third time. Thank you. My name is Monrovia, Nova, and I am lead organizer with the Restaurant Opportunity Center. The importance of a living wage here in Long Beach will give dignity to the hands that feed you. Those hands have a lot of stories and a lot of faces. A lot of these people that feed you in those restaurants here in Long Beach live below the poverty line. A lot of these workers have to do two jobs in order to have and me and they live in very poor conditions outside of having a very low wage. These workers face wage theft that every now and then every day raises. There's no there won't be no improvement of the increase of the minimum wage if we don't not enforce and stop these employers from stealing from their workers. TIP Credit. Total compensation are tricky ways to keep stealing from the workers. And also it's also illegal. Also young workers are not only as live in stereotype as has been managed have have to work just for fun or having to work just to write comic books. They support families. They they go through college. Exceptions will only bring bring us discrimination and more wage theft. College students under 25, they have to pay these unpayable loans for years. And if you crave them out of this minimum wage proposal, and it's going to be almost impossible for them to have to have to pay these loans and to have to go through high school. These workers need to have a high standard of why their work life is not a low entry job. These these kids are going to learn skills and they have to learn that in any entry that they can have dignity and respect. Thank you. Thank you. Next week, Ripley. Hello, everyone. My name is for a few minutes and I'm here representing the Brooke, which is the restaurant operating center and. I would say. Santa monica already raised them. The way it's been is a tougher city than Long Beach and they're either planning to do 15 to 18. So it's a big difference. I don't think we're so different from the Dr.. Cooper was saying about L.A. County, how is going to change our lives? This $15 an hour is going to at least not going to change the whole thing, but it's going to really going to help. And I was I was hearing her making numbers and statistics. And I was going to say, I just finished high school. And you just have a brainstorm in my head. And I said, okay, so let's talk about numbers. Okay. So if you make, what, $10 an hour, 40 hours? But that's the thing, though, because I represent restaurants, I'm more know about people that works for the restaurant. So they don't wanna give you 40 hours anymore because they try to keep you below 3 hours because they don't want to give you any benefits. All right. So okay, so say you're going to make $300 a week and then you month you're going to total $100. So what are you going to do with 1200 dollars? The average of rent in Long Beach is, what, four? 1450 hundred? So for in my case, I had a my family, we have four members of the family. So I had to work two jobs. You know, I had to find a way. So what what what is it that I'm doing? I'm surviving. I'm not living. I hear a lot of stories about saying, when was the last time I went to vacation? I don't remember. And what is all of these people easy to say to come and say, oh, yeah, $12 is, you know, there's enough. $13 enough. What? When was the last time I went shopping for me? You. You know, it's not your business, but I don't remember either. You know, kids are growing. My I have two kids. One four year old, two year old. They don't ask for anything yet. There are growing. Lenders are asking, So what am I gonna do? Babysitting is high price. So what are the little things that you have to put attention to? The average people like us? You know, like so many over here, they already have the money in their pockets. You know, they're, you know, how do we worry about being fired, you know, or. Anything like. That? But what I'm trying to say that we have to support the $15 an hour because going to be a big help, you know, and let's keep supporting all the like you guys said, if you really care about the citizen loan, which is the time to now to do something for them. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening. Members of the council and Mayor Garcia. My name is Johnny Rodriguez. I'm a resident of the First District. I'm also a youth organizer with an organization called Carmichaels in Action. We use we work with young Cambodian youth in Cambodia town, central, Long Beach, the Eastside. And so one of the reasons I'm really passionate about this work is that I believe that our youth have the capacity to be the leaders we need them to be. And I often believe that someday I'll return to this room and some of my students will be sitting in your seats. That's what I hope for. But under the current wave, things are going now. Families are able to support their families here in Long Beach. And over the last couple of years, excuse me, I've noticed a change of families having to leave. Not just Long Beach, California. So I've had students leave to Georgia, leave to Texas. And those are like our future city council persons, our future mayors, our future our future leaders of Long Beach. And so I really, really passionate about raising the wage to $15 an hour so that I'm not losing the leaders that I'm investing in . And I want to also say, I'm very proud I am of the youth leaders that we heard tonight that were able to speak and share how they feel about the minimum wage being the possibility of a minimum wage increase. So again, I just really want you to take that into consideration. Long Beach has a thriving Cambodian community. We have designation of Cambodia town in the long, rich history of Cambodian folks here in the city. And if we don't do something soon, that might change the the you know, we talk a lot about gentrification and that's actually what's happening. Our folks are are living in Long Beach and going to other states, leaving California. So please support a $15 minimum wage. Wage protections and no exemptions. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, everybody. Honorable Mayor Garcia City Council. My name is Alex Montana. Says I live in the First District and I work for the Filipino Migrants Center. I support raising the minimum wage, the Long Beach Way, which is $15 an hour. City led wage enforcement, more paid sick days and no exemptions. I support this not just for me, but for the hundreds of Westside Long Beach residents that my organization and our volunteers have talked to in the last six months. We've been asking community residents what they think about raising and enforcing the minimum wage, and an overwhelming majority are saying the same thing. We need $15 an hour now and we need city led wage enforcement now. In November, the Filipino migrant center surveyed 110 West Side Long Beach residents in the seventh District about this. Many of them were Filipino, Latino and other folks of color. 98% of the folks who answered the survey said they support raising the wage to $15 an hour. 62% said they have experienced wage theft personally. 41% say that they know somebody who has experienced wage theft. And 100% of them said they want a Long Beach law that really protects workers from wage theft. And the truth is, wage theft is rampant here in Long Beach. It's not just with these big corporations. We're seeing it a lot also even in small businesses. We have at the Filipino Migrant Center, we've received dozens of Filipino workers and a lot of them work in Long Beach. A lot of them have experienced wage theft at small resident care, small caregiving industries and also small restaurants. So it's not just big companies, but small companies as well. And when it comes to wage theft, we don't need just one one person in the city Long Beach office. We need a real office that is really enforcing wage enforcement here in Long Beach. We need strong wage enforcement here. And of course, we can't have these exemptions. That just leaves room that just makes it harder to enforce and also leaves loopholes. And so that's why we really need to stay strong on $15 an hour. We need to stay strong on city led wage enforcement. We need to stay strong on more paid sick days. And we need to stay strong. In saying that we will. Not exempt. We need $15 now. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker. Good evening, mayor. City council members. All of you know me. My name was Mike Murchison. And for the record, I'm born and raised in the third district and I happily say that I live in the third district. I'm here on behalf of 18 restaurants that I represent. A long time ago, we discussed this issue and I think we all agreed that it was important to increase the minimum wage. We didn't know what that would be, but we saw through all the discussions and all the conversations. We reached kind of a level that we would support $13 an hour by 2019 with the caveat of two things We want a youth wage in there, and we wanted the concept of total earnings. You heard that discussed tonight. It's not a tip. Credit has nothing to do with tip credit. It's total earnings is the amount of money that any employee, not just restaurants employees but any employee makes in a pay period. So what I'm asking for you tonight to consider as a friendly amendment to any motion that's made tonight. Is a youth. Wage up to 21. And for you to ask the city attorney to come back prior to the first reading and whenever that's in mid-February or late February, to have him come back and say, here is my legal opinion on total earnings. Give him time to come back with that, because I think you're going to find that the Long Beach Way includes restaurants that were built and raised here in Long Beach. I'm not talking national chains like KFC or El Pollo Loco or Subway or McDonald's. I'm talking on the backs of people who started their restaurants here in Long Beach. They raise their kids in Long Beach. They helped out the. Nonprofits in Long Beach by supporting them. I'm talking about restaurants like Georges and Trainee's in the eighth. I'm talking like La Luna and the Six. I'm talking like E.J. Malloy's in the fourth and other parts in other council districts. I'm talking boathouse. I'm talking talent. Sooner or later st on second. I'm talking about people that you all know and love and spend a lot of time with. When you have the ability to go out there and have dinner on the weekends, you frequent their restaurants. They're asking for you to support them with a concept of total earnings and a youth wage. It's not for those that work at KFC and make a minimum wage of $10 an hour and no other earnings. We all get that. We all understand that. But we're asking for you do is to consider the full service restaurants that start here in Long Beach and continue to thrive here. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening. My name is Dan Fleming. I'm president of the Economic Roundtable. We prepared this report. Long Beach Rising, a city that works for everyone. To analyze the effects of a $15 an hour minimum wage. Our bottom line assessment is that. That the minimum wage will not harm employment in Long Beach and that it will meet urgent needs of workers who are employed here. Most employers would like to do right by their workers so that they can afford to pay for basic necessities, a higher minimum wage. Enables all employers to solve this problem together, rather than leaving it to individual employers to risks to take the risks of solving it alone. Long Beach's economy is resilient and the sectors that have high concentrations of low wage workers, including restaurants and retail. And the port of the Port of Long Beach is an important source of economic strength and depth for the city's economy. The wage increase will create a stimulus that will offset any effects as service industries adjust to putting more money into payroll and paying higher wages. In response to your question, Councilwoman Gonzalez, our report analyzes the flow of workers at different wage levels across the city line. And we estimate that 16,769 residents of Long Beach will benefit from a $15 an hour minimum wage. One third of the wage and total wage increase will go to residents of Long Beach. Businesses will grow and new businesses will start up in underinvested neighborhoods of the city that need these services. We estimate that the stimulus effect will create over 3000 jobs with a thousand of them in Long Beach. And probably most importantly, we estimate that. Nearly 15,000 people, including nearly 6000 children, will be lifted out of poverty by a $15 an hour minimum wage and that the poverty rate among workers will be cut close to in half. So in summary, we believe that the evidence enables the city to go into a wage increase with its eyes open and with tools for watching effects over the five years that an increase in falls to the benefit of folks who work here in Long Beach. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Next speaker. Good evening, Mayor. Councilman. My name is Craig Hoffman. And I own five restaurants in four districts in the city of Long Beach. My family's been in the restaurant business in Long Beach for over 60 years. As Mike Burchett said presented earlier, I think that having some sort of earnings exemption would be very important to full service restaurants if we don't do something like that. I'm very concerned about the over 500 people I employ in the city that could be affected. Unfortunately, Long Beach is not just an island. We have cities surrounding us like Signal Hill and Cerritos and Lakewood and Los Alamitos, which are going to have these same provisions of minimum wage, and we're going to have higher prices on our menus. And and I see I see customers going to the neighboring cities. And I think it's going to affect our sales and it's going to affect our employment. And I think we need to to start slowly. $13 with the earnings exemption is something reasonable and not something that's really going to hurt the restaurant so badly. I mean, I have one restaurant that's closed because of a fire and I'm working diligently to rebuild it. But there's some question in my mind whether I should reopen it. And it's going to depend a lot on what the council does. We have to have reasonable wages and we have to have an ability to have full service restaurants in Long Beach and not just focus the minimum wage on the fast food industry. So that's my comments. Thank you. Thank you very much, sir. Next speaker, please. Good evening. My name is Renata Yanna, and I'm a lead researcher at the UCLA Labor Center Study, where we surveyed over 550 young workers in the retail and restaurant industries in Los Angeles County, including young people from here in Long Beach. We know that many of these young workers. There's. Let me start over. Sorry. There's a myth that young people work for pocket change and have used that as an excuse to provide low wages. Yet our study finds that 48% of the young workers actually gave to their families. In fact, less than 1% spend their earnings solely on recreation or leisure activities. Thus, we know that young workers need it. In fact, almost three quarters said that they would like to work more hours. Almost half of those that work within the retail and restaurant industries are young people. These industries already pay low wages. However, they also provide young workers with much needed income that supports families and educational careers. Policymakers and elected officials muster away from initiatives that would create a distinct wage status for younger workers. Research in history shows that such wage divisions are economically foolish, political unsound, legally unquestionable and socially unjust. Therefore, our research suggests that the City of Long Beach should not pass an exemption for workers under 21. No worker, younger or older, should be exempt for a minimum wage increase. Thanks. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, Mr. Garcia. And Councilman, my name is Hillary Habib and I'm a Labor and employment attorney with the law firm of Sheppard and Bowen. And tonight I'm here on behalf of the Coalition of Full Service Restaurants located in Long Beach. And I'd like to discuss the total earnings exemption approach, which many people have discussed this evening. If the city is inclined to adopt a local minimum wage, it should also adopt the total earnings exemption. Under this approach, the new minimum wage would apply to all people who are not exempt. Now it's common for labor laws to have these sort of exemptions, including state overtime, meal period, rest period and paid sick leave laws. And it makes sense for exempt employees who already receive taxable earnings at or above a minimum level to for this to apply to in fact, the IRS and Franchise Tax Board treat these sums as taxable earnings from a job and insist that they be recognized as part of the gross income. Also, the common sense supports this approach. For example, if an employee earns 1250 an hour from his or her work, it does not matter where those taxable earnings are derived from. I'll be at peace rate, earnings, tip salary or other taxable amounts, the earnings of the employees to save or spend as the employee chooses. Now we've heard a lot about the potential limitations on this exemption, but as the city attorney said, there is no binding or persuasive authority on point saying that this exemption is impermissible for a city councilman impossible to enact. And now critics of the exemption mistakenly rely on inapplicable case law. Regarding tip credits. As Mike Richardson said, this is not a tip credit, this is an exemption. It's completely different. And and so that is completely debunked. Further, the city attorney mentioned the Legislative Council Bureau's opinion letter, and again, that is completely inapplicable because that only applies to tip credits. It did not address a proposal for a specific carve out or exemption for any employee of any employer, not just tipped employees employed by restaurants whose taxable earnings exceed a specified amount. And the letter, in fact, conceded that there is an uncertainty and an absence of directly controlling law on this issue. And finally, the attorney who proposed this total earnings exemption is a partner of my law firm, and he's written one of the most widely used wage and hour books in the country. His book has been used by officials in the labor commission in the U.S. Department of Labor, and he was appointed by the Industrial Welfare Committee as a member of several minimum wage boards. And so he's obviously qualified to give an opinion on this exemption. And so we urge you to insert a total innings exemption, earnings exemption as part of any minimum wage ordinance. It's the single most important issue, as you've heard tonight, for the restaurants of Long Beach. And we further asked the city attorney to to review the legality of this prior to a first reading. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening. My name is Saba Waheed, and I am the research director at the UCLA Labor Center. I have conducted extensive research or extensive research on young people in the county. Our research shows that young people are a core part of the economy, making up one quarter of the workforce. But the soaring cost of living affects young people just as much as they do other workers. Young people face higher education costs than any generation before them, and they're also earning a lot less. With almost one in three young workers as a head of household and 18% to our parents. We want to caution against framing a person's early job as some kind of hobby or rite of passage. Young people should not be seen as cheap and temporary labor. In fact, scholars have found that these early jobs have life have lasting effects on their lifetime earnings and social well-being. We cannot afford to fall into the clichéd trap that young workers should work for less to gain experience. Let's show the young workers of Long Beach that their work matters, that their work is real work, and that they will be fairly compensated. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, Pete. Good evening, Mr. Mayor and council members. My name is John Kabateck, and I am here tonight representing the California Restaurant Association and an industry comprised of more than 1000 restaurants and food service operators here in Long Beach. Kyra has proudly worked with the Coalition of Business Associations on this local minimum wage issue these past several months. We appreciate the hard work of the commission these past year and also your efforts on the council to determine a reasonable minimum wage policy. That will be a sterling example, we think, for cities across the Golden State, but also across the nation. As the commission's study itself shows, a higher minimum wage in Long Beach on its own would absolutely result in negative impacts on our small businesses and jobs. However, by including the right mitigating provisions, along with a higher minimum wage, you have a golden opportunity here to ensure that such an increase is targeted to those who will benefit from it the most, while allowing small businesses an opportunity to stay in business and keep creating jobs. To that end, Kerry is willing to consider a minimum wage increase in Long Beach to $12.50 an hour, phased in gradually over five years, provided it is coupled with the following provisions to support and protect our local businesses and jobs . An additional one year extension for businesses with 25 or fewer employees, which will allow the smallest of small businesses to adequately adjust and prepare a youth wage of $10 an hour for employees under 21 years old. Giving more small businesses the opportunity to hire more young people and give them the promise of a rewarding career right here in Long Beach, and allow these people to continue to live and work and enjoy being here in Long Beach. And finally, as you've heard before, the inclusion of total earnings, the ability for employers to consider exempting from the increase those employees earning more than the new minimum wage in wages, tips, commissions. This makes sure that employees in the heart of the house, which we've talked a little bit about, prep cooks and others, will actually get a fair increase and get one sooner on their job horizon. We do support and we appreciate the work the city attorney has been doing. We do support the city attorney continuing to review total earnings prior to your return for the first hearing. We're very proud of this proposal and we strongly encourage your support. It is sound. It's a fair, reasonable policy that will make sure employees and small business owners here in Long Beach can continue to grow and thrive and that this world class city can continue to be competitive for generations to come. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next speaker. Hi. My name is. Taylor Monteiro, and I work at Carl's Junior. Where I make minimum wage. Thank you for letting me speak here today. Even though I'm only 18, I am not a typical teenager who makes money to buy personal needs. Few of the teenagers who do work in fast food do it just for just extra cash. Like most people I know, I took out Carls Junior because. I needed to support myself. My mom and I both work and we are still. Falling behind on our mortgage payments. This is my childhood home that my mom inherited from her grandmother, and this is her pride. We've been living over here for over 20 years. My mom has asked me to contribute more than 300. A month for to help her for the payments. It may not seem like that much, but this is over half my pay. We have to run out. To two rooms for extra income. I'm going to school next semester. Which I'm going to be starting in a couple of weeks, and I'm very excited, shall I say. But this will be not enough for me to just pay half rent and for me to be paying for my textbooks and for my personal hobbies and for my personal needs. You know, I just turned 18 and I'm barely finding out how much responsibility it is to really be here in the real world and having to actually take care of yourself. And I personally believe $10 is not enough. I heard a lot of people in suits. Talk about how 50 would be bad for business, but I did not hear one. Businessmen talk about how they're going to make sure their employees don't have to struggle like this. I did not hear one of them talk about what it is like to. Make nine or $10 an hour. $15 an hour is not that much money. If the minimum, it is the minimum you need to live decently in this country. I hope the council listens. To what the people in the city need, not what the corporations need, and raise the minimum wage to. $15 an hour. I am Taylor. Montero and thank you for letting me speak. Thank you. Next speaker, please. I was like, Wait, no. Good evening. Good morning. Good evening, everyone. Mayor and City Council. My name is James Watson. I'm a third district resident, but I'm also a nonprofit employee. So usually we're here advocating for a policy for the community members. But it's nice to be here for a change to represent and speak on behalf of the nonprofit community. So there you go. So on behalf of our nonprofit organization that I work for, Building of the Community's Long Beach, located here in District one, we are speaking tonight and strong support for raising the wage to 15 an hour soon as possible. And as we take a stand and pass a policy, the Long Beach Way where we asked for 15 and our strong enforcement, no exemptions and we're not leaving our hardworking employees of both small businesses and nonprofits or young workers. Let's create an equitable policy that fits lifts all of Long Beach up building healthy communities. Long Beach, as you may have heard, conducted a survey of nonprofit leaders and community members asking the specific question Do you support an increase of the minimum wage? And a supermajority? Of those, 80 respondents were in favor of raising the minimum wage without exceptions, with no exceptions. And that included 75% of respondents who are on building of the community's Long Beach organizational partners. Several nonprofit leaders have also participated in the mayor's roundtable discussions and spoken out about the importance of their work that their employees perform, as well as the impact the increase will have on those that we serve in the nonprofit community, often in our low income and underserved communities. In Long Beach, these findings of the survey and the supportive comments are also in line with a survey that was conducted by the California Association of Nonprofits, where the results show that 60% of nonprofits statewide in California would be unaffected by an increase, and 77% of the nonprofits are supportive of increasing the minimum wage. So please, this is my plea to all of you as tonight as we look at creating equitable policy that benefits all of Long Beach, please do not use us in the nonprofit community as a barrier to a fair and just minimum wage for our friends and neighbors who work tirelessly for nonprofit organizations. We urge you to pass a policy for 15 an hour with no exemptions, paid sick days and strong enforcement. Thank you. Thank you. And Speaker, please. Good evening, Mayor. City Council, Lady Gonzales, all the others. I come to speak to you on this issue because I do support the $15 with no exemptions. And I think there should be health care time for so people can get off and stay well and come back and not infect other people. And I was really struck tonight by the fact that you had these are awards around Martin Luther King, because when I was 21 years old, I did personal security for him when he came to our campus and he was under death threats. And that does that this issue because eight years later, he was killed in Memphis when he was there fighting for workers to try and get decent wages and have dignity in their lives and have a way to live. And that's what your job is now, is to do that to the people of Long Beach. And $15 an hour is not an unfair high amount of money. It's not even as much as Social Security payments are from four workers who worked most of their life. So we're not talking about people getting rich, you know, offer largess provided by their employers. No, we're talking about they create that wealth that the employer has through their work. The employer doesn't do it. The employees create the wealth and they deserve to have enough to live with dignity. And that's why I'm here to speak for this as an as a person from the first District. So thank you very much. Just do the right thing tonight. Move forward and ahead. Look, it is as Martin Luther King would do. Let's have some justice here and let's have some dignity for the working people of Long Beach. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next speaker, please. All right. Well, I didn't know how difficult it was to be in your positions that I was as being a commissioner of economic development. But I'm not here as that. I'm here as a entrepreneur, as a business person, and as a resident of Long Beach. And I try to figure out what I was going to say. So I was at the end of line because of trying to figure out what can I say if you haven't heard already a thousand times? I think I can actually can come up with something. So a little bit about myself. I'm an entrepreneur. I've been an entrepreneur. Since. 1993 when I quit my perfectly good job at Johnson and Johnson. And I remember being so poor after two and a half years that I had a three day notice and quit on my door. And then, of course, I asked my father for money, which is the lowest common denominator. I know what you say in the first place. And he told me, Son, get a real job. So that's what entrepreneurship really is. To many people, it's a risk. To entrepreneurs is something that you strive to do, is something you think about maybe all your life and oftentimes you find out the challenges of being an entrepreneur are so you're so naive going into the process. 85% of businesses and entrepreneurs fail in the first year, and these are probably statistics you already heard, but they don't believe that they're going to fail. They believe that they can succeed. They sign their first lease, oftentimes putting them in $150,000 in debt. They've maxed out every single credit card that they possibly could have. And usually the average entrepreneur, a business owner, is making about $67,000 a year. That's what they make. Plus they don't get vacations. I had frankly, I haven't had a vacation in four years. And I've been in business for almost 20 years. I myself haven't had a vacation. I don't have, you know, worker's comp. I don't qualify for that. I don't have disability. I don't get paid time off. And I work probably 80 hours a week, which my wife oftentimes complains about because she she I actually work for her. So I'm here really to talk about someone who's not here. And those individuals are unemployed. I my company has probably hired over the last eight years over 100 individuals who are unemployed, using programs and money available from the Workforce Investment Board, now known as we owe it. It's subsidized employment. These are individuals who are unemployed, who had absolutely no skills. Homeless, vets, welfare to work. Individuals that have been employed. Some unemployed for sometimes four years. And what I'm here to ask you to do is consider not an exemption, but a business incentive for businesses that are willing to hire the demographics that we owe covers. And it's a pretty wide reach. So if that's something that the council would be interested in doing, I think that would be an incentive for businesses to bring the most challenged, hire individuals into our workforce. And I hope that's something that you will look at and consider reasonably. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Next week, Ripley. Hey. Good evening, Mr. Mayor. Council members. My name's due to walk Joe into. I'm a. Resident of. Long Beach. I come tonight on behalf of the L.A. County Democratic Party to share the message that this past November, we. Passed a resolution endorsing. Raising the minimum wage indexed to the cost of living, including earned paid sick days. Comprehensive wage enforcement with no exemptions. Long Beach is a majority Democratic city. The party stands with you and making the move toward 15. Briefly, each of you should have already received a copy of the resolution in your offices, but to read it into the record. Whereas a large percentage of Long Beach workers are in poverty level wages, living in overcrowded housing, pay over half of their income for rent and qualify for food stamps. These conditions exist because employers do not comply with labor and tax laws and pay workers under the table. Workers in these kinds of informal economy positions are highly. Vulnerable to wage. Theft and lack any earned paid sick leave. And. Whereas, research shows that a single wage earner in Long Beach needs more than $15 per hour to meet basic needs. This wage would improve the. Lives of workers and their families. And the increasing spending would stimulate the city's economy and provide employer employers with more stable and productive workforce. And. WHEREAS, in the 2014 platform, the California Democratic Party supports increasing the minimum wage indexed to inflation, and including a living wage in areas with high cost of living. And it advocates for earned paid sick days for all workers therefore be resolved. Los Angeles County Democratic Party supports raising the minimum wage in Long Beach to at least $15 an hour, indexed to the cost of living, including guaranteed, earned, paid sick days and comprehensive enforcement mechanism to end wage theft while protecting workers from retaliation. I know personally I have worked more of my life and a minimum wage job than I have. In my profession. And many of those. Years I spent in retail and working in the. Hospitality industry here in. Downtown Long Beach. I'm a former. Worker at BBC Five Steak House, the fish house. And I can tell you I did not ever have $100,000 a year or a $50. An hour night. With tips. And many times, the only time my pay went up was because minimum wage went up. I think at that time it was 525 an hour. And so. When we talk about. Policies that are impact the majority of Long Beach residents. A policy that's going to lift people out of poverty. A policy that's going to help our 70% of our children in public schools live in poverty. This is that type of policy. This is the time to take action. I know that members of the Democratic. Party of the residents lobby. Stand with you and we'll stand. Beside you as you take this vote to move forward towards $15 an hour. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hello. My name is Alfredo Carlos. I'm a faculty member at Cal State Long Beach and also the founder of the founder and executive director of the Foundation for Economic Democracy, a new nonprofit that's going to be based in Long Beach, that is going to be working on building worker owned businesses to show that we can do the Long Beach way. And specifically, what I want to kind of talk about a little bit today is I hope Suzy Price is doing okay. She's my council member. Earlier, she said that data is always good. The COBR representative from the COBR representative also said that we should do a policy that's data driven. And I think it's important as a researcher to understand the difference between good data and bad data. And that report that influenced the recommendation by the Economic Development Commission is actually built on really bad data in the sense that there was a response rate. There's 10,000 businesses in Long Beach, a response rate of 3.5%, and also with self-selection data in the sense that it was basically people self-selecting, wanting to like respond to that. That's essentially cherry picking data. So I urge you, if you have questions actually look at the Economic Roundtable report, which is actually based on census data. And as we know, the census data is very thorough and it answers a lot of the questions that you all might have in a actually systematized methodological research way. I also want to note a couple of other things specifically. I think one of the things that happens when we have these conversations that we think really short term what are going to be the business costs up front, but we don't think about the long term economic effects. And specifically what I'm talking about is the stimulus that the economic roundtable person, Dan, he was referring to in the sense that the way the economy functions is that the the jobs while businesses provide the jobs, they're not the ones that create the jobs or create the jobs as demand. And if people have money in their pockets, if people are getting paid a living wage, if people are getting paid $15, that means that they're going to be spending their money in Long Beach. That means that they're going to be able to go out to the movie theater more often. That means that they're going to be able to go to restaurants more often, and that is what creates jobs. And so I urge the council to adopt the $15 minimum wage with no exemptions. I think it's. Really problematic that in an age when we're talking about pay equity for women, that we're talking about equal pay for equal work for women, that we're also at the same time talking about not equal pay for equal work for young people. I think that's really problematic. And I think, Councilmember Lowenthal, for bringing this issue up around this time. And for the gentleman who was talking about Dr. King, if we want to honor Dr. King's legacy, he was in Memphis organizing workers at his as he said, he was fighting for economic justice. And if we really care about that issue, I think we will adopt a policy that actually is working out for workers and not a back door policy that basically basically makes exemptions that benefit businesses only. And so that's why I support the Long Beach Way, because I support economic democracy the way that the Dr. King would have . Thank you very much. Thank you. Next next speaker, please. Hi there. My name is Lisa Camillo. I'm a 46 year resident of Long Beach and I've had a business for 20 years. Thank you, Councilwoman Mongo, for bringing up the total earnings possibility. I think the gentleman representing Bobo said it best that it forces us to raise our front of house employees that are already doing quite well and it makes it very difficult to raise up the kitchen staff instead of seeing what might happen or not happen. For sure I'm raising prices. I already did it on Sunday for sure. I am cutting ships for sure. I'm cutting hours for sure. I have to cut out a lot of my young people and it pains me when I hear people say that we're discriminating against them. It's the young people. Part of my business is my favorite part is mentoring them and watching them grow up. I also have to say I resent this, the Long Beach way I've been here 46 years. My first job was at what is goodies? I sold cocoa butter and hamburgers for dollars 65 an hour and I worked for Mr. Hoffman. And to me, the Long Beach Way, as you start off young and build skills and then hopefully the Long Beach promised you go to school and then you start a business and raise your children in Long Beach just like I did. So I hope you'll consider the total earnings package to help out the small business owners, because I know we really care about our people have 24 employees. Only one does not live in Long Beach. And I care greatly about their well-being. They're really important to me. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Oh, good evening. My name is Grace Lorenson and I'm a member of the seventh District and also a member of the Unitarian Universalist Church. My minister had to leave early because of congregational issue, and I have well read a little bit of her statement. In June this year, my congregation reached the $15 an hour minimum wage for all of our employees. We used incremental steps to get there, and we did it because we believe it as a comment on who we are as a church community. And we will. I believe that raising the minimum wage in Long Beach is a comment on who we are as the community of Long Beach, which is a loving and caring community. Just like any small business, the church is constantly negotiating the bottom line. We too have financial concerns, budget shortfalls and worries. And yet we know that the healthiest organization is one that invests in its people. And so it is true for our city. And so I ask you that you not waver from raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, Mr. Mayor. Members of the City Council. My name is Craig Cogen with the downtown Long Beach Associates. And I first first of all, want to. Thank the mayor and the city council for this inclusive process that led to an open dialog. I also want to extend our appreciation to the Economic Development Commission. For the extraordinary work that. They have conducted and presented for your consideration. Debate does support the COBR proposal as presented, and I want to thank those members of COBR for its diligence to prioritize this matter. And and conduct the outreach to interface with many of the small businesses throughout all parts of this city. As reluctant as some of those businesses were that. Their voices were not going to be heard or apprehensive, that there would be retribution if they spoke publicly opposing any increase, saying no was an easy avenue to take. As as they've taken this avenue in the past, they decided this time to be part of an open process and have a. Dialog that was very. Consensus building. And it drove. The results in the COBRA report. The business community worked together in an unprecedented fashion to build that consensus that COBRA has presented for consideration. I want to thank all those businesses who participated, took time from their establishments and gave the process a chance and therefore. Support the COBRA proposal and look forward to. Remain a true civic partner in this community. Thank you. Thank you. Next question. Next person. Hi, I'm Mike Rhodes. I own Dominica's Restaurant and Belmont Shore, where the oldest restaurant in Long Beach. And I think I'm kind of a. Quintessential small business in Long Beach. It's independently owned. Yet for some reason I'm not. Defined as a small business because I have more than 25 employees. I'm not sure how that works, but I've been to many of these meetings, been at the two mayors roundtables. A lot of people came up and gave some heartfelt speeches, which is great, but I haven't heard anybody that was a tipped employee come up to the microphone and raise the $15 minimum wage issue. And the reason for that is full service restaurants are a different animal than other restaurant and than other businesses. All of my employees make much more than minimum wage. Now, a lot of them I pay minimum wage, but they're making much more in tips than they are in their actual wages. And so I think it's really important. Common sense would dictate that we really have to consider that. I know as an employer I pay taxes on those earnings and the employee pays taxes on them. So they really are earnings. And I think the total earnings model that's been talked about tonight is really a key component to make this a common sense. Vote tonight. We all talk about the Long Beach way. I think this would really be true Long Beach leadership to take that total earnings concept into effect as restaurants like myself and businesses like myself that really are institutions in town. We want to survive. I want to stay too long. The oldest restaurant in Long Beach. But, you know, minimum wage has gone up $2 in the last 18 months and every dollar represents $1,000 a week and added overhead to my restaurant. I can't raise prices that fast. I wish I could. I would have done it a long time ago. But you you can't I mean, I a lot of my employees are older senior citizens. We've been in business for 62 years. I made the joke in one of the meetings that we have two different types of customers to come in and Domenico so we have old people and their parents and that's true. They have fixed incomes they want. I did a. Survey in the restaurant. I asked I said. If we have to raise prices. 20%, which is where I think I'll need to be, will you still come in? And all of them said, absolutely, we'll still come in. And then they follow with not as often. So there has to be other ways to raise revenues and they total earnings concept works. I think if you don't, you're going to have restaurants like mine that will end up doing service charges instead of tips, which is happening all over the country now because we have to survive. And I think that's something that really needs to be discussed. And I hope you will do that. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Guys. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, councilman. My name is Anthony Weiner, CEO. I'm an actual worker at Cal Cartage. I've been there for about two years now. As you can tell, it's a personal issue. I know you guys have a big decision in front of you guys. Not only that, I support the 15 five for 15, but as well, no exemptions, pilot strong policy against, you know, wage theft but as well as not only that. We can we can move for a better, you know, better life for everybody. You know, it's a struggle with this. And it's like always an obstacle. Everybody's like, he just said, we can fight, we can struggle, but we're going to we're going to get through it. We can go and get through it. Not only that, the exemptions is the strong thing in my company and my and my employer's situation because a lot of them are straight out of high school supporting their families. They have kids already. I understand there's a couple there's people that are coming out of college, you know, going to school and working full time. And it's a struggle for everybody, not only for just me, but everybody. And like you guys said, you guys want to live in poverty. I think this is one way to live. Poverty is living the minimum wage to 15. Not only 13 at 12, but 15. It's not right now. It's going to go gradually. But like like he said or like I say, we'll we'll get through it. You know, it's it's not to me, it's not that complicated. I understand it. And like I said, it's obstacle, obstacle where we just got to work around it and try to better our lives. Like I said, not only that, I'm I'm kind of upset and frustrated of seeing how how everybody is struggling right now, especially in this time. I know a lot of people are saying and you hear from everybody story it's it's time for a change. It's time to make something better. Like you say, if you want a better Long Beach, I think this is the right way to do it. This is the only way to do it, is lifting their wages and helping them to increase and grow. So I mean, I hopefully you guys make the right decision and open your hearts to everybody. I understand it's a it's a struggle. It's a it's a personal and it's a it's a big decision that you guys have in front of you guys. But I hope you guys make the right decision. Thank you. Thank you. I'm also I see there's four people left on the speakers list. If there's if there's anyone else. And I'd be a good time to ask them. And I probably cut it off pretty soon here. So. Mr.. Good to you. Very good to clear as the address. Before I give you my view of what needs to be done, let me tell you, let me run down my work history, my life's experiences, and those that I've run into that helped shape the opinion that I will in about 2 minutes, in part. I started selling Wallace Brown gift cards, Christmas cards and greeting cards door to door when I was in middle school. Then went and migrated into selling and cutting lawns. Then I got a paper out working for the paper that was part of the chain that was originally the owner of the Press Telegram. Then I started caddying and I did that on, on weekends and in summers, and that's what I got introduced into politics. I used to caddie for Ray Place, who was chair of the Republican National Committee for 20 years. In during summer college times, I worked in resort hotels up in New England. That's where I met William Casey and was kind of the areas for him for a couple of years. During or during the summer. While in college. I work I think I references a couple of weeks ago for School for Food Corporation, one of their restaurants. I'd get up at 5:00 in the morning, take the elevator down out of the dorm, often writing at the same time that he that's for four years there and ten years in Boston to find the six man defense . When I got out of college, Stover's made me a job or a job offer, which I took because Roy Ash and Tex Thornton and purchased them and I knew I could migrate into other areas. And one of the things that I've learned, first of all, I have a very high respect for anybody that works in a restaurant , and that's not because I work there. All right. Is a given job pays only X amount of dollars, period. If you're not making enough money in the vocation you're in. Go out and get retrained. Don't wait for somebody else to come around and get a movement going because that movement will not sustain you. Just like in this case, I don't think people have mentioned the fact that within the next year, these people up here are going to be hitting the owners and everybody here with ballot measures for tax increases, period, to build a new to try to build and a new city hall period. So what you've got to do is go out and figure what you want to do and improve your skill levels. Sufficient enough to make the type of purchases you want to do. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Okay. Okay. So hello. My name is Rochat and I am a resident of the seventh district. Although I'm right across the street from the first district. Is that really interesting cusp? So what brings us here today is a very important and momentous day. I think so myself and I wasn't going to say anything. I think you've heard plenty, but I think that it begs a few minutes to hear a couple of insights that I got as an organizer, as an immigrant, as a resident of this city, and then also just as a human being. So this a missed opportunity on January 19th, right? A day after we celebrate the life, the legacy, the work of Dr. Martin Luther King. We are gathered here today for actually exactly the same thing that he died for in Memphis with sanitation workers asking to raise the minimum wage. And so what you saw earlier here today was, I would say about 100 workers being able to tell their stories to come to you and let you know why it is precisely that they need to raise this wage. So as an organizer, I was extremely, extremely happy, proud and quite humbly honored to hear every single one of their stories of struggle, of toil. For them to be here today, they're not here right now because they're probably going home to sleep. As a resident. I'm also extremely happy because hundreds of workers have continued this fight and have continued to come out day in and day out on all the different hearings that we have had to let, you know their very impressive perspective of what it means to be a day to day worker and why it is important for them to get a raise. Now as an immigrant. As an immigrant to this great nation, I would say. Into the city. I have also seen how cities have been able to contribute and help workers and help students and help people really become better. But I don't believe in the bootstrap mentality. Because I have heard a couple of different immigrant stories. I want to tell you a little bit about how that doesn't work for a lot of the folks who have actually been here. Many of the folks who have been here don't have the same opportunities or access to the same opportunities that some of the folks here have had in the past. So that immigrant that one dynamic immigrant experience doesn't happen because it didn't happen to me. That didn't happen to me. And so as an immigrant to this country and to this city, we see that every individual has a different perspective. So do the workers. So today you heard countless stories about why it's imperative to raise the wage to 15, because that is what they deserve. And they deserve wage enforcement because they live through wage theft every single day. So they need that to survive and they need those sick pay days also to survive. So thank you and make the right choice. You know what to do. Thank you. Next week. Good evening. My name is Vince BASTIANICH. My family's been operating businesses on the west side for nearly 70 years. With all due respect, Councilwoman Lowenthal, I think your cause is noble, but I think it's misguided and misinformed. The minimum. The minimum wage is never eliminated. Poverty. It won't close the wage gap and never has. It would be really a terrible thing for the city. You know, the one of the first minimum wage laws was the 1939 Bacon Davis Act. And the purpose of that law was to. Protect. The jobs of white union workers in New York from black Southern workers. Continue, sir. These these wage increases will will do nothing for these workers, because what will happen is prices will go up. Across the board and these same workers who are making minimum now, they just will not get ahead. They'll be in the same position they are now. Five years from now. Ten years from now. I've been in this business a long time and I've seen it. You know, my minimum wage workers and I do have some they can never get ahead unless they increase their skills. Unless they. You know, try to find another job that's better suited to them. They can't get ahead. Parts of Long Beach now, I've been told, have unemployment rate as high as 19%. And I believe it's only going to get worse if we try raising the minimum wage. I think the better route is to help businesses create more jobs with more jobs, more businesses competing for labor. Wages will go up organically and those those workers will get ahead that way. I think that's a better option. Thank you for listening. Thank you. Next, me complete. Hi. My name's Murray de Soto. I've stood in front of you many times before representing the union and are what we do. I'm a hotel worker, and I actually wasn't going to speak today, but I heard one of the gentleman here that is a business owner of Long Beach said that he hasn't heard a tipped worker speak . So I will speak on behalf of all of the tipped workers in Long Beach and all of my friends and family members that are tipped employees in Long Beach. I happen to work for a union hotel and I happened to make $15 an hour and I happened to be tipped. My hotel doesn't seem to be going down any time soon. It has taken me out of poverty. The gentleman before me said $15 an hour will not take anybody out of poverty. Yes, it will. Well, I'm 23 years old and I am a homeowner in the ninth District and I am proud. 23. Being 23, if I was working minimum wage, that means I wouldn't be making what my husband is making because he's 28. How is that fair? How is it fair that because I am not 25, I'm not making that. What if I was a mother? What if I was a single mother? I am standing behalf of all those tipped workers, including my tip into my pay is wage theft. That is wage theft. The tip that I get from doing a service is that it's from the guest that was happy with my service. Sometimes you could give the best service possible and people won't tip you. Do you get stiffed all the time and we still have to pay taxes on that? I've seen my coworkers have negative checks because people don't tip them or because of the taxes that they get on top of their pay. It's not fair. And again, I stand for all of the tipped workers here in Long Beach, $15 an hour, no exemptions, $15 an hour, no exemptions for the youth, because that is age discrimination. If we don't discriminate for the old, we don't discriminate for the youth. Why are we discriminating? It's just like racial discrimination. It is another form of discrimination. It is not okay. And I am a tipped employee and I stand for all of the tipped employees again. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Thank you, sir. Okay. Hey, hold on a second, guys. But we know we serve 1/2 word. Well, I'm asking everyone to have it get the same amount of respect when they speak. So please. Thank you, sir. Somebody liked my short. I'm a small business owner in Long Beach. My name is George Subang. I have a restaurant, have 18 employees. And I'm wondering how many of you. People think that a 60% wage increase will enable any business in Long Beach or anywhere in the world to survive? This is what you're talking about, a few dollars an hour. This is a 60% wage increase over what it was when it was $9 an hour. If the minimum wage goes up a dollar in my restaurant, it costs me $500 a week in payroll. The minimum wage has gone up $2. So it's cost me now $1,000 a week in payroll. If it. Goes to $15. An hour, my current payroll is $250,000 a year. If it goes to $15 an hour, my payroll will be $400,000 a year. That's $150,000 increase. I don't make that kind of money in the restaurant. We're lucky to make 10%. Yet all of you people think it's really easy. To do a 60% wage increase. It's ludicrous. So what am I doing? Well, I've got a $500 wage increase last year. I raised my prices to get $500 more at a $500 wage increase this year. I raised my prices again. I will raise my prices every time the minimum wage goes up. And by the time it gets to $15, you people that still have jobs will be paying $16 for a hamburger. You need to realize this is pure inflation. Nobody is going to gain from this minimum wage increase. It's ludicrous to think that any small. Business can sustain. A 60% wage increase when we fight to make 10% gross margin. It's ludicrous. I don't I don't know what else to say. I'm I just can't believe that. Anybody in this room thinks that any business can sustain that kind of a wage increase. And if you guys vote for this $15 an hour wage increase. You will, in fact, be hurting the people that you think you're helping because of the people that are still have. Jobs will be paying $16 for a hamburger. They will not have gained a nickel. Let me give you one more fact. In 1950, the minimum wage was $0.75 an hour. In today's dollars, that was $7.01 in buying power. The federal minimum wage today is seven and a quarter an hour. That means in 65. Years, the buying power of the minimum wage has increased. Workers pay by $0.24. You guys need to. Realize that the minimum wage. Is pure inflation. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. That that closes down our our speakers list. So a few things and we're going to take this back to the council for for deliberation. I want to obviously just start by thanking everyone that came in and spoke tonight. A an amendment from this over to Vice Mayor Lowenthal, who's the author of the original motion. But I wanted to. Without obviously repeating a lot of what I've been saying over the last few weeks, I want to just say a few. Thank you. I want to start off by obviously thanking all of the workers that have come out and advocated for their families and themselves, the business owners. And I want to also just say that there's been sometimes you hear things about business owners, and I know a lot of these guys out here, whether it's Lisa or Jimmy or Mike and you guys are good guys. I get that. Thank you for for having great businesses in the city and for your investments. And so I know that most of you guys aren't coming to this thing because you don't care about your employees, because I know you guys care about them very much. And I want to I want to thank the the the the Fed and the Raise the Wage Coalition, who have been very active in leading this effort on on the worker side as well as the Council of Business Association groups. And the deal Bay, the Basement Sales Improvement Association, the Anaheim Business Group, all the different groups and business groups that were a part of that, including the chamber. Thank you, guys, for for your advocacy. I want to thank mostly one of the staff because I know that for a lot of us, a lot of us have been to these hearings. I've been to many some people up here, including Councilman Mango and Councilmember Turanga or members of the Council Committee. So they've been to a few and additional to everybody else up here. But the staff has been, I think, a complete kind of all star team since day one on the city side. And I know you guys don't see a lot of their work, but they've been working very hard to answer questions from the council, to answer questions from the community, from business owners, from from workers. And so I just want to thank the staff for all your hard work in this process. It's been it's been tough. I also want to particularly thank the Economic Development Commission and their their work. Again, I was counting I think they did. They hosted two hearings and two separate meetings just on this issue. And so if you guys thought tonight was a lot, which it was, I think they had four of those. And so that was that's a lot of work and a lot of input. And obviously they they forwarded on some recommendations tonight. And so I just want to thank them. And so I think all that's important to to be said as we move forward in this in this conversation, I'm going to on to this over to to Vice Mayor Lowenthal. I know I have a long speakers list, folks with different ideas, I'm sure, and input, which is great. So let's be respectful to the process, please, and let's hear what people what people have to say. Everyone's had a chance to weigh in at this point, with the exception of the nine members of the council. So let's let's give them their shot now. So let's turn this over to Vice Mayor Lowenthal. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Actually, if you can just give me a minute. I'm just pulling up something. Perhaps if someone has a question, I would appreciate that. Yeah. What I'm going to do is turn this over to Councilman Mongo, just to do an announcement from Councilwoman Price. Councilman Price had to leave suddenly when notified that fire personnel were with her children as her husband was rushed to the hospital. Mark is currently in stable condition in the E.R., and she does not know if she'll be able to return. But she's 5 minutes away. Should he get to a point where she can return so she apologizes. He is in our thoughts. Yeah, absolutely. I think our whole family's is. In our thoughts. So. Great advice for a long time. I'm glad you made that announcement. I know several of you were concerned. And if you can just keep her and her family in our thoughts. I would appreciate it. So I want to thank everyone for the robust conversation. And I lost count how many speakers came forward. But certainly everyone that came forward has a valid and and very important. Message to share with us. And it's they're more than just opinions. And this council has listened and does listen and is very grateful for all of your input and and you're very passionate about it. And we heard different levels of passion. I do want to take us back to the first speaker, not because she was the most impactful or powerful, but something about her testimony. It reminded me quite a bit of the early work I did in domestic violence and how economic independence can be so liberating. And we often think of liberty as sometimes just an option to have something more. Greater wealth, perhaps. But I worked in a field and industry where liberty meant really liberty from. From tyranny in your own household. Liberty from the oppressiveness that that being trapped because of economic reasons can provide. And so she she reminds me that liberty, dignity and opportunity, that a living wage or raising the minimum wage can provide is something that cannot be overlooked there. And it isn't just my personal, philosophical orientation to the issue. It is backed by numerous studies. And so I think when when we hear those of us who talk about the fundamental human reasons why we should do something, there's there's sometimes an assumption that it's not backed by data. And if there's ever a doubt that anything that I have worked on on this council in the last decade has not been backed by data. I implore you to reconsider that thought and do your research, because that has never been the case. I may come to the dias and speak in a very impassioned way and perhaps leave out some of the very academic research that our staff has done or that I have done. But let there never be a doubt that these thoughts and proposals are not well researched. We talk about how much work and workers do, and we know that worker productivity has gone up much more than wages. That, too, is backed by data. I think our last speaker, who is a highly reputable restaurant owner in our community and has done quite a bit in employing people in our city, addressed that minimum wage was just mere inflation and and. It's an opinion and it's a point of view, and I respect that. But I will share with you, backed by research and data, that worker productivity has gone up much faster than wages. Workers are already much more productive. And what we have is the Center for Economic Policy and Research in a 2012 issue brief that reported, if you use the 1968 minimum wage as a benchmark federal. Minimum wage as a benchmark. And I'm only citing this because it's sort of that primacy and recency theory. You remember the first thing you heard and you remember the last thing you heard in the last. The last speaker was quite compelling in his point of view that minimum wage was just an inflation. So I'll point to a study that states that if you look at the 1968 federal minimum wage as a benchmark, if minimum wage grew at the same rate as worker productivity, it would have reached $21.72 per hour by 2012. So I think it's a little bit more than a gift. It's a lot more than a gift. It's it is paying someone the worth of the work that they do. And also when everything else goes up in price, but the minimum wage does not. And we know that everything else has gone up in price when the minimum wage has not. Then we have to ask ourselves the question what type of city and what type of living environment do we expect our residents and our workers to live in? So when we take it back to what the L.A. EDC report showed us, we know that in Long Beach, 46.4% of our households have $50,000 or less in household income. And that's not to speak to the number of individuals that live in that household. But just if we look at that, we know that 21.1% of individuals live below the federal poverty level. And I'm not sure if we're all familiar with the federal what the federal poverty level is. Our presenter mentioned that it was low and she said it was very low and emphasized it a couple of times. It is very low. The 2015 poverty level for a household of one person is $11,770. Tuition to a good school costs more than that. And we talk about a society of opportunities for two people. It's $15,930. For three, it's $20,090. And you add about 4 to $5000 per person that you add to our household. It is extremely low. So when we say that someone is 150% above poverty level or 200% above poverty level, those are not huge amounts. So you add in Long Beach, those of us who are up to 150% poverty level and those of us who are up to 200% still very low. That brings us to 42.9% of our city. Almost 50% of our city live in conditions on incomes that I don't think a lot of us think about. It is quite an out of sight, out of mind situation. It's an incredible figure. But people make do and they figure it out at such low income levels. Most of the earnings we know we also saw this in the study. It goes to housing, it goes to food, it goes to transportation. There are very basic things. There are no luxuries involved at such low levels. And by luxuries, I'm they're not luxuries. I just mean just any form of recreation which we all know contributes to well-being. We heard people talk about not knowing when the last time they took a holiday. I don't think they mean a holiday overseas. I just think they mean a day off from work. That's a holiday. And that's that's important for us to keep in mind. It's not my frame of reference necessarily, but it is someone else's experience and what it means to be in that person's shoes. And we know that that's not one person. That's nearly half of our city. That's a lot of people. We heard from our teenagers in the audience and young adults about the opportunity to study. And to improve their opportunities to study. That is what this nation was built on. It was built on opportunities. And we have seen our society lose touch with with the with really what this country was founded on. And that really is an opportunity to improve ourselves. How does a child do that when she has to help support her household, when she is contributing to supporting a household? We've always talked about kids only job being a student. Be a student, do your studies. That is what a child's profession is. We've heard from many children tonight that and I, I know you're young adults, but you are children. We have heard from many children that they contribute to their household income. So how do you study and improve yourself when that is part of what your obligation is? And I know you do it willingly and gladly because that's what we do. We support our families. But even as parents, that must be crushing for your parents to know that they need your help to support the family. So raising wages, when combined with the opportunity to save, can comprise a family's total opportunity. That's what this conversations about. It's not about a dollar more an hour or $2 more an hour. It is. What does that mean to a family? A family's total opportunity. And there is some significance to that when we consider that to secure a standard of living that is dignified. And we heard a lot about living with dignity. But what do we mean by that when you're not able to secure a standard of living that's dignified? We don't have our entire population participating in what we all call as a quality of life. That is what all of us here are elected to do is to improve our residents quality of life. So doing. So raising wages combined with the opportunity to save. It contributes to both short and long term financial security. And I take us back to our first speaker. It is because of the inability to have financial security that she and others, many, many others find themselves in very dangerous situations. When we do so, when we raise wages combined with the opportunity to save, we can contribute to the overall well-being that affords people a feeling of agency. And by agency I mean the ability to act. We don't have the ability to act or act or on our own will or volition when we don't have that many choices , when we don't have that many economic choices. And so it does afford people that feeling of agency. And it's more than a feeling. It is a reality that is the society we live in. You talked about Mayor Foster talking about a tale of two cities that contributes to that divide. Those of us who can act and those of us who cannot act really is is that division is created by that income and wealth inequity. And the accumulation of wealth while we're talking about income right now. But over time, if we are able to have people on the path where they can participate in that, it grants us more options and it really eliminates the restrictions on how one can live one's life. So the notion that raising the minimum wage would not lift people out of poverty. It is not my opinion that it is not true. It is a fact that that is not true. In fact, one way to look at it, if you don't act, if we as a council don't act on some reasonable policy. One way to look at it is that low minimum wage laws are a form of government subsidies to low wage businesses. That's exactly what it is. Someone is subsidizing it. And so by not acting, that's what we're doing. What do working people do if they don't have enough to eat or if they need to go to hospital or if they need housing, that's better than where they are. What do they do? They turn to the government for public benefits. That is that cycle that we contribute to when we don't act and do the right thing. And so that subsidy is something that we need to actually reverse and turn into an empowerment. Subsidies don't feel like an empowerment. How does one gain an agency to act when you are on subsidy? But if you are earning your wage and you are earning a living wage and an improved minimum wage, that's that's an opportunity that subsidies can never provide psychologically. You can never provide physically in our households stability. And so those are some of the fundamental reasons that bring me here. After ten years of having worked on public policy in this city and after having incrementally with our council, laid down policies that lead us down this path. This is not something that is completely new for this city or the city council. It is really a next step in what we have been working toward all along to improve the quality of life for people in Long Beach. So when we. Take the testimony that we've heard today and we have heard many times about the Long Beach way. And I know there are different opinions about what the Long Beach way is, but something that I will always hold very near and dear to me through my experience here is when Long Beach does do something. We would say Mayor Garcia and I would say as goes Long Beach, so does the state of California. We have seen many, many ways that the state has followed Long Beach's path because it has been the right path not only for our city but for the entire state. And I don't doubt that this will be another example of that, because we it is well thought out. It has been well researched, and we have done our academic literature review as well as our practical data review and. But when you pair that up with a compelling calling to do the right thing, then it is the right thing. It isn't just a point of view. So what I'd like to do at this time, Mr. Mayor. Is I would like to make possibly two, three motions. And I would. Seek the city attorney's counsel on if they are if they merit splitting them up. Two or three motions. Two. Sorry, I meant to. What you think those are two or three relevant. You met. Two? I meant to. Pick. One or two. If the city attorney says it should be combined, then it would be one. Okay. May remember city council. It is possible to divide the question here. If the if the motion is. There's three different items here on the council, and I'm not sure where the council vice mayor is going. But if there's direction to prepare an ordinance and you have certain items that you would like to be voted on second or , you know, separately to add to that ordinance, you could divide the question the motion of divide. The question requires a second. It is not debatable if there is no objection to dividing the question. Then you could move forward with two separate motions or multiple motions to divide the question. If there is objection, then there would be a vote on dividing the question. Basically it sounds like you can you can divide the question due to motions. If one of the motions is in the spirit of one of the three that's been put forward within the agenda, and with that, if there is no objection to that, then you can move forward. If there is objection without actually voting divided the question. Is that right? That's correct. The the first motion would be the subject of motion. And then the additional if there's additional motions on dividing the question, then they would need to stand alone. So if you had a motion, for example, that would propose a minimum wage and then that would pass, the second motion of the question that's divided would be with the council like to add a particular something to that, an exemption or something else that would be substantive that they could you could move forward with that or not. Okay. I believe. I understand. So do your colleagues. I would like to make a motion. To approve the recommendations of the Economic Development Commission with a wage schedule of. January 1st, 2017. The wage to $10.50. On January 1st, 2018, an increase to $12. On January 1st, 2019, an increase to $13. That's exactly as the commission has recommended. Small businesses and nonprofits with 25 or fewer employees have an additional year to implement the schedule, and first increase for them would be in January one, 2018 to $10.50 an hour. This new policy would also include city departments on the same schedule. A strong wage enforcement that is managed by the city and includes private right of action for workers. Mandatory posting. Anti retaliation clause. Revocation power for the city and a fine program for the city. In early 2019, launch a second study with the L.A. Economic Development. Corporation to study the minimum wage impacts on employment, sales tax and overall impact on economy that will be presented to the Long Beach City Council at a special hearing. And colleagues, I'd like to note that this comes from all of the testimony we have heard about the concerns about what the impact would be. I think this would be a reasonable way for us to study what the impacts are. Learn what the impacts are and take further action at that time. That is the substantive portion of my motion. The secondary portion is a pathway to $15 per hour. If after the study, the said study, we see no major negative impacts to jobs and the local economy. We continue on a pathway to $15 an hour whereby one on January one, 2020, we would increase the wage to $15 an hour and to on January one, 2021, we would increase the wage to $15 an hour. Small businesses and nonprofits with 25 or fewer employees would get an additional year to implement this schedule. And in 2023, the minimum wage will be set. We'll set the consumer price index for the L.A. metropolitan area. That's the that's the motion on the floor. Councilman Richardson, you're the second on that. Okay. So let me let me go to a thank you, Vice. See, and I've got a Councilman Richardson and then I have a long speakers. Thank you, Mayor Garcia. And I've taken my time to listen to all the testimony tonight and my council colleagues. And I got to tell you, what I prepared tonight has has dramatically changed from all the different comments and hearing sort of the different issues that want to be discussed. I want to thank all the people who it's past 11:00 and my wife is still struggling to get the baby down, but she's watching at home. And just you know, it's amazing that this issue is so so many people are passionate about this issue. I want to acknowledge the commission, the Economic Development Commission, the Human Relations Commission, city staff, everyone who's done work on this. You all have gone through this. And this is the first time the city council gets to evaluate what that commission has been evaluating for a while. So that should be noted. This is not a new issue. It's been studied and studied. We have to two studies here in Long Beach. There have been studies over the ages about this. And there are great points and there are not so great points and there are positive and negative points out there. So so for me, it's it's it comes down to what is the intent and what are your what are your values as an organization in terms of what you hope to achieve as a minimum with a minimum wage? If I think about a minimum wage, I'm thinking, what does this. What what is the purpose? And in my opinion, it's to make sure people aren't taken advantage of. And if you work a day's wage, you should get a fair, fair day's work. So the question is, what is fair? If you believe in a minimum wage, you should believe that folks should be should get a fair wage. So let's tackle that question. Well, the study presents a number of different findings. I noticed that there was a a survey of businesses so, so quickly in this survey, how city manager how many of the what was the percentage of businesses that said they would close should we move forward with an action tonight? As I recall, it was 0% and. I wanted to make sure we highlight that because I've gotten a lot of veiled threats about, hey, this is going to make force all these businesses to close. But an unbiased survey of how many? 600. 600 businesses? 0% indicated that. And during the process of this survey that we survey, the working poor low wage workers or receive their input through a process of a survey as well about how they would spend any additional revenue should that be created. So the survey instrument actually was specific to businesses. We did hear a lot of that through the public comment, but the actual survey instrument was four 600 randomly sampled businesses. So it would be tough to. So I saw a a a slide and I heard a lot of comment about how people would spend this wage. How did we come to that, come to those assumptions if we didn't provide a survey to impacted low wage workers? I think we'd have to ask the ADC to talk about that, their methodology, if you'd like an answer to that question. Okay. Vice Mayor Lowenthal brought up the issue of what what the poverty line is in Long Beach. And I want in. And so I understand that everyone across the nation uses the same federal poverty poverty line. But is there some sort of a local poverty line that for, say, a family of four? So while the poverty line is the 24000 to 54 family for the federal level that the vice mayor mentioned, we do look at a number of other indicators, including something called area median income and area median income, which what the state is kind of considering moderate to and meets the definition of moderate for an affordable housing perspective is about $75,000 within the city of Long Beach. So for so, a more reasonable poverty line would be $75,000 annually for a family of four, and that's with two workers in the household. Have we calculated what the annual wage would be should someone receive a $13 an hour or $15 an hour minimum wage? And how that compares to the income poverty line for a family for. I think part of that was part of the lead study, if we can ask Christine to answer that question. Okay. So I want to applaud the Economic Development Commission for the framework. I want to applaud COBR and everyone else who provided the recommendation. Did any other commission provide a recommendation on the minimum wage? Yes. We for city commissions, we had the Human Relations Commission did provide support letter and you have that in your packet today. They made that action on Thursday and that was provided today to the city council. And what was the recommendation to support? I believe up to a $15, $15 an hour wage. Is there a reason why that wasn't set next to the IDC's recommendation or the COBR recommendation? Because that came that recommendation was done on Thursday, and the staff report's been out for a much longer than that. That makes sense. Was the COBR, the council request, the COBR recommendation, or did we request the Economic Development Commission recommendation? Now, the only study that was actually commissioned by the study was the L.A. EDC study and then the Economic Development Commission, which is the city commission. COBR and the Economic Roundtable were separate efforts that were not related to the city, but we definitely heard their input at the Economic Development Commission, and that helped to inform the Economic Development Commission's recommendations. Okay. I just want to make sure that what's presented to the public, because I did. You're right. I did receive the recommendation from the other commission and I wouldn't want to discount any commissioners service on this on this critical issue. Councilman, just to clarify, I think the probably the difference is that both commissioners did a recommendation, but one, there was only one commission that was asked to make a recommendation from the council. And so I think that's what staff did. I think the HRC weighed in on their own, but that's I think, probably the difference. And I get that, Mr. Mayor, and I appreciate that. I was just concerned because I saw the COBR recommendation in the official presentation when I know that we didn't commission that. And it's great that COBR stepped up to provide that. But I want to make sure all the perspectives were represented in this discussion. A few more a few more questions. So if the if we said so, if we said that it's $75,000 is the poverty line for a family of four. By my calculations, if you raise the wage at $13 an hour, that's roughly $27,000 a year or $15 an hour. That's roughly $31,000 a year. So that doesn't quite get you to, you know, out of poverty. But while it doesn't get you there, if you have two, two workers in one household, if they work hard and never miss a day of work, but if they work, never miss a day of work beyond what's mandated by the state for sick days, they would make $62,000 a year at $15 an hour. So that's still that's still below $75,000 a year. So if someone works at 15, $15 an hour. It's it doesn't get you out of poverty. This is by no means a living wage, but it does help put you on the path to get out of poverty. So that makes me think of. So when when I was when I was a kid. So I was raised by a single mom who worked as a nurse's aide and worked part time at Jack in the Box. And when myself and my sister were in high school and we have a little brother, we both worked part time, we both worked part time jobs . I worked at Jack in the Box and my sister worked a part time job in town and we didn't make very much money, but we did pick up a bill. I had the light bill. She had, I think the phone bill. We didn't have cell phones at the time. They weren't really big. They were really expensive at the time. So so certainly I do, you know, support the concept of youth jobs. They teach valuable lessons. But wouldn't it be great if if Mom just made a few dollars more so that that, you know, high school Kid X maybe has to make a choice about whether he wants to work and doesn't have to pick up that extra bill might have been a hundred bucks a month, but that was my commitment. There's an interesting slide. The one that stood out to me most here was that average household expenditures in Long Beach, $69,484, I believe it. You know, I mentioned I have a I have a one year old and we just got a quote for childcare. And I'm looking at what childcare costs annually. And it is more than, you know, childcare annually is actually could potentially be higher than the poverty level for an individual in our federal poverty level. So it's. It seems like sort of it seems pretty blatant to me that we have to make something, make something happen here. So I think that the main motion, the motion here that takes us to 13 and puts us on a path to 15 with the studies and all that, but puts us on a path. I think that that takes the pressure off this concept of working poor. I think that's important. I think the other element, Vice Mayor Lowenthal, that you mentioned on strong local wage and for enforcement, I think that's important. So I'm certainly in support of that. And so I would say that the only I heard a lot of comment about sort of youth workers. So I would say my thought there is that as I think back to my time as a as a youth worker, you know, I you know, I started off I think I was I was, you know, I worked for a nickel sort of a nickel arcade and were a little wore a little funny vest. I was a guy who stood on the corner with a desk man holding up a sign. And I had a you know, it was kind of embarrassing, but I did it because, you know, I needed I needed a job. So my my circumstance was is I would think, uniquely different because I was a student, I was a high school student working on a permit. Councilman Holt. I would think. Okay. Ma'am. You did. I hope it's not impacting. No, it actually is impacting the audience. And so you cannot do that. So one more time and you just did something that you did last time, which we had to stop the meeting for. Do not do that again, please, ma'am. We're trying to be respectful, okay? Okay. So if you do that again, I'm going to take another recess. I go to the prosecutor ask you, don't do it again. Councilman. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So entire. I just want to get through again. Through this. Go ahead. Can I can I can press through. So so the point I'm making is I think there's you know, I, I certainly see the value in giving a shot in the arm to the working poor addressing this issue of poverty. I think when I've heard a lot of recommendations about youth workers and I was a youth worker, I certainly understand I would want to sort of ask that. I remember when I was work, youth work, I had to have a work permit that ensured that, you know, I met academic requirements. You know, I didn't drop below a certain GPA. All of that was managed through most through the school district. And I want to make sure that if we if we do anything around youth today, that we understand the distinct difference between a person that's working at Jack in the Box like myself and going to school, or the person who's head of Household under 18 emancipated serve, you know, working just like an adult. I think those are two distinctly different circumstances. I would hate to say if something happens, if there's any exception here, that it would impact unfairly someone who's essentially no different than a 19 year old who's working or a 22 who's working in one of these low wage jobs. So I'm going to pose that as a question to to the city manager. Are you familiar with this, with the whole work permit process? So, Mr. Mayor, members of the council, we are by no means experts in that type of situation. But from what we understand, there is a requirement under state law to get a work permit if you are under 18 and that is normally issued by the school district. And then there are certain exemptions for certain classifications of of of minors. For example, some minors that have a GED can be less than 18 and not have to get a permit. But if you're under 18, you need a permit. So that's certainly something that we can research more and find out from our school district what those different exceptions are. Also, I do want to make a quick clarification. We talked about the $75,000 number. You know, poverty level really is the 24000 to 50. That is a definition in federal law of poverty level. The 75,000 is trying to give an example of in Long Beach and in L.A. County, more of what the area median income is and what the state considers more of a, you know, needing assistance for housing, for moderate income. Certainly. And I get it. Thank you so much. So I would just ask that, you know, whatever happens tonight, we make sure that we. Is it true that that whole work permit process is handled by the school district? We have no. Correct. It's not a city function, but handled through the school district, under the under the direction of the Department of Industrial Relations. So I think we should certainly engage them in a discussion about, you know, how do the I mean, I want a better understanding of how they handle emancipated workers disconnected, disconnected students who are people who are no longer in school and have no connection to the school district. Like, I would be curious about how we handle that because the last thing I would do want to do is create an exception system, exemption system that is easy to game and somehow does the opposite of what we would like to do, which is help to assist people out of poverty through through this, this action. So that said, I'm supportive of the motion both elements. And and thank you for the motion, vice mayor. Councilman Mongo. I want to thank everyone for coming out tonight. I think that this was a very good discussion. I know that many of you have come out three and four times as we've held the E.D. and F committee meetings all over the city. And I appreciate the dedication it takes to come each and every time and hear from others. So. With that in mind, I do also want to thank Lady Coba and the others who worked really hard to provide us with options. I think that in kind of pairing on what Lisa Ranallo said. I grew up in a family that had a deadbeat dad who didn't pay child support and a mom who didn't go to college because she got married and wanted to help run a family business. And when you get divorced, you then can't work for that family business anymore. And you not only have two kids to support, but you have no income. And so I started working at age 15 and a half. I got my youth permit, my work permit, and I worked starting at 15 and a half. And I believe in building those skills because at 15 and a half and sometimes 16, and some kids that I've had as interns, even 17 and 18, the the change in in them during that time is remarkable. And it's so much easier to hire a 20 year old or a 21 year old or a 23 year old , quite honestly. I would like to also build on the comments of what I will call Commissioner Larkin today, but as I knew him originally, he was a white board member working really hard for the untrained, long term employed workers to help them out of poverty before this discussion ever started. So, I mean, honoring that, I'd like to propose a friendly amendment. I'd like to let's see. I've prepared a few notes. So bear with me as we walk through this in consideration of the many federally funded youth employment programs which I've talked about since well before this dialog started, since the day I was elected, I've really championed what Commissioner Larkin and I talked about, oh, so long ago. But these federal youth employment programs and to support the mayor in his continued efforts to expand on the paid internships available in Long Beach, let's incentivize businesses to hire interns and through the VOA program. So to do that and to hire our long term unemployed, our foster youth, our reentry, our CalWORKs and our homeless vets so that they can get the job experience that they need to build their skills. I proposed a business incentive to utilize the state wage for youth through age 21, and the dole defined youth including but not limited to homeless vets in reentry as defined by we a title one B title we owe we owe a title one B title we owe a title two we owe a title three and we owe a Title four as defined in the state plan to pull our most vulnerable and unemployable out of poverty. And I think that their research is just as admirable as the research that we've done here today on a statewide level. This is the commitment that all workforce investments have united behind, and I think it's really imperative that we do that here. So I hope that you'll consider that friendly amendment both very. Mayor. Members of the council. I'm sorry. I'm sorry to interrupt, but I'm trying to make sure I understand the amendment as you've proposed, Councilwoman. Is it a youth exemption? And you mentioned veterans also reserves. So in the VOA language, it specifically outlines who qualifies to be paid by the federal government for these job programs. So I'm saying youth up to age 21 and those defined in the program. And and what were you proposing? That they be paid? The state wage. State minimum. Wage. Correct. So may I ask for clarification as well? When you say youth up to the age of 21. Do you mean youth that qualify for those programs and are also being incentivized through those programs or all youth. So to ensure that so so our internship program doesn't only target we awa our internship program targets all youth in Long Beach. And when we when we stepped forward as a city to say we have some of the lowest rates of internship for the number of jobs in the city, we wanted to double and triple that and we don't specifically target we also I feel that it's kind of a two parter. One is youth up to age 21 and then any we owe a definition because within the VOA program, there are certain youth categories specifically in reentry and foster emancipation and our veterans that go up to age 22 or some specific definitions. So the WIA draft was provided to our offices in a correspondence. So I tried to call out we had Title one B and I don't know if legally I have to say we owe a title in front of all of them, but we owe a title one, B, two, three and four. And I think that that really aligns with the state's goal of hiring the long term unemployed. And the long term unemployed in Long Beach actually are concentrated in our sixth district. And the mayor kind of highlighted that in the state of the city over a year ago. And for us to really get those individuals back to work, if we do not consider this business incentive, then there would be less potential hours available for them to build those skills. And the federal government kind of came up with what that model looks like in a number of hours. And so we we can't really change the hours as much as we can. The only option if we don't put in this business incentive would be to reduce the number of individuals who have access to the programs. So that would be my hope is that this council would be able to afford those long term unemployed, those opportunities . I think going down a path to support business incentives is one that I certainly would support. And it. What you propose is is intriguing and interesting. And if you'll let me just digest it while others are talking so I can take a little bit of time and sit with it for a minute, I'd appreciate that. But it is interesting and I do think we're on the right path. Wonderful. And then just for a point of clarification, that's not against your first motion. That's when you have to motions. So I don't know if I have to speak on one motion or the other or. So I have actually right now just one motion that no one has called to separate. Oh. So got it. Is that correct? Mr.. I believe that you had identified you wanted two separate motions. Were you identified? Yes. You've laid out kind of the entire range. I'm sorry. I do want two separate motions, I. I said both components at once. Yes. Okay, great. Yes, you're right. I hope it would carry on to the second, but I think it's important against the first. Okay. And then I have one other friendly amendment. In consideration of our desire to focus our efforts on bringing people out of poverty. I would like to ask that we request the City Attorney's Office to follow the state movement on the total compensation model and provide written correspondence to the Council, including a legal opinion onto total earnings at his earliest convenience. But I recognize that that might take. A bit because it's still developing, but I'd hope it would be back in 45 days or I know we have this coming back, so I don't know the timeline, but as soon as reasonable. So we're asking just for information when you ask for that friendly. Yes. And this is information that the city attorney would gather on total compensation. And I tried to use it. I think we would all call it a two from four, but I think the public would recognize it as a written correspondence. I think as long as we're just asking the city attorney to research and provide information, that would be. I can accept that at this time. Thank you. You're welcome. Kate thinks Councilmember Supernova. You know. I think my comments have to come at a later point to where we are in this. So I'd like to. Sure thing. Hold on for just a second. No problem. We have plenty more people. So many chance to come back. Councilmember Austin. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I want to thank everybody for hanging with us this evening. And I know this is a very important issue to a lot of people. I think this is a historic day for our city. And I feel for, one, very fortunate to be here in service at this time in our city's history. I want to especially thank those who helped us get here to this point, especially our Economic Development Commission, who I applaud because I had an opportunity to sit and I wasn't here. But I streamed the meeting last week. It was much like this one this evening, and I know there were many others leading up to that point. And so these commissioners have certainly risen to the level of service of the city, to the city. And I wanted to express my appreciation to them. They fought for a commission that was just created a few months ago. You know, we may think about compensating them in the future because there was a lot of hard work. So thank you very much to the commissioners who served on that commission. I think that commission was was diverse and I come in it as well, that I was actually pleasantly surprised that they reached the conclusion that they did reach because their recommendations actually move the ball forward. It's it's it's progress. And I know it was a lot of tough wrangling for for those those on that commission to to get to where they did in the decision before us today. So I also want to thank the many activists from the Raise the Wage campaign, L.A. County Fed for continuing to push the organizing the community . The many contacts that I've had via email, Twitter, one on one conversations have been very fruitful, and I appreciate it. And our business leaders who have come forward and given us perspectives to think about as a as a council, as policymakers, you know, please understand, you're not victims here. You know, I think we all will win at the end of the day. And Long Beach will be a better city for the decision that we make this evening. I have no doubt that we are going to raise the wage this evening. And I want to thank the the the the the LED, EDC and COBRA, the chamber. I mean, this was a full it was this was an open, transparent process. Everybody had a seat at the table. Everybody had an opportunity to to to share their viewpoints. And this was this was the Long Beach way. If anything, I think it was open. And and and and the decision we make this evening, I think we'll feel good about it from the standpoint that we know that we had full input from everybody. From my perspective, I think things are really looking up for Long Beach. I want to be very clear. I came out and I endorsed a statewide minimum wage. Months ago. I think that's the way for the state to go in. And we are going to to set, set, set a standard and we're going to lead the way helped lead the way to getting the state of California there. And the decision before us is a major decision that will change our city and change lives in our city for the better. I think we have an opportunity. We heard a lot about addressing poverty this evening and quality of life for those who are willing to work and make an honest living. And in the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King, we celebrated his his birthday just yesterday. All labor has dignity, but it's especially has dignity. If you can, you know, have a quality of living. And you can you can you can live on what you earn. I, too, got a work permit at 15 and a half. I took opinions and surveys in the mall, got the opportunity to deal with difficult personalities and learn how to how to deal with rejection. Help me with my dating game many years later. But. That that valuable experience helped shape my my career. It helped shape my who I am today because I had an opportunity to work as a young person. I'm passionate about getting people out of poverty, but I'm also passionate about young people and getting our young people prepared and building our workforce for the future. And so, you know, I'm interested in in doing more. I don't think we we necessarily have to get it all right this evening, you know, because the last time I checked, this will be an audience on any given Tuesday. We can change an audience. We can we can tweak an ordinance. We can fix an ordinance. We can we can improve our policies. And so I think this is a great first step for the city of Long Beach to to to to move and show commitment to the workers throughout our city. I think raising the wage here will act dignity and increase economic opportunity for thousands of workers in our city. We have an opportunity to do that this evening. And those workers have many faces and backgrounds. They are youth, they're seniors, they're students. They're our neighbors. And they are every ethnicity they are. The people who provide service and work in our retail and fast food establishments. And so the minimum wage will work well. We will, I think, make a great first step this evening and an understanding, listening to to some of our businesses. I think there are there's some sticker shock here because, you know, the rally cry is for 15 and we are going to create a pathway to 15. But this is going to be a phased in approach. And when I look at the the history of the minimum wage in California, it has gone up incrementally. It's gone up year by. When it has gone up, it has gone up 8%. 10%, and I think we are being consistent with that in this regard and understanding that there were many years where the minimum wage did not move. And this is why we have this great movement to try to raise wages. I've said from the very beginning, a rising tide will lift all boats. And so there's not this comparison issue. If the minimum wage is is $15 in 2021, whatever, if you're making $20 today, I think you'll be making more. Quite, quite frankly, in 2021, when when the minimum wage is $15. The rising tide will lift all boats. And I think doing nothing will change nothing. And so we have a unique opportunity in front of us to make change. I did want to offer a friendly amendment as well, because with that commitment and passion to getting interns involved in our city and getting our young people important training and opportunities in the workforce, I think it's important that we build in that an understanding that we want to incentivize our businesses to hire young people as well. So given how important it is to provide training and learning opportunities, especially for members of underrepresented in high poverty communities, I think it's and since it's essential to create incentives for employers to hire and train interns and first time workers. Therefore, I'd like to propose the following friendly amendment to the current motion, and I'm not sure if this is the first or second, but we'll just get it in there. Hopefully you'll accept it. Vice Mayor Create a new working intern amendment that would allow employers to pay 85% of the minimum wage for 480 hours or six months , whichever is sooner for employees in any job or activity in which they have no previous or similar rate related experience. And I think that'll go a long way toward getting young people the opportunity to to work. And I express my concern when this first came before us that, you know, I thought our young workers would have a hard time competing to have a first job. And I think this might address some of the concerns raised by by Commissioner Larkin, as well as my colleague, Councilmember Mungo. So that's my friendly voice. Mary Ford Just real quick, just to clarify one thing before Vice-Chair. So I know that I think the city of Santa monica, I think passed something similar, similar to that recently and just that I feel that I understand as well. I think the intention of that is to allow first time workers that are going into a job that's for a set period of time. So an internship or a seasonal job or their first time job. So it's something that certainly either lasts. I think your numbers were there six months or 480 hours, whichever comes first of those two. And so I know that was what the Santa monica, something similar had passed in Santa monica. And I think the state labor code is very clear on what an intern is and what would a learn worker is. I mean, I think, you know, they don't necessarily this is not a way to to undercut labor costs necessarily. These are these are workers who will be trained and have training opportunities with an employer in a paid internship. And I can tell you, I have offered opportunities, and I know there are a lot of internships out there that are unpaid. Right. And so this this would actually create a pathway for paid interns throughout our city. And I know that's been a big, big priority of yours, Mr. Mayor. Absolutely. And I and I do like what obviously what Santa monica did in that direction. So. Vice Mayor. Thank you. And. I think that captures the spirit of what we had heard about people's interest in incentivizing. Trainees and and new workers to an industry. I just have one question. So in that 85% calculation. Is that would that ever take it lower than the state minimum wage? So if the state minimum wage is $10 an hour. So for instance, the first step of our minimum wage is $10.50. So that would not be applicable at that time. Correct. I believe it would. I think so. I think this might be a step. Yeah. Mr. Modica might know. Yes. So it's our understanding that there currently is a provision in state law for learners that is 85% of workers. So in that case, they wouldn't be any different any any different than what state law already allows. We'd have to verify that. But that language that Santa monica uses sounds very similar to what is currently in state law, but will verify. So as long as we're aligning to what is allowable under state law, I think that's your intent. Councilmember Austin Then I would accept that friendly amendment. And just to be clear, though, it is the Santa monica law that passed is not the same thing as a state law. And so I think the Santa monica law applies especially to this idea of it's not so much focus on on youth as it is this idea of like interns and seasonal employees or. And what Councilmember Austin's proposing is interns. Seasonal. And seasonal employees, not just. Youth. Yeah, it's less about age and more about that. Right. And I think we would struggle with that age distinction. But it's the trainee concept, correct? It's a training concept. And I think it it meets the spirit of what the what Councilmember Mango was actually trying to put forth in her friendly as well. Doing it. Okay. Vice Mayor. I. And I heard what Councilmember Mungo had asked for. And I think in in hearing your request, your proposal and Councilmember Austin's proposal, I, I, I do lean toward what I'm hearing from his proposal because a couple of reasons. One, it is it's a little bit more clear from from an understanding. For our to prioritize the trainee piece, which I think was key for you as well. The new worker piece. I like the cap of 460 Hours, is that correct? 80 hours. This addresses the issue that Councilman Richardson raised and others raised about not taking advantage of people, keeping them locked into certain wage categories. And so it really does. It's credible as a trainee incentive, the new employee incentive. So I will accept that. Thank you. Let me go to Councilmember Andrews. Yes, thank you. Vice Mayor. I don't think I'm going to sit here and wait. All you guys have to listen to all of this because the fact I have a pretty good idea of my opinions and how I feel. About a lot of this. Because first and foremost, I want to thank the, you know, the City Economic Commission for their recommendation and the students who came here tonight. I know it's been a long, you know, time, but when this item first came to the city council, you know, I was coauthor, you know, with our vice mayor, Lowenthal, and there were more people earning minimum wage in my district and any other district in the city of Long Beach. Which came. Out early. To create a pathway to. Support the $15 an hour. A pathway to the $15 an hour. And I don't like it, so I don't see where any of this will bring anybody out of poverty. But there is a pathway. You know, like I said, we talked it back in days. You know, we talked about. The minimum wage in the other wages. Like I said, when we talk about minimum wage, you know, it doesn't fit the criteria where we you because we talk about today in the economy the way it is, it would never, ever come to, you know, to equal each other. So I've heard that the pros and cons of, you know, why we should it should not increase the wages. But I really think that we. Speaking of that, Dr. King, you know, we really need to move forward in that. You know, I think we need to move forward tonight. And I've been waiting, you know, you know, in hopes for a long time. And I think it's really time for us to act, you know, really seriously. I heard the rising tide, but I think the rising tide with this will be with the votes. And I think it's time for us to move on with this. Instead of taking all these people's time. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember your income. Sorry. I mean, I'm sorry about that, Councilwoman Gonzales. Okay. Thank you. So a great discussion tonight. I want to thank everybody for being here again. The business community, our nonprofits, our L.A. County Fed, our workforce here in and all over the city. I want to thank everybody for their hard work. And I know it was a lot to come to this night and to really talk about all of the possibilities and possible solutions. So I'm happy that we've now been able to discuss this in a way that looks like we're moving towards a minimum wage here. And so what I will say, you know, just to give us a larger context, and I think we do have a larger context in this. We've talked about poverty levels, unemployment rates. You know, I happen to represent an area I know I sound like a broken record, but at one point was 19%. It's actually lowered. You know how I'm happy about that to 16 point about 5% homelessness. We have about 2300 adults that are homeless here in the city of Long Beach. And over 75% percent of them are of working age. 255 are children and 20%. We know our city citywide are living in poverty. Median income, 15,000, $50,000 in in the downtown area, which is great. And the reason I say that is because I have to care about these statistics, because, of course, I represent them, but also because particularly in the downtown area, you know, when major retailers come to us and they've come to the Dolby or they've come to the city to look at it areas, you know, we've often struggled with our income rates. We've often struggled with retailers telling us that we don't have the income. And so I think now looking at this minimum wage and seeing what this could possibly have the opportunity for us to do is to potentially raise our income levels in a way that would also hopefully raise education levels as well. For instance, I know Trader Joe's particularly one has talked about not coming to Long Beach because we don't have the education. And so there's other retailers, of course, like I said, that won't come to Long Beach maybe because we don't have the particular income levels. And so we see a benefit in that sense that will help other businesses as well. In addition to that, I think a second point, as I mentioned, is just the the the varying levels that we have of various poverty levels. Even median home values are about $400,000. Average studio one bedroom is about $1,000, upwards of 2600 if you're needing a three or four bedroom. So it's pretty significant. Another point, I think that a lot of the business community brought forward, but many others have brought forward many times is wage theft. And I think I want to thank Vice Mayor Lowenthal for including that in talking about retaliation, talking about wage stuff like it needs to be talked about because I think that there is a really important fact here. It is very similar to what we're discussing, but also very distinct. And I think having that discussion in a study when we do see it back in a way that's comprehensive but really tackles the issue as best, especially with specific industries, which is very important. But overall, an increase in the minimum wage is more than fair, in my opinion. It acknowledges our city's demographic demographic make up of individuals who, yes, they cook our food, entertain our tourists, take care of our children. Ten tables we meet at, they fix our sandwiches, you know, everything. And we've often supported many businesses with various business license fees, maybe waiving those. We have grants for for businesses. We have workforce development opportunities for businesses. And I think at this point, it's really an opportunity for us as a city to really look at individuals more than just a dollar amount, but really value them for the work that they do. So I think looking at the vice mayor's plan so far in the Economic Development Commission's plan and again, I want to thank our business community, I want to thank everyone that was involved. I think it is unprecedented that we've come to this point and that everyone has been involved. And I want to also commend our council for having a great discussion and really looking at a pathway to 15. And so I will be on board with support on the vice mayor's motions. Thank you. Thank you. Next step is actually Mr. City attorney. Did you want to jump. Just. Real quick? Excuse me, Councilman, your clarification on the vice mayor's motion. I was looking at my notes here. On the second part, you said nonprofits and those companies of 25, unless the nonprofit is not, is there a employee number for the nonprofits? Is it all nonprofits and small companies of 25? They're they're both 25 or fewer employees. So nonprofits that have 25 or fewer employees. For small businesses and nonprofits with 25 or fewer employees. There would be no distinction or necessary to say if you're just seeing companies with 25 or less. We can say that. I think I raised the distinction because there was a distinction made in public comment. But if you felt that it would be captured just by saying businesses. I want to be sure that we're not providing that exemption. I just want to be clear that the way I read the CDC report, it appeared to say all nonprofits and small companies of 25 or less. And what I now understand, it's only nonprofits of 25 or less or small. Companies, correct? Yeah. Contrary, Ringo. Thank you. Now, I'm not going to belabor this point. I think that we are on the right path. I think that we have basically discussed this item to its dénouement, as far as I can tell. We're going we're going in the direction that's going to take us to a path for $15 an hour. And I really appreciate all of councilmember for bringing that that opportunity here. It's it's serves the best of all worlds in respect to the commission's recommendations. And I want to thank everybody, everybody who was involved in this and those of you who are out there right now. Good morning. Because you've been here a long time. It's been a long day. And I'm sure that you're very tired and you want to see a vote being taken. So I'm not going to take a lot more of that. But I think that when it comes down to the opportunity, what we're looking here at the table, the motions that are on the table, there's something that they are. They are motions that I can agree with, because it does take us to that path where we need to. I could talk about my my early work experience selling maps to the stars and how much I made. And I was doing that. I know how many of you have gone to Hollywood and bought a map? You know, when I was doing that, it was great by center with $0.50 on the dollar and didn't make much. I didn't need a permit because in those days they were looking at that, you know, more like childcare laws didn't fit in. And I could also talk about me being a portfolio transfer engineer back when they had those, you know, fulfilling filling your car with with gas washing, which you average and kicking the wheels to put air . So, I mean, I could talk about all of that, but I'm not going to think I just did. But bottom line is that we definitely need an increase in and a low in wages. It's long, very long overdue. And I think that, you know, when we did the comments that were made earlier about measure in, you know, the sky did not fall. In fact, we rebounded and we're doing even better now than we did in the past. So I'm ready to vote on this and I support it. Thank you. Thank you. Going back to Vice Mayor Lowenthal. Yes, actually, Charlie, just the city attorney just reminded me, you know, in looking through the commission's recommendation, you're absolutely right. And my intent was to stay with the commission's recommendation. It is very late. I don't know how many of you think clearly at 12:15 a.m., but so thank you for that reminder. My intent is to stay with the commission recommendation, which is small businesses and all nonprofits. As for both for both pieces. The piece about the one year. DeLay. Thank you. And the second piece. Right. That's it for both pieces. I mean. Councilwoman Mongo. Thank you. I appreciate Councilmember Austin's. Friendly with the state recommended training program. It doesn't fulfill my complete intent because where I think the disadvantage will come is that there's, again, a serious maturity variance between a 16 year old and an 18 year old. And I'll I'll be supportive of that as a part of this motion, even though I'm very disappointed that the full. Acknowledgment of individuals up to age 21 at the state wage is only still pending at this time, but I hope it will be considered. I do want to speak one more time on the. We owe it, though, because I think that that we owe a component is critical to our ability to lobby this in DC. I think it's critical to our ability to lobby this in Sacramento, and I think it's critical in the future of the way we our was written in that from here forth we are going to be allocated funds based on performance. And so our ability to have the number of youth go through the program will be less because of this and therefore could long term reduce the num the total amount of allocation of funds. So this is like a compounded issue. If we don't accept, we owe it. I'm open to modifying the language to just say that any business. Implementing the willow. A program must. Utilize the state minimum wage for participants while in the program, which again has some of the restrictions, as Councilmember Alston said, with the 480 hours of certain groups, but within certain groups, for instance. Veterans. Unemployable veterans. There are certain changes in the timeline of when you can place them. And specifically within L.A. County, we set aside $1,000,000 a few years ago to put these in the number of individuals that were requested by the federal government into work. And with the big push that we're doing to reduce veteran homelessness, we did not meet those goals. And part of that was not being able to meet those goals within the state minimum wage. Within this under that under that time when we asked for that $1 million to be set aside, and we were very grateful for it . We did not meet those goals. We went back to the federal government and asked for an extension to meet those goals in an additional 12 month period. And we eventually met it in a longer timeline through matching grants of nonprofits. But it it definitely put us in a very tough position because once you lose that funding, regaining it is very difficult because then you're taking it from another WIA that received it. So while I appreciate Councilmember Austin's expertize on the state definition of A in turn, I hope that the background and experience of Commissioner Larkin's and myself actually many know that I have spoken at we have conferences at the state level and this is critical to our state's ability to maintain this funding long term. So I hope that the VOA amendment, a friendly amendment, will be accepted. It's, I think, critical. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Richardson. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And quickly, I wanted to make sure that I know that we had time to actually look at the the EDC recommendation. I know that there were there are two additional steps that the vice mayor's motion suggests. What was the final date of the to arrive at $15? Vice Mayor The final date to arrive at 15. It goes into effect January one, 2021. And I want to just quickly before we take a vote, just take a moment to talk about regionalism and talk about enforcement. I think at some point we're going to have to if we do, you know, if the sky doesn't fall and we go through the process you've outlined, we should if we arrive at 15, be at the same state, same places, the region for synergy in terms of enforcement and ensuring that, you know, our residents aren't sort of sort of behind. So I would like to see and I want to see if you're open to this if that final date, we can move it up six months to, say, July of 2020 so that we you know, should the study go well and everything is is cruisin when we arrive there, we arrive there with the region. What do you think? I see the value in. In staying aligned with the region. But here's here's where our challenges we started six months later from everybody else. And. I don't think we need to be shy about this. Our effort here is different from other communities. I work in Santa monica, so I follow that closely as what's different from Santa monica. It's different from Los Angeles. And I think because we started later, it is reasonable to. To have our timeline comport. Give folks enough time. So. If I may. I'd like to stay with our timeline. I don't I don't have a challenge with that. Like I said, you know, any given Tuesday, these things can these things can change is our first crack at this. Not everybody's going to get everything they want. But I do feel that we should make sure that we're at you know, we're playing our part in the region. But I'm okay with the motion as it is. Okay. Thank you. Sorry about that. Actually, I'm next on the list. Just just to two quick things really quick. Some of this was discussed earlier. I just want to reiterate something before we just passed over the during earlier earlier today, the L.A. EDC, when they presented they made a series of recommendations as business incentives, I guess. And so I just want to make sure that we and I don't know if this needs to be part of the motion or not, but I just want to ask staff to at least those I think need to come back to the council, or there needs to be some kind of discussion about those incentives. And they included everything from expanding the local preference program to our enterprise funds. I actually really like that. I know we don't do that now, but I think a lot of the recommendations that they made, I think the idea of expanding local preference to, you know, to the port and to the water department and to all the enterprise funds, I think would actually be a big benefit to local workers and so and small businesses. So I just want to make sure that that's something that is looked at encouraging that for the community college district in Cal State, Long Beach was mentioned. I want to make sure that we're doing that as well. And the other two items and vice mayor, if you would consider also they're not exactly germane to to the motion schedule that you set, but I think they still they still have an impact. One thing that was discussed, I've heard it at some of the hearings is this idea of creating some kind of business incentive to either whether it's a a a, a business license fee, tax holiday or whether it's a business license fee opportunity so that businesses that are going to be you know, obviously there will be impact, but there's also some kind of incentive on the city side. And so I don't know, vice mayor, if we could add, if staff could bring back some type of license fee tax holiday, I know that. I think Councilwoman Mango and Councilwoman Price and Councilmember Brenda, I think it was had have proposed initiated a small business rebate program and which I think is great. I think we all supported great program. But I think that this could be something that whether it's a part of it or on top of that to create some kind of some kind of license fee benefit for businesses as an incentive, I'd like to look at that so that something we could bring back and I think you mentioned, Mr. Mauka in your presentation that there was you already had a kind of cost to what that could look like. And so I'd like to actually have that come back to the Council for discussion. Can we could we do that? Yes. So we can certainly take a look at the recommendations in the L.A. EDC. And one thing I did want to add is one of the recommendations was to ask our local educational institutions to also do a local preference program. Would that be part of the motion as well? It would. And then we can we've got some of the costs already for the business license holiday, if you will, that's in the in your motion to air in the materials today. We can also cost out expanding our current small business rebate program and bringing that up to potentially 20 employees or 25 employees. It's currently set at ten employees. So we can bring back some additional information on that program. We were just discussing that actually with and actually that would be great. And if I think you could, particularly if we're classifying businesses as 25 small businesses as 25 and under, I think to take that program and expand that for not just those that are under ten, but those that are at the 25 level, I think provides more, you know, tax incentives and, you know, reduction of fees for businesses at that level. And so if we could get those get kind of a listing of business incentives and what the kind of responses from city and vice mayor, if you would be willing just to as a side add, that I would. Thank you. Okay, great. Councilmember Supernova. Thank you. I first like to get a point of clarification from the city attorney on the total earnings piece coming back. If you could just kind of recap what you're doing. And I'd also like to ask that that piece come back prior to the final reading, if it's going to be in an analysis that that you are providing. I think council needs some time to analyze what you're analyzing. Yes. Councilmember Supernova. Yes. It's my intention to take a look at this and put an opinion together for the review by the Council prior to the first reading of what does come back on is should this motion be successful and we're directed to prepare an ordinance. So yes, I mean, we would take a look at that total earnings. We'll give you our best analysis. I think the people that spoke about it, you know, it's going to be there's no definitive answer out there that they can someone can point to. But we will take a look at it and give you our best estimate on on that particular model. Okay. Thank you. And I assume that's okay with the maker of the motion that it comes back prior to the first reading? Yes. Okay. I guess what we have here is my fear is is just basically unintended consequences. And with all the speakers here tonight, no one gave me an answer as to what do I tell my fixed income constituents who have home health care? They're going to lose hours, which is unacceptable. And I guess in hearing several folks say talk about the high price, I need more money because of the high price of child care. Where do they think the price of childcare is going to go? It's just that vicious cycle is what I have the biggest problem with. The other item that I'm kind of confused by and in the hours late. So I'm kind of ready for confusion here. But the whole wage theft issue, to me, this is a state issue. It's the California Department of Industrial Relations. We had a new bill there in 2011. I think the governor just signed a new measure in October 2015. I'm confused as to what we're going to do on a city level other than refer people to to get relief at the state area. I don't know if anyone has an explanation for that tonight, but I'm just saying that that's something I don't understand. I think the state put $1,000,000,000 into enforcement plan in October. So, again, I'm unclear there with that. All that being said, I'd just like to thank everyone for your time tonight, the business owners. Thank you. And to Mr. Hoffman, I hope you do reinvest in Long Beach. And I think it's incumbent on us as we move forward is to create some of those business incentives. We need to do everything we can do to help the business community. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So now we go back to the motion and just I want to just try to repeat the motions or both. The vice Mayor There's two separate motions, so I'm going to let her repeat her two motions and make sure that we're on the same page before we go to the final vote. So. Vice-Chair Lowenthal. Thank you. Mr. Mayor. I just want to know if I could make a comment. Actually, sir, I can't. I there's a hearing process I have to follow. As far as, bear. In mind, 60%. Of the labor in Long Beach. So I can't outside along the. I understand that, sir. I can't. He doesn't. So he doesn't. I can't to follow. Thank you. By Summer, Lowenthal. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So the first motion. Yeah. Keep laughing. So, guys, listen. The Vice-Chair Now has the floor, so. Vice-Chair Lowenthal. Thank you. I have a very, very low voice, so. Okay. So I'm. It's my turn. Hey, guys. Ma'am. Please. We have to continue. Vice Mayor has the floor. Thank you. Okay. I thank you. I told the gentleman he couldn't continue, so we're fine. Thank you, Vice Mayor. What they're saying behind me. Right. So motion one is to approve recommendations of the Economic Development Commission with a wage schedule of $10.50 effective January one, 2017. On January one, 2018, it moves to $12 January one, 2019 to $13 an hour. Small businesses with 25 or fewer employees and nonprofits have an additional year to implement the schedule. And the first increase would be would go into effect January one, 2018 to $10.50. This new policy would also include city departments on the same schedule. It would require strong wage enforcement that is managed by the city and includes the private right of action for workers. Mandatory posting anti retaliation claims clause I'm sorry, revocation power for the city and a fine program for the city. The second motion in early 2019 I'm sorry, part of the first motion in early 2019 launch a second study with the L.A. EDC to study minimum wage impacts on employment, sales tax and overall impact on economy that will be presented to the Lombard City Council at a special hearing. The second motion is the pathway to $15 per hour proposal. If after the study we see no major negative impacts to jobs and the local economy, we continue on a pathway to $15 an hour. One. On January one, 2020, the wage moves to $14 an hour. Secondly, on January one, 2021 to $15 an hour. Small businesses with 25 or fewer employees get an additional year to implement the schedule, as well as nonprofit small businesses with 25 or fewer employees and all nonprofits get an additional year to implement the schedule. In 2023, the minimum wage will set the Consumer Price Index for the L.A. metropolitan area. Vice mayor. And also there would be the amendment as proposed by CD eight on the intern program for 404 up to 480 hours or six months. And that would be to create a working and intern. Amendment correct that would allow employers to pay 85%. Yes. Of the minimum wage for 480 hours. For six months. And. Or six months, whichever comes first. That is correct. And then also the direct city attorney to prepare the opinion to come back prior to first reading. Correct. And then also, I think, ask the city attorney to bring back the business incentives for approval or review of the council. And also council member. Mungo's first second request for the city attorney to come. Back with information on following what's going on with total compensation. Got it. That's it. I believe those are all the friendlies that were accepted, including the mayor's business. Okay. So program. Before we vote on the issue and just real quick to clarify how the vote I'm assuming, Mr. Attorney, we vote on motion one and motion two, right? Is that. That is correct. If motion one fails in the motion to vote on location. Got it. So I have another speaker, Councilman Mongo, that will go to the vote. I just wanted to be sure that the motion for protecting our federal funds by providing a business incentive to businesses who employ under the VOA standards was not accepted. Correct. It was not. Okay, I'd like to make a substitute motion of exactly everything that Mayor Vice Mayor Lowenthal, said with the addition of the exemption, not the exemption, I'm sorry, the business incentive for Whyalla. And if I could clarify on the, on the exemption, those are people that are in the program not exceeding 480 hours, not qualified for the program, but they have to be in the program and only for 408 up to. The state it's usually 480. There's I think one exception for reentry I think is the exception. But I know that the Rio DOL guidelines are very. Clear and it's a limited. Correct exemption. Okay. Just to be I'm on the way the subsidy works so that the subsidy goes on top of the two split questions, right? So you vote on the substitute and then if that fails, then you go to the split questions. Correct. The substitute would need a second if it has. No, it. Has a second. Question that would be voted on first. And then you would go back to the vice mayor's original one. I just want to make sure we're doing the process correct. So okay, perfect. So we have a substitute motion, which is essentially everything that was from the motion, but adding Councilman Mungo's additional part of the motion right now. Second, about Councilmember Supernormal. Let's go to Vice Mayor Lowenthal. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and I appreciate Councilwoman Mungo's passion for the issue. I do think given all of the discussion and the movement on the original motion, I'm going to ask my colleagues to vote no on the substitute motion and let us return back to the original motion. And Councilor Richard Brown. Oh, well, I had a substitute. Substitute? Oh, my. Okay. And that would be. I have to add, when this comes back for review, let's take that study out a bit. Not necessarily go with L.A. EDC. Okay. Do you want to see if that will be accepted by the maker of the original motion? You know what? I don't know exactly how this works. Okay. Well. I think that might be something that the original maker of the motion might might accept. Can you repeat that, please? His his substitute substitute was when we do the second study to take that step just automatically going to Lady C, putting that study out out to bid and then. Okay. Of course. Okay. Absolutely. That's very reasonable. Okay, great. So we have a substitute motion by councilman mongo first. So please, members, cast your vote on that motion. The motion fails. Okay, now we have motion one of two. Motion one of two is essentially the recommendations by the Economic Development Commission, as read by Vice Marie Lowenthal. So, Mr. Mayor, a point of order should should that be a friendly now? Well, Councilmember, super nice recommendations. Yeah. I think she accepted. Okay. Yes, but it was okay. So I think she's accepting them right now. Yeah, you're right. Okay. So now is the Economic Development Commission's recommendations, which is on the floor, including Councilman Supernovas. Last addition he just made. Members, please go ahead and cast your votes on part one of the motion. Ocean carries. Okay. Thank you. And now we're moving on to the second motion, which is the sorry. The first motion was the Economic Diplomate commission's recommendations. The second motion is. The. The pathway to 15, as recommended by Vice Chair Lowenthal. That is the second motion of the item members. Please go ahead and cast your votes. Motion carries. What's the vote? Thank you. Okay, so big swing vote. I think that was the same boat as the first. As the first one. Okay. Thank you. Okay. That was a long process. But I want to thank you all for for getting through it. I'm going to take we still have, believe it or not, more of an agenda. So, I mean, I'm I'm going to take a one minute recess and then we'll we'll get started back on. Oh. I'm going to talk to. Okay. I'm going to go ahead and call the meeting back to order. Instead of an agenda here. So if I can have everyone, please, that's going to stay around, take their seats. We can take a roll call, please. Councilwoman Gonzalez, Vice Mayor Lowenthal. Councilwoman Price. Councilmember. Super Now. Councilwoman Mongo. Councilman Andrews. Councilmember Muranga. Councilman Austin. Councilmember Richardson. Mayor Garcia.