Recommendation to request City Manager to work with our Parks, Recreation and Marine Department on this item and return to the City Council, within 120 days, detailing the following: • Overview of city-wide park programming (hours and funding expended in each location); • Basis of prioritization for programming in each area; • Overview of current park programming participants based on zip-code; • Policies/processes that can be re-reviewed, example: - Waiving park permit fees for organizations that are activating our parks in low programmed areas; - Providing umbrella permits for annual community events vs. having community groups apply each and every year for the same event; - Outlining clear rules for city-wide park entertainment, so that it either includes each region of the city OR provides the funding in lieu of, for areas that did not receive the benefit of the city-wide park entertainment; - Overall suggestions for more equitable programming city-wide from our Parks department; and Request City Manager, or his designee, to retur
Thank you. Next, we'll have item number 29, please. Congratulations. We'll have item number 20. Notice item 29 is communication from Councilwoman Gonzalez, Councilman Andrews, Councilmember Urunga and Vice Mayor Richardson, recommendation to request the city manager to work with Parks, Recreation and Marine. And report back to the City Council within 120 days with an overview of citywide park programing and with a plan to incentivize the use of underutilized parks that do not overburden community organizations. Thank you, Councilman Zollars. Yes. I have a PowerPoint to join us, but I want to thank everybody here for their time, for being very patient. I know this has been a. Very slow moving. Meeting, but I appreciate everyone's time here. First, I'd like to thank my colleagues for joining me on this item Vice Mayor Richardson, Councilmember Andrews and Councilmember Saranga. Before we start our brief presentation, I want to make sure that everyone understands that tonight's item is not as it's been referred to. It's not a veiled attempt to attack the municipal band. In fact, many of our communities want the municipal band in our in our in our neighborhoods. In fact, one of my community members, our community groups had asked when the municipal band would come back and return to Drake Park. We had hundreds of people last year that really enjoyed it and we would have hoped to have had it at future events. However, we were told that we. Wouldn't receive. One but once every four years. So this item. Is more so an item that will look at equity in all facets, both citywide assets, park programs, etc.. It's also an item that will not talk badly or attack our city employees or anyone who works in our parks. As an eight year employee myself of the City of Long Beach. Three of which have been elected, five. Working alongside many of these parks staff members. I've seen firsthand the outstanding work of these employees, what they do and the attention they put into serving our children and our parks every single day. As a now an elected member of the City Council, my duty to every resident in the city as it is a steward of our resources, is to sit down and the diocese to ensure that I challenge thought and to ensure that equity is at every conversation, especially in the way we're distributing our funding and our park programing. Tonight's item represents months of research and data collection. My amazing staff who is. Sprinkled around here, there's Andrew and. Christian and Jennifer and Corey. And we work together to actually go through every. Single page of the. Parks program and. Guide and ensure. That all of our. Communities were represented. And as you'll see here, we've done a lot of brainstorming, but we're looking to have this information come back in the next 120 days as we work together as a city on Park Equity. So first we'll go over let's get my ID. So here it begins. So it's important to understand that we're talking about equity, as we will talk about later in this presentation, the city of Long Beach has multiple documents and master plans that speak to the need for more active programing in Central Northwest and in downtown Long Beach. Yet we continue to allow these programs to only exist in on the east side of the city. Now, how do we do that? How do we know that this is the case? We'll go on to slide three. So these are. The two programs we went. Through extensively, went through page by page. This will just be a slide. This is our first one that actually addresses contract classes. It represents the vast majority of park program programing in the city of Long Beach. I cannot make up the data. All we did is we put. This information and put it into an Excel spreadsheet. And as you can see, we decipher are divided it in per district. So as you can see here, there are classes that are only promoted in detail through the quarterly recreation connection, which is mailed to every household in Long Beach. However, this guide does not represent a fair and equitable distribution of these classes. As we go on to Slide four and five, my staff also took every class that was offered in both the spring and summer guides, which represents a total of six months of park programs. We separated the data into age categories preschool. For an adult 50 plus. We then calculated the hours a week. Each park was programed and arranged them by council district and as you can see, north central and west Long Beach are at a severe disadvantage. Again, we just transferred the data. And I want to be clear that these are solely the contract classes at park facilities. So contract classes are small business owners that want to work at our parks and they're then offer a they're asked to they ask the public basically to pay a small fee in order to participate in these classes. And this doesn't take into account the teen senior center hours, which represent the normal operating hours of our community centers and are loosely structured. We have a lot of senior hours there about, you know, from 10 to 2 or 10 hours, and those are all throughout the city. It also doesn't reflect the specialty classes such as the nature center or the cultural center, which are limited in scope as they are sporadically located around the city. Now onto Slide six. And if the realization of inequity in north, central and west Long Beach was not apparent enough, we wanted to walk through some direct scenarios that further detail the issue. So Slide seven Aquatic Classes. I know aquatics has also been a large issue as well. A lot of individuals have said, you know, we only have three pools Belmont, MLK and Silverado. However, among the three pools which are distributed equally around the city, we don't distribute the classes equitably either. In fact, in the spring 17 guy, the temporary Belmont Pool represents 74% of all the aquatics classes the City of Long Beach promotes. That is more than both MLK and Silverado together. As we go on to Slide eight, some individuals have made the argument that East Long Beach has more programing because they have more park space to program. But that's also inaccurate. College of State Parks, for example, is on the eastern border of the city of Long Beach. It is 2.3 acres in size, including a community center, and has 50 hours of weekly contract class programing. In summer 2017, as compared to Cesar Chavez Park on the western side of Long Beach, it is 32.9 acres with a community center and represents 0 hours of weekly contract class programing. Onto Slide nine. Other examples of it equity are based in where we place programing versus where the need is for those that program, those programs. For example, in 90813, we've seen in many media reports, which covers portions of central and west Long Beach. There is an average of about 16 to 18% unemployment. Recently, the mayor had talked about 4.4% as a citywide number. This is clearly 12 to 14 percentage points higher than the rest of the city. However, all of the adult career enrichment classes, which include resume writing, how to utilize LinkedIn and others, are housed in Eldorado Park, where unemployment is an average of 3 to 4%. Onto the next slide. A few years ago, our Health and Human Services Department did a community assessment. This detailed further this detailed report further communicates the need for healthy and active programing in north, central and southwest Long Beach. We've also had information relative to life expectancy, and life expectancy is a big map and it details quite a stark statistic all around the city. Our own research shows that the life expectancy when you live in north, central and southwest Long Beach is anywhere from 5 to 7 years less than those living in East Long Beach and south east Long Beach. Activating our parks in an equitable way will go a long way to combat these staggering and staggering statistics. Now, the solutions part. Basically what you see here and what I've shown, I know it's very stark and I know we we don't like to see these details often, but it has to be said. I mean, the inequities are there. We often have many plans that tell us that these inequities are here, that we have plans that tell us that there's high unemployment rates, high obesity rates among children, high poverty levels among some families. I know in the Washington neighborhood, in my district specifically, families are about 40% of families are living under the poverty line. Yet we don't have the park programing to supplement and to support those those programs. So knowing that these inequities are a huge issue throughout Long Beach and as we move forward with crafting a way to correct these issues, I want to go over some solutions that we have identified. First, as I mentioned, we need to utilize existing master plans that the City Council has approved as a foundation for how we program our parks. For example, see x three study, which shows us the areas of greatest need as it relates to healthy eating and obesity. Perhaps in those areas we can have classes on food and community gardening the Livable Westside Plan, which seeks to enhance the community's physical environment and improve accessibility and connectivity to the rest of Long Beach. The Downtown and transit oriented development pedestrian plan, which talks about how we can access transportation in dense areas and how to get individuals out of their houses to be more active. Yet no programs in downtown the bicycle master plan, which creates the infrastructure for people without a car to get to and from every corner of the city, including our parks and of course, My Brother's Keeper, which speaks to the need for more programing for our boys and young men of color to help address the issues of violence. Unfortunately, and I know many of our community partners who are here like Central Char Wilmore, North Pine, so many of them have been working so very hard. And unfortunately, there are challenges still in some of our districts. And I'm glad that some of my council colleagues don't have to they don't have to deal with some of the issues that we've had to deal with in the First District. Unfortunately, we've had a historic issues with gang violence in Drake Park, Seaside Park, some of our West Side parks. So this is just to be able to say, look, we have these issues. We know that there are challenges. We're working very hard as a community. Let's work together to fill in the gaps. Let's work together to look at our citywide assets and see how we can fund them equitably, inappropriately. So the solutions I'm going to provide today include and I also want to thank as well our Parks and Rec Commission. I actually spoke with three commissioners over the last couple of days. They had been very open to these suggestions and I know a lot of them had these issues as well. They had issues and concerns. For the first solution I'd like to propose is the multiyear permits for annual events. For example, the Wilmore City Heritage Association has transformed themselves from a neighborhood group to a501 C3 in order to support park programing. They have raised over half a million dollars in the past five years to program Drake and Chavez Park with annual events. That is a huge yes. That is a huge undertaking for a community group that has most of them have full time jobs. And however, they must apply for a fee waiver every single year for every event when they're really doing the city's work. So we should look at multiyear permit agreements similar to what the Coastal Commission offers the Grand Prix. I think instead of coming each year they go, they have this multiyear agreement that makes a lot easier on both sides. So waiving park fees, we should also look at the possibly waiving fees for these community groups who are vetted out and specifically want to program the parks that our city is not focused on programing. This is a great supplement to providing equity in programing and we should not create roadblocks for these organizations if they're doing our work. Secondly, the mobile rec program, I know we've talked about it in prior discussions. Another solution we could explore is revamping this program so we can proactively program are smaller parks that do not have community centers or restrooms, which I know is an issue. Thirdly, that the plans, as I mentioned, we have to update some of our plans. We need to update the open space and recreational element of the general plan in our prime, our Parks and Recreation and Marine Strategic Plan. We have not been updated since the early 2000s. I think they can provide clarity to a lot of these issues as well. And so the amended motion, I know this is a lot, but I want to thank you again for being very patient, is to request the city manager work with our Parks, Recreation and Marine as well as our Parks Commission Department and on this item and return to the City Council within 120 days. Detailing the following We need an overview of citywide park programing hours and funding expended in each location basis of prioritization for programing in each area. An Overview of current park programing participants based on zip code. Currently, we are not tracking where these individuals are going, where they're coming from. It would be good to to have that information, policies and processes that can be reviewed outlining clear rules for citywide park entertainment so that it either includes each region of the city or provides the additional funding in lieu of for the areas that did not receive the benefit of the Citywide Park Entertainment overall suggestions for more equitable park programing from our Parks Department and our Commission, and a timeline for updating both the open space and recreation element of the general plan, as well as the Parks, Recreation and Marine Strategic Strategic Plan. In addition, I had also mentioned sending to the Parks Commission the issue of park fee waivers, and that is it. So I will just say in closing, I again want to thank our Parks Department. I know that this is a huge undertaking that I'm asking for, but I also do believe in inequity in all parts of our city. I know our parks commission. Also works very hard ensuring that they're looking at this with a wide lens as well. But I think this is something we can all work on together. I don't I know that it is just not fair. It's not fair when we have these issues in some of our communities and we go outside and there are no park programs to be found. But yet we have high unemployment, we have high obesity rates. We have high issues with poverty and people that are jobless. My community. Actually, my staff, about a couple. Of years ago, we walked to the Washington neighborhood twice. This was not an election year. We walked it twice and we wanted to see what people wanted out there. And the two number two things were jobs. And they wanted park programs. It's vacant, it's barren. There's nothing to do for these kids. And we need to be able to do something for them or for seniors as well, for everyone. And so I asked the council, my colleagues, to be as open minded as possible. This isn't an attack against anyone. This isn't a place for us to be defensive or to be. Take this personal. This is really just looking at this with a very wide lens and making sure that we're taking care of the whole city, not just a few of us. So thank you. Thank you. So we'll go to Councilmember Yolanda. You don't speak to your second vice mayor? Yeah, I speak to her later. Okay. Got to. Sure. This meeting. Thank you. Thank you. I want to thank Councilwoman Gonzalez. She did an excellent report, did her research and and did a collected data, which shows where we're at in terms of the city and programs within our parks. One or the other the other concerns that we have is obviously it's been a big issue for a number of years that the city of Long Beach does just doesn't have enough parks. Period. And with that, we also have that program. So it's a it's a it's one of those issues that, you know, without Knope, without parks and no programs. And yet when we do have the parks, we don't have the programs. So we still need to have a long way to go in regards to equity in terms of programs. One of the other things that that concerned me a lot and it didn't come in your presentation, but you might want to also include that, if you don't mind me making an addition to your motion is that communication is the biggest part of it. I mean, in my community, you know, I have a very diverse community. I mean, it's if you look at my at my district, you'll see that I have three, maybe even four distinct communities in in my district from upper middle class, working class to middle class. And along with that, I have, you know, very fluent English speaking communities and those that are bilingual and those that are monolingual Spanish, monolingual Tagalog or monolingual Hmong or other Southeast Asian languages. And that's where the I think the biggest problem is, is that we're not communicating with our residents in terms of even if when we do have programs, do they know about it? And if they don't, what are we doing to make sure that that communication that is that that is being communicated to them? So I started at the city council two years ago, three years ago, and we brought forward a language access program that we wanted to get funded and we were having issues with that. Well, now we're seeing that without language access, we're actually suffering the community is suffering from being left out of the information loop as to what's available and what is not. So language access has to be a very important component as well in this in this study and all that, the city manager staff will look at language access issues when we're talking about the communications that we're setting out there and programs that are available. And that and that, again, brings the other component, because you can't have one without the other. If you're going to have language, access, communications and making sure that people get the information we need, language access programs, people with bilingual skills, and people who can communicate with the communities in Tagalog, in Spanish, in Hmong or and other Southeast Asian languages. You want an informal community, you want a healthy community. Then we have to do it in all languages and making sure that all sections and all members of our communities are treated equally in an equitable way. So that's my my $0.02 into this report. I want to thank again I want to thank Kazimir Gonzalez for bringing this forward, because it is an issue and it's just not just about one program or two, and it's just not about one side of the town, one side of Long Beach versus another. It's about all our communities and it's about all of us being on the same page when it comes to services for all of Long Beach. And the way we're going to do that is by making their sales access accessible to every part and every segment of our community. So again, I want to thank Gonzalez and Richardson for putting this forward. Thank you, Councilwoman Malone. Yes, I appreciate the item and look forward to hearing the input from the data. I think that something that we should be mindful of is that the district lines can occasionally change. And I know that in other items that we've looked at in the past, some things that we've come up with our zip codes, which is where a lot of the data is available through. So I think zip codes are great. But if we wanted to aggregate data, I'm not sure that aggregating on park programing by zip code of where events happen is as effective as the participants by where they come from. And then too, perhaps if we were to aggregate into some other kinds of districts, I know when we were discussing previous items, we talked about code enforcement districts. So code enforcement districts don't change. They've been significantly similar to what they are for 60 years and they're definable through a mechanism that people really understand. An example of this is last week at my community meeting some. Individuals had heard about the meeting and we were addressing a specific neighborhood and the neighbors don't know what district they're in until an election year. And so I hope that in looking at any of the distribution of things, that we come up with a more reasonable area because when things are on dividing lines between districts and they're counted in one versus another, we have to recognize that these parks, they don't belong to districts, they belong to all the residents. And oftentimes I will go into Eldorado Park and I'll be talking with the coaches of the North Long Beach Pop Warner Group, because that is where the park space was available that week and that's where they come to. And so I think that if possible, in any place that we are discussing distribution, my council district, if you'd be open to aggregating that data by code enforcement district, I think it would give a clearer picture and I think it would still accomplish what you're looking for in that it's dividing the city into three areas that are really more geographically acceptable than, say, for instance, the fifth District, which makes up multiple zip codes. But if I were to address a90815, well, that is in the fifth District, it's mostly in the fourth District. And it can get a little confusing, especially on the east side. So just something for consideration. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Austin. Thank you. And I appreciate the item. And I think it is worthy of our attention. Any time you talk about equity and I appreciate the data and the work that went into the presentation, I would just say in terms of this item and this issue, I work toward equity every single day. I too represent a very, very diverse district, not just in park programing or park development, but in public works resources and everything else that we we do as a city. We have to be thoughtful and mindful of that. And I think at least I can speak for the city council member, me and my staff. We we are on that. And it's it's part of our guide every single day and has been for the last five years. I like to look at Long Beach as one Long Beach. And, you know, it was once characterized and it has been characterized often as a tale of two cities. I think my district is a microcosm of that characterization, but I want to offer, I think, a little bit more of an optimistic lens regarding our park programing in our Parks and Recreation Department. You know, we were here just a couple of weeks ago. Parks and Recreation Department has been lauded and recognized nationally and is recognized nationally. And no matter where and what part of the city you live in, I think our young people grow up with great experiences in our parks. I have a number of questions and I'm sure that could be disputed no matter what. You know, there are there are challenge parks. There are there are parks that are program. There are parks that are more passive. There are different types of parks in this and different ways to define our parks. And they offer different types of experiences for different people. Neighborhood parks there, you know, larger parks. We have regional parks. And when we talk about the geographic equity in terms of parks per residence, there are areas that are far more dense, like the first district that has far less parks space, you have more broader geographic. And we we have to define ourselves in districts, districts like the fifth District or third district that have more sparse geographic space where your parks are larger. I'm proud of the work that we are doing in North Long Beach. We are in my district alone. We are developing over 40 plus acres of green space as we speak. You know, Molina Park, three and a half acres, phase two of Davenport Park, five and a half acres. The forest wetlands, another almost 38 acres. That's green space that will be enjoyed for for many, many years, decades and decades and decades after we are all gone from this dais, this work that that's worked, the city council and the city should be proud of today. I know Councilmember Urunga was able to get grants to develop the Willow Springs parks, and that's another, you know, 30, 40 acres. That's significant. Those are those are those are areas of the city that have been ignored. Those are areas of the city that will probably have park programing impacts in the future. Those are areas of the city that are going to have park maintenance impacts in the future as well. And so I'd like to have that considered in this study when it comes back. I have a few questions for city staff as well. And let me just say, in terms of when we talk about equity and programs, I am one who supports 100% US improvement on what we have. Right. I think we should always be doing that. We should always be looking for continuous improvement as a body, as a city. And so I commend Councilmember Gonzalez for bringing this forward. But oftentimes, it's as a budget oversight committee member and as a city councilmember who's been here for five years. And I can tell you, the very first year I got here, we were 17 and a half million dollars upside down. I oftentimes on talked about that. We have a very different budget outlook today, looking looking forward. We were told that we were headed for some tough times. But this is math to this. We don't we we don't we can't add without taking away. Right. And so that that will be the mature adult conversation that this this in challenging conversation that this council, this city council will have to face when when this issue comes back. And we really break this data down as well. And so I'm looking forward to that as well. But for I'm not sure if anyone from Parks and Recreation is here. I have a few questions. And if you can answer these questions tonight, that's great. And if not, you can add them to the for the study and get back. But this in this item has inspired a lot of thought for me just over the last couple of days as as I was reading the item, I wanted to. Staff to explain the difference between contract classes, which are listed in the reconciliation guide that was referenced in the item and programing that is provided by Parks and Recreation staff. Is there a very distinct difference? Good evening, Vice Mayor, members of the Council, thank you for bringing the item forward and the staff looks forward to looking at and working with our commission, who's very dedicated to the programing that we provide in the community, to come back with this report. Yes, there is a difference between the contract classes, which is what was looked at this evening and our overall general programing. So as Councilwoman Gonzales explained, our contract class program is our way as a city of supporting small businesses. For example, a yoga instructor who does not have the financial wherewithal to have their own brick and mortar facility to do yoga, will come to the city and ask if they can do their classes and run their business in a city facility. So we facilitate that through our contract class program. The city works out an agreement with those instructors. They charge a fee to the community to take the class. And then the city receives a percentage of that fee for overhead, for maintenance of the facility, for wear and tear based on the use of that facility. So our contract class program is the majority of what is in what's called our record recreation collection brochure because that overhead fee is also we do the registration for the program for the class and we take in all the fees for the class. And so that overhead is charged. But that's a piece of what we do. We also have an quite robust list of programs and services that we provide throughout the city. We have 26 community centers that are staffed, and we provide programs, afterschool programs, seniors, youth sports team programing. Our summer day camps are summer free lunch programs. So there is a number of other. Programing that goes. Alongside of what was listed this evening that we provide to the. Community at large. And thank you for that. And are there any incentives currently in place for contract, quote, class providers to provide workshops at parks with fewer classes? Yes. So we do not solicit contract class instructors, and we have not had to solicit instructors for many years because we have on a regular basis proposals coming into our office. And the proposals generally come in with an identified location if that location is either busy or doesn't accommodate the type of class. Our first recommendation is those areas that we currently do not have classes. We have tried in the last couple of years to strongly suggest those areas where we do not currently offer classes. And in the last year, we have incentivized instructors to offer classes on the west area of the city where we have a few, only a few contract classes. And so there is an overhead fee that is charged per participant. And so for new instructors who are willing to offer classes in. Those areas, we. Will waive that participation or that overhead fee so that we can hopefully incentivize instructors to branch out from what they're comfortable with and use other areas of the city. But at the end of the day, for these instructors, it's a business decision and they are looking to put their classes. Or run their business where they believe there. Is a demand for those businesses. Okay. I mean, I mentioned earlier, a little earlier about new park space being developed. Do you know off the top of your head how much new park space is currently under development in the city of Long Beach and by acre and percentage by zip code? And I know that a lot. If not, I would love to get that information at some point. I don't know. Off the top of my head, we have a lot of. Development going on throughout the city. We do have a, you know, obviously our soccer. Fields that are under development, some new. Parks that are coming up. So that is something that we can come back to. To you in the study. Based on the both district or zip code. And we have in the last, say, three, three years where we develop new park space through the you know, the new parks that have been developed. Yes. You're going to test my knowledge for three. Years and I'm a year and a half in. So, again, we've got two forest wetlands under construction right now. We have our new soccer fields that Admiral had at Seaside. We opened Gum Beaner Park recently. We've got the Red Car Greenway that we are just about to start the. Third phase of, and we completed the. Second phase last year. So we've had multiple openings throughout the city in the last three years. We've done a lot of park development and and in. Restructure. Investment in my family is actually a field as we speak right now. And that's a great new part. Absolutely. I can tell you right now, if you go out there, there's probably 200, 250 people enjoying that park. And it's not necessarily program, but there are many coaches and there's a lot of community out there on a daily basis that's a great resource for our community. And you know, in terms of programing needs in the future, when we talk about all of this new park space being developed, how will that impact programing in the future? That is going to be a discussion that we're going to have to look at as we continue to open new parks. Obviously, we want those parks activated at a certain point in time. When the recession hit, budgets across the city were reduced hours along with them. Yet we have continued to open new spaces and will continue to do that. So we are going to be looking at and that's one of the reasons why we had the Peps program come earlier. We need our community partners to help activate. We won't be. Able to do that all on our own. We don't have. The financial resources. A lot of the programing that we offer, our youth sports program, our afterschool program. Our day camps are free programs. And so to offer those free programs, resources are needed to go alongside that. So I think the number is 170 parks in the city of Long Beach. Yes. And counting. And how many of those parks are actually programed? Well, we have 26 community centers that are staffed so that we have our general programing that take place at those community centers. And then through things like our youth sports. Programs. Or other types. Of programing, we staff our nature center, for example, or the cultural center. And some of our specialty centers are pools. So we have a number of sites that are staffed. Okay. So I'm going to wrap my comments up. I'll just say that in terms of equity, when I took office, we didn't do movies in the park north of the Alamo. We added movies in the park at Grace Park. We added movies in the park at the Carlitos. We added movies in a park at Davenport Park in an effort to be more equitable with our resources and to reach more people. And in my district in North Long Beach. Secondly, we also, because of this issue of equity, there were there was a meeting over summer nights lights program in Central Child was very involved in that. That was happening at King Park and Silverado Park and Drake Park. And I was wondering, what about North Long Beach? And so at the time, Steve Councilmember Steve Nyland, I made an issue of it. We said, hey, we need to, to do something creative with our budget to to address summer programs in North Long Beach. And so from that we were able to add similar programs. Is now the be safe program of it at at Schiller Park and it out in park. A short time later that that program was adopted and is now something that is I think, far more equitable and distributed throughout parks throughout our city. So I just want to say that this is a worthwhile conversation. I'm looking forward to getting the information back in and digging really deep into this this issue. But I think our Parks and Recreation Department should be lauded for the work that you continue to do and will continue to do. Our employees are phenomenal and the programs reach so many people. I'm always if there's something that we good at in the city of Long Beach, it's good. We're good at park programing. And so I think we should not walk away from this discussion with our heads down, but. But with our heads high. And with that, I said. And lastly, if I can do one thing in the next three years on the city council, you know, I'd like to get a beach in a district. When Councilman Price with sea. Level rise, you probably will. Sea level rise is coming today to. Say, Councilman Arango, that was excellent. Councilman Price. Thank you. So thank you very much. To my colleagues for bringing this item forward, and I really appreciate the presentation. I have to say that sometimes the way items are triggered or talked about in the media or social media before they get discussed can inflame passions that perhaps wasn't intended in the item. So I read this item and on its face I thought, you know, this is a great item and the presentation. And I thought it was a great item, but there were a few, you know, social media posts and articles in the paper that I thought maybe weren't as productive to the conversation. So I'm very grateful for this discussion. And we are one amazingly beautiful city with lots of different, diverse neighborhoods, and that's why all of us are here. You know, many of us could have chosen to live other places, and we live here because of the diversity. And I love that. And I also so I want to thank you. That was a really great presentation, very thorough. I'm grateful. Like I said last week with the with the mayor's clean item that there was so much thought put into the agenda item. And I'm thankful for Councilwoman Gonzalez that staff. Gave her item support because having staff support on an item that's important to your constituents is really important on staff, looks at your items and is supportive of the approach you've taken. It really, I think, helps have a productive discussion. So I'm grateful for her because it seems like she has a lot of support from staff in terms of moving forward. I like the questions that Councilman Austin asked because I think there's a real difference and it wasn't totally clear to me during the presentation. In terms of the fee based courses. And then I know that the city offers a lot of programs like afterschool care and like. Senior programing and things like that that maybe we don't have and a lot of the districts and that data wasn't included in the report so or in the presentation so I would love when the report comes back to find out what afterschool you know three years ago I brought an item to council asking for a report back on what afterschool programs we have in the city. And we still haven't gotten a response on that because I know that there was some transition with our youth commission, but that's information that I think is relevant. We want to ensure that every child in the city, regardless of what zip code they live in, has a path to success and has the support and the foundation to be able to thrive. And so afterschool programs really do provide that opportunity. And if they don't have afterschool programs available in your in your local park, then you have to obviously pay for those as as my family and many other families do in order to be able to accommodate the schedule of working parents. So I think it's important to find out what kind of afterschool programs does the city offer and are there areas where we're not offering them that maybe we could? I'd be interested in that. The other is senior programing. I know that Councilman Supernanny and I took some of our divide by nine money and put it aside for senior programing because we didn't have any senior programing in our area. So we set aside about $50,000 to try to sponsor some senior programs and tried to turn the lawn bowling center, which isn't really a senior center, into our makeshift senior center. That was our creative way. No realizing how limited the general fund dollars are. That was our way of trying to figure out a way to have some programing for our seniors. So I'd love to see what senior programing we have available in the city as well and where those are distributed and where there's opportunity for for expansion of those programs. I also think that it's important, you know, there were some some comments made. And again, I think sometimes, like I said, sometimes how things are promoted before a meeting or on social media have a way of leading us down a divisive road and pitting districts against each other. And I and I hate for that to happen. You know, for example, there was a comment about how budgets are allocated and how the BMC, you know, makes recommendations. And, you know, I'm a member of the BMC and I will say last year alone we allocated the only part programing recommendation we made was for the Be Safe program, which is a fantastic program and one that I'm happy to support. So I think we should be really sensitive and mindful of the hard work that we're all doing this. We aren't a city that's divided. I know technically were divided by districts, but really were when there there's a success in one area. It makes the city better overall and our parks are fantastic resource for all of us. They provide fair access to everyone and if they don't, we should be working hard to make that happen. That's very important. I mean, who wouldn't support more concerts in the park and more programs for us to be able to take advantage of our park assets? I look forward to working with my colleagues as we begin the budget season in the coming months and prioritizing and planning for where we allocate our dollars. I think supporting neighborhoods and neighborhood programing is important. I also think this is probably part of a much larger conversation regarding other city resources too, and how we allocate those and where we can work together on that. I think residents across the city, as well as residents from other cities, come to Long Beach. For the programs that we have here, we have amazing events that are deeply rooted in culture and in history and sometimes even in recent trends. And I would love to continue those and be able to expand on them and set those as a priority for the different areas, depending on what it is that the residents in those areas want. So I think we provide great classes already, contract classes. We provide great services that are funded through our general fund that are offered in parts of the city. We provide concerts that are offered in parts in the city and events that I truly hope can be expanded for every district in the city and for every community. And I thank everyone who came out tonight, and I thank my colleagues for this very well thought out item. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Pearce. Thank you. And thank you to my colleagues. I think most of my colleagues actually touched on a lot of my my talking points. I wanted to say how much I appreciate those that brought this forward, particularly Elena. I know that it was probably six years ago we started Long Beach Rising, which was a civic engagement program, you know, focused on bringing in residents and educating folks on how they should get engaged in our local government. And one of the big topics was equity. And one of the first maps that was really striking for people was park space. And I think what we've what we've heard today is, one, is it doesn't just dictate where park programs are, that we are fortunate on the east side to have bigger spots of park space. In my district, I have three pocket parks, you know, Miracle on Fourth Street. We've got the arts park and now we've got the park on the promenade. And so I think it's a really exciting time that we've made the conversation to where it is today. We couldn't have had this conversation, I think, without all the work of our residents and our colleagues here talking about equity. I did really appreciate your presentation and answered a lot of questions that I had. I would like to just echo a couple of things. One is making sure that we are tracking not only the programs that are contract programs, but where are we providing services for our constituents through the city? I think one of the great things that we also have is that we have long polling, which, yes, I have been long bowling three times. It is free. Your first three times. Guys, you should go. I've also been many times to the pool. And so how are we diversifying our assets across the city to say this is where we go to swim, this is where we might go to lawn bowls because it's a special day. What are we putting on the west side? What are we putting on the north side to say, let's have another attraction where people are going to want to come to this park to come do something they can't do somewhere else. And so I'd be interested to kind of look at the programs we have. And when we're talking about capital improvement and we're talking about infrastructure investments, are there opportunities in the next ten years to try to think outside the box about how we put something citywide and not just, you know, where our bigger slots of property are? And then I go the same thing I said the the weeks prior, just looking at identifying new funding sources, which I know we'll have that topic through our budget cycle and also bringing up sponsorships as well. But really great job presenting all the data today. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Lupino. Thank you. First, I'd like to commend Councilman Austin. He framed this perfectly when he said equity is something we deal with daily. For those of us who have the privilege of representing diverse districts, that's that's just what we do on a daily basis. Here's a fascinating slide. I don't know if our technicians have the ability to bring it up, but the one on life expectancy, if you show that slide, I represent the fourth district, which is primarily made up of zip codes 90815 and 90804 on life expectancy. One five was the highest. Oh four was was not the highest. So this is something we work out continually. And first, I'd like to commend Parks and Rec for the great job they do in making this equitable in terms of the parks. And thank you for the parks commissioners who are here tonight. So, for instance, we have Whaley Park, which Maria, I won't put you on the spot, but I think it's the most popular in terms of programs across the board, if you can imagine that that's in the shadow of the YMCA and the 49 year camp. So that geographic area is incredibly popular. I can't imagine taking programing away from that. We have a couple of municipal band concerts at Whaley. We don't have them in other parks, but Parks and Rec has has helped me out there. We have symphonic winds performing next week at or Isabelle along with the movie in the park. They'll be at Stearns performing. We have a lunch program at Stearns. I have a lunch program at or Zorba. I see a Rotarian in the audience and we actually have a luncheon next week at Rotary Park. If you don't know where that is, that's on PCH between cherry and wine aperol. So I think just with the way we strive every day for equity, these are the types of things we can do. The only. Area I want to. Challenge, Councilman Austin, is if if we to improve these areas, we have to take from somewhere else. I'd like to start off this discussion. Like, let's just do the improvements. Let's see if we can leave every thing in place and get very creative and see if we can add programing without taking it elsewhere. Thank you very much. Thank you, Councilman Mongo. I think that we've had a really set of great comments, too. And I do want to if Parks and Rec is up for a couple more questions, address a couple of things that I know have become an issue not just at our parks, but also at our beach space. I know we had parks squatting and programing being provided outside the purview of the city. And I know that you've done a lot of work already in cleaning up people's ability to use the park and informing them of the process. So that, for instance, if you're an accountant, you can't just show up at the park and run an accounting firm similarly to if you're a yoga instructor. There's a process and a procedure that engages our community in that. Would you like to share a little bit about that? Because I don't know how much of it is still around and if that should be included in the project as well. We have actually been working with our city attorney's office in the last year to look at. The issue of. Commercial operations in the parks. And so how do. We allow, for example, the. Contract class instructors to go through that process. And to be able to legally provide. Their businesses using park space? On the flip side of that, we. Are constantly challenged with others who do. Not go through the process. We don't have monitors out in the field. We don't have the luxury of having that number of staff to be making sure that all of those activities that are taking place. Are sanctioned and licensed to the city. Yet we get. Complaints on a regular. Basis from folks who feel or think or believe that they are related to city services. And then we also have injury claims and things like that on our parks. By these I would. Call them maybe rogue service providers. So we've worked very hard over the last year to address a lot of that and clean some of that up and to try and convince folks to come through the process so. We know who's out there and what they're doing. And when we get calls. The other calls we get are from our residents. For example, some of our some of the robust fitness providers that are not sanctioned through the city will show up in an area with loud music and whistles. And things that if I. Am to try and get the boot camps going and we get the complaints from the residents and these aren't. Things that we have sanctions or programs. So we are trying. As best we can to balance that activity. And then we worked really hard this year on a partnership opportunity where organizations such as the organizations. Mentioned on the slides could partner with Parks and Rec to provide the programing as is needed. And so far, we're moving strongly in that direction with that fold into this pretty well. Absolutely we are. And as I said earlier, we need the partnerships. We need community organizations that are willing to come forward and partner and help us activate the parks and provide some of the programing. Especially as. We are looking at the next coming years where we may not have the financial resources to do that. And then to kind of ping off of councilman, councilman super knorr's comments about don't take anything away. I'd like to add a comment that we kind of need to start from a standpoint of what do the people want. Councilman Gonzalez talked about walking her community. And I know that's something that Councilman Superman and myself that we do regularly to get people out to community meetings and host those regularly. And we have to be honest with ourselves. Some of the programing doesn't work, whether it's not a match for the community, whether the demographics have changed, and millennials are interested in different types of things. I remember watching Park Activation when Pokémon Go was all the rage. No one talks about Pokémon Go anymore, especially not our vice mayor, who used to play it all the time. And so. I still do. And still does. But we as a city also have to look at not putting rules in place that are forever, almost any law that we discuss. If you want to pass a law, perhaps we discuss that there's always a sunset date of either a program or a law or any of these things, because we need to be challenged as your elected officials and whoever comes after us to address and understand the community. And it's dynamic and it's changing. So I appreciate the comments about seniors. I think that this does talk to a bigger, overarching citywide discussion because while some communities might not have a be safe program, other communities might not have leagues, other communities might not have sun hours or after school librarian help. And so it's really about a whole city view of what is everywhere and what does that look like and what non-profits can provide those services or local businesses that are doing it through the contracting. So I look forward to this coming back. I do want to also ask, I know that Nick is no longer here from workforce development, but we talked a little bit about in the program I'm sorry, in the presentation, Councilman Gonzales addressed some of the classes that are offered at the Eldorado Community Center for Reemployment. And I think that there was no real part of that that addressed the amount of programing that's offered on Atlantic at our actual workforce development center, because a lot of workforce development doesn't happen just in our parks, but it happens in our libraries and it happens in our workforce development center. So we're going to look at that. I hope that the city staff will look at it all encompassing, not just at facilities that are called underneath the parks umbrella. So I look forward to the report. I recognize that it is a stringent timeline. So I hope that we can, if we have to choose between expediency and accuracy, I hope that we move towards the accuracy, but not so far that this gets left behind. It needs to come back in a timely manner, that we can address it through a process before our budgets could even tighter. Thank you, Councilman Andrew. Yes, thank you very much. First of all, I think Councilman Juan Gonzalez would bring this item forward because the fact that looking at the statistics up here on the board, you know, I see a lot of things that would kind of sad me also because the fact it seems like sometimes we talk about I would always look at what our Long Beach is, one long beach, no matter what, you know, area it is in the city of Long Beach. And a lot of our kids, I want them to feel free to be able to go to any park, not just talk about central, north, south, you know, because the parks is for everyone. And I think in my district, in not only my I think when every district, the parks are the kids, I think Lifeline, if you're not working too in the summer, where do you go? And I would really like to see the parents get involved also, because the fact that there's so many things that we can do in our lives. But I think it's going to take a family, you know, participation in that. Just don't send your kids to the park, be a part of the park if you're not working. And we do have any programs. And I want to thank our park director. I know she has a big job when she says 100 somewhat. Parks I didn't know we had that many. I thought we only had four because that's what I have in my district. But, you know, and but like I said, don't take anything away because that's what it's all about. I think all of us grew up and, you know, Parks and Recreation. And I want to thank you guys so much, especially you talk about Chick fil A. You know, that's my gold mine in my district. But, you know, there's so many other things that I would really like to get involved in. But I don't because I talk about equity, you know, we talk about fairness. But then again, our kids, they don't even look at it. They just want to have some place to be a part of something that really keeps them active. Because if you don't, you know, we have to sit Friday night, you know, night lights and all of that. But yet and still, when the parents even send their kids to the park, they look about safety, they look about something to do. And that goes memory. I said, a tired kid is a good kid. Send them to the parks. But you know, most of this when I end up thinking about all of this, when we all really comes to a fruition, I heard our you know, said when he said he'd like to be able to get a I think ocean at a beach, well you way behind because when I go home and wake up tomorrow, I'm just looking for some Thailand right in the sixth district. And then then I'll show you what a party look like. And that's why I want the beach so I can get the diamonds. All right. Thank you, Councilmember Peterson. Oh, that's funny. Yeah, I wanted to. There are two things that I wanted to bring up that I didn't bring up earlier. I mentioned the fact that we have some passive parks in my district. So the Arts Park and also Miracle on Fourth Street are two parks that have a gate and that are locked often. And Emery, you know how many hours we've tried to spend, figure out how to program those parks in a way that's responsible and and respect of of the neighborhoods. And so in this report, I'd really like to see if there's some way that we can identify how we activate those parks or what a pilot program might be . Because I know my staff has spent tons of hours with the Arts Council, with the Dolby, with everybody pulling together, M.O. use to activate those parks. And so I want to thank all of those partners that are stepping up, but also recognize that if we're going to take the responsibility to create park space, it should be our responsibility to have that park space opened. It's very frustrating, you know, to walk to Miracle on Fourth Street, to find it closed one day when it's in the middle of the day. Second, as you brought up a comment around the fact that a lot of these small businesses use our parks because they don't have a storefront maybe to do their yoga or Pilates. And that brought to mind for me, community benefits, which we often say if we provide a business, some kind of resource from the city, that in return they give something back. And so I'm curious if we could explore for every hundred and 50 hours that a yoga instructor has a paid class , you know, on one part of town that they, you know, be asked or if there's an incentive program to say that you then do 5 hours of a program in a park that doesn't have programing, because if we are in fact providing them a community benefit by providing them a space and access to our residents, maybe that is a way where we can try to say, you might have an assumption about the other side of town, or it might be 15 minutes drive for you versus across the street from your house. But trying to build that community across the city, maybe there's some thinking outside the box that we can do on that. So thank you. Thank you. And so I imagine Councilwoman Gonzalez wants to close it out when I'm at my comments here. Before you do so, first, I want to thank I want to just thank the whole council first for the tone tonight. I think this was a good example to set for the city. And I think we can all learn from how we took on this conversation tonight. Well, thank Councilmember Gonzalez and her staff for a really impressive presentation and councilmembers Andrew and Ranga for signing on. I think park staff know it's a tough conversation sometimes when people are looking at your work, but that's a part of our public policy in serving the public. We have to sometimes have those conversations. Last night I had my district nine harbor crews. We, you know, go down to the port and about 150 residents get to go out and tour the port. And it was talking with the resident. I won't I won't name who it is. But, you know, we were having a conversation about the Long Beach City Council and how the job, you know, what kind of job we're doing. And something stuck with me. And what that was, was this resident. She said the city council spends too much time fighting over the things that don't that aren't as important and not enough time fighting on the things that are fighting about the things that are really important. And I thought about that, you know, thought about all the time that we spend discussion so many different things in our city and how it is. It would be good if we took a step back and really thought about our role as council members citywide and what we can do to really change our system and leave it in a better position than when we found it. This is a difficult, difficult conversation, but in my opinion, it's a part of a larger shift that's happening in our city, in our city hall on culture shift. Janine talked about Janine and Lina talked about Long Beach Rising. Last year, we established an officer equity in the budget to take on conversations that place a lens of equity or context, the need on our decision making. And this won't be the last conversation. This is Park Equity. We can have conversations about transportation, transportation, equity, health equity. And that's just the nature of our city. We have a very diverse city and we have to be about the business of equity. Equity means making decisions based on a context of need, and our history tells us that, you know, maybe we haven't we could do a much better job at considering need to make decisions about resource . Allocations. You know, typically when I get that book in the mail, I used to rarely peruse that book. And now I have a two year old. And we open up the book for the first time last year and realize every single part program you're in, you're getting in the car and taking a ride to Eldorado Park for a majority of the contract classes. You know, I got to tell you, I have a car and I'm willing to take that time and go to do something simple as kids love soccer, which is a great program, by the way. You know, we get in the car and we take that trip. Not everyone has the means to take that trip. And I think we do need to do a better job at looking at the how we leverage these contract classes. Because I got to tell you, kids are interested in soccer all over our town, not just at, you know, one park. So, you know, so, so so that's that. The other thing I would say is that. Sometimes it takes a long time to bring the attention to a certain issue. And when it's just like one council member championing that issue, it's even harder. But when the city city council gets behind a set of principles or values a lot easier, the concept of Be Safe came up earlier and I was a part of those conversation in that fight to expand Be Safe. It was modeled after some night lights program and talking with central char and, you know, city of Long Beach. And it took a long time. But what people forget is that it took about three cycles to be safe before it actually made it into the budget. Structurally, it was, you know, every year was funded either through one times or figured out some way to do it. And if we agree that everyone is entitled to quality public services, quality of life in their neighborhoods, then we can sort of approach the conversation that way. And it's not in my opinion, it's not really about parks. You know, this is a you know, this is a conversation that will allow us hopefully to think about not just slicing up that pie. It's always like what part of the proposed slice of the pie do we get? I think it's about growing the pie, having a conversation about growing that pie and making sure that everyone has an opportunity to eat. Not necessarily. My slice of the pie isn't as large as it needs to be. We have to grow that pie. Next what I will say. She says she. What do you want? Your slice, Stacey? She wants total influence on her pie. Pie. I think we all want a little time to sprinkle on top with. Sea level rise. Sea level rise. You are so. So the other thing is I think we have to be honest about a conversation about the status quo in the future. Now, a lot of times we have conversations about how we make decisions and is based on this is how we've always done things. And if we were future focused, we ought to think about who who actually has a role or right to determine the liberty of their future, whether they have a have or whether they have the right to talk about the condition of a neighborhood moving forward. If we continue to grasp that the past and the status quo, we'll never actually address the systems of inequity. So I think Parks is a great first step to, you know, to start talking about equity and letting folks see that this is not about you versus me. This is about one city. And if we can get behind that sense and sense of principles and values that say all of our all of our neighborhoods have value, that your quality of life, no matter what neighborhood you live in, has value, then frankly, I think we'll leave the city in a better position. A couple things I wanted to just add in. You know, from a place of just strategy, I think that and we've talked about this councilmember, we we probably should you know, our Office of Equity, although new, is doing some amazing work at identifying what cities are doing to address equity. And I think as a part of this conversation, we need to make sure that we add in to the recommendation for the Office of Equity to take a look at two things. One, looking at a park equity lens that other cities have considered or think about what that tool might look like to help guide our decisions. And then secondly, I think we need to think about language access. So the Parks and Rec brochure, although it's expensive, we send it out. We should think about how we, you know, Spanish or a link to Spanish combined Tagalog, you know, the four languages that we we agree on as a city that we're going to disseminate information . And so we definitely need to look at that. And so those are those are my comments on the bank, everybody. And Councilwoman, if you wanted to close this out and I will be the time. I just wanted to thank the Council for the open mindedness. And I look forward to our new discussions. And again, thank you to the community and our commission staff as well as our park staff for indulging me over the last couple of days over this great item. So thank you. Thank you. So now is the time for public comment. As any of any members of the public would like to speak on this issue, please come forward with way to do so. Please give us your name. You have 3 minutes. Good evening, counsel. My name is Bill Thomas. I'm with the. Just. Just a moment, folks. Restart my time. Just. Yeah, please. We're going to hold off. So let's be respectful of the speaker and then I'm counting. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20. So if we do 3 minutes, this is an hour of public comments. We're going to go down to 2 minutes on this unless everybody just says absolutely no. Is everybody pretty cool that we go down 2 minutes so everybody gets a chance to speak? I see. Thumbs up. Great. So you have 2 minutes. Thank you. You have the floor council. My name is Bill Thomas. I'm with the third district. I'm going to try to fight dog fast. I'm here to support Parks and Rec and all of the efforts they do. I'm particularly familiar with their effort with a very tight job on an expensive project called Municipal Band that is only six weeks out of the summer and worked on all year long by a lot of people. The best thing I can offer to this council is my experience in supporting the municipal band. For the last three years, the publicity or social media, as people have said here, was totally inaccurate on a number of points. So I thought just explaining the involvement of myself and a group called the Friends of the Municipal Band, well, how it how things transpired and why we are not involved this year in the program we started 19 2014 and we our objective was try to get an increase to six weeks. We helped in 2015 to raise funds and talk about how to what do we do to get six weeks. We find out we had to send our money through partners of Park with a 10% service fee to handle it. The money we raised at the end of 2015, thinking it was going to the $30,000 we committed to raise for the six week, got pulled off at the end of 2015. So we started over with Community Foundation and we did raise the $30,000 and we did make a contribution this year. We did nothing because we didn't want to interfere with the project the Partnership Park has done. That's been very good so far this year. Amazingly, a number of the businesses that I raised money from last year came along and wanted to put. Money yet. I said, Why don't you make the donation to the community foundation and we'll see if we can make that contribution for 2018. And I have left the employer the employer the. I was one of the founding members, but left the friends of the band because I felt my services were not needed this year. But I'd like to have them have the thank you. So that was okay. I was counting the three, I thought, too, but thank you for your time to talk to me. Absolutely. Thank you. Next, discipline batter with no need to say the man is not in jeopardy. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Honorable Vice mayor and council people. I appreciate you taking the time today discussing this measure at length. I will tell. I do enjoy. I am. My name. My name is Ben Goldberg. I'm the current chair of the Parks and Rec Commission. And so we will be the ones looking at these items that you've put forth if the measure passes, which I assume it will. I did want to mention I did appreciate specifically and I did appreciate actually all of your work, and I appreciate Councilwoman Gonzalez reaching out. I was one of those three that she spoke with in the last few days to kind of clarify the original press out there, certainly frame this a lot differently than what it ended up being. So I'm pleased with what what I've heard from all of you. I just wanted to mention I liked Al Austin specifically when he mentioned what things were like five years ago, because that's when I was I was on the commission. I've been on the commission for seven years now on parks, and I've been in the commission system for about 15 years. And I do remember tearing up tremendously when we were so strapped for funds that we were looking at closing centers that were serving a lot of the areas that were reflecting on right now that are underserved on in these contract classes. And it was an act of mercy with the city manager as well as Mayor Foster, who was able to find the necessary funds to keep those programs going. I bring this up as kind of a aside. We're certainly going to look at all the things that you're mentioning, and we certainly enjoy taking the direction from the council , which is what we do. But I just want to mention that, you know, we were looking for water when we were having a drought and we were under budget on that and we couldn't even water the parks we have. So every time we talk about opening a new park, I cringe. I start to see some of the hairs come up on the back of my neck because I know that we don't have the money for the water for that park no matter what, how we open it or how we landscape it. So anyway, I just wanted to again thank you for bringing the measure forward. We look forward to helping city staff to get that report back to you. But, you know, again, if money was no object, we agree 100%. Let's open up a new beach for Councilman Austin and let's bring snow to every district and let's have a good time with it. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Be please. Hi. A lot of people. Don't understand the west side that we. Don't have access with. There are two bridges there, very scary. And the Children's Commission, the. Mayor's Commission for Children, meets on the east side. As far as I know, when my son was on it, I had a tumor and I couldn't take him and he couldn't get transportation to represent the West Side. And there was a meeting in the evening. So that's probably why you don't know about the children's programing results and the bathroom in City Hall. The disabilities bathroom is broken. So if a lady in a wheelchair goes in the stall, she can't shut the door. And we had the Mayor's Commission on Disabilities do a walk through of Cabrillo High School in Kid Park, because I've never seen a handicapped or disabled special needs child at the Boys and Girls Club in the West Side. So my intuition sent me down here and I asked for a walk through. We did a surprise walk through and it would be USDA denied. They said, we can't have the services that we need. So what we need is a crosswalk on work between the Boys and Girls Club and Cabrillo High School, which has the best air conditioning and serves the most disabled special needs students. The curve does not go in a cut so that a wheelchair could even get over the curves on Commission on Disabilities that lives on Canal Street, could not access the front of Curiel High School, which has to do with MLK Park, where I won't even walk down Oak Park. There's too much danger. The reason why we need these programs is so we're not creating a hotbed for criminals to kids tell me they go across to the park and just talk about how they're going to rob somebody's house. And that's why I'm creating relationships with other districts to make them realize we need these programs so that I can call the cops and next door we can talk to each other because they're committing the crime and driving back to the west side, I see it. I call the cops and they never. So that's why we need to get programs that kid. Thank you for your time next week a please. Thank you very much. Council District three Lena. Thank you for a great presentation. You educated me tonight on this thing that I was always skimming on. Just is kind of like you said, Susie. I just read it on social media, but thank you for the clarification. But the reason I'm speaking is because, again, for the LGBT issue, I'm probably the only voice in here that's going to speak up on that. So I am and I'm glad you hear me because we are deficient in LGBT programing in our city, in our parks. I am not a parent, but if I was, I have to send an LGBT trans child out to the mountains for programing. So we need to. Why we're embracing youth and we're looking at everything. Now is a great time for you to reach out to LGBT parents or parents of LGBT children to find out what kind of programing we can be that will be inclusive within the city by establishing LGBT programing, whether it's for seniors, adults, children that's run through the city or contract services that really set us apart from all other cities. We would establish a new level of community engagement with all our citizens. So when I ask you to kind of look at that, what are you. Going to look at everything now? Because I'm speaking on behalf of those parents that are not here. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, Genevieve Peters. And having taught in this community since 1990, also getting my teaching credential at Cal State, Long Beach. I absolutely love this idea. So thank you so much. This is amazing. Now, the thing that I didn't hear and the thing that obviously our concerns for students and children in the community is there are pockets that are very unsafe. And let's be honest, unfortunately, there are areas that business owners or yoga instructors don't want to go because, one, they probably aren't going to get the business. Or two, they're they're scared. They're afraid. So I think we have to we have to address that. We have to address that situation, because I think it's a fabulous idea in theory. And I think every park should be able to welcome the citizens of that area and offer these amazing programs. I think that two questions that weren't answered is why okay. And what is the crime statistics in those areas of those parks that aren't being utilized? Because I think if we address that and we get some equity with the crime situation, then I think you're going to have people because I have had children, students come to my class and say, you know, Miss Peters, when I went past the park, I saw a dead body. This is true story. I'm not making this up. Okay? Now, these are kids that want to go into the park, but they're afraid. They've been run by drugs, they've been run by criminals, they've been run by homeless people. So let's be serious, okay? And let's take you of those pockets so that those parks are actually something that people want to go to. And I think once we do that and then instead of just waiting also for businesses to come to you, how about going solicit businesses that are actually in line with that particular community? So thank you. One one good tactic to make a park safe programing next speaker, please. Hi, everybody. My name is Evangelina Ramirez. I was living next to the Drake Bar for 17 years and now I'm living at District Six and next to MacArthur Park for six year. And knowing those areas is really, really important. And I support that recommendation because we have a lot of moms that they have kids if we want to keep our kids, I've got rocks and gangs and all this kind of stuff. They need to be busy and the way they need to be busy is having those programs and those parks in their communities. Inside their communities is hard for a mom having two or three kids carrying them in the bath to go to other parks in the money that they have to spend because it's $1.25 for it in this hard for them. That's why I feel like it's important. Having those programs inside of our communities is really, really important. If you want to really, really work with all kids, they are the future and then one day they are going to be there or they are going to be in jail, or they are going to be on the streets. But if we want to see them being in programs. Being in places like this one, we well, we have to offer them those parents in those parts. That's that's was my my life practically. We had a lot of programs at the Drake Park many years ago. My kids, they were going to those programs. Now they are successful. They are at the university. In the end, for me is something good and I want to see those things for other moms in my community. That's my message and I support this recommendation. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hello. Good afternoon. Liana Gonzales, my council member. Thank you so much for bringing this up. It needs to be addressed. It's been sidetracked for far too long. And thank you for that and thank you for the council members that supported her in this equity. Our parks need more equity. During my daytime job, I'm telling you, I go through each and every one of your districts, and I will tell you that the third district has got a lot more going on than, let's say, districts on the west side just the way it is. Okay. We need to correct that. Even the city manager, Mr. West, I had talked to your office once or twice about having connecting Drake Park to Cesar Chavez. I brought this up a couple of times. PD is behind it. They love the idea, being able to patrol that back nuisance area and not gather cars 24 seven and it will instead of having the community across a freeway onramp and offramp, now they've got access and continuing to help offset some of the health issues that are going on. So I look forward to talking more with the council office and the rest of you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Oh, he got my speech. But anyway, thank you, Linda Gonzalez, because you brought this to the table is very important. But about the ritual is not about the party. It's all about people, you know, about people. And this one is I live here in Long Beach, like 30 years living here in Long Beach and living almost in the same district. Isabel, one district for Grenfell, for Lumbee City is a lot or would it be overcrowded? The parks to remedy that situation. We have police, but not enough and, you know never really never buildings and then they don't people they have no programs they have no programs and their children, they have no plans after the school. Then what is the future? Yeah, well, they are going to live a very short time. That's why we need programs for the young people. We knew the programs after school and and also that the parks is not around. The parks have other people. But anyway, the park, they knew like they knew many, many these. But I see like many council they no support of this program that they know about. This one is they are not these are not champion in poverty is one listed forget it neglecting. For for. For Long Beach. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hi there. I just want to thank you, Vice-Chair Richardson for, for what you said about the tone of the meeting. I think it even changed a lot of what I was going to say because my my passion is with the Long Beach Municipal Band. I was glad to hear that you say it's not in jeopardy. As Councilperson Price said, there was a lot of inflammatory statements in some of the Facebooking and articles that went on, and it might be good to have staff maybe refrain from using some of that inflammatory language in their Facebook pages because then the rest of us wouldn't get so upset. The municipal ban, of course, has been around for a long time. It's a very, very successful program. I appreciate actually what Roberto said as well about communications. When the band does go play in some of those other parks, like Drake, like it's about to and veterans. Better communication of what's going on is absolutely, positively necessary. I work with the Friends of Long Beach National Band. I worked with Parks and Rec before that for the Municipal Band, so I'm very familiar with everything that goes on. I would hope that perhaps our friends group could work with Mr. Andrews Council District to try to help promote that veteran's concert. So that way we have a lot more people there than we did at Craig Park last year. And I would be happy to make to reach out tomorrow evening and see if we can put some discussions together. Definitely all neighborhoods have value and I would love to see more contract classes as well. And that might be also something about communications that perhaps in the First District and all those districts, maybe they don't know that contract classes are actually available. And you might actually have a lot of instructors who would love to do something like that. So again, it's about getting more of the word out. I will come back to talk again about the municipal band, if there are any issues, shall we say, that come up. But I hope that we can continue to have the wonderful band that we do have that serves about 10,000 people a week among all the parks and also continue to see if we can manage to have them go to more parks in the future as well. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please go ahead. Got it. I've been the lead volunteer at Law three, this park for the Municipal Band Conference for at least 27 years. And we could be 28 or 29. But time flies. When you're having fun. I chose this attire tonight because this is what the public has seen me in in the last three weeks at law for this park and are going to see me that way for another three weeks, a lot through this park. And to that extent, I want to tip my. Hat to Marie. And her underling, Gladys Kaiser, for having come through with. The volunteer T-shirts this year. She did yeoman's work. I also want to thank. You folks and the mayor. For he here and the city manager for providing us with six concerts this summer. I'm used to contract seasons lasting eight weeks, but six is better than four. Also give you a. Brief history lesson. Former Councilman Verbinski, who. Portrayed himself as a great egalitarian. Created a lot of pressure in his day to move municipal band cart around other places. The results were abject failure. The people just didn't show up. Also. Another Ray Ragi Ray garbage in her first term behind that rail. I stood here at this podium and challenged the entire council to personally donate funds to the municipal band. My wife was still. Alive at that point and we were each giving $100 a year to. The band. Ray responded by saying, I'll give $1,000 a year for the rest of time and I'm on the city council. So how about it? How many of. You are willing to step up? In fact, I'll make you an offer you should refuse for any one of you who is willing to write a personal check for a thousand or the band. I'll match it. I don't care if all all nine of you do it, I'll match it. And also. Thank you. Good news. Good news. I appreciate it. Will be two additional counter to life. Thank you so much for your time. We are willing to hear all this. Thank you so much. And we will have our next speaker, please. Thank you. Good evening, everybody. First, I want to thank you. All for your time. I know it's it's a hard job to sit through this and listen to. All the comments. So we appreciate your attention. So my name is Nicole, and I'm the community organizer. At Building Healthy Communities Long Beach, one of the community organizers. And I'm speaking in support of the equitable, equitable distribution of. Public programing throughout the city of Long Beach. Watching the presentation in those numbers was very disappointing and sobering to me. And according to the. Long Beach Club website, the Long Beach Parks, Recreation. And Marine Department is supposed to serve the community. With recreation programs and services. It was pretty clear that from tonight's tonight's presentation that the community wasn't being served in that center. West and north Long Beach are being neglected. I worked closely with help on Youth Counseling Care and. Wyatt, who also spoke about programing this evening. On training called People's Planning School. During this training, residents engaged in a curriculum where they learned about city planning and organizing, and at the end, they had to create a project. They decided to do a project on mentoring and tutoring because there were no opportunities in Martin Luther. King Park for the. Youth to engage in tutoring programs. The participants of the People's Plan in school have invested hours to create this mentoring and tutoring program, but it shouldn't all be on the burden of these community organizations to do this work. It's also been difficult for them to reserve space. In the park to do their programs and building other communities. Long Beach has also had that problem as well. And shouldn't we shouldn't have to go through hoops to do the programing that we want to do. I had a lot more that I. Wanted to say, but I will end it there. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your time. Next speaker, please. Okay. My name is Robert Pete May, California grader. Okay. The thing I have to say, you talked about equity and everything, but I don't see equity when I go back to item number 12. And I see you're talking about, oh, $500,000 in Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act funds for Pacific Gaming to implement a Workforce Navigator program, English language learners and Immigrant Workers. No, no, no, no, no. Okay. What I'm talking about, Mr.. Mr. Vice Mayor, why are you leaving when I'm talking to you? Okay. You're the vice mayor. You're supposed to be listening. Can I get my time back? Come on. You can have the time back. Okay. Check this out. You're always doing something out of a manual. Never do anything for black folks. And you're supposed to be black. That's the thing is is. Listen, as far as America, you point, if you want, I'll deal with you later. Ain't nobody ever asked you for nothing. At any rate. At any rate, the thing is, is America for Americans? And as far as equity, you got you talking about two separate. It is two separate cities because you are always trying to do for illegals and other people and and you may yeah this respectfully I was. We have to. You got to let her talk. Just take your time. Can I have. My time back? Me, sir. Is this a sitting topic? And is this off topic and irrelevant? Yes. Sir. I'm sorry. This is the second time tonight. You can speak on the next item when you're done on this item. Thank you. You've got your vertical on one side. But anyway, no deal. You. I mean. Can we get a little more on it? I mean, if he stays on topic. I'll give you another 45 seconds. If you stay on topic, sir. On top of you what I did, this is if. I really just not want to do it. So legally, do I have to let this guy speak? Yes, he has an opportunity to speak. Although I'm city attorney. Do you have an opportunity to speak if you stay on topic, but we're not going to continue to disparage people's documentation status. Things about that chair sir, please address me. Address me. Thank you. Cannot rebut what you say. Continue to say stay on topic. You could just say anything would is it. Serves no time to ask questions you can't you have your 45 seconds to speak. With my 45. So that's 30. I want 45. Okay, there we go. Now, you ain't gonna be bullying me anyway, so. Okay, you talking about. Okay, you got that be safe program for Sheriff Park. We got the police station in Share Park. Why? We need to be safe. That's wasting money, number one. Okay. You mentioned leaving the city better than you found, not bringing communism. And that missed call that's back there. We ain't going to be better. You get rid of her. It'll be better. Now, you talking. We're talking about this. I'm talking about. You said no. Those making decisions based on me. Well, then stop helping illegal aliens and help America help them. People in the middle of the streets. I'm. Yeah, we got 8 seconds. I'm finished. We can help them. Help Americans in the veterans in everything and stuff. Skinning and grin and try and help it. Thank you, sir. Next speaker, please. And great job making America great. Next speaker, please. Dr. Kathleen O'Brien 539 Daisy And I was really worried that I was going to be too bitter, but I'm not really worried anymore. Okay. Thank you, Vice Mayor and City Council. And thank you to Parks and all the rest of the staff that's here. The first thing I would like to do is to thank you all for everything you do all the time, because I know you are very, very patient and I would not be able to be as patient. And the second thing I wanted to say is that I do appreciate budgets. I understand that Parks has and has got a lot to do and to take care of, and that's not my issue. I really admire a lot of the things they do. Certainly our program is great. And you have my letter. I sent a letter to your district office about my concerns as a WCHA member, but I want to talk about myself as a person, and I'm the granddaughter of immigrants. I was lucky that my mother was educated. She took me to the see the New York City Ballet and it changed my life. That's all I want for our neighborhood is that they have the opportunity to see things that they would not otherwise see. We have to bring them there however we do it. It's not fair to them. Otherwise I can go across the city to El Dorado. They can't necessarily do that, and I don't want them bused to that Paris theater one time in their life. I want them to be able to take it for granted that they can come to our park and see quality. Paid. Union musicians or theater people and think that it's just ordinary and that they can just go there without any kind of controls or embarrassment or anything. And you know, if you've been in our neighborhood, they do not feel welcome everywhere. You know that. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hi. My name is Kelly Carroll and I am a resident of the First District and involved with the North Pine Neighborhood Alliance. And I also have worked in the community with a nonprofit, and there's two points that I want to make. And the first being is, is that there's been some comments made in regards to events and nobody showed up. And so then we just have to abandon it. And I work for a nonprofit that's been in business for 113 years. And if we decided after the first event that we did in Long Beach that it only made $25,000. To save lives, that it needed to go away because we didn't get enough people. We dug deeper. And we got more people in the community and we got more people involved. And we do that everywhere we go. And we now have for this particular event over 5000 events in the country. And so I see it as something that it just has to keep trying. And so having people yes, it was maybe dismal attendance at. Drake, but when you only do it once every four years, nobody knows it's there. So communication's going to be really huge as well and really letting people know that it's there. My other point is being a. Resident in the community is, is that I do want to see things there. I want to see things. For my neighbors that I work really hard to represent as well in the neighborhood alliance. And I want to see things that they can benefit from and the kids not playing in the alley by the dumpster and that they have somewhere to go and that they have programs that they can play with. And if you don't believe that they do that, come on over to Lily, way in between Pine and Pacific and you can see the kids there. So I just want to end with saying thank you to all of you. Thank you to Councilwoman Gonzales for bringing up this concern. And Vice Mayor Richardson and I appreciate all of your attempt. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hi, I'm Carol Sergi. I also live in the First District and I'm part of North Pine Neighborhood Alliance. And I just have a few important comments. And one is that everybody should be able to have green time every day. We have a lot of parks. We have wonderful parks where we we live. Cesar Chavez, Drake Park, Admiral Kidd, it's another park. I was able to do a neighborhood leadership program last week. We did a lot excuse me, last year, a public safety fair. And there were so many children there and it's such a wonderful park. And I can't imagine that we don't have more programs for for all these kids and families. A lot of the children there come to the park because they can't play outside their homes because it's too too dangerous. Their parents won't let them go outside. And I think that's something that when we say that children can can go to afterschool programs in other parts of the city, the families can't afford the programs. And they they're not able to get their children to these programs. But we have a great this is an opportunity to show the great city that we are and we can use creativity to promote. The programs that we have. And and and makes me even better. So I thank you. And I can't wait to see what's going to come next. Thank you. Speaker, please. Hi. Yes, my name is Holly Stewart. I live in the first district over here in Walker building. I spoke here before I use Chavez Park. I go down there sometimes I lift weights and do things like that. I find no problem there. So I but when I hear people in this say they're afraid to come down here some, I understand it. I'm not afraid to go down to Chavez Park. I'm not afraid to go to Jerry Park or anywhere else. But I do. Grew up on Alvarado Park in Denver, nice big park. And I go over by the big swimming pool over there and I go down to beaches and I see a lot of people there, but I don't see them come over to my neighborhood. For some reason, it's assumed that people in my neighborhood can go all these other places, but people, they don't want to come down here. Why not? Well, maybe we need to get more and more equity in our parks so that people feel free to come down here to take advantage of the things that are at Chavez Park . It's a beautiful place Drake Park can be at. I think it's already okay. It could be a whole lot better with some more stuff there. What it is when you talk about equity is making sure that our city is a place where I can feel safe going anywhere in that city and participate. And the people from all those other parks can come down here in the First District and the West Side and feel safe. And I don't know why they shouldn't, because to me, if we all live as one large family and we get to know each other, then we really love each other. We can do that. We can accomplish those things. But but we have to take has set up the situation where it'll work. And one of them is equity. If somebody said, well, people are worried about this or that, if they come down to that park, well, we will turn that around. But we can do it because that's what we're all about. You're city council, we're people. The city we live in all different places and we want it to work. And if we do that, then we can get equity. There is a way to get the way it is to spread the things around. I didn't come here from downtown area to say, take a step away from the east side of the north side, anywhere else. My thing is, there's enough in this city for all of us. So thank you very much. And I think you are doing a good job. And Linda Gonzalez is my councilwoman and I've met some of the others. I think it's beautiful. Thank you to the next speaker, please. Good evening, Don Don, our first district resident. And also I'd like to commend my council member and her staff. They've done a terrific job. A lot of research. And she articulated everything so well. It was just terrific. And I like to commend her as well as I'd like to put a plug in for the Parks Recreation Marine , the employees at every park, every building you go to, they're just terrific. I've never heard complaints about them. Maybe there are some, but I've never been able to find them. And the prime staff, the same way they're leading from the top and they're doing a great job. I wouldn't want that job. Parks, Recreation, Marine. You think I would think of all that involved? It's unbelievable. But they're doing a terrific job. Just like anything, you can always do better. And that's what we're here to try to help do. And in all due respect, Councilmember Austin, it isn't always the case that something added require something deducted. I think we can work things out and do things without taking something away from something else. The seniors, as a senior, as a commissioner on the seniors commission, I would like to point out that this is the fastest growing segment of our population. I mean, the first concern doesn't should not be the millennials. You got more people downtown in senior category than anything else. They have trouble with transportation. They can't get to different places. I've been trying to have a roundabout bus. I would take them to places, but that's I don't know. And in a feeding program, we've got language problems, too. I mean, there's one senior building, an eight story building that's three fourths of them are Korean language. Another building, three or four or some or all of them speak 11 different languages. So that's that's an issue we have to address to transportation and equity and all kind of respects. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Oh, it started already. First, I want to. I live. In District. One and I want to say thank you to Lena, our councilwoman Lena Gonzalez, for a. Thorough presentation. I have something written here. So Long Beach is one of the most diverse cities in the nation. And yet, when I see 100 Days of summer website, I see a handful of images displaying our diversity out of the 100 plus images on its site. And these images are representative of its programing. A large portion directed and catered to three districts, District 45 and eight, where the bulk of Long Beach summer events more than 50%. Three out of nine districts host most of Long Beach summer events and concerts. Not surprisingly, these districts have the more affluent neighborhoods in our city. And so I ask why? Why are some districts not being afforded the recreational and educational opportunities when programing should and can be more equitably distributed? What is the criterion for programing? How are funds allocated to serve all of Long Beach and not a selected few? As a community member of District one and a business owner in Long Beach. I am frustrated and angry with how little attention parks programing in less affluent areas receive while others burst at the seams with the level of support in events like 100 days of summer, Long, Long Beach, Park and Rec's mission is to provide leisure programs and services through people, places and partnerships to residents and visitors which enhance neighborhoods and improve quality of life in Long Beach course services to provide recreational opportunities to meet the diverse needs of the community. But where these programs and opportunities for District one and underserved areas. There is a plethora of studies and research demonstrating the importance of music and recreational programs for our children. So I won't quote any here, but I am here to fight for more equitable programing, for more recreational opportunities for all of Long Beach. My dad in a well who's here, would like to attend a cool concert summer event program, just like those who walk over and even reserve their spot at the park week after week. The owners should not be left to the neighborhood. Associations like City Heritage Association to bridge bridged the gap without any funds from Park and Rec. The Olive. I'm sorry. Parks and Rec is funded through city funds, sponsorships and donations meant to serve all of Long Beach, not a select few. So I stand here today to challenge you to review the inequities in undeserved districts that we're facing. Thank you so much. Our next speaker, please. Our last speaker. Good evening, Vice Mayor, members of the city council. My name is Jessica Quintana and I'm the executive director of Central Asia and also an eighth District resident. I just to also want to congratulate our councilwoman, Lena Gonzalez, for being a champion in bringing this forward. In regards to Park Equity, and I know it was discussed earlier about a lot of other equity issues, but I think that there's a place for conversation. You know, currently in the Office of Equity at the Long Beach Health Department, which I soon hope to be part of that equity discussion. You know, the organization in Summer Night Lights was brought up many times. And so, you know, as we're talking about the parks and this was activated in 2000, you know, when we're faced with high crime, poverty, the schools were shut during the summertime. We had homicides on the Santa Fe corridor in around King Park. Drake Park was on fire. You know, it was important for us to really, as a nonprofit organization, is to take action and work with some of the resources and leverage those resources in our community. Since then, we have brought you know, we talk about communication and really knowing what our community partners are doing. We have spend over $2 million in parks program in summer jobs, providing 11 $12 an hour jobs at the parks for our students. You know, so I think, you know, when our councilwoman brought this, you know, to the to the council, it wasn't about taking away from another park to give another park. I think her intention was, you know, we need to have the same thing. We need to look at how do we create more robust, safe parks for everybody in our community? You know, it's the resources. You know, it was great to see summer night lights and really work with the collaboration with our city and turn in to Be Safe initiative. And I want to tell you that, you know, working with Parks and Recreation and working with Murray and her team, you know, we've been able to activate a lot of programing at Advocate Park at Silverado Park, but it's working with her staffing to ensure that it's happening. Can we do better? Is there a better permitting process? Absolutely. You know, but it's took in seven years, if you can imagine when we first started Summer Night Lights to be safe now, you know, so we talk about, you know, equity and equity lines. We deal with that every single day in our communities, in our Latino communities after. In American communities, as you've seen today, we had ignorance here today. Every single day we're faced with those equity issues. And so, you know, I know there's big conversation about equity and equity lens, but it all depends on whose eyes are you seeing that from and who's at the table and who's at the car. And, you know, folks need to participate in those those conversations. And so, you know, our recommendation is, you know, Parks and Recreation as we grow, grow and grow and that's wonderful. We're getting where acquiring more park land. But the programing is going to be. Spent on how. To keep up. We went 3 minutes, if you can conclude. I would conclude that as we have other funding measure A as we're getting collectives, marijuana collectives, that the tax on those collectives go to these type of programs. Because what I can tell you, keeping our young people away from those collectives have been very difficult. So as we're trying to change them for work experience and jobs and career development and going to college is very hard. Thank you. So fantastic recommendation. Thank you. So thank you all for for coming out. And that concludes public comment. So at this point, members, please cast your vote. Motion carries.