Recommendation to receive and file information regarding restoration of the senior meal program at Cesar E. Chavez and Silverado Parks.  (Districts 1,7)
Motion carries. Item 20, please. Item 20 Report from Parks, Recreation and Marine Recommendation to receive and file information regarding restoration of the senior meal program at Cesar Chavez and Silverado Park District one and seven. Councilwoman Gonzalez. Yes. Can we get a staff report first, please? Yes. Marie Knight, our director of Parks, Recreation and Marine. Good evening, Mayor and members of the Council. In July of 2005, the Human Services Association HCA, a nonprofit organization under contract with the County of Los Angeles, began serving congregate meals at six senior service sites here in Long Beach. In 2012, HCA notified the city of its intent to eliminate the senior meal program at Cesar Chavez and Silverado Parks beginning in June 2012. The decision to eliminate services came on the heels of funding reductions from the county that HSA anticipated for fiscal year 2013. At that time, the congregate meal programs at both Cesar Chavez and Silverado Parks, along with the site in the city of Lakewood, were chosen to be discontinued, primarily due to their low attendance. At that time, the staff prepared a two from four to the council, indicating that it would cost approximately $73,000. At that point in time to restore those sites. Currently the meals are served at four of our sites, and the numbers that are served to date on an annual basis are on par with what the six sites were at that point in time. In 2016, our Senior Advisory Commission again raised the question regarding what it would be, what would be needed financially to restore these sites, and therefore that would prompted the report to the city council. Per HSA. The current cost to the city to restore a congregate meal program at Chisholm, Chavez and Silverado Park is just over $51,000 per site, and this cost assumes serving an estimated 30 meals a day per site at $6.95 a meal for 250 meals annually. So I do want to mention and apologize to the council, I know that this report has been delayed in coming. The original request was before I came on board, and so for a while it was lost in a little bit of my transition. It was also lost in my understanding of what a two from four was and who was it to and from and what was it for? At one point in time, it was my understanding that this was an item that was to come from our with our strategic plan for senior services. And when I realized that that was not the case, we moved it forward to our commission. Our commission, our senior advisory commission then established a subcommittee to look into the issues. They wanted to meet with Long Beach Transit because at one point in time they thought that there were some changes in the transit route that might have affected the number of seniors attending the meal sites. So they wanted to hear from the representatives of Long Beach Transit, and that proved to be a little bit difficult. They scheduled several meetings and unfortunately at those meetings, Long Beach Transit did not have the appropriate folks in attendance to answer their questions. So staff reached out and made a determination that the routes indeed had not been changed. And so subsequently then we moved this item forward to the council, and that ends my report. Thank you for that very detailed report. Councilwoman Gonzalez. Well, Marie, thank you for the staff report and just being forthcoming with the delay, because it was very frustrating, to be quite honest, that we hadn't received anything until a year later. The report specified 90 days. And so now we're here at a year. And in quite frankly, the information in here I don't think is as comprehensive as we could be. So what I'm going to request is that we look at this a little bit further because I think this is very important for the community. I'm going to ask that we actually go back to the drawing board and come back on April 18th. That gives us almost about another two months to look at these two items again. So specifically with the first part, and I understand that the meals it looks like at Chavez and Silverado have gone down. But I truly believe it is relative to the transportation issues. And so in the eight years that I've been with the city of Long Beach, I know for a fact that we've had passport service cut back around Chavez Park. The free passport service also cut off at Park Pacific Towers. This was some few years ago, seventh and Pacific. And then the free passport, although it's not related, but it does still contribute to the overall issue with seniors getting access to the senior center and food programs. As I know that the Free Passport Service was cut off, passed a fourth on on fourth Street, passed Alamitos. So there was a charge after that which was on the path to the senior center there. So those elements, I think, kind of changed. And it'd be good to to see how that when they when they were cut off and how they affected the meals served at each of those locations. And. The first part, I would like us to get really creative with funding. I know that we just. I think a few agenda items ago, we had just collaborated. I know our public works department collaborated with the city shuttle or I'm sorry, a county shuttle to be able to provide additional shuttle services to Alamitos Landing. And so I don't know what could be done there, but I'm asking us to get a little bit more creative, to figure out some opportunities, whether it's through transportation, whether it's through working with our health department, food finders, nonprofits, whoever it might be to add a food program back at these two locations because we don't have any food programs for seniors on the west side of the city. And the transportation issue is still a prevalent issue for seniors getting to those locations for that reason. So, again, asking to come back April 18th with more information and we'll continue to work with you. But thank you very much. Robert. I am taking this motion alone to support the comments made by Councilmember Gonzalez. She hit the nail on the head when it comes to these two locations. They are in the highly needed areas, especially when you look at Silverado Park. Anytime you remove a program, that's one less program that that area has. And we need to find the financing. We need to find the money to support these programs regardless of how. It comes out like saying that they don't participate. We need to have programs here regardless of how you feel or how staff feels about it. So I want to have the I want I want my colleagues to please support the motion on the floor as we need more information so that we can make it clear that programs such as these are needed, even when there's a belief that they're going being fully utilized. Thank you, Councilwoman Mongo. I'd be interested to know what the protocols are, but when when we talk about C one and C two funding that was awarded to either HSA or any other agency that is broken out at the state level by zip code and income and a couple of other factors. And so I'd be interested in that staff report for it to come back and or to actually have a dialog with decision makers, both at HSA and the county level or any other agency that currently has a contract with L.A. County that would be a certified provider that would be able to provide us both types of meals within the C two funding. There's different strata of meals that we could qualify for. And so I'd like to see that outlined as well. And I'm happy to provide any background and guidance from my time when I was on the the budget side of C one and see two for L.A. County, because I think that we actually have more discretion in this that we're probably utilizing so happy to serve or attend any meeting that I'm allowed to in my capacity as a councilperson or as a non council person resident if possible. Thank you. Councilmember Mangold. Would that be friendly that you're coming back with some kind of funding plan as well? I'm supporting the staff report and hoping to make suggestions if they would be taken as a friendly. I'm happy to have a. Sure we can do that. Great. Great. All right, Councilwoman Pryce. I think my questions have all been answered. I want to thank staff for actually bringing this forward. And as Councilwoman Gonzales said for the candor, I, too, did not know what a two from four was until about a year into the position where I finally asked someone why all of the city manager's emails with memos have a subject line that says TFF, what's a tiff? I did not understand for a long time what it meant. So I get that and I appreciate you bringing it forward. I'm sure that wasn't the first of the items that you realized were sitting in a pile, and. I thought it was a cute way of saying the. F for a while. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Austin. Thank you very much and was looking at some of the data here reminds me of a luncheon that I attended just this past weekend. I was honored by a group called Women in Action Reaching Out, and they have been in existence for about four years. They provide about 1500 meals per month to seniors and child care centers throughout North Long Beach, mostly in the eighth District. And they operate out of the Carmen Alito's housing development where they feed the seniors there. They Carmelita those that are a district, expose seniors twice a week. And so I would just make a recommendation, Mary, to possibly connect with them to see if there's a way that they may be able to to assist with some of these other senior meals. I'm looking at what's going on here, 41 meals per day at Highland Park, 51 meals a day. And McBride, you know, they're doing at least 60 meals at at Expo. I know. And probably more than that at Little Seniors. So it would be just a matter of understanding their capacity. But they're doing some wonderful work. Great. Thank you. So there's a motion by Councilwoman Gonzalez, seconded by Councilman Ranga, to bring it back, continue, study and bring it back April 18th with the feedback, the additional friendly amendment from Councilwoman Mungo's. Any public comment on this? Karen resides part Pacific, Oregon. I'm one of the recipients of the smell program. I participated in both the Eldorado Park program and currently since the park officers got flooded at the Fourth Street Senior Center, where Partners of Parks has been relocated to. This program is a vital program for seniors. And Lena is right that when the bus route changed, that that impacted the attendance for Cesar Chavez, not just for the lunch program, but for all the programs, senior programs to go to Cesar Chavez. If I'm going to go from my building, it takes two busses and it takes me about 40 minutes. And it's not that far. So what's more important about the lunch program that that hasn't been stated is that it's voluntary. The seniors do contribute donations. And seniors that have more money tend to put money in the box. So that's recovered as part of the cost. I think it's important that, you know, that it's not a total giveaway. And the seniors, what's more important than the food, which helps a lot of seniors make it. Through the month and having a hot meal. That's why I go oftentimes. That's the only hot meal I get during the day is the social interaction that you create with the people that you sit with. And there's quite a social hierarchy and who sits where in these tables? And there's a lot of strong relationships that get built out of it. So it's a vital program. It's really sad that there's not a program on the West Side because that's where the largest concentration of senior buildings are. Thank you. So saying no further public comment, members, please cast your vote on the TFF.