Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record, conclude the public hearing, accept Categorical Exemption CE-16-267, and consider appeals from Douglas Otto, Rick Ivey, Naphar Isley, Troy Carmon, and Allan Stevens; Uphold the Planning Commission's decision to deny a request for a continuance by a third party at the Planning Commission hearing of March 30, 2017; and Uphold the Planning Commission's decision to approve a Conditional Use Permit for a behavioral health urgent care center located at 3200-3220 Long Beach Boulevard (Application No. 1611-08). (District 7)
Because Ben Andrews. Bush and Kerry's. Okay. We're going to now go back to hearing item number one. Is there Mr. Motorcars or anyone else out for the hearing that's still outside? We believe we may have some that are finally just coming through the door and or in the lobby, but we can go ahead and get started and they can hear it in the lobby. Okay. And there is there is there are empty seats here. So folks who can as long as staff is letting people know that they're still out there still are empty seats. Okay. All right. So if I can just get we're going to go ahead and begin with our first hearing on the agenda, which is hearing item number one. If I can please ask the court to open the item. And an oath is required. Hearing item one is a report from Development Services recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record conclude the public hearing except categorical exemption and consider appeals. Uphold the Planning Commission's decisions to deny it request for continuance by a third party at the Planning Commission hearing of March 30th, 2017, and uphold the Planning Commission's decisions to approve a copy for a Behavioral Health Urgent Care Center located at 3200 through 30 220 Long Beach Boulevard District seven and offers to require. Okay. We're going to go and do the both. Anyone wishing to speak on this item, please stand and raise your right hand. My. You and each of you do solemnly state that the testimony you begin in the court now and pending before this body shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. So help you God. Okay. Thank you very much. With that, we're going to go ahead and I'm going to start off with Mr. West, who will then staff to staff report. The staff report is going to be given by our planning bureau manager Linda Tatum, assisted with planner Scott Kinsey. And we also have our city prosecutor up, Doug Halbert. Linda. Good evening, Mayor and city council. We're here this evening to consider a public hearing. For a an appeal of an action that was of. For approval of a star's behavioral health urgent care center at 3200 Long Beach Boulevard. Just a brief history on the project. The Planning Commission on March 30th approved the operation of this facility at the address, and at the time of the public hearing, we had a request to the Planning Commission to continue the item. However, Planning Commission determined to not continue the item. And there was an appeal filed not only on several of the other substance of the approval, but. Also on the. The the Planning Commission's decision to not continue the item. So there were a total of four appeals filed on this case. I'd like to just briefly go over the location of the project here in point of the location. This is just north of the 45 Freeway on Long Beach Boulevard. The street to the south is 32nd Street and access to the site is from 32nd Street. Next is the zoning map that gives you a better idea of the location there. The arrow is pointing to the red Kia and that is the community commercial, auto oriented zoning of the property, which in the Midtown specific plan, which in which the property is located, requires a conditional use permit in order to operate. An urgent. Care facility such as the one that's being proposed. The Behavioral Health Urgent Center is proposed to be operated by the star's behavioral health group, and they are under contract to the Los Angeles County Health Department of Mental Health. They proposed that we use an existing 14,400, approximately 14,400 square foot medical office building that is currently vacant. And their operation consists of two secure units. One unit is for adults and there would be space for 12 adults and there is a second unit for six adolescents maximum. And it is proposed to be a 24 hour operation seven days a week. It is an outpatient only facility and the maximum stay for any potential client is 23 hours and 59 minutes. So we call it a 24 hour facility or a 24 hour, a limited duration of 24 hours for any patient. But the average patient, according to the history of the operation of this facility, is approximately 4 to 6 hours. The way the project operation has been described to staff, the patients arrived on their own by transportation, by ambulance or by police. But they can also walk into the facility. The patient does not, except what they call code three, which is lights and sirens by the police department. Those are not the type of patients that are accepted at this facility. It is not a homeless service facility and it is not a shelter. It is a mental health crisis center. And it currently it fills a current gap in the existing mental health care system by providing an alternative to a hospital or an emergency room or jail for a person who is experiencing acute mental health crisis. And these other facilities are not appropriately designed to accommodate the kind of crisis that this facility proposes to provide for its clients. I'd like to share a brief rendering of the project with you. This is the this photo shows some of the improvements that are proposed for the facility. They will be enhancing the facade of the building with nice wood siding and new entry features on the building. And the next slide shows you a site plan of the property. It does meet all of the city's codes for parking and access. And as I mentioned earlier, the access to the site is not from Long Beach. The building sits up adjacent to Long Beach Boulevard and access to the parking lot is from 32nd Street. I talked earlier briefly about the project staff has worked really closely. Scott Kinsey was the project planner and he worked really closely with the applicant to establish appropriate conditions of approval for the project. We've added some very strict operations and security features to the plan in addition to those that were already proposed or initially proposed by the operator. Those includes security guards at the site at all time during this facility operation, which is 24 hours. Patients will not be discharged to the street, meaning that they will have rides to to take them away from the facility. There we also included conditions of approval that will document and memorialize some of those security and operations plan. Rather than going into detail on these operations. The applicant will be speaking after the staff presentation and they can elaborate more fully describe some of the operations of the facility. Again, just on the site, I'd like to just briefly talk about some of the improvements that will be made to the site to upgrade the building before this this particular client goes into the that address. There are going to be doing parking lot repaving and re striping. They're also proposing additional security lighting they'd be providing on site security cameras. They would construct a new block wall. Along Elm Avenue and. 36/2 Street on the site. And they're also proposing to upgrade the landscaping that's already on the site, and that would include new street trees in the parkway. They're also proposing right away improvements to the site, including new sidewalk, curb and gutter as appropriate. And they would be upgrading the ADA or the accessibility improvements around the site perimeter. With that, I would just like to to close the staff presentation. And staff recommends and finds that with the inclusion of the recommended conditions of approval that I just discussed earlier, in summary that this facility will not generate negative impacts upon the neighborhood or the surrounding community. This facility will also fill a critical, a crucial care gap in the local health care system for mental health services. Staff recommends that the City Council uphold the Planning Commission's decision to accept a categorical exemption for this project in compliance with sequel. It also recommends that the City Council approve the conditional use permit for this behavioral health care center and deny the four appeals that were submitted for the project. I'd like to also, before closing and before hearing from the applicant, I'd like to introduce the city's the city prosecutor, Doug Harper, to make Hulbert to make a few comments on this project. And that concludes the Planning Department's presentation. Thank you, Honorable Mayor and members of the City Council. The Seventh District Council Office asked me to expand on some comments in the record with the letter from my office on some of the potential benefits of a UCC to public safety. And I know they'll be represented. Representatives of the police department here to answer other questions if you have them. In July, July eight, 2014, Los Angeles District Attorney Jackie Lacey held a mental health summit to discuss the intersection between mental health and the criminal justice system. A number of representatives from various stakeholder groups were present. Also present were members of law enforcement, including LAPD, L.A. County Sheriff's Department, Los Angeles, L.A. County Probation Department. The Superior Court was represented other legal entities such as the Public Defender's Office, other first responders, L.A. City Fire Department, L.A. County Health Department, L.A. County Department of Mental Health , also Long Beach City Prosecutor's Office, as I mentioned, Long Beach PD, Long Beach Health Department were there. We talked about a number of things, including best practices that have been deployed in other cities such as Miami-Dade and San Antonio, to see what works in other jurisdictions and what might be introduced here in L.A. County to help the intersection, again, between mental illness and the criminal justice system. The result of that meeting was several other smaller workshops that which culminated in an August 4th report, 2015, from the District Attorney, Jackie Lacey. It was published by the Criminal Justice Mental Health Advisory Board. It's called A Blueprint for Change, and it's a very large document that has a number of recommendations. One of those recommendations was to use mental health, urgent care centers to assist law enforcement, but also to make connections between law enforcement and community services that might assist people who are suffering from mental illnesses. The report specifically talks about the difficulty that a police officer in the discharge of their duties has when they come across someone who may have a mental condition that makes it difficult for them. They can take the person to jail if they are in violation of the law and be returned back to the streets. Or they could try to transport the person to a hospital where they may wait five, six, seven, 8 hours to get services are more likely. Police officers will move someone along if they can at least reduce the problem and and move on with their shift. What we lacked here in L.A. County and what we've seen work in other jurisdictions is an urgent care crisis center, which is kind of an intermediate step. It's part of a larger strategy that's been deployed throughout the county. Police departments are doing training for their officers. CIT training, crisis intervention training is being introduced to many departments. In fact, I think just about everyone in Long Beach will have that training within the next year or two. The expansion of met teams, mental evaluation teams will help police officers better deal with problems associated with mental illness. There's long term and short term supportive housing pre-booking pre filing diversion programs and a number of other things. We were excited when about a year ago we heard that there was funding for urgent care centers. And when we heard that a center would be located in Long Beach, it gave us in law enforcement, police and prosecutors at least the hope that we will have additional tools to help our law enforcement officers deal with what appears to be an expanding problem. My final comments are that this is also consistent the locating of a UCC in Long Beach. It is consistent with what the city has been doing for quite some time now, which is looking to transform the role of public safety. The expectations on our public safety officers is greater now than it ever has been before. They're not just expected to be versed in the law and know how to arrest and perform their law enforcement duties. But they're also being expected to identify the root source of problems. They are now expected to become problem solvers in a wide range of areas, including mental health, by giving them the tools they need. I believe that they can do their job better, more effectively. This is not just for the goal of assisting persons with mental illness. This is also for the goal of improving public safety in our neighborhoods. And I think if done properly, a UCC such as this with the conditions that I've heard and read in the in the record with an applicant who has the resources to do it right, I think it will also leave our city better prepared to deal with the mental health problems that our law enforcement and first responders encounter on a daily basis. That concludes a city. Prosecutor's office report. Thank you, Mr. Halbert. We're going to go ahead and like all hearings, first hear from the applicants. I'm sorry. We heard from the we're going to hear a plea from the appellants first. Right. Mr.. Mr.. City attorney. Yes, that's correct. Okay. So not we're not going we're actually not going to hear from the applicant's case. The applicant can make a brief statement or if the applicant is here to speak, does the applicant and the. Appellant Yeah. If the applicant wants to make just a few a statement, you're more than welcome to and then we'll go to the appellants who get a certain amount of time. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And city council members. I'm Kent Dunlap. I'm president, CEO of Stars Behavioral Health Group. We are the agency that is going to be contracted to open this program. You know, this is something that is not just here in L.A. County, but it is actually sweeping the nation, this movement, to develop crisis services as a alternative to incarceration, to use of hospitals. We have talked throughout the community here, see broad support from city leaders, from the business community and especially from law enforcement, where we were told that on average there's about 6000 of these met team responses per year and the city is to be commended. The city was the first in L.A. County to develop the the Met program. That's about 500 per month. 50 of those are hospitalizations. And when that occurs, as the city prosecutor said, it takes about a half a shift for a police officer. It converts into a hospitalization at a psychiatric hospital. It's a loss of entire ship when that officer brings that individual to the behavioral health urgent care center, we're calling it the buck for short. They would wait for an assessment to be done, and that would take about 15 minutes and then they'd be on their way. So a big improvement in freeing up police time throughout the community. I want to address the issues and concerns that we heard from the neighbors that are the source of the appellant. The pills. Would you like me to do that now or wait till you hear from them? Well, you have you have the opportunity to have a time to speak. After they speak, there's a rebuttal opportunity. So it's up to you if you want to bring up some of those issues now you're welcome to. If you want to do it after the appellants speak, you're welcome to do that. I do have some slides that would give you some more information. I'll try not to be redundant to what you've already heard. You've already heard that it is a 24 hour service crisis. Stabilization is the name of the actual medical service that's provided. The average stay is 4 to 6 hours. Even though they can stay 24 hours. The average client we will have is somebody who's living with a mental health condition, a chronic health condition. And just like anybody else with a physical health condition, a heart disease, a neuromuscular disease, they have times when their symptoms flare up and they need emergent treatment. That's what this is for, for individuals with the mental health program. They often come in, they know what's going wrong, they've received some trauma. Additionally, that's exacerbated their problem. Their medications are no longer working. So that's why the length of stay can be short. Again, you've heard that it's about 12 to 6 adolescents. The volume is about 30 clients per day, most of whom will come in during the daytime hours. So you're talking about two or three admissions or people coming and going per hour. It's both voluntary and most of the clients will be voluntary. The involuntary clients will be in the minority. It is a medical program, doctors, therapists. They also use peer counselors, individuals with lived experience. They're very effective in working with. Our clients will employ about 50 people. And if it wasn't clear there's no city funding involved with this program. It's all county funding as well as the initial grant funds from the state to start the program. We really like the site. We looked at 17 locations across the county, I mean, across the city. This location is central between the Orange County border and harbor, UCLA, where there's another one of these urgent care centers being developed. It's also very proximate to college and memorial hospitals. Freeway close to the other hospitals. Convenient. And that way you've seen the location with the other map we we like the location has ample parking for police vehicles to come in and drop off clients. It is now kind of an eyesore of a building. It has been sparsely occupied graffiti at times. And we'll convert that, as you saw, into a beautiful new facility that will operate 24 seven. We're the right agency to do this for this city. We have we're one of the largest organizations providing county contracted mental health programs throughout the state. We operate these programs in San Bernardino County. We actually operate higher levels of care, psychiatric hospitals, including one in Torrance. And we're a Long Beach company. Our headquarters are right next to the Long Beach School District. We've been in the community for over 20 years. We are on 46 school campuses providing school based services. We provide a variety of other services throughout the community. We operate other urgent care centers. And you can see this that it is a inviting home like non stigmatizing environment for the clients to come into. On this floor plan, you can see that the buck is actually just two thirds of the building. We're actually going. To be releasing the bottom third of the building on the corner there for a regular community services office. Those green things around the building are cameras. This is something that we did and proposed. And now as part of the conditions of the the permit to provide security in the community. We don't need these cameras to protect our patients or our staff. We don't have these that our other programs that we operate. They don't have them at the other L.A. County urgent care centers. But we did this expressly to show our commitment to community safety. These cameras will be available to police enforcement, to the police via the Internet. We also are going to have a security service I'll talk about in a second. There's the the three units of the top unit, the adult unit. Yellow is the adolescent center. Green is the crisis walk in center. So most of the clients will come there again. Most will be voluntary, but we'll only operate that 8 to 8 is the current time period that we're looking at. After that time, anybody can still come in voluntarily, but they'll go to the rear entrances off the parking lot, to the secured areas. So you've heard about the impact on law enforcement. It's an equal impact on emergency rooms. That's where individuals now go. If you talk to the hospitals in the area, it means it takes the emergency room staff many hours to work with these individuals. The police are asked to stay there because the hospitals don't have the resources and so it'll be a big savings for them as well. We have all these other benefits. It's not as it was, had a program specifically to deal with homeless issue individuals. In our experience in San Diego County and the experience in L.A. County, about 90% of the individuals coming to these programs have a home and we'll return to them. It's only about 10% that are homeless for them. I'm part of the the program will be to link them to services will work with the homeless coalition here in Long Beach to do that to give priority to these individuals. It's a better looking building. In addition to the cameras, we're going from a building that's closed and vacant and dark to a building with a light, a parking lot operating 24 seven. We are having security staff on all shifts. And another condition that the city asked of us that we've agreed to is that one of the security staff will be outside the building in the parking lot at all times, will have two on the inside, one on the outside. We'll also want to make ourselves available to the community. They'll always have an ability to call our manager who again will be there. We'll have somebody there on a 24 hour basis as well as we will take any invite to come and meet with the community groups down the road and talk to them about any issues and concerns. The important thing about the program is that individuals don't stabilize and then walk out the door. Part of the goal of the program is lasting stabilization, and the way we do that is to transition them into services so they have supports as they return to the community. We do that through what's called a warm handoff. It's not just giving a phone number, but we make that linkage, maybe have that agency that's going to work with them, come and pick them up, for example. The other thing is that that 24 hour clock is ticking for everybody who gets admitted. But if that is ending in the evening time, they don't have to leave. They can stay there until the next morning. We prefer that they do that and then they can leave during hours. So the concerns we heard from the community are really three fold. One is that there are homeless individuals in the area and that this is going to exacerbate the problem. We heard from local neighbors and we talked to 200 going door to door. We went to 200 neighborhood homes to their door, talked about 60 people there, about another 80 people in neighborhood meetings and heard this is one concern . A, they expressed that there was an increase in homeless individuals that they attributed to the food bank that's done by the Salvation Army down at spring. So first and foremost, again, you can't get access to the program just because you're homeless. You have to have a mental health diagnosis symptoms at a level determined to be in a crisis situation. And our experience is that individuals don't repeat through the program we're failing at that happens so you're talking about a high utilize or may come three or four times per year. Again, our approach is to stabilize them so they don't need to come back to the service. Those individuals again that are homeless, about 10%. We will work to transition them into into housing as they leave. The effect of the deterrence of their facility with the 24 hour operation, with the cameras, with the security guards outside, with occasional police patrol cars dropping off individuals we think will be a major deterrents to homeless people being in the community addressing that concern that we heard. The second concern is that individuals after receiving treatment can just leave and walk out into the community. That's not our experience or said. It's a planned transition where transportation is provided typically that through. Friend or family member. If there's no other resource, we will provide the transition in transportation back home. If an individual does not complete treatment, if they want to leave before our clinicians determine that they've completed treatment, including have that transition plan in place, then we do an assessment, we do a risk assessment, and our staff will have the ability to invoke an involuntary status at 5150, if there's any risk, determine for that individual leaving, and then they will have to remain in the facility on an involuntary status. The last concern that we heard from the community is that this is a great program. It's absolutely needed. But why here? Why in this community? Because there's other programs. Again, they equated it with a homeless program, which it's not. They also communicated that there are sober living or other group homes in the community. Again, this is not a residential program. Our clients will come to the building, go into the building, remain in the facility, and then go back into a car or other vehicle and leave the facility. They won't be in the community. So there's that as well. A lot more to say, but I know you're sensitive to time, so I'm happy to answer any questions now or after the appellants. Thank you very much. You'll have a chance, if you'd like, after the appellants for a couple minutes. For three or 5 minutes. Okay. Thank you very much. Now we have. We have the appellants, and I want to make sure that the different appellants are here. I don't think one of the appellants is here, but I'm going to read their names. If you're an appellant, please come forward. I believe it's Rick Ivey. Nefariously. Choi Carmen Allan Stevens. Did I miss anyone? Official. Doug, are you here for Doug? Otto. Okay. Please come forward. Let me just first get all the appellants here for a second. Okay. Okay. I just want to make sure I have. Who's your first set of appellants? I'm Topher Isley. I'm here for Troy. Carmen. Okay, so why don't we begin? We're going to give each appellant 10 minutes. If you need to go past 10 minutes that we'll give you a few more minutes after that. A reasonable amount of time. Okay. And so why don't we go ahead and start with the Nephi Eisley? We'll go first. Okay. And the rest of the passage. As long as you just take a seat somewhere closer to the front, if there are any. Thank you. I don't know. I've got 10 minutes, Robert. You can. You don't have to take 10 minutes. That's. That's more. I would have taken longer. No, it's up to you. However you. However you know, anything shorter than that is appreciated. Okay. Good evening. My name is before I leave. My husband and I are homeowners at 375 East 36th Street and also 2500 Cedar Avenue in the sixth and the seventh District of Long Beach. I want to say that I agree that mental health services should be available to all that need them. However, I disagree with the location of the proposed mental health urgent care facility. According to the Long Beach Health and Human Services website, we currently have 14 mental health facilities in Long Beach offering services. The proposed site of the new facility is located in District seven, which already has three facilities to treat mental illness. District six to the immediate south has one facility and District eight to the immediate north has two facilities. In addition, in District nine, there is Telecare La Casa Mental Health Urgent Care Facility, which is located at 66 Paramount Boulevard. They already provide outpatient services for those in crisis and provide crisis stabilization. During the Planning Commission meeting on March 30th. The Staff Behavioral Health Group stated these types of services were non-existent in Long Beach, which is not true. They are. They exist and have for some time now with the Telecare locus, a mental health urgent care facility. I'm not sure why Long Beach needs yet another mental health care facility, especially a facility, according to the CEO of the Stars company that was service all of South Bay in Orange County. Long Beach has enough facilities for people in crisis that we don't need to burden the residents in this one neighborhood with yet another facility. I don't know if you guys have been to the Albertson's supermarket shopping center on the corner of Long Beach Boulevard and Willow lately. I don't think it's a coincidence that the College Medical Center, which offers inpatient and outpatient mental health care services, is located just behind the shopping center and has an increase in the numerous mentally ill people loitering in the parking lot while people are trying to patronize the businesses. In addition, the Salvation Army load located across the street from the proposed site also offers social services. Why are we impacting one residential neighborhood? It can't be for the greater good of the community. We have close to 500 signatures that say otherwise, and I'm almost positive less than a quarter of the people that will be speaking today that say we need this facility live anywhere close to the proposed site. We are allowing others to come and tell us what our neighborhood needs instead of the residents speaking up for what we want. And this is not at this location. We'd be better off putting a pediatric urgent care facility to help the growing number of families in the area with small children needing care instead of going to emergency rooms in our critical care hospitals. And one last point. Of the 14 mental health facilities in Long Beach, none of them are located in districts three or five. Maybe we should look into a facility in those districts where today's services do not exist but are probably needed as well. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next up, we're going to have Rick Ivey. Mayor and city council. We are a compassionate, caring and concerned community as residents involved in the welfare of the community. We have a vested interest in all issues affecting Long Beach citizens. We care and we want to help. We recognize the need for such an air mental health facility within the county. I would like to bring your attention to the L.A. County Department of Mental Health response to a motion made by Don Carnaby and Ridley-Thomas. And it talks about. Urgent health care facilities to be used as a pre-booking diversion as appropriate. The exploration of psychiatric, urgent care facility, urgent care centers. So they may serve as a site for pre-booking diversion of individuals with mental illness and substance abuse disorders. This is a document from 2013 to be to Pre-Booking jail diversion programs, initially as pilot projects serving the Long Beach and Antelope Valley areas are proposed. The proposed projects would be housed in new CCS urgent care centers to be located in the Antelope Valley and Long Beach areas. The use CCS would serve as an entry point for the Long Beach Police Department to link individuals to mental health services in lieu of them being charged with low level offenses. Now I fully understand and I'm concerned. But we're talking about a facility for the county. We're also talking about bringing people from Orange County. In the Mental Health Advisory Board, A Blueprint for Change. The document by Jackie Lacey from the District Attorney's Office, dated August 4th, 2015, describes diversion in the criminal justice system. Is the term often used as a legal term of art to describe alternative programs which prevent someone suffering from suffering a criminal conviction? This report uses the term diversion more broadly, as used in this report. Diversion includes all circumstances ranging from pre-arrest to post-conviction in which mentally ill persons can be prevented from entering jail at all, can be redirected from jail into treatment, or can receive linkage to services to help prevent them from returning to custody. What concerns me is that we're dealing with a residential neighborhood and we're talking about some. Individuals that are we're dealing with as a criminal element. This is a little bit different from the walk in facility. 80% of mentally ill of offenders also suffer from cold occurring substance abuse disorders. As a practical matter, someone who is actively high on drugs alcohol may be violent or competitive and will not immediately be amenable to mental health treatment, may not be able to be received by an urgent care facility. The report goes on to talk about the need for sober living centers and residential detoxification centers. The parking lot for this emergency urgent care facility is in the front yards of people's houses. Even a bar has hours of operation. 24 hours a day is a little bit much for a residential area. The Los Angeles City Council centralized its homeless services in the 1970s as a destination for homeless resources for over and over the decades. The area now marks a huge area where homeless people are choosing to reside. Store is a privately owned for profit business that is currently taking funding from the county under the guise that they are the solution. Unfortunately, Starr is oversimplifying complex issues, making overly optimistic policy promises of instant medical health care solutions and resolutions to grave social problem. Problems in which the majority of care will be provided for patients in the community are just a Band-Aid to bigger issues. Los Angeles County, as cited in the report, does not fund the next level of mental care health hospitals that treat 5150 patients or seriously addicted individuals with habits costing hundreds of dollars a day are already full to capacity and overflowing. Obtaining treatment consists of a prolonged process of calling every hour for days until a bed becomes available. I believe there's 36 beds and they every day they have 60 to 90 more patients than they have occupancy for. The major concern here is that patients will have no facility to be referred to, will be under no obligation to stay at this facility, will not be bound by state law and are free to leave the facility dreadfully in need of more extensive treatment and further care. No one will be waiting to take them back to their location of origin, though Starr claims they will arrange transportation, deserving people will be unwillingly relocated to our community with no money and no place to go. We are compassionate Long Beach. Other cities are not as kindhearted and benevolent. The Irvine Police Department and others have been cited for dumping homeless individuals on Skid Row in downtown L.A.. This is a privately funded county facility. They said they're going to accept drop offs from Orange County when it's funded by L.A. County. Outside jurisdictions are going to be able to legally go back to their carefree, unfeeling practice of extracting and transporting and banishing their responsibility to us in the form of disoriented, confused, traumatized and now displaced individuals. Even though our acts of kindness will result in the escalation of an issue that is not a promised resolution. It was not long ago when there were 96 vacancies on Long Beach and Atlantic Avenues. Currently, retail is getting hit hard by the Internet. Our business district contains stores that are forced to lock their doors now, a practice that a few years ago was unheard of. Jewelry stores lock their doors as customers, employees and merchants. Begin to feel unsafe. They will first lock their doors. It will be a major change for our industrial or retail area. In Bixby Knolls, industrial businesses are fortified with fences and obstructive security measures additions, additions that a retail district's fragile atmospheric sensing experience can rarely accommodate. This property is surrounded by four residential neighborhoods due to proximity of so many residents. I would ask first of all that you would find a more industrial and better location for this facility, but that you would limit the hours of operation like a normal business or any, I think steel craft and the other bars. From 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.. We would ask that a licensed psychiatrist be present at all hours of operation that they chose to be open. It's not fair to bring people from outside the area to a facility that does not have somebody to treat them. Likewise, that all staff persons would be appropriately licensed individuals with the minimum licensing for their position. We'd ask that the Long Beach Police would double the patrols of the premises and the vicinity to include at least patrol 12. Patrols that day. That would be one every 2 hours. We would ask that when wait times exceed one and a half hours, or when wait times exceed two and a half hours, that the facility would stop accepting patients from outside of the area until the wait time went down. I thank you for your understanding. We want to make Long Beach a great place. We just think that we need to think this thing through a little bit better. They went out. They got 17 locations. If we're going to cooperate with the county, if we're going to cooperate with other counties, it seems like we could put a little bit more effort into doing a little bit better job for all parties involved. Thank you. We'll hear from the next. We're going to go ahead and hear from the next opponent, please. The next opponent up will be Troy Carman. I think someone's here on Troy's behalf. Yes. Mr. Carmen says. Dear Council members, I am an appellant regarding the proposed five year Behavioral Mental Health Crisis facility located at 3200 Long Beach Boulevard. Unfortunately, I had a previously planned trip out of town and will not be present at the May 23rd hearing. I am respectfully requesting to allow Desiree Keys to speak in my absence. Thank you. Carmen. I am a resident homeowner of 3201 Pine Avenue, and my immediate concern is the safety and security in the neighborhood, as well as the culture and the climate change that I am anticipate happening. Although this is an issue that is sensitive to others and we are not insensitive. We also agree that this location is not the best location for us in the neighborhood. I do have a statement that I'd like to read from to one homeowner and one resident that reside at 33, 64, 33, 66 Pine Avenue. And this is from Miss Linda Shelton. The duplex is adjacent to the star facility on Wardlow Avenue. The facility has an open patio with picnic benches, lights and a camera outside the entrance door. I rent the bottom duplex to my son and his family, so I frequently visit the property at times, all times of the day and night. I would like to share concerns about the facility after hours, for instance, on May 20th. At 9:15 p.m., I witnessed a man and lady leaving the picnic benches after having sex. There are many times when people are smoking pot blasting music for my renter to hear or just hanging out. The staff facility should surely recognize this loitering problem because they have cameras. The problem could easily be solved with a fence gate around the property. As Star Corporation grows, so does the number of employees, which means they take street parking during working hours. It is very inconvenient for the many duplex residents on pine. For the past years I've watched the area surrounding the star facility on Wardlow and proposed star urgent care grow in crime. I speak from firsthand experience. Long Beach needs to be needs to help the residents in this focused area and make every effort effort to make the neighborhood more resident friendly. The new businesses should be resident friendly and responsible 24 hours, seven days a week. The staff facility on Wardlow is not resident friendly to their immediate neighbors. I am deeply, deeply concerned about the proposed urgent care and their responsibility to the neighborhood. I am I am opposed to the proposed mental health urgent care at 3200 3230 Long Beach Boulevard. Linda Shelton. Scott Shelton lives at 33, 64, 33, 66 Pine Avenue. The duplex is adjacent to the star facility on Wardlow Avenue. I rent the bottom duplex with my wife and four year old son. We have lived here for just under five years. The staff facility on Wardlow is taking a lot of the parking on Pine. There are many duplexes on pine and parking is scarce. They have a good sized parking lot on Wardlow. But as their clients and employees grow, so does their need for parking after hours. The building, the building's patio welcomes homeless people and pot smokers. Homeless people have access to an exterior electrical socket. The property is not adequately lit at night and weekends. The building alarm goes off and there is no follow up. I will look out to see what triggered the alarm for my family's safety. But no one from the Star Corporation nor the police ever follow up. The Star Corporation does not take responsibility for what goes on outside the building and neighborhood. Within the past nine months, my family and I have experienced an increase in in crime to break ins at night with the family inside the house. One home invasion last week. Intruder in the house when I came home. Why? Wife robbed on Pacific World before cell phone. Car battery stolen. Car vandalized with graffiti. Mailbox theft repeatedly caught on camera. Car break in. Gas siphoned from car twice in April, three different neighbors, car windows bashed in, small things stolen. I just just want to interject. I know that the appellant is Mr. Karman, right? Yes. Okay. So are these the testimony from other neighbors? Are they part of Mr. Carmen's testimony? Yes. Okay. I just want to confirm because I want to make sure it's Mr. Carmen's words. Yes. Okay. I speak from firsthand experience. I oppose the proposed mental health, urgent care at 3200 3230 Long Beach Boulevard because their facility on Wardlow is not responsible for the local residents. The area proposes a high crime area, a growing homeless community, and already has numerous social service facilities. This Wrigley neighborhood needs more resident friendly businesses. The city of Long Beach needs to help the residents in this focused area and make every effort to make the neighborhood more resident friendly. Thank you. Thank you very much. Although Stevens saw an Olive Stevens. Allen. Okay. Mayor Garcia, members of the City Council, thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak. I live at 3193 Long Beach Boulevard. That address is significant because it is directly across the street from the site where staff behavioral health group wants to open their behavioral health urgent care center. I am here this evening to ask that you uphold their conditional use permit but require staffers to select a location for it in a non non residential neighborhood, not at 3200 Long Beach Boulevard. Proponents of the location say those of us who oppose it don't understand what we're opposing. Since being first being notified in January. Star's intention to open the book across the street from my house. I have learned quite a bit about this proposed mental crisis center. I've attended neighborhood meetings, two hosted by staff representatives and many others organized by people like me who live in the area and are concerned about what the book will mean for our community. There's a false narrative being put out that we oppose mental health that could not be farther from the truth. Speaking for myself and several hundred of my neighbors whom I've talked with about the book, we are persuaded of the need for urgent care services for people experiencing mental health breakdowns. We support mental health. We support the book. My late mother would be upset with me for telling her story, but I think it's apropos here and she's not here to stop me. In February 2010, my mother experienced a mental breakdown aboard a cruise ship in the Gulf of Mexico. My brother and I had to fly her back to California because she was kicked off the cruise for assaulting the ship's doctor and nurse, as well as my sister in law. That whole experience, especially the flight from Cozumel, Mexico to LAX, was one of the most horrific experiences of her life or mind, made even worse by the fact that we didn't know what to do with her upon our return. My brother and I took our mother to an emergency room in Burbank. Once she was checked in, we went back to her house to catch some sleep. All night long, she kept calling us on the phone to ask whether we were playing tricks on her. She thought we were sneaking up behind her, then running to hide behind the wall so she wouldn't see us. The whole time she believed my brother was really himself. But I was an imposter. She was completely delusional. The hospital staff refused to take the phone away from her because they said patients are allowed to make phone calls. They didn't know how to treat her, and the next day they transferred her to a mental care facility where she remained for several days. If there had been a mental health crisis center like the duck for us to take her to, we would happily have done so. The staff there would have known what to do for my mother. It would have been wonderful for her and also for us. I tell the story because when I spoke at the Planning Commission meeting on March 20, sorry, March 30th, asking for the buck to be located somewhere other than across the street from my house. Supporters of the buck told me, I don't understand. They said if I knew what benefit this facility would provide the community, I would be in favor of it. The fact is, I do understand. I am persuaded of the need. I'm in favor of the facility, but I'm also realistic. My mother, one of the kindest, mildest, most well-mannered people I've ever known, was kicked off the ship because she violently attacked three people. People in the throes of a mental breakdown are not responsible for their actions. They're not bad people. They're not criminals. They're people who need help. And they need a place to get help. But to say that they represent no threat is disingenuous. Most mentally ill people don't attack people, but some do. Most mentally ill people aren't dangerous, but some are. Most mentally ill people won't cause harm to people or property, but some will. And my house is right across the street. Driving down Long Beach Boulevard gives the impression that Memorial Heights is a business district. But appearances are deceiving. An aerial view reveals houses and apartments lining the west side of Long Beach Boulevard from just below the four or five overpass down to 31st Street. Be tucked behind 3200 Long Beach Boulevard houses fill the entire span to Atlantic Avenue behind my house. They stretch all the way back to the L.A. River. There are literally hundreds of homes within a two mile radius of the building where stars wants to open the buck. Hundreds, maybe thousands of residents live there with their families. Yet when those of us who attended the neighborhood meetings went door to door and set up at first Friday to speak with our neighbors, we found that most of them had no idea that stars wanted to move in. They, like us, are concerned. And nearly 500 of us have signed a petition to express our concern. We are concerned because a mental health crisis center will have a detrimental effect on our property values. We are concerned that the city of Long Beach, the seventh largest city in California, seems to be concentrating the full spectrum of social services in our small neighborhood in rather than distributing them equitably throughout the city. We are concerned because our neighborhood is already experiencing an influx of homeless and transient people, a significant proportion of whom are mentally ill, drawn by services like the Salvation Army Food Bank just down the street, according to an article in the Long Beach Press Telegram dated November 21st, 2013. Long Beach already has the fourth highest rate of unsheltered homeless people in the United States. We're seeing them camping under the freeway overpasses, panhandling in the medians at intersections, and wandering around the parking lot, shopping centers and blue line stations. And now stars proposals to bring more mentally ill people into our neighborhood from all over Long Beach, as well as from Orange County. We don't object to people in need seeking services. We object to the likelihood that unharmed people with mental illnesses will remain or returned to the area once they receive those services. Mentally ill people are not criminals, but they sometimes do cause damage to property and persons. Even as we sympathize, we recognize them as potential threats to our families and our homes. We are concerned because the best staff will have neither the ability nor the authority to prevent mentally ill people from walking out of the facility and staying in our neighborhood, Star says. This is not their preference. It's not ours either. Star's representatives promised 24 hour security, but that security is for their facility, not for our homes. They address the members of the City Council. Please uphold the conditional use permit, but please require stores Behavioral Health Group to move their urgent care center to a nonresidential part of Long Beach. Let the buck stops here. Okay. Thank you. Next up, I have on behalf of Delgado. Right. And was there someone else? I just couldn't find a place to sit. I'm just. I do want to speak, but I'm not. Okay, then just grab a crab. Go ahead and just grab another seat. Ma'am, I don't want to have you. There's. There's a few seats right over here. Thank you very much. Every time I find you. Okay, great. Go ahead, sir. Thank you, honorable mayor, members of the City Council. My name is Ben Jasper. I'm speaking on behalf of the law offices of Douglas Otto, who represents third party appellant. Khalid Tansey. Dr. Tansey is an actual and equitable owner of this property since 2012. We're here as an appeal, of course, from the March 30 decision of the Planning Commission. You have each received honorable mayor or members of the city council, and the city attorney received a may 18 letter from the law offices of Delgado. I would ask that that be part of the record here today. There are. It's a lengthy letter with number of exhibits. I don't need to repeat the entire letter here. I would like to hit on a few highlights if I could. One is that there is currently litigation over who actually owns this property. This litigation is pending right now in the superior court in the city of Long Beach. You'll not find that anywhere in the application. Isn't that funny, that the litigation already existed at the time the application was filed? But it was not declared openly to you. One must wonder why. The next thing is that the application refers to the property as vacant. Dr. Swansea has continuously operated a medical practice at that facility. Why was that not openly declared? Well, some will say, oh, no, he's not there. But two H Properties 3060 LLC. The claimed title holder to the property at present actually entered into a stipulation in the Long Beach Superior Court in early 2017 that acknowledges that Dr. Tanzi has a medical practice, yet at that location has a lease for that facility that he's using and that he's welcome to stay there as long as he continually pays rent. Has that ever been disclosed to the city or the city council members? I don't think so. One must wonder why. We next need to look at what is the impact of this of the conditional use permit. Once it's granted, it forever changes the complexity or excuse me, the the actual uses of that piece of property. Well, you're being asked to change the declared use of that property by someone whose title is put at issue in a legal process. If Dr. Tansey is successful in the lawsuit. Dr. TANSEY if the cup is granted, tonight will be handed a piece of property different from the piece of property he owned in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016. All we're asking. We're not against medical mental health. We're not for mental health. We're not taking a position at all in that regard. All we're asking of this city council is that it delay this proceeding until after the court system has determined who is the true owner of the property to determine whether or not Star's has a valid lease to the property, which will permit their development of this facility. If they don't have a proper lease, they have no right to develop the property. I'll be happy to answer any questions anyone might have. Thank you very much, sir. Thank you. Okay. And just so I know that this was an issue that was brought up as well as the planning commission. And so I know our city attorney is going to comment on this in just a minute. But I do believe that the property owners attorney is also here. And so Mr. Parkin has asked that he be allowed to do a short comment on this or a rebuttal to this. And then we're going to turn this over to our city attorney, and that'll close the appellant's portion. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, and members of the Council. My name is Larry Cagney of the law firm of Kreeger and Kreeger. And we represent the property owner to Property 36. Earlier today, I submitted a letter, along with several exhibits to the city clerk. And I hope you've had an opportunity to review those. I'll draw your attention to two documents. They are really the key documents that should concern the Council with respect to this issue of ownership of the property. Exhibit one is the deed that Dr. Tansey executed in 2014 in which he transferred. All right. Title and interest to the property at 3200 Long Beach Boulevard to PUR and goes to an LLC. The second document that is critical to the Council's consideration is Exhibit two, which is a deed from J. K Perron Guster, LLC to to which property 3060, which was executed in October of 2016 last year when two H paid $2.65 million for the property and in an arm's length transaction. Now, Mr. Otto's appeal was voluminous and he raises countless points in it, and there are answers to all of those points and which contests all of it. And we could respond to each of those points, but we don't have that time here and we don't have the procedures here to examine all of these disputes and and all of the evidence. But the good news is that's happening somewhere else. That's happening at 275 Magnolia Avenue in the Superior Court. Those proceedings are underway. They are on track for orderly resolution. And there is no reason for this body to delve beneath and behind the record title to this property, to weigh in on what we believe to be farfetched claims by Dr. Tanzi that that he owns the property . Mr. Jasper commented that the fact of the stipulation that was entered between two agent and Dr. Tansey, by which he is remaining in possession of a portion of the building, was not disclosed to the city. And I have to take issue with that because I personally delivered that document to the Planning Commission on March 30th when we addressed this issue the last time around. And with respect to Dr. Torrance's claim of operating A and ongoing practice, I don't know how many of you have been by that property, but two inches there regularly and I go by there regularly. Dr. Tansey is not active there. No one has seen him there for six months. What we have here is an attempt to delay and frustrate a very much needed project in this city. And we would urge the city not to jump into this issue of of the claims of ownership and to instead defer those decisions to the superior court at to 75 Magnolia. Thank you. I'll take any. Questions you have. Thank you very much. So I'm going to I'm going to allow our city attorney to comment to me. I know that our attorney office addressed this at the planning commission level as well. So, Mr. Park. I'm sorry. I'm not real. Good, actually. I'm sorry. It's it's not it's not comment yet. It's okay. That was for the appellants Mr. City. Mr. Park in thanking. Them it was the city council matters. As you indicated, this matter that was brought up by Mr. Otto's office and the over the ownership issue is currently pending in the Superior Court. That's the only thing that I think everyone can agree on. The the issue of of the applicant and the owner. Of the property did submit an application under penalty of perjury that they're the owner. They did provide a valid title. The staff had done a title search and title insurance. And under the Streamlining Act, we don't believe it's appropriate that the Council will have to wait this matter, although it is scheduled for trial in September. And unlawful detainer, I believe. In the end of this month could be appealed, could be continued, and it could be two or three years before the legal issues are over. And so we felt that it was appropriate and within the Planning Commission's jurisdiction to deny the appeal, to continue this, to allow the resolution. And we do not have any basis to change that opinion. Thank you. So with that, we have concluded the appellant's portion. The applicant does get an opportunity to rebuttal any of the appellant's comments just for 2 minutes, if there's anything that you want to add. Thank you. Just for clarification on a couple of items that were mentioned by the other appellants, the couple mentioned that we are going to be serving individuals from Orange County. I don't know where that came from, except perhaps my statement about the location being equidistant from the Orange County border. It will not serve Orange County. This is a L.A. County program. Orange County actually already has one of these urgent care centers, and they're in the process of opening a second one. Secondly, that there was a discussion about the need. And well, let me first talk about the discussion about our office at 100 Wardlow. Just for clarification, that is not an urgent care center. It is a counseling office that operates during daytime hours. This is the first I've heard that individuals are smoking pot and having sex on our picnic bench. We will certainly address that. But actually we had positive feedback when we had our meeting with the Del Mar Association that's most proximate to that location. People didn't even know that that site was there. There was talk about drug dealing going on, on the street, in front. And as a result of that, we actually added cameras and lights to the front of our building in response. That was the first we heard that. We're happy to work with the community. We'll certainly address this issue that we've discovered this evening. I'll leave it at that. Thanks. Thank you. So. Before we go to the counsel conversation, deliberation will go to public comment to start off public comment. We do have a member of the school board that's here that's going to make comments on behalf of herself and the school board. And I know the county supervisor has a deputy that also makes some comments and everyone else please public comment, come forward. Good evening, Honorable Mayor, City Council members. My name is Megan Curr. I'm the vice president of the Board of Education for Long. Beach Unified School District. And a proud eighth District resident actually reside just a little over a mile from the proposed facility where I raised my three children. I want to thank the Planning Commission. For their very thorough work and their very fair decision to move this forward. As a member of the school board, we fully support this facility. Fully support. On record with STAR is a letter. From our assistant superintendent, Dr. Tiffany. Brown of Student. Support Services, talking about the great need that this will fill for our families and our students. As a native. And lifelong resident of the area. And having a personal stake in this as well as being a school board member. We need this facility. And we need this facility as soon as possible to serve our students and their families. There's a lot of other izing happening here about the others who will come and be served by this facility. This facility will serve us. This facility will serve my family. This city. This facility will serve my friends, family, my friends, children, our communities, families and children. So I stand before you today and strongly urge you to support the Planning Commission in supporting our families and our children in a very. Accessible. And close proximity center where they can get the help that they need in the moment that they need it. Thank you for your consideration tonight. Thank you. Next speaker, please. I am her Linda Chico. I'm a representative from Supervisor Janice Hahn's office. The new county supervisor, the fourth supervisor supervisory district has a letter of support that I'd like to read into record. Dear Mayor Garcia and City Council. I am writing in support of the permit for a proposed Long Beach Outpatient Behavioral Urgent Care Center, which will be operated by the star's behavioral health group. Too often, individuals who suffer from mental health crisis are not given the adequate care and services they need to make a positive shift in their lives. Instead, they may end up cycling in and out of hospitals and jails. The Urgent Care center would provide a safe, effective alternative for these individuals. This will reduce the impact on hospital emergency rooms. The Long Beach Police Department and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. I am committed to working in partnership with you, city council and the residents of Long Beach to ensure that the operator is able to provide care in a way that is acceptable to the community in which it operates. Thank you for your consideration in advance. Sincerely, Janice Hahn, Supervisor, Fourth District. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Thank you. I hate public speaking. I get really nervous. I'm Michelle Gray. I live at 3616 Pacific Avenue. My husband and I have been there for 30 years. We have seen a big change. In the neighborhood and in the area. We are tired of feeling like the city crams down our throats what they want to do. I do believe this is a necessary thing that we need, but it's not needed in this neighborhood. They need to find a different place to locate this. From what I. Heard, it sounds like it's not even. A legal matter that this guy doesn't even have the deeds, the rights to do this. I'm confused about why we were even considering it in the first place. And secondly, I just wanted to make a clarification. I believe. This is on the south. Side of the four or five, not the north side. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hi, I'm Lisa Jacob. I'm a Long Beach resident of the third district and I work at Community Hospital Long Beach. I think that's in the fourth district. I am in support of this mental health care. I'd actually suggest changing the name to mental health instead of behavioral health, but that's okay. I do also agree that the burden would be lessened. The local Long Beach emergency departments, mental health patients have very special needs and so often people seeking mental health services, they don't know where to go. So this this urgent care would be have staff to triage these patients appropriately, as opposed to the emergency department where we're dealing with gunshot wounds and medical crises and all kinds of things. Someone mentioned that the there might be dangerous people coming, that the police would be bringing dangerous people, I believe, by Long Beach police departments. They are police officers are very well trained and they know if they have someone who's 51, 50 violent, that they'll take them straight to community hospital where they will be properly handled and hospitalized. So I think we need to give credit to our Long Beach police officers who they know they can do a lot of triage in the in the field. So those types of patients wouldn't be brought to this urgent care center. I also want to verbalize that as we would be welcoming to partner with this urgent care. So we're just a phone call away if somebody does need to be hospitalized. There are several hospitals in the area that do take 5150. So thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Hi. Thank you very much. My name is Dr. Maria Chandler. I'm the chief medical officer of the children's clinic. Dr. Lisa Nicholas is our CEO and has submitted a letter of support. I've been the chief medical officer for 25 years. The children's clinic, despite its name, sees patients of all ages. We have 11 sites in a mobile unit, all located in Long Beach. We are a community health center where a patient center and medical home, and we have integrated behavioral health with primary care. We see 40,000 of the most vulnerable patients in Long Beach every year. We we do 125,000. Visits in a year. We have over 60 physicians and ten behavioral health therapists. Who see many with acute illness. We do about 400 internal behavioral health. Referrals per. Month in our clinic system. We have partnered with stars for many years. We don't believe that the ERs and the hospitals are the answer. To most of the mental health patients that we serve. We are helping. To train Long Beach and trauma informed care. Dr. Nicholas and I have gone around and trained thousands of staff to. Respond appropriately to. Those in crisis. We fully support the urgent care. It would. Do. An incredible service to both our. Providers by relieving them on having a place to send our patients and to our patients. In crisis. And this location. Happens to be very convenient to those that we serve, especially our largest site, which. Is located on Atlantic and 28th, just a few blocks away. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Hi. My name is Roman on it. I'm from the fifth District. This is a little bit difficult for me to to talk about this. I have a relative that has a mental illness, and I'm not going to get into that. But I've had some friends that I grew up in high school that are not all that they had schizophrenia. That's a very difficult thing to to work with and. One of the most difficult things for me is I understand the the issues that that the Wrigley area is talking about. And I don't know how to address some of the parking issues or anything of that nature. But I do support having some kind of a psychological facility. In in this the city, it's so valuable to have. I don't know all of the details and I don't want to try to guess it. Let's do this or let's do that. As it relates to parking or the location, I hope that the City Council will be able to use their best judgment with the information that they have to to do what's right. One of the things that I did notice is that there's a lot of security issues that that people are concerned about and ordering as a suggestion. One of the things that I think would be good and that's been suggested to me, I guess, from others as well, is perhaps having some busses that would take the people back to where they came from. This might help relieve some of the, you know, the congestion that we have. In addition, I was doing my best to listen to the. The other folks. I do agree that having a licensed psychiatrist on staff 24 seven is certainly more than recommended, is probably required. I would definitely say that. There's a lot of things that I've grown to understand as I've gotten older in seeing a lot of these people with the psychological problems that we have. And I've also seen my own councilperson struggle with this type of. You know, issues with her district. And this is a difficult problem. I know. And I just. I don't know what to say about the Wrigley District. There's a density issue. I know. And. It's just a tough one. I don't know how to say it, but other otherwise, I'm in agreement with the facility that you guys deal with the rest soon. Okay. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Is evening. Honorable Mayor, members of the council. My name is Rene Castro. I'm a proud resident of the third district. And here tonight, on behalf of century villages at Cabrillo, we are a permanent supportive housing community located in the seventh District. Thank you, Roberto, for your support. We're here tonight to support this facility and request that the council move forward with the application. This is obviously a huge need within our community. It serves a very vital gap. It's cost efficient, supports our police officers or fire, provides a safe place for residents to find a place where they can have a safe space to heal themselves. And speaking personally, being it at century villages to be exposed to. We have 1300 people that are all formally homeless. And at some point I'm sure we're in crisis like this. And now we have a vibrant community. Today we had a wonderful fair and to see those those residents who at one point were in crisis now thriving is a wonderful thing. So we hope that you do the right thing. I know you will. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Hi. Thank you very much. My name is Debbie Freeman. I'm the director of clinical services at Jewish Family and Children's Service of Long Beach in West Orange County. And I'm here to speak on behalf of our facility in support of the Behavioral Health Urgent Care Center. JFK provides much needed mental health counseling and other social services to over 1600 people every year. We assist people of all religions, ethnicities, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation who are struggling with issues like anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, grief, and a multitude of life's other challenges. We're here to support the individuals and families of Long Beach who need your help. I have prepared a long example for you. I'm not going to give it because you've had multiple examples of the need for this. So all I really want to say is that the people that we would refer to this type of a facility are not homeless. They are not a danger to others. They are community members who are in need of help. And we urge you to support this. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Good evening, City Council. My name is Manolo Montoya and I may be 12, but I totally go for this project idea because one not only is it helpful, but two, it's just like convenient for everybody because Long Beach, we have all seen the herd that is on this place. And what if we can shift this around, be using this facility? And that would be great because that would be actually be a ticket to getting rid of homelessness. And I've been told that it takes a village to raise a child. And today, I want to talk to you about the child from the village that needs your support. Albie USD has been serving our special needs students for over 40 years and all students graduate annually on average about the age of 18. So our graduating, where I have those special needs students gone. They've stayed right here in Long Beach, L.A. County, eight. That's where when they need urgent behavioral assistance. Where do you want them to go? Harbor UCLA. Harbor UCLA is scarier than prison and filthier than anything you've ever seen. I'm sorry. It's. That's true. Yeah. Okay. Do we want our special needs students to be heard and helped? Of course we do. They're our. Children, and everybody deserves a chance to learn. Equally, special students, regular grades. Why would Long Beach benefit to have a. Behavioral urgent care clinic? If you visit Harbor UCLA, like I said, then you would truly know why our special needs children and adults need their care to be a lot more special. It's honestly a title giveaway because it's because we're not educating them to fit ourselves. We're educating them to fit them. And about some facts about the U.S. which really dedicates and why we need this building is that did you know that approximately over 5% of the US residents have a serious mental illness? We're talking savage nurse. World Health Organization reports that substance use and mental illness are the prime cause. A disability, mental health and suicide are connected. In their prayers. Suicide is the second leading cause of death for ages 10 to 24. More teenagers and young adults die from suicide than from cancer, heart disease, AIDS, birth defects, stroke, stroke, pneumonia, influenza and chronic lung disease combined. Each day in our nation there there's an average of over 5000 to 140 suicide attempts by young people, grades 7 to 12. Four out of five teens who attempt suicide have given clear warning to this. Ladies and gentlemen, see the need and be the village that helps read this, the child and approve this proposal to help our local citizens right here in Long Beach together. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker. How do you follow that? So my name is Joanna. Archangel and I'm. Here to represent. Project Return Peer Support Network. And we'd like to show our support for a star of Youth Mental. Health, Urgent Care. And I want to speak to you too. As a peer myself, I represent the mentally ill as well. When you see that, when you hear those words, you don't see your face. But here I am before you. And I've experienced homelessness and hospitalization, and now I'm working as the program coordinator at Hacienda of Hope, the peer run respite care center. And we'd also like to offer our services in support of this behavioral health care urgent center. And we would be honored to do so at what we do here at Hacienda of Hope. We're actually located at Century Village. Is that Cabrillo as well? And we have ten bedrooms staffed with peers only, and we don't have any clinical or medical staff. And we service about, I'd say, 3 to 400 individuals. With mental illness within the past four years, less than four years that we've been open. And I can tell you that much that we've only had to call the police that maybe. Five times within those four years. And it wasn't a threat to them, our neighborhood, but more to themselves. And so the program we would provide also immediate access to treatment for people experiencing a mental health crisis. Having immediate access to treatment drastically reduces the spiraling effect of. Going untreated or mistreated in other environments where maybe the individuals there are not as trained in mental health. It will be a police hospital, emergency rooms. Family members, professionals, quick access to those in need due to lower wait times for the treatment. It also adds an unmet need in Long Beach by offering another treatment option in our service system, where those in need can be seen in a more timely manner, which actually increases the chance of follow up care. And again, I urge you to look at mentally ill is a different definition. I stand before you as the mother of a toddler child who is three without the services that were provided to me. I wouldn't be here in front of you today. And we would really love to support this urgent care. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Stephanie Dawson, CEO Council District two. In 2016, my best friend in the world, the man who was the best man at my wedding, was living downstairs from us at the time and had a bit of a relapse from a serious alcohol problem that he's been dealing with over the last couple of years . For the next three days, he walked himself inside of his room and was continuing to drink himself. Frankly, to death with no access to food or any other services. Myself, as an attorney who has been trained in legal service and. Helping people access legal services. My sister, who is a. Waste and social worker and works in a mental health facility in Riverside County, all in myself with experience. Working for the city of Long Beach and knowing all the services that we have available to them, we're unable to to. Assist them at that time. I called every single resource I could possibly think of and for getting a and this may be going to shorten the people were saying that we have enough services in the city for an acute alcoholic suffering from a acute mental health crisis at this point and a corresponding relapse. It would take him a month in the city of Long Beach to get a bed for detox, something that should be happening immediately and corresponding with. Mental health treatment. Frankly, we by the grace of God and by the really good support of the folks that they will be, PD were able. To get him a 5150 status and a bed inside of community hospital where he received. The treatment. That he had that he needed and is now working a great job in the state of New York. I'm telling the story, frankly, because this is I mean, I just can't believe the people who are coming up today. And saying that this is something that is redundant care or. Unnecessary. This is an extreme need, you know, regardless of the status of the income of the people who are going to be coming into it. This is a human right. Access to mental health facility to mental health is something that. God forbid, we as individuals don't need. But at the same time, it is something that we're all one loss of a job, one substance abuse problem, one traumatic event in your family from having. To access it. Any one of us, regardless of what background we're coming from, regardless of our educational levels, regardless of the amount of money in our pocket, we will need this. There's a good possibility that at some point in your life, so many in this room is going to need this facility. And if we don't have it, I don't even want to think about the consequences. So please vote in favor. Of this today. Thank you. Thank you. Where just because of the length of the public comment as well as the one other large item we have today, we're going to go down to 2 minutes without objection. And the council's there's no objection from the council to that. So most of you've been going actually 2 minutes already, which is which has been great. So 2 minutes. Hi. Good evening, Mayor and council people. My name is Colleen Trish. I grew up in the Wrigley area. I now live about a half a mile north of the facility. And I feel that if that facility had been there when my brother needed help, he would be here today. He was arrested over on Willow and Main Avenue many years ago. I don't think the police knew how to take care of it at the time. And he is not with us because of not having a facility, as we've been told, is so needed. So I would highly recommend that you vote in favor of this facility no matter where it is. I think we need it in Long Beach. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next Speaker Good evening, Mr. Mayor. When I was not just Ricardo Pulido, a long time mental health advocate here in the community for NAMI, Long Beach, which is National Alliance for Mental Illness. I have two children, adult children who live here in Long Beach, Ricardo and Graciela. Ricky's graduating, by the way, tomorrow from Long Beach State. He's driving. He's a he's on his meds. He's doing excellent. Is a I'm so proud of that young man. And thank you to NAMI and thank you to the stars and to all of our mental health community that we have working together. Like the young man said so clearly for for all of our loved ones, Gracie also is thriving and doing well. But now I like to say that on behalf of not only NAMI, but the Long Beach community in general, I believe that I support the CLP. And what the prosecutor prosecutors said tonight was right on target. I concur with what he said for law enforcement especially. You know, we need to help our city and our IMET teams to be able to have another facility here in Long Beach. You have almost a half a million residents and you could probably use a couple more in the northwest, east and south side of the city. So with that said, I would say that this is long overdue. It's the trend for the for the county you'll be seen as overall you get we are setting the trend setters here in Long Beach for the West Coast and for all of the United States, by the way, because UCS will be the way the wave of the future. This is the way to help our loved ones when they're in crisis. As you heard, I won't be redundant, but Stars has an excellent, impeccable record regarding this. And I would say as a father, grandfather, that if we do this now for residents here in Long Beach, we will see law enforcement a lot of time so they can be out in the streets doing their job, taking care of the safety and the public. And most importantly, for all of our community residents here. We want to be friends. You heard we're going to do all we can to make sure we serve those folks that live in the perimeter of the 1000 feet area. So God bless you. I know you pray and make the right decision tonight. And thank you for supporting the UCC here in Long Beach. Thank you. Thank you. Mike Speaker, please. Good evening, Kim. Thank you. If my name at the local manager of the L.A. County Department of Mental Health, I oversee mental health programs here in Long Beach and behalf of our provider thin clients we work with. I'm here to express our support for staff development of the urgent care center. While we may have some good mental health programs, but we do not have urgent care program needed in our city. And if proposed, program will provide much needed services allowing mental health clients to be stabilized when in crisis, especially in the evenings and weekends when the clinics are not open by offering immediate intervention support for them to be able to resume their ongoing services in the community. Regarding some of the concerns expressed earlier in regards to increase the homeless in the neighborhood once the urgent care center is up. I would like to share what was written in that Long Beach press release last month, dated April 25th. It pointed out for the past two years the number of the homeless counts was reduced significantly in Long Beach. Unlike other cities, I might add, it's due to some of the excellent work of the city's homeless services and housing programs that have done the good work. While citywide homelessness is down. However, the result also showed a spread of homelessness across the city since 2013. This population shift explains why some of the residents may be seeing more homeless in the neighborhood, and this may be continuing regardless of urgent care than their location. In my opinion, real solutions for preventing homelessness in residential areas is through expanding our collaborative partnership effort and person overseeing a homeless outreach team I oversee called SB 82. So I'm happy to be a partner in the city to join in the efforts of addressing homelessness, along with other existing programs such as Long Beach PD, Quality of Life Team. We also would like to work with the U.S. to take homeless referral, linked them to receive ongoing services and provide a housing support needed in regards to providing housing support while we'll be coming to our community soon. Additional Housing Resources from Measure H. So hopefully it's our department played a significant part in the town planning and implementation of more than a billion of the funding available through Major H. Hopefully that we are able to partner together with the city and provide Long Beach getting its fair share of allocation to prevent homelessness, create more transitional and permanent housing, support the city needed. So with that end, we encourage your support. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker. Hello. My name is Michael Anthony Harp. And I think that this world has become very hard and extremely hard and everybody walking around mad at each other. For what? I don't understand how homelessness is one thing mental. Disturbances and other thing. Okay. I had a roommate. That was mentally disturbed and I didn't understand. Where she was coming from, where she was going or where. She was flying to. But all I knew was that she was mentally disturbed and I know what to do with her. I cared about her. I had a heart. So therefore, I stayed there with her and I reached out to her. She finally got the help. That she needed. I'm in for the hospital. All of I'm for it. I'm all the way for it. I mean, I'm that understanding these people that are not for it. I understand where they come coming from to a certain extent, but I don't understand it at all. Half of these people here are mentally disturbed and not even know it and. Have no clue. They have no clue at all. They are. But they're still you know, they're still. But I think what happened to open up. Your heart and given people a chance? Giving people a chance to go do what they have to do. Like opening up the hospital, Long Beach Boulevard. I'm a resident right there on Long Beach Boulevard. What's the problem? I don't know. I have no clue. But anyway. Bye. Thank you, sir. Next speaker, please. My name is Susan Redfield. I live at 2510 Maine Avenue, which is one mile from this facility. 11 blocks. I've lived there for 13 years with my husband. I'm an attorney and have a master's in social work and I am in support of this. Instead of going into the detail of my father's experience after World War Two as a hero with the China India Burma campaign, with the Flying Tigers, and his return from service with what they called shellshock. Instead of dealing with that, I just want to say, obviously I am in support of this. I think it's really important and I feel that the concerns that have been identified by the residents that live nearby the facility have been addressed with regard to reaching out and other other services in collaboration. I think that when the police and the other agencies that have come up and said that they would like to work with them with stars and this center, I think that that collaboration and as long as well as the cop can alleviate some of the concerns that they have, I live in this neighborhood. I feel it's important to have this facility. I strongly urge you to vote in favor and support this program. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next speaker, please. My name is Ross Parsons. I live in the seventh District, also about a mile from the from the facility. And I have a member of my family who lives with with mental illness, as do many of my friends, many of our neighbors. I think there's you know, there's a tendency to look at this as the other. This happens. This is something that happens to to the other, not to us. But it's something that happens to all of our part of our our Long Beach family. There are people who suffer from a treatable illness. And it's a it's an illness that's best treated, not in jails, not in hospital emergency rooms, but in the appropriate facilities. As someone who lives in the neighborhood. I'm sympathetic to the concerns about how about some of the impacts of the neighborhood. But we, you know, eventually hopefully every district will have one of these facilities in it. But this is something that's needed right now. It's something that can be built now. It's something that is funded now. The building's been vacant on Long Beach Boulevard for years. The renovation of it will be a benefit to the community. It will help extend that long, though the rebuilding of Long Beach Boulevard. And I I'm confident that that the operator has addressed the security issues and the will that will make this a good neighbor. Thank you. Thanks, Russ. Thanks, Speaker, please. Hi. My name is Ted Kane. I live at Willow and Main, actually right by word. The previous speaker was mentioning the seventh District, and I'm strongly in favor of this facility. One of the things that someone that some of these we've heard from the neighbors are the concern about the people in the neighborhood who already are marginal and and may be in need of help. And I think that's exactly why we need the facility. It's not a reason to fear the facility. It's a reason to bring it in. One of the things that concerns me a lot of times is we have people in the neighborhood that they don't need the police, they don't need to go to jail, but they do need some help and they need the sort of help that the mental health urgent care said it would be providing. I know I would feel much better knowing that it's there rather than have to wrestle with it with the dilemma of, well, who I call when someone who I don't think needs to go to jail. But but is is cause me concern in my community knowing this facility is there and if they can get appropriate help would be great for the community and I'm strongly in favor of it. I again, I do live in the seventh District. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hi, my name is Tony Cadmus. I live in the seventh district approximately about a mile from the proposed facility. And I'm speaking in favor of it. I, I think it's it's certainly needed. A lot of comments have already been made. I'll try to be brief. I am sympathetic as the speaker before me, Rose said. I'm somewhat sympathetic to the residents in the surrounding community. I feel that the comprehensive conditional use permit is actually a strong safeguard for the surrounding community, and I think it's a very important component to this project as it goes forward. Thank you. Thank you. Speaker, please. Good evening. I'm John Long. I live in the seventh district within walking distance of the proposed site. I am also a board member. For Mental Health America, Los Angeles. And I'm a mental health clinician. I want to speak to the types of people that I know will be served at this facility. They are people of all ages, all ethnicities, and who live in all neighborhoods of our city. They are devoted parents, dedicated employees and youth with bright futures. In fact, they are probably people, you know, and they're us, since one in five adults will have a mental health condition in a given year. Since they are us, I'm going to start talking about us since we are the potential patients of this facility. We need educated and caring mental health providers to assess our conditions and help us manage a mental health crisis. A proper and thorough assessment like those that Star View will provide will enable us to be connected to supportive services so that we can live healthy and productive lives. I'd also like to point out that the potential benefits of staff you do not end with those of us who arrive as patients, but extend out to all of those who love us. Because when we are healthy, our families are healthy as a community. It is our responsibility to ensure that appropriate care is available. And I will be proud to have star view behavioral health urgent care center in my neighborhood. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening. My name. Is Karen Weinstein and. I live a little less than a mile, I think, from the proposed facility. And I also work close to the facility. And I kind of want to just say ditto what she said. She said it so well. I completely understand the apprehension that my neighbors have. Listening to some of them speak so eloquently, there's a a picture that's painted of a clientele that really is concerning, perhaps, and scary. But I think I go back to what the representative from the school district said, that we are talking about us, our community, and we need to shift the picture a bit when we're picturing who it is, who's going to be served by this facility. And it's us, our community. And if we shift that picture and think about it that way, I think we understand how important it is that we have this available to our family and friends and others who need this kind of help. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Hello. I'm Frank Mannix on the clinical supervisor with the Long Beach Mental Evaluation Team. And I live in seventh District. I live on Walnut near Ward. One is two points. I think they've already been made, so I'll be one. This will help decompress the problems in the emergency rooms with therapy usage for people who need to be on hold and they're being taken to the emergency rooms where there are there isn't psychiatric treatment. It will also help the teams be in the city more because right now, if we have to take somebody to a hospital, say , harbor and wait three or 6 hours to get in, we're not in the city. We're not patrolling. We're not doing our job well. We're doing our job. But we could be doing more if it was a 15 minute drop off, as has been said here. The other part about the neighborhood, yes, I've got my cards fixed at the garage next door to this facility. I sometimes drop my car off and have to walk home, go up, the bombardment down, ward down. And sometimes there are some characters there. But I'm thinking, you know, if you're going to have 30 people a day, that's three police cars driving by and then driving back out on patrol. So I'm favorable for those reasons. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker police. An evening of air and councilmembers. My name is Steven Burkhart, the community outreach manager for the downtown Long Beach Alliance and also for autistic residents. I represented the to express our support for the proposed Behavioral Health Urgent Care Center along Beach Boulevard. Several months ago, Ken Dunlop made an appointment with myself to discuss the plans for the park. He was very detailed about everything, including security, public and restricted access, the scope of services to be provided to the community. And I thought that the plans were very well thought out and that our show is extensive for a medical office . Our city is blessed with a diversity of people, unique neighborhoods and culture. We have incredible service organizations, great hospitals, great universities, garbage and our own health department. But one element that is missing is an outpatient care center for people who experience a mental health crisis. I think it is very appropriate that this discussion is happening in May, which is Mental Health Awareness Month. One of the pillars of Mental Health Awareness Month is reducing the stigma surrounding mental illness. It is completely acceptable in our society to talk openly about cancer or autoimmune diseases. But too often mental health issues are kept private. One in four persons or one in five, one in four persons in their lifetime will experience a mental health issue, and this much needed facility will allow people to quickly access services similar to a traditional urgent care facility. It is time we treat mental health as important and openly as physical health. This facility will benefit all of the residents of Long Beach, and I hope the Council will make a decision based on facts and not unfounded fears. I would also like to give to the Kirk, please, a signed letter by Craig Hodgson, President, CEO of the DVA, and have copies distributed to the Council. Mayor. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Good evening, Honorable Mayor and City Council. My name is Patty Laplace, and I used to be your former mental health coordinator for the city of Long Beach. I worked as a mental health coordinator from 2008 to 2015. I can tell you that I used to field calls every day from people looking for help and with the loved one with a mental health crisis and not sure where to take individuals. Many times has been testimonial testimony. Here they talked about going to emergency room and other places where oftentimes waits for very long, oftentimes were not be seen or were referred out to agencies that couldn't handle the problem at the time because of too much of an impact of other individuals waiting to get help. I guess I need to also kind of sort of satisfy some myths that I've heard here earlier. Someone mentioned that Long Beach already has an urgent care facility, which is not true. The current Telecare facility that operates in North Long Beach does not operate as an urgent care center. The other thing I'd like to dispel a myth is I'm not sure where the 14 mental health agencies exist in the city of Long Beach, especially to handle this kind of emergency. Many of our emergency rooms has been testified before, have suffered from overcrowding and would love to be able to have a facility like this. And I want to and my presentation by saying that if this was a medical care, urgent care, I don't think that we would hear some of the protests that we're hearing now, because as anybody who's concerned with anybody with it, with a medical condition, we want our loved ones and significant others have the best care possible and the best availability of care. And I believe that the mental health urgent care facility would supply both for that for that in our community and our citizens in Long Beach. Thank you. Thank inexplicably. I thank you, Mayor and councilwoman and councilman. My name is Alison Crisp. I am a District seven resident mother and mother of two children that live over there and go to school. Small business in our downtown lobby. I support the buck. I'm supporting the buck because not only do I have friends and family that have expired stars and understandably love their experiences with them. But I think our director of the Met team had said that there's a decompress. I think that. This facility will help not only decompress for those that are struggling with a mental. Illness, but those organizations that are out there are organizations that include. MH A are quality of life. Our Heart Team. Many of the churches are nonprofits that are dealing with the homeless outreach on a regular basis. That will help take a lot of pressure off them, including our hospitals and ERs, obviously, and the guys in the room who think you'll know the other ones that help. Paramedic That's what I'm looking for. But most importantly, thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Price They did that to the mom. But most importantly, I wanted to address and a lot of people already talked about this, is that this facility is needed for not only the seat, I mean, for the safety of those that are diagnosed are not even diagnosed with a mental illness yet. Many of those we see. On the streets. I know this facility is not. Geared for those that are homeless. But we none of us want to see those that are not being able to get any help from this awesome clinic without having been be on the street, without having this urgent care facility available. Last night, real quickly, I also want to say that myself and my family. My kids especially, have been over to the. Village on many, many, many, many, many occasions. Down in downtown Long Beach. And I have never felt so safe or can in a facility in my entire life. I feel that their support and again, I support this. Thank you so much. Thank you. Next week, a police. All right. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, and members of the city council. My name's Tony Leggett. I'm a homeowner here in downtown Long Beach. And and I'm fully in support of this new, urgent care center. And I applaud your desire to move Long Beach into the 21st century. On this issue, as well as many others, I must say that, you know, 25 years ago, I was a homeless person. I didn't. I lived on the streets in Long Beach. And the with my. And I was, you know, full of mental health issues. And the way my situation got resolved is I ended up in men's central jail in downtown Los Angeles. And that's the most hideous and brutal place that anybody can go to receive mental health services. So I believe this new, urgent care center will be able to respond to people like, you know, with issues like I had 25 years ago. And but another thing I want to mention is it seems like most of the folks that are protesting this are they're afraid of what's going on. And the way to get through that fear is to stand up in, you know, volunteer in a place like this because 20% of 20% of you guys that are protesting are going to need this. And you're going to be much happier to have this resource than the kind of resource I found 25 years ago. So thank you very much and I look forward to your passing this agenda item. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, council members and vice mayor. I'm Robert Fox speaking on behalf of Kono as executive director. Frankly, we could not come up with a vote on this issue that's too complex and we need more review so we don't have any opinion to give to you. So I would like to speak to you privately as myself, Robert Fox, living in the second District. This facility is obviously very needed and I encourage the City of Livy's to continue to reach out for mental health facilities. I do have one concern and it's a historic perspective. I've lived in the city for a really long period of time and sometimes we need to have a historian tell us what we did and what we didn't do in the East Village. Many, many years ago, we had 26 service agencies for the homeless congregated in the very few blocks. And so we did something called a PD 30 moratorium on that particular neighborhood in order to bring a better quality of life to its residents. We were not refusing services for anybody, but by attrition we would make sure that the distribution of services will be more fairly and evenly distributed through the city of Long Beach. What I've heard this evening is there was a concern about density of these kinds of services in this particular district. If that is a concern for us, maybe we should take a look at in the future when we're looking at planning commission zoning to distribute facilities more even handedly throughout the districts so that one neighborhood is not impacted above the other. My other concern, of course, would be as wonderful as our desire is for this facility to to be a success is we do need to have an oversight in terms of assuring the neighborhood, which has a concern that they will not be negatively impacted by the great intentions that we have here. Thank you so much. Make up next, be good, please. Thank you so much. My name is Bishop Barney Redden. I pastor at 1115 North Market Street and have pastored in this city for 20 years. And I'm proud to say that particularly I'd like to address you from three points a parent, a pastor and a mental health professional. Because I am also a psychologist. First, as a parent, I was asked by the Health. Department a number of years ago around the work that I do in HIV to start a faith based support group with HIV, I met a young lady who was HIV at that time, who was about 12 years old, and I made a choice to adopt her. She was HIV positive because she had been severely sexually abused by her stepfather. Unfortunately, we dealt with many mental health issues, as one could only imagine. I can't even tell you how many times I ended up at Harbor-UCLa. On hours upon hours upon hours and turned into days. To get help. From my daughter. I remember in January of 2010, the last year of her life, I told the social worker at Long Beach Memorial Hospital, somebody help me. If there was a facility. Where I could take my. Daughter for three or 4 hours. Where she could diffuse herself. She might not have stepped in front of a car on the 110 freeway. January 31st, 2010. First thing. The second thing is, I've been passionate about mental health for many, many years. I was granted a $100,000 grant from L.A. County Department of Mental Health in 2015 and 2016 to do mental health work in the church. Many pastors don't know what to do. I had a crisis on Sunday where I. Helped some officers defuze a young. Lady, and if I would have had a facility where we could have gone and taken them like what stars is attempting to put up, it would have been fabulous. And then thirdly, the pastors. We need this in this community. Thank you so. Much. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hi. Good evening, Debbie. Ines Gomberg with the L.A. County Department of Mental Health. I'm a deputy deputy director and a psychologist as well. And I just want to let you know, the department is very supportive of mental health, urgent care centers. And one of the reasons for that is over the last seven years or so, we've implemented a number of them. And what we found is that they're a key continuum in our mental health system of care. Very, very important. And basically what they do is they they provide a mental health service when a client needs it. And our outpatient clinics obviously don't do that. They're open from eight, usually 8 a.m. to about five or 6 p.m.. So it's very important. The other thing I can tell you is that as we look at our mental health, urgent care centers and their performance, only 6 to 8% of the clients that come in for a visit, an urgent care center, are psychiatrically hospitalized within 30 days of that visit. And that's a key metric for us. The other thing I wanted to let you know about is that this is becoming a best practice across the state. And I think I think you've heard that tonight. Many counties have implemented urgent care centers as a as a viable alternative to psychiatric hospitalization. So thank you very much. Okay. Thank you. Next speaker, please. I am Belinda Watson and I live in. Seventh District and I don't have my words together, but I am one to voice it. I am not for the center being on Long Beach Boulevard and I represent a number of the residents that are in that area where we had meetings where we had a meeting and was done at the Vaguely Association meeting. Which story is good? That is bringing a lot of people to say, you know, mental health is need, mental health is needed. And what we did in the community is say, yes, we are, we agree with that, but we just don't need another facility in our area. And so I just wanted you to hear that even though they are good at bringing people from outside the district and in the Long Beach area and people in mental health, but there are actual residents. And I want you to remember those 500 people who sign that thing saying that they do not want that on Long Beach Boulevard. There are a abundance of areas where a facility of that type can be placed and it would not be in a residential area. I went as to want the council to reconsider that particular location. What we need. There are more community oriented businesses that draw our community, the community that lives there to come to there. We don't have an abundance of that. We have it over in Bixby. No. We don't have it in Wrigley. We need more of those and not more behavior services. And even though, you know, I know that there is a big need for it, we need some other things in our community other than social services. So remember those other 500 people that may not be here? I'm representing them. They have. I was astounded when I went to the two of the meetings and most of the people who said that they were in the district were really not in the district when they left the meeting. I have never seen some of these people, so. Thank you for your testimony. We have said. I want you to think about that and those 500 people that are not. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Oh, hello. I am Jonathan Dunn. I may be 17 years old, but please allow me to speak. I am against the mental care mental health hospital at Long Beach Boulevard because there are plenty of mental care facilities, plenty. Of hospitals here in Long Beach. But if you are in Casey, do the hospital in Casey do the hospital over there? Please consider this. If there's if the idea is about security and staff taking care of people. Um. I would say. Dual dual life license psychiatrist. More than one because once not doing enough for a lot of people. So if. You truly care. About the people. Because Long Beach. Is a city which has. A lot of care and. Passion for people. If that's the idea. Or Mitch needs to step up its game. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Next for you, please. Mr. Vice Mayor. City Council members and staff. I agree with everyone who has spoken before me. This urgent care facility is needed. However. If if there's a question of ownership to this facility, can you proceed with with putting it there right now? Can you vote on that? Is our city attorney saying that Doug Auto is representing a frivolous lawsuit on on this? What's been presented here? Does it make sense? We have two sides here positioning for ownership on this. And if if our if everybody knows Doug Doug's Doug Auto here and everybody knows his reputation in our community. And if Doug Otto's. Client wins, how is that going to affect that building? How is it going to affect. This facility, which we all need, which we all agree is needed? I don't think you can vote on it tonight without letting the superior court determine that. I say we need this facility. We need it. Somewhere in Long Beach. And I say do it quickly. But I don't see how you can do that. You're not being told. Everything about this legally. Thank you. Thank you. Next week, at least. Good evening. Recap of rich eighth district. You know, I came here tonight to support the need but oppose the location. But I listened to this young man come up here and speak, and he talked about our special education children. I have a special education, son. Most of you know my son. And he has had a couple of bouts. He's he's been diagnosed with traumatic brain injury and he's had a couple of needs for some serious behavior intervention. So this facility, as opposed to my having to find it, find the help up at UCLA, would have been incredible. But what I do want to remind you and this is something that you can actually fix the problem. I believe that the problem is if you look at that intersection, look at Wardlow and Long Beach Boulevard. It is panhandlers on every corner. They've taken over the equality storage center and they have a meeting area that they sit at every day with all their belongings. You have the overpass, the underpass that is now home to homeless. You have weeds that are that tall with trash on the sidewalk. It's not a good entryway into our city. And it certainly doesn't doesn't make the people that live there feel protected. So if you worked on not only increasing the police presence, which means we have to grow our police department, but you also worked on having more than one quality of life team in the city. We had to reduce it from 2 to 1 because of patrol needs. If this corridor had a more cared for appearance, if the residents were seeing that it was being better taken care of, they might not be so afraid of the homeless population that has imploded in our districts. And those districts are seven and eight. We are seriously impacted. I know we're going to talk about that later. So thank you very much. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hello. My name is Larry Tricia. I live about a. Mile up the street from the proposed facility. I live up in Linden. And I just want you to know that I'm in favor of the facility. Just a little anecdote. A young man lives next door, had a had an episode, and his parents. Had to call the police. He went into a catatonic state. They had to drag him down the stairs, but eventually bumped, got him in an ambulance and he was at the emergency room for quite some time, as I understand it. It would have been so much nicer if he had just gone to a decent facility and then then taken to the treatment center. Long story short. He's fine. He's married, he's doing great. And that's good. I want you to know I support the facility. Thank you. Next speaker, please. And while we're at it. I think the gentleman in black jacket is the last speaker. If anyone else is the final call, there's anyone that would like to speak on this issue. Please line up now, because as I see it, the gentleman in the black jacket is the final speaker. So. Okay. So we've got one additional person. Okay. So the speaker's list is now closed. Thank you. Proceed. Thank you. My name is Georgia Case, and I've been in the seventh and eighth districts for 32 years. And having served on the Public Health Re Accreditation Committee, we certainly have heard about the needs. I'm not sure if I can say anything new. Wonderful comments tonight on in support of this very needed program. But I think after 32 years, having really survived the riots and, you know, a robbery in my home dealing with the trials and tribulations over the past 30 years in the city, certainly wonderful experiences, but nothing prepared me for having to deal firsthand with our mental health care system in Long Beach. It is a it was a nightmare. And to put families through these crises of humiliation and truly horrific experiences, dealing with the police department, trying to do the job, the best job that they can, but also emergency rooms and dirty. Private hospitals. So I think this suffering, pain and suffering does need to be documented. It's it's atrocious. And it's really time that we step up and join the 21st century in mental health care for our citizens. Thank you. Hi. My name is Monica Lopez and. I lived for many years in the seventh District. My mom and sister and nephews live there now. I am in. Full support of the program, but I'm also an employee of Started Community Services. I have worked there for 15 years so I can kind of opera more like global with greater perspective as to the services and being also a member of the community. I now own. A home in the sixth district and I am full and support. I cannot offer any more than what's already been said other than I don't fear for my safety. I don't fear for the safety of my mom. Or my sisters or my nephews who will live down the street from the. Park. I can only offer. The perspective that as a mental health professional, I have seen the great work that Star View has provided because I am. One of the people that provide that care and there's nothing more rewarding than when. We meet with clients and we see the tremendous growth that can be done when we as clinicians are given the adequate tools to do our work. And the park will be another of those resources that will be available to us for our community, our community that is in need. And it couldn't have been. Said better than the young man who. Spoke today, especially about our special education program. You know, we are a big city, but we're a small town and we're all intertwined. And we know each other and we know. People who will be greatly benefit if we proceed with this by approving it. And also we will know people who would be faced the consequences if we go the way of not approving it. So as an employee, as a family member and as a homeowner at Long Beach, I fully support this program. Thank you. Thank you. Thank speaker, please. Hi. My name is Cecilia McGill. I live in in the district I have here living here in Long Beach like 29 years. And I support this project because we need it. And now I remember the enemy and I give my time to to other people with mental, mental problems and they see how important it is, this program for our people who is living with severe depression. And we they're not looking to prevent suicides, too. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hi. My name is Jane Case and kind of baby. I'm bummed that Robert and Pat work aren't here, but I have. I've been involved in a long beach for a long time and through the bike station and met many people with social and different economic situations. To me, it's not mental illness. To me it's being confused, depressed, abused, lonely. And you really need people that can help you, give you perspective on your situations. You don't take it to the next level and make really stupid decisions. And I think that sort of thing where people in crisis. Can come and talk to somebody straight up, given their options, and they might even want to go home and think about it and show that to me. Forget the mental illness. It's talking straight up with somebody that needs some help. And talking on a third party. Thanks. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hi. My name is Blake, and I'm a resident and homeowner in the seventh District live about ten blocks from the proposed facility site. And I wanted to come out here tonight and voice my support for the proposed facility. So I also want to say that the living room neighborhood now for about six years and has seen a lot of positive change, seeing a lot of good things happening in the neighborhood. I know if you read certain Facebook posts and so forth, you would think that things are, you know, going crazy. But I really feel that things are going really in the positive direction for the neighborhood. And like I said, I only have about ten blocks from it, so I'm in full support for it. I really feel that this would be a. A step in the right direction, still on the neighborhoods progressing and changing for the better. And I think this is just a a welcome benefit to and I'll be proud to have in my neighborhood. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Thank you so much, Mr. Mayor. My name is Jacqueline Glass and I am in the ninth District. It's unfortunate that we're going through this over and over again. Regardless of what your people's belief is, the Bible says the poor will never cease. So therefore, we must lean out our hand. We're talking about a critical care unit. For critical. Crucial problems. Mental illness is serious. I'm a mental illness survivor. My grandchildren, my oldest grandson, who's 18, attempted suicide, and my ten year old sweetie pie, Savannah Juana also had issues, whether it's from the home or wherever it's from, wherever it came from, we must address it. And in saying that the reason why we need this is because you can look around and see. I talked to so many care providers. I talked to so many people. As I'm commuting every day, people are hurting. Their families are hurting. They don't know where to go. They sit in hospitals all day. And you have to understand, if it was your family, if was you, if you needed help, as they stated, if this was a medical hospital, be no problem is in a community the zoning laws provides that to be there as the perfect place for a disruptive freeway is you can't we can't you guys can't blame us when I say us. The support of this for the homeless in your neighborhood we have get your community together. You go out and you. Engage staff. You we have we we engage with people. We have the ability to engage. And when we have that engagement, our relationship with people, then you bring hope, wellness and recovery. And that's what we're trying to do here and that's what we're going to do here. And I'm going to make it my business as a recruit and all San Antonio buyers come in. I didn't told the families, we have to deliver on this. I've already put the bullhorn out to say, We got help for you and we're here for you. We have the city with us. We have more people for us than against us. So I beseech you, I beg you, please, we will help you in your neighborhood. We need. This is mandated. Please, by the grace of God. Love you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. And we're going to close the speakers list. So we've had a long speakers lists, so. All right. Speakers list is closed. Yes. Thank you, ma'am. My name is Kevin. I was in high school, and as a youth, despite the issues that come along with the multi facility at allocation location, I think as a community and citizens allowances, you have to accept that there there's nothing really much we could do besides help these people. It's not it's not the the criminal, the sickness. We have to understand the background and the issues. Me personally, I struggle with depression and I see a psychiatrist for three years and I understand how difficult it could be to reach out and actually speak with people. So I think that as with this mental health facility, it's going to be one step closer to minimizing the mental health crisis and that I'm in for support and allowing my peers, along with my peers, that it will be a great it'll be it'll be a great resource to, um, to the to city to have this facility . If, despite the issues, we as a community have to understand that we have to help these people and there's nothing much we can really do. Thank you. Thank you, nick. Speaker. Mayor garcia and city council. My name is sandy villano. I'm an employee of stars and I'm also the mother. Of two adult children with mental health disorders. My family has a very long history here in Long Beach. My mother ran the. Elevator at the Breakers during the war. Where she met. My father and my family would want me to say, this is not about a building. This is not about a neighborhood. It's about providing desperately needed mental health services to very sick people. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next speaker. Please. Good evening, Council Mayor. I'm Cathy Parsons and I live in the seventh district again, just a mile or so away from the center. I am the face of mental illness. I've suffered from mental illness for 40 years through therapy, psychiatry, medication. Thank God for insurance. I'm blessed. Many people aren't. And those people often can become homeless if you don't have the support you need to move through this devastating illness. It's it's heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking. I've been very lucky because I have a family who supported me. I have a great job with the city for 17 years, and I loved every minute of it. I think if you ask any professional who I worked with, they would have no idea what I was going through internally during all those years. And I would suggest to you that with one out of five people suffering from mental illness, that some of you on the council have family members. And I will tell you, your employees do. I hope it. Changes the way you think about the people you work with every day. Mental disease. Mental disease is like cancer. It's blind. It affects the poor. It affects the wealthy. It affects people with PhDs. And it affects people who are illiterate. It knows no color, no race, no ethnicity. It doesn't care about your gender or your age. And it affects, as we've said, one out of five people, one out of four, depending on what statistics you have. I will tell you that this project has been the best thing ever for me because I have never spoken in public about my mental illness. It was my deep, dark, nasty little secret. So at that point, I want to tell you, I'm here and I'm kicking and I'm wanting to give congratulations to Councilmember De Andrews, who recently, through his hard work and his willingness to stand up for those in need, which other district members, I'm going to have to say, aren't so keen to do approved the center on Long Beach Avenue. Thank you very much. And I would like to. Not knowing the outcome tonight, it doesn't matter. The bravery it takes for a council member to get up and be here and hear people yelling and screaming and whining, both sides. I've been on this side a lot in my in my career. I know what you go through. And for those of you who are brave enough to take on a situation like this in your council district in a coming election year. Bravo for you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Kathy. Next speaker, please. Very good. You do not live in that district. But I thought they had referenced earlier something about mobile services and I would have no problem as a taxpayer to fund every Tuesday night if one of the facilities wanted to send somebody down and set up their shop in the council chamber over coffee room in the back and offer any advice and guidance to those council members that. May need that. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, honorable mayor and council members. My name is Jill Shannon. I'm director of communications for Stratus Behavioral Health Group. And part of my job in the last month or two has been sending materials to Scott and Plant at the Planning Commission. And so I just wanted to address something real quickly. So a couple of people talked about a petition with 500 names opposing the buck. And I wanted to note that there is also a petition and it's in favor of the program and there's 618 signatures. And of those 339 live in Long Beach and others live in Bellflower, Carson, Lakewood, South Bay, other nearby cities, we are also I think these are in your materials that they've given you, but these are all the petitions with signatures here. Also in the materials I sent Scott with 31 support letters and most of those people were not here tonight. So there are a lot of people on the support side that aren't here as well. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening. My name is Laura Diaz, Winterset, and I am a District seven resident just a few blocks from the proposed site. A lot of people have talked about the reactive strategies of this facility. But I also want to talk about the proactive. We have a lot of. Families that are in services now that where there is a shortage of psychiatrists that can actually prescribed medication, sometimes people are having to wait four and six weeks to get appointments and this facility will be able to provide those mental health services immediately and also after hours when the surrounding clinics are already closed. I've had the opportunity to live in a neighborhood where they. Had an urgent care center. And never did I imagine that my mom would actually need those services. And when we called around to get services, they weren't able to get her in for about two months to see a psychiatrist. We were able to take her just down the street and she was immediately tended, tended to, and she was able to come home . And there's been other times where they've had to send people to our home to just assessor, and then she was willing to go with them to go kind of take a time out and take a break from her everyday stress. So I just wanted to point that out and I definitely in support of the facility. I think inexplicably. Hi. My name's Heather Morrison. I'm an eighth district resident and I just wanted to come and speak in support of this facility. This is something. I'm sorry. It's really close to home for me. I have family members who are suffering from mental illness. And this would be it truly would be a godsend to have something like this on which there isn't anything like this. I know there's not. I know that when you have a family member who is suffering from some kind of mental breakdown and the police have to come and the police have to help you with your family member, it really, truly does take them four or 5 hours out of their shift to go and take that family member somewhere far away like Harbor-UCLa, like the young gentleman said, it is terrifying, it is traumatic. And we need so many more mental health resources in this city and everywhere. And I just, I. I plead with you to please support this program. We are the face of mental health and it is so stigmatized. If it were cancer or if it were heart disease, it would be a completely different thing. But it's it's a really hard thing to deal with. And we really need this. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. My name is Paul Barry. I worked in mental health for about 30, 35 years. And Long Beach, honorable mayor, members of the city council. Finally, I think I'm it you know, I try to read the paper every day and and I often go straight to the obituaries. And the reason why is I just find the stories of people's lives interesting. But I also notice that if you read down those obituaries, you'll see that there's usually a request for a donation, usually to a place that provided desperately needed services to the family or to the lost loved one. I'll tell you honestly, I don't necessarily donate. Because I've read these. Obituaries, but I realize how familiar. I am with the organizations that talk about the American Heart Association, the Cancer Society, the Alzheimer's Association. I know the importance of these organizations because I recognize the possibility that anyone with any of them at any time might be providing, though desperately needed services to me, my family, my 15 year old daughter. The urgent care facility is just like these organizations in one key way. At any time, it might just be providing that desperately needed services to people we know and love. Our own deputy chief of police, Michael Beckman, has said from his own personal experience, no family is immune from mental illness. Now, I know staff has. Made it clear over and over again that this is not a homeless program. And I think we can only conclude that the primary objection then to having this facility in the neighborhood is because these people have mental illness and we don't necessarily want them in the neighborhood. This is a really good night to end that kind of discrimination. Thank you. Okay. We are going to go ahead and close the public comment portion of the hearing and let me go ahead and go into public deliberation. So I'm going to start with Councilmember Marengo and we'll go from there. Thank you, Mayor. You know, this is one of those agenda items that really puts a face to an issue that's not discussed a lot and not discussed openly. And it's one of those agenda items, too, that puts us as our as your elected officials in a quandary. At the same time that we want to do the right thing, we also have the political thing to do and to look at. So before I go on any further, I would like to ask staff if they could put Slide eight up on the screen again. Yes. So that we could have a constant view of what it is we're talking about, because I'm going to be bringing up some people that I want to ask questions about the facility, including our our applicant. But right now, if we could have representatives from the police department and the health department to please come to the back . I have a couple of questions that I would like to ask. Let me know when you're ready. Okay. What about this for the police department first? When a police officer picks up an individual with a mental health crisis. What are the steps that a police officer goes through to to help that that individual? Meaning Honorable Member Members of the Council. Councilmember Yang, if you could just repeat the very first part of that. I missed it when I was sitting down. I apologize. When a police officer picks up a person obviously within in a mental crisis. What does a police officer go through to help the individual? Very good. Thank you for the question. When a police officer encounters somebody that's in a mental crisis, they have a number of well, a couple of different options. Number one. The one that some people might be familiar with is. What is called a hold. And that is when the. Person who is exhibiting signs of mental illness and meets one of three categories. Number one being they're a threat or a danger to themselves. Number two is a danger to others. And the third would be gravely disabled if they meet those criteria. The officer has the authority to place a hold on them and take them even against their wishes for psychiatric care. The second part would be if a person who is exhibiting mental illness but does not meet those criteria as an officer is able to try and coax the person into voluntarily seeking services and transporting them to an available place for for such care. And oftentimes. In Long Beach, the Met team or mental evaluation team is utilized to help facilitate. That. The another option would be if the person was exhibiting mental illness. And that was, you know, maybe a reason for our dispatch out there does not meet the criteria for a hold and does not wish to seek voluntary services. If that person has committed a crime, the officer can take that person to jail for that crime. And that may be a fix for the situation at hand. However. Depending on what the nature of the crime was, likely won't have a long term solution. Lastly, absent any crime being committed, meeting the criteria for a 5150 hold voluntary service or a voluntary are self admit. A lot of times the officers just have to walk away because there's nothing that they can legally do. Thank you. Okay. So on a call like that, what would be the typical amount of time that an officer spends with an individual like that? Or let me rephrase it another way, being that this facility is not here, where do officers take individuals with this kind of of a sickness in terms of being able to drop them off somewhere to get some get some help? Typically, we we can take them to a number of different places. Generally, we take them to Harbor Harbor-UCLa medical center. We can also take them to. As was referenced. Earlier tonight by one of the speakers, a community hospital. Places like that, oftentimes places like that have. They're busy and they have difficulty finding a bed and they take up air. Space. Having a place like Harbor-UCLa with the size of care that they have for psycho psychiatric services is good, although they're overwhelmed as well. For people that have insurance. On the voluntary stuff, we can we can seek out those different places a lot of times that are outside. Of the city and will actually drive quite, quite a ways to. Get them the help that they need, even if it's. Outside the city. So regardless, it takes up a considerable amount of time. So what officer is in this type of a call? Are they are they on serve the currently on duty serving as individuals even though they have to drive, say, 20 miles to go to a to another facility? Yeah. They're, uh, they're out of service for the duration of time that it takes to transport that person, to care for their belongings, to fill out the appropriate paperwork. And to turn them over to staff at the facility that they've taken them to when they're ready to receive them. And it could range from a minimum as a couple of hours from one October and could be as long as six. Okay. Now, in terms of training police, are police officers or do you have a special unit of police officers who are specially trained in this area? Or or do all and or do all officers receive training in recognizing a mental health issue? Our police officers get trained in dealing with individuals. Some police officers have a higher level of training. Recently, there was some legislation passed that required field training officers to undergo higher amount of training in dealing with the mentally ill. And in Long Beach, we had the mental evaluation. Team, as mentioned, where we have six officers that are paired up with clinicians. From L.A. County. And just that is that is all they do. They don't respond to they're not dispatched to calls for service, but they respond in the field to. Calls or assist other officers on calls where. Mental illness is an issue. And just by virtue of their assignment, they have a tremendous amount of experience and are also put through additional training as well. Thank you, Chief, for the health department. When there are people who are experiencing a mental breakdown or think that they are, what's where do they go normally? Is there a place for them to go? And if they do come to see the health department through regular hours, what's what's your process, whether you do. So in excuse me, in terms of the in terms of our facility, we don't provide direct mental health treatment and mental health services for the city of Long Beach, comes through L.A. County mental health. So if you are coming in and lower income and are looking for different services, otherwise people could go to their own private providers . But we as a city do not provide direct mental health service. The Department of Mental Health, the rate is approximately 2 to 3 weeks if you have not already participated in their service previously. So if you have a crisis, you're probably going to go to the emergency room because you don't know where else to go. And then you would work with the Department of Mental Health to get an appointment, an assessment and move through their process. Okay. There's been a little bit of discussion and some, I guess, discussion about the number of mental health facilities in Long Beach. Can you clarify that in regards to how many do exists or not exist in Long Beach? You know, we heard the number tonight is 14. We've been racking our brains as to where a number 14 comes from and we're not really sure. So we we will look. But I think what that may be, the Department of Mental Health hosts, they do have outpatient sites within the city of Long Beach, and there are some other nonprofit providers and for profit providers. But the number 14 seems high to us. But we will look and will further fact check. That. There has been some discussion about the connection between mental health issues and homelessness. Can you address that issue? That that that question? Yeah. So many, many of those who are homeless have mental health have mental health needs. So between substance use and mental health, there are concerns for those who are homeless. However, many of those who have mental health are not homeless. So it goes both directions. So I think that, you know, as we talk about those who are homeless and the service and the set of services that are available, the Department of Mental Health co-locate with us at at the Multi-Service Center. So they are directly there. And when someone comes into the front door of the multi-service center, we're absolutely sure ability we have the ability to connect them. As you know, the multi-service center is closed at 5:00 during that on weekdays and not available for on weekends. So as a when someone is in crisis, then this behavioral health center would be the the urgent crisis center. It would be the space that they could go to be sort of de-escalate the crisis and then be able to attach to Department of Mental Health Services from there. Okay. Thank you very much. If I could have the applicant, please come to the podium. They have a couple of questions I'd like to ask. Okay. There's a lot of discussion, as you know, a lot of concerns about individuals who are coming in to the facility and how they exit. The amount of time we spend there. Can you walk us through a typical, maybe even an atypical situation where a person walks into a facility and take it from A to Z, from entry to release for a patient? Certainly. So they walk in there voluntarily coming to the facility. Just so that we can be clear that the facility map is upstairs. I mean, upstairs on screen. Yes. Could you like say they're coming through the switchboard where they come in? Through our home. They come in through 30 seconds. What's what's the process? Okay. So the the walk in component of the facility is on Long Beach Boulevard. And if individuals come by their own accord, there's a bus line there. There's a place, obviously, to park. Typically, though, they're brought there. They're brought by a friend or relative. And they would come in, wait to have an appointment, to be assessed, to be assessed by our clinical staff. And again, we have a nurse, we have a mental health clinician and we have a psychiatrist. And there's an initial determination made of the level of acuity. So the severity of the symptoms that individual is experiencing first, the assessment is, are they in a crisis? Do they have a mental health condition? Assuming they do, then there's a look to see how severe it is, and that informs the clinical team as to how long it's going to take to resolve that issue. So the decision is made whether that can be done quickly. They remain in that voluntary section, the quiet crisis walk in section that's there. That's again, off of Long Beach Boulevard. So that front entrance there, if it's determined that they are higher acuity, that they're going to need more intensive treatment over a longer period than they would likely go on to the adolescent, the child unit or the adult unit. And they can do that on a voluntary basis as well. They receive the services and again, it is a service to reduce the crisis. So they're stabilized, but it's also to facilitate their transition back into the community, to alignment with resources when they go back home or back into the community so that that stabilization is lasting. It's not just at the point where they're able to leave, but it's lasting. So they don't come back the next day, the next week, the next month. And there was some discussion as well in terms of some individuals making regular visits or going on a regular basis to this to this facility. And the concern, obviously, is, is that whether people are looking at this as a as a drug rehab facility or a substance abuse facility. So can you describe pretty much what what you do provide in this facility when somebody comes in and you dispense meds or anything like that? So thank. You. It's a great question that was brought up by several individuals. So to be clear, this is not a substance abuse treatment program. That's part of that initial assessment. And we'll work with law enforcement who all the other agencies that will utilize the program to know that we don't do medical detox. So that's one of the initial looks with just somebody that's going to go into withdrawal or they're going to need that kind of medical treatment. The program is really not designed for that. As has been said, there's obviously a lot of prevalence of substance abuse disorders among people that also live with a mental health condition. So we do what's called co-occurring disorders. We make sure there's a referral into substance abuse treatment if that's needed. But we don't deal with somebody who's on a high level that they'd be going into withdrawals and needing detox. I don't know if that answers your question completely, but that's a good differentiation. The the police chief sister chief mentioned that when an officer is dealing with such a case, they're usually off line. If they have to go travel far distances to go into to take this individual to a treatment center at your facility, what's the regular time that a an officer or any other person would spend with this individual once he or she is taken into the facility? So what would occur if they're bringing an individual and it's typically on an involuntary basis and that's where off the parking lot we have a separate secured entrance to the shuttle that. Would be entering through Elm. Yes. And coming into the lot there. There is a separate security entrance into the adolescent unit and into the adult unit. Our clinicians would do a an immediate assessment, again, ruling out this is somebody that has a physical injury where they really need to go get medical treatment in an emergency room. Are they at a level of intoxication? That's an issue. We rule out whether they are inappropriate for the program. If they're accepted, that usually is decision made in ten or 15 minutes. We actually have a location within the facility that the officers can go and work out. So there's actually a station. They can come into the facility, wait for that determination and, you know, use a computer, use the phone. So we have that set up for them as well. Okay. So in that area off of Elm, is is it gated? Is it fenced off? Is there a automatic gate that would be opening and closing? What's the what's see what's the likelihood of of someone going in through that backdoor to that parking lot late at night or anything like that? Well, part of the conditions is a increase in the elevation of the walls around the perimeter of the the parking area. So that's to decrease the ability to view into the facility in respect for the neighbors. But it is open access to the parking lot. We don't have a plan to out a gate, but one of the conditions that is being asked of us is to have 24 hour security in the parking lot. So we will have a security staff position in the parking lot at all times. Okay. Now, we talked about also they walk ins so people take themselves in and then we have after hours accepting of of patients, what would you described to be your peaks, your your your highest point of getting patients in there? Now, you mentioned 30 per day. What times what day would be your peaks? Well, I can only speak to our experience in other programs in other areas, and there is some difference between them. So part of the process of opening this program will to be to learn what those peak times are. But it is typical that most come in during the day and it's infrequent that somebody comes in after hours. Those are usually individuals that are on a 51, 50 after hours. It's infrequent that a voluntary individual come in, but we'll see that as well. And the peak time, the peak days are usually more on the weekends than there are during the week, more in the afternoon and early evening than in the morning or earlier part of the day. So there's those kind of trends. Okay. Now, there was also mentioned I think you mentioned it earlier during your presentation, that the average stays 4 to 6 hours and then they're allowed to leave and get in voluntarily if they wish to leave. But if they want to stay more, they can. It's up to them or I was that determined. Thank you. So it's a clinical decision made as to when the individual has resolved their crisis, where they're safe to return to the community. And again, that's with supports and linkage to other services to the extent they need them so that that stabilization can be ongoing. You asked earlier about, you know, the the outliers and those are the individuals that stayed the full 24 hours. That's somebody who's having a tough time resolving. And out of those groups, those are the ones that may end up having to go to a psychiatric hospital. They're not able to stabilize at that point. In that situation, we would arrange for the bed. They would be transported by ambulance. As the representative from the Department Mental Health spoke earlier, that's only about 6 to 8% of the individuals that come through the program. These programs are highly effective at stabilizing, which is what they are, of course, they're designed to do to avoid individuals having to be hospitalized. And I guess there's a definition that that I need at this point in terms of stabilize stabilization of a of a patient. What point determines whether an individual is stabilized or not when I guess when someone comes in highly agitated or in crisis and you provide the service, at what point in that process do you determine a person has been stabilized? What are the indicators to you that a person's ready to be released? Well, it's basically the reduction in the symptoms that they were experiencing that put them into crisis or whether that's depression, anxiety, thought disorders. You know, mental health takes many different forms. And for an individual to come into treatment, they have to be experiencing a heightened level of those symptoms. So whether it's through medication, whether it's just time they're working with our counseling staff, whether it's talking to a peer counselor, somebody that had that lived experience that can identify and communicate effectively. With them. We bring all of those resources to support the individual. So that basically is it. It's a reduction in those symptoms where the individual is saying, I feel better, I feel safe to go home again. Now, when they're released, is there a plan for release? Is there a what they call it the soft and to soft? And I forget the term that was. Us, the warm handoff. Warm hand. There, but it's off to feel. Yeah, and I can't emphasize that enough. And that certainly is a part of addressing the concerns of the community, that getting them home, getting them back to a safe place is is part of what we do. It is not just just charging them out the front door. And that would start with transportation, getting them there. And again, typically, there's family members that will come and provide that. If there's no other resources, we will have a vehicle. We will take them where they need to go. Now, one of the conditions, as I read through it, is that the that the Planning Commission put in, there was an 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. open hours for walk ins, and then it's closed down until the following morning, except for those that are brought in by public safety personnel. I would guess. Actually it will accept voluntary clients all the time so they can still come. It's just that front entrance off of Long Beach Boulevard that would be closed outside those hours. And they didn't the planning commission didn't determine those hours we just defined. That's how we would expect to operate. We didn't know it was actually going to become part of the conditions. We're fine with it. As you asked earlier, we'll actually discover, well, what are the peak times that may be that we say, well, nobody's coming in, you know, from eight in the morning till nine. Let's start there walking cetera at nine. The advantage of the walking center is that it has a waiting room. And so when individuals come in there, if we're at capacity, they can wait to be seen. And so it gives us that flexibility to manage the capacity of the 18 that we have that we can't exceed at any point in time. So when you stop the the walking center, you lose that that waiting room and you're limited just to the 18 clients at that point. So the doors that are Long Beach will arc will always be open for somebody to walk in. You know, that's what will only be open during it. And so if there's that after eight. So they would have to come in through Elm if they wanted to. If somebody wants to walk in. That's correct. Okay. I have an issue with that, but we'll discuss that later. When it comes to releases as well, there's, I guess, a rule or a law that says a person can only be held in their facility for up to 24 hours or 23.5 night. If an individual comes in at, let's say, 9:00, right after we checked him or herself in after 4 hours, says, you know, I'm good to go or or the assessment is made that that person's in is free to go and it's past midnight with that person leave, walk out. What's what's a release process for that for that individual after midnight? Again, it's that same process of making sure they're safe and have a place to go. If that individual has their parent coming and picking them up and the parent wants to come and pick them up at two in the morning, we'll release them to their parent, to a family member. Would it be a warm handoff? It would be to say there's a door go. No, we will escort them to the car in the parking lot. They have to show up before they would leave and we would make. Sure you have security. There. Absolutely. But to also answer your question, we give them the I thought you were going to ask is if somebody came in at 9:00 and it's 9:00 the next night and we determine they're safe to go, but it's 9:00 at night, they can stay. So think of it as you've gone to the doctor, you've completed treatment. You go back and wait in the waiting room. You're no longer getting treatment, but you're waiting for somebody to pick you up. They can stay that night and wait for somebody to come in the morning. Let's go to the other scenario. A person comes in at midnight and the 24 hours is midnight. It's the same thing. They can wait till the next morning if they work. In the morning so that they can see an additional 8 hours. So they'll be there 8 hours? Yeah, they're technically not. They've completed treatment. So the 24 hours limits the amount, the duration of when they can complete treatment. But if at that point we've determined, hey, you're ready to go home, but why not you? You have the option of staying until the next morning, until transportation can be more convenient. They have that ability. The state allows that. Okay, stay there for just a bit, obviously. I want to thank everybody who came up and speak tonight because I know you took a lot of time from your from your home, from your families. You probably skipped dinner. You probably missed happy hour. I know I did. But yeah, that's that's that's something else to be told. But I really want to commend everybody who came out here to speak because it's very important that the city council gets all the information that we possibly can on both sides of the issue, because we need to know to to address what the concerns are. And we can then make a determination as to which way the city council wants to go. So I want to I want to thank everybody who showed up today to talk about this, including the the person from the village, the the child in the village. I want to thank you for for being here. And I know there was another young man who was here as well that shows commitment and it shows a passion for being here and and passion for the issue at hand that we're dealing with now. I also want to to say that I had many a meeting with our department, services department and staff, Amy Borek, and we hash things out. We knew she I brought many concerns up and she addressed that and she put some conditions on there with the with 30, 35, 35 special and standard conditions that I think you've agreed to, if you don't mind. Right now, I'm going to mention a few more because I really would like to see if you if they workable for you at the present time. Condition 11 says well under condition 11. I would also like to add the condition that this deal with security that there be two security guards, especially from dusk to two to the morning, only because if we are going to be accepting individuals during those hours, I would like to assure the community that there's that there's security out there to ensure that these individuals get help, that they come into the facility and and they get the help. But there's someone out there vigilant for these individuals who are requesting to come in. Thank you. So just so I'm clear, you know, the condition that was added was for security guard to be outside the facility on the grounds that was in addition to the two security guards we already have. So we will be having three security guards total, 24 seven. That that's a good that it's good to hear. I really like that. Also, I'm concerned about the openness of the parking lot and the ability for someone to or even kids, let's say, gives like open spaces like parking lot, rollerblading gate. Anybody rollerblade. Anymore? I haven't seen a rollerblading in a long time anyway. Or yoga board, skating or whatever, jumping up and down doing the tricks. So I'm concerned about the openness of that, especially into the neighborhood in Elm. Would you consider or adding a being a fenced off area or the wall you say you're going to raise it and perhaps a sliding gate that would provide more security to that facility to to have the neighbors feel safe, safer. It's more secure that the individuals are not going to be wandering off the grounds and into the neighborhood. Well, my first reaction to that is if that's the concern that there's people in the parking lot and coming in because there's not a fence, then I need to get a different security guard because they're not doing their job. Okay. It's not a big area and somebody should be able to to manage that. And I'm also I don't know how a gate would work for that all. I would answer that. Thank you. I don't know how you know, with the patrol cars coming with the gate, I don't know how that would work, but it doesn't seem like it would be convenient for people coming and going. Okay. Is there also an assurance that that parking lot is not going to. Be used for special events such as a buy me a fundraiser or say a taco truck, moon bounce, that type of thing. I mean, I'm not I'm not saying that you can't. But I would say that if if there's if you're going to have one, I would like for you to apply for an occasional event permit on a sweep through the city so that we can look at it and determine whether it's it's a permissible event that you can have. We'd be happy to do that. We only have one event planned, and that's when I hope you come to. That's our grand opening. We'll get an all AP for that. Also, it's. It's it's a new facility and it's going to be something that that is obviously an unknown event right now that we don't know until it opens. So I would also like to add a condition in there that we will review the the the the facility in one year that we look at it and evaluate it in terms of the conditions that are put in there, that the you are biting through the cup and that they're all there. And we will review this at the end. When you go into planning commission, they review it and then they they determine whether we can continue with the with the process or not. Is that good? Is that okay with you? Well, I would respond kind of asking why that's needed. I mean, the my understanding of is there's 35. Conditions and added a couple more so. Well, but we have to abide by those not a year from now all the time. And, you know, we are going to have to answer to the city and to the neighbors if there's a feeling like we've not adhere to any of them. Our commitment is to do that. We're certainly happy to come and meet and talk about it again. What I just want to be sure of is that this is not a one year cup and then we have to reapply for it, if it is my understanding. But we have to come back and talk about this in a year. We're more than happy to do that. We're happy to do that at any time. And you brought up the neighbors. Maybe one last point. Would you be willing to add a hotline for it, for the neighbors, for anybody who's out there, a direct line that goes into a a comment line, let's say, where they might a neighbor may a resident might say, I'm seeing something out here. It's coming from your facility. I want to lodge a a concern or a complaint. Would you be willing to add a line like that? Absolutely. Actually, we want them to call the facility. We will have a manager 24 seven and we will have the the that person take those calls so that hopefully we can address things right away. Okay. Now, the reason the reason I asked about the the review in one year is that if there's one thing I can't stand and it's already been proven is when I have a bad operator or a bad neighbor, I'm not afraid to go after that operator and kick them out. We did that a couple of weeks ago with a bad operator who needed to who needed to go away, where we revoke their cup and we revoke their license to operate. And hopefully this is not going to happen with you. But I, I just need to say that because it's important that the residents and constituents know that we got their back, that they're going to be their concerns are going to be addressed, and that we are very concerned for their self safety and their welfare. So I want to assure that when it comes to the to this facility, as I said, as I said from the outset, you know, there's the political thing to do and there's a right thing to do. And with these conditions with these conditions, I want to go ahead and make the motion to approve the facility. But under the conditions of the CLP, with additional conditions that I added there, and I would hope my colleagues will also join me in that. There's a motion to to deny the appeals and to move forward with the with the facility is. And there's a second on that motion. Councilman Austin. Before before we go, because I want to make sure that I did it right to the city attorney. Well, one more. Question and is to the city attorney. What's the possibility of us at this point approving the copy but not approving the location? Is that possible? No, that would not be possible tonight. Right. So can you clarify I know I said a lot of things here. In my words with Blair. I misspoke. Clarify the motion. Okay. Mr. Mayor, members of the City Council, Councilmember Ewing, I just wanted to confirm a couple of things. You had asked for a dedicated 24 hour telephone hotline. Yes. That would be responded to that the neighbors could call in. Is that is that correct? Yes. You had asked for a within 12 months of the occupancy of the facility to have a hearing in front of the planning commission to review compliance with those conditions. Correct? Correct. And I just want to state we don't give one year copies, copies run with the land. So this would be a an opportunity for us to make. Sure that those conditions are compliant. And if we do need to modify the hours of operation because of high points or low points, that would be an opportunity for us to consider that. Is that accurate, sir? Councilmember, help me. Yes. So many serves. And then you had asked about a special events permit and whether a special event permit would be necessary. Is that a condition you would like us to craft? Yes. Where they would be required to have a special event permit if they were to hold an event over a certain size. Yes. We just had staff count and I think there's about 67 or 70 parking spaces already at the facility. So we would propose a condition that they would be required to to get a special event permit through the Office of Special Events. If they were doing a special event activity at the facility, that would involve more than 75 people. Is that acceptable? That works for me. My last question for you is that we have an existing condition, number 11, that requires the operator to maintain at least one outdoor security guard at all times when the facility is open to receive patients. I understand to the applicant, that means 24 hours a day. Is that correct? Correct. Council member Did you want one security guard on the exterior or two security guards on the exterior? Well, at this point, I think one would be sufficient. But again, if there's an uptick in complaints, that that would be revisited. Understood. So there is. Mr. Applicant. There are two inside, is that correct? There are two inside. They're not restricted from going outside. If there's a need. For people outside. They can. They can help outside. Like an indoor cat and an outdoor cat. Indoor dog, outdoor dining. Okay, so as I understand it, there are three security guards, but one is clearly defined as being responsible for the exterior 24 hours a day. And then the other ones can certainly aid that security guard as needed. Okay. Then I can withdraw that that comment. Okay. All right. So I believe, Mr. City, Attorney, we have three conditions that we would add to the motion. Thank you. So that's correct. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Austin. Thank you very much. And I want to probably second this motion. I want to thank all of the residents. Will come down in in speaking, in favor or in opposition. It is always healthy to get feedback. Believe it or not, a public comment is my favorite part of the evening coming to city council meetings because I learn so much from our public. I think this urgent care center dealing with mental health will help expand our capacity for health care. Our network in our city. And the impact will be positive on our neighborhoods and not negative. I want to belabor what has already been said about many mental health professionals before. Us that have. Extolled the merits of why this is necessary. And I certainly will agree with that. I speak from experience dealing with family members who have had a mental health crisis. I think it would have been very, very beneficial to to us to have this facility when that both those episodes have occurred in the past. If I think it was mentioned that 10% of the the those participating or who will be benefiting for the services of this this facility are homeless. And that's unfortunate. But I think the other number that we need to pay attention to is the 90% that do have homes. Right. And where are they going? They're your neighbors. They're your family members in and into that. With that point, I think, again, this facility is desperately needed and I think it will go a long way to improving the quality of life for for for residents throughout the city will improve our ability to deliver public safety resources and improve our capacity for for health care overall. And and I would just say that if this was a dialysis center, I don't think we'd have this conversation. If this was a medical marijuana facility, we wouldn't be having this kind of conversation. So, again, I'm happy to support it. And I want to just take my colleague, Roberto Durango for for standing up and being courageous in making this motion. Obviously, this is not going to be something that's going to be met with joy from everybody. But I think the greater good of the city will benefit for having this. So thank you very much and I'll be supportive. Thank you. Councilman Pearce. Thank you. I definitely want to say how proud I am of our council and our staff. Kelly Colby, Doug Halbert, so many people that have really pushed this conversation. They deserve a round of applause because they do. This conversation, sir, I believe you can sit down. I don't think there'll be. Unless somebody asks you to stand back and have a seat in this conversation on how we handle mental health is a conversation that for so many people, we look at people that might be homeless and say, Gosh, why are they homeless if they only could have gotten help somewhere? So this is not about how many people we're serving that are homeless. It's about how many people were saving from becoming homeless. This is about being able today to take a vote on something that could save somebody's life tomorrow. I want to say thank you to everybody that shared their personal stories of personally struggling through mental illness. Kathy, I really appreciated hearing from you. It's hard for people to share that. Mental health is something that we don't talk about, like we talk about cancer or anything else. And because of that, it is that much harder for ourselves, for our coworkers, for our family members to find a resource because we're not talking about it. We all want to say, well, I know somebody five or move that struggled with that. You know, I grew up in a household where my I had mental health issues all around. My biological mom was murdered. So they struggled with mental illness and her relationship. My adopted mom passed away in 2009 because she committed suicide. And so I've struggled with my own challenges in dealing with that. So I'm really proud of our team today for doing this because it's a good step in the right direction and it makes us talk about it. And I know. Thank you. Thank you. And I know it's not supposed to be the cool thing to do to cry behind the dais, but I want you guys today after this vote to talk about mental health. Right. And if there's a tough conversation and someone seems like they're not connecting some dots, that it's really important that you talk about it and find out how you can get them some help to continue to talk about it so that we can be healthy all the way around. So thank you, everybody. And I. Of course, support this. We're going to go and go to to a video here. I just want to just try to wrap up a conversation. I want to thank everyone that came out and spoke today. I also want to echo the comments that Councilmember Pearce said, particularly people that shared their their own stories around mental illness. And it is an illness just like so many other illnesses that are physical and that we all deal with every single day. And certainly I also I do appreciate I think it's important for us to all understand that all folks, even those folks that had concerns, I mean, there are that people have legitimate concerns. People have sometimes issues around their neighborhood and want to ensure that their families are safe. And I think we should all appreciate everyone's concerns. And to them, I think I know it's our commitment as a city is to ensure that we have safe spaces and we're going to do everything we can to ensure this facility, as is as intended by the upwards, is a is a safe, welcoming and healthy place for everyone. And I do also just want to note that one thing that makes me incredibly proud of of this this council in the last few months especially, is that everyone has taken an opportunity to lead and try to address the challenges around mental illness and around homelessness. Remind our room, remind us that Councilman Andrews is working on building what will be a fairly comprehensive and large mental health facility on Long Beach Boulevard in the six district that he welcomed with open arms and work with me. John, I think it's important to note that that councilor, Vice Mayor, Vice Mayor Richardson saw a need for a permanent year round shelter opportunity as well as transitional housing. And in North Long Beach, we are now going to have that have that facility as well. It was only a few years ago where Community Hospital, which is currently in the fourth District, also changed its model to ensure that they were able to do more of this work. And it was a difficult decision at the time as well to allow that work to happen at community hospital. But the council also did the right thing then as well. And so this isn't a challenge for any one part of the city. I think it's it's incumbent if we're going to help our families and our neighbors, because these are our neighbors and our family members. And if we're going to help them, that it has to be the whole city that lifts up people. And I think at the end of it, at the end of the day, I think we all know in our hearts that it's the right thing to do. And so I just I want to I want to I want to thank I want to thank all of you for office, for your hard work. And we will continue to do this work. And one last project that didn't get a lot of mention, but I want to also thank both Councilman Austin and Councilmember Gringa. Just last week, we opened up an affordable housing complex, a unit on the border of the seventh and sixth District for people for a young adults that have developmental disabilities. And and the reason I bring this up is it's the kind of it's the kind of project that sometimes a lot of cities fight and don't want to have folks that are that have their own struggles in different ways in their community. And that was a project that was that was welcomed and supported by both councilmembers. Councilmember Austin, in your district, I believe, and in Councilmember Durango, right across the street, I believe, from your district as well. And so I want to thank everyone for being a part of the solution. And councilmembers, please cast your vote. Motion carries. Great. Thank you. But. Thank you very much. So we're I know there was a long hearing. We're moving on to our second item, but I know most people are here for which is item 22. And so if I can have everyone else that's not here for that item, I can go ahead and exit from this last item.