Recommendation to approve renaming the community center at Houghton Park the "Doris Topsy-Elvord Community Center".
Thank you. Number 20. Item 28 Communication from Vice Mayor Richardson, Councilwoman Sara, Council Member Oranga and Councilman Austin. Recommendation two referred to the Parks and Recreation Commission and the Government Personnel and Elections Committee to consider naming of the newly renovated Halton Community Center complex. The doors topsy over community center and recommend city manager to identify additional sites of significance to the African-American community for the purposes of historic preservation. Vice Mayor Richardson. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Today, I'm proud to present to you a proposal for naming the newly built and renovated community center complex after mother doorstops. Before I begin my comments and share short video and acknowledge a few people, first six Bishop Council members who we sorrow. Seventh District Council Member Roberto Ranga. And Eighth District Council member Al Alston also acknowledge the steering committee members former ninth District Councilman Steve Miele. Steve and Jackie Topsy. Cecily Harris Walters. Sharon Biggs. Jackson. Marcus Tyson, Anita Dempsey, Michelle Dobson, Joanie Riggs, Odie and Wayne Chaney. Also want to thank the more than 70 community members who have signed on in support of this effort, including community community leaders like Mayor Beverly O'Neal, amid Sophia Fear, Bixby Smith, Carl Kemp and others, faith leaders including Pastor Gregory Sanders, Bishop Todd Irvin and Dr. Lee. Our word in our families neighborhood associate neighborhood leaders, including former ninth District Council member Val Lerche and press birds and the presidents of many of our ninth District neighborhood associations. I also want to thank the elected officials who took time to send in letter support today. Congressman Alan Lowenthal. Representative Annette Barragan. Senator Lena Gonzalez. Assembly Member Mike Gibson. Supervisor Janice Hahn. Thank you so much for those letters of support. And finally, thanks to the Long Beach TV team who helped put together the video we're about to see. Dennis Hunter, Nadia and Ed did a great job. And so to introduce this Mayor Topsy over mother doorstops, Joubert served as the first African-American woman on a Long Beach City Council. She was our first African-American harbor commissioner and a two time vice mayor right here in the city of Long Beach. And she's a mentor to many of us and said paved the way for many of us here in leadership. The name of the new community center housing park after this living legend is a true honor for our community. And it recognizes her legacy, her contributions and 35 years of public service to the entire city of Long Beach. She's recognized and affectionately called mother for many great reasons, the new community center complex. The site is designed to be a park that embodies the very things that she valued by community and youth and equity and improving the quality of life to residents. It also provides programing which are core tenets of her legacy programing for our communities, youth, seniors and social needs. I will continue. There's much more than I can say, but we put together a great video to share. And to be clear with this, we need to do a better job citywide and these conversations come up. We need to do a better job ensuring that our assets and our our public facilities reflect the cultural diversity of our of our community. And so this does not preclude Mother Doris from being recognized even for in other areas of town and or anyone else. And I think the second part of this motion really speaks to us being intentional about updating our our citywide historical context statement and going through a process of identifying all communities that are underrepresented through these processes to make sure that they can also be reflected in our naming process, the city wide. So that's it. I'd like to go ahead and share the view. Hi, I'm Long Beach Vice Mayor Rex Richardson, and welcome to a very special edition of Go Long Beach. We are here at the Houghton Park Community Center, right in the heart of uptown Long Beach. It's a great regional park that offers services and amenities to teens and seniors for our entire community. And I'm here to share with you a great proposal to name our new center after living legend and trailblazer Doris Topsy over mother Doris . His legacy is that of community, of public service and of equity, all things that we value right here in the city of Long Beach. And for that reason, she's deserving of this distinction and honor. But you don't have to take my word for it. Let's hear from some. Folks who are closest to Mother Doris on what. Makes her so special to the city of Long Beach. Vice Mayor Doris Topsail Ward is an amazing woman who gave generously of her time and talents. Doris is truly one of the most wonderful, caring, civic minded people that I have ever met in my entire life. Doris is a community person at heart. She's been my best friend, my teacher, my mentor. Doris is warm, she's generous, she's loving, and she's my mom. Anybody that says has anything to say about it and there's nothing but kind words because that's the way she is. Even before I met her in person, I met her in the pages of this book that I'm holding in my hand, which is the 1949 Saint Anthony yearbook. You will see that not only were you a leader, you were a scholar. You were an athlete. There's a picture in here of Dorothy leaving a social group of students that were providing food and supplies and clothes to people who are in need in Yugoslavia. Doris was the first African-American student at seniors in high school. You opened the door for so many other people of color that followed you and emulated you and all that you were able to do. You're in the city of Long Beach. The 1992. She won her bid for becoming the first African-American woman to the Lombard City Council. And then she was elected as the vice mayor. So to know her is to know a woman of integrity and a woman that kept her promises. She saw the need within several underserved communities, the children in the community like the midnight basketball games. That was one of them, to keep the kids off the streets at night from getting in trouble. She was the founder of the King Parade. She also helped to put a cover on the pool at the Kings Park, too. She went to Washington to look for that money, for that project. So she was she was made the vice mayor. And after that, she left the city and went to the poor. I think her addition to the Harbor Commission back then was a new day in that we had a true person who really had a good perspective of community engagement to really have credibility in terms of addressing the very legitimate environmental issues that we had to address by back then. When that became known as the Greenport policy, Doris was very supportive in that obviously there was a commitment to address the environmental questions that we had to address, but it was more than that. It was also a commitment to engage with the community. You know, today in the year 2021, we're still talking about equity and inclusion. She was a great contributor to making sure that we're also going to lead in terms of diversity, in terms of the workforce and what our commitment was. For me, I can't wait to visit and see the community center with the name Doris Top Children. You deserve a Doris. I can't think of another person who's more deserving to have a community center named after them than you are. You truly have been at the center of the heart of this community your entire life. We thank you for loving us and embracing us as family. We want all of the community to know of your generosity to the city of Long Beach. You are so I love you. And I would not be where I'm at today if it wasn't for you. And that goes for everybody that has worked with her and helped her. Always been proud of you. You know you are everything you deserve. Whatever you got, come on. Because you've always been there for me. I hope that everyone in Long Beach will learn something of you as we go on through time, especially the young people in our communities. She's truly deserving of this honor. And now I want to share with you more about the future of Highland Park right here at Highland Park. We are reimagining the way we deliver services to our broader community. We are integrating a workforce center, a health care clinic, a new signature playground, and plans to restore the original building and build a brand new indoor gym to serve the youth of our community. So that's what's happening at Highland Park. I'm Vice Mayor Rex Richardson. I want to thank you for watching. Go Long Beach. Thank you. Thank you. I'm happy to make the motion and. Yeah, thank. You. Thank you. There's a motion on the floor and I have a second by Councilman Ringo. Contrary. Ringo Thank you, Mary. And I want to thank Vice Mayor Richards for bringing this forward. Before Doris was my friend and collaborator, she was my opponent. We ran against each other in 1988. That's how far I go back with her. 32 years, 33. We ran for school board. We neither of us won, but we became close friends almost, almost immediately from then on. And she became very close in my career. As I move forward to see you all meet, she became a commissioner in the Civil Service Commission who for whom I worked and I was actually under her leadership. I became the recruitment officer, which I always talk about in the city. It was through her leadership that I got there, and of course the rest is history as city council vice mayor or commissioner. And I was glad to see Ralph in that very nice mayor because I haven't seen Ralph in a long time. And we are stories with that. So more than happy, very pleased to support this item and looking forward like everybody else to the naming of the community center for Vice Mayor Gore stops. He retired. Thank you, Councilman Austin. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and I am excited and honored to sign on in support of this item. I want to thank my colleague, Mr. Richardson, for bringing it forward as well as the my other colleagues for signing on. This is a real honor for a true trailblazer and somebody who is well deserving of a name. I want to just say this is a special proposal for a very special person. She's a civic leader who is truly an icon in our city and particularly the black community. She was the first black woman to serve on the city council. She did so honorably. She represented our district in a in a strong manner. She was the first person to really introduce the idea and the concept of equity. If you know Mother Dorothy and you know that lives she impacted the city employees through the careers that she has has helped foster through her leadership. It is amazing. It's an amazing story. And, you know, I don't think I have time to die within my time, so to speak, on all of those accomplishments. But there are countless number of individuals who can step forward and tell you of the influence that she's had on their lives, their careers and families throughout the city of Long Beach. Our contributions in our city are broad and deep, and they go well beyond her service on the city council as an elected leader. They go beyond her service as the harbor commissioner and vice mayor. She she is somebody who has given, as we mentioned, the student at Saint Anthony. She was engaged, involved. She was a young leader and has been a public servant really all of her time in the city of Long Beach. And so I'm I'm honored to sign on to this. There's a bit about Doris that was left out here, too. I just want to just commend her for her constant. Commitment to celebrating and preserving history. She was the founder of the African American Heritage Society, along with the late Indira Hale Tucker that is currently in existence still at BURNETT Library. And there still is an organization that is very active and relevant in our city today. And personally, Dorothy has always been a great sounding board, a mentor, someone who cares deeply about this city and shares the history I have. I consider she is a neighbor who lived within walking distance. I was watching March Madness a couple of weeks ago with her on Saturday at her home, watching basketball games and chatting it up and always getting nuggets of advice, but also understanding of the rich history in our city. I think that's very, very important for all of us as leaders to have somebody like that to bounce ideas off of, but also to get advice from as well. And I just appreciate the relationship that I've personally been able to have with her and her family. I'm glad to call her one of my favorite eighth District constituents and neighbors, and I'm proud to sign on in support of this this wonderful item. Congratulations, and thank you for bringing it forward, Vice Mayor Richardson. Thank you, Councilwoman Sara. Thank you, Mayor. I want to thank Vice Mayor Richardson for his leadership on this item, as well as all those who submitted letters of support and supporting this item, as well as by council member Yarrawonga and Austin. And I enthusiastically support the naming of Doris Topsy Alvord Community Center while she was a former Long Beach Council District Council member. Ultimately, she's a city of Long Beach civic leader and an important figure for many young women of color that looks up to her, such as myself. So she's more than deserving of this honor. And just as the first Cambodian woman council member, I look up to her as a trailblazer in setting the foundation and pathway for our many leaders. And I truly believe that the naming of our building should be reflective of leaders and people in our city. And so I'm certainly supportive of identifying additional sites of civic significance to the African-American community and all other underrepresented community for the purpose of historic preservation and landmarking and inclusion in our updated citywide historic context statement. So for that, I again just I'm so glad to see this moving forward, and I'm just really happy to help in any way I can. Thank you so much. Thank you. We'll go ahead and take a roll call vote on this, Madam Clerk. And as we do so, I just want to also just congratulate everyone, then Vice Mayor Richardson and everyone that signed on to do this effort. Of course, Vice. As we know, our mother, Doris, but Vice Mayor, Doorstop Silver is a legend really in our history and in really in present time as well. I think the one thing that was said that I just want to add to is, ah, her influence and really leadership within the African-American community is something that's very lasting and that our our black community, our black leadership for African-American, our history has so much in her work. And so I'm grateful to be supportive. But also just want to thank all of you for bringing this forward as well. So real. COLBERT This. Councilwoman Cindy has. I. Councilwoman Allen. I. Councilman Price. I. Councilman Sabrina. All right. Councilwoman Mango. I can swim in Zara. I council member Tauranga. I can swim in Austin. Vice Mayor Richardson. All right. Bush and Kerry's.