Recommendation to request City Manager to work with Financial Management to waive, from March 1st, 2020 through March 31st, 2021, user fees and charges for the most vulnerable Long Beach, independent, full-service restaurants, with an emphasis on equity; and Request Director of Economic Development and other appropriate departments to develop a Long Beach Restaurant Retention Plan, designed to improve the economic survival of restaurants impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic across Long Beach.
Thank you. Now we move to item number 34. Item 34 is a communication from Councilmember Richardson. Councilwoman Cindy has councilmen subpoena recommendation to request city manager to work with financial management to waive used user fees and charges for the most valuable Long Beach independent food service restaurants with an emphasis on equity and request. Director of Economic Development to develop a Long Beach restaurant retention plan. That's when Richardson Bank Vice Mayor. So a few things. So it's been an ongoing discussion on. Again with a few months back comprehensive really difficult to move forward. Most recently, I want to thank Councilman Supernova for continuing that discussion and having some discussions earlier this month about additional resource for restaurants. The idea here is that we want to sort of build on the two from four memo from city staff that we requested that looked at sort of breaking down the cost and give some direction on how we want to proceed on in the immediate term, but also take all of the larger conversations and package them into a restaurant retention strategy that can roll out over the months to come. And the goal with the retention strategy is really to set some benchmarks and goals. If we've heard rhetoric, about 50% of restaurants not surviving. We want to beat that. We want to increase that 60%, 70% survival rate. But that means we have to be intentional and focused. So the idea here with this motion we want to take, based on the 2.4 memo from staff, they identify what the cost would be. And we we see that the full service restaurant portion, the total cost was like 23 million bucks. But when you narrow down the full service restaurants, you're talking 2 million bucks, $2 million to address some of the health fees, bar fees and some of these other issues. And we want to narrow that down also. We want it to be local, independent. We're not talking about, let's say, a fast food chain. Right. We're talking full service, local, independent repair. That number down a bit. And that's the direction we want to give the staff. This should be we should be thinking about this in terms of we know that we offered some relief up until September 31st. We want this to be sort of at the go back, you know, from March. This past March to sort of into the next year. You want to add some type of relief in the program that Steph brings back? And so that's the idea here. We've got a lot of a lot of discussion, a lot of research already done. We want to give this discussion and also give some general direction on how we move forward more broadly around restaurants. Thank you so much. And that's my final thank you contribution. When you probably comment on this item. No public no public coming. By. Vice Mayor. I think we need a second. I'd like to see motion. Yes. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Okay. Any other council member comments on this? And I would just like. Sorry. I would just like to say that I'm really looking forward to this item. I think it's very important that we really focus on helping out our restaurants who are, of course, suffering a lot through this pandemic. It was already too much when they were closed for one month. But now we're going on six months. And it's they're struggling, especially the small business restaurants. And I think that that's this item is really designed to help those local that that have been struggling through this time and, you know, really emphasizing on helping them stay open after this pandemic. So, again, let's let's support our local businesses. Thank you. Pretty much any other councilman would like to speak on of. Vice Mayor, this is Tom. If I can say something when the council's done speaking. Yes, sir. Vice Mayor. Councilman Mungo? Yes, go ahead. Thank you. I appreciate that. This continues to be a focus. It's something that I feel strongly about and continue to work on. I think that it's important for us to maintain the focus on the criteria that was outlined two weeks ago. And so I just had a question for the maker of the motion. It talks in the agenda item about a couple of variations, but the item that was approved by the council two weeks ago talked about prioritizing any kinds of funds that could become available from. Either a fee waivers if there ends up being a limit or suspensions to be prioritized based on restaurant losses, based on either a mix of loss of revenue and on avoidable costs or just a gross loss of revenue. I just wanted to make sure that this item just mirrors the item of two weeks ago and that that is still being maintained or if I needed to make a friendly amendment to maintain that. Sure. I think what we want to bifurcate quickly, I think we're talking on the first part of this motion, just on the fees. I think we want to be just very clear on the criteria we outlined, which is full service restaurants, local, independent. I think. That's. Ongoing. Right. I get I get that. And what. I'm asking. Yes. I'm let me just finish the thought. And I think we're we're speaking past each other. I think what you're talking about is the ongoing incentives moving forward and that yeah, I think we can conclude that those sort of issues as we factor into the larger retention strategy. So I think the answer is yes as it relates to the sort of the broader strategy, because we haven't defined what those incentives would be. But we do know enough about sort of fee, the fire fee and those things. Some have paid we want to see those get some rebates and then we want we want to have that relief. So some who are paid get some rebates, some who haven't paid. We want to get them some relief. In terms of the fees that we talked about last time. We're talking about the same universe counseling other. Right. So it does exactly what we already did two weeks ago, which is. And. And if there is only enough. So are you or is your expectation that the study that Councilman Super Nine requested would also come back with. Um. Let me go back. My expectation and maybe this is the question from Mr. Modica, my expectation is that Councilmember Supernova's request, along with Councilwoman Price's friendly amendment, commuted those fees immediately and that we are hoping to give rebates and refunds. The report you provided quickly, which, by the way, city staff need a significant acclimation for being able to provide that report so quickly. And we appreciated receiving it last night. It is a wealth of information, but now we know that the number to be able to mitigate those full-service restaurants is just over $2 million. If every one of those categories are waive or refundable and that and my understanding of Councilmember Superstore's request would be that we find a place to get that money from. It's great to have a feasibility study, but it's only feasible if revenues can fill that hole because you can't just not pay the fire workers the fire service , and you can't not pay the the health service health office staff. Thank you. Councilman, do you have one minute, please? Mr. Monica. Yes. What we understand is what she passed two weeks ago was a feasibility study. I agree with the way you summarize it with one small change. We didn't go ahead and waive all fees during that time. It was a feasibility study. What we did in response was to bias. More time was to it was all going to be due August 30th. That was how long the council had given previously. And we and I've extended that to October 31st provided the Council doesn't have alternate direction on that. So that gives us some time to do the study that Mr. Zupan asked for and the council approved. And then what is in front of you tonight is is providing further direction on how to look at that data and for what steps should be bringing back in addition to what DRC Burnard put forward. And what would you say those additional things are that need to come back? Because I thought. I just. I'm curious. I would leave that to the maker of the motion to really describe it as I understand it. It it has to do with looking at a smaller subset. It has to look at some equity. It has to look at, you know, businesses that are Long Beach focused. That's my understanding, as well as coming back with a larger restaurant retention plan that we can spend some time on and come back with ideas. Public safe. Well, I hope that equity could be found in that all $2 million. Excuse me. Oh, I'm sorry. I couldn't hear you. Super frustrating. I hear you. One more minute. This is Mongo. You have one more minute. Thank you, sir. My hope would be that all restaurants included in that category, should we be able to come up with the right criteria, would be able to get that abatement. And so that would be approximately $2 million. So I appreciate the prioritization, but now that we know that the number is only $2 million and these restaurants do put so much back into the economy in terms of employing people, especially those in the Latin and African-American communities, that that the priority would be citywide to take all of those businesses. So those are my comments. And thank you for owners who worked with us on that, on the the issues at play and the city staff who contributed excellent work from Mr. Gross's office. Thank you very much, madam. Anyone else I can speak on the side of? Okay with that, we have a first and second question of interest in motion and second by Mrs. Sanders. Would you please call the vote? District one. I district to district three. I just took four. I just took five. I. District six. By. District seven. District eight. District nine. Tie motion carries. Thank you. Okay. With that, I would like to make a motion to continue the rest of the items pending tonight, next week. Can I please get a second? Second were. Thank you, councilman austin. No. Please. No.