Adopt Resolution of Intention to vacate a portion of public right-of-way on the west side of MLK Avenue south of 6th Street, set a date for a public hearing on the vacation for Tuesday, March 3, 2015 at 5:00 p.m.; and authorize City Manager, or his designee, to accept an easement deed in order to create parking spaces on the south side of 6th Street, west of MLK Avenue; Adopt Plans and Specifications No. R-6972 for the Alamitos Park Project, Street and Storm Drain Improvements (on 6th Street, 7th Street, MLK Avenue, Alamitos Avenue, and Atlantic Avenue); award the contract for the Base Bid to Palp, Inc., dba Excel Paving Co., of Long Beach, CA, in the amount of $1,942,256, and authorize a 15 percent contingency amount of $291,338, for a total contract amount not to exceed $2,233,594; and authorize City Manager, or designee, to execute all documents necessary to enter into the contract, including any necessary amendments thereto; Adopt Plans and Specifications No. R-6986 for the Alamitos Park Project, Park Improvements; award the contract to Monet Construction, Inc., of Glenda
Yes, both. I think we need two items on item 17. It's quite lengthy, but that can be taken as one motion. But we need to separate 17 and 18. Okay. Mr. Clerk, item 17, please. Item number 17 Report from Public Works Financial Management in Parks Rec and Marine Recommendation two Amendments to the Long Beach Municipal Code relating to one way streets and alleys adopt resolution relating to traffic, authorize or right away exchange agreement with the Archdiocese Diocese of Los Angeles adopt. Resolution of intention to vacate a portion of public right away. Adopt plans and specifications for the Alamitos Park Project. Street and Storm Drain Improvements. Award the contract to Excel, paving for a total contract amount not to exceed 2,233,594 to monitor construction for a total contract amount not to exceed 1,000,862 668 to Smith Corporation for a revised total not to exceed amount of 1,000,031 400. Adopt and accept categorical exemptions. Increase appropriations in the Capital Projects Fund by 250,000 and increase appropriations in the Gas Tax Street Improvement Fund by $400,000. District one. Councilman. Councilwoman Gonzalez, your item? I am so very thrilled to actually partake in this final, you know, approval of the traffic reconfigurations. I have to give many thanks to many different people, and you all certainly know who you are. First to our City Public Works City Manager and Public Works Director Sara malloy and our Parks Director George Chapman for getting going after our state grants. I know it was such a long process over the last six years that I had been in office or that I had been with the former council member in office. It was a lot of work. I remember the criteria just for being able to qualify for these state grants was such a tremendous task and being able to coordinate all of the meetings with our Craftsman Village or East Village Arts Councils, our DLP. A So many of you that participated in this wonderful project, and I think now we're finally at a point where we can, you know, say that we've accomplished this. So congratulations to many of you and thank you so much for being a part of this. So. Did you want to make a motion? Okay. It's already there. That's right. We're back to our technology. Councilman Gonzales made the motion. Councilmember Turanga. I made the second. Let me open up for public comment and go back to council. Is there any public comment on item 17? Casey None. Council member you ringa. Now just want to congratulate the councilman in the first district for pushing this through and getting it forward, looking forward to having a better and steadier flow of traffic in that area. And congratulations. And I also want to give my support for the staff to putting this together. Thank you. Thank you. Vice Mayor Lowenthal. We're all trying to figure out how to adjust our. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I appreciate that. And I want to thank Councilmember Gonzalez as well. And to everyone associated with this project. I know a lot of the neighborhood associations throughout the first and Second District are in support of this project from its inception. And I wanted to also recognize Brian Maciejewski, whom I think is in the audience. He brought this forward to us several years ago and has been very tenacious, along with lots of members of the community to get this done. And it isn't that things take this long necessarily in the city, but it's an important enough issue that required a lot of in-depth review. And so I'd like to thank our community partners for their perseverance. Not only is it going to make this area much more attractive, but really safer for pedestrians and vehicles. And I think that balance was important to strike, and it did take as long as it did so that everyone, especially in our engineering, traffic engineering division, can feel supportive of this. And so with that, we were able to do it. So thank you and thank you, Councilmember Gonzalez, for seeing this through. Thank you, Councilmember Austin. Thank you. I also want to offer my congratulations to the first District Council member for getting this through on your watch. This is exciting, unique and creative youth for space in in in a very, very dangerous area. I would think it creates obviously green space, but also improves traffic safety along MLK and Seventh Street, that interchange. But I'm a little bit confused. I had a question just for staff regarding subsets, section C of the staff report where it basically it kind of confuses me to determine whether or not this can and will be designated as an actual park. Mr. Malloy. I'll turn this over to our public works director, Ahmed Ahmed Lawan. Thank you. Honorable mayor, honorable council members, Honorable Austin, thank you for asking this question. I know it's kind of a difficult subject to to discuss, but for for the public right away to to to become a park, there are only two ways of doing that. Either we have to vacate the street. If we vacate the street by state law, the adjacent property owners will regain back half of the street. Therefore, they would not. No land would be left for us to produce any kind of park. So what we're doing is we're changing practically the use of the right of way. We're eliminating access for vehicular traffic. But again, it's a public right of way. People can walk and bicycle. And and also we have to have access for for the armory. So that use is still going to be remaining for the purposes of subsection C. We're basically saying that if you had a property that had a sister parcel number, pen number, then you could dedicate that for park purposes. And therefore under Section nine or five of our charter, any time you want to revert, take that use away. That means if it was one acre park, if you want to take that away, you have to have a 2 to 1 ratio. You have to bring in another park somewhere in the city, twice the size in order to be able to do this. We're saying here that this is not dedicated land for park purposes, for that section, but for all intensive purposes. It's a it's a park. It quacks like a duck. Walks like a park. It is a park. So you can change the name, use it as a park. And it is also underlying it's a it's a public ride away with a change of use. So a park is a park. Park is a park as a park. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman Gonzalez. And I just wanted to make sure I think I mentioned him, but my head's been a little all over the place. But Mayor Garcia, I know working with him for the last five years prior to being elected in the Keys, the one that really drove a lot of this. And so I have to thank him as well for a lot of the work that he's been doing in addition to all the community members. And yes, Brian Laskowski, I told you this was your fault. So all of this happening right now is certainly your fault. And we thank you so much for that. But. All right. Or George, can someone go over just the park? I mean, it's been some time since we've talked about this, just to talk about some of the nicer elements of the park and what we can expect in the square footage because it's such a huge impact. I want people to really understand what we're working with here. Can we have the PowerPoint loaded, please? Yeah. Mr. Mayor and members of the city council. This will be for us a very active park. The size is about 36,000 square feet. 36 five, actually. Again, with Prop 84 funds, there's two art pieces that are going to be donated by the city. You'll see playground equipment on the north end of it. I'm sorry. Here we go. Right. Here's the playground. There's going to be some bias wheels here, kind of a bridge over here. There will be a skate element incorporated in this in this park and an area where the community can use for concerts, movies, that sort of thing . A nice open space that can also be utilized for programing of outdoor movies and concerts, that sort of thing. So basically, you know, playground equipment, skate park, boswells, open space, kind of a bridge, a natural bridge that the kids can actually, you know, it makes it look like they're in kind of a nature area. And also an art piece incorporated into the in the site. Great. And can you just describe a little bit about what the grant consisted of? Like the criteria that we had to meet. I know we were one of three that we received during that state, Prop 84 of funding opportunities. Is that. Correct? Yes, this was we we received $2.8 million for this from the state Prop 84 grant. And and one of the big criteria for them for the state really is the lack of park space within walking distance, within 15 minute walking distance, within a quarter mile. And this area is very woefully lacking in park space. So that was one of the big criteria. The other was community process. And they were very you know, they wanted the community very engaged in this process in terms of design. And we held, I think, five community meetings engaging the community in this process to design this park, pick the site and design it. So really, those were the key criteria for the state. Okay. Great. Thank you. Thanks to both of you. And I also have to extend an also a lot of gratitude to Mola, as well as the Pacific Island Ethnic Art Museum. I know both of them were very, very helpful and making sure that we had community meetings, we had a place to meet and that they were at the table as well, which is very important. So thank you very much. And that is it. Thank you. With that, we do have to take public comment. There's a motion on the floor by Councilwoman Gonzalez, seconded by Councilmember Oranga to approve item 17. Please, please cast your votes. Motion carries eight zero. And item number 18, which is, I think a companion piece to this.