Recommendation to request City Attorney to report back to City Council in 90 days with options for an increase in the overall amount an individual caught storing, transporting, or deploying illegal fireworks pays when cited within the City of Long Beach.
Thank you. Thank you very much. Now I'm going to pop item 28 and I'm going to have to get off and take over a plate. Thank you very much. Item 28 Communication from Councilwoman Zendejas Councilmember Pearce, Vice Mayor Andrews Councilmember Arango. Recommendation to request city attorney to report back in 90 days with options for an increase in the overall amount. Of. Individual courts storing, transporting or deploying. Illegal fireworks. Haze one cited within the city of Long Beach. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Is it possible to see if we have public comment on this and if we could hear them first? There is public comment on this item. First up, we have Adriana Langston for item 28. Your time starts now. Okay. I first want to thank the council for hearing me and here are my comments. No. Are those your comments? Clark, is there any other public comment? Yes. Next we have. Chris Cooper, your time starts now. I'm ready. Aloha. I'm over. Fireworks and no one helping. Thousand dollar fines. Cops looking away on camera, officials feeling our pain is not okay. Make the fines hurt and help the city, please. Or maybe the answer is legislation making local government liable to private property owners if officials deliberately withhold police protection. 13 citations is not okay and we will not forget minority homeowners in the ninth minority business in the eighth. Aren't cops and officials supposed to help us? My newly blind dog is terrified by every explosion. No safe spaces. Eight straight hours of mortars almost caught my yard house and neighbors car on fire on the fourth and tormented her for months. It correlates to all crimes. As a recent robbery victim, this was my brain after calling 911 wife and her staff. Okay. Kolb It almost took it also as our business destroyed. Panic, anger. Fear. Robbery is a joke in Long Beach, so a cops even come had to fend for ourselves during looting and on the fourth. And that's why I didn't know if help would show on the sixth. My wife is still mad and definitely dumb luck, but I cleared all 11 rooms alone. Cops did show up and clear with guns later. I like Tony and I'm grateful to the police for the help I've gotten. But 18 months of fighting for RV change. Show me. We need our officials to step up or it's hopeless. Put real policies in place to stop the bombs. Yes, this year was worse, but I've been calling on the same people for three years. My blind girl deserves change now. Mahalo for your help. Thanks, Mary. Thank you. Next, we have Jamie Dimon. Lawson. Starts now. Jamie. Sir. Yes. Thank you for taking our comments regarding fines. I'm going to echo the person before me. They need to be set at a deterrent price that makes people think twice about their actions. As someone who personally confronts people in the neighborhood who set off fireworks, they are not fazed by the current parameters at all. Fines should be increased in general, and then even further on holidays, for example, if the fines are $3,000 year round. On a holiday like July 4th, double the fine. Much like construction and school dance. Lastly, and most importantly, none of our efforts matter if the citations are not actually given out. 13 citations handed out on July 4th is not meeting the demand. We need to change the submissive approach to enforcing laws on the July 4th holiday. Right now I'm hearing, well, it's the actual day and people are going to set off fireworks. What can we do? Imagine if elected officials and law enforcement said, well, it's New Year's Eve. People are going to get drunk and drive. What can we. Do? It's clearly got to be zero tolerance. If the citations are not increased and actually handed out, nothing will change. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Next, we have Dan Tatum. Your time starts now. Hi. Thank you. My name is Dante Mack, Attention District and creator of the Long Beach Against Illegal Fireworks Facebook group. Last year was my first experience with fireworks in Long Beach, and I couldn't believe the city and police department would allow its residents to be exposed to such dangerous, harmful and illegal activity and not do anything about it. It was so bad that for the first time in my life I had to leave my home because of an issue a city has chosen to ignore. Thank you to Councilwoman. Then they have to put the issue on the agenda this week. And to those councilmembers and prosecutor Cobert, who continue to be active and vocal on this issue, we are tired of and frankly appalled at being told that simply speaking with our neighbors will solve the fireworks issue. The Council needs to create effective legislation, stiffer penalties, actual enforcement and stopping explosives from entering our city. We also need to explore beyond our borders for changes to state and federal legislation and policies to the members of the Council who haven't already seen in the Facebook group the severe distress that normalizing illegal fireworks has had on the community. I highly encourage you to take a look at what you're subjecting the community to if you choose not to solve this issue. By the time that it is passed, we look forward to seeing solutions to increasing the fines associated with fireworks, such as administrative and disposal fines on top of the 1000 misdemeanor fine. Please keep in mind this is only part of the overall solution. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we have Leslie Davis. Your time starts now. Hi. Thank you. I'm a 15 year resident in Long Beach, a business owner. And my name is Leslie Davis. I'm in District. Two. The explosives being detonated on our streets is out of control. These are not illegal fireworks and can be prosecuted as a felony in California with fines up to $10,000 and a maximum three year. Prison. Term. Handling this as a misdemeanor has not solved the problem. This is what I propose for your consideration. Use the Long Beach City Alert System to announce the city's zero tolerance on explosives and that it will be prosecuted as a felony. Redirect the nightly calls on this issue to an outside phone number. The people doing this monitor and scanners. And this. Is why they evade arrest. Three You use data analytics to consolidate the data that you already. Have on this issue. And use it for. Investigative. Investigation research. And four, set up a task force devoted to this problem comprised of talent from within various departments that have the right skill set and have them on their calls, arrest and find everyone at the scene. You know, let's get at. This and. Make Long Beach a model. For. Solving this problem. And. Help other cities do it then. Thank you for listening. Thank you. Next, we have Sasha Rosenthal. Your time starts now. Hi. My name is Sasha Rosenthal, and I'm a resident of District three. First, I'd like to thank council members and the House for getting this item on the agenda today and being so involved in this issue, along with the city prosecutor at the District nine town hall. On June 29th, I ask Commander Lopez and Mr. Hauber whether fingerprints could be collected from empty fireworks boxes and remnants, which we find all over the streets to assist in citations. Commander Lopez confirmed that although it's not a current practice, it's a feasible strategy. And the city prosecutor confirmed that fingerprints are useful evidence for him to bring in court, likely in conjunction with other evidence. So how can we ensure that this is followed through on? I'd like to see this become a more regular practice as a way of sighting people after the fact. Since we all understand that it's extremely difficult for the police to catch the perpetrators in the act of possession. I'd also like to see new legislation allowing for vehicle impoundment and fireworks cases so that fines can be enforced and collected more easily, as is already done in Pasadena and South Gate. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Taqwa. Julian, your time starts now. Hi. This is Stockwell Gilani and I live in District four. I would definitely like to see us as a hub for having this on the agenda today. So on Saturday afternoon, we were just chilling in our backyard when a super loud firework went off. My heart jumped out of my chest. My dogs ran in and went into hiding. This has literally been our lives for over two months now. We don't feel safe. We can't relax in the comfort of our own home. Every night after dark. Our dogs hibernate and don't even go out to pee. They panic and pace around the house. Their little hearts beat so fast that no supplement or medication makes a difference. Hiding in closets and under our bed every night for three months is no way to live. My husband and I both have serious and successful careers, and I'm not exaggerating when I say the sleepless nights filled with anxiety hindered our productivity massively. We reported the fireworks coming from the same location and same people multiple times, along with proof, but nothing has changed. The low number of citations that you asked indicate how the issue is not being addressed like it should be. Every year we travel out of state for a few weeks in June and July, and this year, due to COVID, we were stuck in Long Beach. And I have to say that the impact of illegal explosive fireworks was so immense that we're seriously considering selling our house and leaving Long Beach unless we see some drastic steps being taken by our city officials. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we have Sheryl Simmons. Your time starts now. Mayor Garcia and city council members. I'm here once again to make a plea for tougher laws for those in possession of illegal explosives. What the residents of this city went through on the 4th of July and ten days later is not acceptable. And I am ashamed that we only had 13 arrests over with over 800. Calls. The night of the fourth. As a taxpaying homeowner of this city, we deserve better than what we experienced that night and can continue to experience on a routine basis. I was one of many who called in to the Long Beach P.D. on July 3rd because we asked neighbors to stop shooting off explosives, and we were confronted by an angry. Mob of them. Upon calling 911. It took 30 minutes for the police officers to get there. They were very nice, but told us that the video evidence of explosives being detonated was not enough for them to issue a citation. This is contrary to what we were told during town hall meetings about illegal fireworks and what we needed to do to report the individual. I am asking the city council members. Not to brush this problem under. The carpet, but to start a campaign now to combat the influx of explosives that will start coming into our city just in time for the fall and winter holidays. Beginning in October, we will start to experience the nightly terror position of our neighborhoods, similar to what we have been experiencing since early May. I urge you, in addition to approving this agenda item, please consider forming a task force made up of. Thank you. Our next speaker is Seagrams. Your time starts now. Okay. First of all, I'm not going to think anyone of you council members, because you're doing the very basic minimum of what we're asking you to do. Maybe not people on this call, but people in the city, on the streets protesting. The majority of people are saying defund the police. And here you are doing the exact opposite of that. You're further penalizing people. You're further jailing people for not having fireworks. People are complaining about their dogs. I understand that. I mean, I don't like living with fireworks all the time. But you know what? The police, LAPD or El Monte Police Department killed 30 plus people between 2010 and 2020. That's that's scary. And it was interesting to me that Janine Pearce, I believe it was, but the part that the police are stressed. How about the people? How about the people who are continually police? All I hear are helicopters above my house because of the Long Beach Police Department, continually just in their helicopters. But, you know, it's interesting. It's hard to defund the police when the mayor has received over $500,000 from the Long Beach Police Officers Association, his single largest donator donor. And this is public knowledge. This is not, you know, conspiracy. This is public knowledge. And this is in complete opposition of what your constituents are saying. But the whole country is saying defund the police. Thank you. And that concludes public comment for this item. Thank you to everyone who spoke tonight. As you can see, this has been an ongoing problem here in Long Beach. But I really want to thank the staff for coming forward and putting this item on the agenda for me and also my colleagues who have who are supporting this item. And again, thank you to all those who paired with us for public comment through the whole me being and were able to voice their their frustrations and their experience with us being a resident of the First District. I also had my share of frustrations during these past couple of months. And I think that I think that it's very important to to the community so that we can look into possibly having stricter laws and and adding fines to to anyone with possession of illegal fireworks. Reminder that all fireworks are illegal in Long Beach. I felt the frustration with some of my neighbors because I, too, was calling in. And I know that it was a crazy night that day. But I don't I don't want us to have to go through that again. Nobody nobody in our in our city should have to go through that. So I'm asking staff to please take this item back and come up with some solutions on how we can either increase. I know we can't increase the misdemeanor, but increase the fines that we can attach to that. I also am committed to working with our state legislators and also our federal ones to try to see if we can really, really enforce something that is going to be that is very problematic to our city right now. I know fireworks is that is very difficult for law enforcement to actually employ. So this is why I'm looking for other options, because we are putting so many of our residents at risk. We have to think about those who who suffer from PTSD, from being in the war. You know, we sometimes forget about those are the seniors that that are frightening that every little while it's not a little noise. Usually it's a big, big boom, you know, and the babies who are just scared, much less our our furry friends who are always, you know, scared and can't do anything about it. And I think that that's what a lot of our neighbors are very frustrated. One of the things that I also want to commend is the creators like Don K and and Charlotte or or bringing together a group of people in a in a Facebook group, which has grown in the past two months, has grown to over 1500 people in there that are against fireworks in our city. And that experience this that, you know, every night and still to this night, we we experience that. So I think that this is very important I to my also also don't want to forget to thank our city prosecutor, Doug Harper for for being so accessible to us and for launching his great, great program where people are actually able to submit their their evidence into this portal so that then he and his office can can further prosecute those offenders. So that huge thanks to him for being so open to the community, for being there and helping to find solutions. And I know that together we can do it. So I'm really counting on us bringing back some really good solutions that will hopefully help solve this this crisis that we have in our city right now. And I know that 4th of July is over, but this is the perfect time for us not to take our foot off the pedal. You know, I think that we must really move forward in this and make sure that this doesn't happen again. So now with that said, I'll open it up to my colleagues. So we have a little situation here. I do not have the the the Rome or the text messaging. And so as an councilmember, vice mayor or mayor or no longer with us. So I will go and district order. We've heard from public comments district to comment on this. Thank you, Councilmember Austin. I my comment is around the administrative fees. I guess I'm curious for staff. If we increase the fines, administrative fees, where are those fees going once they're collected? We have not assessed that yet. So this was an item that was kind of first brought up by the council a couple of weeks ago to ask us to look more into this. And now this item further spotlights it. So we would bring that back. Normally, administrative fees of just in general go into the general fund. They don't go to specific programs. Most of our budgeting, everything goes in the general fund and then you allocate it once a year to the budget. Okay. I guess I would ask when this item comes back, if it's okay with the original maker of the motion, the members in Davos, when it comes back, we can look at options one for putting it into the general fund and then two of the prosecutor has any options for diversion programs or how we do outreach with the community that tends to be consistently using these fireworks that we do something to halt the to continue to the world of my friends missing the word you know, to invest in the community so that we're deter I can't say the word keeping them away from doing it again. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember. Councilmember Price. Thank you. Thank you very much. Councilman Austin, I want to thank those who spoke out tonight at public comment. This is incredibly frustrating and I understand all of your frustrations. In 2017, I believe we started a third district fireworks advisory committee. This is a group of residents who spent over a hundred volunteer hours interviewing different cities, different departments throughout the city. They got data from emergency rooms. They got data for arrests in the city and citations. They just did a tremendous amount of work. They came back with a report that we presented to council. Actually, I can provide a copy of that if anybody wants to email my office, but they came back with a report on some best practices that they had seen in other cities. And we actually went to council and as a council action item, asked for specific things to be looked into, like administrative citations, increasing fines and fees. We really have really tried to talk about this issue for years. And it just this year, every year on July the fifth, I get tons of emails from people saying they've lived here their whole life and this year was the worst. I get it every year. But this year literally was worse, I think because it started earlier in terms of the number of days before 4th of July and also it started earlier in the day and it went much later into the night. And it was just a very painful thing to watch and listen to. And I know that in the past I have myself called and when I've gone out on the street, I've heard something and I've gone out and I've called. And by the time the police arrived, the individual that I didn't even see, I just heard the sound was nowhere to be found. So it's an incredibly difficult situation. It is really like a game of whack a mole for the police department. They go from one look at the fire department. They go from one location to the other. And I just don't know the answer. I think that the city prosecutor being proactive with having the homeowners have some liability of financial liability, I think that's going to make an impact. And I think that we need to make sure that our city prosecutor's office is staffed appropriately to be able to have a designated task force assigned to go after the violators that are having fireworks generated from the location of the residential home. If they don't have the resources to follow up on that, then it's not going to be a deterrent, which is where I think Councilmember Pearce was saying it's not going to be a deterrent if we can't actually follow through with the enforcement mechanism. So for me, I think this is a great item. I think there are some statutory limitations on how large the fee can be, but I don't know. I look forward to getting the report back. I think because it would be an infraction or a misdemeanor offense, there are some limits on how much can be charged as a fine, but I look forward to hearing the report and seeing what else we can do. But we can enact every law. We can enact every enforcement. I mean, we cannot live every law. We can have every deterrent measure in place. But if we don't have enforcement, if we don't have resources for enforcement, then nothing's going to change. So we need to make sure whether that task force comes out of fire, the task force comes out of PD or the task force comes out of the prosecutor's office. We need to be able to fund it appropriately in order to be able to follow through on the threat of punitive sanctions. If we're just putting out there punitive sanctions and we're actually not enforcing it, then no one's going to take it seriously. And that's the problem. I think we have to follow through with the punitive sanctions that we put out there and we advertise because otherwise it's not going to be a real threat to anyone. So I think this is a great item. I want to thank my council colleagues for bringing that forward. I think by now every single member of the council has at one point or another in my tenure, brought an issue about fireworks, which to me. Speaks to the solidarity we all have on this one issue. There are multiple issues where we don't see eye to eye, but I'm fireworks. I think the council is absolutely united. And so I think together we can try to figure out how to fund enforcement. Right. So that we can actually get a return on on the the threat of citations that we actually do something about that. So thank you. Thank you, Councilmember. Councilmember. Super nor do you have anything to add. Yeah. Thank you. Just a couple of quick comments. Thanks to all those who who called in and expressed their opinions. Uh uh uh uh uh. Councilman Price mentioned the third district task force, and I just want to give them credit. You know, and they certainly reached out to our staff and they're perfectly willing and do city wide efforts. Just regarding the issue with the city prosecutor. Um, you know, being able to enforce since just the first year on the portal, um, I would suggest are reaching out to the city prosecutor's office just to get the data, that is how many enforceable violations they receive. Just so we have some numbers to crunch on that. Um, I think that's all I have, so thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Mongo. Thank you. And I'd like to thank Councilman Van de Haas. I plan to continue to the city managers offer us on this. I've met with several individuals since. I joined the Facebook group and even since the 4th of July, and I have some ideas that they've brought to me that I think we kind of talked through and kind of came up with together. But I want to definitely give credit to some of these individuals and talk about some additional options. I've also talked to some police officers, not necessarily any that were actually featured in the videos on the page. But I think it's important also to hear from them on what we can do to help them and incentivize them to give out more tickets related to fireworks. So I know there are laws in the state of California. I know many people want either quotas or an incentive program for the police officers. And there are laws that I've talked about with individuals, but I know those individuals have talked to other individuals. So I just want to kind of talk through that. And then I hope the staff report will kind of outline the limitations that are in place related to those items. As a previous councilman there stated, we don't have the determination between a misdemeanor and a felony. However, what would be ideal is if we could really target your multi time offenders. And there are a very small group of individuals who are lighting up fireworks on a continual basis. And so if we could work hard with the enforcement team to ensure that multi time offenders are hit even harder, and so it doesn't even mean that they have to be a multi time offender in the same year. If they were lighting off excessive fireworks in 2018 and then 2019 and then 2020, and they should be coached on what those repercussions are. And since there are limitations to the financial fine that can be provided or enforced, I think that we need immediate assignment to community service. Literally, if you are lighting fireworks on June 1st, your community service needs to start immediately taking away the time you have available to light off additional fireworks. And we also need to look at. An education program. Perhaps if you receive a ticket, maybe you need to go to a class, an online class that shows bloody photos of individuals. I know two years ago we had an individual who we gave him a ticket at like, I don't know, two in the afternoon and by 9 p.m. the kid was and he's probably I remember seeing the photo, it was just horrific. He was in the hospital. He blown off his hand. And so they need to see the potential personal risk to them and increasing the fine from $1000 to $2000 and talking to community members. I feel that there's been a lot of pushback on the safe and sane firework fines system. A lot of the police officers and neighbors kind of said, you know, even seen fireworks that are legal in other cities aren't really our problem. We want 30 and $40,000 fines for individuals who are lighting off a large supply of the fireworks that are really being brought in from out of the area, that are very detrimental, that made them 100th all of those. And and the reason that the fines should be so high is because the cost of that inventory is high. And so what what I was hearing from one of the police officers was that he was like scoffed at when he gave $1,000 ticket a few years ago because the guy's like, Look , I brought in all this stuff. I've got $30,000 in inventory here. What am I going to do with it? It's dangerous to leave it in my garage. Of course, I was going to light off all of it tonight, and I'm just like. So hearing these stories firsthand really add some perspective. People are bringing in third. They're probably bringing in $100,000 in inventory that they pay $40,000 for. They plan to resell it on $100,000 range and then they didn't sell enough. And so then potentially, since COVID was so strict, they didn't have the sales they had. And so these individuals were just lighting off more and more. I don't know. Those are all anecdotal things that I've heard from community members, but I really feel strongly that the community is demanding community service and direct education for those who have . Been caught lighting off fireworks. And then if city staff could just answer to me because I'd have the same challenge as some of our community members and council members in terms of there was a question asked at a previous community meeting in talking to a police officer. He thinks that the answer was given based on the question being different. So I think we need some clarity. Can we talk a little bit about the fingerprinting issue or could that come back in the staff report? Because I think we're getting mixed messages on that. This time. Yes. We need to come back in the staff report and we can answer questions about fingerprinting. I believe technically it can be done. It's just, you know, a matter of resources and and forensic staffing. I mean, there are times where we have in home invasions and we aren't getting fingerprints. So I just think it's really important to add the perspective. Yes, that's correct. Okay. And then also, I know that I kind of talked about this a little bit with one of the individuals who even spoke tonight was in the fireworks group. And when you run fingerprints, I think it's important for the staff report to discuss whose fingerprints are even in the system that they have to have committed a crime and and how that works. So I think that people can understand and then what the turnaround time is and all of those kinds of things, because I think that those are some of our barriers. And then lastly, I want to thank Prosecutor Doug Halbert and the new program in policy that we rolled out related to holding homeowners responsible in some cases may have backfired. And I think we need to look at this. There may have been individuals who were reported as setting off fireworks, even though the reporter may have actually been the one diverting the the fine. And it was actually a neighborly dispute. And Doug was so kind as to take a personal call from a landlord. And the demographics of his building were just. So unlikely that the individuals who were very ill and elderly senior citizens could have been the individuals lighting off those fireworks on. They had mobility issues and other things that would have prevented them from running away from the lighting quickly. And we had had individuals in the area quickly after the lighting and so it wouldn't have been possible for the individual reported. So I think we just need to look at how to ensure the validity of a lot of these and then with the report could also include related to using video data to prosecute these individuals and hold them accountable. I'm really interested in that. I think that's the way forward. And if there is a significant fine structure, I'm supportive of maintaining a $1,000 fine for your safe and saying, but when you have individuals who you have a block party and we had one in the unincorporated area where all the neighbors in the unincorporated area adjacent to the fifth District have each agreed to pitch in $100 to pay for the fine. The fine is not enough. And on top of that, they all pitched in to pay for the fireworks. I mean, these are the anecdotal stories we're hearing from the neighbor who lives just adjacent. Her dog actually got out from being scared and was running through Hartwell Park. And it was really an unfortunate situation. But with that, I also want to thank Supervisor Janice Horn's office for all her help and the Lakewood Sheriff's Station for their help. But we we need to do more. So thank you. And I will continue these discussions over the next several weeks and look forward to working with staff. Council member council member, Urunga. Because them I want to add my voice to the frustration that's being felt out there, not only with the citizens who have called in today, but also with our council members. I mean, we all face that. That frustration, especially, I guess more so us because, you know, we get people to come out to our doors and say, what are you going to do about it? Look at this. Hear this? You know, I have it. I have the same frustration in my area we call in. It takes a while for our PD to respond. And, you know, I'm the council member, so it affects us all. And we all feel the frustration. And this is hopefully a step in a process that will get people more serious about using fireworks. And they have an excuse because as we've as we all know, it's not only about pets and animals, it's about people. And people also suffer PTSD. They hear an explosion and they start getting nervous and edgy. And you don't even have to have that used to be out, you know, enjoying your TV program. And then you hear a very large explosion and then here go the cars. With your alarm going off and and they stay on for a while because people aren't paying attention to your car. You're not home. So it just don't keep pace, if you will. And we're going through it is is another step in that process. I really appreciate the cast member Mongeau for her ideas, being innovative and creative and and trying to see more what more we can do to ensure that fireworks get under control or rephrased. But we don't usually stop using fireworks as a whole in general. But again, if we have neighboring cities who are legally selling. Quote unquote, safe and sane fireworks. We're always have the same problem. But again, those are not the real issues. The big issues are the big explosive ones, which I call IEDs and improvised explosive devices. Those are the ones that really create the noise and the and the concerns on the community that those are the ones that really hurt people. So thank you so much. And that's for inviting me to join you on this item. I think it's important and looking forward to report when you come back in 90 days. Thank you. Thank you. And Councilmember Richardson. Thank you, Councilmember just General Clark. I think we're all in alignment that we should. We should. This is an important issue for us to engage in. Personally, I'm less interested in quotas. I'm less interested in busywork. I'm more interested in outcomes and accountability as both for property owners as well as our own response. I think folks want to know that if they call the call the call center, someone's going to answer and respond. And if they respond, if they catch someone in the act, they're going to write a ticket. I think that's the most we can. I mean, we can commit to those things and make sure they actually happen and do our part. I'm interested in outreach to the property owners months in advance if we know that there are census tracts targeted. You know, residences have been called on in the past. We should reach out to them months in advance, let them know what the rules are. Let them know that they'll be held accountable once an event. I'm interested in targeted enforcement in those problem areas. We in the council agenda item that that came forward a few months ago, we talked about using data. Identify those problem areas. I think you should start now and start deconstructing the data we have from this year, Independence Day celebrations and see if we can make a difference in targeted area. I think the city has been it's going to be hard to make a big macro difference. And we have to target where we can make a difference, learn some best practices, test out some things, and if it works, then we scale it. I'm interested also in giving the community something to do. I know that we don't have a lot of I mean, we have the neighborhood fire roadshow, which is, you know, you can come out on your front porch and you just look at the fireworks from out there. But there isn't any any actual fireworks show anywhere close. We should think about. Think about doing those doing those things to see if it has an impact. We should test it. You know, I've gone down to the queen. I've gone to Big Bang on the bay. Great experiences. Let's give the American Biscuit something, something to do so they can maybe save a little bit money. And that's an official. So that safe home park, something like that and see if it has an impact. So I think we have to start thinking about doing things a bit differently and just focusing on outcomes and accountability. That's what I would say here in terms of increase the fine from 1000 to 2000. I'm open. I just I just think that that, again, is a is a is. Let me address. You know how we're going to hold folks accountable? I think it's not going to happen. You know, not not it may not have as much of an impact. It could. But I'm interested and I'm okay with this morning. Those are my comments. Thank you. All right. Thank you. I have Councilmember Mongo. Then I have council members and they have screwed up. I want to just say a couple of words. Alison, we've heard from many residents over the last few weeks. This has been a. A very, very difficult few months. When it comes to explosions and living with explosions and in our neighborhoods to our city. And it was more than just the 4th of July. Obviously, it was a sustained period of time. So, so much so that I want to say over a month ago, a month ago or so, that I brought forth an item signed on, I cosigned by Councilmember Richardson, Councilmember Zane de Haas, Councilmember and Vice Mayor de Andrews to to ask staff to develop an action plan from that plan. We did we were able to get the city prosecutor to initiate an innovative portal and letters to to to to property or to residents that that were reported. That was a step in the right direction. Obviously, it felt well, we fell well short of what we needed to do to eliminate fireworks during the season. I will say that we fell short, but. The entire Southern California region fell short. I had to go and pick up my son from a from a 4th of July function in La Palma. It was really no different than Long Beach, Cerritos, Artesia, all up and down the 91 freeway. It was lit up fireworks, banks, explosions. And I'm not sure if those cities experienced it to the extent we did, but I can say that this year was different. There was a proliferation of fireworks that we haven't seen before. And I think as we look toward next year and moving forward, it's going to require some investigative work, is going to require some work beyond just what we can do as a city to eliminate the. The proliferation in the ports of entry, where are they coming from and how are they getting here in such large quantities to the fines? Again, I think we just recently raised our fines last year and I don't think that had much of a deterrent. I'm okay with stiffer penalties, but clearly people are spending a lot of money on fireworks as well. And so there's a lot of disposable income and this is a deterrent that we feel like we can that will make a difference. I'm supportive of it, but I'm also going to go live with my comments because as I mentioned, we brought an item about a month ago. We directed staff to get back to us on a number of items. I'm curious, Mr. City Manager, wouldn't you expect to have a report back? I know there's a lot going on right now, but what can we expect to report back on on the item that we passed just a few weeks ago regarding the fireworks action plan ? I'm not sure what to call you, vice vice mayor or something. But, Mr. Austin, I don't have a date yet for that. I think we had looked at about a 90 day, if I remember the item, for the first kind of check in. This also calls for a 90 day. So we'll set our clock to that and get as much information as we can by that time. Okay. So those are my comments. And we'll go back to Councilmember Mongo and then Councilmember and ask to close if there are no other comments. I just really appreciate the comments made about using the data. I'm very supportive of some kind of a letter that is sent to residents who have been reported for fireworks addresses that have been reported for fireworks in the past, something that says, please be advised that all fireworks are legal in the city of Long Beach. Should you or a member of your household light off fireworks? You're going to be required to do 200 hours of community service or whatever we're going to be able to do. I really think that advance notice to them. I'd also like to find a way that anyone who is a spectator can somehow, if you can set up your chairs in a way to support an illegal fireworks show that goes off into the air, I really think we need to think about you're really contributing, right? So you talk about bullying and there's three different levels of bullying. But my and participating condone are part of the problems. We need to look at that, too. Thank you again to all who have participated in this and the several other agenda items related to reducing the firework issue in Long Beach. It is a regional problem, but let's be leaders in making it a quiet and peaceful place with high quality of life for our residents. Q and council members in House. Thank you. Thank you very much. Colleagues, this everyone has had some great ideas. And I think that's exactly what what this item was, why I wanted to present this item. And just to make a clarification, I don't think that we can actually raise the fees on a misdemeanor because that's not something that we can do. But but this motion is more for the staff to go and and look at other options that we can include on top of that misdemeanor. So, for example, you know, tagging on community service to that or another fine or violating another thing, you know, the annoyance ordinance or a health ordinance, some things like that. So all of everything that was talked about today is great. I know that within the community there's also been talk about maybe setting up a reward fund to be able to just you among the people that that turn in, people who are who are doing fireworks illegally. And I really also like the idea of, you know, the possibility of impounding a vehicle if you are caught with these illegal explosives in your car. I've also seen where, you know, during my research have also seen where cities have actually had checkpoints like we do for drunk driving. We had they've had checkpoints to to check the vehicles and make sure that they don't have these kind of explosives. So with that being said, I really look forward to working with staff on bringing forward, you know, a lot of options that we could use and question for staff. I know that the council member asked and also brought up a firework item, you know, the firework action plan. Is there a way to combine these so we can bring back information on this same time? Certainly. So we can build on some of the research that we had done in the past as Councilmember Price mentioned. And we will combine these two together because they do speak to very similar items and bring those back. So we're we're hearing you there's a lot of questions that you have, and we want to do kind of a bigger comprehensive report of all the issues. Yes, I think that that would be a great fit to bring what has come out of the research that has already been done and with creating more opportunities to be able to make a difference for next year and hopefully next year. We could say that this year was different because we didn't see fireworks in our city. So thank you again all for supporting this item and I look forward to working with staff on this. Okay. Let's go to a vote here. District one. I District two. I District. Three. I wasn't strict for. District five. I. District six. District seven. I. District eight. District nine. Our motion carries. Thank you. So the next item is item number 24. We'd like to take item working with item.