Recommendation to request City Manager to work with the Department of Economic Development to evaluate the feasibility of establishing a special Economic Empowerment Zone (EEZ) program in the targeted areas of North, Central, and West Long Beach. Furthermore, request a report back on the program in 90 days.
Okay. Is there is your public comment on this item? Nope. Okay. So we have a we have a motion in a second. Members, please cast your votes. Motion carries a thank you and then that the second part. Item 32, please. Item 33 Communication from Councilmember Richardson. Councilwoman Gonzales, Vice Mayor Andrews, Councilmember Miranda Recommendation to request City Manager to work with the Department of Economic Development to evaluate the feasibility of establishing a special economic empowerment zone program in the targeted areas of North, Central and west Long Beach. Furthermore, request to report back on the program in 90 days. Thank you. And so during the course of the community conversations, we we kept coming along across that theme of the tale of two cities and how we know that there's a different set of economic circumstances in north and central west Long Beach that that have gone on, persisted for generations. And, you know, this was an opportunity for us to to listen to the community and say there needs to be a separate recommendation here that takes a takes a look at existing opportunities that are happening now, like the Federal Opportunity Zone program that we know is really focused on sort of front loading investment as well as, you know, our state program, which is really are our major strategy for north central west Long Beach redevelopment, which ended in 2012. And and we know that shifting politics, shape shifting legislative environments, makes it difficult for local cities to really put together an on the ground strategy to address persistent economic challenges in targeted communities. So we know that. And so we have local control and we have local power to determine our own zones and say, hey, we can determine the economic circumstances in these areas in order to sort of achieve our public policy outcomes. So we see these impacts in north central west Long Beach, where communities are disproportionately layered with inequities in health and wealth and opportunity. And this recommendation before you is is to create a new tool, an economic development tool, that will shift this split city narrative by growing opportunity in the neighborhoods, in the targeted communities that need it most, which in turn benefits the overall growth of Long Beach. This is really about really taking advantage of opportunities, opportunities that we haven't taken advantage on as to our best ability. And so during the Community Conversation series, we observed a pattern at the at the three conversations in North, Central and West, a pattern in the feedback. We asked a very simple question of what does your community need to economically thrive? And what we noticed was that everyone said the same thing. Every community said, we want access to financial institutions. And there were the West Side didn't have a bank in areas of North Long Beach, didn't have a bank. They said, we want access to capital, as there are still many unbanked neighborhoods of our city. Residents want to be connected to resources and connected to each other. They know they want to pursue activities that will grow wealth for their families. That's universal. Everybody wants that. This includes pathways to homeownership, affordable housing and skills necessary to to, you know, to earn good paying jobs. There is a mutual concern for neighborhoods susceptibility to displacement. There were concerns about being able to walk to a neighborhood serving store on your business quarter. You could be proud of. Everybody said that. And everybody in every area of every every area of town knew which quarter they're talking about. They're talking about Santa Fe on the West Side and talking about Atlantic Avenue, North Long Beach or or PCH or Anaheim. And so to understand the need for this this special economic development, certainly circumstances, we need to take a look at the demographics of the communities. So the following maps were released early this year. In the first slide uses a dot map to show the racial economic concentrations by census tract. So notice north central west is big red circles north central west. That's where the people of color are concentrated. And then in addition to racial, racial diversity, north, central and West have more families with young children. If you notice those circles, it shows, you know, north and central and west of areas with young families. And then you see in northwestern and southwest and neighborhoods, you'll see, based on the Cal enviro screen that these neighborhoods are also exposed to pollutants which directly impact the quality of life. The story is the same in north, central and west Long Beach. And you look at the next map, which is life expectancy. The darker shaded portions of the map are shorter life expectancies, which are concentrated in north, west and central Long Beach. Let's take the next one, which is higher concentrations of lower income neighborhoods. You know, let's do the next one, lower lower levels of higher education attainment. Let's do the next one. Draft drastically higher. The dark. The dark red is drastically higher. Levels of unemployment. These channels, the challenges that these each of these communities is facing is resounding. It's laced with with you know, it's systemic and is laced with race in disinvest, disinvestment, rooting back to redlining. In other conversations, we know that it's all connected public policy. It's been the same story for generations. And and, you know, counsel and staff has done you know, they've done what they can do. But we need to get really specific about when we talk about these areas that we need to break the cycle and do something specific to change the circumstances there. Because as local leaders, we have a responsibility to create policies that build strong, resilient communities and establishes basic life and dignity standards for everybody. And that's essentially what what what the economic empowerment zone conversation is about. And so, um, so around the world, economic development programs leverage partnerships between public and private entities to stimulate, stimulate growth and target areas. You know, there are special economic zones in Taiwan, in Thai, in China, in India. We know that there are state and federal programs that use incentive driven strategies to address economic inequity, such as redevelopment, which we know was ended in 2012. Right. And and we know it proved to be an effective state program, but it's subject to the same policies. State politics and budget challenges is everything else. RTA built affordable housing, attracting new investment. It created jobs in its project areas, and fortunately that program is gone. And when the state eliminated redevelopment and conversely accelerated its sustainability goals, it created the gap right there more demands on local communities. But they took away our biggest tool to really address it. And then we learned about the Federal Opportunity Zone program. Now, the federal program, it's really it's really about upfront infusion of capital. In fact, the first deadline for the federal opportunity zone is June. I think June 29th of this year is the first deadline in order to maximize the incentive. The next one is December 31st. So the idea is, if you can see the investment now, you ride it out for ten years and you get the maximum benefit. So it's a short term infused. It's not the answer for everything. And so while they do offer these these these, you know, incentives, it's not going to it's not going to save us. It's not going to save north, central and west long beaches, economic circumstances. And so economic empowerment zones could connect the dots between the opportunity zones and the state programs like EIA, PhDs and Careers and these other programs. So what could it look like? It could look like looking at a number of different incentives and key areas that we can locally control if we know that businesses in north, central west Long Beach have a higher failure rate and they don't typically last longer than three years. And why do we charge them a business license fee for three years? We should we should give them a shot to establish. Right. If we know that we need more access to the grocery stores, health care in banks, then we should make sure that every department that touches those things knows that this is a special economic zone and that we're going to leverage our procurement, leverage where we spend our finance, you know, where we bank to say make sure you place locations in those areas. So it's really taking a taking the time to really target those areas and say, what can everybody do to make it happen? If you're public works and we know that there are burgeoning business corridors, we put a lens on your budget process and say, how do you invest and make sure you're adding street furniture better, lighting the things that will make it safer and better for those businesses? If you're our workforce agency, how do you decentralize and make sure you focus on those areas and make sure you have these resources available? So that's the idea. So in terms of, you know, sort of deviate it from my my my PowerPoint, but the idea here is I deviate a little bit. So the idea here is simple. How do we we want to give staff an opportunity to spend some time on this. We don't want to rush this. We want them to think about a place based program, just like opportunity zones, just like redevelopment, but local, using our tools, something we can put in place and keep it in place so people can plan around it. Like five years, right? Put it in place for awhile. Come back to us. Tell us what it's going to cost. Tell us you know, tell us how we're going to get it done. Tell us how we're going to draw these boundaries and targeting. I got to tell you, there may be areas that are not on the big red areas that if we can figure out a special target, those we should special target those as well. So so information in summary this the idea here is about rising tide lifts all ships. We should take advantage of the biggest opportunity we have where the majority of residents are, where the majority of growth is happening, and make sure we invest and invest in those areas and take into account the circumstances, the economic circumstances in those areas and really try to try to change the narrative. Thank you very much. And I urge and I vote on this motion. Thank you. Council member Vice Mayor Andrews. Yes. Thank you, Vice Mayor Richardson. You know, I want to thank you for allowing me to act, you know, sign on to this, you know, item, because especially in this issue where we need assistance in activating central corridor, such as, you know, in my district, you know, PCH Pacific and out of some of the areas that could benefit from the incentives that stimulate economic growth and basic access to different amenities, many of us that take for granted they are already within what is considered an opportunity zone. But if we cannot create these special empowerment programs, I think we can go a long, long ways. And I'm looking forward to hearing back on what we can do as a city to promote these areas. And I want to thank you again. RICHARDSON Thank you very much, sir. Thank you so much, Councilman Pearce. I yes. I want to thank you for bringing this forward and thank the community members that brought this forward as well. So staff is going to come back with a report about what this might look like in Long Beach. Is that my understanding? Yeah. I think that's fantastic. Not only my district, but the area surrounding my district. I would definitely you know, we're looking at the map. We have some of the highest unemployment rates and the edge of my district. And so I look forward to seeing that stock report come back and seeing how we can implement that. So thank you. Thank you. Councilwoman Gonzales. Thank you. Councilman Richardson, I think, you know, you've been talking about this, and I think this just brings it to life. And I want to thank everyone who's been involved from Epic and and everyone that has really helped the everyone in implementation plan. I know that with this study, we hope to get good results that will really be equitable for the whole city. So thank thanks again for all your work. Great job. Thank you. I'm just going to go ahead and apologize. I was dealing with some stuff for for tomorrow's for tomorrow. And so I wanted to just first, those that have been involved in the economic in roundtables, which I know have been extensive and across the community, a lot of folks who I've talked with just want to thank everyone for participating in those roundtables. I want to thank the staff particularly want to think. John Keisler I know that the department has been very involved in guiding the work and active in ensuring that that the work that's happening also aligns with our economic development blueprint, which is obviously a broader document. Right, that's looking at a variety of initiatives. And again, to Councilmember Richardson, who has been the key voice in the everyone in economic inclusion work as it relates to economic development. I just want to thank him for the work here, as well as all the council members that have been involved in this process and as makers of these of these motions as well. And so particularly though I think the community is your public comment on this item, please come forward. And I can face this district. You the vice vice mayor, Mr. Andrews. Don't ever forget with this this, you know, economic zone. I think it's an appropriate opportunity for neglected areas in the city to gain access to, you know, investment in order to revitalize neighborhoods that are probably forgotten. My only worry with this is that this could be a potential opportunity for major corporations and larger investors to have effective tax havens and disadvantaged neighborhoods, as is the case currently with the opportunity zone that the federal government passed about a year ago when they recalled the tax code. So, you know, what we find is that, you know, outside investors who have a higher rate of access to capital moving into neighborhoods that they otherwise wouldn't be able to. And because of the opportunities that come with zones like this, you know, they they get to effectively defer their taxes for upwards of, you know, 10 to 20 years. And in many times in statistics show instead of actually revitalizing the neighborhoods that they park their money in, they just let it sit. And it just maintains blight. And it's blight that doesn't necessarily obviously help the people that have to live in these neighborhoods. You know, I live in the Wrigley area, and if you just go down the Pacific corridor, there's over 23 for lease signs up. That's I discovered that on Thursday. It could possibly be more. And clearly, these are properties that are owned by investors and businesspeople who have no desire of filling those leases. And so if there is to be a zone like this to be established in central, north and west Long Beach, I'm in agreement with it, provided that there are very stringent recommendations that are placed upon anyone that's operating in these zones. For example, you know, 75% employment of local, you know, people in the community just I will hate to see another opportunity of something like, you know, the marijuana thing coming in again because recently, you know, you have a major corporation like Medmen come in and buy up a local dispensary for $30 million. And, you know, they wouldn't have happened if there wasn't a voluntary equity program. So if things like this to happen in these areas, it needs to be mandatory equity. It shouldn't be at the discretion of the big investor. It should be at the discretion of the city and the cities, you know, citizens. Thank you. Thank you. Next week. Hi there. Jordan Win, member of the seventh District. I'm also here on behalf of everyone in Los Angeles. Funny enough, we have that kind of fun shared name. We were excited to help kick off kind of some of the stuff at the very beginning of the year, and I'm so happy personally to see this manifesting. It's been great to get to know you through that and as well as attending the one that you hosted, the first one you hosted with Urunga at Silverado Park. I'm really excited about these programs. I think there are some incredible recommendations here. I'm really looking forward, especially to the ISS. I really want to see how those manifest. I think as and I was saying, there are so many great opportunities for community development. I just want to make sure that that as we move forward here that we consider, you know, the housing piece as well, that that's still something that's that's present. I think there's some fantastic investment opportunities that are moving forward. But I think kind of to echo what's and I was saying important to keeping economic opportunities in neighborhoods is making sure that people don't get displaced and that those resources do stay with the community members and that they do get to benefit from them. And I know there are a lot of homeowners in these areas as well, and that's great for those who are renters looking for affordable housing or opportunities to stay in the area to benefit from these programs, I think is going to be quintessential to its success. So really looking forward to this, really excited for this. And thank you so much, Rex. Thank you very much. Next, speaker and I going to close the speakers list. Good evening again. Good evening, Mayor and Long Beach City Council. Alexa Gutierrez, executive director of Economic and Policy Impact Center and a proud resident of the second District. I'd like to thank you again, Councilwoman Richardson, for leading on on these important efforts. Again, it has been our honor working alongside you, everyone, an initiative, Councilman Richardson's office, the Economic Development Department, L.A., LISC, and all the community members who contributed to to this recommendation here. So as you heard a little bit over the past three months, our organization helped to convene the nine community conversations. And, you know, we heard it during that process. We heard from over 300 residents and business owners from all over the city on what they feel they need in order to thrive. We had the privilege of knocking on doors, talking to residents, walking into businesses, hearing from business owners and about these initiatives, but more generally about economic inclusion. But most importantly, we listened. We listened to the single mom, aspiring entrepreneur who's working three jobs to to pay for her bills and one to save enough money to buy a food truck and open up her own taco business. We heard from college students who were fearful that they're just not going to be enough good paying jobs in their immediate communities once they graduate. And we listened to the young family who's ready to purchase their first home and become building wealth, but just can't seem to save for that down payment. And so these are the stories that we heard and through these conversations, these economic empowerment zones. And what we can really put into them was really that that reoccurring theme. And so, you know, too many families in Long Beach are feeling like they're not included or not fully benefiting from this booming economy that we have. And as we know, they're overwhelmingly and disproportionately families of color that live in west, central and north Long Beach. And while this is the reality for many of our families, I'm optimistic that if we continue to place the needs of our diverse communities at the center of our economic development efforts, we'll have a city that's more prosperous than ever. So establishing these economic empowerment zones in the areas of the city that need it most is a great first step toward creating a long beach, where all residents have pathways of opportunity to really reach their full potential and thrive. Thank you. Thanks so much. And our last speaker. Hello. I would say hello again. My name's Choi. Choi and Freeman. I'm sorry I didn't mention that the first time. And I just would like to say thank you very much, Councilmember Rex Richardson and Mayor Garcia and everyone here on the panel. This program here is everyone and process this is creating the solutions and listening. And then I'm very impressed about how the inclusion is going to operate the equality, the economic empowerment is on. I am a first time undergraduate student, graduate from Cal State University of. Long Beach. In 1990 294. And those opportunities didn't come to me in. And you know what? I'm I'm I'm okay. I'm in a good place because I know that I'm here to speak on behalf of those with the learning disability as myself and to say that, hey, you know what, with. With all of. Us together, it takes a village, we can make this happen. And I'm so glad to hear about this program here. Because. I'm also doing my own community outreach. I I'm with a. Long Beach. Mental health, and I'm proud to say that, hey, I am a recovering. I'm a. Sobriety OC. And, you know, I'm learning, I'm a work in progress. But, you know, I'm not fancy with the political stuff yet, but I'm learning and I have 15 years of being clean and sober. And, you know, I'm. I'm in a good. Place now, so I can I can do some things and and share, you know, with my community and with just just, you know, with the other organizations that are listed here like L.A. List and Long Beach Partnership Economic Impact Center and do something with and be involved. Just be involved at the roundtable. Thank you. Excellent. Thank you so much. We have a motion and a second. Please cast your votes. Hmm.