Recommendation to request City Attorney to explore joining an amicus brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to take up a challenge to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision in Martin v. City of Boise.
King. So our last item of the day is item number 29. Item 29, communication from Councilwoman Price, Councilwoman Mango, Councilman Muranga and Councilman Austin. Recommendation to request city attorney to explore. Joining an amicus brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to take up a challenge to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decisions in Martin versus City of Boise. Okay. This item is. Up. Councilmember Price. Thank you. So I want to update the item a little bit because we filed it on the 23rd. And there are two stages. There are two points in time when you can submit an amicus briefs to the Supreme Court. One is at this stage, which is the petition stage, which the deadline for that has already passed, although it passed after we submitted our item for council consideration. The second stage where you can submit an amicus brief is at the merit stage and the merit stage is not yet before us. We have some time before the merit stage and it's not even for certain that we will get to the merit stage because the Supreme Court will have to determine whether the case has merit before we get to the merit stage, at which time we'll have seven days after the filing of that petition to file our amicus brief . So at this juncture, I actually want to change this item. And because because we don't know if we're going to get to the merit stage and the petition stage has already passed. What I'd like to do is request that our city attorney prepare a letter of support for the L.A. County Amicus. I mean, sorry, not a letter of a resolution supporting L.A. County's decision to file an amicus brief. That's my my request tonight is that the city attorney's office be directed to prepare a resolution in support of L.A. County's amicus brief in connection with the case of Martin versus Boise. So so with that, let me give you guys some background as to why I think this item is important and ask for your consideration. So we we all know we talk about homelessness frequently as a council body. And we know that Long Beach is one of the best equipped cities to handle the crisis. And we are. Struggling, like every other city, to manage the issue in terms of its impact on residents, businesses, city and of course, those who find themselves homeless and need services. We have an amazing set of resources available at the Multi-Service Center and housing providers who are helping us with all types of assistance that our homeless population should choose to accept. We have outreach teams in the Health Department, police department, fire department, and hopefully soon our awesome lifeguards are all trying to get people into services. And we're working on this from every angle with creative approaches like an in-house jail and in jail, clinician new shelters, day labor programs, real time bed availability software and even research, such as working with Cal State Long Beach to focus our outreach strategies and find opportunities for improvement. These are just a handful of the great programs we are working on in the city, but this is not about what we're doing, right? Earlier this year, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals heard the case of Martin versus City of Boise. And their decision has fundamentally changed the way that cities are now able to manage our open spaces, including parks, beaches, sidewalks and parking lots. The decision has resulted in us not being able to any longer enforce our own ordinances that are designed to prevent public health issues from spreading. The decision forbids municipalities from enforcing ordinances that prohibit public camping unless those local governments can offer acceptable shelter to every unhoused person in their jurisdiction. This severely limits our ability to address homelessness and the appropriate protections of the rights held by everyone to access and meaningfully enjoy public spaces. The city needs to have the ability to appropriately regulate public camping and enforce our city ordinances with the objective of protecting everyone equally and maintaining public health standards throughout the city. The decision of the Ninth Circuit is truly unique as there's no other circuit interpreting the Eighth Amendment in this way. So this inconsistency is why earlier this week. We we saw. Well, I think it was probably last week now. Multiple cities throughout the nation joining in the amicus briefs in order to ask the Supreme Court to reevaluate the impacts. We have a responsibility as a city to help those that are experiencing homelessness in every way that we can. We have a responsibility to help them find their way to services. We have a responsibility to make sure that we are not punishing them for the fact that they are homeless. But we also have a responsibility and a duty to protect citizens and to allow citizens to be able to use public spaces in a meaningful way and to feel safe doing so. When we have encampments and the city is not able to do anything about the encampments, we start to see crime happen within the encampments. We've seen that happen within the region and nearby counties. We've also seen some incidents of it here in the city of Long Beach. We also see public health issues with spreading of disease that we're not able to control and we need to control. We also see issues that are vulnerable to fire hazards, for example, such as many of our wetlands, areas where we are not able to clean up the encampments as as merely a public health and public safety issue because of the restrictions that have been set forth by the ninth District, it has severely limited our ability to provide safe and safe public spaces that all residents can enjoy. And so with that, I would like us to adopt a resolution to support L.A. County's efforts in filing their amicus brief and to support the larger county that supports us every day through the use of county funds to help us address the issues of homelessness. So I ask my colleagues to support me on this. Thank you. I was set in motion, but before I go to comments from a counselor, I'd like to do public comment. We have Gary Holbrook. Bill Sheehan. I'm sorry, Jenny Holbrooke. It's getting late. Reprise and also Councilmember. Mongo and wrong guy in Austin. For bringing this agenda item to the council. The city of Long Beach should be able to control occupancy. Of its. Public spaces to ensure they are available for all residents and visitors to safely use and enjoy. So let's not delay in supporting L.A. County in asking the US Supreme Court to overturn the Ninth Circuit's ruling. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Bill Sheehan. Good evening. My name is Bill Sheehan. I live in District three and I support the recommendation on the resolution. There is no single answer in dealing with the homeless crisis. Long Beach has been ahead of the pack in finding ways to get homeless people off the street and connected with service providers. For example, our quality of life officers are really doing groundbreaking work in this area. The Boise ruling is too sweeping and the city needs to have flexibility in dealing with a problem that cuts across all neighborhoods. The Boise ruling makes it difficult to regulate public camping. It's important to regulate camping in order to keep people safe and to protect the rights of everyone to access and use public space. I wanted to touch on the safety and access issues. For example, people have been camping and congregating overnight at the Granada Rest Restroom and Snack Shack area, off and on for several years. Two years ago, one late one night, a man died on the Granada ramp. Police reported there were a group of people there. One woman accused another man of a crime and a group of men jumped on this fellow and he died in the scrum. This happened after 10:00, so none of the people should have even been out there because it was past the beach curfew. And there have been similar deadly incidents involving the encampments in Long Beach in the past. And I think the encampments are not only dangerous to the general public, but they're especially dangerous to the people who live in the encampments. The second issue I wanted to bring up was Access. And a couple of a few years ago, the city repaved the sidewalk between Granada and Bayshore, and they went out of their way to make sure it was ADA compliant. But now I see sometimes there are people camped on the sidewalk or leaving their camping gear on the sidewalk, and there's people that need the ADA access are out in the street going around that. So that almost seems like an ADA violation. So I really encourage the Council to consider supporting the resolution in support of L.A. County. And I think the most important thing is that the city have flexibility in dealing with homelessness. Thank you. Thank you so much. I'd like to call forward and this city material. And after that, since I came, say. It's cottage to your liberal desires. Good evening, everybody. A very involved. Citizen in this. Community, and we do a lot of outreach with a transient population in our neighborhood. The population fell on hard times, but who also continues to respect their surroundings and the people around them. We know them and respect. Them as well. Unfortunately, we also deal with a different kind of transients, mostly addict, who do not want to follow the rules or the basic coexistence. They are the ones who do not want to accept services and refuse shelter, and yet they take advantage of all the protection laws created for the truly needy. They set up camp in our parks and beaches in the sidewalk. And we are the ones who pick up their trash, their needles. At times stolen goods and worse, their human waste is to become a real health hazard issue. Ordinances were created. By the city to. Protect all citizens equally, to protect us all from health and crime problems. This ordinance should be enforced on all citizens without discrimination. I am grateful for Councilwoman Pryce, who is always on the front line, bringing constructive ideas and effective. Effective ideas to improve the. Quality of life for all. We love Long Beach. Thank you very much. Thank you for your comments. We have Corliss Lee up next. And after carelessly we have Larry go to. I don't think I've ever had so many line items that interested me on an agenda before. But this amicus brief, I think Suzy pretty much said it all, but I did last week with some folks who are looking into the homeless issue. And they had set up interviews with a social worker, a manager of a homeless program, and then a guy who worked with the union rescue mission. And we asked him certain questions and one of them was, Who are they? Who are the homeless? And they all answered it the same way. They said, basically, it's the mentally ill. It's people with substance abuse problems. And then there's the all other so, you know, people coming out of prisons, people who lost their jobs, you know, a whole big bank of all other. But moving on from that, when I looked at the homeless situation over in our local park and Eldorado Park, I'd say six months ago we turned in that there were some homeless camped on an island in the middle of the lake there. And I can't believe how crazy it was trying to get them removed. I mean, I finally told Hiroto that I could do it in a morning, you know, I could go get a couple of big guys, move the stuff off the island. And we really felt like, as as our group, Friends of Eldorado Park, it's a safety and sanitation issue. And. It always has to be balanced with compassion and what you're going to do to help them. But you can't have them in the middle of the park where there's no bathroom, you know, and they're defecating. And if they've got needles, there's problems and there's little kids there that spend the night. So you have to be allowed to implement the ordinances that you have out there for safety and sanitation. Thank you so much, Mr.. Good to you. And after Mr. Good who we have Tasha Hunter. Yeah. Very good. You? I'd like to make this recommendation to the city attorney. Quite frankly, work and figure out a way to avoid jerking our council agenda around. Like Seinfeld's, Kramer enters and leaves a room. Additionally work with the Innovation Department, the Innovation Department. So we had the ability to present like we used to do. Something in writing. I had to pass out what I passed out to you today. Previously we would be public, would be able to you'd be able to see that the public would have it up on the screen if we would present it to the tech department a week ahead of time. But we don't have that ability now. So I would urge you, the city attorney, to explore ways in which that can be done. Speak to the issue, sir. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Hunter. Good evening. Tasha Hunter, Uptown Business Improvement District. So I wanted to come to you because. This is an issue all over the city, especially in the business improvement district. And I have had the opportunity to work with. Our. With our police department, with our commander, Laura Cella. Up there are. Acting Commander. Sol Amita and Erica moreno with the with and in our health department who come out weekly to work with the individuals. I also go out on my own when I get these phone calls from the property owners in the businesses. My phone is on 24 hours and I get the calls and I show up. And I know about Cynthia and Benjamin, who live in the alley allergic to the sun. They can't be out in the afternoon, so they come out at night. And my business owners can't come out of their business to go to their cars and their vehicles. So there is that compassionate approach. But it's also if it's interfering with our businesses, being able to conduct that business and patrons being able to go in during the day, there's a fear. There's children. I'm in the area of two different schools, and so I thank you for bringing this forward and all of you that are supporting it. It's something that has to be addressed. We are, like I said, trying to take that compassionate approach because at the end of the day, they are people. There's Johnathan that helps take out the trash at the 7-Eleven in exchange for Slurpees and coffee, but as stretched out in front of the 7-Eleven. Jonathan, you can't be here today. I met Cookie. Cookie was blocking an entrance of a business and the people were afraid to come out, so they called. So I'm thankful for the services that our police department, our health department, the people offer and and thankful that the businesses and the property owners feel comfortable enough to call. So, again, I support this and everything that we do, and I'd like to know, let it be known that the business district does humanize the folks that are out there, realize their circumstances, but also letting them know you can't be here. Okay. Thank you so much. I bring it back a second into the motion, but I would hold my comments. For now. I will recognize the member. RICHARDSON Thank you. Councilmember And so, yeah, I mean, I didn't realize I didn't I didn't fully understand this measure until it was brought to me, the Supreme Court decision. I mean, it just raises a lot of questions. So I want to start asking those questions. So. Mr. City Attorney. So under the law today can a homeless individual sleeping on a street be it were arrested. If we go to move this person and by offering them a place to stay. In California under the Boise case, the answer is yes. If the city has a location or a facility in which they can go to and they refuse services, they can be cited. So under Boise, under law today in Long Beach, we have a hotel voucher or bid for them to go. We offer that if they refuse it. Then simply then we can still move that individual today if we have that resource. They can be cited under Boise. Yes, it can be cited. Things can happen under Boise. Okay. Now, if someone, let's say they're creating a public nuisance, making noise, you know, relieving themselves on the sidewalk. Today we have the power to move that individual or decide that image. Today, under Boise. That's correct. Okay. So what if under Boise today, an individual was sleeping? On the sidewalk. Who hasn't broken any other law except for the existing camping law. And we approached that person, offer them and we have no bed to offer or no hotel room to offer. Could we today under Boise? Cite that person or move that person. No. So what would be the difference if this Supreme Court ruling goes down? From what we can do today. In that scenario to what we could not do. I'm what we could what we cannot do today and then what we could do. I'm probably going to oversimplify it. But if you the Boise case added additional restrictions in the Ninth Circuit for those cities in states under the Ninth Circuit jurisdiction that don't exist in other areas of the country. And so if the petition is accepted by the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court overturns the ruling in Boise, it would excuse me add basically another tool for the city and cities to police department to and give them a little bit more flexibility on how they handle those situations that you describe. Actually wasn't more simple. When, like. What do you mean, flexibility? I need to understand it currently. It limits the ability to cite a person unless they have a and a shelter or a facility for them to go to. Under Boise, unless you have that, you can't cite them. And a number of cities are just not enforcing. If you remove the Boise requirement, it could be cited. So let's say Boise goes away. Let's say it's overturned in that scenario. Mr. Modica, what how would we treat an individual if we don't have a place from. Actually going to ask Commander Herzog to come up and talk a little bit about what we would do in a situation like that. And Police Chief Robert Luna as well. Good evening, council members. So currently, as he explained under Boise, we're offering him that if there isn't a bed available, we're approaching them trying to get them to get compliance and. And moving them along that way. And if they don't move and we have no bed available, they're staying where they are. So that's what we would do if Boise's overturned. We would ask them to leave. Sorry, I misunderstood the question. If Boise is overturned. If Boise is overturned, that allows us to go up to and approach them. And if they don't want services, we can take enforcement action. Well, let's say we don't have services. So right now we can do enforcement action today. We can do enforcement action today if we have services. Correct. Let's say we don't. If we don't have services, we. Don't have hotel vouchers, shelter beds. And how would you handle that? And if Boise has gone. Then we can take enforcement action. What does that look like? Enforcement action? Well. It's what we would have then, just about a year and a half, two years ago, before the Boise decision came out. We would still work with our partners trying to do outreach to offer services. If they didn't, then we would take enforcement action. But it also allows us if the. If you could just elaborate a little bit on enforcement action. Okay. That's either citation or arrest, depending on the situation. Most likely citation. But if the problem's not going to go away, then it may lead to an arrest. Okay. So I. So there's two concerns with that for me. So one. If an individual is not working any law other than the camping law and we don't have a place to offer for them to sleep. And we are, in fact. Making the act of existing and sleeping when there's no other option illegal. That's a civil rights issue, and that's where I draw the line. If there are real on the ground, tactical things that we can do to strengthen our policies, everybody on council would support that. I'm pretty confident when it comes to we have to have a code. There has to be a law to cross is a reason why this law got held up. The investments hadn't been made. Sure, we're in a better situation than most cities, but we are not where we're supposed to be. We have 125 beds that we're working on. Everyone Home report says we need 500 beds. We still need to identify two or three locations for additional beds. That's where our focus should be. This. I get it. The idea of doing what we can to address the homelessness issue. But at some point there's a line to cross, which is rights. Secondly. I have a concern with the leaf leaf blower approach. Push, push, push. I don't care where the leaf goes. If we have. And that's not an insult to anyone. But if we haven't created the beds and today we don't have them. If we haven't created the beds and the realistic, what really is happening is we're pushing people from side sidewalks into larger hidden encampments along the rivers and the freeways, the seams of life in those areas. It's scary. Two weeks ago, one homeless individual stabbed and killed another individual in the encampment in my district, not on the sidewalk. This happened in a hidden encampment that crawled back onto the street and the guy died. The same encampment, an individual with a toy gun was held up. And, you know, at the AMPM, where people thought he was going to shoot people. The encampments are real problems and that's where we need to be focusing. It's not going to solve the issue by pushing people from sidewalks into encampments, and I don't think that's what anybody's implying. But the reality is this measure here puts us on course to make a political statement essentially, and doesn't help us to address the root issues. What do we need to do? We need to build more beds. We need to build confidence with our residents. That is not going to be the end of the world. Trading a dangerous encampment for permanent supportive housing. That's what we need. I'll also say we should be really clear on what we speak and support and what we speak in support of to hear that. You know, I you know, public comment saying, you know, it's it's fair. Anybody can say what they like. When you represent organizations that make statements, make sure you fully understand the impacts of those statements and how they reflect on those businesses. I can tell you, you know, I can tell you most folks agree on homelessness. But if you if you ask a person a simple question to someone should be potentially criminalized for sleeping in the place that they seem safe if we don't have services to offer them. And I'll tell you right now, a lot of those businesses would say, well, that's a different conversation. That's a very different question. And enforcement or or leaf blower solution. The other thing is, I'm actually happy to see that it's been changed from a friend of the court brief to a letter to L.A. County. I'm glad to see that. But it was by no means was this a unanimous decision. It was a32 vote. And the issues cited in this very controversial 200 people speaking L.A. County vote, the major issue was civil rights. It came down to simply civil rights. So from my standpoint, I understand I don't like the in the council meeting on issues like this. But frankly, I don't think this is something that we should be doing. It's not consistent with our values as councilman as. As Long Beach. Housing First City. It's not consistent. We should be focused and focused on upstream solutions and identifying at least two more locations to build a bridge housing, a permanent supportive housing to get to our 500 bed support. I understand diversity. You know, our colleagues like to talk about the diversity and points of view. I would ask and I get it. We have differences and points of view here. I would offer and suggest if folks feel strongly about this, I do this all the time. Issue a letter from your office. Get your colleagues to sign on to that letter. The whole council should and shouldn't be forced to make a decision like this on something that goes right up against the line of civil rights. So those that's my piece. I can't support this. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Richardson. Artists take the privilege to speak on this issue just briefly myself. I will try to stay within the five minute time frames prescribed for the council. This is a very, very important issue. I'm glad to see you come before the council for discussion. This is something that I know I've heard from many residents, constituents about. They feel like we need more tools in our toolbox to deal with the issue of homelessness. And I don't. Think that signing on to this amicus brief in any way diverts our focus from creating more beds and more shelter beds. I'd like to see us be a little bit more aggressive on that. And I'm with you. I stand with you on that, and we definitely need more beds than less. We would do a lot better if we have more places for our homeless or those experiencing homelessness is to go. But we also know that it takes several contacts and a lot of outreach to get these individuals to those services. Right. And. This this particular decision before us has put impediments for law enforcement as well as homeless services, and almost creates a disincentive for individuals to get services. And so I strongly believe that we need to do do more and the law needs to be give give local government tools to work with. And so this is why I stand in support of this. So this particular item, when we talk about encampments in public places, on sidewalks, in places and spaces where our public is actually engaged, when you're talking about business districts and I did hear from a board member just last week from the Uptown Business District who was very upset and emphatic that we do something and sign on in support of this amicus brief. I heard that. And so I do think the public commenters who came forward and spoke on behalf of those business, Susan Uptown Business District, but I hear from them and because me knows, I hear from them in the Virginia Village, I hear from business as well as residents throughout the district. This I think challenging this this item is not something that is I don't think it impacts anybody civil rights necessarily. I think what we are trying to do here in the city of Long Beach is take a compassionate approach. We are using every tool in the toolbox and looking at every option to provide help to to those experiencing homelessness in our city. And we'll continue to do that. And so. Councilmember Richardson. If you can help fast track beds in the city and help identify where we can put more beds in the city, you know, you have a partner in me to do that. Because I do think we do need to help offer more services and and help for for. Population. But at the same time, I do think we need more tools in the toolbox to, to, to encourage individuals to get help, the help they need and to move them into the services that we provide here in the city. So with that said, Councilmember Pearce, you're up. Okay. I didn't know how the conversation was going to go tonight, but I know that when I read this item, I had a lot of questions. You know, under hearing council member Richardson talk about it as a civil rights issue was not something that I had thought about. I had simply thought. Can we really arrest somebody for sleeping? You know, and I know that there are cases when this population is very diverse and their challenges are very diverse. I want to understand what protections are in the Boise case right now for those struggling with homelessness that could be removed if if the Boise cases overturned . Is there someone on staff that can talk to that? Yes. Basically, the Boise case, as we said earlier, requires the city in order to enforce an anti-camping ordinance to have services available, a bed or a place where the person can go. That person is then given that option. And if they refuse, then they can be cited or arrested. And that's it. There's no other there's nothing else in the case to correct. I'm simplifying a very long decision. But yes, that's the gist of the case. Okay. The reason why I pressed on that is because I feel like it is a heavy case. And to make a decision like this where we are going on record at a national level, to be able to say that we're okay with with that decision is a challenge for me. So let me I think my challenge is that this is an opportunity, not a hindrance, that this is an opportunity for us to really push ourselves. And I know that that. Mr. Modica, we as a council and the mayor have already pressed on you in a very firm way that homelessness is our priority. I'm not sure that the numbers have shown, and I know that we had the justice lab that gave us some numbers around repeat offenders that go into the jails. Are we seeing that those repeat offenders are getting help, that that going to jail is helping them get on their feet, get sober, get mental health support? If I had those numbers and I was like, clearly, why don't we take them to jail? Because we've done X, Y and Z. It's now helping. Then I would be I'd feel very different right now. Councilwoman Pierce. Very good question. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I believe our pilot program, which is one of the first of its kind in a in a jail, eventually will work. When you have a clinician that is able to listen to the individuals coming in and then trying to identify services that they may need, we are getting some numbers of people who are going to the M.S. and other resources that the clinicians able to divert them to. What we've got to do is better not coordinate, but keep track of any individuals coming back after that. And we're in the process of doing this because it's all new to us. But that is the goal at the end of the day, to reduce the number of high frequency offenders that are re-offending and getting them back on their feet, whether it's substance abuse assistance, mental illness disorder or assistance, whatever it may be. Because at the end of the day, the goal is to keep our jail empty some day. Maybe we can accomplish that. And let me ask I mean, I think we all kind of say we all look back and say, Reagan, we wouldn't be in this situation if we wouldn't have taken away those tools. Are there other things that are happening at the national level or the state level that that allow us to say, okay, instead of going to jail, say police come out, instead of taking you to jail, we can require to take you to a bed. Require not offer. Yes, there are options out there. But please remember for Commander Herzog and I were police officers and we are one of the only services that's out there that's 24 seven. We are filling an extraordinary amount of gaps. 99% of the time, your police officers do a magnificent job of dealing with the mentally ill and those suffering from substance abuse disorders. We would love to be able to turn to the mental health profession, but typically they don't work but 8 to 5 and on weekends and we're there. We're always there. So we're going to do our best to fill in those gaps. No police officer wants to encounter somebody on the street and take them to jail unless they're just outrightly violating the law. And please keep this in mind as you're asking us questions. We estimate that over 60% of the people we contact, those individuals you're talking about who are sleeping on the sidewalk, sleeping in front of businesses and so on and so forth, they refuse services. And that's the frustrating part for these police officers who are going out there based on dispatches and then have limited tools in their toolbox to deal with it. Then the citizens turn around and get angry at the officers because it's them who aren't doing anything about it. When it's a complete system failure and I'm talking system at the county level, state and federal level. So I hope that answers your question. But I'm telling you, most of the time, our officers do an absolutely amazing job of trying to find alternatives because for us, it's service first. And I'm going to tell you something, I'm very proud of this city, which includes every one of you for all your efforts in everything we do about homelessness in this city. If you are homeless in the city and you want services, we can provide them. If you choose to accept them. And that gets directly to the the crux of my question, which is, is there something that we could do that we require we take somebody and we get them off the street, but it's not jail with a citation next to their name. It's not putting them in the system, but it's putting them in a mental health system. And I'm thinking of what happened at the county level when they said instead of having a county jail, we want to have a county mental health facility. Are there opportunities here in the city of Long Beach for us to say instead of it being jail, it's mental health services that are required? Because I live in the second district, I know the homeless population in my community. I almost hit somebody last week on Broadway running like a crazy man. And I and I know he was going to jail because a police car was there and he was not stable. Yes, ma'am. And that was the right thing for him because he was not being safe with everyone. So what can we do outside of jail? And what I'm getting to is trying to put the city of Long Beach to think outside the box and to use this Boise case as an opportunity instead of an opportunity to push back. So I'm digging in on some of them. Yes. And I can then try and answer each one of those concerns. Our city, I believe, has done an amazing job of thinking out of the box. Can we do better? Absolutely. I always look to to raise our efforts when this Boise decision first came out. Our officers were on the street encountering people suffering from homelessness. And like they always do, if they were breaking the law, they would take the measures they had to to enforce the law. But it was a service first. Do you want services? Do you need services? So from that perspective, we didn't change. Eventually through the city manager's leadership, Pat West and Mr. Modica, we as a city came up with the plan with our partners in health to come up with this voucher program that has been, I think, pretty successful for those who choose to want the services. But the key in answering your question is this. When I walk up to Charlie Parkin, who may be experiencing homelessness, and I ask him, Sir, I would love to get you in a services. You may need assistance. And he looks at me and says, You know what, man? Thank you, but I'd rather just stay on the street, which again, is over 60%. If he's violating the law, I have the discretion to cite him or arrest him. Or I could say, Hey, do me a favor, just please move somewhere else. I don't want to cite you. I don't want to arrest you. That's where the discretion comes in. But the big difference in what you're asking is the law does not. If Charlie says, no, I don't want to, I cannot force him. The only thing I can force upon him if he's violating the law. And that's a big if I can say to them or I can arrest them, but I cannot make him legally accept services. And that's where the big problem comes in. I would love to be able to force somebody into substance abuse treatment or mental illness assistance. But the law does not allow me or us to do that. Is that state law or federal law? That is state law. So what are we doing to change that at the state level? I'm going to have to look back at all of you. And that's a question. Absolutely. It's for us. I think it's for city staff. I think it's it's another one of those tools that doesn't criminalize being homeless. It doesn't criminalize being mentally ill. It doesn't criminalize addiction that often is caused by poverty or perhaps the system. And so I'm trying to use this again as an opportunity to put it back on us, to think outside of the box and say, well, what can we do instead of just opposing this? But take it as an opportunity to really each of us agenda something or work together with staff to do something bolder than we've already done. One other area that I'm going to go back and work with my staff on right away, in addition to at the state level, I know that we've said no to module housing in the past, that we've said no to shipping container housing in the past. And I believe we have a memo right before anybody left that that outlined how we could do that. I'm working with economic development right now on two properties to try to have the city purchase it as a place where we could build more housing. So that question around more housing, we're taking that serious. But for the city to look at that module option and say, are there areas right now that our city loaned city owned land that we could build on quickly? So these are some of the pressure points that I think the Boise case is hopefully pushing us to do. I'm not going to be able to to vote yes tonight, but I do want to say how much I appreciate Councilmember Price for always looking at the homeless challenges and really trying to come up with the best way that her constituents want her to lead on this item. I know our constituents differ sometimes in relation to this. I hope that this is an opportunity for this entire council to take seriously the fact that there are going to be laws that are passed at the state and federal level that we have to engage in and make it a big priority. So I ask staff to consider some of that, what we can do with lobbying on the state level, and we will continue to do our part as well. And Councilmember, I wanted to add a couple of things that we've done since the Boise case in response to this, to try to be innovative, to try to adapt. I think the police chief said it well. Cities that have not had any services and don't do any of the things that Long Beach has already done. It found themselves in a much different situation and they've had a harder time adapting to to the new law. A couple of things we have done. We have now a new mental health facility in Long Beach that helps us with some of those emergent needs where police can actually drop off people who are, you know, at that level where we can take them into custody for and get them some mental health services. That was something that came in to District seven, which has been a great resource for us. We also have now instituted a pilot program where we are purchasing hotel rooms every night so that every night we do have the ability on a limited basis for our officers to offer those services, even when the embassy is closed, even if we don't have a shelter bed, to say that those are available so that we then do have some tools to be able to react to that. And then the third innovation is we found while the officers are willing to do that, we have a difficult time. If somebody has a lot of belongings, who who will may want to go there, but then say, I'm going to refuse because I don't want to lose all of my stuff. So we have this council has given a used city truck to a nonprofit and they are operating and they're a phone call away and assist us with moving some of those belongings. So that's you know, these are all pilot programs. We're studying their efficacy of how we're doing out there and we'll be reporting back on that. But we are adapting and and trying to address so that there are other options. Besides that we still get individuals that just don't even with all those resources, just say, I don't want to do that. And this allows us to take enforcement action if they really do not want to to participate. Thank you for that, Tom. I'll just I'll wrap up with saying I also know that we yes. To all those things and I applaud us for all those things. And Councilmember Price and I've worked together on this pilot program for the Tidelands area, where we are also going to invest some of our funds to make sure we can open up more nights at hotels and knowing that we need our health department to work on the weekends sometimes. But we need somebody that's going to be there to make sure that they're connecting with that homeless person before they have a chance to leave in the morning. And so I know that we are doing some of those things, and I guess that that is why it's hard for me to kind of move forward in this direction. But I look forward to hearing my my council colleagues thoughts and again, appreciate that we have done a lot and we just have to keep pushing ourselves to do more. Thank you. All right. You hold the record this evening. Next, does Councilmember Suber nor do I will interrupt in the future. Okay. 9 minutes. Dude. Laughs Miss Cantrell to be the timekeeper. Do I have the floor at this time? Councilmember Super Nora, please. Okay. Thank you for the floor. I'm going to turn it over to our esteemed colleague, Vice Mayor Dean Andrews. He has asked me to read a comment on his behalf. Your time? Yeah. Okay. I'll donate some of my time here. The Andrew says. I support my colleagues in requesting the city attorney in filing an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to take up the case of Martin versus the city of Boise. And it's an important case for both the idea of local control, but also how we can address and mitigate the impacts of homelessness in our community. City of Long Beach has and continues to provide services to those who seek to get off the streets. But at the same time, we have a duty to make our public parks safe and inviting for all. This case severely limits our ability to balance those duties, and I believe that we must take our views known. The Supreme Court. And that ends the vice mayor's comment. There was a line in here that I just noticed, and that is we have a duty to make our public park safe and inviting for all. And with Commander Herzog sitting there, I would like to publicly thank you, because he worked very hard for a year and or as of a park. And I. I would you and I should mention your successor, Commander O'Dowd, also worked with us, and we were able to return that park to the residents and the neighbors. And I would just suggest that if we're going to talk about civil rights or rights of any type, I think there should be a balance with those rights of the neighbors to utilize these facilities directly across to you. And this is a park embedded in a neighborhood. Also, to the last point that was made, I believe our pilot program started today to have services on the weekends. Did it start a. October 1st, Mr. Monaco. So technically the budget starts today, so the money is now available and off we go. We are putting together how that will work and then we'll launch it programmatically very soon. Okay, so well, technically we're not on the weekend yet, so if it started today, it wouldn't take effect on next weekend. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. A member of Durango. Thank you, sir. Austin. You know, I've been listening to the discussion here. And, you know, I originally signed on to this thinking that it's a public good, a good thing. But, you know, when I when I go out in the community. And people ask you, what are you doing about the homeless situation under the freeways, on the park, at the empty lots for the stores? They said, well, you know, my response is always been it's not a crime to be homeless. But I think that's what we're doing here is we're criminalizing homelessness, and I can't agree with that. You know, I think that the opening discussion that Councilmember Richardson brought up in terms of some of the things that. The tools that are there for the police department already exist is, I think, something that we need to give a chance of. Council acting city manager Tomioka has mentioned some of the items that we're working on now and homelessness being at the top of his list in terms of his goals during his interim position that he's here is acting in position, and I think we need to give those a chance. The last thing I want to do is put in people into jails or citations that don't deserve it. I mean, I took a big hit a couple of years ago when I supported having the behavioral health center put in my district. And I said at that night, they say, you know, there's there's a political thing to do and there's a right thing to do. And I said that night, I know I'm going to lose votes. And, you know, so be it. But I think the right thing to do was to support that behavioral health center. And I did lose votes. They did go to those neighborhoods and those people and say, you know, you supported that behavioral health center. I can vote for you there. Well, I'm sorry you feel that way, but I think that I did the right thing. And yeah, and that's where I'm at right here. I'm at this point where. The political thing to do is like, let's go with the amicus brief and let's support it and let's turn it over and so be it. But I think that the right thing to do is we need to look at ourselves internally and we need to address this issue internally with ourselves as we do. I'm not confident that sending a message through a resolution or Ivanka's brief is going to be effective, quite frankly, because it's going to be up to the Supreme Court . So that brings me up to this point. The discussion we're having right now is about a resolution. The item that we're dealing with here is a request to join an amicus brief. Is that a separate motion totally and completely that we need to change or, you know, this is a point of order, I guess, that I'm asking for at this point, because I think that this discussion basically is moot if if we can't join the amicus brief and that's what's in the agenda. Councilmember, as Councilmember Price indicated at the beginning, the time to actually sign on to an amicus brief for the petition has passed, but there isn't a second opportunity. Should the United States Supreme Court accept the petition and consider the matter on its merits? What the. I do think it's appropriate and allowed under the Brown Act to re. Amend this motion as the Council member from the Third District did in a resolution in support of the L.A. County Amicus Brief, because the intent in the in the direction in the first one was to explore joining that amicus brief. So while we aren't able to legally sign on to it because it's already been filed, a resolution in support of it is going to state the position of the city of Long Beach that you do support the Supreme Court hearing this matter. For the record, he took a minute of my time. I do want to say, though, however, that while that may be true and we can do that again, you know, I'm looking at what we're dealing with as people and how we represent ourselves to those people. And, you know, kudos and my total support goes to the police department. You guys are phenomenal. I mean, the work you do, the people that you confront and you have to deal with and the patients and the tact and the decision making that your officers do on a daily basis is absolutely phenomenal. I can be a hothead. I don't know if I would be able to do that. But your your leadership certainly shows in the fact that Long Beach has been a leader in having to deal with this issue in a very humane and an honorable way. So given that, I'm not going to be supporting the motion, the floor. Okay. Thank you. Councilmember Price. Thank you. So just a couple of observations I've made. And again, I'm very thankful for this conversation. We are a diverse city and we're a diverse council. And I love and appreciate the fact that we can argue passionately and disagree and still respect one another's point of views. And I think we're doing a very good job of that tonight. I will say a couple of things in regards to our business corridors. As a small business owner who owns a business in a business corridor. Absolutely. We want to make sure that we're doing things that are humane and cognizant of individuals that need assistance and support . And I have a lot of stories myself personally, similar to those shared by Tasha Hunter with transients that I've interacted with on Second Street, in and around our business. And my family and I have gone to great lengths to help individual people over and over again. When you have people that are choosing not to go to a particular business corridor or you have business owners that have habitual problems that they can't address related to transient activity, it impacts the business corridor and it impacts their ability to thrive as a business. And I think that's important for us to think about. You know, we have our directors that manage our bids and we tell them, you know, go forth and do the very best you can. And really, we set them up for failure because we're not giving them any tools and it's not fair. It's just really not fair to them. We have to do our job. What I would say is to the council members who are against this item, you should perhaps think about turning over the laws of the city that you don't agree with, because what this item says is that we have laws in the city that we cannot enforce, so our police department cannot enforce our camping ordinance. If you think we should not have a camping ordinance, then that's the item you should bring to council. Because what we're saying through this item is that we should have the local ability to enforce our own ordinances. Camping is illegal in a park. It's illegal for a variety of reasons. There's all manner of public health issues that come about when someone doesn't have access to toilets or running water and they're sleeping in a park. Think about a campsite that you go to with your family. If you don't have access to toilets or running water and you're there for a prolonged period of time, there's going to be health impacts around you. So when we have that happening in a public park, it's not fair to expect our residents to go to that park and enjoy that park and throw the football with their child when there are needles on the ground or signs of camping. So, you know, I agree with a lot of the comments that have been made tonight. But let me be very, very clear. Civil rights, civil liberties and due process belongs to everyone. It belongs to everyone. It belongs to residents in the city, and it belongs to those who are violating current, existing ordinances. If we don't think those ordinances should be in place, then I would challenge those council members who are opposed to this item to bring an item next week, sometime this month, and say, You know what, we no longer should have a camping ordinance in the city, because what we're saying right now is Boise. The Boise decision says we can't enforce our own ordinances unless we have available beds. If we don't have available beds, we cannot enforce ordinances that we have on the books. So if there if there are people on this council that think sleeping in a public park and having an encampment in a public park should not be against the law, then why is that item not coming to council? Why is that item? Why are those council members not saying, you know what, let's reverse that law? Because that's a discussion I'd love to have. I'd love to hear what the people think about that. So I think to hide behind Boycie and say, you know what, Boise is punishing. You know, if we overturn Boise, it's punishing the poor. By the way, the council, the supervisors who voted on the amicus include supervisors like Janice Hahn, who has done more for homeless issues in this county than any elected official I know of in recent history. She's putting her money where her mouth is, and she voted in favor of this amicus. So I don't think anyone's intent is to punish the poor or make homelessness a crime. And look, just because we disagree on things, I don't think it's okay for us to spin or infer or, you know, accuse our colleagues of having bad intent. That's nobody's intent. Okay. So there may be parts of an item that council members don't like and they say, I want to take this part out. I like this part. It's not okay to then say this council member is blank. That's not okay. And I hope we don't do that. But I think protecting the rights of all residents is important. And that's what this item is about. Ah, by the way, it's too late for us to file a support our own amicus. Right now, the best we can do is a resolution. And when it goes to merits, we can file an amicus then if we want to, within the time limit. Thank you, Councilmember Richardson. Thank you. And you know, again, I don't know, I, I believe that whenever we're talking about taking positions on policy, we should try and attempt to be clear and specific about what we're trying to do. I've heard of term a number of times tonight. Tools in the Toolbox. As a council member who likes to understand the specifics, what tools are currently not in the toolbox that if this law goes away, will be inside the toolbox? Anybody. The ability to cite a person and not have a bed available. So again. The conversation about enforcing it. So all the examples that we're giving tonight of refusing services is not relevant to this conversation because if someone refuses services that are available, we can today enforce on them. Is that correct? If there's a bed available. If there is a bed available today, if there's a bed available, we can enforce on them. Today, this conversation is all about simply capacity. That's it. If there is a bed available, we can enforce. We can cite. We can arrest today. If we don't have services, meaning no more hotel vouchers, no more shelter beds, then the very narrow, specific tool that we're talking about, just to be crystal clear with everybody here, the only tool is criminally enforcing on someone. We cannot offer them a service. We haven't run into very many situations where we haven't had services. We have services to offer. This is simply about capacity in that very narrow, fine, specific fact that if we don't have something to offer you, then we want to pass a resolution saying we don't agree with this law that says you can be arrested when we have nothing to offer you. I just want to be crystal clear. This is not about some great tools in the toolbox. It's about one tool, which is simply criminalization. I want to say something else. I want to be very clear. We can have laws about camping. You know, sleeping in the right away. We can have laws. This is about, again, capacity. We don't have a place for people to go. We cannot enforce that law. That's the right thing to do. That is the right thing to do. If we offer you services, we're ponying up taxpayer dollars, working on taking on the risk of counseling you, Ranga said. Mental health facilities in his district. We're taking on a conversation on bridge housing in our district. We're taking it on. If we take that conversation on, then parallel to it, we can step up enforcement. It's it's it's about capacity and how this thing rolls out today. We don't have that. So again, to be crystal clear, there are no make up tools in this toolbox. It is one tool that we're voting on. One tool. It is. If you don't have a place for someone to go, should they be? Could they be criminalized? Actual criminal action. Now, I think if someone is breaking laws criminalizing, I think if they're stabbing people, criminalize them. I think if they're if they're attacking someone, if they're stealing your property, if they're doing all these things, go after them for way too long. Absolutely. We should not. I mean, we have enough right now to go after individuals. But there's a fine line. And that line is human rights and civil rights. That's a very clear, very clear line. So, again, I'm I'm fine. I'm not swaying the council going one way or the other. I'm going to vote no. I think as a matter of courtesy, I think this issue itself that again, to our business district, to everyone here who believes that this ad some tool to be clear it doesn't add it to this is a resolution that has no impact , no tool. It's a political issue at midnight. That's what this is. I think we should be focused on support, on getting the shelter open, on doing more outreach. Councilman Austin, put it out. Hey, if we know of other places, let's be clear. We also need a shelter downtown. We also need, you know, we need geographic diversity with these shelters. Let's be clear about that. That's what we need. But for the sake of this conversation, to be crystal clear, there is no invisible tool in the toolbox. This is simply about we don't have a tool for you. We can arrest you or cite you criminal action. That's what this is. Capacity. That's what this conversation is. And I don't think we're there and we have the capacity to do this. So I'm fine. Thank you. Crystal clear from your lens. Councilmember Mongo. Thank you. If allowed a point of. I mean this in a genuine way. I'm not judging in any way. Mr. Richardson, have you been on a ride along yet? I don't know, actually. I've been on a number of ride alongs. I've been the reason that every I've been a part of this body, one way or another, I got it. I just wanted to know because I have a story to tell and I just wanted to know the context of what you would hear it. When I first graduated from the sheriff's academy, my first shift on patrol, my first shift on patrol, we were encountering a homeless encampment. I mean, every officer on their first shift nowadays encounters either mental ill person or a homeless encampment. And there was a woman who was being abused by another man inside the homeless encampment. However, she did not want to admit that many of you know, battery and abuse is one of the more difficult things to get people to talk through. There are all sorts of things that are in these encampments. We may not have enough that we might have enough beds for one individual who's in a park or two individuals on a business corridor. But it's an entire encampment that needs to be broken up on a regular basis to protect the individuals within it and quite frankly, the health of the community around it. I appreciate your point about one specific tool, but it's actually not one specific tool because even if there's not a bed, we have services to offer. And oftentimes the individuals that we encounter are rejecting the services. Not the lack of bed. And so I appreciate that you think I'm wrong. I. I actually am hearing on this side of the dias, they disagree. We have something to offer. Often it might not be what they want at the time. I will say that. The amount of training coming out for police officers is consistently changing. The amount of resources available is consistently changing. If this. City of Boise cases overturned. We still can choose to create a local policy that we don't enforce unless they've had multiple encounters of being offered a bed or any of those things, we can still do those. And so for those reasons and in in support of I watched the supervisors and their discussion and public comment and the way in which the board of Supervisors really put that forward. Supervisor Hahn. Yes. Has been a leader on homelessness. Also, Supervisor Barger has really talked through some of our environmental issues and the fires created that fires that have literally harmed individuals in great numbers and that that season is coming again. And so for those reasons, while I appreciate I don't want to criminalize homelessness in a way that we don't offer anything but. Oftentimes, as some of our data showed related to our innovation team, it's the same individuals who do not want services and they do not want a bed or they take the bed voucher, but they don't actually ever go there. And we need to talk through sometimes the threat of enforcement is actually what puts them into services. And so I appreciate your perspective and I appreciate the councilwoman for bringing this forward. And I. I look forward to us continuing to try to solve homelessness. That was a quote from you on the day you were sworn in for your second term and you said, We will solve homelessness. I'm pretty sure my husband's repeated it like five times. He said Rex Richardson is going to solve homelessness. I'm pretty sure we've got to go back and watch the. Tape, address the elephant in the room and build essentially shelters and affordable housing that's working on the shelter and affordable. We are. We are. And so for those reasons, I really want to appreciate those who have come before us and taken on this amicus brief. And I'll be voting in support. Right. Seeing nobody else cued up without public comment. Please. Can you repeat the motion? What's before us? It's the city attorney. The motion is to request city attorney to prepare a resolution in support of the Los Angeles County's amicus brief. Okay, members, so you're clear. Please cast your votes. Ocean carries. Okay. Thank you very much. We will now have our second public comment. Solution. We need a motion to reconsider the item. We need to vote on the motion to reconsider. Oh. We can vote on the motion to reconsider. We need to vote on the motion to reconsider to bring this item back in front of the council, because I think we want to revote. Yes. What if we don't want to revote? Then vote against the motion to reconsider. Okay. Motion carry. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So it's been moved in second it. Motion to reconsider. Has passed. Now, this is the motion again on item 29, with the resolution in support of the Los Angeles County Amicus Brief directing city attorney to prepare that resolution and bring it back to council. Members cast their votes. And I got it. I got it. You. It was like, boom. Motion pass for three. Okay. Long night. So we're going to go into our second public comment. We have Joanne Freeman and James Midway. Are you still available still with us? Joanne Freeman. It was midway. Please come forward.