Recommendation to request City Manager to schedule an Airport Noise Ordinance Study Session to educate the entire council as to the history, importance, and background on this vulnerable protection for our community.  Said Study Session shall include but not be limited to City Management, City Prosecutor, and City Attorney staff.  Community stakeholder input should be accommodated as well.  This meeting shall be scheduled/conducted within the next 45 days.
Item 15 Communication from Council Member Austin Councilmember O'Donnell. Councilmember Durango Recommendation to request city manager to include to schedule within 45 days an airport airport noise ordinance study session to educate the entire council as to the history, importance and background. Okay. Can I get a motion? So moved. Okay. There's been a there's been a motion. A second council member, I think. Austin O'Donnell. Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. As we all know, we are pretty much at a critical juncture for the at the city right now as far as our airport is concerned. We currently don't have an airport director. And there has been rumblings in the press and throughout the community about a major customs facility potentially being developed at Long Beach Airport. This is this is a major concern to many of the residents who live in the impacted areas, particularly in and around the airport areas. And I think it merits our attention to to to to really focus on our noise ordinance and the importance of our northern ordinance, the history associated with the noise ordinance, the the strengths of our working noise ordinance, the the opportunities and the the challenges that that may face our noise ordinance with with potential change at Long Beach Airport. You know, as I look on as you look at this this this diocese, I don't think other other than one city council member, most of us weren't here during the major fights that crafted that noise ordinance that that actually dealt with airport the airport expansion issue. The the the the development of our new terminal and the noise ordinance is key to all of that. And so I'm asking the city manager to come back within 45 days with a study session for this council, this body. We've studied pension reform. We've studied our budget. We've done study sessions on our civic center and other issues that are very important to the city of Long Beach. And I can't think of any issue more important than our noise ordinance to the quality of life of our residents. And so I'd like to see a report back in 45 days, I mean, at least a study session within 45 days. And I ask for council support. That's been in motion in a second for the study. I know. Councilor O'Donnell. Yeah, I just want to thank Councilmember Austin for recognizing the need to protect our most vulnerable ordinance. It is sensitive. He stated pretty clearly that nobody was here when the airport wars were going on. I see retired council member Gavlak out there who was a full participant and engage with some of the folks out there in the airport wars. And you haven't seen anything until you've seen an airport war at this council because what what happened in the last round of the airport war and there has been more than one is people's homes are threatened. Individuals in this community came with came forward with a plan that was going to cost $250 million and probably invite more flights into the airport. And democracy won. In this case, the neighborhoods stood up. The council changed probably because of it or in part because of it. So don't underestimate the value of protecting this ordinance. And, you know, I urge you, don't put it in danger or you will be in danger. And what we ask is that the study session take place. I don't believe we want it in 45 days. I think we want it in mid-January. We want to get through the holidays and then bring the study session forward. So we're thinking about mid-January, January 15th ish. The city manager could could schedule this in the ask again is not just that staff give a presentation we'd like some of the community stakeholders to be able to do do so as well. With that, I'll turn it back to you, Mr. Mayor. Is that a thank you? I just want to make sure not to veer off since I think mid-January. Okay. With you as concerned. O'Donnell stated. No, I don't want to disrupt anybody's holidays. And so I think January would be fine. I'm amenable to that. Okay. So that's that's the motion on the floor. Councilmember Ringa, any other comments from the council public comment? If you have a public comment on the item, please come forward. I got to do to make it one. Push a button. There we go. I think I can hear you. Like I say, my name is Larry Tree. I live in the flight path of the airport. So this is an important issue to me. I've lived in Long Beach since 1953, so the airport's important to me from just the citizens perspective. I'm really glad that you're having the study session. I want to thank Councilman Austin for putting it on the agenda, and I also want to thank him. Thank you, Mr. Austin, for the article and newspaper this morning to bring all of this to our attention. I think personally, I don't know what everybody else thinks by the customs facility could be really disastrous and start putting a real lot of pressure on the airport and Internet in the community. So this is a really vital interest. This, as Patrick was saying. I'm glad you're having a study session. I want to make sure that you put some thought into who's conducting this study session. You know, everybody's got a different perspective. So the person who's doing the presentation is going to have a perspective. You've got to make sure that you have everybody's perspective when you're doing your study session. You probably really ought to have members of the old wars. There was the organization called Hush. I think it was Patrick that you really ought to have somebody from Hush that that can stand there with the person, maybe from the city staff and tell you how the neighborhoods perceive this. So good luck with this. I'll be watching. And I can guarantee you all my neighbors will be watching. Thanks. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Ray Gavlak president president of hush to just calm I am they reappointed me. Okay. First of all, Al thank you so very much. And Roberto and certainly Patrick. But Patrick, I have to say to you, I'm going to miss you being here. You know, we had a great partnership and leadership to get this city to a side where we could build a terminal that serve the traveling public. And that did a fine job of it. We didn't build it too big. We could afford it. And it protected the. I believe it was modernized don't super sized. Well, that was that was on some of those. Yeah. But you know, I think it's important for the new council members really to understand that it's more than the noise ordinance. Everyone will say, but we want to support the noise ordinance. A JetBlue says we want to support the noise ordinance. It isn't about that. It's about look at the history, the litigation history and where it started. It started in 1981 when 13 airlines were suing the city of Long Beach. They wanted in here they go where it's going to be the most economically beneficial to them. And so what we have to do and what you have to do for us is to protect the communities that live underneath those flight paths. And ultimately, again, sort of like the whole the property tax revenue is the number one source to the general fund. Well, you want to keep those property values high. And if you allow a challenge to this ordinance and we lose that protection, we could be looking at really a devastating result for the city of Long Beach. So I look forward to the mid-January study session. And thank you again. And Patrick, good luck. And you might have to join me on this side when you're in town. Thanks. Thank you. Hi. My name is Jane Naito and I'm a resident in the eighth District and I was part of the war that Patrick talked about regarding the airport back a few years ago, before Patrick and Ray became council people. And I look forward to helping you guys learn about the noise ordinance and how the fight to the original hush group and their hush to helped educate the city. Because, as Councilmember Austin said, most of y'all don't know anything about how that all went down and the importance of the litigation on the noise ordinance and understanding the ramifications if it gets changed. And like Ray said, JetBlue says that they want to protect the noise ordinance. And I think that's probably true because it helps them out with their mission to raise their dollars. So it's important for us to pay attention to the noise ordinance so that we can protect our properties and the well-being of our children and grandchildren and keep the neighborhoods beautiful. So I'm glad you guys are going to do this and I look forward to working with you on it. Thanks. Thank you very much. I think that's all the public comment. I'm going to go back to Councilman Ross and then we're going to go to a vote. Got summarized a. Couple of things. I want to commend our airport staff because we have a great airport staff and they operate in the interest of this city right now. And so in no way do I want to say or anybody to imply or in for a walk away from here thinking that this council does not support its airport department because they do a great job and they are our our biggest monitors and defenders of our noise ordinance today. Secondly, I heard one of the speakers say, you know, he's concerned about who's going to be doing the noise the noise ordinance study session. Well, it will be our city manager, our city attorney, our city prosecutor. And in this language, it does say it leaves room for a lot of community input. And so I do expect to have a very robust conversation, a study session regarding our airport noise ordinance, and hopefully we can all walk away better educated and informed about this very important issue. Thank you. Great. Thank you. We have a motion on the floor to have this study session. So all those in favor, please raise your hand. Motion carries unanimously. I think any of our positions are abstentions. None of it was unanimous. So obviously, moving on to the next item, which is item number 16.