Recommendation to adopt resolution approving the FY 19 budget for the Long Beach Harbor Department as adopted by the Board of Harbor Commissioners on June 11, 2018.  (A-1)
So she'll be discussing those when we get to the budget as well. And so I want to thank the PSC and the members of the Council as we begin. And so let me begin, Madam Clerk, we can just read all these as we go, and we'll start with item 1.1 and go through all the way 1.17 before . Yes. No, no, we haven't put it on them yet. They're going to come up. And before we begin that, to conclude this part of the budget hearing, we are going to do public comment. So first, we're going to be doing public comment. So this is on anything to do with the budget and we're going to close public comment. So we go to the votes. We're doing one public comment period. So please come forward if you have any comments on the budget in any general nature. Thank you. Yeah. Anything budget related. Now is your opportunity to make public comment. Good evening, mayor garcia and council members. My name is Ann Burdette, proud resident of District seven. Thank you for the opportunity tonight to speak to you about the budget. I am here representing Long Beach Sacred Resistance. We are a coalition of over 25 Long Beach faith communities standing in support of the Long Beach Justice Fund. I had full funding of the Long Beach Justice Fund written in here, but apparently you've taken care of that. I appreciate it. Last night, I got a chance to finally see RBG, the documentary about the life of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I lived through that time period when she made most of her impact on law, and I watched her tireless efforts to educate the court about the reality of gender bias and discrimination. It's fair to say that she had quite an uphill fight. She had to face a court in which one of the members said, But, Mrs. Ginsburg, isn't it enough that we've put Susan B Anthony on the dollar? So most people at that time read that most men just didn't have a clue how egregiously women were discriminated against. Similarly, I lived through a very fierce battle for equality for my LGBT family and friends. Again, most of the leadership in government simply did not have any idea of the effect of exclusion, prejudice and bigotry on vast numbers of their neighbors and coworkers. Earlier, members of the community spoke eloquently about the impact of racism. Today, I'm painfully aware that too many residents of Long Beach live in complete ignorance of the incredible suffering of our immigrant neighbors from stereotyping, intolerance and now direct attacks from the federal government. That's why I'm so grateful to our mayor. And for all of you who support his proposals for the establishment of the Long Beach Justice Fund to provide legal representation for those Long Beach residents whose futures and families depend upon a fair day in court. Ruth Bader Ginsburg was clear that the best road to equity was the legal system she has devoted and continues to vote her entire life to defending the principles of due process and equal protection under the law. It is our last, best hope in the face of bigotry. I implore you to vote to include the mayor's allocation of $250,000 from the General Fund to establish a universal legal defense fund for immigrant residents in Long Beach facing deportation. Thank you. Thank you so much. Next speaker, please. Clayton, Diane, Ola, Jean. I'm here to address the water rate, the water rates being raised. And that is number one three. And I hope you're really paying attention. I know Susie Price is Lena Gonzales since Roberta Durango. Those are the ones who are paying attention. I'm going to summarize a. Letter from my attorney and to Eric Beneke, attorney at law. Is this a summary of a protest letter that you will find in your packets? Please be advised that this firm represents Long Beach Water Department customers Diana La Jeans and Angela Kimball. Ms.. We and I'm going to summarize it as in our own personal, we believe that the proposed water and sewer rates are illegal to the extent they embed amounts to transfer from the water revenue fund to the city's general fund based on any purported authority provided by Measure M. The basis for our contention is threefold. First, the city apparently agrees that the water and sewer fees and charges are properly real property related and accordingly are subject to Proposition 218. Basically, the California Constitution prohibits this. Secondly, Proposition 218 prohibits the imposition of property related fees if such be exceeds the funds required to provide the property related service. Embedding surcharges to fund transfers to the general fund fund violates this. Finally, to the extent the city contends that fees and charges constitute a voter approved tax, the city lacks legal authority to impose taxes on persons and properties outside its territorial limits. Miss Campbell resides in an unincorporated area of the Los Angeles County, and yet she was unable to vote on Measure M. Yet she is subject to the tax. Based on the foregoing, we respectfully request the City Council decline to declare an ordinance approving resolution number WD 1392, which raises the rates of the water that we receive. So I hope you pay very close attention to this. This is we. I am the same person who. Filed the. Lawsuit before. And you were. Forced to settle because of your illegal activities. So I am suggesting that you do not continue that and that you vote no. On this resolution. Thank you very. Much. Thank you, Ms.. Logins. Next speaker, please. Evening, Mayor Council. My name is Angela Kimball. I reside in the unincorporated county island of Long Beach. My address is. On file. And I am requesting that you decline to approve resolution WD 139 to increasing the water rates, which essentially amounts to an illegal tax. This body has no jurisdiction over the residents of the unincorporated county island. We were not able to vote on Measure M. We do not reside within this territorial limits and boundaries of your city. Yet we are being subject to the tax. And of course, now the increase that is proposed in these water rates. I have joined the lawsuit with Diana logins and you have our letter from our attorney on record. Again, I request that you oppose you decline to approve the water rate increase on not only the citizens of the city of Long Beach, but the county island residents, which represents 543 homeowners, as well as business owners who had absolutely no opportunity to vote on Measure M. Thank you. Thank you so much. Next speaker, please. Good afternoon. Members of City Council and mayor and vice mayor. My name is Christopher Covington. I'm a resident of the sixth District. Coming to you now is a one pager of the people's budget. I am a member of the Investing Youth Campaign as well as partner of the People's Budget. And so I was prepared to come out here and raise hell and talk about all the things that you could do. But I really appreciate the conversations that have been happening in front of us and behind doors to really stay firm and commit to the mayor's recommendations on that, he proposed with a lot of your input and community's inputs as well. So this evening I want I'm not going to be able to be here the full time to watch the whole thing because I have to take students home. But I'm looking forward to listening on the radio and on my phone how the rest of the votes go. And I do appreciate all of the work and I really appreciate your you challenging yourselves not only to staying within the boundaries of, you know, the commitments you make to yourselves, but also making the commitment that you're hearing from the youth here today, as well as the community members who have taken their time to listen. There's been a long process and we've been attending some and most of the committee hearings on the budget. So we really appreciate today that being that you all commit to passing the mayors recommendations as is and if there's opportunities to increase line items looking into those as well. But on the topic of the Invest the Children and Youth Fund as recommended by the mayor and with support from City Council, it's we would like for it not to be a participatory budget process. We would not like for it to be housed in the Parks Department. We actually see it fitting in the Office of Equity under the Health Department, and they have a lens that meets and that matches the particular vision of the city, a plan that the youth who've been working on this and the youth that has been contributing to our surveys and having their voice be heard in this process, to be able to see the type of positive, healthy youth development that the city deserves. So again, we ask you to house that fund within the Health Department under the Office of Equity, and we look forward to seeing the vote this evening. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Well. Counsel, good evening. I am Mikayla or Mack Harris. I am in the sixth district, I believe are the eighth district. I don't really know for sure, but I'm here speaking on behalf of the Investing Youth Campaign. And I wanted to say, first of all, thank you for taking into consideration the all the work that we've done as youth and funding and recommending the Fund for the Child Youth Fund and all that stuff. And I'm sure that if it does get passed, it would help a lot. It would help a lot of youth. Remember, their voice matters and it would just uplift youth in our community more so than they already are. Or if they're not, it uplift them in some aspect. I also wanted to echo off of what. Chris just said. I strongly urge the fund to be housed in the House of Equity because I feel like it would. Strongly help our. Views. So I hope that you guys take that into consideration and thank you. Have a great. Thank you so much. Next speaker, please. Hi. Evening, everyone. I'm Helene Hoffman. I'm an immigration attorney and I am here to talk about. Would you mind putting the mic a little lower so we can. Sorry. Thank you so much. I'm Helene Hoffman. I'm an immigration attorney. I've spoken to you once before. I'm here because I'm urging you, begging you to support Maya Garcia's fully funded justice fund for non to have legal representation. Many immigrants that live or work in Long Beach, this is very, very crucial because anything less than the $250,000, it will not help very many people at all. I know about this. I do it for a living. Immigration law is a very, very difficult, complex area. Many, many cases have to be appealed. And, you know, with appeals, the legal attorneys fees, they just go up and it can take years sometimes to complete a case to fruition. It's a tremendously difficult area of work. It took me two years I coming from another field just to get myself up to snuff. And as you know, many other cities have fully fund many, much more these kinds of cases. Los Angeles has a justice fund of $10 million undocumented immigrants. Also, when they come here, they don't know English. They're thrown into a court system they're not aware of many, many of them are unrepresented and many of them don't know what's going on or they're deported. And I want to remind people, if you read about what goes on in Central America, and I've had clients like this, many of them are deported to their deaths. Okay. And I'm really, really mean that all you have to do is read a few articles about it. As for another issue that doesn't come up very often is bail that these people, if they have any money at all, they have to choose between bail, posing, posting, bail to get out of deportation, which is a horrible place to be or getting an attorney. They often cannot do both. If you with your fully funded justice fund, they can do things like that. And those who are bailed out have a far higher rate of getting successful, successful representation and are not deported. So immigrant immigrants released on bail that this is the statistic have an eight times higher average to when they're cases another issue and my final issues about unaccompanied children a lot of times this doesn't come up, but these are children who come here without any adults. They are under 18. Many come from war torn Central American countries. And the problem is they're not entitled to a court appointed lawyer, even if they're two and three years old. There have been immigration attorneys who had to actually go to court with representing two and three year old children who knew no English, who don't know what the heck is going on. It's just a horrible situation and many and half of them are not represented in court. I mean, can you imagine being in that situation or having a child? You know, in that situation in 2017, over 58,000 children. Thank you. So much. Under the age of 18. We're in deportation hearings. Thank you very much. And I hope you take my advice. Thank you so much. Next speaker, please. Good evening, ladies. Senior Council members. My name is Kim. In many cases, I am a resident of the sixth District. I'm also. The executive director of CCG community based organization here in Long Beach and also. Commissioner for the Human. Relations Commission. So it's great to hear that the recommendations by Mayor. Garcia are being considered, especially for the full funding of the Children and Youth Fund in the amount of $200,000. You know. We've been really looking at ways to develop strategic. Partnerships between, I think, the city community based organizations that. Specialize in youth development, community members and young people. To really come up with a plan for how to really invest long term in youth element and address some of the needs that they have as an organization. That's part of the steering committee for the Youth Development Division at the county level. We're really starting to see now the roll out of. What that investment looks like and how that's. Impacting Long Beach. And we're seeing the hundreds. And thousands of dollars that will be coming to Long Beach within. This year that is investing at the end in youth at the point of contact with law enforcement. And I think it's a really. Positive thing that we're. Looking at investing at the preventative end. The $200,000. I think is a really. Key. It's the key seed money. To get us to think about a long term strategy around investing in young people. So I'm very happy to hear that. So thank you. I also want to echo the the sentiment of what's been connected to some of the health outcomes for young people and for it to be housed within the health department. I think that that the alignment there with some of the efforts that we've already established with young people is directly. Aligned with with health department initiatives. So thank you for that. Thank you so much. Next speaker, please. Hi. My name is Jackie Guerrero. I am with an organization called the Advancement Project. And I have been, you know, working closely with Invest in Youth Campaign. So thank you again, Mayor, and the rest of the Council for all the work that you've been doing and all the listening you've done with the various youth that you've been meeting with. I want to also thank again for the, you know, the support for funding with the mayor's proposal and allocating the 200,000 for in seed funding for the Children and Youth Fund. A big part of you know, the support that I've been providing has been looking at what other cities have done across the state. And Long Beach would be the first city in Southern California that has it, that has and will be looking at a holistic view of what children and youth need here in the city. And that's setting yourselves apart from what other cities are doing. And that's a huge thing. It's really being a leader in this area here in Southern California, and that's super important. Another thing I want to mention is in a lot of the meetings, the that I've been with with the young people, they're the ones leading this effort. They're the ones that are telling us what they want. And they continuously tell us that they want more mental health support. They continuously tell us that they want more support for jobs. They want to work. They continuously tell us that they want more development, youth development, to help them grow up and be, you know, productive members of society. And this is what we're trying to achieve through this. It's it would be a huge first step for the city. So I really commend you on your leadership and thinking not just for this year, but thinking in the future. You know, I again, I also support efforts to ensure that, you know, this money gets allocated to the health department, given that there is alignment of looking at how we can support youth through a health lens. So thank you all again and I appreciate your time. Thank you so much. Next week, please. Good evening. My name is Mae. I am a resident of a second district. I am so. I'm here tonight to voice my support for the mayor's. Original proposal to allocate. 200 K and C money. For the Long Beach Children and Youth Fund. And I also ask that the Council act on behalf of the people and vote to keep the people's budget proposal intact. So I wanted to share some of my perspectives. Of why I think investing in youth is so important, and also why it's important that the way that we allocate the money is a youth and community. Driven process. And as other folks have said, that is housed in the health department. So I'm a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at USC. Also work as a research associate for Californians for Justice and a volunteer for my goals and action. So for many years, I've been privileged to witness. Firsthand the transformative work of organizations that cultivate the leadership of youth of color. So young people often tell me over and. Over again from different folks that they be a completely different person if they had never joined these groups. Many of them told me that they. Used to be painfully shy because they never had. Spaces to cultivate and encouraged their voice. They told me that they were once afraid to voice concerns and to speak up against the injustices that they experienced. But over and over again, I've seen how youth leadership and developing groups develop young people's skills. And provide them with the support that they need to thrive and to earn their power as change leaders. In shedding their fear, I see that youth of color and low income youth of color are able to transform not only their own lives, but also the lives of their peers and their communities. As well as their families. So you have often seen young people here bravely pushing and testifying for change. We've seen them at the forefront of social transformation. Whether it's addressing school shootings, the targeting of Black Lives Matter deportations. We need young people at the forefront of social transformation. We need this, especially because we know that systemic poverty, trauma. Racism and other forms of inequality conspire to constrict their pathways to success. And this is especially true for low income immigrant youth of color and queer and trans youth. So I think we need more youth to have access to these types of nurturing spaces. We know that growth and development don't just happen spontaneously on their own. When you see young folks here is. Because they have been brought up in an ecosystem of support that's helping them to hone their skills, that's navigating them through. The onerous process of college applications, that's helping them to, again, to own their story. And so they're truly a testament to the importance of youth leadership spaces. And to the spaces. That help them bring their massive potential to fruition. I also want to point out quickly, because I am a sociologist, that this is all corroborated, corroborated by research. A 2013 study by Tariq Aziz and Roger's found youth organizing alumni are more likely to attend a four year college and also are twice as likely as their peers to be civically and politically engaged. And so when we invest in youth, we're also investing in the healthy future of our community and prioritizing the support that young people in Long Beach need to thrive. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thanks, Speaker, please. Good evening, Mayor. Council members. I am from Nicaragua, the National Organization of Language and Alumni. And my name is Tyler Somnath, which is a name from laws that most people cannot pronounce. But my family's from Laos, and we stay in Long Beach, sixth District, which is full of immigrants and refugees, just like my family. Now, before I begin my story about my family, that has a lot of things about Southeast Asian folks and youth that can relate to. I want to say that poverty is not a crime and that youth are not the problem, but not having resources and support or budget to invest in youth and families is now my father trying to escape war came to America and now to cope with all of that stress, he drinks alcohol. Smoke, cigarets. And now he needs me to take care of them. Now, at the age of 52. Someone his age should not be needing to go to the emergency room for alcohol withdrawal. But the lack of resources in my community includes not having local rehabilitation or therapy. And this affects my lifestyle personally now because I take care of him, I take time out of my my life, which is taking time out of school or work to watch after. Now, this is very stressful and is very painful. Seeing my dad like this. Is very stressful. Frustrating. Now this is affecting me cutting down classes and in fact it's affecting my school life overall. Now. Youth shouldn't be having to carry this burden. And we want to succeed and dream and do well and be part of a history that heals and our harms. So we should fully fund 200,000. To the Army's youth today. Thank you. Thank you so much. You did a great job. Thank you for speaking. Next speaker, please. Hello. My name is Amy Langhorne. I'm a resident of District six and I bring with me all my members, my community members who are not here with me today. It is my privilege to be. Here and be the. Voice. And represent my community. I am the daughter of a Khmer Rouge survivor. Growing up, that meant I had a purpose to hold my my legacy and culture, to restore this legacy that met taking care and learning how to navigate a new world for my mom and dad. I remember as a youth, I translated for them at medical offices. I even translated. With for them enrolling myself in school. I was only in kindergarten. At that age, I knew that I had to take responsibility because my parents didn't know how to get the support they need growing up. I understand now that it's because they didn't have the resources. During resettlement and the healing from the trauma. If I didn't have to translate or be a caretaker for my parents, I would have been more focused in school. Instead, I was struggling with a lot of anger. I was mad with what I had to put up with and the lack of resources I didn't get as a youth . If my parents resettled healthy, my mom would have continued her education and became a teacher. Instead, she had to deal with compounded stress of being separated from her family and not getting the skills she needed to navigate it to navigate work, school, and raising her family. Not having all these resources made. Her an easy victim. Of stroke and heart attack, which many war survivors in our community faces. When I was 15. I was so grateful to. Join my girls in action. I joined the Young Women's Empowerment Program and learned about my history and the trauma of war that has been passed on to generations after mine, after my families. I then began to heal and understood. My anger was really about not having resources and access in my community and the burden of not taking care that made me fall short. But I learned that loving my community meant fighting for what we need and what we deserve. And that is why I'm here today. Now, I'm a community organizer like my Girls in Action supporting transitional youth who graduated high school and is navigating adulthood. K.J. held a place for me to develop in my leadership, and now I'm organizing young leaders to get their communities. Out to vote. Out of the 757 people we surveyed. 83% believe that community based development programs are the. Best way to support youth. We urge council members to support the organizations who brought you here with the Investing Youth Campaign. We ask council members to show the youth love by approving the 200 K that the Mayor proposed for the Children and Youth fun to be housed under Health and Human Services Department. Which will serve the needs of the larger. Population of Long Beach, including the community. Show youth the love. Don't leave youth and community out of this year's budget. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker. Please. Good evening, Honorable Mayor Garcia and city council members. My name is Nurse. I was here earlier today at the Budget Oversight Committee making my public comments on the some of the recommendations from the DLC. I'm also a District six resident and raising a child in the district. So I'm here with skin in the game. As folks we said earlier today, our marriage city council awarded the young folks that were up here with you today on their accomplishments in baseball. Remember, not all our youth have the privilege of accessing these opportunities, yet they have overcome PTSD, war in genocide, displacement, unmet mental health needs, and lead with single parent households, among other training issues. Today, youth in our community have come out on their second week of school in hopes to have their labor and hard work of serving community needs awarded with our mayor's proposal of $30,000 for the Long Beach Children. The new fund. Excuse me. I'm a little choked up. Just better. They have volunteered their weekends and summers to give this city sound research, as has already been mentioned. They have gone. They have gone home today without knowing if our city council cares. But we know we can count on you all. We know we can count on you all to show you how to love and to approve the mayor's original proposal of the $200,000 for the Long Beach Community Fund. It is time we have done a lot of work and we have come a long way to move the conversation where it is now. We need you all to stand with our young folks and really fully fund an ambition and youth fund, not look at any mid-year review or mid-year reassessment, but really invest in the new young folks now. Additionally, we are fully supportive of seniors services and programs. However, we recognize that. These are two unique. Groups of individuals that have unique needs and supports. And so we really want to ensure that this fund is focusing on the needs of young folks. Additionally, we, as some of my peers and comrades have have mentioned, we really think that the most appropriate place for this, for this fund to be managed is in the Health and Human Services Department that we're open to and conversations with Kelly Calliope and other folks in the Health Department to determine where is the best fit within the Health and Human Services Department. How are we? We really believe that based on the scope of work and the expertize in strategic planning, that this is the right place for. The Lumbee Children Youth Fund has given young folks a second chance, and we want to model how the city can also give young people a second chance by investing in our young folks. I really hope that we can count on your vote. And thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker, I'm also going to be I'm going to be closing the speakers list. If those are the gentleman at the back with the caucus, I want to be sure there will be the last speaker and I'll be closing the speaker's list. Yes, next speaker. Hi, everyone. So my name is Danielle. Loretta. I live in the second district and I've been living there for about 19 years, though. So I just want to talk more about why why y'all should support the deportation defense fund. So for me personally, it will benefit me by ensuring that my family members, loved ones and community members will have legal representation in courts when facing a deportation hearing. We know that folks with legal representation have a more likely chance of staying here with their families. I have friends who have lost their parents, families, family members, as well as friends because they don't have the funds to like have that legal representation for them. So the lack of representation and separation and family means to me that there are human rights violations happening within our city of Long Beach as well. And losing my loved one is a reality we live in as we live and as community members here in Long Beach City. It's important for city council to allocate the 250 K for the Deportation Defense Fund because of this, as a city that emphasizes on their diversity and also inclusion, it would only make sense for them to support their most vulnerable communities and city of Long Beach since they face the fears and traumas, the policy of being deported, who are currently in deportation process and no legal representation provided for them as well. So City Council as a community, we asked for everyone here, which works for the people of the City of Long Beach to endorse a people's state budget that includes a universal legal defense fund for immigrant residents facing deportation. Thank you. Thank you. I like your shirt. Think I like the logo on the front. Next. Bigger, please. I. Good evening. City Council and Mayor Garcia. My name is Alejandro Campos. I am a member of the Long Beach. Immigrant Rights Coalition, and I was a Long Beach resident for more than 20 years. I'm here today to emphasize. The importance of having. Legal representation available to our community members when facing deportation. As someone who has benefited from DOCA, I am privileged because the. Risk of being. Placed into removal proceedings is slim. But although I have benefited from some protections as a daycare recipient, I continue to advocate for my undocumented community who have placed in deportation proceedings is faced with not only huge financial burdens from the costs of bond and attorney fees, but are hit with the hardship of not having any legal representation period, because deportation is classified as a civil matter rather than a criminal sanction. Immigrants facing deportation are not afforded the constitutional protections under the Sixth Amendment. This is just unfair. Our communities need to know we stand with them. Our communities need to know. Need to be afforded the opportunity to stay with their families. As this affects me personally and affects my community. I am here today to ask you to support our immigrant community and approve the proposal to allocate $250,000 for funds to a legal defense fund. Thank you. Thank you so much. Next week. Please. Good evening. Everyone. Brothers and sisters, fellow human beings. I'm Javier Sanchez. I'm here. And from the ninth district. I'm here on behalf of Border Angels, Los Angeles, Orange County. Borders Angels is a nonprofit organization that's advocates for humane human rights, humane immigration reform and social justice or humane or immigrant. Brothers and sisters are coming to the United States escaping poverty and violence. Not only is it not only due in part to their country's governance, but also in part to the United States involvement in their home countries. As one of the many things that Angels does, and besides, dropping lifesaving water across the border is provide support to our day laborers in our local communities. We do this by providing water, food, hygiene and valuable information to our day laborers. And we're not sure knowing the rights should they ever be detained by ice. We are telling stories of laborers not getting paid what was agreed upon or getting paid at all and being abandoned their job sites due to threats of being deported. These people are trying to live dignified lives. It brings me great sadness to know that there be over 1400 cases in Long Beach area alone and so few have legal representation. To think that so many families could be separated, the financial, emotional and psychological strain it will cause is heartbreaking. I can't stress enough the importance to have a full $250,000 fund allocated for legal defense to residents facing deportation. What keeps me going is seeing the people from the community organizing and fighting for the solutions being presented today, which is why I'm confident that the people's budget proposal will give our fellow residents, our neighbors, the chance with legal representation to keep families together. Thank you. Thank you so much. Next speaker, please. Hi, I'm Arlene Alvarado. I'm a property owner in the first district. I want to support the mayor's budget. I think it's very important. I'm a proud daughter of an undocumented worker, and he became legal when he fought World War Two. Right now, with the cut out. If he had served in the Army, which he did, he he would right now, he would automatically get his citizenship. People are being deported who are now working in the are in the Army. I really support this, especially with the with the cut outs. It's not very much language justice. My grandmothers and my great great grandmother could hardly speak to didn't speak English. And this is really important to to have some kind of implementation for language access, policy, safe houses. I live in the first district and how it is filled with apartments, filled with cockroaches and rats. And the tenants are afraid to even. Complain about them because if they do that one landlord rents are ready, rents are being raised horrendously. We not only need more inspectors, we need inspectors to go out without people asking for them to come. Youth Opportunities. I'm a Chicano from Chicago. I went to the very first settlement house in Chicago that Jane Addams created. It was called Hull House. Chicago had this great program. I used to go to day care that the city paid for. I went to summer camps. I wrote in a place called LB kind of North, and we would stay there for two weeks at the city. It was minimal amount of money my parents paid for. We had settlement houses in every single neighborhood. This is. $200,000. This is nothing compared to what was spent on the as a child in Chicago in the fifties. Right. Okay. The other thing is, why are we starting poor people? Because we are cutting taxes for rich people right now. And I am a property owner. I don't care about my property taxes going up. If it goes to support issues, like I think it's really greedy of many of the people in our city who want it. We want to stamp out poor people so that they rich the constituents can have tax breaks. Thank you. Thanks so much. Next speaker, please. Good evening, Mr. Mayor. And City Council over here, Rivera with Libra. Try to be quick about this. We're just simply here as part of the people's. The people's budget. To to request that you uphold the mayor's recommendations. And to fully fund the the legal defense fund of $250,000. To also fully fund the youth opportunities and the invest in youth campaign of $200,000. And also consider the the recommendations or the preferences of the youth and youth organizations of where to house it and how to actually have that money decided upon. And it's youth decided upon. We're also asking for you to consider the full recommendations to follow, to give money to the language access policy, but also requesting an additional fund so that we're fully funding the policy of $210,460. We're also asking that you consider to please make the staff position of the Office of Equity, of the person that oversees the language access policy, full time and structural. Because if we're going to really if we're going to assess the language access policy, let's give it the resources that it actually needs to be fully implemented and fully carried out before we start assessing it. If we're not giving it the resources that it needs to actually get going and giving the personnel to back it, it seems it seems premature to try to assess whether or not it's been effective when we really didn't give it a good start to be to begin with. We're obviously our housing advocate. So we're in. We're here also asking for consideration to you, for you to fund additional code inspectors, but also realize that the the efficacy and the efficiency of the program depends on the system and the technology that it utilizes. I sent all of the city council members links to a a code process or code program that is being used through cities across the state. That makes it completely, completely mobile. It allows for code inspectors to be out in the field for more time. It automatically updates the system mobility and it makes the information available online to the public real time. And these are all things that we need to do, especially advocating or promoting ourselves as sort of a technology technology city. We need this type of technology to improve our code enforcement process. And on a personal note, I want to say that we're definitely and I am definitely in support of the marijuana expungement that's being recommended as well. As we know, these type of crimes or or arrests around marijuana have disproportionately affected the African-American community. And this mayor, this marijuana expungement would definitely alleviate that in our communities. And we need to start. And just one final note. I personally will be thankful and grateful when the city's budget actually reflects an equitable distribution of its funding that meets the community's needs. Until that day, I am going to be satisfied with the wins that we've gained as a community. But I will be thankful and grateful when I see that day. Thank you. Thank you so much. Next speaker, please. Last speaker. Hello, everyone. My name is Cee Lo Ideas. I'm a social. Activist. I just graduated. I just started our culture. Analysis of education grad program at Cal State Long Beach. I just finished. My B.A. in political science. Science to me. And basically, I'm here supporting the people's budget, including safe housing, youth opportunities, language. Justice, and efforts to protect immigrant rights. I am a dreamer with outcome, and one of the main reasons why I'm pursuing grad school is because I feel safer in Long Beach than compared to other cities. However, even with my current legal status, I speak from a place of privilege. Privilege of. Education, privilege of understanding public. Agencies, including political ones, privilege of knowing. How to defend my rights and conduct research. However, many of the. Individuals needing legal counsel or. Who are facing deportation are not privileged as myself. Therefore, I ask that. You reconsider allocating moneys for the Universal Legal Defense Fund. Your constituents are counting on all of you. Thank you. We are the change. Thank you very much. We're going to go ahead and close the public comment. So let me go ahead and go back to the other items. I know we're going to start with the first item. I want to start with the first item. I'm going to have a councilman, but I will go for the first item since it's the harbor and water. Madam Clerk, item number one. Report from Financial Management Recommendation to adopt a resolution approving the Fy19 budget for the Long Beach Harbor Department. Before I go, I know we have some comments. Do people want to make general comments or we want to get through all these resolutions first and then make these comments when we get to the budget? Yeah, let's do that. I want to do that. Comes, go. I'm comfortable either reading all of them or approving as we go. Does that make you comfortable? Right. We would need to, as Maria suggested, either we take the council comments now and we go through individually and vote. But I wouldn't want to read all 17 and then go back and try and figure. I think I think either we do the council comments now or we do we begin voting on the kind of items that are that are not necessarily the budget but relate to the budget, get through all those and then have those comments. Or you could council could queue up to talk to each one. We need a motion in the second on 17 of those. I think we definitely would like to do it right. Okay. Why don't we just begin going through the items and then we get closer to the budget? We'll go from there. So that item 1.1. Support from financial management. Recommendation to adopt a resolution approving the A4 in 19 budget for a Long Beach Harbor department. K There is a motion and a second. Members, please go ahead and cast your votes.