Recommendation to request City Manager to investigate the feasibility of utilizing Long Beach Recovery Act funds to support upcoming significant cultural events in the City of Long Beach and report back to the City Council in 30 days.
The motion is. Carried. Thank you. Item 26, please. Item 26 is a communication from Councilman Austin, Councilwoman Zahra Council Member Turanga. Recommendation to investigate the feasibility of utilizing Long Beach Recovery Act funds to support upcoming significant cultural events in the city. Thank you, Councilmember Austin. Thank you. And I'm happy to bring this item forward after conversations with many, many groups in the city. Many, many who have did not and were not able to to have cultural celebrations as a result of COVID over the last two years. I think it's only right that we look at opportunities to to to help support some of these cultural events that really define our city. City is home to our city is home to a majority of the I'm sorry, a variety of ethnicities and nationalities, cultures that make Long Beach really one of the most diverse large cities in the nation. And the results? We're hosting many significant cultural events annually, like the Cambodian New Year celebration, Juneteenth. As of last year, the Long Beach Filipino Festival, DIA de los Muertos. And I'm sure there are others that that we can think of here. These important festivities, honor historic traditions, educate our residents, and are prime opportunities for local minority vendors to expand their outreach. The celebrations have continued during the pandemic hybrid and virtually. But now we are coming back together. And I think it's very, very important that we we have some stake in the game as a city. As the local restrictions lift. More events will be held in person. So within the last year's Recovery Act, the goals specific to economic inclusion and expanding opportunities for our city's historically disenfranchized communities. We actually put forth several million dollars in economic recovery inclusion efforts, and I believe the acceptable uses of these funds include creating economic opportunities for underrepresented businesses, conducting community outreach and uplifting diverse small communities, and really promoting business and opportunities for people to gather along our in our business course and support business and come together. And so for those reasons, I'm bringing this forward with us as the city manager and city team. You know, look at our Recovery Act dollars, look at our existing strategy. We prioritize and develop a fund and come back hopefully within the next 30 days. Is that reasonable time? I think we could set that as a goal. And if we need a little more time, we'll let you know. But we always shoot for 30 days. Where we are in the second day of spring. And so summer is will be upon us pretty quickly. And we want to be able to be in a position to support some of our community organizations that are doing large events. And so with that, I would ask for my colleagues support and thank Councilmember Saroyan Durango for joining in on this. Thank you, Councilwoman Saru. Yes. Thank you, Councilmember Austin, for bringing this item forward. I, I do appreciate the consideration of how these cultural events are very important to the work that we've been doing to creating the cultural centers. I think that they not only highlight the cultural center and the goals of it, but also how do we ensure there's economic development and recovery opportunities because it's not only doing them in the corridors of the where the community maybe these centers might be, but it's also in allowing vendors to be in the festival to make sure that they're given the opportunity to share their businesses to everybody around them as well. You know, I'm really sad that I had to cancel the our annual MLK Parade. The City and I and the MLK Junior Parade and Festival due to the surge in the COVID 19 and then also the Cambodian New Year celebration, I was going to do as well because of the uncertainty of the COVID variant. So I do hope that we're looking into better days so we can do things outdoors. And it's really, I think, also a way to not only recover economically, but lift our spirits in this in this time of recovery. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Ranga. Thank you. And I want to thank Councilmember also for bringing this forward. I think it's important to know that Long Beach is a very diverse and cultural city. We've been having cultural events for the last at least eight years every year, but we've been here for a long time. And I think that it's time that we support them in other ways as we move forward. I think that we need to look at the importance of cultural events well as a whole in in the city islamique, including the things that happened with the arts as well. So I'm very happy to support this item tonight. Thank you. Thank you for asking, Richardson. Thank you. I'm very happy to support this idea tonight as well. I'll tell you, you know, hosting events during the pandemic, there's additional costs, you know, testing, you know, barricades. When we did the Uptown Jazz Festival two years ago, we just went virtual. But we did an in-person this past year. And it was I'm talking about, you know, just additional things that normally wouldn't have come up. And I'll tell you when you know you know, when I think about the cancelation of the King parade, you know, there's if there were funds to say, hey, maybe there are things that we can do if this one were available, then maybe there were things that we could do to make adjustments or save some element of it or, you know, do something later on. So I think having flexibility to make sure that we don't overlook these incredibly important cultural assets and our flexibility with funding to be able to support these things that are incredibly important, I think is important to the whole community. You know, and I think about I think about, you know, concerts in the park in general have come a long way. I remember we didn't have any concerts in the park in North Long Beach till Steve Miller started Uptown Jazz Fest. It was back then. The title was The North Long Beach, Latin Jazz and Blues Way Too Long, the title Way Too Long. But the point was, we had a very diverse community that wasn't being served with art. You know, it was, you know, 92% people of color. You couldn't find Latin music, you couldn't find blues or R&B or jazz in their community. And now it's one of the most successful. Again, it's been citywide. So I think we made a commitment to, you know, equity in the arts and diversity in the arts. And I think we just have to acknowledge that when those things are absent, it has a greater impact. So I love this item. I think it's a great item. Thank you, Councilman Austin, all the signers for bringing it forward. And I look forward to supporting this. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman Zendejas. Thank you, Mayor. A huge thank you to Councilmember Austin and Sarah and New Dunga for signing on to this item as well. I really think that not only not being able to hold these these cultural events during these past two years was very detrimental to our community. And I was very, very excited to host DIA de los Muertos back in 2020. But that did not happen, obviously. So in 2021 I did. I was able to host them it and it was just a super big hit. And everybody till this day still comes up to me and telling me how amazing it was and how awesome it was to see community out there and how uplifting it was as well. I think that these events are not only really fun to attend, but they are a beautiful celebration of our multi cultural community here in the city that we live in. So I'm very happy to support this item. Is there any public comment on this item? We have Sonny Kinsey. Hello. Good evening. Um, just wanted to say full support of this item. I think this is a great moment with respect to the Tower of Babel that the city of Long Beach is. This is a very tribal place. And, you know, I think that there's enough city funding for every member of whatever tribe you are to get some type of funding so that we can all you know, I love Nowruz because I like the the little Persian treats, you know. And if the Persian people in Long Beach wanted to get together and get some Recovery Act funding and, you know, they had some vendors coming out, that would be great for me. I would like to come and support it. So I like when these opportunities come with respect to public funding, towards celebrating diverse cultures within the city. That being said, you know, I am a member of a tribe. I'm a proud member of my tribe. And what I've learned in this moment of COVID is that my tribe, specifically African-Americans in this city, outside of some of the events that was referenced, specifically the Juneteenth celebration that Mr. Cole Kemp did, we are most of mostly a community that our events are celebrated with under the auspices of the city. We've had very rare private events going on. And so as a result of that, I think that that's some of the COVID stipulations we were most hindered by specifically as my council representative, Mrs. Dr. Sara reference with the Kings Day Parade. And then, you know, that was canceled due to COVID. And then just a week prior it was a major festival in the downtown area. So 70,000 plus people are walking around. So, you know, that was a private event. And so I guess what I would like, Mr. Modica, if you could look into, is an opportunity with respect to this report and an empowering opportunity where a lot of the cultural events that the City of Long Beach kind of takes the shoulder of responsibility towards, if we could figure out a way to create, you know, relationships with maybe neighborhood associations, whatever it could be under a private entity that way, you know, if COVID 25 or whatever comes, you know, in the future in terms of stipulations, a private entity could take the responsibility of representing the cultures that are impacted when these kinds of moments happen. Thank you. I think that concludes public comment on this item. We have a motion in a second. Members, please go ahead and cast your votes. Kasman. Alston the motion is carried. Thank you. I think we have item number 27. Next item 27, Communication from Public Works recommendation to enter into an agreement with the Boeing Company to accept a one time cash payment of 2.7 million for the improvement of the Cherry Avenue and 405 intersection District five.