Recommendation to request City Manager to investigate the feasibility of establishing a Safe Passage Plan in collaboration with the Long Beach Police Department, other appropriate City departments, Long Beach Unified School District, and relevant local organizations, and report back to the City Council in 60 days.
Item 29 is a communication from Councilman Austin. Recommendation two requires city manager to investigate the feasibility of establishing a safe passage plan and report back to the city council in 60 days. Thank you, Councilman Austin. Thank you so much. So, as many of you may know, last month, one of our local high school students in north London, Long Beach, was brutally attacked while walking home from Jordan High School in route to Colin Powell Elementary School. Our children, as we all know, our most valuable and vulnerable members of our community, and they should not have to endure violence or intimidation walking to and from school. Safe Passage programs are interventions designed to keep students from harm and ensure that they arrive safely to their schools and to their homes. Safe passages are also linked to decreased violence, decreased criminal activity, bullying and increased attendance among students who've been served such programs as has actually existed here in the city of Long Beach before, but most neither no longer operate or exist or on hiatus or have been on hiatus due to the COVID 19 pandemic. Our Long Beach Recovery Act dollars have been set aside some to implement some version of Safe Passage this summer. But these funds will only serve areas near Cabrillo Poly and Milliken High schools. I'd like to see this expanded, obviously, and I like to see a plan that utilizes the best practices of previous programs, along with input from our community members, local schools, obviously our police department and others to devise a manual outlining how neighborhood associations can also establish their own safe passages within their communities. Not only will this activate our communities, but it will also offer a more equitable approach to safety for middle and high school students citywide. Today, I'm asking for a feasibility study on safe passage and creating a Safe Passage plan in hopes that we can get it in our communities as soon as possible, hopefully before the start of the new school year. And in closing, I'd like to thank the community members who come out and support, as well as ask from our council colleagues and would like to open it up also for public. Comment as well. Absolutely. We can go to public comment. I mean, public comment on this. We have eight. Patricia Long. Dave San Jose. Charmaine SIM. Sydney. Ken Faye. Franklin SIM. Please approach the podium. Julie Jones. Carlos Valdes and Rene Ruiz. Patricia Long. I'm Patricia. Lang from College. Triangle Neighborhood Association. And I want to really thank. Councilman, our. Councilman, Mr. Austin, for bringing this to the council and also to the city. This event that occurred about one month ago has really devastated our neighborhood. That and the issues that our younger students have when they walk to Colin Powell on Long Beach Boulevard, where they're approached by sex workers on a regular basis. So we really appreciate the fact and I understand that there might be some money involved with this, but this issue is paramount to trying to make safety for our neighborhood. Coolidge Triangle and also Longwood. We have the support of Teresa Gomez. She has come to our neighborhood. Meeting. And she has inspired us to reach out to the city council and also to the city of Long Beach to help us with these issues. We also have support from College Square, that's north. Of us and. Also neighborhood that would like to be involved in this for us. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next picture, please. Yes. I'm Dave San Jose. I want to thank you, Alison, for bringing this forward. This is probably one of the most important things we can do in the city. The children are our future of Long Beach. And so if there's any ways that we can figure out to make children safe, we live in different times now and the times we live in. I've been here since 1940. I've never seen it like this. I've seen the good, the bad and the ugly. So before anything serious happens, I'm sure you can figure out ways to make it safer for our children because they are our future. Thank you. Thank you. Next week, your police. So I can face extensive criticism. First, I want to thank Councilman Austin for bringing this opportunity for the city to engage in the Safe Passage plan. I'm very familiar with it. Due to the work that I've done with LAUSD and as well as with the Chicago Public School System. Um, we're in both cases, um, a lot of the racial tension in LAUSD, the example would be in Watts and in Chicago would be the South Side. It dropped a lot of the activity over 20%. So it's obviously over respect to best practices. It's a it's a method that works. I think that it's it's very tragic that, you know, a young girl leaving school, I think, and unfortunately has to, you know, have someone try to abduct them and and do God knows what with them. I think it speaks to the previous gentleman's sentiment about where the times are going. I know for a fact, just two months ago, my two nephews who go to school at a charter school on Long Beach Boulevard and 16th Street, they were there along with a few of the other black male students. They were attacked because of an incident with someone from a different ethnic group and where gang members walked onto the campus and just attacked the young black male students on the on the campus. So I think for will respect the safe passage plan. Um, you know we really have to engage with the community and not just in the sense of us that are active and, you know, come down to city hall and come to, uh, you know, speak on these things. But really, um, you know, these young men who are committing these activities that make it unsafe in the space, they are participants and, you know, organizations that don't have representatives that come down here to speak. And I think that in order for us to really facilitate a more safe requirement, I know with respect to the Safe Spaces plan and the Watts example, they hired ex-gang members to stand on guard and post within the corridors around lock in other schools. They were having a lot of these flare ups. And I think that for us to really want to see the tension to decrease, we would have to do something similar. And that involves engaging with the street culture, both on the African-American side and on the Latino side, because these are the two prime, uh, groups that a lot of these, uh, unfortunate moments are happening with. So we'll have to facilitate. I'm engaged with a group called Long Reset that was engaged in a lot of intervention work. So would love to support and thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hi. I'd like to thank all of you for considering this item, because it's very important for our children and our neighborhood, not just the schools that you mentioned earlier, but all of the schools need programs like this. And if there's funding involved, please try to find money for this. I know we as a community can come together and try to motivate our members to volunteer. I know it's going to take coordination with lots of organizations the police, the schools, the public, the neighborhood associations. But I think working together, it takes a village to save our community and we can come together as a village. If you as a city council can, please give us the opportunity. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hello, City Council. My name is Umar Joy, a fourth desert district resident. Darrell Supernova is my councilperson. Thank you. Councilmember Al asked him for this agenda item. Safe passage for students like me is critical. I'm a seventh grader at Stamper Middle School. My community is pretty safe, but not all students in Long Beach are that lucky. My hope is that the city manager will find solutions or find solutions in the coming weeks for all Lumbee kids to be more safe. What happened to a teenage girl in North Long Beach is unacceptable and is very frightening. One problem I would like the city manager to look at is the moms in Bear. Bay. At Edison Middle School. A group of moms saw a problem with gangs and drug selling sells near and indecent, so they brought walkie talkies from Circuit City, not Amazon lets and stood out on the corners with walkie talkies helping the students near. Let's find ways to bring families and communities together to fix our problems. Thank you again. Council member Austin for for bringing this agenda item. I hope all council members please approve this agenda item for students like me. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, counsel. Thank you. Also to councilman and council member Al Austin for bringing this agenda item and for the community members that came out. I really. I, too, like my mom or dad, live in the fourth district. But I've gained an affinity for the residents in North Long Beach and what they're going through there. And I want us, if we can, to imagine, you know, the street where the robbery or abduction happened. It's actually a nice street. It's tree lined. And a lot of good people live there. And just to imagine someone coming up in a sedan getting out and grabbing your daughter. That's a tough thing. And. Some have mentioned. The moms brigade and. I learned about the moms brigade from a ninth District resident who came who came to Edison Middle School, which is really first district. And they were having an issue with drug sales there and with gangs. So the moms got these walkie talkies donated by Circuit City, and they would stand out and they would stand at different corners . And what it did was it created something where they didn't have to have have to engage, but they could provide as witnesses for what was happening. And they were on a radio frequency so police officers could hear what was going on. And one mom might say, oh, I saw this happening. Did you see it? And then another would say, Yes, I saw that, too. Well, now you have a coordination with officers, but it also is involving families inside of that process. And I would like Tom and the team, if they could, to look into that and see if that's something that we can do. What I loved. About it is that. It was at no cost to the city. And that's important because we've got we've got budget talks coming up soon. What's also great is it puts more eyes on the street. If you go to North Long Beach. Or Long Beach Boulevard, what's happening with the human. Trafficking and prostitution? There's not all eyes on the street. I went there recently with my wife and we were doing trying to. Inform the community what was going. On so they could see it. And you should have seen the cars stop and pull over and just and gawking. There's a real problem there. And we've got to we've got to get our arms around it. And I just really appreciate, again, you bringing this agenda item forth. And I really want to thank the community for coming out. Want to inspire you guys to stay engaged. And thank you so much. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hi. Carlos Valdes, College Triangle. I would like to begin by thanking Councilman Al Lofton for listening to residents longstanding concerns about safety and security, and most importantly, bringing your children's safety front and center. By now, all of our council members are aware that the community is west of the 710 Freeway, and North Long Beach has been plagued by human trafficking, exposing children to the realities of what happens between prostitutes and johns. They see them in the act. They see the youth condoms left in the streets. They've been approached both by pimps and johns on the way to school and prom. And most recently, the teenager was assaulted in the failed kidnaped attempt both Coolidge Triangle and Longwood Neighborhood Associations. Choose to be proactive and not reactive. And we need your active participation. Establishing a safe passage plan built on the city's commitment to maintaining a network of strong, sustainable neighborhoods and will bring families, local partners and stakeholders together to keep our community safe. Our hope is the Safe Passage plan will focus on soliciting public participation to deter criminal activity and ensure that all children are able to walk to and from school safely as we continuously reinforce our community meetings throughout the year. The safety of our neighborhood is a collaborative effort between law enforcement and residents. By putting the power in the residents hands, we hope to increase engagement of our residents who share in vision of bringing safer neighborhoods North Long Beach or Long Beach Boulevard. Establishing a Safe Passage plan will provide an opportunity for community dialog that will continue to foster a culture of safety along the Long Beach Boulevard corridor. As our new councilman, I'd like to thank you, Austin, for your leadership championing action that is long overdue. And thank you, council members, for your consideration and partnership. And thank you to the gentleman from Long Beach. The Long Beach reset that I get that correct for serving something greater than yourself. That's all I have to say. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening. My name is Renee Real, along with Neighborhood Association President. Last Monday, over 25 to 30 leaders from the North Lawn meet from the eighth district and the ninth district met with commander, police commanders, the bell. We had a long discussion about how we want our communities to be safe. We talked about policing, and one of the ideas that was discussed was safe. Passage for. Our children walking to and from school. And we also had over we submitted what actually I submitted to Austin a or a petition from a resident that has about over 100 signatures requesting for safety. And so, again, we're here to support this agenda item, the Narnia, the North Long Beach leaders, the resident and European Council member asked him for bringing this item on to the city council. Thank you. Thank you. Any further public comment? That concludes the public comments. Great. I'll I'll just you know, I'm happy to second this motion. Thank you, Councilman Austin, for bringing this forward. Just a few. I would say, number one, that was a tragic set of circumstances with the young lady. I had a chance to talk with her, talk with her family afterwards. And I agree. More needs to happen. I think we should also sort of highlight some of the good things that the city is doing in terms of the safe passages. And I want to ask the city manager if you can just update, because we funded a new Safe Passage program, our Jordan High School Recovery Funds. And I know that there's a LIMBERG program, but I don't know about Colin Colin Powell, if that was included. Could you could we give some updates on where we are? So Kelly Collopy is here to talk through a little bit of what's currently there. And then we also have our deputy city manager, Meredith Reynolds, who can talk to some of the Recovery Act programs. Thank you. Good evening, council members. So we currently have a Safe Passage program at Washington Middle School through Calvert. We just received a $3.9 million grant to extend Calvert, which will include the, um, which will include the Lindbergh Middle School. Yeah. The overall grant does cover 13 different communities, of which College Triangle is one of those. And so we are looking at different opportunities to support the many communities within that space. And then the Jordan High School is funded through the Recovery Act. At this time, I'm not aware of the additional space. Great. So let's make sure, you know, we get a good report on where all those sources of funding funding is. I know when we did last year, there was sort of in response to some of the crime that we saw increasing right at the height of the pandemic. We asked to identify funding sources to expand the Washington program to other neighborhoods. So what were the neighborhoods we were able to expand into? And we got we received this grant right last. Last week, correct? Yeah. So that give us just a general update on what are the types of activities we're going to be able to see and what are the neighborhoods included in this $3.9 million grant? Yeah. So the, um, the different neighborhoods are Adams, Carmelita Coolidge, the Crow's Triangle, um, the Forest Park, uh, grant area, grant Community, Highland Park and Lindbergh and North Long Beach. And then in Central Long Beach shall be central in Rose Park, St Mary's and uh. Zafar Yeah. So lots of different, lots of different areas, lots of different communities. But the council districts are in one, two, six, eight and nine, so they are pretty spread out across the central north, um, north areas and some of the west. So the key things that will be happening is we have developed a gun violence response protocol in partnership with the police department. So if there is a violent action, then the police department will respond and then they will call our team out to respond and work in wraparound services to those impacted by the gun violence, as well as to engage and bring to do work with peacekeepers. So those peacekeepers are trained in interventions and to really those peacekeepers will be available with those within those communities, um, to support the communities after, after something, you know, some sort of violent, um, event happens and then so there will be trained intervention this. And then from there we're also going to be doing a lot of community work together. So you'll find in the Washington neighborhood right now that there are a lot of community activation. The community, the community members are very engaged in the Safe Passages program as well as a lot of other activation activities. So those are all part of this grant that is forthcoming. All right. So so I'll just I'll just say it. Certainly, you know, the pandemic is hard to show sometimes all the work that's happening, but it doesn't happen overnight. You know, this was 2020 when we began talking about expanding the program in North Palm Beach. 2021 was the city council gave direction to make it happen. We went through the grant application process. We received recovery dollars. That was one part of it, and that was 3.9 million we last we announced last week. The good news is, for all the programs and the violence prevention, we want to do the funding's there. That's the big part. And and if you want to see a reference, just look at watch the neighborhood or do the event the event we did at Coolidge Triangle at Coolidge Park maybe a year ago. So more of that activity can come. So I certainly support this. I think one thing that one gap that I do see is Colin Powell. So I know Jordan is funded. I know Lindbergh is funded, but Colin Powell certainly needs to be. So we have to figure out how to either, you know, include it in recovery funds or some other way. But that area needs to be included. Okay. All right. Thank you. Next is Councilman Juvenile. Thank you. And I'd like to thank all the speakers here tonight and especially my enjoy. I'm already getting text messages and what a great. Job you did. So congratulations. Thank you, Councilman Austin, for bringing this very important item forward. And I stand in support. I do have some comments. I've been asked to read. On behalf of Councilwoman. Price. I fully support this item and. Thank Councilman Austin for bringing it forth. For over. Ten years, I've been involved in a Safe Passage. Program and activation program. I run an elementary school that is located in a high. Gang activity area. I found the program to be very effective in activating the area, increasing community presence and allowing children to have a safe pathway to and from school. I think the key to the programs like this is working with local community based organizations and parents group groups to ensure that the community is represented along the pathways . Engaging the community in these efforts is critical to the success of the programs, and I encourage our city's health department. Who's overseeing this and other violence prevention prevention programs. To look for more ways to incorporate the local community based organizations. End of quote. I'd just like to add something else here, and that is our school just. Ended in Long Beach Unified last week. Parents have already. Reached out. To me about school security issues. So I'd just like to encourage any community based organization. Or individuals to go ahead and. Reach out to your. To your council office. If you don't. Know that school board member and whatnot. And we can certainly connect you. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Councilman Sorrell. Yes, thank you, Vice Mayor. Yes. I want to thank Councilmember Austin for bringing this forward and amplifying the ongoing concern around safety. I think that it was thank you for all of the public comments that were made today. And I think that I wanted to also make sure to share that it's something that builds upon what was brought forward back in 2021, February of 2021, and how we're able to accelerate violence prevention in addition to safe passage, but generally in our communities. And that was the, I think, request. Part of that was to look for additional funding, which was mentioned earlier. And that's where we're able to capture the additional need that was, I think, mentioned earlier. I think as well as requested. So I appreciate the conversation that happens at the neighborhood level as well as the community level for ongoing conversation and exploration to make sure that we're working to make everyone in addition to our youth, safe as well. And, you know, one of the things that I also wanted to see if we can hear a little bit more is I do hear there is concern around how do we ensure there the program is working collaboratively. Can you share again, Miss Colby, how this program, as far as this grant I think you mentioned, is it the CAO VIP? Can you share a little bit more about how that would work? You mentioned peacemakers or peace civilians. That would be key peacekeepers. Excuse me. And so this is a partnership with many of our departments across the city, as well as the community members. And so, you know, included in this is workforce and the connection to employment opportunities for our youth parks and activating spaces and, you know, the library and activating those spaces as well as the response and engagement with the police department. So there are many different opportunities in the Washington neighborhood. The community members are very engaged as well in the planning in terms of, you know, the activation of spaces as well as, you know, as well as the Safe Passage program. So there are we have a strong connection and the grant is all of these are listed. And in terms of the types of those activities. Can you mentioned the central Long Beach areas that you'll be also expanding to, in addition to what was mentioned in North Long Beach as well. Yeah, so Center Hellmann Rose Park, Saint Mary's and Sophia Green. And I just want to mention how how proud I am to have brought this item forward with Vice Mayor Richardson, as well as councilmembers and Diaz and Councilmember Allen last year, in order for us to explore the funding that the Health and Human Services Department worked hard in achieving. So I'm really grateful for all the work the department staff have done with your leadership, Ms.. Calliope in receiving that $3.9 million grant to the Health Department for us to do the violence prevention in addition to the safe passage work. Thank you so much. Thank you, Councilman Austin. Thank you again. I want to thank the community for coming out. We've been listening and looking at creative ways to address your concerns. But obviously there's a void and a real need to address safe passage in our our communities. I want to be really clear. It was mentioned on a couple of occasions. This actually item builds upon, you know, our violence prevention plan or healthy and safe communities. Tonight's agenda item specifies safe passage for students coming to and from school. I want to be very, very clear on that. I know our healthy communities, safe and healthy communities plan through our Recovery Act specified three high schools, Cabrillo High School, Millikan High School and Long Beach Poly High School. It did not mention Jordan. It didn't mention, you know, some of the other areas in North Long Beach. And so the item tonight, it was really to build upon the Safe and Healthy Communities Act, but to specify safe passages to and from school for our students. And I think I want to make sure that we distinguish that and be clear. I heard from public comment. It does take a village is going to take us all and everybody every adult should take on the responsibility to to defend and protect our children in the city. And so I certainly am encouraged seeing that community organizations want to be involved and engaged. And this doesn't necessarily mean that everybody's going to get paid. We can create a volunteer brigade throughout our city to ensure safe passages for our children. And so, again, one of to clarify some some points here, but again, thank you to the community for coming out and support and the support of comments from my colleagues. I look forward to getting a report back very soon from staff. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Sunday House. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Orson, for this item. I think it's very important that we really, really take into consideration the preventative measures that we can put into place. I think that, you know, that's something that's very important. I'm so sorry about this incident that happened to this young lady. It was just heartbreaking. I'm I'm so happy that besides the fact that I do believe she's will forever be traumatized by it, because I will be I you know, I'm really glad that there was an even more severe outcome to this. But when things like this happen, they teach their teachable moments. And I think that that's when, you know, we are able to come together as a community and try to prevent further things from happening like this. So I think that it's very important. I know to me, my community is as I mentioned before, we have been working on preventative measures with with county on being able to make a safe passage to to our schools, because that's mostly where our our youth go to is, you know, to and from school. So thank you to all the incredible work, Kelly, that you and your team have done and can. He needed to do, not only in my district, but citywide. And I think that that's what we need to continue working on and protecting our children as best we can. So thank you. All right. Thank you. Before we go to the vote, just again, we certainly hear you and there's a lot of activity happening and we hear very clearly safe passages is what they're looking for. Can we clarify, is Jordan included in the recovery funds? Jordan is currently included. In the recovery fund. Okay. And Lindbergh is in the new grant, red Corvette grant. And we want to explore adding Colin Powell. Yes. And so we do have within the recovery fund the opportunity for at least one other middle school. That has yet to be assigned. So we can be working at those different middle. Schools. Fantastic. And there may be some economies of scale because Jordan high students and the Colin Powell students, sometimes it's the same household, so the same route in some ways. So we just need to make sure a lot of these boulevard is covered. Okay. Thank you so much, members. Please cast your vote. The motion is carried.