Recommendation to adopt resolutions authorizing City Manager, or designee, to submit two grant applications to the California Youth Soccer and Recreation Development Grant Program, offered by the State of California Department of Parks and Recreation, Office of Grants and Local Services, for the Seaside Park Artificial Turf Sports Field Conversion Project (Seaside Park Project), and Phase 2 of the Ed “Pops” Davenport Park Sports Field and Recreation Project (Davenport Park Project); accept, if awarded, California Youth Soccer and Recreation Development Grant Program grant funds for up to $600,000 for the Seaside Park Project, and up to $1,000,000 for the Davenport Park Project; and, execute all documents necessary to accept the funds and implement the projects.  (Districts 1,8)
Motion carries. Thank you. We will have item number 13, please. Item 13 is a report from Parks Recreation, a marine and public works recommendation to adopt a resolution authorizing the city manager to submit to grant application to the California Youth Soccer and Recreation Development Grant Program for the Seaside Park Project and Phase two of the Davenport Park Project, District one and eight. Thank you, Councilwoman Gonzalez. Yes. Can we hear a staff report, please? Hi, Marie. Sure can. Marie Knight, our director of Parks, Recreation, Marine, will deliver a staff report. Good evening, Vice Mayor and members of the Council. The item before you tonight is to adopt resolutions authorizing staff to submit to grant applications to the California Youth Soccer and Recreation Development Grant Program, the California Youth Soccer and Recreation Event Development Grant Program, funded by the California Clean Water, Clean Air, Safe Neighborhood Parks and Coastal Protection Act of 2002 provides funds to acquire and develop neighborhood, community and regional parks and recreational areas for land, air and water conservation programs. The departments of Parks, Recreation, Marine and Public Works are requesting authorization to submit a grant application for $600,000 in grant funds to be used for Seaside Park Project and a grant application for $1 million in grant funds to be used for phase two of the Davenport Park Project. The Seaside and Davenport Park projects were identified as being the most competitive projects at this point for this grant funding source. Both of these projects meet the grant criteria of creating new opportunities for youth sports in underserved areas. They are both shovel ready. And have matching funds for non. Construction costs and include. A water conservation. Measure as part of the project. The Seaside Park Project. Well, convert. 0.4 acres of existing unsafe dirt sports fields. Into an artificial. Turf sports field. While the city council approved. Funding in the fiscal 2014 year and fiscal year, 15 adopted budgets is. Anticipated to be sufficient. The additional grant funding will supplement the Seaside Park project. Phase two of. The Davenport Park. Project. Includes a multi-use. Sports field perimeter walking path with exercise equipment. A shaded. Outdoor assembly area, space for necessary parking. And a new alignment and park entry off. Of 55th way. These two projects are in response to increased demand for soccer, football, baseball and softball programing in our community. And we're here to answer any questions. Thank you, Councilwoman Gonzales. Yes. Thank you for the staff report, Marie. I have. A couple of questions and. I'm glad we are going. After as many grants as possible, especially in these two areas. So thank you for your work on that. Very quickly, I wanted to ask the supplement. This will supplement what has. Already been. Allocated. In what way will it supplement this scope of work? So we've had in the. 2014 fiscal year. There were a total of three soccer related projects that were. Partially funded. And so. As we look to build the first two, which. Are Seaside. And Admiral. Kidd, those will actually be coming to the council in a several weeks for award of that. Those projects. We looked at. Being more competitive with these grant funds. And so the funding. That is currently available, we utilize that as. Matching funds to supplement what the request was. Okay, great. I just wanted to make sure I was clear on that. And then the scope of work is just for the artificial turf. I know at some point we had. Talked about adding lighting. It's not for any of that. Would it just be the turf? Is that. Correct? Correct. The two grants themselves are for the fields, the athletic fields. They're not for anything. Else to do with either the two projects. Fields. Perfect. Thank you very much. Welcome. Thank you, Councilman. Thank you. And I wholeheartedly support this this motion. I want to congratulate and thank Parks, Recreation and Marine for their efforts in identifying this grant. And Prop 40 has been very, very generous, particularly to urban areas throughout the state. I can recall working on that several years ago, phase two of Davenport Park. We're very excited about the possibilities there. I want to commend our city staff for their efforts to get us in a position that we are now shovel ready to to fulfill a promise that has been made for several years to the residents in a district in North Long Beach to complete phase two of Davenport Park. And so $1,000,000 will take us a long way, I think looking at Craig Beck, that will get us a park develop there. And we are now shovel ready, very close to getting there. And so this is very, very encouraging. So you have my full support and if I need to write a letter of recommendation or support, I'll be happy to do so as well. Thank you. Thank you. I'll just add a comment that, you know, congratulations to both the council members on even embarking on this and to staff because both of these are in some of the most open space, disparate areas of town, and it's going to go a long way. Should these grants be awarded so best? Best of luck to both the council members and to the community. Is there any public comment on this item? Hmm. My name is Latoya Marcia. I come in as a concerned parent. I see a lot of funding going into these parks and recreation, all the grants to, you know, for the youth and none of the money gets spent the way that it's supposed to be spent. Yeah. I want $1,000,000 to do turf for a part. But you know, the. Community. The taxpayers, we all. Say, yeah, we want this. Because our kids are at these parks. But then when we go to these parks, we don't see new turf. We don't see new skyline. We don't see many of the things that the grants are supposed to be used for. I you know, I resided by Martin Luther King Park, and it was funding as opposed to went towards the Martin Luther King Day Parade all the way down to carnivals for the kids. And when Martin Luther Day Parade came, they didn't have anything at all for the youth or for the kids. So how is it that you guys, you know, make these suggestions every then you don't really even check in and see if these findings are going towards the place that they should be going. It seems like whoever is in his district. Is using the money or the finding for their own advantages, and it does not go to the community. So if we say, Oh yeah, go ahead and give these guys $1,000,000. What happens when the funding is not being placed in the parks, in the community like it's supposed to be done? Because you guys do not seem like you are being accountable for anything that I do. Regardless if you are covering the grants or not, it still should fall in your hands because you are supposed to be the ones that oversee the things and you do nothing about it. You are overlooking. They are just going on to the next agenda. If you are for the people, start being for the people, not for the money. Thank you. Next speaker, please. I'd like I'd like to reintroduce Ms.. Marshall to you. She is a former Wilson High student, graduate of the Honor Roll two times honor roll student at Wilson High School. Before the tragedy struck, when she her mother passed and at a series of tragic events can happen. And you look up and you wonder if you can even remember your last name. So before we dismiss her, she is a Wilson High former student who is now speaking as a homeless citizen, still a part of Long Beach. And I agree. I didn't know what she was going to say, but I agree. If you can find money for the youth. The youth will one day be 30 years old and statistically speaking. A percentage of your youth will be homeless. How can you not have done more? To make sure that the city has an ongoing 24 hour a day, seven day a week, 2365 day a year homeless intervention program. How can you not have that when the money has been given since 2007 forwarding to 2000 to 2017? But the money, I understand it's coming from another grant program, but that same money that's coming from another place is similar to the money that you have received for the homeless for years. The Long Beach Rescue mission is no longer doing the services for the homeless that it used to do. Now you are without a standing hallmark that used to work for the homeless you have before you are proposing now. What is it about that proposal that does not allow you to see that we can implement this? Because the youth, some of the same youth that would be kicking the soccer balls are going to be homeless. These same youth are going to be homeless now. Some of them are wandering around that very park. Now unwelcomed. Several of the homeless people had children whose children were taken from them at MLK Park, at Lincoln Park. Taken from them and put into foster care. Because their parents had no homeless housing. So you took the children and left the parents on the street. I'm what I'm trying to do is just to get us to connect the dots. We have got to begin to connect the dots. And you may say this doesn't it's irrelevant. What you're saying is really relevant. Just connect the dots. Thank you, Councilman Austin. My name is running. I'm okay. Go for it. Thank you. It's fine. Continue. Proceed, please. My name is Roman. I'm from District five, and I'd like to compliment Councilwoman Staci Mongo for her efforts in this area. Are you happy we're speaking to the grant application? I understand, but for El Dorado. Okay. With respect to the grant, the. With respect to the grant, there are three artifacts that I would like to address. One is the request for status that Councilwoman Mongeau issued on about a year ago and a staff report that was done by the Park and Recreation and approved audit report that was done a short time ago, not too long ago. One of the problems that we were having this this this issues of grants and everything has a lot of history behind it. Three city officials have been fired from their jobs because of this. And some of the information that residents have received has been incorrect, actually deliberately manufactured. And the city, the residents have known it for a long time. They brought it up to the city. We have a lot of mistrust, at least the residents have. And one of the purposes that, um, that the residents were trying to get when Stacy, when Councilwoman Mongo issued the request for status, was transparency. We're trying to get that. But one of the problems that we're seeing is we keep seeing the end around and people trying to go directly to adding more parks and getting more money . I have I really love the way that Maria is doing her work. Know what I trust more with the parks? Right now, I'm just nobody. And so all I'm trying to say is that one of the main things that that I'm concerned about is the funding that is necessary for for District five parks. We are about, what, $8 million under sustainability already? Right now, we can't even water our parks. And so I'm hoping that that whatever you end up doing here with with the city money, that's going to be I guess matching doesn't come out of the District five funds. Okay. If it doesn't, then I'm cool. You know, I'm actually like to have grass if I can. And I'm I'm working with the sir. We're talking about a grant application. I understand. District one in district eight. I understand. I prefer grass. Thank you. Okay. I prefer grass. I work with the. The soccer leagues, and they prefer grass as well. So you should know your audience as well, although you're trying to do these type of things. Understand that the players also prefer grass as well. We know where the statistics come from. 34%. Because I'm in touch with all of the the people. Thank you for we'd like to work more closely with the parks. Thank you for your time, Councilman Austin. Thank you. Is there any other speakers here on this item? Okay. Final speaker. Thank you. Okay. Karen reside. I reside in district one. And I also want to specify that I've been a volunteer for Partners of Parks for almost six years now, and I'm a part time staff person the last six months. I just want to. As I see. How hard the Parks and Rec staff and what a fabulous job Mary Knight has done to really move forward initiatives that the community wants in terms of park expansion. I came before the city council about four years ago and talked about grants and how the city didn't apply for nearly enough grants that they were qualified for. And I'll tell you, Department of Health and Parks and Recreation has really gone and put forth a tremendous effort to go after more grants, and we're beginning to see the fruits of that. When department applies for grants, that grant has to be specifically laid out how it is going to be spent. There's very little deviation from that process. There are also audits over in on any grants that are over a specific size. And I have not seen any ill conceived behavior from any city employee, and I've done. Work with several city departments. So I trust implicitly the city staff to handle and manage these grants really well. And I commend all the city departments and how they handle their grants. They do an excellent job. Thank you, Councilman Austin. Yes. Oftentimes we sit quietly and we allow public comment, but I don't I think we need to address the misinformation out there from time to time as well. And I want to commend the last speaker, because I want to, first of all, say that our Parks and Recreation Department is is recognized nationally as one of the best in the nation. I think some of the comments were, we're misinformed about how park dollars are being spent for projects. There is accountability, as was stated, built in from the granting agencies. Oftentimes our public agencies, the state of California and the various departments or agencies within the state. Our city auditor audits our Parks and Recreation Department. Public information is there. You can research it on a comprehensive annual financial report to see how dollars are actually being spent. You pay attention to our budgeting process because we budget dollars that go specifically toward park projects and programs. And then I would invite you and encourage you to attend your parks, recreation and Marine Commission meetings, because the commissioners are working on parks issues all the time. Ask for phase two of Davenport Park. I can't speak about every project and every park in the city, but I know we have great professional staff that keeps each and every one of these council members very well informed and up to speed. And we're briefed sometimes monthly or twice, more than twice monthly on current projects that are going on. And I have quite a few going on in my district at this time. I know we have allocated or secured about $1.6 million prior to even discussing this grant for Davenport Park Phase two. And that money has been allocated toward planning and development and some environmental cleanup and also for accountability. Ms. Knight, can you explain how the money to be spent thus far specifically, or do I need to call public works down here for that? I'm going to ask my colleague. Craig Burke, who took. The lead on. That for the Phase. One project to explain that. Phase to. Two. Good evening. Council Member Austin and City Council. Specifically to your question this the city's been working to do a landfill closure at Davenport. So there's a couple of components to the Davenport, the overall Davenport effort. First, I guess we could call it phase one, which was a project completed by the redevelopment agency some years ago in advance of prepping the site for phase two, which is the subject of discussion tonight and is exactly what the proposed grant funds would be used for. The city has gone through a landfill closure process with the state. We are in the final stages of getting that certified, getting that closure certified and completed and once, once done will be, as you indicated earlier, shovel ready for the development of the park project to provide more space for the community in that area. Thank you. And have we all or spent the money, as was intended to spend the grant money that we received thus far? As with all our grants, as you mentioned, there is a lengthy financial process that we go through. And the short answer is yes, we have spent the money as indicated in the budget and and for the purpose identified. Thank you staff for that that clarification. And I just again wanted to clarify that misinformation out there. Thank you. Thank you. And seeing no further public comment, members, please cast your vote.