Recommendation to request City Manager to work with the Financial Management Department to recognize businesses that are majority owned by people who identify as LGBTQ+, veterans, and people with disabilities in the City's procurement and purchasing process; Furthermore, request City Manager to return to City Council in the next 180 days with a report showing how many LGBTBEs, DOBEs, and VOBEs have signed up on the City's PlanetBids database, information about outreach to these businesses, and how many of these businesses apply to and are awarded projects over this time-period.
Let's take the procurement LGBTQ procurement item from Councilwoman Gonzales. Communication from Councilwoman Gonzales. Councilmember Pierce. Councilmember Suber now recommendation to request city manager to work with the Financial Management Department to recognize businesses that are majority owned by people who identify as LGBTQ plus veterans and people with disabilities in the city's procurement and purchasing process. Thank you. Let me first turn this over to Councilwoman Gonzalez. Yes. So I first want to thank Joe Mendez, president of the LGBT chamber. Esteban Gomez, vice president of the chamber. Eduardo Lara, a member of the chamber as well, Porter Gilbert, Jonathan Levitz from the National LGBT Chamber. And Mary's in the House as well from the The WHO wrote a letter of support. I am very excited to bring this item forward and ask for the Council's support. This has been a few months in the making and I want to thank every single person for being here. As we know, Long Beach is one of the most diverse cities in the country. That's no secret. We're proud of our inclusivity and our efforts to work with small business owners, especially through the everyone in conversation citywide, led by my colleague and friend of Councilmember Rex Richardson. We're in equals inclusion. We've done a lot to engage small business owners, disadvantaged businesses, and my own minority and women owned businesses in the city's procurement and purchasing process. We actually have a small business certification program, a disadvantaged business enterprise program, and a Long Beach Business First initiative, all designed to provide our local businesses with an opportunity to work with the city. But we also know that Long Beach has a thriving LGBTQ plus community veteran and differently abled communities. And there are a growing number of businesses owned by these community members. And we know that nationwide, specifically with the LGBT owned businesses, they contribute over $1.7 trillion to the economy. And locally, we have amazing business owners that we should be able to recognize. So through this item, the intention was to increase outreach and make our city's procurement process inclusive for these businesses. We've been working with the local chamber and the National Chamber, as well as other organizations like the National Veteran Business Development Council and Disability. In offering third party certifications to verify that businesses are majority owned by people who identify as LGBTQ plus veterans and business owners with disabilities. So we'd like to just expand the options here in the city. I look forward to hearing more council discussion and I single one of you for your efforts and keeping this on our radar to make sure that we do the best here thing here for Long Beach, especially our local businesses. Thank you. And I think we have a few other councilman. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, let me go ahead and take their their comments first. I can actually get you to take a seat just as we finish the the agenda and I will call public comment and have you guys come up. Councilmember Super now. Thank you. And thank you to Councilwoman Gonzales for inviting me to sign on. It's my pleasure to do so, and congratulations for making it here. And I'd like to speak specifically about Joe Mendez, who's the board president. Joe's been working on this item for so long, and I don't know how long it's been, Joe, but I remember us having a discussion about it at a Christmas party in 2017. So that's that's been a while you've been at it. And also. What people may not. Know is Joe has been such a valuable asset to the organization, generally speaking. So he's done a great job. So thank you for all your hard work, Joe. And also just for the Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce have one of the great mottos or if you call it a mission statement, I'm not sure, but it's joined for the business, stay for the community. And that's exactly what you epitomize. Thank you. Excellent Council, Pearce. Yes. I want to thank my colleague for inviting me to sign on to this item and for bringing it forward. I think this is a fantastic item. Obviously, in District two, I think we have a large percentage of businesses that are owned by members of our LGBT community, from tax services to food and restaurants. So I definitely love to see this come forward and fully supportive of it. I wanted to ask a question of staff just on the disadvantage program that we already have. Can you enlighten me? Does that program include previously incarcerated? I believe it does now. Would you be opposed to including previously incarcerated and just along with veterans as well? Sure I would. Like whether it fits here or whether it fits in the we can bring it back to a discussion. But I think being that we have the the disadvantage when already I was under the idea that had already included incarcerated previously incarcerated folks. So if you could just let me know, get back to us and we can reevaluate it being included under that one. Fully supportive of this. Fully supportive of making sure that we have a procurement process that includes these communities that have been identified. So thank you. Thank you. Gottesman Richardson Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Councilwoman Gonzalez, thank you so much for lifting up this important constituency. And so we're having a broad conversation about economic inclusion in the city and inclusion means everyone, right? And so our LGBTQ community has, you know, thriving business corridors, a number of thriving businesses. So it's important to make sure that they're called out and lifted up as we review all of our procurement strategies. I mean, Councilwoman Pierce, so there's a there's a large conversation taking place now is not fully cooked yet, but the conversation is really taking place across the region about setting, you know, reforming the procurement process and in setting some aggressive goals. L.A. County, for example, has a new supplier supplier to diversity program where they set a 25% goal. They specifically call out, you know, veterans, disabled individuals. And so I think, you know, as we continue this, everyone in conversation, there's certainly an opportunity to look at pre-leasing incarcerated because we really we should be thinking about inclusion from a standpoint as we bake it into what we do, not sprinkle it on top like not sprinkling on this groups frequently. We should really bacon inclusion and rated throughout all of our systems. The conversation now is really, you know, financial management. You know, it's a it's a big conversation about a really big overhaul. And what I think will be great is if they fall from here, from the full council very soon, that this is really incredibly important to really get the procurement conversation right. Councilwoman Gonzales, you have my full support here. Thank you so much for for lifting this up. And I also want to raise up the disabled piece. I think that's incredibly important. If if we have the biggest thing we can do to make sure people are included in our local economy is the way we spend our money. And so that is something we have direct control over. So we should take our time, think about it comprehensively. But thank you so much. You know, and obviously I'm supportive this item. Thank you, Councilmember Ringa. Thank you, Mary. And I, too, want to thank Councilwoman Gonzales for bringing this forward. I think that bringing these sectors of our business community into the forefront and into the procurement process is long overdue. And I'm strongly supportive. Thank you, Councilwoman Gonzalez. I also wanted to recognize John Newell, who is here as well, past president of the AIDS food store. And thank you so much for being here to. Thank you, Councilmember Orson. Yes. I'd like to just obviously lend my support to this. I think this is a great and great item. I want to thank my colleagues for bringing it forward. Certainly, we want to include everyone into our our our fabric and into opportunities in our great city as we celebrate our diversity. I did have a question for staff in terms of just intent. Can you can someone tell the city manager in terms of what this item adds to already that we we already do in terms of providing recognition to minority owned businesses and protected classes? What does this add to from. From what I understand, we already do that for minority businesses, women owned businesses, and we'll be reaching out to guarantee that the businesses we're talking about tonight get more representation and planet bids, that we reach out to the more local community groups so that they're more familiar with what we're what the city is bidding for, what we're procuring. So everyone has a better opportunity to apply for these bids knowing they're coming. And a lot of it is going to be communication, working with the right groups, having the the disadvantaged communities and everyone understand planet bids and get help on planet bids so everyone can be fair and bid on everything that we have. So everything's out there. So I think believe that would be the primary thing that we're looking at right now. Okay. Thank you. I just wanted to get clarification for those who may not have heard the whole item or may not understand what we're doing here. So thank you. You have my full support. Give me your. Address. I wanna also thank Councilwoman Gonzalez for bringing this to the forefront, because I think this is what makes language. You know, look, the way you look when we look at small business and let them know that this is the way our city should always look and thank you, guys. And I'm truly supportive of this idea. Thank you. There's a there's a motion and a second. I'm going to comment and call for public comment. I just want to just think, Councilman Gonzales, but also Councilmember Pierson, Councilmember Superman, this is an excellent item. I know. I know. Councilwoman, you've done a lot of work on procurement issues in your time here. And I think this is another great example of ensuring that we are inclusive and continue our, I think, really strong record of LGBTQ inclusion. And I think this is another really important opportunity and in a way for the city to do even more to ensure that this population within our community continues to grow and also be aware that there is still in this country a lot of discrimination against LGBTQ business owners, businesses and LGBTQ entrepreneurs. And so it is critical that these types of programs are in place to ensure that those business owners and community members have access to the same types of opportunities that everyone else does. And so I'm very supportive and you've all done a great job and the Chamber has done a great job of advocating for this. And so with that, please, if that public comment and. Great. Thank you so much. I just wanted to just right off the bat. Thank you, Linda Gonzalez, councilman, for bringing this to the city council and to the other supporters of this this measure or this policy. As I mentioned, my name is Joe Mendez. I'm the president of the Long Beach Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. And we are also the affiliate chamber to the. The Chamber of Commerce as an organization. We have been in Long Beach since 1992, formerly known as the Long Beach Community Business Network. And once again, we are in the process of changing our name to the Long Beach Community, LGBT Chamber of Commerce, to be more inclusive in our diverse community across the USA, not just in Long Beach. Our organization has been in the diversity and inclusion space many years. Our corporate members like Southern California, Edison Socalgas, California Water, Southwest Gas out of Las Vegas, Comerica Bank all have diversity initiatives. So I know that adding LGBTQ businesses, veterans and members of the disabled community to Long Beach list of vendors and suppliers will only increase opportunity. Moving forward with this policy will be will be good for Long Beach City contractors as well as for the many entrepreneurs in our city, many of which are ready to do business with the city of Long Beach. Our chamber currently broke the 200 mark and we have about 24 to 30 businesses are certified through the NGOs. You see Jonathan Jonathan Lovett from the NGOs has provided you with with a letter which speaks to the what certification has done to LGBT businesses across the nation. Opportunity is what policy is, what this policy will bring. Equality in business is good business. Long Beach will make history tonight by being the first city government in California to add LGBTQ businesses, veterans and people with disabilities to the list of vendors and suppliers. It will increase the city's supply list. It will encourage greater innovation and competition. This is why all of these other corporations come to us because they want our help to increase their supplier and vendor and vendors and suppliers. It is time for Long Beach to be a respected leader in the business community. Diversity and opportunity to take its place as one of the most inclusive cities in for minority business owned in America. We are excited. Soon to for Long Beach. Among those who believe the power of inclusion not just as the right to do, but also has an economic imperative that benefits every citizen in our state. Thank you. Thank you. Any other speakers? Hello, everybody. My name is Estevan Gomez and the vice president of the Long Beach Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. I'm also the co-founder of Keen Social, a certified LGBT. So first, I would like to thank Lena Gonzalez and her staff, Corey Tyler. Jennifer and your staff has been amazing. So I really thank you guys all. I also would like to thank Darryl Zupan and Denise Pierce for sponsoring us. So I want to tell you a little story of a person that I once knew. When I was in college, I was pretty depressed. Add to options. One was to commit suicide. The other was to live a fake life. The third option of me being up here was not bankable. And luckily I have a supportive family. Who have inspired and encouraged me to become an entrepreneur. But there are so many others that aren't so lucky. They ended thinking. That it doesn't exist. So today, if you prove this, yes, you're providing opportunities for others, but you're doing a lot more. You're providing light. And Hope. That somebody you can become an entrepreneur, a leader, an employer. So I'm proud to live in Long Beach, and I'm proud to own my own business. I also want to tell you a story of one of our members. Her name is Chris Christie and she owns Chris Industries. Unfortunately, she cannot be here today because battling cancer. So my thoughts and prayers go out to her. But she is a certified LGBT and with the private sector. Last year she received half a million contract with Turner Construction and then Sony. So whenever a small business lands, you know, a nice piece of business, they can keep going and plan another piece of business and another piece of business. So if you're approved today, you can pave the way for other businesses like Grace Industries to bid on contracts they wouldn't have done before. The City of Long Beach can make this can really make that business. So today, I hope you lead our nation in becoming the first city in California to recognize LGBT BS, but also certified veterans and certified people with disabilities. Thanks. Good evening, council members. Good evening, Mr. Mayor. Good to see you. My name is John Newell. I am as well as the past president of AIDS Foodstore, a member of the LGBTQ center. I am on their board of directors, honored to be there and wanted to. Kind of represent. The center and let you know what what we're thinking about the agenda item. The center strongly supports this agenda item to recognize LGBTQ majority owned businesses in Long Beach. As part of the city's procurement and processing. The agenda item utilizes the existing certification through the. National LGBTQ. Chamber of Commerce to increase the equity. Of LGBTQ owned. Contracts through the city's existing. Contract and bidding process. The Center is incredibly grateful to Council Councilwoman. Lena Gonzales for her continued leadership in increasing. Equity with. LGBTQ residents and business owners for our city. And furthermore, we'd like to applaud the Council Women's Initiative. And also seek. Increasing economic opportunities for veterans people with disabilities through this agenda item. The Center would also like to thank all the council people who have supported this agenda item, and we thank you so much for your continued support. Of the LGBTQ community. Thank you, Mr. Laura. And then we're going to go to a vote. Good evening, Mayor Garcia and members of the City Council. My name is Eduardo. Lara and I live in the second district. I also serve as a board of director. For the LGBTQ center and a faculty member in the. Sociology department at Cal State Long Beach. I'm also here to strong support this proposed agenda. Item in recognition that LGBTQ majority owned businesses in Long Beach as part of the city's procurement and. Purchasing processes, as well as veterans, and in particular those with disabilities. Or as one of my visually impaired students, this semester has gladly shared with me those that have diverse abilities. The best moment that. I can share with all of you in terms of highlighting the importance and importance of initiatives like this, really goes back to a short little vignette. That I want to espouse to all of. You. About two. Or three weeks ago, our dryer broke. And. We had to call someone to come in to take a look at the dryer. And it was quite obvious to us that the person who checked out the dryer was very homophobic. Not even 30 seconds into going into the home. It was very visually apparent. To us with his mannerisms and lack of communication and really his observance of me and. My husband's pictures all around of. Us, that it made him quite. Uncomfortable. And so. In that moment was a sobering. Reminder of how rampant. Homophobia, unfortunately, still. Continues to. Permeate through our society. So that is just one of many countless examples. Also, as I go to some of my colleagues. Here of how important it is to create. Policies that move the needle forward when it comes to representation for historically marginalized groups. And if I can also take a moment. To echo the importance of also including those that been imprisoned, but then have also made their way out of prison in order to create opportunities for those highly vulnerable populations. I like to also. Put my sentiment forward here in supporting initiatives like that that try to, as someone previously said, create a braided approach towards. Equity within the city. So I applaud this effort and I commend the city of Long Beach in terms of leading the charge forward to creating a more. Diverse and inclusive. City. And I look forward to the vote. So thank you very much. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Lora, and thank you to all the speakers. We have a motion in a second on the recommendation. Please cast your vote. Motion carries. We're going to move on to the so-so item here, which is next on the agenda. So if I can have the clerk, please read the.