Recommendation to request Climate Action and Environmental Committee to work with appropriate City staff, the Infrastructure Funding Alliance, Southern California Edison, labor organizations, and other stakeholders to be identified to better understand the potential regional and local impacts of the proposed “Freedom Villages” project and consider the formation of an Enhanced Infrastructure Finance District, and forward recommendations to the Ports, Transportation, and Infrastructure Committee; and Request Ports, Transportation, and Infrastructure Committee to review the recommendations of the Climate Action and Environmental Committee, working with appropriate City staff, the Infrastructure Funding Alliance, Southern California Edison, labor organizations, and other stakeholders to be identified, and forward recommendations to the City Council.
Thank you. Let's move on to item number 16. He's retired. Communication from Councilwoman Allen, Councilwoman in the House Councilmember Urunga. Recommendation to request Climate Action and Environmental Committee to work with appropriate city staff, the Infrastructure Funding Alliance, Southern California Edison labor organizations and other stakeholders to be identified to understand the potential regional and local impacts of the proposed Freedom Villages project and consider the formation of an enhanced infrastructure finance district and forward recommendations to the Port's Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Great. So I have a motion by Councilmember Allen, seconded by Raga. Councilmember Alvin, please. Sorry, George. Yes. Can I request that we do the public comments first before I make my comments? Absolutely. Thank you for. If there are any members of the public, they would like to speak on this item. Please use the race hand feature or dial star nine. Shukla. Your time begins now. Hello? Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. Thank you. And thank you, Councilman Allen, for this commitment to deliberative democracy. I very much appreciate it. The staff report that accompanied this item was a bit confusing, not completely clear on what an e f IED is. Moreover, what freedom villages are. Or how they're related to arena numbers or. Everything else, including existing state legislation, SB 671 on clean air freight corridors, but more specifically the place I'm guessing it's down Queensway Avenue where where this electricity passing is. There's you know, there's only so many things you can do with it, but physically, logically or actually not through it, physically, logically as well as procedurally, you know, you're either going to overload it doing anything with anyone. And then you have too many physical risks and maybe too many mental risks. You're going to right size it and either control it yourself or let someone else do it for you, or you're going to limit it severely and most likely keep the status quo, which I know seems like what? But it's not. It's not clear. There's a major conference right now. I'm sitting on a city council zoom, but there's a major conference in Arizona happening right now. Largest one that's ever happened in the country. It's on solar and wind together. People are rapidly realizing that you can use clean energy to meet all of your energy needs. And that's a very, very good thing to hear when you've got Vladimir Putin invading not just Ukraine, but a whole bunch of other countries around oil and gas pipeline wrote. But specific to our ports and goods movement. There's a lot in how we do things that could be more efficient and better run for the people who live here, the people who work here, the people who should be enjoying, frankly, the social product and social benefits of their labor. I've been in this town long enough to see things like a tax on container traffic, to fund some of the pollution caused by these shipping companies, viciously, violently outfought outspend and neutered. And I wonder, frankly, what this is. Thank you. That concludes public comment. The. Councilmember Price. I mean, Ellen. Yes. Thank you so much. I want to first, I just say thank you to Councilman Van de Hoff and council member Urania for joining me on this item. They represent the areas where this project is proposed and their residents are currently most impacted by harbor by the harbor goods movement. I want to make sure that all my colleagues know that Marc Garneau, chair of the Infrastructure Funding Alliance, is on the zoom and he's available to answer any technical questions that you may have tonight. As we discussed this agenda item back in 2021. My office was approached by the Infrastructure Funding Alliance with the Freedom Villages proposal. I know that the Teamsters, UAW, let's see, IBEW, meet council are on board with this project. And I also know that the proposers have reached out to ILWU as well. This project has the potential to greatly reduce local diesel and other emissions in the port area and also reduce our overall GHG emissions as well. I met with harbor staff and my my team facilitated a high level meeting between harbor staff and the proposers and city and harbor staff were generally supportive but without specific council direction to devote time and resources to studying the proposal. Staff just could not get into detail to fully understand all the implications. So I asked them to reach out to the other council offices and the mayor's office as well to share the proposal. And now is the right time for the City Council to discuss sending the conversation into our committee. The proposal at a high level is a good, future oriented project. I understand that the proposed financing mechanism needs further analysis and discussion. The Enhanced Infrastructure Financing District would require the city and other government agencies future tax dollars to support this. Therefore, the right first formal step is for the Council to direct staff at City and Harbor, to direct staff at the city and harbor to work with proposers and other stakeholders to fully that the pros and cons of the project. This process is designed to guarantee that additional information and analysis of the specifics of the specifics of the project will be discussed. So at minimum, three more public meetings should take place before any decision is made on the project. This would ensure that transparency and we also have opportunities for civic engagement. The Climate Action and Environmental Committee will discuss the project from an environmental standpoint, including the value of reducing emissions sooner than later for both our cap and local health benefits to all of our frontline communities. Then the Port Transportation and Infrastructure Committee would add their perspective. And finally, staff would then bring recommendations from the committee process back to full city council. So I look forward to starting this process. So we and the public can learn more about this proposal and the impact that it may have. Thank you very much. Okay. Council member Yolanda. Thank you. Acting mayor of. And I want to thank Councilmember Allard for bringing this forward and being so explicit in explaining what the project actually has. I was able to I, too, was approached last year about this project, and I, I was I had an opportunity to read the white paper that the committee put to put forward the the second year, the infrastructure funding alliance. And I see that Jan Perry, former councilmember in L.A., is also present on this council, may have additional input. We have any questions, any any study. I mean, in the past, I have always been reluctant to approve a go forward studies because it. Use of time that that management can use for other projects. But this one, because of the potential impact it has in our environment, has a lower quality of life, especially in my district in the West Long Beach area. It's very important. We need to explore ways that we can have good movement that doesn't is not as invasive into the communities as every president we have. We know that we have an issue with air quality, with goods movement, with impact traffic. And so anything we can move forward to alleviate that and ameliorated would be greatly beneficial. And I totally agree that we should study this further. I mean, it's new technology. It's it's something that we should investigate and look into. But of course, I'm doing it with the caveat that I'm concerned that if if this comes forward, that there are going to be jobs lost, I would have a difficult time approving a project that that while it to clean the air and an imagery of traffic, that it would be at the cost of people losing their jobs or losing their homes and having other unexpected consequences happen with that. So looking forward to studying this and looking forward to a report that might come back to us that we could better evaluate what impacts cumulative in other ways a project like this would have on our city. So thank you again, Kathryn Rather for bringing this forward. Thanks. Next, we have our councilmembers. And they are. Thank you, Councilmember Austin. And thank you very much, Councilwoman Allen, for bringing this item forward and for inviting me to sign on. This is a very, very important item. The fight for climate adaptation change is being led by our youth, and I find it our responsibility as leaders to support this movement and our youth to the best of our ability. We have begun for some time now, moving in the direction of reducing emissions and prioritizing clean energy. We have committed to addressing the issue of climate change, and this item adds to the motion of curbing our waste into action. This item seeks to discuss the development of an enhanced infrastructure financing district and of technology that uses carbon free electric transportation to help innovative the disproportionate environmental and health impacts placed on our most geographically vulnerable populations. Our residents throughout the city, but especially in the districts closest to the port and the 710 freeway, are both forced to be endured and live with the long term health consequences from these environmental injustice. And this is why it is critically important that we begin these processes of changing that into making it a reality. I hope that the report we receive will incorporate the length of approximate cost for the implementation of this project so as to more holistically discuss our next steps, as well as the degree of impact these projects may have of awesome. So on our on our truck drivers and like Councilmember, I said, will there be a loss of jobs? That's also very concerning. That's why I think it's very important that the community meetings that Councilwoman Allen referred to take place in order to really have true transparency with moving forward with this action. So thank you again, Councilwoman Allen, for bringing this item forward. Thank you. Council member Sorrell. Next. Thank you. I thank you, Councilwoman Allen, for bringing this item forward, as well as the co-sponsors of the bill. You know, I'm always supportive of ideas and ways that we can explore how to move towards kind of green, cleaner and greener goods movement, especially in a way that it can benefit, you know, the surrounding community that's just always been greatly impacted because they're also impacted by other impacts such as the corridor. Right, the freeway corridor as well. But one of the things that I am interested in learning more, which is what this item is proposing to do, and I'm so I understand the general approach in looking at new technology and ways that we can fund it, which is needed as we're trying to transition to zero emissions. So but one of the things that I would like to ask that we can include is how does it also help us meet our Long Beach Climate Action and adaptation plan, where there are lines there that also help us address those goals so that we're making sure that we're not only working towards kind of this process of figuring out how to address climate change at the harbor and as well as surrounding community, but overall as a region and a city as well. So thank you very much. It's. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And I don't see any of the council members queued up to comment or. Maybe don't remember often. Can I. Q I'm sorry, I'm having trouble with the queue. Please. Thank you. I want to. Appreciate my business and the community at large that are interested in helping us solve these really big issues. And I want to thank my colleagues for all of their comments. I think that this is a great step forward, and I look forward to hearing the results. Thank you. Great. Thank you for that. With that. I'm supportive of this as well. I think this is innovative. Do you have questions a little bit regarding the direction on whether or not this was a committee going to a committee or city council? I think that's been clarified. This is been worked on, received by multiple committees. I think it's an innovative idea. Thank you for bringing it forward with that. With no other comments on the table. You know what I did. Q AB just one more time just to if that's okay. Please. Okay. Thank you. Just one quick question. I'm Mark with Mark on the line. I think you on the Zoom call. Mark, could you just briefly talk about the jobs impact on this proposal? And I don't know if staff can free him up to speak. And if not. I see them on here. If you press star nine, you can unmute yourself. There is. Um, first of all, my name is Mark Pichardo, and I'm the chairman of the Infrastructure. Finding Alliance, and I'm trying to turn my video on and it just won't turn on. We don't have a video for non council members. Mr. Fasano. Okay, fair enough. First of all, I'd like to thank the three council persons who have put forward the motion and secondly the comments from the multiple council members on the proposal. And let me just specifically address the issue of jobs and employment. The one of the reasons why Labor is so strongly supportive and we have multiple labor unions in support of this as well as community, environmental and social justice support for the organization. But the labor unions involved see this as an opportunity to develop new technologies, new jobs and new ways where in fact their members can expand employment in. And let me note that the opportunities of the new technologies and our hope is that those new technologies will not only result in building this project, but could lead to in employment opportunities in building these new products. And I don't want to use your your scarce time tonight to describe all of those potential, but I will assure you that the the labor union folks who are involved see the possibility of increased employment opportunities, not reduced ones. And I very I, I took to heart calcium in your NGOs, your request that we specifically bring that information forward and let you have an opportunity to further understand it. And let me add one additional comment. In my career, I was the director executive director of Skog for three plus decades. The Alameda Corridor was a project that I and my staff led and helped create, and it was basically established so that we, in fact, could deal with the the goods movement, environmental and transportation impacts. What we found in our work and and that is, is that the increased movement out of the ports is coming by trucks, not by rail. And the fact that the almost the total increase in movement since the turn of the century has been by trucks moving out of the port. And given the impacts, the environmental impact, as well as the transportation impacts, the logistics industry in our region has not expanded to the extent, full extent that it could. It is our hope and my hope in this project. And let me just note that the basic concept in the proposal was adopted in a Skog plan in 2009. It was not implemented because there was no entity that would enable us to implement it. The reason for for the enhanced infrastructure finance industry legislation came from work of our IFAD working with California Forward in Governor Jerry Brown to in fact put this mechanism in place. It gives us the vehicle to do it. If we're successful, it will not only increase employment opportunities within the area that are clean jobs. That don't adversely impact the community going adversely store owners in the community, but rather find ways to move them efficiently and secondly, enable us to truly take advantage of the supply chain logistics industry to expand employment not only in the Long Beach area, but in the region. So I look forward to further discussions bringing this information forward and enabling the team. And it's led by Jan Perry, who's our executive director, to bring the information forward you requested this evening. And if there's further questions, I'll be more than happy to and answer them. Councilman Allen. Councilwoman Allen. Thank you very much. Mark, now, that was great. All right. That's all right. That's all I have. Still have Councilmember Price. Judah. Sorry. And I had tried to queue earlier. I just wanted to say thank you so much for allowing the community process to be involved in this. I'm really looking forward to getting a briefing at the Port Transportation Infrastructure Committee. And as chair of the Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority, which Marc just mentioned, I think it's going to be a really fascinating discussion. We've talked about similar topics there. So thank you for bringing the item. Okay. We've had, I think, exhausted comment from the council on this item. Well, how about. District one. I'm District two. I. District three. I. District four. I. District five. I. District six. I. District seven. I'm. District eight. I'm. Motion is carried eight zero. Right. So the next item is item number 18.