Recommendation to request City Manager to work with all other appropriate departments, to evaluate the feasibility of implementing a temporary suspension of the health, fire and business licensing renewal fees for restaurants impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Thank you very much. Now we're going to move to item number 25 out of the Superdome. Would you like to start us? Thank you, Vice Mayor Andrews. Yes, I'm very happy to bring you the Mississippi now. I've got the item. All right, Larry, I forgot to agree that. Communication from councilman, super nor councilwoman and Councilwoman Price, Councilman Austin, recommendation to request city manager to work with all other appropriate departments to evaluate the feasibility of implementing a temporary suspension of the health, fire and business licensing renewal fees for restaurants impacted by the COVID 19 pandemic. Check it out. Okay. Thank you. Yes, I'm very pleased to bring this item forward and would like to thank the co-sponsors on that item. Also, I have one order of business here before moving on to public comment. We have a lot of folks lined up to speak. We'd like to get to them. But first, I'd like to reference a letter of support from Mayor Garcia. It's part of the support materials on this item, but he actually asked me to read it aloud for the meeting tonight. So it's. Dear Councilmember Steve Bernoff. I'm unable to attend Tuesday's council meeting due to Family Matters. I'm writing to express support for Agenda Item 25, recommendation to temporarily suspend health fire and business licensing renewal fees for restaurants impacted by COVID 19. Restaurants across our city have experienced a sudden loss of income due to the COVID 19 pandemic. Pausing annual fees and charges will help dining locations keep their doors open and ensure our economy is able to recover faster when the state of emergency order is lifted. Long Beach restaurants are destinations for residents and visitors alike. We know how important restaurants are to the livelihood of so many of our residents. These businesses are also important amenities for neighborhoods and a big part of the culture that makes our city so special. In prior city council meetings, we have been discussing this type of support for local businesses during the current crisis. This item has my full support and my thanks to you and the co-sponsors for bringing it forward. Sincerely, Mayor Robert Garcia. So with that, with no objections, I would like to move to public comment before the item comes back to me. I. And could we please come in? Could you please tell me you want to speak? Our first speakers, Alan Gifford. Your time starts now. I represent Tracy's Bar and Grill 5511 East Spring Street. That is a fifth District unit. We're Reno sisters who own the business would like to thank councilman and for all of his communication back and forth on this item. And then he realizes how important it is to the city of Long Beach. Most people know that the Moreno sisters own this business for 21 years, and most importantly, they're the fabric part of the fabric of the East Long Beach community, employing 23 people. These are 23 people who are Long Beach residents and or have students that attend Long Beach Unified School District. Again, they support this. They encourage all the council members to vote yes. And they want to also let the public know that the fees that most of these restaurants pay are related to pool tables, jukeboxes and live entertainment , which has not been able to occur since the Safer at home order was established by the city of Long Beach on March 16th, 2020. Thank you very much again, council people and I really encourage you to vote yes. Thank you. Our next speaker is Syrian. Go. Your time starts now. I council members vice mayor mayor here on I'm a partner owner at the main restaurant over at Long Beach Exchange and Stacey's district. First of all, most first council meeting have been on over three and a half hours. I think all you guys deserve a medal for what you go through every couple of weeks. But back to our restaurant. I mean, I think one of the challenges for us is when we have to close in the middle of March, is the loss of inventory that we have to endure, the perishable goods that we had on their shelves that we basically have to discard. In our case, it was over $10,000 in perishable inventory. We end up giving it to our employees because there was 48 of them that we had to let go. So we thought the best thing to do was to share that product and give it to them and their families so they could feed their families. We're not having much luck with our landlord. They want a different which puts us in a place where we're only incurring more debt even for the time that we were closed. So we're still having that negotiation, but that's not going that well. A lot of our fixed costs are still the same even when we came back and were able to do to go sale. That's not our model. It's not most restaurant sit down restaurant models, so that's not really working. Then being able to reopen and doing it at 60% capacity, there was a lot of expenditure in PPE and are changing up some of the things that we need just to be able to open to 60%. And then that obviously went to dining on patios only. So currently we went from 30%, 40%. We're doing about 50% of sales. That's not enough to keep our. Thank you. Our next speaker is Christine Boss. Your time starts now. Could you be mayor and city council? My name is Christine Bath and I'm calling on behalf of the Long Beach Area Chamber of Commerce. We support this recommendation and appreciate the city council bringing forward. COVID 19 has impacted our local businesses, and the restaurant industry is no exception. And the temporary suspension of these would provide support and flexibility at the local level. Our restaurants work to support our community and we must support them in return. Their success means employment for many individuals and employment at an all time high, giving financial stability to their families and our community in general. So we support this recommendation. And again, thank you for bringing it forward. Thank. Thank you. Our next speaker is John Edmund. Your time starts now. I'm a vice mayor, a city council, city manager and staff. I'm a long time listener and a first time caller. Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures, and this agenda item is a small step towards economic recovery. And as we need a giant leap and a stronger sense of urgency to get in front of the economic recession that is here and now, we to get aggressive, regulate and incentivize the stabilization and local economy. When we think back to 2008, it was very painfully slow and in hindsight, more could have been done. Neighborhood restaurants are the lifeblood of our communities. They're where we come together to make lifelong memories. Right now, they're facing extinction. COVID 19 crisis threatens to close 85% of independent restaurants in America. 16 million people risk losing their jobs, disproportionately impacting minorities and single mothers. There are neighbors, our friends, our farmers, our bartenders, our family. One in four people who lost their job during the pandemic were restaurant workers. Without your help, our favorite places to eat and enjoy life with our friends will be gone. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Michael Denny. Honorable vibes. Good evening, honorable vice mayor and city council members. My name is Michael Beam and I own Michael's Restaurant Group, which includes Michael's Pizzeria, Michael's downtown Giannina, and Michael's on Naples. I employ over 200 employees that are permanent, full time employees as well as part time employees. Tonight. I'm asking on behalf of my restaurant and all the other full-service restaurants that operate in the city of Long Beach that will you guys will approve through the city manager, a pause in our annual fees and charges payable to the city this year and for for whatever time this debilitating pandemic continues to exist. Full service industry has taken a major hit. Operating at sometimes 20 and 30% capacity cannot meet the overhead costs, and it reduces our ability to stay alive. I project that 40 to 50% of the restaurants are going to close up and close up forever. If we don't find some relief, we have been forced to close down a number of times and each time we did close down and open up, we lost and we went through hardships and we lost our perishables and spoilage. And as you heard. Thank you. Our next speaker is Mike Murchison. Your time starts now. Good evening, Vice Mayor and council members. My name is Mike Murchison. These full service restaurants that we all have enjoyed over the years, their owners, their managers, their employees, the people that are in the community have been the backbone of what we're all about here in Long Beach for years. They shop in our community. They provide sales tax, the general fund. We need the city to support them during this financial pandemic crisis. Your support on this item starts tonight to send the right message by suspending or waiving all annual permit fees. We need you on board tonight. Not a delay, not a study. Tonight, we need you. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Rod Farentino. Hello. Vice Mayor. Council on City Staff. My name's Rod Tarantino. I'm a resident homeowner. Homeowner in the third district. I'm also a managing member of three restaurants in the city of Long Beach that employ over 150 employees that are spread over all nine districts of this city. And. This pandemic, as you heard from other speakers, has caused us a huge amount of financial hardship. As a lot of you know, the federal government came up with programs like the PGP and the EDL loan programs to hopefully keep the restaurant businesses from going out of business during this pandemic so that they could stay open or reopen and continue to generate the amount of sales tax revenue they do that helps fund police and fire. And a lot of the things that have been on this agenda tonight that we've heard earlier in this meeting. And so I just hope that you guys would take serious consideration regarding agenda item 25. It is very important to our industry. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Our next speaker is Ryan Hoover. Your time, sir. Good evening, Mayor. Vice Mayor, City Council. My name's Ryan Hoover. I own and operate Beacon Branigan's Irish Restaurant Pub employing 30 plus people. I'd like to thank you for your time. I will also try to be brief. I'd like to thank you for the PARKLET program, which is a true lifeline to the restaurant Tears of Long Beach , and we're able to get them. With that being said, without some help from the city waiving the fees for city permits to restaurants during the time of pandemic, I feel your gesture of good faith with the Parklet program to keep businesses going may be in vain. You must see our limited capacity due to the restrictions imposed on us by the state, county and city are an astronomical hurdle to overcome. Some of those fees are directly based on occupancy rate which have been reduced. I think and hope that in your wisdom you can see it will be near impossible to maintain a proper business and sustain our employees during this time without you waiving the fees for the city. I'd like to thank you again for my time and being able to voice my opinion as a member of the community. Thank you. Thank you. That concludes public comment for this item. Thank you. I like Detroit craftsmanship. Thank you, Rosemary Andrews. And thanks to all the speakers for for waiting and and sharing your thoughts. Just a couple of points I'd like to make, and that is specifically with the information we got on possible legal issues. So just going back to the exact language of of the item, a couple of words there. Implementing a temporary suspension, I think the word temporary was burned, but other items is specifically tied to to COVID 19 and the stay at home orders and our safer at home orders and whatnot. Also, just just the term of what we do with the licensing renewal fees, whether we use the word suspension. Whatever word that our city attorney needs to use here, we're open to that. Also, I want to mention that many restaurants have already paid fees or for those who have paid in the past or some type of. But we need to look at some type of relief program, both looking back and moving forward and how do we handle that. That process would be part of what we'd like to bring forward. Finally, I anticipate some friendly amendments on this, and I'll be open to those, including other businesses, with one caveat The restaurant industry is very unique, and that was explained by the speakers, I think, where they have a perishable stock. Many have encountered additional costs with the outdoor dining options, whether they be parklets or dining in parking lots or even pre existing patio dining just and then also as mentioned was PPE and other requirements they now have. So I would just like staff to fast track the restaurant portion. So we get that going right away. If there are other businesses to look at, I wouldn't want to encumber the restaurant piece here with a study of all businesses in general. So that would be the one caveat I would I would require. So with that, look forward to the comments from my colleagues. Thank you. Consequence Rupert Murdoch on price. Thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor. Can you hear me okay? Hello? Yes. Okay. Thank you very much. So I want to thank Councilman Supernova for bringing this item forward. And I want to thank the speakers for coming forward. I've talked with many of them off line prior to this item being brought forth. And I understand wholeheartedly the the economic pressures and the impact that they have had to endure as a result of the closures. I do believe that this is an item that should apply to all businesses. So as a friendly, I would request that the feasibility study, when it comes back, it evaluates the feasibility of having some relief in place for all businesses. I understand that all of our restaurants are operating at less than full capacity and they're all doing their very best to try to make it right now. But I will say that the majority of businesses that still stay closed. Several categories of beauty nail massage gyms. There's a whole movie theaters, a whole category of industry. That was while movie theaters weren't even allowed to open at all. But several of those categories that were allowed to open for two weeks before they were shut down. And in preparation for their opening and in conformity with the governor and the local health orders, they invested in PPE, Plexiglass, all manner of infrastructure to allow them to safely reopen. And then they were abruptly shut down. And they really don't have a meaningful operation model right now because a lot of those services can't be performed outside . So I think it's important for us to take a look at how we're helping all of the businesses. And I don't want to take away from the speed at which we implement these relief measures for restaurants. So I certainly don't want my friendly to slow things down for restaurants. But I do believe that all businesses that have been impacted as a result of COVID 19 should be afforded some relief. They should not have to pay fees and taxes when they can't operate their business. It's frankly, it would be theft for the government to take something away from them when they're not getting the benefit of the bargain from the government in terms of what they're supposed to get from the services they're paying for. So I feel very strongly that when businesses can't operate and can't even open their doors, the city should not be sending them a bill for services that the city can't even provide for them because they're closed. So I would hope that my friendly would be that the feasibility study include what relief options we can provide either on pro rating license fees. Pro rating fees. Or any other burdens that we as a city place on businesses based on COVID impacts. And perhaps they have to provide proof that they weren't able to operate or that they were operating at less than capacity. That all is factors that could be taken into consideration. So Councilman Super. Now would you accept that? Yes, I do. And totally concur that all businesses need to be considered. And my point was just that if if that involves a feasibility study or or a case by case study of each business, I would just like to get the restaurants on board immediately. And then we can look at all these other businesses that are very worthy of help. Thank you. And with that, I do have a clarifying question on this item. I understand that the item asked for a feasibility report. But are. These businesses. The restaurants specifically going to be charged any fees while we're waiting for the feasibility report to come back? Is that city manager's understanding? Because if that's the case, I would request. That any fees or assessments be told them until the feasibility study comes back. So that actually already is the case. So you as a council put some language in place early on that fees and late fees and all those things are not due until the end of the fiscal year. And so some bills did go out or the restaurant bills did go out from the health department. We are not expecting any more bills. If there are, we'll put a pause on those and they there won't be need for payment under the existing city programs until, I believe, September 30th. I'm looking at. I'm sorry. August 30th. So and we can extend that if we need to. Given the the item. So I will either have the item back or will extend the tolling period. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor. I have nothing further. Thank you very much. Consequently, I start Councilwoman saying that. It's Mayor. And thank you, Councilmember. Super. Not for letting me sign on to this very important item. Eight. It's a very difficult time and we know that it is. You know, I know that also going through with this process will put a big burden on our city as well. But we really have to look out for businesses. I am particularly worried about our restaurants and that is because they are they are the what is holding us together right now. Like, if we if we can't go to to go to the store or something easily, like for myself personally, I usually order. And so if we it's kind of like they have to stay open to be able to service people that need food and that otherwise wouldn't be able to to go to the store and stuff like that. Like people with disabilities and seniors. And so I, you know, I'm bringing that perspective up as well as I do understand that a lot of our restaurants and I'm getting calls not only from our first District residents, resident and owners of businesses, but also from all over the city, that they're experiencing the same thing and just a little bit like like letting them , you know, not pay their licenses, fees as far as, like health goes and fire. I think that to them it shows what a great commitment we have to them and their their survival in our community. They're also all of the you know, one thing I love about the owners of our Long Beach restaurants is that they're very involved in our community. They're very, very eager to help out our nonprofit organizations year round, you know, so they they're trying to do their best. And and when things are good, they do that. They you know, they've had some help so many organizations throughout the years. And so now is a good time for us to to actually help them a little bit back. And I know that it's going to be hard on us. Yes, it's going to be hard on, you know, because we count on those funds to help us fund other things through the city. But I'm hopeful that, you know, that together we can find something that will help all of us in the long run. One of the things that I wanted to see, I know that it's you know, we're asking for a feasibility report, but I'd really like to try to get this in as soon as possible. So and that would be my friendly to try to get this back to us as soon as possible is accepted by councilmember super not. Absolutely. That is the intent. And along those lines, I don't have a calendar in front of me, but is the last meeting in August the 18th or that would be the 18th or the 25th? I'm not sure. Right now it's the 18th. We may need to have a special meeting at the end of August, just depending on the schedule. So we we might have another meeting at the end of August. So those would be the two dates. So we'll get you an estimate pretty soon about how fast we can come back. And if we need to extend some of the, you know, the August 30th deadline for payments, we can look at that as well so that but we understand would come back quickly. Okay. So I could possibly agenda is an extension item for the 18th then to to look at at that time would that be feasible to get the information back to us by the 18th? And I don't know yet exactly how long it'll take us to do it. That seems a little quick, but we will be back very, very soon. Okay. And thank you for the friendly and then. Yeah. Just just the same that we would like to whatever information we get on the restaurant, we'd like to get that going right away. Thank you, Councilmember, for accepting that. I also agree with Councilmember Price that was going to be one of my other friendlies, was that maybe we can also include those small businesses that have 50 or less employees. But I think that's covered by the friendly that Councilmember Price did earlier. And maybe in this in this one, we can also include some kind of tax rebate that we might be able to do, if that's okay. As well as a friendly. Just to look into the possibilities, if there are even any, that we could do as far as tax rebates. It's accepted as a friendly. And I guess that would be up to our city attorney. Great. Thanks. Thank you very much. And that's all for my comments. Thank you. Councilman's in Venice, Councilwoman. Good. Grace Pierce, please. Thank you. Yeah, I. I support this item. I did think that we already did this. Whenever we began with COVID. We had asked after to look into business licenses. So I thought that was something that we already had staff working on, stuff done. And you work on this? Yes. Yes. So I that was what we were talking about earlier. The council has already put in place a deferral starting back probably in March of those business license fees and anything that we were able to defer, you don't have to pay it until August 30th so that we weren't charging any late fees. We've waived all of those. And so I think this is building on kind of the the current extension that is already there. And also looking at some other things such as, you know, forgiveness or additional payment plans or additional ways to stretch out that temporary suspension. So we would be coming back with more information. Great. Thanks. And I wanted to ask a clarifying question. I know that the city collects fees, but then some of these businesses also pay in fees or settlements. And I wanted to make sure that this doesn't include that. So I think we'd have to ask for the motion. I mean, we understand that you're asking the financial impact of that, and we can separate that out. But we do collect if you're in a bid in your restaurant, you pay a certain amount to the city. You also pay it to the bid. So we could give you both of that and you could decide as a policy how you if you wanted them to pay the bid but not the city, that would be something that you could look at. Okay. Yeah, I guess, you know, understanding. I have two kids in my district that operate very differently and their income is very different and. Knowing that we obviously as the city have a role to play, but not wanting to manage too much of that relationship. And so it's looking at those things separately, I think would be helpful. Thank you. Thank you very much, Councilmember Councilwoman Mango Beach. Thank you. I want to first thank the community members and the Restaurant Association members who called in to discuss this very important item. I do want to kind of lay a groundwork. Mr. MODICA When we passed the CARES Act funding, I asked for an amendment to the funding specifically related to restaurants and rent reimbursement and or other liability pay offs. Could you remind me how much money was set into that business category? But at one point. I believe it was about it was about 4 million, right, Grant. And for John is told me it's about 4 million in grants and you did out in that part of those dollars and reallocate those could go to help offset certain expenses such as this. Okay. One of the things I'd like to add to that consideration and or part of the study is that we really need to look at not not all of the restaurants are created equal. Not all of the businesses are created equal. We may want to consider and I know this is something that we kind of talked about that night at the dais. I kind of recommended a couple of options to consider, and I would be interested in knowing where we are. On the consideration of receiving applications for that $4 million of funding, prioritizing restaurants who have had, or other businesses that have had the largest year over year reduction in revenue but maintained employees, especially priority given to employees who work in or live in the city of Long Beach. Further, we did the deferral of fees and the late fee cancelation. Those are both helpful, but I think we need to take it a step further. I recognize and understand that with when I was elected in 2014, we talked about a business license holiday. I worked extensively alongside John GROSS of our financial management department, where we kind of went through some of the legal issues and liabilities. And what we came up with was an opportunity to apply for funding reimbursement of your fees two years after any certain conditions were met. Perhaps we could use that same model. It was a one page document that you filled out and then you could easily receive a quote unquote grant of the exact same amount that your business license fees were. And so I think that that was a great option that really met the legal key, but the mission of refunding those funds. And then I think the other component is health fees for restaurants or a cost reimbursement model. We take the total cost of inspecting restaurants and then the total number of restaurants. And then we kind of divide that out because of the cost investment model. It's not a model where the city makes money and uses it on other programs. In this particular case, those health inspectors have been deferred and are working on COVID related inspections, and therefore their cost really should be burdened by the funding that came to the city from the governor's office for COVID. And therefore, the fees to restaurants, I hope, could be at least pro-rated for the closure. So. Restaurants are open, let's say 365 days a year typically. So 300 lobsters just get 350 to make it easy. And if they're closed for 100, that would be 2/7 of the year. If they were closed for 100 days, they wouldn't have been able to get to be open. So therefore, 2/7 of their fee should be canceled. So just kind of talking through some options on ways to meet the legal requirements of some of the warnings that the city attorney has given us on past fee waivers and abatements that we've discussed that could still either refund or give, quote, unquote, grants to these businesses. If waiving fees is still not a viable option. And then the proration is another option. So a couple of those. And I just want to say thank you so much for everyone to come together on this very important item. Thank you, Councilman Morgan. Councilman Richardson. Thanks, Vice Mayor. Just a couple of questions. First of all, thanks to an offer for commerce and to the restaurants as a chance to meet with some of them a few weeks ago. And I think it's important it's important to lift them up and really hone in their issues. A couple of questions and some parts. So, one, I got a little confused about, we were talking just about the unique issues of restaurants. There's a feasibility study. I'll talk a little bit more about that. I want to hear just about restaurants. Mr. Modica, is it possible to just get us, you know, whether it's we're able to adjust the healthy, the fire fee and the business license and what that would cost? A long would it take to just cost that up? We think that probably wouldn't take too long. We've done some peaking. It's probably about $3 million, $2.7 million in that range. We can get you a better estimate. And that's just how there's probably fire and some others that are on top of that. So we can probably get that in in a week or so. Okay. I just love a two from four. I mean, keep doing the study or whatever it is. I love that as soon as possible. The fire fee, the healthy I know the business license fee has some different legal parameters, but the cost is what we need to know. Secondly, I like what Councilman Mungle was talking about. I imagine that the cost of this to the city should be reimbursable by the structures we have for COVID 19 response. Is there a way to structure it or design whatever the program is that to benefit from some reimbursement funds become available? No, the reimbursement is only for direct service that we're providing and only for things like overtime costs and not your normal services. So that's really the CARES Act, the $40 million the council did set aside $4 million to be able to offset costs like these for other agencies. And so that's what we're distributing hopefully pretty soon. Okay, great. No, I say I'm in terms of the comprehensive study, I'm less interested in that being driven right here at account because we've actually brought different iterations of this forward. What I like to do is hear from from Mr. Keisler, where we've been talking about. And since we did the initial relief motion at the Economic Development Committee and the commission, we've been talking about structuring this, whereas relief and transition and recovery. How does this. Mr.. Keisler Through there, how could this fit into. I think we need to think more comprehensively. How could this fit into our strategy? What would I because what I like to think about is from a data standpoint, if we know you're projecting that 50% of us restaurants will fail, I want to know the strategy is rather than just just governing by agenda item, what is the strategy to make sure that 50% projection is not a reality for Long Beach? Is there a strategy to target the most vulnerable? Is there a way to maybe have some baseline support, lifeline support for everyone, and then do some really strategic work to make sure the 50% goes up to 60%, 70%. It really put our industry in general in a better position. But can you speak to that for a moment? Mr.. KEISLER Yeah, certainly. Council Member So, so the conversation that, that, that we're having in the the investigation of of these issues that that are impacting the different classifications of business restaurants being the one tonight is that they're all facing different levels of of of operation right now because of the public health emergency. So the constraints of the health orders obviously allow certain businesses to operate at a limited basis. And for some restaurants, depending on whether they're fast food, they're sit down, they involve maybe entertainment, other things. They have different levels of of of, I guess, freedom to operate. And so that impacts revenues. That impacts, of course, their fixed costs that they have to cover, whether it's that service based on their size or otherwise. So so the answer is that it's very nuanced depending on on what kind of business they are, what kind of restaurant they are, how big they are, and what their their customer base looks like. So the goal right now is that we were in a lockdown phase for the last four and a half months. We call that the economic relief period because very few businesses were able to operate. Then we entered a partial reopening as we saw health health indicators improve. We've pulled back some from that. But but that was a partially reopened phase in more businesses. More restaurants in particular were able to open even expand into the open space to to expand their their capacity. So we consider what we're in right now to be the economic transition period, because there's tremendous uncertainty based on what happens with public health and businesses like restaurants especially sit down, dine in restaurants, have a really, really hard time projecting what the next few months will look like. And they have tremendous fixed costs, but they also have operating costs that have to do with staffing inventory. Whenever they try to ramp up to reopen, they have perishable goods that can cost as much as $10,000 a business every time they try to to re-up their inventory to to reopen. So this is the transition. It's filled with uncertainty. And we we can't call this a recovery. We don't think that'll happen until the the there's more certainty in the in the public health realm. And they're allowed to open back to 100%. And even then in the recovery, we're projecting that consumer behavior will be different than it was prior to the COVID 19 emergency. So if you imagine we're trying to get these businesses through the end of the year, and we think that based on what we're hearing about public health, that it will hopefully get better toward the end of the year, early 21. And so our goal from an economic development perspective to be strategic is to look at this transition period, to try to help businesses survive, keep as many storefronts open, and then ultimately really invest in the recovery once they can open and have more certainty to make decisions about their business. So I'll stop right there. But you're right. Relief, transition and recovery is our approach. Thank you. I'll wrap up with that. I'll just say I think we should be aligning with that model transition. The end of the year. We start looking toward recovery, invest in front of mind for economic commission, commission and committee, and then let's get those numbers. It's going to be. That's a lot. Thank you. Councilman Richardson. Councilman Orson. Possible answer. Yes. I was muted, unfortunately. Yes. Again, I want to just be sure that I support this item 100%. I think it's fair for us to to find support for an economic relief for our restaurant industry, also support the Assembly amendment to look at all businesses, because other businesses have also been deeply impacted by this crisis. Keep in mind that many of our service related businesses are not even open today and not having an impact on bottom lines, their ability to pay their leases and and employees. And so I do think that we have with this council week after week has also invested in itself. And we've been thoughtful and worked very diligently council staff to provide relief to our businesses throughout the city, including restaurants. We know the work that we do. We passed just a few weeks ago the the CARES Act in the allocation of funds there. The, the work to look at open streets was specific to the restaurants so that we can look at outdoor seating to keep them afloat. Understanding the impact of this on this pandemic this virus is having on those businesses. And so I think we need to continue to do that. And this item brought by Councilman Supernormal and other colleagues certainly can do that. And so obviously is based in the eighth District, is home to many sit out restaurants. And so this will benefit them. But I also want to just point out also that we have a number of new businesses and new restaurants opening up. I know in my district we have outdoor four that have opened or will open within the next couple of weeks. And these are very tough times to make that kind of investment. And so this is a message to them that the city, as it is, is helpful and looking to help. And so, again, thank you for bringing that item. I appreciate all the comments and on the for the support this I think. Thank you. Got to know. And also want to learn. Go. Thank you. I really appreciate everyone that spoke, I guess. Mr. Chrysler kind of gave us an update on the $4 million of funding. But I guess the biggest question that I would have if I was a small business is when do we expect that applications will be available and when do we expect that funding to be processed ? Yeah. Council Member So, so we have incorporated the feedback that you just gave a good recap from the July 14th meeting. We took that list. We built that criteria into our our online application platform. So that's that's for the most part ready to go. We are now just going through the review process. We have to check it against some of the federal requirements, do the legal reviews. But we expected in a matter of days that we will be able to get the green light to open that up. So it is it is. Pardon me. So we're very excited to be able to offer this in the in just the next few weeks, we'll have businesses that have submitted and start receiving payments. So it's here and now. And would you say that, um, we as council members have all the information necessary to help promote that program and ensure that we know and understand the parameters and that we I mean, I guess are we expecting a two from four or when the program launches, is there going to be a single sheet? What will we have available to us from a communications standpoint? Yeah, of course. That's a great, great point. So so we have actually started putting that we have that that draft proposal with all those criteria and everything else. But we do need to put that into a format that we can release publicly. We have many of those materials in process. And in fact, we've started with our regular briefings of council officers just giving the verbal update of of of how we will engage with your office to promote these programs to businesses within the district. So yeah, we will absolutely have those written updates and a marketing and promotion campaign that we'll work on with your office, your staff, so that we can reach your businesses. And that would be a communication campaign that would be in alignment with the communication framework and strategic plan and strategic strategies that came forth as a unanimous vote from this Council that took two years to develop. In terms of what that looks like, I know that we're in a pandemic and there's a lot of rush and there's a lot of priorities. But we put together a framework for communication and inclusion, and I think that it's critical that we continue to refer back to it on every single matter. And so I just wanted to just a friendly reminder about that document and that it is a living document, and I know that I'd like to have an update on it, so I'll schedule my meeting with a city manager's office. But just a reminder that we are here to advocate and share that information and we're some of the best conduits to do that. And so we need to make sure we have that information. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman. Mongo got to the Superdome. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I just wanted to conclude and bring everything back into focus on this specific agenda item. So I believe we are fast tracking a restaurant policy now and then to follow up the study on all businesses. Everyone is covered by the current policy of a waiver or suspension of fees until it sunsets at the end of August. And. If it's required. Council can come together in a couple of weeks and extend that. Is that the understanding of the motion to city manager? Absolutely. Yes. Okay. Great. Thank you. Thank you, Congressman Stabenow. You know, I would like to close by thanking Councilman Superman for bringing this item forward. I think the restaurants, like many business, are struggling. And we have a duty to help these local businesses create jobs for our communities and bring in tax revenues to the city. We want them to be successful. But one of my biggest words is that these business won't be in business during the city's transition. I hope that we can get this figured out by the end of the month. These businesses need relief now to make it to make it to recovery. So I wholeheartedly support this item. Thank you again. Now, can we please call for the vote? It's in my. Children are 74 and 65 seven. We police cars for the moment. District one. I'M. District two. I. District three. I. District four. I. District five. I. District six. All right. District seven. By District eight. District nine. All right.