Recommendation to receive and file a report on Park Equity in the City of Long Beach.  (Citywide)
Thank you. Thank you all for. Thank you all for coming out. Thank you. We we will go back to the item on on parks and so per the the other motion. Thank you, guys. Thank you, Dave. Yeah. Thank you. All right. Thank you, guys all. So we will go ahead and go back to, I believe it was item C 21. No, I'm sorry. Yes, that item. I just lost it. Madam Court, can you read the item? Item 37 Report from Parks and Recreation and Marine Recommendations to receive and five Report on Park Equity in the city of Long Beach Citywide. Okay. Thank you. I think we've we've had folks have discussed the item. So we are going to hear a staff report. Mr. West. Maybe that maybe not the 30 minute version one, but somewhere in between, I think. But we do want a staff report. I know you guys worked hard on this, so. Mr. West, merry night. So thank you, Mayor, and members of the council. We will try and get through this as fast as possible. And I apologize if some of the information is disjointed as we're going to skip around a little bit. Before I start, I do want to thank the members of the team that have stayed, the members of our commission that have stayed because they did put a lot of work into this item. And I really appreciate it, especially those who are woken up at the middle of the night to open a shelter for victims of a motel fire, a long term living motel fire in the middle of the night. So the staff is very tired and I appreciate them staying tonight. We're here to have the opportunity to present an overview of what we do. There was a report that was given on July 18th of last year that included a focus on one area of our programing tonight. As we began to gather the data needed to respond to the many questions and requests made that evening, it became very apparent that before a plan is to be proposed, it is critical that we first provide information that tells the entire story. Then you as a policy body can decide if change is needed. If so, what direction you would like to see that change take place and what kind of a plan you would like to be brought back based on the information provided tonight? There were a number of requests made on July 18th, and I recognize that our report that responded to each and every one of those requests also begs more questions before a final plan can take place. So our task was to respond to the requests that were posed, to look at the big picture research. Other agencies looking through an equity lens. Compare our current programing. And I believe the report that we submitted answered all those questions. That report also included input from four of our committees that from the Parks and Recreation Commission. We'll touch very briefly on Park Equity and what that actually means. And according to the National Recreation and Parks Association, it's ensuring all people have access to the benefits of local parks and recreation, no matter the color of their skin, age, income level or ability, and have access to programs, facilities, places and spaces that make their lives and communities great. Although equity is different from equality, both aim to promote fairness and justice. But equality only works when everyone is starting at the same point and needs the same things to succeed. And as we know, that's not the case in our very diverse community. So before we can establish where we are offering programs, it's important to look at a baseline of needs. So the map that you see is our 2017 Social Needs Socio Needs Index shown here as an aggregate of six indicators at the zip code level, which include poverty, income, unemployment, occupation, education and language. The darker the color, the greater the need for services. And it could also be said that those areas are also areas in our community where there's a lower ability potentially to pay for programs and services and where transportation and access may be a barrier. Throughout this presentation, then we will look at our programing and its distribution to those areas of highest need. The south, southwest, central and northern areas of Long Beach, as we've talked about, the majority of our programing falls into two categories free and fee based. The July 18th Report only addressed our fee based programs, which is largely our contract classes. It did not include any information on free programing, which is the vast majority of what we do and where the city's financial investment is placed. These contract classes are essentially individuals and small business operators utilizing our parks and facilities to offer programs and services to the community in lieu of operating a brick and mortar shop. So tonight, we're going to focus on those two programs. First, a little bit, though, about what we do. This last year, we served close to 1.4 million individuals in our programs and services. We offer a large variety of and a robust array of programs and services. From youth sports to afterschool, adult sports and enrichment for seniors. We take care of basic needs, such as our free summer lunch program, our year round meals for seniors, after school care during the most vulnerable time for children. Our enrichment activities and sports at home promote health excuse me, healthy lifestyles. So here are the free programs that we offer. Many of these are year round. A comment was made earlier that we only program three months of the year and that is actually incorrect. Our adaptive program is year round. We have afterschool programs, we have free aquatic programing that is running year round. We have our senior programs, year round. Teen programs are sites that are enrichment afterschool programs and our youth sports sets year round. These are not just drop in sites, but they are heavily programed activity sites. We have homework help, field trips, arts, music, dance enrichment and fitness programs for our youth. Our seniors have mobility and fitness programs, music, dance and arts, cultural arts, safety workshops, meals, financial assistance workshops, social clubs. Our teens get life skills, job readiness and mentorship programs just to name a few things. As we look at our free programs, part of the story that needs to be told is the locations where we have available for these programs. Our neighborhood, community and regional centers are the main fixed assets that we have at our disposal for programing. And as you'll see, there is not necessarily an even distribution of these assets. And as a city that is greatly developed without a funding stream for either construction or operation of new facilities, this is one factor that directs our program locations. One note that is important to make is that we have five regional centers that host a variety of activities. We also have one senior center which is focused solely on senior programing during the daytime hours. Some of these specialty facilities we also have in our community, in addition to the senior center, is our nature center, our homeland cultural center. And. And like without the specialty facilities, though, our distribution of fixed assets square footage is shown in the graph above. 64% of our facility space is in the southwest, west, central and northern areas of our city. Those same areas that have been identified by multiple studies and plans in our city as areas of need. For this report, there are four facilities located in Council District four. Two of those are included in what we call the central part of the city and the other two in the east part. In addition to our city owned and operated facilities, we also work very closely with the Long Beach School District and offer many programs in their facilities as well as local churches in the community. We've made a concerted effort to be creative, especially in areas where we are lacking our own facilities, to use other options and expand our abilities to serve the community. This is a breakdown of where we offer our free programing. Recall that we have about 64% of our facility space in the southwest, west, central and northern areas of the city. And we also have close to 65% of our free programing in those same areas. We also need to be sure to tell the whole story. We have many more recreational assets in our city besides community centers. And although these assets and amenities are often only located in one area of the city, they serve all of our residents. We have our beaches, bays, lagoons, marinas that offer unlimited hours of free recreational opportunities. And as mentioned earlier, our homeland cultural center that offers both free and fee based programs from cultural arts and performance activities to classes and events that celebrate our diverse community. Our nature center is also a beautiful oasis in a large urban setting that allows our residents to get away and unplug and connect with nature for free all together. In 2017, Primm offered over 111000 hours of free programing to our community. 65% of the hours of free programing were offered in the southwest, west, central and northern areas of the city, as those areas have the highest need for those services. In 2017, over $6 million of the general fund was invested in our preview, sorry, in our free programing. And that is the breakdown by Council District. So last year, 75% of our general fund resources on free program were spent in the southwest, west, central and northern areas of the city. So as you can see, the facility assets that we have directly correlate to our ability to offer programs and services and line up with our investments and hours of free programs. Skip a few slides. Here's a map of where our. Facilities. Our community centers and our regional sites are located. As we were asked on July 18th to overlay our programing with some of the current programs or plans we have the West, Liverpool, West, Long Beach plan, the downtown pedestrian masterplan and the six three plan. And again, if we overlay with the 2017 Social Needs Index, which again is income, population, health issues and other social indicators of need, you can see again that we're leveraging the city's resources greatly in the areas that are of need. So we're gonna look at our fee based programs, which is our contract classes, individuals and small business operators, and 51% of them are Long Beach residents. As with any business, they are driven by supply and demand. The operators want to operate where there's a demand and customers who will pay for their services, not unlike any brick and mortar business. A little bit of history and background during the 2007 and oh eight economic downturn, as well as the budget reductions of 2011 and 2012. A lot of our programing was discontinued and we regionalized some of our free programing so that we would have an economy of scale. Our regional centers have multiple rooms, and so it takes less staff to operate those facilities and we can get more activities in those facilities. As we looked to economize and move through a concerted effort, our programs and services to the areas of most need. We also looked at then how do we supply recreational opportunities throughout the city? A concerted effort at that time was made to offer additional contract classes in the east and southeast portion of the city so that there were recreational opportunities throughout the city. Oftentimes then we use the facilities for our contract classes where we do not have free programing because in the majority of our regional centers, the hours are taken up by free programing and we do not want to eliminate those programs. Here's just one comparison. During the July 18th Report, a comparison was made between fee based programing offered at the Small College Estates Park and Council District three and the large regional community center in Council District one. As was accurately pointed out, there were 50 hours of a week of fee based programs offered at colleges, states and none at Cesar Chavez. However, if we look at the free programing at those sites in 2017, there were only 810 hours of free programs at colleges, states and almost 4000 hours of free programing at Cesar Chavez. So when we look at the opportunities of the future to bring more fee based programs or contract classes to some of our regional sites, opportunities would generally be in the evenings or weekends as the weekday time periods are often filled with our free programing. The July 18th report asks that we and the Commission take a deeper look at leveraging our limited city resources and community assets so that we obtain a fair and equitable system that guarantees every resident the same opportunity to thrive regardless of zip code. As you'll see, our general fund investment for free programing, which is concentrated in our highest areas of needs, is almost 17 times what we devote to our fee based programs. The city's resources towards fee programs includes 65 full time and 661 part time staff supplies, marketing and program related costs . And this does not even include the substantial investment to clean and maintain these facilities. On the other hand, the investment towards fee based contract class programs covers the costs for one and a half dedicated staff and the printing and mailing of the Recreation Connection brochure and the $294,000 cost is completely offset by revenue. We were also asked to look at the capital investment by districts. So we looked at the last five years of major capital investment, and this includes facility upgrades, refurbishments, playgrounds, sports fields, enhancements and investments to the ranchos. And 70, 70% of that CHP investment has been in the southwest, west, central and northern areas of the city. This does not include Tidelands investments because Tidelands are restricted and can't be used throughout the city. However, most of the Tidelands funds go towards our specialty areas such as the beaches, Pier's Marinas, Lagoons, harbors and seawalls. And very little of tidelands goes towards park and park facilities. A lot of discussion centered around the way we activate our parks. So in addition to what PRM does, we have many community organizations and residents who pull permits on an annual basis each week to activate our parks. Last year, over 2200 permits were pulled for different types of activities. In addition, we continue to work with our community and our organic community based organizations, and we have over 100 current partnerships that also positively activate our parks. Last year alone, our youth sports organizations activated our parks over 142000 hours with positive play activities and opportunities from youth from all over the city. We do want to activate our parks. And as such, we work with our commission, and our commission has a fee waiver process that is an incentive for community based organizations to utilize our parks. The City Council has given the authority to review, set and waive park fees to the Parks and Recreation Commission. Last year, 70 requests for fee waivers were received and only 12 were denied. Those 12 were denied because they were unable to provide an access to the Long Beach community. There are several. Also, we were asked to look at the use of underutilized parks by waiving all or a significant portion of fees for community programing and events . The Commission felt very strongly that there really isn't a definition for underutilized parks that they could apply to the fee waiver process. There are several categories of parks within our system, some sort of large bordered geographic, broader geographic areas by design. Others are active with sports fields and facilities and restrooms and have parking, while some parks are meant to be passive and serve just the immediate neighborhood needs. So accordingly, our parks are utilized and activated in different ways. And as such, the Commission did not feel that there would be a logical way to make the determination of what would constitute an underutilized or low programed park. Taking a deeper dove. Deeper dove, though, into the question of fee based programing, which is one component of what we do. And again, these are generally small businesses, and the instructors often desire locations where there is an ability to pay PR and does recognize that there's a desire to move more of these programs into areas of the city that have not traditionally been successful in the past. And we have continued to look at ways to do that. Although the majority of the contract classes are offered in the east and southeast area, that does not mean we have not tried to offer them in other areas. Over the years, multiple classes have been offered, particularly in the Southwest and western areas, and have been canceled due to lack of registration, participation and interest. However, we continue to look for ways to focus offerings in these areas. First, we will continue our longtime practice of incentivizing instructors who provide activities in these parks by waiving the six or $8 administration fee per participant. This incentive means greater revenue directly to the instructor, and the instructor can use to directly benefit from that or potentially lower their participation fee, which is often the barrier for some residents in these areas. Also, all new contract class instructors are asked to start their relationship with the city by offering their classes in these areas. Some have been successful, successful doing this and some have not. As we keep exploring options, we have also conducted targeted outreach to our current instructors who live in some of the areas that have less offerings, hoping that they would be enticed by the convenience of offering their business activities closer to home. Another option to consider if the Council would like is to lower the city versus the business partner. Split of revenue. Currently, the city retains 35% of the participant fee to cover the cost of advertisement registration insurance. We could lower that to 30%. Understanding this would decrease the city's overall revenue by approximately $46,000. And ask the instructor then to lower their fees by 5%. Funding could also be added if the Council would like during the upcoming budget season to transition some of these fee based programs to free programing in lower income areas where the fee might be the barrier to participation. If this is the direction the Council wants to go in, additional staff would be needed to coordinate this new form of programing, including targeted marketing and outreach that is needed for the success of this type of programing. Finally, as was mentioned earlier, we have created in our testing an online survey that is going to provide greater data to us from our constituents as to the types of programs desired, as well as the willingness to pay, how far folks are willing to travel, and the threshold for cost of fee based programing. How we are testing this survey to make sure that the responses that we are getting give us good data and then we are going to be rolling that out citywide very shortly. Prem does have a very robust marketing program that includes all facets of social media, as well as the publications that you see here. And last year, over 700,000 pieces of marketing materials were distributed to the community marketing our programs. If more targeted marketing is desired, additionally, funding and resources would most likely be necessary to accomplish that goal. Finally, we were asked to look at program through an equity lens, and so we have done extensive research in this area. As you may know, the city is in the process of creating community wellness equity indicators through the Office of Equity and Evaluation of Programs and Services Citywide. This work will be finalized this spring through the city's newly trained 40 member community facility cohort, several of whom are from PRM and will engage the community in the development of policies and programs. Once completed, the Office of Equity and would look at the areas where disparities exist and work with city leadership departments and the community to design policies, practices and programs to address these disparities. Staff has worked with the Office in Equity and also done additional research to find other models where an equity lens has been used for programing and CIP resource distribution. We have only uncovered a few cities who have been doing work in this area. Minnesota and Portland and Seattle are doing some of this early work. However, they have very little data so far on outcomes. But for example, here is a minnesota model that could be something we use here in Long Beach. As you can see, funding is distributed based on community indicators. So it is again best to wait until those are finalized here in Long Beach. Of note is that also funding is distributed based on facility space and amenity location. As you have seen in tonight's very quick presentation. There are definitely some inequities related to our distribution of programing facilities in the city. However, changing the location of our facility assets is certainly not a short term option, and that's why we have outreach to the school district and other facility sites. So in summary, I want to thank the Commission for their dedication to the department and for staying and for their time and input on this presentation. I also, since this is my last opportunity, I want to publicly thank the women and men of the PRM team for their many hours of work on this report, but more importantly, their dedication every day to the members of this community and for the service that they provide. I believed it was important that you were provided a solid foundation of information from which to build upon your future recommendations to the department. The data in many areas speaks for itself and demonstrates that we have been on a good path. Obviously there's room for improvement and with greater investment in some areas, more can be done and the conversation does need to continue from here. Pierre M will continue to be part of the great work being done through the Office of Equity, and we will bring forth recommendations that may be necessary as a result of those outcomes. I do believe that an investment of over $6 million and over 111 hours of free programing is much to be celebrated. This has been a great opportunity to show the true magnitude of what we are doing. And although I cannot take credit for this great path as these accomplishments and these decisions were made before I joined the team, I have been proud to serve with the men and women who are making this happen every day in this community . That concludes my report. Where and I know that the the the the makes the motion of absolutely go to the public purse which will do but I just wanted to just you know to Marie, I know I've already told you separately, but I just want to again wish you the very, very best. And we're very fortunate to have had you. And you're just a fantastic addition and a great leader for the team. And just thank you. And we will we know you're not gonna go too far, but just appreciate the service that you did to the city. So thank you. So, please, if we can have the the public, please come forward and then we'll go back to the motion. Mayor Garcia and city council members. My name is Randy Zorn and I am the executive director of Partners of Parks. Partners and Parks is the 33 year old nonprofit that supports the Parks Recreation Marine by raising money for programs and facilities in the parks. Recently, the Park Partners of Parks Board approved a new strategic plan that has a heavy emphasis on supporting equity in the parks, including emphasizing programs for youth, teens and seniors. One of those programs that supports our mission is through the Youth Scholarship Program. Over the past several years, Poppe or Partners of Parks has helped low income families with registration fees for classes in summer and summer camps that are offered in the Recreation Connection catalog in order to be eligible. Families need to meet specific annual income guidelines of 125% of the federal poverty level. One year ago, we received a donation of $3,200 from the Long Beach Judicial Partners, and they are the management group that operates the Superior Court building. In addition, we received a grant from the Rudy and Daphne Monsour Foundation for $10,000. With these funds, we are able to provide scholarships to 52 low income children, with 13 of them taking multiple classes and or camps for summer 2018. We will be working with the ramp program in the parks to identify families in need and will support and fund nearly 100 children, doubling the number served from the previous year. Partners in Parks is working closely with Parks Recreation Marine on securing additional grants for teens and senior programs. The grants will target those community members with the greatest need by working closely with Parks, Recreation, Marine staff to meet the need for the safe after school activities and reduce social, social isolation of seniors. In addition to our focus on youth and seniors, Partners of Parks receives annually financial support of $38,000 from Signal Hill Petroleum for movies in the parks. The movies are held in every council district's parks, and there were 27 parks where the movies were shown last summer. Pop strength comes from the long lasting partnership we have established with Parks, Recreation and Marine. We will strive to augment city resources to serve all communities using the parks, but will continue to focus on those who clearly have a higher need. We believe that our efforts will continue to increase equity and access to all long beach parks. Thank you very much. Thank you, Randi and Randi, thank you, of course, for everything that you guys do. I remember when I met you when I was 17 years old, coming into Cal State, Long Beach, and you were in charge of my orientation. So I thank you for that and for everything you do now. Yes. Next speaker. Yes, thank you. My name is Kathleen Irvine, 539 Daisy First District. Thank you, council members and mayor. I do want to say that I recognize that there have been a great improvements in the park since we first moved to the first District. When I first went to Cesar Chavez, it was basically a lot of kids rolling around on skateboards inside and scratching graffiti on the windows. And there has certainly been an effort by parks. I appreciate the data that has been submitted. But I think that as Councilmember Lina said, that we need a little bit more definition because programing is one thing. But if you are in the parks and see what's going on, it's really not enough to say there are free hours because what the children are doing or what the seniors are doing is not necessarily what I personally would call programing. One of the issues I had was a yoga class that was supposed to be for seniors this summer at Cesar Chavez. So a number of our seniors were very excited about the yoga program, and we went only to find that it was actually had been turned into a small children's yoga program. And the yoga instructor. Herself on her first day was told that this was what it was going to be, even though she'd been hired as a senior. So there's a big difference. And because of that, she wasn't happy and then the seniors weren't happy, and we had to walk across the lawn and do it over by the freeway instead of inside where the seniors were. So it was really a very bad experience, and she did not want to work anymore, even though she was getting paid. So that kind of thing, maybe it's going to take like more time or more programing or something. But that kind of thing is very discouraging to people who want to contribute, who want to teach. So I think that I would like to see a lot more definition about what exactly those many thousands of hours of programing entail. I appreciate the hard work that went into just gathering the data, and I appreciate all that the Commission has done for us in the past. They certainly supported many of our programs and we do appreciate what they've done so far. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Good evening. My name is Jim Dan. I live in the first district also. A couple of issues I'd like to address is one, again, going with the hours that are actually in the park and how you're counting those hours. Let's just take Cesar Chavez, for instance. There is any number of day. There's probably 15, 20 big guys working out maybe six, 7 hours a day. Are you counting each of those guys for every hour that they're pumping iron? That tends to be a little intimidating for the senior program when they try to go into the facility and then they're not really accosted. But there's definitely some intimidation factor there. A couple of issues with it would be is that that park, for instance, should be opened on weekends. Families in that area are working hard, certainly five days a week, six, sometimes seven days a week. If the park were open on the weekends when the family needs it the most, it'll eliminate a lot of the homeless situation. There's camped out on the back side. That might be something that could also be addressed. Mayor, you started the idea of a gateway garden. That was a fantastic garden. It still is to this day. It's the first complete ADA garden. Yet the park system has not addressed that and has not encouraged the use or programing with that facility at that park. And I don't want to keep bagging on, you know, that park. I think that the staff there does a good job with what they're told to do and the limitations of that. Case in point, there's been the cell shed improvements. The enlargement of the AMPITHEATER. We're trying to activate that through Shakespeare in the park. The symphony has partners with us, but yet a year later, we're still waiting for six sprinkler heads to be placed so that the grass that was provided by grants, not by parks from the district , can flourish. It's struggling. It's a year later. And, you know, we're not you know, we're drought still. So that would be something my note that should have been addressed a long time ago. Going to Drake Park. Drake Park can be so much better than it is. I think that the staff that's there does a great job. It's what it is. Again, I don't see how the numbers from the money applied to that facility. Councilmember Price, I know is surrounded by wetlands. Beautiful part. I work for the city. I'm in your area all the time. Not as much as Mr. Super Nice, but your area quite a bit. I'd like to see that if the money from the city is also going for that district park and tidelands money because it's surrounded by Tidelands also is it's kind of double dipping. Maybe some of that money can be pulled away from there. Since time the moneys would be applied only to Tidelands, which basically we're talking new restrooms and everything else as he built over there and could be diverted over to less fortunate. PARKS Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. D.A.. Next speaker, please. Hi. My name's Mariella and I live in District one. I originally actually this topic came to mind from Kathleen about last summer. It had to do with the municipal band, and I remember looking at why we didn't have the municipal band play in our district, and that's how it all started for me at least. And what I ended up finding out was even though I. Just learned that there's. Programing year round, I was more of a participant during the summer. And from my experience, we as a mother of two toddlers, I was constantly driving to the east side for programing, for movies, at the park, for concerts and so on, so forth. And what I ended up doing was tallying up all the the calendar by district and so on, and found that three of the districts had 52% of all of those events on the 100 days of summer calendar. And so for me, I look at that data and it's really difficult to sort of reconcile how that data really shows what the experience is from this perspective of a district one mother or child or District nine or or any of the other districts that maybe don't see that the kind of programing that might be at Eldorado Park, Ride, Whaley Park, or that the concerts that you see in other parks, because from my perspective, I see that the numbers that map may have shown more like I think I saw in the youth programing district one had 4000 hours and then District five had or district I think. It was five had 10000 hours of youth youth park. Hour. So for me it's like those are the kinds of numbers that matter because it's impacting our children, it's impacting how whether a kids are playing. So, yes, we might have access at Travis Park. Was it 3000 or 3000 free hours? I can assure you that if from a experiential point of view that those kids are not get they're more like babysitting than they're actually taking a class that I would take my child to and learn and have a regular recreational activity that's of use and of purpose. So when we talk about equity, it's not just in the numbers, but it's also on the experience that you're providing this children's. From my experience, I take my children all the time, my two daughters all the time to the parks, museums and so on. And I can assure you that in my district, District one, those 3000 hours or whatever was a child says Cesar Chavez, aren't actual. Program hours. Of that provide the same equal type or I don't even know the words at this point but the same recreational and educational opportunities that I would see at a park on the east side. So I would challenge the the Council and Parks and Rec and I really appreciate all the work that's been put into that report, but I would challenge them to find creative ways to make it more equitable for children across all of Long Beach as opposed to just a handful that it feels like it is. Thank you. Thank you. And we have three speakers left and then we'll close the speakers list. Yes. I just want to share a few things that I had seen from. First of all, the park system is one of my favorite things about this area. I love it. I've rehabbed my shoulder on some of the outdoor exercise equipment that's there and everything, but something I wanted to just share is that something that I'd notice was really good for community engagement with Park Systems and in other places that I've lived had to do with like a chili cook off or a or a barbecue type thing, obviously coming from Texas to kind of lean that way. But one of the things I would do is like have a have the police department have one, and they would kind of judge between the fire department, the police department's barbecue or chili cook off where that kind of a fun competition kind of thing. And then another thing that I had was in Austin was something called ERs birthday party and it was, you know, you were from the from Winnie the Pooh. It was like depressed and all that kind of stuff. Like another way for community engagement. I know if this is feasible economically, but maybe they have something toward the end of the month, a birthday party for everybody that maybe didn't get a chance to have their birthday celebrated and that kind of thing. You can engage with people, make sure everybody's connected and all that kind of stuff. Just some thoughts. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Honorable Mayor and city council members. My name's Kirk Davis. I'm a ninth District Council resident. I'm also finished serving a two year term as the co-chair of the Coalition for Healthy North One Beach. Working together with the Health Department in the Heal Zone and the Kaiser Foundation, we were able to put exercise equipment in and out and park. We also give free classes and yoga Zumba and we totally support the park program. When I first saw the report on Park Equity and I noticed you talked more about classes and programing, I live in an area of the city, a Hamilton neighborhood that has no greenspace. That is the area between Atlantic Cherry, Artesia and 72nd Street. There's no open space. There's no green space in that area. I've worked with Steve Neal and we've been working with residents in. And identifying areas that can be used for green space in our area, even just for our little for walking places, places where we can go out and walk your dog feel safe. We've also been looking at options and I hope the City Council can also consider it as joint use parks in with the school district in the schools for after school is out of session and on the weekends people will use some of the green space on the schools and it just shows that being able to sit in a green space, an open space that's not your house is healthy for you and have the fresh air, have the ability to exercise close to your house and really enjoy those kind of things are things that can really help us to be happy and to live longer. And thank you. Thank you so much. And our last speaker. Hello. My name is Angela on the piano. I was in the office working on this item with the wonderful staff of Councilwoman Gonzalez. And the reason I. Enjoyed it so much. Wasn't just because all of us. Were together working hours on this this item. But because it hits home for me. My six nieces and nephews have lived in central Long Beach. They've lived in North Long Beach. And they currently live in West Long Beach and they have never received any information regarding whether there were programs that were free at the parks or if there was any fee based programing at those parks. And it wasn't until I started working here where I actually connected them to these things. And the fact of the matter is the free programing that is offered, it is not really adding value to their lives. It's free movies, it's it's coloring, it's it's these things. It's not it's not. In. The east side of Long Beach, I saw I saw resume development. I saw a math development. I saw I saw reading like. Root. Things that would actually add value to their lives. And if it's if it's the fact that it's limited resources that's affecting that, then this city council needs to finally switch funding over to library services and parks. The time is over. You know, the police department receives 48% of the city's budget in I think it is 4.2% for library services and parks. That is unacceptable. Um, I wish and I hope for my nieces and nephews to one day live in a city where they can go to Admiral Kidd Park and receive help with their resume, receive help with math because I know they truly need it and but think thank you for all the work that you have done. Honestly, you are an amazing individual and I want to thank you for that. But there is disproportionally disproportionate. Funding. In this city, and we really do need to look at the way that we fund the parks and libraries. So thank you. Thank you very much. That concludes the public comment. Thank you, everyone that spoke and returned back to Councilwoman Gonzales. Yes. So I'm going to hit the refresh button here and I want to say thank you as well to Marie. And I know it doesn't seem like I'm grateful, but I am absolutely grateful to Marie and her staff. I worked alongside them even before being elected. And I know what a hard working group and team that you have on so many different levels, management all the way down to our park staff, whether part time or full time. I know that the work that they do, they love it and we are going to continue to support them. But what I'm asking here is just for support and I'm asking us to challenge ourselves because I don't want to put this out and everyone sort of roll their eyes and laugh and think, it's just us complaining because it's not complaining. It really is something that many of us are passionate about. You know, we have I've talked to you know, I see David here from the Park Commission. I appreciate it. And Randy and Karen and our residents from, you know, various areas. And what resonated with me in talking about, you know, the need for more park programing was that they said, you know, that's what we need. We need more programing. We need more opportunities for our kids to engage. You know, these are neighborhoods that many of you know, some of the students are eligible for, for gang activity. They're going to be either in a gang or they need some somewhere to go after school to support them. And this is what it does. But I think it can go a bit further. So I think what we need to do first, before talking about a plan to come back, I would like something to come back in about, you know, that six month time frame regardless. But I think first and foremost is we need to provide we need more data even more than we currently have, because what we have is just a current flat data of what we're existing, what is existing in what we're currently doing. But I would like data on that survey that we're that is online right now. It's a survey that basically asked questions to residents on what they want to see in their neighborhood. I know oftentimes, you know, we say, well, there's high unemployment in this area. We need resume workshops. Well, I don't know if our residents actually want that. They might need it, but I don't know what they actually want. So I think our, the, the data on the survey that we have would be good. I also think just some other touch points I talked about maybe a roundtable that we can sit and discuss, maybe a part commission meeting that we can take outside of a normal part commission location and take it to the communities that really want to see these programs and talk about, you know, what we can do to formulate a better plan for park program and activities. But, you know, many of our residents as well, you know, the ones that are actually activating the parks like Willmore and building healthy communities, they've been denied permits, they've been denied waivers for their permit fees. And I think that that's not a really good and inclusive and welcoming environment when they have to go to the Park Commission multiple times throughout the year for many of their events that they do on an annual basis. And I know the Parks Commission is just doing their job, but it's very cumbersome. These individuals are not just volunteers. They're working 8 hours a day like we are, and then they're activating our parks on top of that. So they're really the ones I can speak to my neighborhood. They're really the ones that are doing the work and activating our parks the way we really want to see them, you know, putting in summer concerts. Winton Willmore I saw the Willmore Group this past year. Welcome over. I want to say we had thousands of kids at Drake Park, thousands, not only the lighting was put up, you know, but the programed area was, you know, had snow. There were music elements for the kids. My kids went out and enjoyed. You don't get that. Otherwise, if we didn't if Willmore didn't do that, we wouldn't have had anything during the holiday season for these kids to go and just have a good time and enjoy their neighbors. So I give a lot of my gratitude to these community members. And if we can ease it a little bit better and make it a little more streamlined on the Park Commission side, if there's some barriers that we can, you know, lessen to be able to create a better environment, that would be great. One of them, I think, was included in here, and I really like to see that I had suggested originally a multiyear contract, you know, but I know that that might be a little difficult because there's so many different nuances that might take place. But we have community groups that I feel that have been vetted, that we know they've been in place for 20, 30 years. I think maybe we can give them a break in that sense in creating a multi-year contract and then also providing waivers to these individuals. You know, as much as we can, I don't know how that will affect our bottom line, but I think that there's room there to to explore what we can do with these specific groups. We also talked about promoting existing programing, and we need to push even more so in this in this equity lens, because right now we're printing and we're mailing out an awesome booklet. And when you look through this booklet, it's all Eastside activities, you know, and I have a child too, and I have to go to, you know, storytime or wherever. I have to go all the way to the Eastside, which I have a car. I can do that. That's no problem. But it makes it very cumbersome for for many of our residents to do that as well. And I think just being able to have other mediums in different languages, you know, of course we talked about that. But social media, there's awesome things you can do on Facebook to target certain zip codes so they receive information. And I think we can just do better on that side. And then I talked about the survey results. But if there's any other way to obtain information, as I mentioned before, I think, Maria, you mentioned or you gave us a report about a year and a half ago. It's in 2016, and it basically showcased all of the residents in our zip codes 90802 and 90813 that were attending some of these classes. And when you when we say that there's low interest in areas in some of these programs, I would have to disagree because a lot of these, if I'm looking at it over 63,000 90813 years and 9080 tours will say we're attending classes in 2016, which is great. That means that there is interest. We just have to sort of reassess to see where we can bring the classes and programs in our neighborhoods. And as we mentioned to just a close up, you know, the contract classes are just pulling the numbers. You know, we have in the Southwest and in uptown, we have the most facilities. We've said that in this in this in this report, we have the most facilities because the open space plan dictate dictates that our areas of need should have more facilities. And we do. But even with more facilities, we don't have park programing. And that's that's the issue here. Out of the contract classes, there are 41.7 districts. 41.3% versus 58.6% for two districts. I just think that there's, you know, something wrong there, considering we have the most facilities and our summer programing, our free programs, a lot of them are are a lot of them are in the summer. So that's three months. And so, again, I know that's I'm dumping a lot. I'm sort of saying everything, but I think I know where we need to reassess. I'm going to ask that in that six months, we obtain as much data as possible, survey results going out to the community. I'll I'll engage. Absolutely. Our partner of parks. I'll engage our community groups. I'll engage, you know, the Park Commission to sort of look outside the box, go to other areas, obtain that data, and then come back in six months and come back with a really good policy and plan where we can sort of reassess and shift. That is it. And I thank you very much again for all of your work. Murray, we do certainly appreciate you. And I know it's probably been my office that's given you the hardest time. But again, I just I really appreciate you engaging us and having the chance to sit down with you personally. Thank you. Thank you so much, Councilmember Pierce. I yes, I want to thank everybody that's stayed tonight and those that have stayed for other items. I really appreciate your efforts. And again, Maria said it earlier, but I know that you have put a lot of time and energy into this and just short term and Long Beach. And so I appreciate that and all the staff that are here that make our park so great. Thank you. You know, I I want to say I appreciate the data. I think that one of the challenges that's here is that, yes, it's not a one size fits all. And, you know, I want to take the responsibility and I'll ask, you know, my colleagues to do the same in meeting with my neighborhood associations. I you know, I've knocked on almost all the doors in my district probably four times now. Just as we do turn out for our budget meetings, we always make sure that we're going door to door, making sure that we're doing the survey with all of those constituents that might not know that it's out there. And so I you know, I have to say, I just had my briefing this week and the survey wasn't brought up. And so it's not a tool that we're using to push out. And I think it would be helpful to have that as a tool for the office outside of just city staff. I do want to ask, how are we working with the schools and getting that survey out as well? So as I said, right now we're testing the survey. It's out limited because we want to see what comes back and to make sure that we are asking the right questions. And so once we have that data back, that's when we will push that out. We will be asking all the council offices to distribute the survey via your emails, your listserv, your websites through the schools. So we'll be using all of our marketing avenues once the surveys are ready. Okay. I just thank you for that. It's helpful to to know that it is just a pilot survey. I also want to make sure that we're you know, at my next community meeting, when we have a roundtable of folks that we're identifying, this is a topic that we're talking about. I know that when you look at the resources in my district, we have underutilized parks, which I'm assuming in my district would be the arts park that's consistently locked Miracle on Fourth Street, which we took away programs. And so it has it listed as a community, not a community center, but something similar is also listed as a site because we do still do youth sports programs at Miracle. And Fourth, we do. Okay, so we've got Miracle on fourth and then it's not in my district, but it's next to my district, Crossman village. And so looking at those places, I know that I, Bixby sometimes were booked to the to the max and it's hard to get other classes in there. And we have high participation. And I know that we've had a challenge with getting programing in our passive parks or underutilized parks. I hope that out of this process, through the survey and through community building, that we can identify what programs that neighborhood needs because a kid can't walk from Fourth Street, where a miracle on Fourth Street is over to Bixby Park. And I think that's a challenge. And some of the equity piece is that you have families in these higher poverty areas that are working two and three jobs and don't have the luxury of driving their kids to the park for the day or don't have the luxury of paying somebody to drive their kids to the park for the day. And so it it does mean that kids might not go to the park if it's not something that's right next door. And so these neighborhoods serving parks, while it looks like there's no programing and that's fine from the outside, it's not okay for having our youth get the skills and the tools that they need. And so I'll take on the challenge on myself as well as on staff on how are we really engaging with residents and getting them meaningfully engaged so that it's not just about spending money on the West Side or central Long Beach, but it's identifying the right programs for that community in particular. And so I look forward to seeing this come back. I think that looking the studies that you guys are the cities, Minnesota, Seattle, I think it's a good place to start, which is what I was referencing earlier. And so I do appreciate that. I do want to echo the comments around. The fee waiver denials. I know I've had a couple folks come to us. And so having a real clear understanding, the statement that you made that they don't have a nexus to the Long Beach community was not true for those that came forward. Maybe it's because we thought they had enough money and they could pay for it. But these are a lot of groups that invest in our communities, that invest in our youth, and they're trying to do a service for us. And so I know that there's a balance in between covering the costs and making sure that services are available. And so any new opportunities that we can identify to make that more accessible for folks is really important. Again, I really, really appreciate you and all the team. I think that your programs are so wonderful in Bixby Park and I want to make sure that we have that same quality at the other parks in my district as well. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman Mongo. Thank you. Thank you to the staff. I really appreciate you. To get to the meat of it. Some of the things that I think would be valuable in the next version would be a separation between adult and youth programs, and then also a comparison to where the youth in the city live. In the nineties, when I was in Long Beach Unified School District, there were over 90,000. Participants and students in. Our schools. Today it's somewhere under 70,000. And so when you have a 20% drop in students, you also probably have a migration of where those students are. And I would also be surprised if we had any less programing considering the volume we have today. So I'd be interested in seeing that. I'm really proud that 65% of our free hours are offered at non specialty facilities. I think that's remarkable. And if the communities that have the programing want to provide input on the types of programing, I think that that's really valuable because when free programing is offered and not utilized and I'm not just saying on one part of town, but on my side of town as well, it could be better programs for the things that are important to the students. And so we definitely need that feedback. With 100 Days of Summer, I think it shows a skewed outcome because a lot of our council offices use one time funds to supplement that. And so I think it's important. Well, I can understand the perception that some areas have significantly more programing than others. Part of it is because our council offices have put up that money, whether it's for a snow day, whether it's for an additional concert in the park. So keeping that in mind, I think it's important that on Slide seven, it's a lot about being served. But I don't know that this could represent duplicated numbers. I'd be really interested to. Know our high utilization, and I've said this a lot about Eldorado Park. It's one thing to say we have 400,000 visits to Eldorado Park a year. It's completely different to say we. Have. 300,000 visits of people who come for one day and 100,000 visits that are broken out by monthly visitors, weekly visitors. And now with the dog park. We have some people that are there every single day. And so we need to know and understand our high. Utilizers of the system. And then better adjust for that. And then also what percentage of our utilization of the system is non Long Beach residents? Our sales tax and property tax dollars supplement these programs. And so I appreciate that some of our contract programs have a different price for a resident and a nonresident. But as we look at fee changes for the fall that come into this next budget cycle, maybe the same should be said of our entrance fees to. Eldorado Park and the Nature Center that those that are Long Beach residents should not be experiencing a fee increase. Where those that are coming to our park for a single day are feeling that. More. On Slide eight. I noticed that you addressed. The wrap. Program. Is that in. Partnership with the schools or do we apply as our own grants section? So that is in partnership. We utilize school district facilities and we put some general fund money into that, but it is largely grant funded. Thank you. I knew that it was a grant funded program for the school district, but I wasn't sure if we applied separately and were competing with the school district or not. On Slide. Nine, I think that it would be very valuable to see the number of participants by these areas. And I think it's great that you talked about facilities where free programs are offered, but a lot of programing is also offered in open space. And one of the things that I think that this definitely under under represents is. The amount. Of open space available for free programing and program programing as. Well. I see that. My district doesn't have the most space. I think that it's very telling to see that District six actually has the most square footage of available space. I think that that is a testament to the work that Mr. Andrews has done over the last 10 to 12 years to add additional space. But I think that. When you see this. And add on another set of sections for acreage or square footage of. Open grassed space or fields. Then you'll really see how underfunded the infrastructure of the fifth District is. Why a third of our trees in our parks are dead. Why all of the roads in Eldorado Park. Are in ill repair, while the facilities in our park system in the fifth. District are at an all time low. Because as infrastructure money was separated across nine districts, we were each getting approximately 12%. But that's not really fair. When 35 to 40%. Of the streets in the city and the trees in the. City and a lot of the parkland in the city is in one district. So then you wonder why in that district. When I was elected, it was so far behind in infrastructure repairs. And when you look at the $200 million infrastructure need plan that was presented in all of our first year of of of election in 2014. You'll see that because of the expanse of space, it costs more to repair. And it has. Been longer since it was repaired. So I think that it's important to also add that in because. Our side of town doesn't only serve. The east side. The east side goes all. The way up to the center. And when you look at the city, really, that the airport kind of. Serves as the hub of the wheel. And there services over at Wardlow Park and Pan-Am Park and. Others that are easily accessible from North or central Long Beach. And I think that goes to be said. And then I think that for the last component of my last question, it would be what free programs are currently being offered at the schools. I think that it's time we do an evaluation of the amount of programing. The Parks and Rec program and the tax dollars of the City of Long Beach provide on the school campuses versus the amount of programing that the schools provide in partnership to us. And I say that because we have done. When I say we, I mean you really it's all of you and the staff that have taken the brunt of. Of the reprograming of our park space for our sports leagues. And since we don't have the same types of reservation systems available, what you have is an equity not based on what the city is doing. We're equity. We're applying park rental availability equitably. However, when I read the reports on how many fields some of these leagues have, they are in a reservation system that is not fair and equitable. It's an online system through Long Beach Unified that's really based on your availability to be at a computer at the moment that the field's become available. Which then puts some of our our schools and our teams and a lot of our parents that are working parents at a disadvantage when they're also the coaches of these teams. So we need a better system. I'd love to see. A. An opportunity for us to put together a public private partnership or maybe it's just a public public private partnership where we would be able to manage. Those facilities and or throw them into the same system. That we're using to distribute parks, but ensure that they're. Maintained appropriately because they've made some investments. And finally, I think that. It wasn't mentioned here, but when I look at the infrastructure opportunities. I think that it's often important to know that when we talk about the capital improvement budget and you see where the money has gone and come from, and when you compare this project list to where a majority of the land is , I think that it just. Shows how underfunded the Fifth District has been. And I think that we need to have a plan to fix that immediately. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Austin. Thank you. And I'm glad we were able to continue this this conversation. I want to just say thank you to Parks and Recreation and Marie for for the great work. Marie Knight, you've been great to work with during your your tenure here. And has your department has been completely responsive to my office. And so I just want to thank you again publicly for for your work, but also for your amazing team. The numbers don't I mean, I think I think the data here is is very clear, at least from my perspective, and has given me an opportunity to assess what we need to do to improve programing through programing or for programing in in my district. I try to try to come to this this council dais week after week and for the last five and a half years or so with a citywide view, not just, you know, what's best for my district, but what's best for the entire city. And oftentimes that makes that means making sacrifices and concessions because, you know, it may not make sense. I can recall just a few weeks ago, Parks and Recreation Marine brought forth recommendations to even cut afterschool programs in my district. And I'm looking at the data here and the free programs here. You know, it's I have zero afterschool programs in a district now. Had I known that had this information a few weeks ago, I may not have been so readily and willingly. I may not have been willing to to to to concede at that point. But I understood I looked at the data and the usage and the utilization, and it wasn't there because we have other amenities. I think also this this this looking at this from an equity lens and made it very clear that that some areas of the city were woefully unrepresented under programed in and in some cases underdeveloped. Over the last several years. I know I have focused on developing green space in my district and that has been the focus. And because of that, you know, I think we're we're looking at at least almost eight acres of new recreational or active green space available at Davenport Park and then Molina Park. I think we're going to have to have a real hard conversation if we're looking at being equitable, at how we program those parks moving forward. Because the data here shows that, you know, the kids in eighth District are or are last in all in every category. And so I thank you all for for bringing this this this this report forward, because it's going to really, really reinvigorate me in terms of making sure that we have equity for my district, we programs. And I want to also mention that, you know, we have parks where, you know, my my predecessor once brought forth a an idea to put a skate park because it was more equitable to put a skate park in and in an area of the district and, you know, ran into a buzzsaw because the residents didn't want that type of programing in the district. And so I think it's also important to understand that, you know, we assess and understand and have a good understanding of where our residents are and how parks are utilized because not every park is necessarily going to be utilized or wants to be utilized for for active recreation or programing. You know, they certain areas of the city that are that are that that would prefer quality of life and serenity. And I know we're doing a lot of work to to do that is particularly with our wetlands restoration project with the forest. And that brings me to exhibit E in the staff report the comparison when we look at major projects from FY 13, FY 18. Just can you can you help me discern how. We how? District eight in district nine, the first women's project is actually allocated or counted. So we took the total for that project and we allocated it evenly between the two exhibit E. So you allocate it evenly between the two? Yes, that's not right. It's because about like 90% of that project is in District eight. I mean, I'm just trying to help you balance the numbers a little bit so that that, you know, I have some questions with how we reach that, because if it's it's not a 5050 project , it's if you look at that, you know, I'm sorry, geography and it's late of the project. Most of it is is district eight before as well as project. So I was I had some questions about that. And then lastly, again, you know, I'm going to be reinvigorated. I'm I'm happy to to see more data come forward in the coming months. I don't know that that's going to tell us anything differently than what we have in front of us here today. This is very comprehensive, in my opinion, and gives me all that I need to to understand where we're going. I would just just implore upon my my colleagues, you know, we do know that we are and maybe we're moving forward with some some some tough budgetary times. And and, you know, again, I've you know, I don't know if it's it's I think we all have to to look at a city wide view and and and and understand that that, you know, there are nine council districts, but we have a responsibility to the entire city and and not just one district or our our specific district, if we're fighting just for for for resources or extra programing for for one district or two districts, that's that's going to put us in a space where I, I just think we're we're not going to going to agree. A lot of what I see here from this data has been played out in over many years. You know, and I don't I don't see necessarily that it's it's our Parks and Recreation Department has has work to to be equity an equitable in terms of the distribution of resources. I think it just kind of plays out the way it plays out with Greenspaces. But we do have some challenges. And when I look at senior programing, District eight has zero senior programs. Right. But District eight is actually programing senior programs through our district budget and through private donations. And we will be addressing that moving forward in budget cycles in, in conversations with our city manager in Parks Recreation Marine Department because, you know, where is my staff? Actually, my, my, my city council district staff is actually being utilized to, to to help run these programs several hours a week. Right. I'm starting to wonder whether or not that should be a park recreation Marine staff actually doing that. This is this is it's an area that we do need to address. And so it's late. My eyesight is going. I'm glad we had this conversation. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Arango. Excuse me. Thank you. Here's his concern, Belinda. No. He does say that. He got to scroll up. I don't. Know. Oh, you know what it did. Okay. Mason Richardson. Thank you. So. So I'll. I'll just say, Murray has been great working with you, and I think we didn't want to see you go. That's why we asked you to. We all hold you as long as we can tonight. But it really has been a pleasure working with you. And I wish you all the success. And Steve, you're going to have to pick up this conversation and keep it going because I don't think it's going to go anywhere. Lena, thank you for for staying on top of this issue. It's an issue that does impact all of us. And I like a lot of the comments because we're all learning tonight, and that's why data is important, you know, but Rome wasn't built in a day. So I want to acknowledge the progress here that the progress behind the dias and the progress that I do see in this report, you know, equity is making resource decisions based on need. And so, you know, when you see a zero, whether it's in this space of a contract class or afterschool programing, whenever you see a zero, no matter what district it is, we it should raise a red flag because there are people in that community need to be served. So in general, people with the least resources in terms of people, the least resources, in my opinion, should not have to travel the farthest for contract classes. So I do think we need to do more to make sure contract cases are rooted in the community, in communities that really, really need that one. Just bring attention a few things. So slide number 14. So you got on slide 14. Let's see what I'm there. Okay. Now I see pools as three, five, six, seven, nine. Are we talking about. Or we thought. Were pool were pools and. So those are city and school pools. Oh, city and school. Okay. I was going to say, I don't have a pool. Okay. So you do. All right. So, Jordan, you mean the Jordan high pool. Gotcha. Okay, now, what about this map on slide 19? I don't know if this is supposed to be a district boundary or not, but district nine doesn't go in. And Bixby Knolls that color? No, those. Are by zip codes. Okay. All right. That was a little confusing. Just wanted to clarify if all the numbers are skewed that way or what. Then slide 23. Okay. Actually, Councilman Austin brought this up. I was just curious how the 12 million was calculated. Well, correct that. Yeah, yeah. There's no problem because it doesn't. I mean, 16% isn't really an accurate reflection of the investment. I mean, you know, there's been a lot of. Yeah, we're very happy, very pleased with Highland Park Community Center, the investments that we're making. But this number just seemed a little bit skewed. So thank you for acknowledging that. And then what I'd like to see, you know, I didn't think I saw it, but just access to open space in general. I know that my district has 1.7 acres per thousand residents, whereas we have, you know, some dishes with ten. Right. And so Kirk, who spoke earlier, dressed like the need to place focus on the open space as for in terms of like park development. So as long as we can continue an equity conversation there and then I acknowledge the the conversation in the last few pages looking at equity based models, you know, obviously the angels in the details. But I like I like the fact that you, you know, you were brave enough to actually throw it in there that some people do program their parks based on equity 50%, you know, by one metric, 30% by another metric, 20% by another metric. And I'm okay with exploring something like that. And then finally, one thing that I think we should talk about should be a part of Park Equity is the. Way that our. Parks Commission is actually structured. It should at least have one district representative on each district should be on the park commission. That's something we should we should look at. We don't it's not based on district. We should have at least some voice from every single district on that commission. Thanks. Thank you. Councilman lingo. Thank you, Mayor. The angel is in the details. Hmm. Never thought about that one before. Anyway, the devil's in the details. I mean, the devil manages. It's all the details are always tough to deal with anyway. And that's neither here nor there. It's getting late. That actually one of the things that that I look at in terms of programing is and it was mentioned somewhat by my I remember Gonzalez is is getting the word out it's getting that communication is letting people know about what programs are available at each of the parks. Yeah, I know I have a few of them in my part. Admiral Kid and Silverado, which are the two largest ones that have a lot of activities going on in here. But I think that there's also they're underutilized to a certain extent because there's not enough people there. I mean, there's there's a language barrier there. And that's why I'm always pushing the language access programs that we need to get off the board and start really implementing as an institutional wide type of program for everything that the city does. Because communication is is one of the most important things that we're about. And we don't get the word out to people about what we're doing for the city. They're not going to understand what's taking place, and people are going to misunderstand what we're doing and think that we're trying to be, you know, pull the wool over their eyes and and that we're not being transparent. That's not true. I mean, we're trying to be transparent. But if we had the right form of communication with them, the word is not going to get out. So I would love to see more of an opportunity about getting them getting the word out to our residents, especially in those parks that have a lot of programs that that they can be utilize, including those that are for a fee and making those also available in in areas where maybe the contractors may not want to go to, but they need to go to, because that's where the probably the need is. And whether it's the poor store or that's part of the contract, so be it. I know when reading some of these evaluations about why we have fee programs more towards the says because people pay well you know maybe sometimes we should look at a waiver or wait at the parks and recreation park and make the same classes available like the yoga class that we talked about earlier for poor seniors and making it more affordable for them so that they can continue. You to receive that type of service? Yes, a couple of questions. There were I was looking at the the slides here and nowhere in any of these slides that I see, Tanaka Park is Tanaka Park deactivated is not working anymore. Is it closed up with what's what's what's not the park or do you know where it's at. So I do. In Tanaka Park is a passive park, so we don't have programing at that park that's intended. We have multiple passive parks that did not show up in this report. Throughout the city we have 170 parks in the city. So many of them are intended to be passive and they're not programed. Okay. So that that would also explain then what the definition of a park with the the Christmas tree lane, daisy the day parade. That's correct. I could see that. Okay. I mean, that's basically it. I my my big peeve would be making sure that that survey that you got going out there is readable, that it's easy to use, and that it's also includes language access issues such as being able to have it in to garlic and mountain Hmong and. QMI The major languages that are that are present in Long Beach so that we could get a more accurate picture as to what communities of interest would have in it. Absolutely. And in the shortened presentation tonight, if it were. They longer. Presentation, you would have heard that we are working with our language access coordinator, city staff and looking at opportunities and options for the greater promotion of our programs and activities. Okay. And then finally, I do want to lend my voice to your congratulations and your and your new in your career change from Long Beach to Huntington Beach. So you're still on the beach somewhere. Staying at the beach. Good for you. And I wish you well and much success. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Spinner. Thank you. And let me echo my colleague's sentiments, Marie, thank you for your service to our community. You've done a great job. I'd also like to say to my earlier comments, this isn't the first stint Steve Smith has said, I'm sorry that everybody calls you Steve Smith at one point. Okay, I just made the mistake. He never told me that, Mr. Scott, is that this is not his first stint. I want to remind the audience that it's 1120, so I'm sorry if I'm stammering, but we worked with him as an interim before and he did a great job then. And I have all. The confidence in the. World in him doing this. My idea behind let's get this wrapped. Part of it is what I think Sir Winston called perfectionism leading to procrastination. I'm looking at the 100 days of summer. Come on, let's get it together before we hit this thing. So that was part of my motivation for saying, let's bring this back quickly, deal with it, work it out. I'd like to commend Parks and Rec staff. Just I just think you do a great job. I have a unique district in that I do go from the east side to the west side. So I think the way staff works at out, for instance, I'll tell you, Whaley Park was mentioned, we have exactly two municipal band concerts in Whaley every year. One of them is on a council meeting night, so I can't even attended. But we bring about the equity I'm sorry, equality in this and that. Stearns Park has a movie night and the Long Beach Community Band plays at that or is a part park the same? We just work it out and maybe my office funds a little bit of it, but I just think there are a lot of practical fixes we can bring to this. Also to Councilwoman Mango and her point about infrastructure, this is huge. Can you imagine if the fifth District still had the nature center, which is the fourth District now? She would have all that funding to worry about, too. So we put a lot of effort into that, and I don't think you can separate infrastructure from programing. I think I see the Supervisor Stearns Park up there. Thank you for being here so late tonight. All right. So we have a riff on the Stearns Park Community Center that has compromised. We may not be able to use the facility more. Okay. There goes programing because of infrastructure. So two cats, one woman, Mungo's point, you can't lose sight of that or you lose utilization of your parks. There's probably another point I made, but I'll defer. It's getting late. Thank you. Thank you. And to close up, Councilwoman Gonzalez. I just wanted to say thank you to my colleagues. I know sometimes it's difficult to challenge our thought, like I'd mentioned, but I think that we're on a good path. We have a good discussion that we've had here and various different opinions. And this is absolutely a city wide approach, you know. Otherwise, we would have just had data for one district, but we had it for all. And if there's zeros in any of your categories, this is a chance for us to really, again, bring that forward as the new data comes back. So thanks again. I know everybody's been waiting for the next items to come up. And I just want to thank everyone for entertaining us tonight and appreciate that. Well, thank you very much. I want to, of course, think again of park staff, our Parks and Recreation Commission. I know it's David out there now. I got my glasses on, so maybe there's others that I just can't see. But thank you to all of them for their great work. And I, I just wanted to point out one piece of the presentation, which was the commission has done a lot of work on trying to get the fee incentives to go towards Long Beach residents versus, you know, folks from other communities. And you've done a lot of work on that. There's been a lot of improvement in the process. And so we want to continue and encourage you to continue that because I think that's really important that our our local taxpayers should be receiving the benefit of those free glasses. So so thank you for that. And please cast your vote for the receiving file. I think this receipt and file includes a report back in about, you know, 4 to 6 months. Right. Okay. Thank you. Motion carries. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Moving on. I think we have 13 items left. So let's start with item 32.