Adopt resolution authorizing City Manager, or designee, to execute all necessary documents to receive and expend grant funding in the amount of $913,991 from the California Bureau of Cannabis Control (BCC), for the approximate period of March 1, 2020 through February 28, 2021; Increase appropriations in the General Grants Fund in the City Manager Department by $913,991, offset by grant revenue from the BCC; and Increase appropriations in the Business Assistance Fund in the Economic Development Department by $530,000, offset by an operating transfer from the City Manager Department, offset by grant funds. (Citywide)
Council member, Austin. Motion carries. Thank you. Next item, please. Item 18. Communication from City Manager Recommendation to adopt resolution to execute all necessary documents to receive and expend grant funding in the amount of 913,009.91 from the California Bureau of Cannabis Control and Increase Appropriations in the Business Assistance Fund in the Economic Development Department by 530,000, offset by grant funds citywide. Thank you. Councilman Austin. Mayor. Councilman at certainly motion to start. I'm. I'm just to be careful. I would like to recuse myself from all cannabis items. Thank you. And let me have you do that while we go to count and ask them. I'll wait. So certainly I support this. Social equity is extremely important, particularly as we we look at new emerging markets and the cannabis industry is now legal, supported by the voters of the state of California, as well as the city of Long Beach. And this is a grant coming from the the Board of Bureau of Cannabis Control. I'd like to know more about how we received the grant and how we expect to expand the grant. And I know we have a staff report, but I certainly support this. Staff Reporter. Sure. Kevin Jackson and AJ Cleary can provide a brief self-report. AJ is going to provide the staff report. Good evening, Mayor and members of the City Council. This is a recommendation to accept grant funds from the State of California Bureau of Cannabis Control to support the existing Long Beach Cannabis Equity Program approved by the City Council in 2018. Grant funds will be used to provide fee waivers, grants and technical business assistance to qualifying cannabis business license applicants. A general update on the program was provided to the City Council through a recently released memorandum. This grant will allow staff to continue developing the program to promote equal opportunity in the cannabis industry. That concludes my presentation and I'm available for questions. So thank you. I guess we apply for the grant. We did apply. For the grant. Was it a competitive grant process? And it was a formula driven process. So any city that adopted a cannabis social equity program was eligible for grant funds and then the state awarded funds. Based off of a formula. Right. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor Andrews. I support this also. Thank you. We have two members of the public, Mr. Goodhue, and I think it's precious. Marcel said names. That's very good here. I would use every single dollar. That we could get. To discourage. The use of the cannabis. In this city. We don't need it. Look at some of the conduct of some of the council members, and you can see that. Period. Use the money. I mean, if you if you're improving this. To me, that's tantamount to saying, hey. Let's encourage underage sex. Why not? Cannabis is dangerous to the city. No ifs. No answer. No buts. And if you don't understand that. Perhaps you're using it. Now, one other thing again. I just after. I know. That last subject, the trucks or the lights get our local people. To serve the food we've got plenty of. Operate community organizations that would be more than happy, more than happy to provide food as they do for other events. And they you can use their own kitchens and then bring it to the tables that can be set up. It's a it's a wonderful revenue source for those industries and so forth. And the point is, right on those those trucks are useless and expensive. At a neighborhood organization that baked, baked, baked goods and bring in the beverages. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hi. Good afternoon. My name is Precious. I'm 21 years old, born and raised in Long Beach. I'm very grateful I get approved for the. Campus equity. Program. So I'm still in the. Process of the application. And it's I'm finding it hard to get a location because I cannot complete the application without the location. And so I'm on my own doing this. So I would like to get some. Help with funding to obtain a facility. Um, because I won't be able to get issued a license unless I do have a place. And I just don't, I'm not having, like, luck with it. Um. And offline equity applicants are. Able to use 800 square feet, minimum of non-equity facilities and up to three. Years of free, real. Real estate, which is very helpful for equity applicants. But in Long Beach is prohibited to have another license. Holder in renting in the same place. And the city does not offer three years of free real estate. It would help if we could just be adjusted or some type of compromise. Being a minority and a. Woman having no support makes this harder. For me. But it is my dream to run my own facility and be a proud cannabis equity business owner in my city. I will continue to do what I can to make. That happen, not just for me, but for other Long Beach equity applicants that will be facing the same obstacles. It's not just about the cannabis for me. It's about growth and knowledge, business, education, networking and. More that comes with this. I just want to bring up really quick, there's an online that the city is not taking any more applications for storefronts, which is something I would like to do. Maybe someday that can be adjusted anyways. I would love to see more people like me thrive and be supported by the only city we know. And one day I can give back to my computer community in a positive way. Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm going back to Councilman Austin. So, yes, obviously, I support this item and encouraged the rest of the council to do so. I did have a couple of questions. And before I say that, any time you can get close to $1,000,000, $900,000 from the state to implement something that we are already going to implement, I think it's only helpful to our budget and so it would be wise for us to accept this this grant. I'm enthusiastically a yes. That's it. I'm I would love to know more about the accountability measures that we are building into this. Do we have any accountability for the grants in terms of reporting back to the Bureau of Cannabis Control? And will we be getting report backs in terms of how our equity program is actually progressing here in the city? Yeah. The state has reporting requirements for the grants. We're required to. Report on. Who has applied for a license, received a license, a lot of demographic information for those who participate in the program and receive a license. We are planning to provide periodic updates to the City Council. Our most recent one was released just recently, but we're happy to continue updating the City Council as we make progress in the program . Thank you. Thank you. There's a motion and a second. Please cast your votes.