Recommendation to request City Auditor to conduct a limited scope audit that would include: 1) a review of internal controls over how funds are handled and spent by the PBID/PBIA; compliance with the City agreement; and possible benchmarking as to how other cities oversee PBID/PBIA's, and report back to the City Council with the findings.
Motion carries items we're going to hear item 15 when the hearing. Communication from Councilman Austin, Councilwoman Price, Council Member, Super Anon recommendation to request the City Auditor to conduct a limited scope audit that would include a review of internal controls over how funds are handled and spent by the PBA. PBA. Compliance with the City Agreement and possible benchmarking as to how other cities oversee p bids pba's. Councilmember Austin. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And first, I'd like to thank my colleagues, our council member, Price and Supernormal for signing on. And I'd like to thank the city auditor, Laura Dow for her assistance in this item. Our business district, as well as all of us know our key part of our city's success in the city's economic development. I mean, we've done they've done a great job of promoting and supporting many of our commercial corridors. I also have to say up front, our city staff in particular, Mr. Jim Fisk, does a great job in supporting our bids. And. And so if he were here, I would love for him to take a bow because I know he is. On the sunset of his career. He will be retiring very soon. But he's done an excellent job in supporting us. The City A is a significant property owner and stakeholder within four of the bids, contributing about $440,000 a year in assessment assessments. Combined with our bids and buyers, they collect about $11 million in annual revenue, including 8.4 $8.5 million directly from assessments either from property owners or business owners. Given the important role that business districts play in our city and the state law that entrusts the city council to establish these district, we believe that it's in the interest of transparency, open government. It would be beneficial for the city auditor to review these districts and associations and provide recommendations and best practices to assist them. This is a good government item in an effort to just improve and inspire public confidence in all of our entities. Our business districts are quasar government because there is a obviously a relationship and they have to come before the city council for proof that approval year after year. It's they've been involved in place for in our city for four decades and we've never had any such checks or controls. And I think this is this is necessary at this point. So I would encourage your support. Councilman Price. Thank you. Well, I support the intent behind the item, as has been explained to me. And I think transparency is is always a good, positive thing. I just want to make. Sure that the. Item is the request is limited. In scope to what's. Identified in the staff report as a review of internal controls over how funds are handled, compliance with the city agreement and possible benchmarking on best practices. That's what it's limited to. I also want to make sure and I talked with Councilman Austin about this, that the intent that this item is designed based on reading the item for our bids and our PE bids, but we have one bid that often it's not a bid, but often folks think is falls into the bid category. And that's the Belmont Shore Parking and Business Improvement area. That's a different organization. It's a merchant bid. It's a mayoral appointment for the body. The city pays zero into it. The commercial property owners are assessed to mulgrew's property tax. And just like any other entity or commission that operates within the city, they're subject to audits any way they could be. I just want to make sure they're not included in this item, because I think this item is designed for and based on my conversations with you, the bids that that receive money from the city and and are not part that they don't have mayoral appointments. The Belmont Shore parking commissioner, for example, is established via ordinance. So I just want to make sure they're not included in this item. And that's the intent of this body. The intent was for birds and bees and as as written, I'm not I don't see that that the parking improvement district was included in that. I would defer to the city auditor for some clarification, if possible. Mr. Goodhew, did you need something? Thank you. Mr. Mayor. Members of the council. Thank you. The way I understood it, too, was to start out with those puppies that the city does have an interest in. The city is a property owner of four of the bids. So we would start with the four bids that the city is a property owner and that pays the $440,000 annually and to ensure that the city is that the funds are being used as intended. At that point, we could either. Conclude the audit and apply the findings to the rest of the bid so that they're all uniform and standard. Or we could expand it and and do others if requested. So I think. If we were to start now, we would start with the four bids in which four PE bids in which the city is a property owner and start there. Okay. Thank you for that clarification. And I read this item as kind of the start to establishing some best practices which I'm all in favor of. So if the best practices were developed as a result of, you know, some sort of a sampling or audit practice, and those best practices could be applied to all the bids, I would have no problem with that. The one concern that I have is if there is going to be a financial undertaking by any of our bids to comply with an audit, I'm concerned about them using their very limited resources to hire consultants or somehow be responsive to audit requests. And I don't know what that process would entail. I would hope that it would be more of a collaborative process so that the bids with limited resources aren't using money to, you know, hire a consultant to be able to comply with an audit or help them through an audit. Yes. I don't foresee that being a problem. This is a very limited scope audit as recommended in the action regarding the internal controls over their funds and to ensure they're being used as intended to ensure that they're in compliance with their contract and then to do some benchmarking and identify best practices. This is a very limited scope as as requested in the item, so we won't be branching out further than that at this point. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Pier. Could we go to a public comment first? Sure. This is no objection on the other speakers in the motion public comment. Okay. Public comment. Please come forward. Very good, you clerc as the address as one has attended a number of meetings of the Belmont Shore Parking and Improvement Association. One of the things that was brought to my attention and I think it would apply here to to anyone. Is to make sure that we don't have what was presented a couple of weeks ago with the airport situation where there's a conflict of interest. If you've got landlords, if you have people on the commission that are landlords. And also commissioners that happened to be a landlords tenant. I think you have an inherent conflict of interest there, i.e. vote my way or your rent goes up. Right. So I think you need to. On any of these. Make sure that that situation does not exist. That there's no inherent. Conflict of interest. As I say, it's just happened to be what you had with the Air Force situation, according to some people. And I haven't followed all those details, but I would suggest you get inside of that to make sure that that does not exist in any improvement to any situation like this. That's an allegation. There's no conflict that's been determined. Just wanted to clarify that in regards to the airport item, I think that's important. Yeah, you can always accuse anyone of anything that hasn't been proven to be true. But I do know I do know of situations where that does exist. I mean, it's the landlord and the tenant are the are in the commission. Okay. I think time's up. Thank you. Next speaker. Good evening, Mr. Mayor. Members of the city council, Craig Koch with the downtown Long Beach Alliance, one of four one of the four property based improvement districts. In the city. That the city does. Own property and. Pays us the full amount of assessments. We also do manage a tenant or merchant based bid, so we do have both models in our downtown for purposes. Of good government and transparency. The bids. Already comply. Meeting state requirements on the Brown Act and the Public Records Act. So any of this information is available at any member at any time by members of the public. We also do form I'm sorry. We also do complete and submit form 700 conflict of interest forms every year. Each of our board members and. Staff members comply with those requests. So I think there's good practice occurring on a daily basis relative to those requirements. Frankly, I'll be happy. To comply with any of these requirements that are being made. This evening of our organization. In fact, I've. Already sent. The ARTAS office a draft of our our independent audit, which we conduct on an annual basis, as well as our Form 990 that we're. Requested to submit as well. So that's all available. But I can't really speak for the other bids and the limited capacity that they may have. And I thank thank Councilmember. Price for. Bringing that up, because some of those bids do have limited capacity. But on the whole, I think. We are. Complying with state regulations and state. Expectations and certainly are very interested in this item. Frankly, it's it came it came to all of us as a surprise, not having any information in advance other than having the council agenda item posted and us asking. Ourselves. What was going on and really what the motivations were. So I'm really interested in hearing more about. That as well as what really. Transpires. From this point on. Thank you. Thanks, Speaker. Good evening. Tosha Hunter, director of Uptown Business Improvement District. And just wanted to say that we are one of those smaller bids and I am the only staff person there. So we would definitely comply with anything that is asked of us. And to mirror a lot of the things that Mr. Cogen said when I came into this position, I asked for an immediate audit. We work with an outside agency that handles all of our books and our paperwork, so we would definitely comply. But things like this could be a strain. We're up for renewal. And that right there and and meeting the needs of our property owners and our businesses and keeping all the clean and safe. I was just here last week giving my presentation for my annual report, and so hearing about the audit would definitely be a strain because we're working towards that renewal. So I also wanted to say that in addition to be a strain on us or me, I should say for the Uptown Business Improvement District city staff as well, Jim Fisk is very helpful with us to us and undergo an audit like this. I can just imagine what it would put on his plate. He's been very supportive and just want you to kind of reconsider this and the finances. It would not a if there was any type of financial component that this would cause us, our bid would fail. And I'm not here for failure. So thank you so much. Thank you. See no other public comment? I'm going to go back to Councilmember Pierce who deferred the floor. Thank you. I want to also echo that I didn't get a lot of information on this item before it came forward and hearing from several phone calls today. What I've learned is that many of our bids already do an audit, already have information that is is already done in-house, that we don't want to add an additional strain . And third is that we just voted on a transparency item for open data. And so I'm would like to suggest I would like to make a substitute motion that we have Jim Fisk work with all of the bids to provide their information through this are open data that we just decided to vote on everything from management plans to annual reports to the seven seventies being on there already for full transparency. And that way we're not getting into doing a second audit of somebody that's already paying for an audit, that we're not doubling the work and creating more work that we do that first before we take another step. Okay. There's a substitute motion and a second. I think there was a second by Vice Mayor Richardson. Cutler appears to have anything else. That is it. Thank you. Vice Mayor Richardson. Okay, Councilman. I'm sorry. Councilman Ringa was the second motion by Pierce. Customary Ringa. Yeah, I totally agree. I think that this is a duplicate duplicative to say correctly, and I think that it should also, you know, I think the people that are doing responsible, good work and, you know, the strain already caused by having to maintain the bids in the year long basis and the artillery duty. You know, one thing that you include in terms of the following, the browning. Rules. I think that says it enough for me right there that I'm pretty sure that you're on the up and up. But I can't support the motion as presented. But I do support the substitute. Thank you. Vice Mayor Richardson. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I'm going to support the substitute motion. So just my thoughts here. Over the past few years, bids have really stepped up in the wake of the loss of redevelopment, particularly in North Long Beach. When we saw the last redevelopment come in, my predecessor, Steve Neal, had the foresight to say, look, we're going to need some deal making ability here in uptown and, you know, charged us with let's go create a business district. It was not easy. We had responses from, you know, you know, city staff, a number of folks saying this might take you a decade, but no one had ever pulled the businesses in the room and asked them, were you willing to step up if the city steps up and partners with you to create it? And to our surprise, they did. They enough property owners signed a petition and voted on it. But since then, it hasn't been easy. Like people like going from, you know, very little capacity to the presentation we saw two years to two weeks ago. And City Council has taken a lot. It's taken resources. It's taken manpower. It's taken a lot of collaboration. So so while I you know, I do support transparency. Transparency should go in collaboration and go hand in hand with collaboration. And so I was surprised today that I was surprised. I was out of town when I heard about this, but I was surprised to see that COBA, the Uptown Business District and a number of the business districts had no idea that this was coming. And that's just so strange to me because I see that I see them as an extension of the city's family. And I think this sends a bad message if we do that. I saw a couple of things. So, number one, I feel that the motion, you know, substitute motion is good. If we want to learn more about what the business districts are doing across the city, they already report the was annually and they get very little questions and they prepare for those. And he takes time and those things are on record with the city. So let's just ask them. Let's work with, you know, Jim Fisk and our economic development folks, see what they're already doing and said before we commit them to extra work and place that information in an open space. Right. Put it on the open data platform. That should be something that, you know, doesn't take a lot of staff time. And we're already, you know, placing emphasis on open data. We might say it's very little impact. But if, you know, a business is being audited by a government, whether it be the city of Long Beach or the IRS, you need to, you know, hire people and build capacity to be responsive in a way that your property owners feel confident in. So we may say it's it's no capacity need it, but any smart person would say, you know, strap up, lawyer up or get get, you know, ask your accountant to spend more hours than what you budget to prepare to respond to it. So that's so I'm concerned about the, you know, financial nature of it. Next, I think, you know, there are a lot of questions that could be answered in terms of renewal schedules. How are they coordinated renewals, vigils? Because sometimes we participate, sometimes we don't, and we need to be aware of that. So that's something we can look at in the open data space. You know, what is the history of of audits like? If we wanted to look at the history a lot is what do we even get them? That's a question. Another thing, you know, I have a good relationship with my business district. I, you know, I, I know would find it troublesome if I, as a council member would be upset with a decision my business district has made and, you know, slap them with an audit because I have that power and I'm concerned about whether that's the intent here or not. It doesn't matter. I'm just concerned about the perception or appearance of an abuse of power, because we have access to a city auditor that elected officials make the decision when to deploy. And that's just troublesome for me. And I would not say anything about anybody here at the dais, but that's when this recommendation comes up. It is up. You know, that's that's a question for us all for those reasons that, one, the business districts were were clueless on this. Number two, we never asked city staff report and I don't remember any questions, not just about any questions from the council during the annual reports. Then I think we haven't demonstrated any progressive level of inquiry before going to an audit and I think that is no way to really cultivate collaboration. So that's why I'm going to support the service, the motion. Councilman Mongo. That's a lot of information. I didn't know about the item, but I don't have a permit or a bit in my district, so I didn't think too much about it. But I do know that we went through quite a extensive presentation today from our economic development director, and one of the things that I'm really proud of is since taking office, the fifth District has started 562 new businesses, and that's 562. It's our area code. It's it's really something we're proud of. And most small businesses don't make it in the first two years. And so when I was reviewing the Business Health app that our economic development department is launching and talking to them about the resources available and how we now want to go out to our bids and ask them to go in and check on the businesses that are in red because their business license hasn't been renewed. Perhaps they're having financial challenges. We're talking through what that looks like. I was hoping we'd be going to our bids with those kinds of requests in the near future. I am aware that they do an annual review and present all that information to us. I'm looking forward to being able to help them more efficiently respond to praise in the same way that we do and that we need to put all our data online. Every single council item needs backup documentation attached to the item, even if it's a week after all of the things that are handed out need to be attached . We need to scan all the documents that are in this building and get those archived immediately. And I haven't seen a statement of work on that. I don't know that we know where we're going on that. So I want to see open data be our solution, and I need to see a more aggressive timeline on that. I'll also say that. I really value having an independent auditor in auditor. DOWD And Laura does an exceptional job of bringing together her own internal auditors to discuss what the 2017 plan is going to look like. And so when they do that, they do it from a position of knowing and understanding all the audits that they've seen , the issues that they've had. I've met with her on this several times, and so I'm not super comfortable saying we as the city council are now going to instruct you to change your plan and change some things about that. However, if the substitute motion is successful and you and your team want to amend your own plan and your own timeline because you feel that this is a concern area. I've reviewed the list both with you in the past of what you're doing in 2017, and I think there are things on it that I'm really looking forward to seeing and seen very soon. And when I compare it to the need a necessity for this kind of review. Again, I didn't hear from my community on this because all of our business associations are volunteer, so they wouldn't be impacted, but I think they would value the best practices that would come from the review. But I'm inclined at this time to continue to listen to my colleagues, but to support an open data model that is in the direction of self reporting online, what you've already done so that it's easily accessible and a place where your your CO businesses would go without using a PRA to see what you've already done. It's easy to give that back to the board, but to give it to all your business members, to give it to all the community people who aren't members, I think that there's some value in that. So that's the direction I'm leaning at this time. Thank you. I want to go to Councilman Austin, Councilman Gonzalez, and then a vote. Councilman Austin. Thanks. And I think there's been some some miscommunication and some mis interpretation of the intent. The original motion asked the city auditor to do three things review internal controls of how funds are handled and spent by Pids and BS to how they are operating in compliance with the City Agreement. And three possible benchmarking as to how other cities oversee P bids and report back to the City Council findings. Now, there's nothing in that limited scope that would, in my opinion, at any cost, any any operating procedures of a bid. And if that that that would be something. And if so, that would be something that we could take on, I think is very, very important in terms of public confidence, since, you know, our public dollars are being passed through these entities. They are always I public, public. They don't have the same level of accountability as our city departments, but they function very much as a as the arm of the city, as as was mentioned by the the extension of the city, as was mentioned by one of the council members. I do have a question regarding the city auditor scope, and maybe this is for the city attorney or the city auditor. Does the city council direction or lack of direction impact the scope of what the city auditor actually can look at? Because if, for example, this substitute substitute motion or substitute motion that's actually on the floor would take us in a whole different direction and take the city auditor out of the scope based on direction here. But does canvas does the city auditor have the scope to and I believe she does audit independently. The right is separately elected auditor that does have the independent. There's specific requirements under the charter that the auditor is required to do. But in addition to that, as a separately elected official can to undertake additional audits. Okay. Thank you. And I don't believe that any of our bids have anything to hide. I think they are operating in good faith. I work very closely with the business improvement districts in my, my, my, my district, and I'm very impressed with the output and work that they do. But this is a IT issue of, like I said, good government, right? We do not want to have issues. And, you know, I've heard of issues in other other areas of the city. We have new bids coming online. I'd like to bring on another bid in my district. Right. But, you know, best practices want to be we want to make sure that best practices are established. I don't have an issue with open transparency and open data, but I've heard also that that audits have already been done. If that's the case, I'd like to make a substitute substitute motion. Right. To to. Expand the scope of the original motion. Basically review the internal controls of how funds are handled and split number two, how they are in compliance with city agreements. And three, possible benchmarking as to how other cities bids are functioning and best practices and report back to the City Council with that if if bids have already done internal audits. Well, let's take a step out of the process. Let's ask them 2 to 2. Volunteer those those that information to the city auditor. And I think that would streamline and get to the to the cut to the chase. And again, I'll make sure that we are doing all we can to ensure that the public confidence and public trust is is is that here to. And I'll make the motion for the substitute. Substitute. There's a substitute substitute. Is there a second on the subject? Catherine Austin, can you. Chime in on the subject to substitute their. Okay. Is there a motion for the substance substitute, which is Councilwoman Price? Yeah, but I would like a little bit of clarification. I want to second because I want to talk about it, but I definitely want some a little bit of clarification on it too, because it sounds reasonable. I want to hear from my colleagues about it, too. Okay, Councilwoman Gonzalez. Yes. Can you just clarify a little bit of your motion again, Councilmember Austin, so I can. Suggest the original motion with in addition to allow it allows the the bids who have undertaken independent audits or their own audits to present that information to the city auditor's office for review. Okay. It seems like it's the same motion. But what? I'll just say. Well, thank you for clarifying. I appreciate it. And so I'll say that I am also I'm you know, in looking at this item, I maybe I have to go back to basics and think that sometimes we just have to pick up the phone and contact our business improvement districts. And I think in terms of fairness as well, when I look at the Business Improvement District page on our website, you know, it also includes tourism and airport and downtown. And so I think that we're we it looks to me that we're being a little piggy and choosy as to who we want to include in this. And so I, I just don't think that this is an item that I would be able to support, because I don't feel like the lines of communication are open. I feel as though Jim Fiske is there for a reason. He's there to ask any questions. I know I've contacted him quite frequently about any questions I've had. I have Magnolia Industrial Group in my my district, the downtown Long Beach Associates, and I've attended the meetings. And if there's questions that are raised, we go through that and we talk about it. But I, I think that heading in this direction, I don't know is the best option at this point. But I do believe that there needs to be some framework put in place to be able to have checks and balances in some degree. But that framework needs to be put in place. And I think before getting there, we should put that framework in place. So that's my. Next step is Councilmember. Councilmember Supernormal. I'd just like to ask the city attorney to clarify the relationship between a council office and the bid. We had this discussion. I think I was on the job for a month or so when this came up and you explained it in detail that there's a bit of a firewall, for lack of a better term, between the council office. So I'm a little curious how we could a council office could trigger an audit. Mayor. Members of the council. Yes. An individual council member could not trigger an audit. I mean, that's why the item is before the council today to acting as a body to request the city auditor. The conversation that we had as once the city adopts or creates the permit, it becomes an instrument or an agency of the city under state law. So it becomes the responsibility of the city to approve the annual plan and to approve the documents and their operations going forward. But an individual council member under the charter can't direct or to do that under section two. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Councilmember Pearce. Yeah. I think I just wanted to reiterate the only thing I can support the substitute. Substitute? Because I feel like we we already have beds that are providing information and just making sure that we go forward with that step first and going through the transparency process. If, in fact, there is a need then for the city auditor to do an audit. She doesn't need our direction to do that. So I'm just reiterating that I would ask that you support my substitute. Thank you. K Vice Mayor Richardson. Thank you. I, I don't think that the substitute substitute is responsible, responsive to the council's comments or the public comment. It's very similar to the original motion. If anything, it expands on the original motion. And so for that reason, I can't support it. When we you know nothing against our city auditor, we love our city auditor. But I think we just need to be careful when we deploy or make requests of our city. And and then I would say, I think the request about like more information is good. And I think that the appropriate person to do it. We should ask the city manager to ask Jim Fiske to put together a report on what a lot of these things are and start, you know, these best practices, see what those things are they can collaborate with in order. They can collaborate with the cities. That's the first step to a two from four. And let's explore what's out there. Until that's happened, I still don't I still isn't clear to me what the need for this motion is. It hasn't been clear to me in the lack of the progressive inquiry still remains. Councilman Austin. Okay. Well, it's it I it's very clear that that the, the will of the council is to, uh, to not, not pass or to not support the city auditor looking at bids, which is questionable to me. Right? Because it has been stated by the city attorney that that they are entities of the city. Right. And that public resources are going through these these agencies. And there should be greater transparency and accountability. Right. I don't think that any business improvement district has ever had any sort of of of public audit to this point. And so, again, the thought was just a matter of good government, right? Responsible government, making sure that we are crossing our T's and dot in our eyes. And and this this council ultimately is is going to be held responsible. Now, when members of the public are questioning the integrity of any public entity. Right. Or any agency. They come to us. They hold us accountable as a council. Right. They're not going to go to, unfortunately, Mr. Cogen, because not an elected official. You're not going to go to torture Hunter. She's not an elected official. They're going to go to their elected official and question. And and oftentimes we do get these questions as. As elected officials from disgruntled business owners or individuals who have had some sort of business with with the with the bid for one reason or another. This, I think, protects them. This this this motion my motion actually helps the bid's in increasing, like I said, public confidence in the integrity in which their business is done. And like I said, I have no reason to question the integrity of the bids in any area of the city. But I think it's important for us to put controls in. And so I'm going to stand on my motion and ask that members you support, then reconsider some of your positions. Because I don't think walking away and turning the your head to turn and turning a blind eye to where public funds are actually being. Utilize is a responsible approach. Thank you, Councilmember Ringo. Thank you, Mayor. One question about this motion. Would this be if for free? I don't have it in my district. Not right now. But I'm working on one. And my fear is, is that if we pass this motion as a substitute, as it's currently worded, I'm afraid that any future implementation of a permit in my district, as an example, would add another another step in that process of them doing an audit. And I have to correct I have to state that when we use the city auditor to do an audit, it is not an independent audit, it's our audit. We're ordering it. And she is our auditor and I'm. And when the P do their audits, I'm guessing you're using an independent auditor. So I would not and not to besmirch the city auditor's job, but there's already an independent audit in place. And this is duplicative, as I said before. So I'm going to call a question on this. There's a the question has been called, is there is there any objection to go to a vote? I object. I'd like to say to object. Okay. There's objections. So? So on a call for the question is not available. Is there a second on the call? Is there a second? Is your second call for the question. Councilman Pierce. So. So we'll take a. Vote a second. And it would have to pass by a majority of six votes in favor in order to call for the question. No. Okay. You drop it, I withdraw it. Okay, so we're going to move on to Councilwoman Mongo. Thank you for withdrawing your comment because I feel that some of the things that have been said, I just I'm going to say I hope that they weren't intended to me because I, I personally do support auditor out doing audits of anyone she and her staff determine need to be audited. That's how much I trust her. She is the most supported elected official in our city, in my opinion, and if she thought that this was important, I would completely 100% support her. And after tonight, she can still do that. What I have a hesitation with is. I don't see all the beds here or COBR and all the other groups, and I don't have relationships with all of them because they're not in my district. But but I do not take a blind eye to any of them, even when they are not in my district. And I will continue to utilize the process currently in place that I do believe in. Of the annual reports. Tosha, you and I have only met once, but I thought you did an exceptional presentation a few weeks ago and similar to the comments from Councilman Price. I've shared your story already with the board of our Volunteer Spring Street Business Association, and they want to meet you and hear about what you're working on. And when I think of those presentations, I think of that. And so not for the reasons that you'd mentioned. And and to be honest, before you mentioned those, I was leaning toward supporting your substitute substitute. But but for the reasons that I stand on the grounds that the city has a process. And if we want to change that process, I think we should do it with support of COBA and the leaders of those organizations, because as I mentioned last week, it's hard to get people to volunteer. This is the first time in our city's history that we only have 24 vacancies on commissions. I have often asked people to step up and be on commissions and the commitments and the scrutiny and the form seven hundreds and all those things. They're deterrents and I support them and I thank them for their service and I think them for what they put in. And I do think that there are certain. Bits that perhaps could use an audit more than others. And I think that that is at the discretion of the person with the certification. And and for that, I'll support the. Second motion. Thank you. Okay. We're going to go to Councilman Price, Councilman Gonzales, and then vote. Councilman Price. Okay. Thank you. I'm going to try to keep it quick, but I will say I don't understand this whole calling for the question concept. I've been on this body now for a year and a half, and it wasn't until very recently that people started doing that. I really don't understand that at all. We all represent our constituents. We we worked very hard to get in these positions. We should be able to talk as much as we want about an issue. I mean, imagine being able to be going back to your constituents and saying, you know what, I didn't even have enough votes to express my opinion on the item. I mean, I just we should at least be able. It's I understand it's late, but we all ran for public office. And that includes a lot of positives and a lot of negatives. And working late is one of the negatives. And allowing your colleague to speak on an item that they feel is important that they should speak on is is the basic of respect that we should be showing one another? That's just my opinion. I will never, ever ask to call the question if one of you has something to say about an item ever. That's my commitment to my colleagues. If you feel you need to say something for your constituents, I will never cut you off from that. And I just we never did that before. I have no idea what's happening. So I would just ask us to really think about that. You know, I, I did reach out to the bid in my district and spoke with them at length about this. They're on board. They're fine with the item. I did speak with Jim Fiske. He was fine with the item as well. His concern was whether or not our bids were going to have to take on an additional cost to, you know, respond to the audit, which I think the city auditor has done a good job with. If you read the item on its own, which is what I did when I signed on to the item, it makes a lot of sense. And to me, if we were talking about any other issue, I can't imagine our council would have a problem with what it's asking for, which is establishing best practices for something that we are utilizing in the city and hope to utilize, more of which is bids. And I think I have to be quite honest, I think there's something else going on here that's beyond what's written on this item, and I don't know what that is. I think the item is a good item. I think the intent behind the item is a good item. I don't know. I sense and I could be totally wrong, but I sense there's something else going on that that is not readily apparent from the four corners of this document. So. You know, one of the things I was listening to NPR the other day and they were talking about Joe Biden. And one of the things that his colleagues were saying across the board was whether they disagreed with him or not. He never questioned their motives. And we do that every once in a while here. And I don't get that. I really don't. You know, we can disagree, but, you know, questioning one another's motives is just ugly and unnecessary. I think if you read this item and step aside, it's basically saying if you look at the last paragraph, we've several bids have been in place for many years. Others have recently been established, given the important role of business districts in supporting and promoting our business and property owners. It would be beneficial for the city auditor to review these districts and associations and provide recommendations and best practices to assist bits and pieces, especially those in which the city is a major stakeholder. If you look at it for what it says and don't read beyond it, I think it's a very reasonable item. Maybe I'm totally wrong on that. I'd like the substitute substitute, because what it's saying is if you are a bid that obtained an independent audit, we don't have to do another audit. You can provide that data. And I think that takes care of some of the concerns that were that were raised by De Alba, who's represented if we need to do more outreach, maybe we should do more outreach. I just I don't think that the item on its face. Is all that I think is being insinuated. It is. And if if it is, I'm not aware of that because I'm reading this document, which seems very reasonable to me. So, you know, I think if we were to step back and say, is this something that we would support absent the personalities absent, then we should support it. I just I hate to have personality come in the way of policy if we think it's a good policy. I think best practices are an excellent idea. I think the auditor helping us get there is a fantastic way for us to to do it together in a consistent fashion. So with that, I turn the floor over and I thank you for indulge me with that. Three point blank seconds of dialog. I hope that didn't set everyone back too far in their night. Councilman Gonzales. Yes, I appreciate the dialog. Just really quickly, I just I'm not understanding why none of these questions were raised during each of the approval processes for each of the bids that we had over the year. And so that's. You know, we we stood here and we talked to in many of the business improvement districts, they came, they presented. We told them how great they were. No questions. No questions. And so now we're we're looking to do this. And I don't think any business improvement district has a problem doing the audit. I don't think that's the issue. There is no question behind that. I just think in terms of process like we've talked about, in terms of just being able to have communication lines open, it's just a little it's a little much. And we have Councilman Austin. Thank you. And I'll just respond to Councilmember Gonzalez, because you you you quote, you said, we need to put a framework in place. This item asks for our city auditor to look at best practices. Right. You said that you don't believe that any of the bills have are opposed to doing this, but the city council is. That doesn't make sense. That doesn't make sense for council members who have who have serious stakes in this in this process. We all support our bids. And yes, last week the Uptown came and gave a presentation weeks before that to be back, even gave a presentation. And we love them for their excellent work. We want to continue that. Don't don't get me wrong. This is not an attack on our our business improvement districts. And that's what I think the the that has been the intent or the frame that that way it's not an attack on them. This is something to just improve our processes to make sure that we're streamlining and everybody is understands across the city that, you know, the city auditor may come in and and do an audit to to make sure that the books are good and that and in doing that, our residents, our businesses are going to feel a lot better about the process. They're going to feel good about their bids, as they hopefully do about their city city government, because it's a lot more transparent. That's the intent of the motion. And again, I would ask for you to support it, because I don't think anybody has anything to hide here. Kate, thank you very much. There is a vice mayor Richardson. Thank you. I just want to just say a couple of things, though. Some dog whistle politics. Something's going on. There's more to the story. I didn't place this agenda item on the on the city council agenda. And I don't think the other one turning our heads. I don't I didn't hear anybody here say, turn your heads. What we're saying is open your eyes and turn around your ears. Look at what's available first. Set a baseline and a justification for why we want to impose something on our business community, which is very important to many of us. And look at what's available. Key word, collaboration. It's a few red flags here. No heads up to Cuba. Both of the business districts in North Long Beach in uptown. No heads up to them or their boards. No heads up. No courtesy call or anything. No, no. No one knew anything. That that's that's the assumption. Well, the two people who spoke and I got the floor, but two people who spoke in public comment tonight, both did not say we're on board. What they said was and I can be more candid than they did. Look, whatever you put down us, we're going to swallow. That's fine. We will eat it. But I want you to be crystal clear. We did not know what this is. We don't know what it is. And we're struggling to figure it out. What is the rush like? Do your own homework. Let's look at what we have. Do the work of doing the diligence that is good public policy, that is good governance and built confidence in our business districts. And then and you have my word, I will support it if if the stuff comes back and there's additional things we need to look at. Great. But this is not how the city council should operate. And there is no there's something else going on here. I just think this like if anything else, someone said, take yourself out of it. And if anything else was happening, if we just jumped out of the blue and said, let's go, you know, do a performance evaluation on city manager randomly, that implies that there's a performance issue that provides you you want to know what the greater context is. That's what's happening here. So if there's greater context, we all want to know. Put it on the table if that's what it is. Otherwise, start do what we're asking for. We will go down this path with you. But let's show some progressive sort of inquiry. Let's find out what's there and do it. Partnership with all our business districts. It's just too many questions here. So. So I felt the need to sort of justify based on the dog whistle comments tonight. We're going to go and vote on the substitute substitute. The city auditor don't want to comment. Yeah, I would just like to make a clarification on a statement that was made. I'd like to clarify. A statement was made that the city auditor isn't independent because the city auditor is works for the council. But that's not. I just wanted to clarify that the city auditor is is independent, just as other independent auditors are are independent. So I needed to clarify that result. And I think the independent audits that the P bids and the. A's are receiving. Are different than what our office would be looking at. So we would ensure that business owners and property owners are receiving the intended benefits that their assessments are supposed to give them, that there is approximately $11 million annually coming in from assessments in the ten and a half years that I've been the city auditor. There are never there never has been an internal control audit on the p bids or to look at whether or not the businesses and property owners are receiving the intended benefit, whether or not the city is providing adequate oversight. Whether or not. The contract is they are in compliance with the contract. So there are a lot of questions that I don't think have been looked at that we would be looking at. So if the council. Voted to approve this item. That's when we would take that as a priority. According to our audit plan, we would we would move this item up in priority to what we were planning to do. If the item is not passed, then we would. I would regroup with my team and. Determine what what. Step would we take next. Thank you, Auditor. Just as we're going to go and go to a vote and as also as a reminder, I think whether the council votes for the sub sub or the sub. Obviously our city auditor has the ability to audit any, any, any group, anything associated with the city. And we're public dollars are involved. And so I think that's something that you had mentioned right now. And so I think it's important for the council to know that her and her team can and will audit any area of the city, I think, regardless of this vote. So we have we have a sub sub first. So I want to make sure I'm clear with the subset which is Councilmember Austin sub subs. Then we have the substitute motion which is Councilman Janine Pearce and then back to the main motion. So please vote on the substitute substitute motion. Councilman Austin. Thank you. She feels right. It's a dead heat. Mission fails. Yeah. I'm sorry. I didn't see the vote. Is the voting machine not working or. It's it's okay. Okay. So motion. Should fail. Now we have the substitute motion, which was Councilwoman Jeanine Peirce's motion on the floor. Motion carries. Okay. Motion carries. Great. Thank you. Moving on to the next item, please. But we got to the hearing. So a hearing, please.