Recommendation to request City Manager to work with the City Clerk to report back on the feasibility of allowing for telephonic public comment to be available at City Council meetings.
Next item is going to be item 21, please. Communication from Councilwoman Price, Councilwoman Zendejas, Councilman Super Not Councilmember Stronger recommendation to request city manager to work with the City Clerk to report back on the feasibility of allowing for telephonic public comment to be available at City Council meetings. Councilmember Price. In CA, I want to just highlight that some of the residents who were here earlier advocating for the accessibility on the beach item were also here for this item. And I shared with them that I would let the public know that they were here, but they couldn't wait as long as it took for this item to come forth. And I did commit to them that in the future when we have ADA items, we'll try to move them to the top, if we could. And that I would say that publicly as they asked me to say that I'm very glad to be bringing this item before the City Council. As we look at ways of making participation in council meetings accessible for everyone throughout the COVID 19 emergency, there have been creative solutions to follow state restrictions around public gatherings and social distancing. We've seen the availability of remote public comment provided by telephone become an incredibly useful way of offering greater access and accommodations for everyone to have a voice and participate in the important discussions facing our city. As we move back to holding in-person city council meetings, it's important that we ensure our public comment process is available to everyone. This should include individuals with disabilities for whom attending council meetings and providing public comment in person can be difficult, as well as residents who are simply unable to attend the meetings in person due to work or school schedules, transportation needs, childcare, the time needed waiting for their item to be called, or other reason that may constrain someone from attending a meeting in person or present some other substantial hardship. It's important that we fully evaluate the feasibility of continuing the use of telephonic remote access to city council meetings. Our city council discussions and the policies of our city are improved when everyone has the ability to participate in our meetings and provide their public comment, whether they can be present physically in the city council chambers, or if they prefer to participate remotely by telephone due to physical or other limitations that make in-person presence difficult. So I ask my colleagues to support this item, and I'm hopeful that the city manager can come back to us with a recommendation that feasibly. Works with. The limited budget that we do have to allow for access, even though that access may not be as robust and as detailed as it was during the COVID 19 pandemic, when no other option to attend meetings was present, some type of telephonic access can hopefully be accomplished through through a method that is within our budget. So thank you. Thank you. Councilwoman Zendejas. Thank you. Very smear. And thank you, Councilwoman Price, for bringing this item forward. I think it's very important. I also want to give a huge thank you to our city clerk office, who moved very swiftly during the pandemic to make sure that we had public comment access for our for our community, for our residents during the pandemic while we were holding our meetings online. So I know that you did a lot of research and a lot of hard work. And I for that, I thank you very much. And we were able to give everyone, all of the residents, the opportunity to be able to participate in our city council meetings that were being held online . As we all know, public comment is the opportunity for for our residents to participate in the decision making of their city. Thus, it is crucial that we look for ways to make it easier and more accessible for everyone to provide their thoughts, concerns and ideas at our city council meetings. We know that there are many challenges to attending in-person meetings, especially for people with young children. People who work late or who perhaps do not have transportation means to be able to come to city home or who may just feel uncomfortable doing so for either health reasons or any other reason. I also know that there are a lot of challenges, including costs, but I am confident that we can find tools that will be able to provide access to our residents to be able to do public comments during our city council meetings via telephone while being cost effective. I know my residents will definitely benefit from it immensely. Therefore, I'm very supportive of this item and I look forward to receiving this report. Thank you. Council member Urunga. Thank you. Very, very happy to sign onto the site. And I think it adds to the transparency of the city and being accessible to us in making their comments. Got childcare. Childcare is an important issue as well for people to participate here or might have an issue with that. So I'm glad to assign to this item and I know that the resourcefulness of our city manager and our staff will find a way to make it happen in a cost effective way. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Is there any public comment on this item? There is Nubia Flores, Kim Bong and carelessly. I know that they needed to leave a bit earlier. Okay. Right. Saying no for no further public comment. Sure. Come on down. Welcome to The Late Show with Vice Mayor Rex Richardson. The mayor had to leave or make at night whatever you want to call the show. Come on up. I Karen reside proud resident of the first district and with the Long Beach Gray Panthers. Missed you all very much. It's great to see you all in person. And I'm one of those that was reduced to calling in for comments. And I gave up. I mean, I sat for 45 minutes, one meeting because the queue was long and when it was near the end I was just cut off. So there's a number of issues with the telephonic system. It is important for those that are disabled and are, but it is a valuable service as long as there are some kind of fairly, fairly equitable distributed system. I know I signed up many more times than I got an opportunity to speak because it was limited to the first ten people that happened to be available at the time when you can call in and get in the queue. So I wasn't able to get into the queue in many times, so I've just resorted to sending in emails. But now it's busy legislative season, so it's hard for me to sometimes get emails and comments in before the deadline of 4:00 during the day. I also want to mention that it's been a year since people have been in our chambers and I was having a terrible time. I did speak to two groups tonight because they were having side conversations and I'm hard of hearing and when people have side conversations doesn't allow me to hear the speakers, particularly like the development services person who has a very soft voice. So I think we need to go back to reminding people to use their inside manners and to let them know that there shouldn't be any side conversations. And also the applauding makes it very hard to hear. And I was ready to get up and smack down a christianson. I'm sorry. That's just not tolerable behavior in a public meeting. Sara, thank you for letting me voice my feelings and it's good to see everybody looking forward to seeing you every week again. Good to see you, too. Thank you so much. That concludes public comment. Members, please cast your vote. Motion carries eight zero. Thank you. I think we're at number 26 next. Is that right?