Recommendation to conduct a study session to receive and file an update on the City’s Strategic Vision efforts.
Thank you. And I would be happy to do that to thank you for for that invitation to do so. Happy to do that. With that, we are going to go ahead and go into our study session. We can read that, please. Item 19 is the study session recommendation to conduct a study session to receive and file an update on the city's strategic vision efforts. I will now turn this over to the staff. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Members of the City Council. So in 2019, the City Council embarked on a effort to create an updated strategic plan looking to the future or strategic vision. We've done a number of strategic plans in the city and some really great work, and this is kind of an overarching effort to pull all of those together and to really create a document that helps us kind of focus and look to the future. So we started that effort in 2019, and then along with many things, we had to take a pause during COVID and we've restarted that effort. So tonight you're going to get an update of some of the work that's been happening. We're not asking for any specific direction tonight, although we certainly welcome comments and then we'll be bringing this back to you in summer so that you have a chance to really dove into it a little bit deeper. And with that, I'll turn it over to both Theresa Chandler, our deputy city manager, and Kelly Collopy, our director of Health and Human Services. Good evening, honored mayor and members of the city council. As Tom mentioned, in the early in October of 2019, the City Council directed city staff to develop a strategic vision for the city that would reflect the next ten years to 2030. We were in we were in the middle of all that and providing and then when COVID hit, it was set aside. Tonight, we are here this evening to provide an update to that strategic vision planning process and to and to really just sort of give you insight into what we are hearing. We began this journey in partnership with Arup Consulting Firm in February of 2020. However, due to COVID, we were delayed and we are just now sort of back and really engaged and working through it. Fortunately, we've been able to pick up where we left off and we've been able to have conversations with many of you, in fact , all of you throughout the process. In this evening's study session will provide a high level update of where we are in the process. We'll share the goals and themes that have emerged collectively from the work to date. Provide an update on our progress. Share what we've heard and our next steps. Our goal of this work is to develop a tenure. Well, nine year now strategic vision for our city that reflects your voices, the voices of our teams and the voices of our community by way of using an equity and resiliency lens in this design process. This vision will help focus and prioritize our work as we emerge from this pandemic and move toward an even brighter future. Just about all of our city departments have their own strategic plans as departments or for specific focus areas to help guide their work. All of which elicited community feedback as part of their planning process. It wasn't necessary to start from scratch, given the rich information used to create each of these plans. Therefore, we started the visioning process by reviewing and pulling out the common threads or themes that emerged across all of them. We spoke with each of you to elicit your feedback and visions specific to your council districts and for the city overall. We also conducted sessions with city excuse me, city leadership and staff to gather their thoughts for internal and external transformation. Though we are using the information gathered from the community during the strategic planning processes, as mentioned above, starting this week, we are also meeting communities where they are at to gather more information about their vision for Long Beach in 2030. And we'll simultaneously gather information from city staff who are on the ground working hard every day to meet the needs of community members. All of this rich data will lead us to the development of the road map for the future of Long Beach. From the 25 strategic plans across the city departments, over 15,000 community residents were engaged through those efforts. As I mentioned in the last slide, ten interviews were conducted with each of you and the mayor. We have a steering committee made up of city staff who meet monthly to provide guidance to the Arab team and city leadership participated in two listening sessions, and another listening session is on the horizon for city staff who are on the ground providing services day in and day out. This is an this is an all hands in effort designed to ensure voices from across the city are heard and are contributing to a collective vision. Now, Kelly is going to share more about what we heard in these sessions. We'd like to share more about what we heard from the interviews. The themes that were pulled from the various reports, as well as our visioning sessions with our employees. From the original, from the review of the plans, general themes emerged. They're focused on housing and homelessness, public safety, accessible public transportation, and safe places for active transportation, workforce development and economic inclusion, health, mental health and overall wellness education at all levels, beginning with the early child and throughout the lifespan. Digital inclusion. And climate change. And the environment. The conversations with you included these themes and highlighted included the themes of the strategic plans and also highlighted that we needed a focus on the basic needs of the city and ensuring that the basic needs are met across the city. You highlighted that equity must be a well integrated into our policies and program design as well as implementation and that resident interests are represented. Many of you discussed that in many ways. After this pandemic, we needed to return to the basics, ensure that all our communities have access to these basics, such as quality and reliable infrastructure, clean air and water, and ensuring safety in our homes and in our communities. This was framed in a conversation about ensuring that Long Beach is a desirable place to live. You highlighted the need for a resilient and diverse economy so that our residents can thrive while working, living, playing and raising their families in Long Beach. You also highlighted the importance of drawing businesses to the city and supporting innovative opportunities. And finally, you're focused on increasing civic engagement and working to create stronger community relationships and communication structures to ensure community voices are engaged in planning and decision making. Our Department Leadership and steering committee also focused on the importance of addressing the areas of greatest need in the city and working to prioritize resources and aligning them with the goals outlined in the strategic planning areas. They focused on addressing the digital divide to ensure that communities across the city have digital access and competency to learn, work and be civically engaged. They focused on environmental resiliency, ensuring that we have the infrastructures necessary to withstand the impacts of climate change, and also the ability to support those who are most vulnerable in our communities, such as older adults and those living in poverty who have limited access to healthy environments. And last but not least, they highlighted the need to support health and wellness by investing in children, youth and families to support the future of our city. This includes investing in early childhood education, workforce opportunities for parents, health and mental health services, as well as increasing access to healthy food and physical exercise opportunities in areas where they are most lacking. We know that to achieve what has been discussed through this presentation so far, it's absolutely essential to have a strong, vibrant and resilient city government. These next two slides really highlight the focus on our government. The Department Leadership and Steering Committee highlighted the importance of developing and strengthening mechanisms for equitable service investments, utilizing an equity lens and taking a long term planning view. They discussed the need for resiliency in the face of shocks that could be natural, manmade environmental or in the face of a pandemic such as we're experiencing now. And to ensure that we can continue to provide basic services and focus on a strong future. They talked about ensuring that we are strong, working together across departments to strengthen our ability to meet community needs by leveraging, not duplicating our efforts, including funding and talent. They also talked about the importance of community voices in the city's work and ensuring that they are engaged in our work together. There was also a focus on financial resilience and ensuring diversified funding streams clearly agreed upon priorities and investments in families, green infrastructure and safety, to name a few. They highlighted the need for accessible data that are shared across departments to support decision making investment determinations and to determine program effectiveness. They, however, needed to ensure our city employees are fortified and appreciated. This includes creating learning environments, growth opportunities, the ability to build skills while also maintaining a positive work life balance. And finally, they highlighted the need for technology investments to strengthen business practices and efficiencies, increase access to services for our community members, to support collaboration across departments and with the community, and to ensure flexibility in workspaces, including the ability to work remotely. Their vision of our city. Government truly highlights resilience, learning, engagement and financial strength through all that comes to our city. After reviewing all of the existing plans, working with city leadership staff in our legislative offices, we have gathered quite a lot of information in a short amount of time. We certainly have some ways to go still. However, we have drafted the statement of possibility for our city to uplift the vision. We are all working to achieve that. People are healthy, well, and feel safe in an equitable and fair community. Housing is affordable, protected and available. Economic opportunity exists for everyone. Transportation and mobility needs are met for individuals and for the community. The environment is sustainable and resilient. We are looking forward to diving deeper into making connections with the community members who may have not been engaged in earlier city planning efforts. This week, we will begin meeting residents at vaccine distribution sites in parks located in some of the hardest to reach neighborhoods in west, north and central Long Beach to elicit feedback about their vision for Long Beach in 2030. Conversations will be had with people who are waiting in line before getting their vaccine and with those who are waiting to be cleared. Post-Vaccination. These conversations will be available in Spanish, Tagalog and Kami, and the following questions will be asked during the conversations. Well, we'll start out by gathering demographic information, and then we're going to go into what resources did they did you and your family rely on the most to navigate through the year? Looking forward, what do you want the city to focus on as we recover as a community in the future? What does a well-prepared Long Beach look like and what is the most convenient way for you to give feedback in the future? The team will also conduct some employee listening sessions to engage staff in the visioning of their future. Questions to prompt these conversations will be developed soon and shared in the final report. Many city employees are also residents of Long Beach, and we want to make sure their voices are fully represented in this vision document as well. The slide outlines our next steps in moving this work forward. It's been moving full speed ahead since we reconvened at the beginning of this year, and I'm proud to share how far along in the process we have gotten in a relatively short amount of time with all of the trials, tribulations and lessons learned throughout this pandemic response . We have been able to bring more clarity and purpose to this strategic vision process. We have seen the highs and lows. Our areas for opportunity have been exposed. Our strengths have been uplifted. And this document will allow us to align across the city so that we are united in our work and service provision going forward. We will be moving towards completion through this summer after we finished the listening sessions. The Preliminary Strategic Vision Action Agenda will be drafted to help move us along the pathway at the duration of the drafting phase. We will deliver a presentation to all of you in a council meeting and once approved, we will share the final version with our city team. This is where we are so far. We are certainly looking forward to hearing your feedback about what we may want to still consider as we proceed to the finish line. Thank you for your engagement so far in this process and for your time this evening. And we are available to answer any questions you may have. Thank you. Thank you. I want to just obviously thank staff for all the work. After this epic brawl, I think we all can probably understand and appreciate this strategic plan directly. Pretty important documents. And they are obviously important as it relates to our departments, our community and how we move forward over the course of the next ten years especially . And so I just want to commend the staff for the work and for persevering, doing the work through the through the pandemic. I just want to also I know that tonight is not it's just an update and there'll be a lot more in the future. Mr. Modica about report is going to come down a month from now in the summer. Is that a draft or is that more of like what? What does that look like when when you come back to us? We're the mayor. The timeline is over the next couple of months. And so we anticipate that we'll, um, that we'll be pulling all that information and you'll get a draft and have an opportunity to review and um, uh, provide feedback and then we'll continue on to, um, to finalize. Okay. And the only other thing I'll add is I think that, um, our community input is really important in a process like this. And so, uh, I do appreciate the, uh, reaching out that you're all doing at the, at the vaccination clinics. And I'm just hopeful that, and I know that there's been obviously extensive community input over all the plans in the past and any other opportunities that there are to do. The additional input I think will be important, is what I'm sure you guys are all considering that as we as we move forward to. Thank you. I might have Vice Mayor Richardson. Thanks, Mr. Mayor. I'll be brief. I think it's great that we're doing this. I think it's important now. Given everything we just went through. A lot has changed about our city and about the vision. Needs to be factor of this input into it are two things that I wanted to just take this opportunity to lift up. One, I know we're doing outreach at the vaccination sites. I just want to say in North Long Beach, that's a fifth of the city's population. One site, you know, doing outreach in there is not going to really capture what you need captured. I think you should be looking at multiple sites or opportunities across North County, some massive areas the size of Compton, Carson. So you should be looking at both districts, eight districts, nine west, northwest, northeast, just fine opportunity because some people don't go to Highland Park for the vaccination site. The second thing I would say is and this was my sentiment and I don't know what everybody said in their interview, I enjoyed my interview with Short 30 Minutes, but the message for me was simple. It's in my opinion, you know, that there's this transition toward equity and advance in our city. Really. It should be owned by owned by the city, owned by the city staff, the employees. And we really should be looking at the city as an organization. It's organization focused. Make sure no neighborhood is left behind, not to counsel people or not, you know, politics. We are a place where it really the city, our key performance indicators of the city should be on how well we all are doing. So basic common denominator. We all should meet a certain level of response times. We should all be meeting a certain level of economic activity in areas with more unemployment other than other areas. That's where we should be putting our focus of workforce. But I think what I really want to see, since the organization is doing this visioning that the organization as a whole really think about how it's going to meet meet the future as it relates to equity. It shouldn't you know, it shouldn't be city council members or you know, we certainly can say we want to say, but really it should be a part of the service. Those are two things. I would I would just add. Keep up the great work report to the next. Thank you, Councilwoman Pryce. You, Mr. Mayor, and I really appreciate the presentation that that you guys have given, and you've already done a lot of work. I know there's still a lot more community engagement to be had. But just out of curiosity, was there any information that came out from the visioning efforts so far that was surprising to the team? Or was the information that you learned kind of further corroborating the track that we're on progress we're making? I think that there are many things that we heard that were aligning with what we've been hearing through other plans and things. I think the impact of the pandemic has shifted some view. For some, it's harder to think past what we've experienced. And so there has been a little bit of a step back and thinking about making sure that we really are settling and taking and taking care of the basic needs of our community, really focusing on, you know, access to food and access to safe spaces and and those sorts of things which in in previous conversations may not have been uplifted as much. So I think it did center a little bit more given the experiences of our city in the past year. Okay. That's good. I have, you know, do you know yet? Are there significant variations in the input that we've received from the public based on geography or socioeconomics or gender? Or are residents mostly in support of the same priorities in terms of strategic planning? At this point, Councilmember, that much of the information that has been brought forward has been pulled from the strategic plans that have been going on for the last few years. So if you think about the, you know, the CAP plan and you think about the blueprint for economic development and you think about the early childhood plan. And there are just so many different plans and the feedback from across the city is included in all of those plans. And we haven't gone through all the plans and broken out that I don't know that we actually have those data that indicate where all the those voices came from. But much of the themes that we have forwarded here have stemmed from a review and reading the comments and engaging with the more than 25 plans that the city has developed in recent years. Okay. I appreciate that. I know it's it's kind of a a bigger, broader question to think about as we move through this process. And I think, you know, for me, I enjoyed my interview with the team as well, but I think it will be interesting to see what the strategic vision and priorities are for a city that's as diverse as we are. Because I know, for example, delivery of government services and response times and the delivery of customer service or public service services is probably a major priority for the residents that I represent. I know just kind of the response times when they report an issue in terms of strategic visioning, you know, how do we continue to have good customer service as a city to all of the residents that I'm just curious because we hear that a lot. It's a priority. Whether that was a theme that people thought about in terms of strategic planning, that that customer service be be looped into the discussion as we talk about a future strategic planning . So I'd be interested to know after you guys do your listening tours, assuming you're going to do them all over the city and capture the diversity that makes the city so beautiful and yet so different throughout the various borders of our city, so that we can develop a strategic plan that really encapsulates priorities to the extent we're able to of the diverse communities that we all represent. So I thank you very much for starting these efforts, and I look forward to hearing more about them as we continue these discussions. Thank you, Councilwoman. The D.A.. Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to say thank you for the presentation. Very good presentation. I know that I really enjoyed my interview as well, but I think like Councilmember Rex had mentioned that, you know, it's really we really need to you know, what's more important is what the community sees. So our visions and I think that that's a great thing. And so I'm really thankful for you taking the time to actually try to reach those those folks that are hardest to reach. And in doing this pandemic, we have realized that how much how much residents we actually do have that are hard to reach. So I just wanted to say how much I appreciate you taking the effort and make our I should say, making the effort to really reach those and those folks that don't have a computer, that don't have a cell phone, that are victims of our digital divide and really trying to get their visions included as well. So thank you very much for that. Thank you. Is there any public comment on this item? There's no public comment on this item here. So I think the motion was by Vice Mayor Richardson and a second by Councilman Price, if that works. And with that, we'll go ahead and take a roll call vote. District one, District two I. District three. District I. District four. I. District five. I. District six. I. District seven. I. District eight. Hi. District nine. Hi. Motion carries.