Recommendation to: 1) Adopt resolution calling for the placement of a general tax measure on the ballot of the June 7, 2016 Regular Election to adopt a Transactions and Use Tax for a period of ten (10) years, and also calling for the placement of another measure on the same ballot establishing a Budget Stabilization ("Rainy Day") Fund;
Next up is item 12. Item 12 is actually four items. And so this is the resolution work that the city attorney prepared after last week's vote on the June measure. So there'll be four different votes. Madam Court, do you want to read the first item, please? Communication from City Attorney Recommendation to adopt resolution calling for the placement of a general tax measure on the ballot of the June seven, 2016 regular election to adopt a transaction and use tax for a period of ten years. And also calling for the placement of another measure on the same ballot, establishing a budget stabilization fund. Before I turn this over to the city attorney also, are we can we take public comment for all these in one or do you want to separate those out? You can do public comment for all four items at one time. Okay. Did you have a mr. City attorney general comment, if I. May, may or members of the City Council pursuant to your request on February 16th, this office has prepared the following documents before you this evening. The resolution, as introduced by the clerk, calls for the placement of two items or questions on the June seven, 2016 ballot as part of that resolution attached, or to ordinances that must be approved this evening by a minimum of six votes by the Council. And the ordinances will return next week for a second reading as requested. The first item is a temporary transaction and use tax on the sale and use of all tangible personal property sold at retail in the city. The t, u t as it's called, will be for general purposes at a rate of 1% for six years, declining to one half of 1% for four years. The tax will sunset after ten years. The ordinance requires the establishment of a citizens advisory committee consisting of five members nominated by the mayor and confirmed by the City Council . A Draft to you. The draft ordinance has been reviewed by the State Board of Equalization, which will collect the sales tax if it's approved by the voters on behalf of Long Beach. Pursuant to Proposition 218, a majority vote of the electorate is required for the passage of this measure. Attachment B to the resolution is an ordinance which creates a budget stabilization fund or a rainy day fund. If approved by the voters. This rainy day fund would require 1% of any new general tax revenues to be placed into this fund to offset the impact of future recessions or financial hardships faced by the city. It also governs the expenditures from and the administration of this fund. The second item that you will be asked to vote on tonight is a resolution indicating the Council's priorities for the use of the t u t funds for infrastructure repairs and the restoration of public safety resources. The third item that you'll be asked to adopt is a resolution calling for the ballot arguments pursuant to the election code. And then the fourth item would be the resolution requesting the county consolidate these items for the city's election with the state primary election on June 7th of 2016. So to recap, the first item before you this evening is to adopt the resolution calling for the placement of the two items on the ballot, approve the language of the two ordinances, and adopt the ordinance requesting that t u t be administered by the body. The Board of Equalization. Thank you. Thank you. So want to go and do public comment on these items? Is there any public comment? Please come down. Please. Hello, everyone. Laurie Angel, Eighth Council District. I've come out pretty publicly on this and I did speak last time. My concern is that this measure came forward very quickly. First of all, there was infrastructure needs. I know that there's like a $2.3 billion backlog. It's been growing over the years. It's substantial. I understand that we don't have enough police services. Then we came up with a list of a laundry list of possible revenue changes. And then the next thing I know, we're doing a sales tax increase, which if I had my choice about what kind of tax to do, this would probably be the last one on the list, mainly because it adversely impacts business, it adversely impacts the economy. I would think that a measure like this that will impact business would have come before your Economic Development Commission first. This is a pretty serious problem and it's not very well thought out in terms of accountability. I appreciate that. Council member Mungo suggested a an oversight board, but it looks like an oversight in the language. It's supposed to look at revenues only appointments by the mayor. It doesn't really have any teeth. It isn't as though there is a distinctly outlying list of things to be done, and this is how we'll do them. It's going to be very difficult for the taxpayers to accept what you have on the table. I would like for something to be successful, but they need to see due diligence first. And I think it's unfortunate because just as with the last tax measure, it came too quickly that the public was not engaged. And I'm afraid that there are too many issues with it for to be successful. Rather than rush to get this on the ballot in June, it would be a much better idea to engage the public and find out what they would be, what they would more likely to support. Because I'm not quite sure that a sales tax is the answer. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, John. Each 3600 Pacific Avenue. After last week's meeting, a call to question, call into question your claims of having done polling that showed strong support for this. I'd like to know more about the details of that polling. I did some polling during the whole of this whole past week, polling my neighbors walking around the neighborhood asking people I could not find a single household that had any support for this sales tax measure. None whatsoever. And they all threatened to flee with their dollars if it does pass. So I think you're off the mark there. The other thing that came up was why are we not seeking parity with Signal Hill on our oil extraction tax? It's nuts not to be there. We're barely at half of what Signal Hills will attract and taxes. I found 100% support for that. People volunteered that idea to me. Did you pull that? Or did you try to sell them on a sales tax measure? A push poll. There are 95 million people permanently out of work in this country in the aftermath of the Great Recession. Well, certainly no huge percentage of those live in Long Beach, but I'm sure there are a ton of families here that are still smarting from the Great Recession. There's a good many families that are now single income families that used to be two income families. How do you think you're going to pay for this if they choose to spend their money in Long Beach? Not everyone in Long Beach. Has a lot of money left over to give to you. I also am concerned, as is Laurie Angel, about an exodus of Long Beach sales tax dollars to other cities, most especially Carson with its new mall. They didn't get a football stadium, but they had a plan B. They're going to have a freeway centric shopping mall that'll probably rival South Coast Plaza. Now, people who live on the east side of town where my sister lives are already flee with her money to South Coast Plaza. People on my side of town, I guess, are going to be welcomed and herded into the new mall in Carson. How is that going to work for you? Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening. Tom Stout. The last proposal that it was brought up this evening was a measure on poorly written, poorly implemented, didn't pass. And I guess, you know, you guys did learn something which was surprising that you can fool a lot of the people, but not 66% of the. So now you're down to 50.1, and there's a lot of people that can be fooled out there. Just look who's been elected to sit on the council. This is a this council represents less than 20% of the actual voters in the city. That's pretty sad. Now with regard to. The 1% sales tax, you know, get off the thing only saying $0.01 tell the truth. That's going to be 10%. If the state puts some attacks on there, they want 2%. The county wants a half percent. The college wants 800 million more. This unit, Long Beach Unified, wants more money. Where is it all going to come from? Do you ever look at the add ons on your tax bill? It's amazing. It's truly amazing. There's never, ever going to be enough money to feed this machine. You added something to this wording and maintain service and maintain general services. That's a free pass to spend my money on. Anything you want. That's pretty pathetic on your part. Not unusual, but pathetic. And it just cost too much money to run the city. Compensation is always going up. CalPERS says they want 10% a year starting, I don't know, this year or next year for five or six years. That's about $150 million at the end. Plus we got an $8 million a year pension bond. So that's even more. So we're looking at probably close to 150 million. And that's not even given any raises away, which I'm sure coming or there wouldn't be this 1% sales tax on the agenda. You know, we talked about community centers. The Kroc Foundation wanted to give us a world class facility in the Andrews District. Yet he and his staff and the people sitting over here dropped the ball. $15 million. At the bottom line was what we needed to come up with. We couldn't. Yet we came up with $24 million to subsidize the families pensions. 1983, that subsidy started and it went on for 30 years. Thank you, Mr. Stout. You know, talking. I don't talk to you. I just come up because somebody sees it on TV. I know you guys don't give a crap. Thank you, Mr. Stout. Next speaker, please. I echo and embrace what the previous speakers have said. I haven't listened to anybody I've talked to and listened for their feedback. All of them are opposed to this. We are in a very we're surrounded by other opportunities where people will spend their money. We'll miss those taxes. We'll miss those dollars. The only possibility that you can exist. In my view, passing this tax is to make it abundantly clear that 100% of the money will go for r0atis and streets. Nothing else? No. Rainy day fund. Period. And it really nail it down. You will promise to fire the city manager. Put those two things together and that would pass overwhelmingly. Period. And that's a good beginning to start with. I don't what proposing this. I'm not sure you people understand where your city lies and what is beckoning on the borders. Only a fool. Would make a major purchase within Long Beach when 5 minutes away they can make significant standing and a significant savings period. So reword it. Put it. Make it very clear that it goes for a-roads streets only. Period. Or highway roadways. Period. No. Rainy day fund. Fire. The city manager. And I'd even raised the specter of saying, if people want to reduce the number of council seats. I think we may be faced with something within the Mr. in his district that may have to close shut down. He may have to fire himself. Using the same logic that he fired. The Coastal Commissioner director. Now. He, of course, can blame it on previous council people in that district, but that would be an interesting conversation. So again, if you want to paston limit it to roads and highways via the city manager. At the basic minimum, you'll find no support for anything else. Thank you. Thank you. See no other public comment? Well, take this back behind to the council and close public comment. Councilman Gonzalez. Yes. I just wanted to reiterate my support for this item. I know that I've said this before, but I know it's a it's a little bit scary of a thought for many people. But I truly do believe that this is something that we need to do and allow our voters to be able to make that decision as to whether they'd like to go forward with this. I want to thank our city attorney for drafting this material and this information. I think it goes step by step as to what we are able to do with these funds. Should we get them? I do this for all of our city residents, especially those in as many people know. I like to advocate for areas that certainly need it the most. I have the historic neighborhoods. I also have areas that have very high crime rates, and we need this opportunity. And so I will just continue to read or write my support. I want to thank the city management team and city attorney for drafting this again. So thank you. Thank you, Councilman Richardson. Thank you. So I've said it before, and I've and I'm going to reiterate it now. I think this proposal is modest. It's reasonable. I think that, you know, I don't know what the voters are going to do, you know, but I think they should have an opportunity to help determine their fate. There's no question that, you know, our infrastructure is failing. There's no question that we need to double down on core sort of core public safety services and, you know, our emergency response times. But I don't know that there's any solution is the perfect solution. So I think this is modest. I think it's reasonable. I think it does have so far, it's it's demonstrated there is sort of broad support for this. So that said, I think we need to send this to the voters. Thanks. Thank you. Councilmember Supernova. Thank you, Mayor Garcia. How? First of all, I'd like to say I don't disagree with the speakers on many of their points. To Laurie Angell, if you went back and watch the videos several weeks ago, I made the very point you did. I asked staff, do we have enough time to educate the voters? They couldn't answer that. That's not within their purview. But. But here we are tonight. Here before us tonight. Politically, the easiest thing I could do is stand on a minority vote, go down in flames on a minority vote and grandstand on that. And a week ago, I just didn't have a good feeling about that. I don't sleep better at night if I'm on the wrong side of an eight one vote. So I read in the Longreach Business Journal and the Press Telegram the idea of an oversight committee. And so I spent the Monday holiday and all day last Tuesday working on that. And Councilmember Mungo brought it forward. And then after that was. Read. I asked the city attorney what would the next step be? And he said, it's going to I'll have to write that up and bring it back tonight. And that's where we are in terms of a need. I've said it many times before. There's no question in the Fourth Council District, we're the only district without a fire engine. We've had just anecdotally three houses that were total losses in my district due to fire. In terms of infrastructure. I have an entire western side of my district where only one street has been paved in 12 years. So we have some tremendous needs. But then the folks are cynical. They're not sure if we'll get this money, if they all get done anyway. All I can say to my constituents is new sheriff in town. We're going to address these things on an ad needed basis, not geographically. I really appreciate what the city attorney did. I think he's got a good proposal here. But I would just like to beef it up a little bit with a friendly amendment. And I'd like to read that now. This initiative will include a requirement that a citizen advisory committee will be formed to support the oversight of the expenditures from the proposed sales tax revenue. In addition, the Citizens Advisory Committee to have the Committee, the intent of the Council action shall be considered in any future expenditure of these moneys to ensure that expenditures are consistent with the intent of this body. Any budget recommendations regarding expenditures associated with the sales tax shall be presented to a financial to financial management for analysis and review. Financial management shall then prepare a report to the Budget Oversight Committee discussing the recommendations and their alignment with the legislative action that has been taken, by the way, of this motion. Further financial management will provide council with a quarterly report outlining the work of the Citizen Advisory Committee, as well as any approved budget expenditures. Although the action of this Council Mayor cannot bind these actions of future councils or mayors in regards to the expenditures of the proposed sales tax increase, this Council can state very clearly the intent of this action and expect that the public should hold accountable all future legislators in in regards to expenditures associated with these proposed sales tax increase revenues. And with that kind of language, I just think that's stronger than maybe we'd have with a different type of attack tack. So that's my motion. And Councilwoman Gonzales, would you be willing to accept that friendly, please? Yes, absolutely. I'll accept the friendly. Thank you. Councilmember Supernova and Councilman Richardson, you're okay with that as well. Thank you, Mr. City. Attorney. Mayor, members of council, Councilmember Cooper and all the I believe what you've added as the amendment would be included in the duties of the Citizens Advisory Commission, and I know that there's additional requests from staff in there to how we would address that is should this motion pass tonight? Our office would bring back a resolution, as we do with all commissions, establishing the Commission, and we would include your friendly amendments and requirements in that resolution. Absolutely. Great. Thank you. And and customer support. I'm very supportive of that. I want to thank you for for strengthening that. Councilwoman Pryce. Thank you. I have and I agree with the amendment that was just made. I do have a question that's come up quite a bit in the last week or two, and I don't know who the best person to answer this would be, but what is the difference? Or can you explain the 1% versus the $0.01 issue? Mr. City, Terry? Yes, it depends on how you read it. It's $0.01 on every dollar or 1% of the sales. So you see it written both ways or either way. And so it in in the way we've presented it, it's the $0.01 when we have in parentheses 1%. And we've run that language by the Bowie, the Board of Equalization, and they're fine with that language. But it is it's one way or the other is a 1% increase. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman Mongo. Yes. I want to thank Councilmembers Hooper not for strengthening the language. I think that our intent last week was to ensure that the voters have the say and the oversight that is necessary. I know that we're working really hard to be more transparent in terms of providing details to our council items in advance. And I think that seeing the detail of the budgets and expenditures in advance is a big component of that. And I think that another component of that is ensuring that once the money is spent, that it was spent on the things that we said that it would be and that there are components of that that taxpayers have control over because they shouldn't need to get their information through a public records request. Many know that if you ask of certain things from our office, we put a lot of staff time in responding to those. But this actually puts that on the city staff, which relieves us at the council office level for providing the constituent services in the district better. So I appreciate the strengthening of the language. I think it's an important part of our ability to grow our transparency and accountability to residents and the citizens. So thank you for that. Thank you, Charlie, for doing the best practices. I know we talked about a a couple of different scenarios and I'm looking forward to that coming back with Councilmember Supernova's added language. Thank you. Thank you. Councilor Casper Castro votes. Motion carries. Okay. Thank you. Item two, Madam Clerk.