Recommendation to declare ordinance making findings and determinations regarding contracting for work usually performed by City employees and authorizing City Manager to enter a contract with Plenary Edgemoor Civic Partners, LLC, for custodial, maintenance and security services, read and adopted as read.  (Citywide)
Okay. Thank you. We're going to transition now. Give me 1/2, please. Just want to give folks a chance to exit. Okay, Madam Kirk, if we can, we have the first hearing. And just as a reminder, we're going to do the other four public comments during the regular public comment period time right after the hearing. So, Madam Clerk, we can read the hearing item. Please report from Economic and Property Development, Development Services, Financial Management, Library Services, Parks, Recreation and Marine and Public Works. Receive the supporting documentation into the record, conclude the public hearing and adopt a resolution certifying a supplemental EMR and approving a site plan, review and conditions of approval. With respect to the Civic Center project as described in recommended actions one, two and three declare the ordinance respecting the Transportation Improvement Fee Credit as described in recommended action for as red and laid over to the next regular meeting of the City Council. Authorize the City Manager to execute a project agreement with Plenary Edge Moore Civic Partners LLC for the Design, Build, Finance, Operation and Maintenance of the Civic Center Project and all other ancillary documents necessary for such project as described in recommended actions five through 13 declare the ordinance respecting Prop L as described in recommended actions 14 red and laid over to the next regular meeting of the City Council. Authorize the City Manager to execute an MCU with the Port of Long Beach as described in recommended action 17 and approve the expenditure and appropriation requests as described in the recommended action 17. This hearing requires no. Want to do the oath. Please stand. If you're doing the oath after, I think we're going to do the statutory duty to do an oath for this and think we did, but. Yes, it. Is. An oath is required. Okay, so if you're testifying on this issue, please stand. Please stand. Thank you. Only those testifying. And if you're not standing. Okay. Thank you. Perfect. Please raise your right hand. Madam Clerk. You and each of you do solemnly state that the testimony you may give in the cause now and pending before this body shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. With that, I'm going to turn this over to our city manager. Mr. West. Mayor, council members. This is an issue. This is a project that we've been visiting for perhaps the last ten years. This council and previous council. First and foremost, we're at this stage tonight because of a serious public safety issue with both the city hall and the library. After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the federal government required cities to assess all governmental critical structures. In 2006, our assessment showed major seismic deficiencies. City hall wings would separate, resulting in a policy to secure in place. The library roof was too heavy, resulting in the removal of landscaping and soil. At that time, we were investing only $12.6 million annually in our civic center complex. Today, ten years later, we continue to only invest the bare minimum. The same 12.6 million. Since learning the building had severe seismic issues. Combined with a collapsing economy, we stopped investing in optimal maintenance. A recent engineering study concluded that we should actually be spending $19.5 million and leave annually for the Civic Center Complex. On any given day, we face major issues. We have chiller problems. Plumbing issues. Asbestos in our stairways. Technology issues. Elevators breaking down daily. And security problems with the layout of the building. The Civic Center. Earthquake issues have come back to the city council occasionally throughout the past decade. In 2013, the Council directed us to perform a peer review. The city hired Mr. Nabih Yousef, one of the premier seismic engineers in America. Mr. Yousef concluded the city hall and library buildings were in much worse shape than previously thought. Both City Hall and the library could simply collapse in a large event. So what are our options? We could move, retrofit or build a new civic center. Regarding moving. There wasn't much interest to simply lease part or all of a building in the downtown or elsewhere in the city. In order to do that, we would still have to do a parcel tax. Regarding retrofit, the cost would be approximately $180 million, and that would also require a parcel tax, and it would also require City Hall in the library to move to another venue for a year or more during the remodel. This would end up giving us a building that would survive an earthquake. But after that earthquake, it would be red tagged and probably unusable. That less left us with the option of a new civic center. The council asked us to put on our thinking hats and find a creative way to fix this situation with minimal increases to the budget and no new taxes. Lucky for us. At the same time, the state was doing the redevelopment project across the street for the courthouse. Lucky for us, we had department heads who were very involved in that project. Using what we learned. We proposed to the City Council ap3d film project, public, private partnership, design, build, finance and operate. We felt we could do this project using the annual $12.6 million in the budget with annual CPI increases. Combine that with other existing structural dollars that were spending approximately $3.4 million. The expectation of further one time dollars. And also the value of putting some of our city property into play around the Civic Center area. This would provide us with a new civic center with little or no cost to our residents. First off, I cannot say how impressed I am with the team working on this and the incredible financing plan they have structured. It's simply amazing. I have to give congratulations to Mr. Mike Conway, John GROSS, Amy Bodak, Glenda Williams, Tom Modica, Craig Beck and also Richard Anthony working at our city's attorney's office. So I thank you, city attorney Charles Parkin, for all of Richard's help. We also have to thank the Long Beach Harbor Department that includes the entire board. The executive director, John Slinger up, the managing director of finance and administration, Steve Rubin, also Doug Sereno, Sean Gorman, Jamila Volkman and Erica martin. This is arguably one of the most important projects we as a staff have recommended. This is why we have been reviewing this solution for at least two years. A new Long Beach civic center will change the face of Long Beach for the next half a century. There are only three large cities in California on the water. San Diego, San Francisco. And Long Beach. We are poised to uniquely be taken advantage of our location. Long Beach will be unique in all of California, if not America. With this new civic center, we will have an 11 storey city hall, which will be the seat of government for one of the largest cities in America. Next door will have the 11 story port headquarters building, soon to pass Los Angeles as the largest cargo port in America will have. A world class brand new library will have a world class urban park. We'll have new three streets with open courtyards and gathering areas. And on the private side, there will be opportunity for several tall structures for residential hotel and office uses. Already a 200 unit condo complex has already broken ground, and all of this is basically on the waterfront. Finally, given the importance of this projects, it's critical that we share with you the financial aspects of the deal the risks, the rewards, the significance and how it evolved. Basically, it is pretty complex, but at the same time it is pretty simple. And know that the numbers you're going to see include 75% of the general fund with 25% of enterprise funds. At the end of the day, this is a small percent of our budget and includes input from over 100 meetings with the stakeholders and community . And if you look at what it will cost us to provide this new housing, so to speak, a city hall, a library in a park will be spending less than 3% of our general fund budget. Already the Parks and Recreation Commission have provided their unanimous approval for Lincoln Park. The Planning Commission has provided their unanimous approval for the entire development. The Harbor Department has unanimously approved the RFQ, the RFP and the selection of plenary adds more. And they will be voted on this project on Thursday night. So without further ado, I'm going to turn this over to Amy Bodak. She will lead off the presentation with a secure and designed presentation followed by Mike Conway and Jon GROSS. And I apologize for the length, but this will be about a 48 or 45 minute presentation. So, Amy, take it away. Mr. Manager. Thank you very much, Mayor. Members of the City Council. It is a great honor for me to be here with my fellow colleagues at the department head level. This has been an extraordinary effort and we are very grateful to have participated in it on your behalf. As Mr. West said, I'm going to be leading off the presentation. It's critical for you to understand the entitlements within which you are being requested to consider tonight. Those considerations actually must occur, and if you so choose to move forward, we do need those approvals to occur first before you can move forward in any other actions related to this project. So with that, I am going to start off by just reminding you and for the general public what the guiding principles were related to this project. These guiding principles were included in an RFP that was issued in 2013 that really spoke to what we were trying to achieve with the developed with the development of this project. We were very clearly trying to focus on all the work that had been done over the previous five years related to the adoption of the downtown plan. There were many sessions related to setting forth a vision for what the downtown should and could be, and the guiding principles for the Civic Center project fall in line with those principles of the downtown plan. So everything that we're going to be showing you today is fully compliant with the downtown plan. It does not need any variances or cups. The only approvals that you're being asked to consider from a project perspective, a design perspective, is the supplemental air and the physical design and layout of the project sites. So we also set forth a number of goals in addition to those lofty principles of what what kind of environment we're trying to create in the downtown. And those goals were also focused on fiscal restraint and the ability for us to manage our resources appropriately for the next 40 years. We were extremely concerned about how the facility would operate and be maintained over the course of 40 years. We were very concerned about how we could shift the risk of a significant development like this off of the public sectors shoulders and onto the private sector shoulders. We also had a primary goal which will we will go into in great detail related to affordability. And essentially that means, as you know, living within your means. We expect the city to live within its means as well so that we can continue to provide necessary services that the community expects of us. We agreed with the City Council, who set very strict parameters for us that we did need to be very cognizant of our financial stability so that we could afford what we were going to be asking a developer to design for us. So a little bit of background. We did the city council authorized the staff to release a request for proposals in February of 2013. A year later, we issued a request for excuse me, a request for qualifications in 2013. A year later, in February of 2014, the City Council authorized the issuance of a request for proposals to a shortlist of developers. Those proposals were submitted in June and in December of 2014. Just one year ago, the City Council selected Plenary Edge more civic partners as our negotiating partner. It has been an extraordinary year that we went through when the City Council approved this project last December. I don't think any of us understood the magnitude of the work that would go into getting to today. So I do want to thank the City Council for their support in understanding what staff has gone through for the last year and trying to get you the project where we are today. So again, the requested entitlements that we're asking you to consider is the adoption of a or certification of a supplemental environmental impact report. I'll go into that in detail a little bit further. And then also an approval of the site plan for the Master Civic Center BLOCK, as well as a third and Pacific site that the city owns. So just for the the project components, City Hall is, as Mr. West said, an 11 story building. We are currently housed in a 14 story building. The layout of the building will shift significantly from what you see today. The port headquarters will likewise be an 11 story building. The main library will be in approximately 138,000 square foot brand new facility that will be relocated to the north end of Lincoln Park. And then Lincoln Park will remain in its current location at its current size. I do want to emphasize that we are not reducing the size of Lincoln Park at all, and then the two buildings will be the two port headquarters in City Hall will be separated by a public civic plaza, which was critically important to us in the selection of the ultimate partner. We also are looking at your approval for conceptually some center block development, which could include up to 580 residential units, up to 200 hotel rooms, parking spaces and ancillary retail. And then conceptually, for the third and Pacific site entitlements that would approve up to 200 residential units with ancillary parking related to that. You should know that we have taken seriously a goal that you put in the RFQ and in the RFP, that there be a housing affordability component. And so 10% of any residential units that are constructed on the two private development sites must be affordable to moderate income families. There is a regulatory agreement in the myriad agreements you'll be considering tonight that would be in place for 55 years for apartments and 45 years for ownership units to ensure the affordability of at least 10% of those units for that period of time. We're also looking at three new parking structures, two public street extensions, and then, of course, the demolition of the existing old courthouse next door. The demolition of this building, the demolition of the main library as well. So I want to orient you a little bit. So the Civic Center site is this is Ocean Boulevard right here. This is Broadway Pacific Avenue here, Magnolia Avenue here. This is the federal building here, the new state courthouse here. We are located approximately right there, Broadway, a parking structure for those of you who visited today, that's where you parked this evening. The main aspects of the design of this was to breaking up the super block that was created four decades ago by extending both Cedar Avenue and Chestnut Avenue through the site. We also wanted to focus on the the extension of First Street through the site, both physically through a private street here, and then from a pedestrian mobility standpoint through the park and then through the Civic Plaza. The view on First Street terminates at the sit at the Civic Center with the the new City Council podium and the new City Council chambers. So there is a very distinct view corridor that terminates right here, essentially at the seat of government for the city. So. I'm going to see if we can make the laser brighter. I'll just describe it verbally. I meaning Mike Conway. So this slide demonstrates the mobility and access that will be created throughout the site. We have been speaking to Long Beach Transit about new bus lines and bus routes that are going to be surrounding the site to enhance mobility for the city. We're also talking about new bicycle boulevards and bicycle parking facilities as well. So Mr. Conway is walking around. He has shaky hands. This is Mike Conway, director of Economic and Property Development. This is other duties as assigned. So Mike is pointing to Mike, if you could point out, the first street corridor. I'm not sure this is going to. Work for me. I shall do my best. Council and members of the public make it. Okay. Come on down. Come on down, Mr. Conway. So this this site, this slide demonstrates for you how the blocks are broken up and how the civic uses are grouped together. On the left hand side of the slide along Magnolia, the existing police station and fire station number one across the street is the civic use, which is the courthouse parking structure and then the Anderson Federal Building. So you can see that city hall and the port headquarters are labeled on there. And it really does consolidate those civic uses into one portion of the site. The library, however, is much more oriented to the residential and the commercial users of the downtown and is in a much more open and engaging position. We've oriented it towards the north of the site in order to focus its its front door essentially on on two things. One is the residential neighborhood to the north and then the other one is to Lincoln Park. In the middle is the private development in yellow, which would be a link to the residential and commercial development on the south side of Ocean Boulevard, and then the residential and commercial development that is on the north side of Broadway. To the top of this slide, here's the proposed site plan of the three blocks that comprise the Civic Center Super BLOCK. You can see that the main library is to the north of Lincoln Park, to the northern edge of Lincoln Park. It sits on top of the existing Lincoln Garage, which will remain in place and will be seismically strengthened to support the weight of main library. Lincoln Park will be reoriented to be much more open to Pacific and Ocean Boulevard. It is still the the 4.9 acres that it is today. Cedar Avenue is directly to the left of Lincoln Park. And then you get to the middle, the mixed use commercial residential complex of the center block. Moving to the left of the screen again is city hall and the port headquarters. And you can see within city hall there is a projection that points to the bottom of the screen, and that is where the civic center, the civic chambers are for the city. I want to spend a couple of minutes orienting you to City Hall and the port building. Both of the buildings are oriented very specifically and sited where they are to reflect their essentially their constituency. They also, as buildings talk to each other and they are very much related in their design and the intent of the lobby building that is labeled lobby that is actually the port headquarters. They have views located, oriented out across Ocean Boulevard. They are responding primarily to their constituency, which, of course, is the harbor and the port complex. They they respond, however, to city hall, which is located where the the words lobby and public counter and council chambers are. City Hall and the port building are both 11 story buildings. City Hall is slightly larger in that it does contain the council chambers as well. It will contain all of the administrative functions that are currently in City Hall now, as well as some relocated functions. It will include the public counters as well as the permit center on the fourth floor, which would be relocated to a different floor in this building. City council chambers are going to be much more accessible. They will be oriented along the Civic Plaza so that there is a better relationship between the public gathering space outside and the function of governmental decision making inside the council chambers. Here is a view of both of the buildings from Magnolia and Ocean Boulevard. The building on the front, which has some blue and red on it, is the port building. Both buildings are similar, but they are not identical. The port building is actually designed to be reflective of the colors. An array of cargo containers that define the business of trade and commerce. And then the civic building is a little bit more staid and reflective of of a timeless nature of democracy. This you can see that we have tried to open up the corner of Magnolia and Ocean Boulevard to encourage folks to find the entrance of City Hall. We understand that that is difficult at times, and we'd like to rectify that by making it very clear where the entrances to both of those buildings are. This is the same view. But at night you can see that that we have a lighting component to both buildings that would add some impact to the skyline at night for both of the buildings. I also want to point out that the buildings are oriented respectively. The port building has a canopy roof structure that orients it to the south and then the city hall has a roof structure that orients it to the north to reflect its views to the greater city beyond. Again. Here's the Ocean Boulevard entrance right at the corner of Magnolia and Ocean. We hope that this is very clear where the entrance to City Hall is, where the port building will be. We will be developing a signage package in greater detail, but this should give an indication of those of those pathways. So moving on to parking and access, the the pink square at the lower left hand corner is going to be a subterranean parking structure that will be for city hall and port employees. There's access points for deliveries off of Chestnut Avenue and then access points for employees off of Magnolia Avenue, as well as exit points on Magnolia . The Broadway parking structure will remain the same. It's going to stay in its location. The entry and exit sequence will remain the same as well. Lincoln Garage will be in its same location and generally in the same configuration as it is now. But its access will change and will be taken via Chestnut Avenue through an underground tunnel. Lincoln Garage and the garage under the Civic Plaza will be employee only parking. Public parking will remain at the Broadway garage. I also want to point out on this slide, you can see in yellow at the far upper right hand corner of the commercial third and Pacific block, that is the first piece of the private development that we expect to be developed in as part of the entitlement request tonight. So now moving on to the center block, the big, bold red arrow that crosses the screen indicates the first Street View corridor and the private street between two commercial buildings . The commercial buildings, as I said earlier, contain approximately 580 residential units and up to 200 hotel rooms, as well as subterranean parking to serve those functions. The gray square above that is the Broadway parking structure where the visitors parked tonight. The yellow is essentially where we are sitting today. That cannot be developed until city hall is demolished. City hall cannot be demolished until we're relocated. Here is a view of what the potential private development could look like on the center block that the developer is proposing a potential high rise. We will clearly have to wait to see what the market will bear when when that site is ready for development. But you can see the corner where all the trees are. That is the opening of Lincoln Park, right on the hard corner of Pacific and Ocean Boulevard. This map shows you the park connectivity with Lincoln Park, the buildings surrounding it, and how we expect pedestrian cyclist visitors to access both the library and Lincoln Park. As I said earlier, Lincoln Park remains in its same configuration. We just essentially upgrade it and add more usable open space. The library has moved from the south to the north and then we have a number of programable uses that will be included in Lincoln Park, including a another dog park, a children's play area, a new restrooms and new restrooms to the south of that. And. A little bit right there. And then to event lawns. We also have an event terrace towards the south that can accommodate special events and special event users. This is an example of the different configurations that can occur in Lincoln Park. We do expect this to be a lively addition to the downtown that will capture the growing residential demand for events in urban parks. We can have small gatherings of, you know, moms and dads and their kids, folks walking their dogs and taking them to the dog park. At the same time, we can potentially hold a symphony with up to 11,000 folks enjoying an outdoor concert. So the design of this park is highly adaptable and flexible and should reflect the growing needs of the city as additional development occurs in the downtown. Moving on to the library. The library has been oriented, as I said, both to the north and to the south. The South access provides great views into and from the park to the library. The library has a exterior that is meant to be very welcoming to constituents, first time users, as well as long time users. It's also oriented along Broadway, as I said earlier, to focus on the residential neighborhoods that are to the north. This is a view from Pacific and Broadway, looking at the corner of the library, anchoring the link, the northern portion of Lincoln Park. This is also a view from the park itself looking north towards the library. We are hopeful that users of the park will also become users of the library and vice versa. Part of the project included a significant aspect where we wanted to encourage connectivity through the site and to the site, and that is being done through both a history walk and a cultural loop. The city and the port, as you know, have a number of archival resources that could and should be made available to the public. That does include some of the artifacts that are currently located on Lincoln in Lincoln Park on Current Centennial Plaza as well. These include the Marlin sculpture, the Centennial Clocktower, and, of course, the statue of Mr. Lincoln. The Parks and Rec Commission, as well as the Planning Commission, also recommended the relocation of a historic civil war cannon back to a site within Lincoln Park joining Mr. Lincoln. And that will be accommodated as well in the park in the park design. Focused very much, of course, on night lighting and how you move through the site at night. We want this park to be highly utilized and very safe. We want the location to encourage downtown residents and visitors to use it. So we are looking at a number of lighting schemes as well throughout this whole process. Here is an aerial view looking south towards the water of what the potential build out could be. You can see the park acting as an urban landscape opportunity for the downtown to gather around, and that is our goal. So moving on, we were required to do a supplemental environmental impact report. The downtown plan did a programmatic air that attempted to assess all the potential impacts of future development. We were not sure if the Civic Center would be able to fit under those. So we had to do a square review. And the purpose to seek was to disclose potential environmental impacts of development projects to the decision makers so that they understand those impacts as they move forward. It's also to consider potential feasible alternatives to the development project. Part of the Square review is is I should say not part of secure is really prescribed by state law. And so this flowchart shows you the sequence of steps that were taken and where we are today, which is asking that you consider making a decision on this project. As I said, the supplemental E.R. addressed a number of potential development impacts. But because it can't foresee all developments, we did focus this specific air on the on the Civic Center project itself. We are required to look at a different number of class of impacts, class one, class two and class three impacts under SEQUA. The definition of those impacts are on the slide before you. We looked at Class one impacts, which are significant and unavoidable, and these are those three impacts, air quality. We live in a non attainment area in Southern California, so every single development project has an impact on air quality. That is that is an expected impact. So there may be operational emissions issues and then exposure of new residents to air contaminants as we go through the construction process. Cultural resources. We do need to point out that both the old courthouse and the City Hall and library are considered potentially historic resources under sequa. And we are suggesting as part of this process that you make a statement of overriding considerations to allow the demolition of those assets from a cultural standpoint, and then noise and vibration. We do expect that there will be some temporary construction related noise and vibration that will occur over the term of construction. Class two impacts are significant impacts, but they are made to mitigate a, which means that at the end of the day they are resolved in one way or another. Under Sequa, these include esthetics, air quality, noise and vibration, and then miscellaneous issues. In this case, there were some concerns about the potential for an increase in vermin with the demolition of both the courthouse and civic center. So we did take that into consideration and do have mitigation measures for all of these issues that will address them so that they are no longer considered significant under sequa. There are also some minor impacts that will occur, but they do not raise up to the level of any kind of significance. We do have some mitigation measures in place for these, but because they are considered less than significant, we actually can move forward with this project even with these potential impacts. Lastly, we are required to look at alternatives. One of the required alternatives under SEQUA is the do nothing alternative, and there are many reasons that we're not supporting that alternative today. We did look at the ultimate build out of the downtown plan. We also looked at adaptive reuse of the buildings, and we also looked at a potentially smaller project. Given the goals and objectives for the project and the need to house administrative functions, the reduced intensity alternative and the adaptive reuse alternative were not viable alternatives. They did not meet the business needs of the city. So we are proposing what we're proposing is what we consider the project. And we have prepared for you a statement of overriding considerations to. Deal with the potentially significant impacts that will remain. There was a number of opportunities for public comment just on the environmental document. Mike And we'll talk about the myriad community input opportunities that existed for the remaining part of the project. But we are here today at the city council hearing. Towards the end of the road on Sequa. So with that, I am going to turn it over to Mike and Mike is going to walk through affordability and I'm pretty sure he's not going to need a pointer, so I am not going to be stepping on the dais. Thank you, Amy. So continuing our presentation, John GROSS and I will walk while actually will run through some of some of the staff's efforts since December 9th when City Council selected the project team. A lot has happened in one short year. Staff have completed or substantially completed the transaction term sheet, the basis of design conveyance documents and the project agreement with considerable Council support and leadership from the Mayor and Senator Laura. Senate Bill 562 was passed and signed by the Governor, providing clear legal authority for the city to pursue the procurement structure. We have started the abatement of the old courthouse and relocation of the storm drain at third and Pacific. And we have received an updated fixed price proposal and the project has been reviewed and approved by the Parks and Rec Commission and the Planning Commission and the State Lands Commission has also been briefed on the project. So during this same time frame plenary Edge, Morlot launched an extensive community outreach program, resulting in over 100 meetings with stakeholders and community groups throughout the city in both English and Spanish. Separately, there is a secure scoping meeting, a study session with both the Parks and Rec Commission and the Planning Commission and Workshop Workshop sessions on both the new main library and Lincoln Park. I'd like to spend a few minutes on the aspect of affordability first. It's important to recall that the responses to the RFP and the estimated project cost were submitted last June of 2014. 18 months have passed and some costs have increased. However, staff have spent some considerable time seeking ways to manage these cost increases. To add a little bit more detail to the sources of these cost increases. They include labor and material cost escalations since June of 2014. These actually work out to be about $600,000 a month for the city and $600,000 a month for the port. So delays can be extremely expensive for this project. Also, there is discoveries during due diligence that revealed the requirement for a specialist abatement in the Lincoln Park garage. There's been some community generated design changes, including a consolidated and streamlined permit center, articulated building design and exterior lighting. Relocation costs between the city and the port in order to isolate tidelands funds from any other fund. And those are related to both construction and operations and maintenance. And lastly, there are some financial market fluctuations relative to interest rates, but staff has identified a number of alternatives that can be offered that can offset some of the cost increases. And these include one time funding for capital cost operation and maintenance efficiencies and reductions, value engineering refinements, optimized equity levels and returns. Optimize fixed and indexed elements of the service. Fee reduction of developer and design builder fees. An on site point of sale for construction materials and long term property sales and transient occupancy tax offsets. So as a result, this is an important slide. This summarizes the cost increases and the cost decreases to the service payment, the revise service payment and with the long term tax revenue offset the net long term project cost of the city. This slide is all in 20 $13, which is a little somewhat hypothetical, but are used in order to compare the service payment to the 2013 cost to Occupy a civic center, which was identified a number of years ago as $12.6 million. And as Mr. West has indicated, this $12.6 million hasn't really moved since 2005. After applying offsetting cost decreases to the increases, the net increase in service payment is about 1.8 million, 1.88 million, which is about 15% higher than 18 months ago . This results in a service fee of $14.48 million staff and these are in 20 $13 as well. Staff is also recommending that a city controlled design contingency of 14.5 million be included in project costs, which would increase the service payment. An additional 4.5 I'm sorry, 4.5 million. Thank you. Which would increase the service cost payment, an additional $230,000. This would revise the service payment to 14.71 million or 17% higher than 18 months ago. If the design contingency is not used during the design phase, it will be used to apply to the first full year of service payment . And lastly, the private development is expected to generate property taxes, sales taxes and transit occupancy taxes, which would have a long term offset to city costs, offsetting that revenue against a service payment result in a long term annual cost to the city of 13.77 million in 20 $13, or 9% higher than 18 months ago. Separate from the project could be related to the civic center or costs that will continue regardless of the project goes forward. These other ongoing annual costs total $3.27 million. Council may recall that in their November 11th, 2014 study session of Hilton Park that staff identified up to 3.4 million other ongoing annual costs. And these costs still remain one significant source of these ongoing costs as the cost of off site leases that were not integrated into the civic center. Primarily, these leases are Workforce Development and Housing Authority. These leases were determined to be more expensive to housing in the expanded City Hall, created too large of a parking demand and better serve the community at offsite locations. And for these reasons, these offsite leases are proposed to remain offsite. Allocated costs are those departmental overhead costs that are applied to their occupancy of the civic center, and they will continue into the new civic center as well. To provide context to the $14.71 million service payment. Is it appropriate to analyze the cost of continuing occupancy of the existing City Hall and main library and the budget that is needed to ensure that these buildings are well maintained? The 2013 Parsons Assessment Report identified 234 million and needed capital investment over the next 35 years to ensure a like new physical condition of the civic center. This equates to $6.7 million a year on average for 35 years. Even with this significant investment, City Hall would continue to be functionally obsolete and energy inefficient. Additionally, employees and visitors would continue to be at risk in a significant seismic event. The budget for Civic Center has remained constant at $12.6 million since 2005. This budget does not reflect the funds necessary to maintain the buildings or reinvest in building systems. As a result, the buildings continue to deteriorate. If $6.7 million per year were added to the budget, as recommended in the Parsons report, the budget for Civic Center in 20 $13 would be 19.3 million instead of 12.6 or 12.6. So since 2013, the city has been pursuing a public private partnership to design, build, finance, operate and maintain a new civic center. The critical elements of this P3 debuff from procurement model is related to long term operations and maintenance. It is this long term operation and maintenance contract and hand back provision that buildings will be in a good or better condition that achieve the highest value for the city. The service payment covers all maintenance operations and lifecycle investment for the 40 year term, guaranteeing buildings that remain in good condition. If any element of this 40 year operations and maintenance contract is removed or changed, the guarantee at hand back will also change, severely reducing the value to the city. In that regard, certain services that are now provided by city employees will be provided by the project company. And as a result of Proposition L analysis was conducted which revealed that the necessary operations and maintenance services can be provided by the project company at a cost of less than what would be provided by city staff if provided at the same level. The city manager has long stated that employees identified in the Proposition L study will not be reduced in hours, duties or compensation, and city staff have and will continue to meet and confer on this issue. Now I'd like to get into a little detail on the project agreement. This is only a 700 page document. I'm sure you've all read this by the time of this meeting. The project agreement is the contract that sets forth the obligations of the parties during the construction and through the 40 year operations and maintenance period. It allocates risk, establishes the service payment and defines terms, identifies events of default, outlines, releases and indemnities, termination rights and termination payments. Risk allocation. It's one of the fundamental benefits of a free procurement model. The intent is to shift risk to the party most capable of managing the risk while the private partner is best capable of managing construction, cost and schedule and ongoing facilities maintenance. Some risks are best managed by the city, including secret clearance authorizing legislative legislation and construction inspection. There are other areas where risk is shared and staff is recommending that the city accept certain elements of risk. Some of these areas include regulated site conditions, differing site conditions, latent structural defects, possessor of interest tax and force majeure events. The risks associated with these elements include project schedule, delay charges, cost to address discovered risks and costs to modify the project. The recommended city contingency can be used to address costs associated with these risks as well. And from the project company perspective, these risks would be covered by contingencies which become project costs and which increase the cost of the project. In some instances, it is more prudent to accept the risk and the possible one time costs than it would be to fund a significant contingency over a 40 year term. The first element of risk for the city consider is regulated site conditions. Which I will. There's regulated conditions. Jeepers. Yeah, I think I got it. And so regulated site conditions regard involved the old courthouse site and these are unknown site conditions that when discovered, require oversight by a regulatory agency. This would include things like underground storage tanks or Native American artifacts. Since the old courthouse site is owned by the city, has been fully developed with the existing courthouse since 1958 and has been fully investigated by the project. Company staff recommends that the city accept the cost of this risk rather than finance a significant contingency over the 40 year term. The next element of risk for the city consider is differing site conditions. These are conditions that differ from the from those identified on site investigations conducted by the project company and as it relates to the old courthouse site. The concern relates to the soils underneath the old courthouse building. Because the project company was unable to collect soil samples under the building. The project company cannot eliminate the risk that the soils under the building might significantly differ from the soil surrounding the building. Geotechnical engineers have opined that this risk is low. Nonetheless, the project company would need to carry a significant contingency to protect themselves from this risk. Staff have negotiated that the first $1 million in additional costs due to differing site conditions are borne by the project company. The second million dollars in costs would be borne equally by the city and the port. If there are costs above that amount, the city and port shall determine an appropriate allocation or terminate the project agreement and pay a termination fee. Staff again believes that accepting this low risk is better than financing a significant contingency over the 40 year term. Similarly, the soils beneath beneath Linkin Park were also inaccessible and the project company was unable to thoroughly investigate. And as a result, project company seeks a similar risk sharing protocol as established for the old courthouse site. Rather than establishing an additional contingency, staff recommends that the $1 million project company contingency for the old courthouse site cover both the old courthouse site and the Linkin Park Garage as differing site conditions related to the old courthouse site will have been resolved before the start of work at the Linkin Park Garage. There will be an established contingency amount to apply to this risk if the cost of differing site conditions at the Linkin Park Garage exceed the remaining project company contingency. The city will bear any additional cost or may choose to terminate the project agreement and pay a termination fee. Staff again believes that this allocation of risk and cost is better than financing another significant contingency over the 40 year term. Another element of risk is latent structural defects. These are defects in design, workmanship or materials of an existing structure that are not readily discoverable, even with appropriate investigation. The project company's testing of the structure of Lincoln Park Garage reveals that the structure was built according to permitted plans and it is unlikely that there are latent structural defects . However, the project company could not test every area that may need to be structurally modified in order to support the new main library. The project company believes the city should bear any costs related to latent structural defects because the city owns Lincoln Park Garage built the Lincoln Park Garage and evidence indicates the minimal risk relative to latent structural defects. Staff again recommend city accept this risk. Rather than financing a significant contingency over the 40 year term. However, similar to differing site conditions. If there are any remaining project company contingency from regulated site conditions and differing set conditions, these funds shall first be used to address the costs related to latent structural defects possessing interest tax . There is a risk that it may be applied to the project. Possessor interest occurs when there is a private and beneficial use of a publicly owned nontaxable property. There is a risk that the county assessor's office may determine that there is a project company interest in the Civic Center over the 40 year term and apply a process or interest because our agreement with the project company over the 40 year term is simply a contractual provision for services. There appears to be no possessive interest. Additionally, outside councilors opined that there is a low risk of the application of possessing interest. So staff recommends again that the city accept this risk rather than finance a contingency over the 40 year term. Project agreement with all its appendices, which which was provided on a disc to City Council, was also uploaded to L.B. Civic Center AECOM. There are many more terms and conditions in the project agreement, but I intend to cover a few notable elements. The first is financing. Project Company shall be responsible for financing the project and intends to issue taxable bonds. Additionally, staff is recommending the inclusion of a city controlled contingency of $4.5 million for design related changes during construction and a risk related costs, which we discussed a little earlier. Also, the city, the port and the project company will contract with an independent building expert who shall ensure that the Civic Center is constructed consistent with approved design and construction documents and delivered at substantial completion with only punch list items outstanding. The project agreement also requires that the project company of the design builder and all subcontractors execute a project labor agreement and related to the civic project but not related to the private development project. Also related to hotel or hospitality uses on the private development sites, the project, company and successors and assigns shall execute a labor peace agreement with a local Long Beach union that represents hotel and hospitality employees. The primary reason for pursuing the Civic Center project is to reduce the city's exposure to liability from a significant seismic event and the related possibilities of injuries or death and the possible suspension of government services. So to address these concerns, Civic Center buildings are being designed to a performance specification that exceeds current building code standards and is equivalent to the gold standard of the resilience based Earthquake Design Initiative. Already, after a significant seismic event, which is approximately a 7.2 to 7.5 seismic event on the Richter scale, the buildings are designed to achieve the following few, if any, injuries. 50% confidence level of re occupancy within two weeks. 50% confidence level of full functionality within one month. 90% confidence level of full functionality within three months. And less than 5% financial loss when compared to the replacement value of the facility. This design specification is the leading edge of resilience based infrastructure and should ensure that city government can continue after an earthquake to provide US residents with assistance in rebuilding the city and for comparison purposes. A code compliant building has a 50% confidence level of full functionality in six months, with a potential financial loss of over 25% compared to the replacement value of the facility. Leadership in energy and environmental design. The project is required to achieve LEED Gold, but it is being designed to achieve LEED Platinum. The project agreement sets forth a number of steps that the project company is required to take in order to assure that the project achieves a minimum LEED Gold for new construction. The project company is fully experienced in achieving LEED certification for its new construction. Nonetheless, they are concerned that there may be issues beyond the project company's control that prevents it from securing a lead certification. In that regard, the project company does not want to be in default of the project agreement, so the city and the port have agreed to establish liquidated damages if the project company takes all reasonable steps to achieve LEED certification but is somehow prevented from receiving the lead certification. The liquidated damages amount are $1 million for City Hall and port headquarters. Separately, $1 million apiece and $500,000 for the new main library. As part of the achievement of LEED Gold Project includes a solar photovoltaic renewable energy system on the roofs of City Hall, new main library and port headquarters. It is expected that this PV system should generate up to 25% of the energy demand for the Civic Center, and this system will be jointly owned and maintained with the port. Operations and maintenance component of the project agreement is an important part of the determination of best value to the city. The cost of maintaining the structures over the 40 year term are built into the city service payment, whose annual cost is far below what would be needed to be invested in the current City Hall and main library. Additionally, the facility's management contractor, Johnson Controls INC or JCI, will be required to perform within established key performance indicators. They will implement a responsive service work order system and they shall be subject to penalties if qualified building systems are not available for use. The facilities management model is a fully integrated and cohesive model requiring all operations and maintenance elements to work in concert in order to be fully operational. As mentioned, the project company shall contract with JCI to provide all operations and maintenance in the new civic center, except for a movable furniture, fixtures and equipment and audiovisual equipment in the shared chambers. JCI will also be responsible for all capital investment during the 40 year term. The Capital Investment Program is designed to achieve a facility candidate condition index of 0.15 at the end of the term. This essentially reflects a building that is 84 of 85% of new condition. However, again, to reduce an ongoing finance contingency, JCI shall guarantee at the time of hand back in FCI of not more than 0.2, all which reflects a building condition of being 80% of replacement value or a good condition as reference. In 2013, the City Hall was at an FCI of 56%. The main library was at a FCI of 73%, indicating that both buildings should be replaced. JC. I shall implement a work service order system that requires them to respond to and complete work order requests within prescribed timelines according to the level of severity or pay a penalty as set forth in the project agreement. The response times ranged from 10 minutes to 24 hours, and completion times ranged from 2 hours to five business days again, depending upon the severity of the issue. The work order system is a highly functional, fully integrated and fully computerized system intended to ensure that facilities are well maintained, that the city's concerns are rapidly addressed, and that JCI complies with the performance indicators. Of particular interest is functional status of the city's elevators. The new city hall will include four passenger elevators and one service elevator. Studies on peak use have indicated that this number of elevators should adequately service the building. However, if elevators fail to function, wait times will significantly increase. And as a result, a separate penalty regime has been established for elevator failures. The penalties are intended to be a significant incentive to ensure that all elevators are working during business hours, with repairs and maintenance occurring during non-working hours. This type of penalty system for the elevators is a new platform in the industry and does not exist in a typical elevator maintenance contract. The project company is obligated to facilitate the relocation of city staff and port staff when their respective facilities are ready for occupancy. Certain liquidated damages apply if the project company fails to take prescribed steps that are intended to provide a smooth relocation process. Project Agreement provides for three general events of default. These are product company events of default, city events of default, which also include a termination for convenience and no fault events of default. Each event, a default if not cured, result in a termination payment by the city. In the event of a termination to a project company event of default, the project company would lose all of its equity and the lender would lose 24 20% of its outstanding debt. For a city event of default, the city would pay the project company the design builder's breakage cost, which is set forth in the design builder's contract and paid the expected rate of return of the project company's equity over the remaining period of the 40 year term, discounted at an annual rate for a no fault termination, such as a force majeure event. The city would pay the project company the design builder's breakage cost again and the project company would receive back its original equity amount, but it would not include the expected returns over the 40 year term. If this project agreement is not executed under the terms of the exclusive negotiation agreement, the project company would be paid $4 million. The city and port have been working closely and cooperatively on this project since 2013. One of the fundamental synergies achieved through joint development is shared space and shared facilities. These include shared chambers, shared meeting room, shared central utility plant and shared space in the port's parking facility and the city's Broadway garage. These shared uses the costs for construction of the cost for ongoing maintenance and capital replacement need to be carefully set forth in a memorandum of understanding that clearly inappropriately allocates these costs between Tidelands and any other funds. The project has long included the concept that the project company would be the recipient of any land access to the civic needs on which private development would occur. There are two private development sites. The first is third and Pacific at the southwest corner of third and Pacific. The site contains about 0.9 acres and is proposed to be entitled for up to 200 residential units, of which 10% will be restricted to moderate income tenants or buyers. The second type site is known as the Center BLOCK site, which is the property south of Broadway Garage between the prolongation of Cedar and Chestnut Avenues, essentially where City Hall sits today. The site is approximately three acres and is proposed to be entitled for up to 580 residential units, of which 10% will be restricted to moderate income tenants or buyers. The Center BLOCK is also proposed to be entitled for up to 32,000 square feet of retail space, 8000 square feet of restaurant space and 200 hotel rooms. Both properties will be conveyed to the project company without ongoing liability to the city relative to the condition of the property. The project company is also required to execute a labor peace agreement with a local union representing the hotel hospitality industry. So should the City Council elect to proceed with the proposed project. The project schedule should generally follow this slide with construction to begin in July 2016, after completion of demolition of the old courthouse building and occupancy of City Hall and main library and the port headquarters is scheduled to occur in mid 2019 with completion of Lincoln Park scheduled to occur in late 2020. It is further anticipated that this project will create temporary, permanent, indirect and induced jobs totaling 4764 for the Civic Project and 3268 for the Private Development Project. Over 8000 jobs will be generated as a result of this project. And so with that, I've concluded my report and I will laterals over to Mr. GROSS for discussion on financial structure and fiscal impact. Thank you, Mr. Conway. I'm going to I'll talk about the financial structure and fiscal impact and try to provide an overall picture how some of this stuff will be. Some of the materials will be covering what Mr. Conway has talked about, but I'll put it in an overall financial picture. I'll briefly cover the financial structure, the sources and uses of funds for the project, the annual service fee and other annual costs that the city will have budget impacts and then risks and uncertainties. This slide talks about the overall financial structure, essentially, as Mr. Conway talked about. We're talking about a public private partnership here, where the private company will design, build, finance and operate and maintain the civic center. That will be evidence through a contract called a project agreement, which Mr. Conway has talked about. We will be required to sell land to the port, sell land for private development, and the land sales will spur economic development and also provide funding for the project. In addition, the project agreement requires that the city will make upfront cash payments called service, and they help reduce the service fee and then make an annual service fee in return. As Mr. Conway said, we will get a civic center and PSP, the private company will operate and maintain it for 40 years. Thank you. This slide talks about the project agreement, construction costs of almost $300 million. Most of the construction costs are directly for design and construction, but we'll also be paying off the remaining outstanding bonds on this building. And then we have transaction and financing costs and pre occupancy costs. The construction costs are being funded primarily by PSP, the private entity, either through borrowing or for or from equity. The city will be putting in some cash through some funds available surplus, some borrowing, and then we'll be contributing land for the project again, matching the amount being put in. That's why these numbers are in red, just to say they are matching the expenses. Thank you. The sources of the $10 million in Citi cash and borrowing are varied. One of the more interesting ones is that the project builder is actually paying permit fees, and we're going to turn around and use those permit fees to help pay down the project. Costs will be also be borrowing proceeds from a ten year bond issue and we'll also be drawing on funds available, meaning surplus from various city funds that can support this building total of $10.78 million. Let's talk a little bit about the bond proceeds. The bond proceeds that we're proposing for the civic center totaled to $8 million. On this slide, we only see 2.39 2.39 million of that 8 million is going to be used to help fund construction. The balance of 5.61 will be used to pay down some one time costs. The debt service for the Civic Center portion of this bond issue, which is another item on the agenda tonight, is not included in the annual costs for the Civic Center. That debt service is about $965,000 a year, but for only ten years, not 40 years. And it's being paid. That debt service will be paid from RDA related tax revenue associated with state action earlier this year to reimburse the city for loans made by the city to the RDA. The there is about $30 million that the project is going to receive from land sales. About 8 million is it is from land the city will sell to the port at fair market value. We're also selling the land at third and Pacific and we're selling the center block site, what's called the center block site, which is where we are right now for private development. These land sales are a key factor in reducing the overall costs, and they're also going to be a key factor in economic development for the city. They will reduce costs because they'll bring in tax revenue. We also have some one time costs not associated directly with the project agreement, but which the city will pay for directly. Those are some transition costs as we move from the Old City Hall to the new facilities and the new library. There's some technology and AV equipment costs that we'll be buying because the technology changes very rapidly. Some adviser costs and project oversight during construction. Where are we getting the money for those nine project agreement costs? 9.71 million. We are drawing down the remaining funds from the Civic Center funds available. That's the the fund that pays for the ongoing operation of maintenance of this building. And we have some money left that would have otherwise been used for maintenance. But we're going to be using it to propose and use it for the new civic center. We're going to be getting sales and use tax during the construction of this building from the construction materials on this building. So we're going to turn around and use that about $1 million to help pay for this building. And then, as I mentioned earlier, 5.61 million of the $8 million in bond funding will be used to pay for those costs. I've covered now all of the costs of the building. Now I'm going to talk about the annual costs that we're going to incur. The project agreement, as I mentioned earlier, requires that we pay an annual service fee. While there are no actual service fee payments until FY 20 fiscal year 2013 has shown that several years ago, because it is the base year for the Civic Center budget which Mr. Conway talked about and I'll be I'll sing a few slides from now. Our FY16 is shown on this slide because that is the base year under the project agreement for all project costs. So the hypothetical service fee in FY13 would be $14.71 million. If new tax revenue from the development were available, that would be reduced to 13.77 million. And that's what's shown on the slides. Skipping to FII 22. When we are in the building, the service fee would be 18.1 million and the service fee, if tax revenue were available , would be reduced to 16.93. And keep in mind that during that time the budget also increases. But we also have on this next slide some other annual costs, again, that Mr. Conway talked about, totaling about $3.27 million. Next slide. Now I'm going to talk about the budget, which is you've heard about $12.6 million. That is the number. But there were some technical adjustments that were made that from a budget viewpoint effectively reflects 12.44 million. So you're going to see 12.44 million in these slides. The equivalent numbers from FY 20 through 22 are shown 13.92 in FY 20, when first full year in the building going up to 14.71 million. In FY 22. What's important to note about these numbers is they represent an absolute no maintenance investment in this building, and that's not necessarily possible. It's not necessarily likely, but it is the budget that we talked about an effort by 13. And so it's being provided here for comparison purposes. This slide then puts together the service fee that we've talked about starting at 14.71 million an F y 13 compares it to the anticipated budget and gives you the variance between the service fee and the all funds budget. So for example, in FY 13 hypothetical year, you have a service fee of 14.71, a hypothetical budget of 12.44, which is the adjusted 12.6 with a $2.27 million variance skipping TFI 22. Those numbers would be $18 million for the service fee, subtracting 14.71 is the anticipated budget. That again is a no maintenance budget and you have a $3.38 million variance. And again, this is against a total maintenance budget. The next slide takes those numbers. The for example, the in the blue, the first column, the $2.27 million and F 13 adds to it the $3.27 million in other annual costs and gets an all funds anticipated budget impact in FY 13 of $5.53 million or 4.09 million for the General Fund. And for most of the rest of this presentation, I'm going to emphasize the General Fund, because that's the fund where citizens get services, and that's the fund that really impacts most of us. In Fy22, those numbers would be about $5.37 million general fund impact. But again, it would be reduced to about 4.2 million when we get development revenue on an ongoing basis. This slide, while it shows you the total budgetary impact, doesn't really represent what's going to be happening in the annual budget process. It probably overstates what the impact is, and I'm going to discuss that in this next slide on required annual funding. The budget impact presentation ends with this slide. And required R&D funding is the amount we need to add to the budget in any year to fund the new civic center above that required to for the current City Hall and Library. F y 19 is the first year we're going to be in the City Hall. It is a partial year. The budget impact on the general fund is $1.29 million using all the numbers that I've talked about. In FY 20, the first full year in the library, we expect to have another additional impact of $3.93 million. After that, there will be almost no impact on on the budgets other than the normal impact that even the Old City Hall would have with no maintenance. So the impacts are in FY 19 and FY 20. We have to we will have to come up with 1.29 million in Fy19 and then 3.93 million in FY 20. And after that, we don't expect any significant budget impact. Those. Those amounts will be funded and incorporated into the normal budget projections and process and will be built into the normal budget decisions. So that's the end of the section on budget impact. And I have two brief slides on risks and uncertainties, most of which Mr. Conway has talked about. And I'll just kind of briefly summarize them. The Lincoln Park Construction and the Old City Hall demolition are predicated on the sale of land. There is no guarantee for the sale of the land, but because the price of the land is currently higher than what we need, we do not anticipate a problem. There are also material penalties to ECP for not proceeding. We don't think that's a significant risk. The center block development timing and what it will consist of are uncertain. Interest rates could increase between now and financial close anticipated in late January. There could be some costs with regard to that. The costs you've seen tonight are our best estimates of costs, but actual costs for the other costs and for one time costs may change. The service fee that we've talked about is, however, fixed and certain once interest rates are set. And we have contingency funding. It's possible that we'll need more contingency funding than what is set aside. It's possible we'll have some left over. We just don't know for sure. The city is responsible for any major improvements to the existing garages on this last slide. We have the Broadway garage and the Lincoln Park Underground garage. They're over 30 years old. We will have maintenance costs for that that are not included in these numbers, long term maintenance costs. We would have those costs regardless of whether the civic center, new civic center is built or not. We are responsible for costs associated with earthquake damage for the new civic center. But this is a well-designed, earthquake, resilient structure. We are, we may be responsible for unusual losses and costs, and Mr. Conway has talked about that. We do have a termination payment of $4 million if the project does not proceed. And once we do reach financial close, it's probably not practical to think of of termination after that point. We are committed to moving forward with the project. And with that, I'm happy to turn the microphone over to City Manager West. Thank you, Amy, Mike and John and everybody, thank you for your patience. This is our last slide. I just want to summarize that staff strongly recommends proceeding with this project. We've negotiate an agreement that achieves the lowest cost for this P3 project. The costs are manageable. They're appropriate and fiscally prudent, especially when compared to the alternative. Hypothetically, if there were continued occupancy in the current city hall, the cost exceeds that provided in the P3 model. This project will result in a new city hall, a new port headquarters, a new library, a new park, residential, retail and hotel development, and an activated corridor with a private with private partners motivated to develop and manage those investments. With over 8000 jobs, while every deal has associated risks and potential risks have been weighed, waited and disclosed, and the benefits outweigh the costs. So, again, I just want to remind everyone, we're not here to get a pretty civic center or a city hall. We're here because we have to be here. We have no alternative. We're in a very dangerous building. And not only for the public, but the employees and anyone else who visits this facility or visits Lincoln Park or the foyer below the Civic Center could be at risk at a large earthquake event. Again, I thought we met the council's directions for the past two years and provided this project without any new taxes. I can't imagine. I don't know of any civic center project being built in California without new taxes. And so I congratulate the team for coming up with this fiscal scenario. And finally, before concluding this report, I have to emphasize this project could not have reached fruition without the tireless effort, passion and leadership from Vice Mayor Suja Lowenthal. Ever since the first 26 seismic report, she has been championing the effort dealing with this issue over the past ten years. Vice Mayor Lowenthal has hosted downtown visioning workshops too numerous to count and has spearheaded the downtown plan, which has cleared the way for this development. So thank you, Vice Mayor, for your leadership and getting us to this point tonight. This concludes the staff report. And again, thank you for your patience. Thank you. I'm going to make a couple of comments. And I know that we're going to have council, we're going to public comment. We're going to have council questions and comments. This is a big project. And so there's going to be and there should be discussion and questions about the project and input from the public. All that's very important when you have a project of this size and of this of this scope and of this importance. A couple a couple of comments I wanted to make, just generally, I think I don't want just to get lost in all this because there's a lot of report that we just heard. But at the end of the day, at least for me, it has been and will always be first and foremost. This is a project about ensuring the safety of the thousands of people that walk in and out of this building every single day. These are not just employees, but these are people that come in for services, to pay a phone, to pay a utility bill, to visit the clerk's office and so forth. And I think anyone that's taken a look at the studies, the earthquake studies, will come away with a clear understanding that we are in a situation that is unsafe and certainly long term not sustainable. And so that brings us to where we are today. I want to thank obviously everyone that's been involved in in this process, this as well. While this council has been looking at this for a year since our last vote, there's been a lot of other conversation that's happened even before this last year long process. And I want to just start by thanking Mayor Bob Foster, who began this process when he was mayor. It was a project that he spearheaded when he was mayor, as well as former council members that were also involved in getting us to this point. I just wanted to make sure that we mentioned mentioned them. It's really important that they that we recognize their hard work as well. I wanted to to say that I know that we we spent a lot of time. When you think about the Civic Center project, there's a lot of components to it. But I wanted to just reframe what the part of it that I'm the most excited about. And quite frankly, that's the library. And I don't think we talk enough about the library, but while I personally the city hall component I think is the least exciting part of this project, but the fact that we're going to get what I think is going to be the best library in the region is is quite special. This is going to be a library of the future that still respects the most important central part of a library, which is research and books and and to be able to build a structure. The library alone, I believe, Mr. Conaway, is a $70 million project. I think just the library. And so what we're building here is an an all new central center of education, not just for for downtown Long Beach, but really to be a beacon of learning for the entire city. And I want to because they haven't been thanked. And you want to thank all the librarians and the Library Services Department, friends of the Long Beach Library and the Library Foundation, who have been behind the scenes, incredibly involved in the development of the library component of this project. And so thank you. I know some of that you are here, but I want to make sure that we pointed that out. I think we like to immediately turn our eyes to the city hall structure, but I think the libraries is the most exciting part. Of course, in conjunction with the Great Park we're going to have and and everything else that is part of this this structure. I want to thank staff for coming up with a incredibly unique financing structure. You know, P3 is, by the way, is are are something that a lot of people are looking at right now and has have been done successfully, as we all know, most successfully just here across the street at the courthouse. And so the proposal that we have is to finance this essentially in the same model that we financed the courthouse building, and it's in this unique public private partnership in a way where we are paying barely, barely more than what we are paying today to operate the current structure that we are already in. And this would not be possible if it wasn't for this new creative opportunity where we're bringing in the power of the private sector to help finance this public project. And this just would not be possible without the private sector. There is no way that we could go to Long Beach. Voters and residents and ask them to go put out a, you know, multi-hundred million dollar bond to finance this project. There is no way we could afford to build this type of project and a new library and a new port headquarters and all the other the other components that are coming with this, with the structure. And so for all those that have been involved in the P3 process, particularly the experts at the courthouse that have served as both advisors and supporters of this project, I just want to thank you for for for bringing us to this point and to be able to do this project in the way that we're doing it. And just just to conclude, I think that this is a this is a big project. There is no question this is this is a project that is also, in my opinion, transformational and will. Reinforce, I think, the excitement that's happening across the city when it comes to building and thinking big, when it comes to development, the energy and the thousands and thousands of units that are currently being built in and around this project. Just across the street on ocean, I can count four different residential conversions that are happening from old commercial space that are developing or being built from the ground up, all beginning in 2016 because of the excitement around this project. Not to mention other projects that are happening on Pine and other places. And so I think people are are using this project as an anchor for future development and growth. So I just want to thank the staff. This has not been an easy process. There's a lot of information and I'm sure there'll be a lot of questions. But to Mr. Conway, our city attorney team, everyone over at Mr. West on down, I just thank you for bringing us to this point. And with that, I'm going to turn this over to the council who I know has comments and questions. I'm going to start this off with Vice Mayor Lowenthal. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I wanted to thank the staff for, I think, what was promised to be a 40 minute presentation. I don't even with Mr. Conway's auctioneer speed, speed talk, I think we had over an hour. So I want to thank the public for their patience as well. And we knew at several points you were still paying attention because you caught us on our slips as we were speeding through the presentation. But thank you to the staff, everyone that spoke today except for Mr. GROSS. But that's only because he chose to come to us much later to our city. But everyone has been a part of this process since day one, if not the entire ten years, a great majority of it. And there are those of you in the audience and and many staff members. But I will call out Mr. Craig Beck, who is also there as one of the guiding forces in the beginning when we started considering what our options were for our new civic center. So I'm truly appreciative of all the work that's taken place to this point in time. And Mr. City Manager, you're very generous and thoughtful with your comments. I realize when you speak and you talk about our decade of working at this together, that we have all aged quite a bit too. I had more here and others of you in the audience whom I won't name also had more hair. So. But it's well worth it. It is well worth it. I don't know that there is anything greater that we as a council, whether we were all constituted in this group from the beginning or not. But I don't know that there's anything greater that we can participate in than this effort to to give back civic center to our communities and our residents and our visitors. I want to thank. Plenary edge more time for their efforts to meet with the stakeholders around this project. I know as the staff was making its presentation, they went over the numerous meetings that were conducted well over 100 and counting, and that's significant. That is a significant public outreach effort. And the city staff and my Conway, Ms.. Amy Bodak in particular for the incredible amount of hours that have been poured into review of this project. When staff takes on a project, they are very good about managing our expectations. I don't know that we thought that we would work on this for ten years, but we had a Great Recession in the middle of it, and that's okay. Good things come to those that wait, and this has been a lesson in that effort. So when we consider all of this, all of the work that's gone into it, the community members for taking their time to really dream with us. This is not just a an imagination or an idea by the city council or the public servants in in this building. But really, it is community members coming, taking their time to just dream with us about what this civic center can be for the next century, if not more. And many of you heard me talk about the purpose of civic centers in the past and the great potential that they have. They have a great potential to achieve the human scale, purpose and goals that the center of democracy should have. We have not been that human scale or anywhere close to that proportion in a very long time. And it's not just our civic center or city hall, but many city halls throughout the nation have faced that struggle at one time. We know that civic institutions and the spaces around them where some of the most vital places in our cities and our property here, our civic center, has not been that in a very long time. Cities that engage in civic center redesigns and reintroductions to their communities. There's always a universal theme that's clear about them. They are cities that seek to turn their collection of somewhat foreboding, monolithic public buildings into lively centers. And I think that's what this city council and the members that were here before and the staff have tried to do in this decade is to really take this collection of foreboding , monolithic buildings. And make them into lively centers for a community. I've mentioned in the past that city halls, courthouses, police, fire headquarters, libraries and other civic institutions are the foundations of a civil society and the cornerstones of democracy together. At their very best, they have the potential to define a city and its communities identity. And that's what we do through pride, through opportunities for meaningful community engagement, meaningful interaction between residents, through the coming together in what can be a public living room. And so what we saw today in the nearly 100 slides is all of that coming to bear. And they also provide opportunities for a very diverse community to come together and to foster understanding. And so I want to congratulate our staff for the work that you've done, the stamina that it takes to see a project like this . To this point, we've come a long way in 12 months. I think we were here nearly exactly 12 months ago, and this is a quite a huge step forward, a big leap forward. And what we're poised here to do today, dear colleagues, is we are poised to approve buildings and public space that have the potential to once again anchor our communities to once again center the downtown. And what we don't know is that the investment that we make today, what the multiplier factor will be, we can imagine there are economists in the room, most likely, but I'm sure that those studies will be done very quickly. But I know, I know. And we have seen throughout not just our nation but really throughout the world, that when the public sector invests in a city and in the community, good money follows after that. So we're taking a leap forward really only to see what the boundless investment will be from the private sector. And so for all those reasons, I'm so grateful that our staff and Flannery Edge Moore held firm to the guiding principles that this council had laid out, that this council had adopted with the members that are no longer on the council as well. But this council together reaffirmed and re adopted, and I want to thank you for sticking to those. It has been a lengthy, lengthy process from its infancy nearly ten years ago. But I appreciate the evolution of our discussion. And frankly, as I've said before, we're all the better and in a better place because of it. Because we did wait. We had to wait. But I know that we're better off for it. A redeveloped civic center is a better investment for our taxpayers. Are mayor expressed his own comments to that effect. This is a better investment for us than our current civic center in terms of liability, ongoing infrastructure maintenance needs, economic development, water and energy savings, and reduction of offsite leases for city departments. In fact, the cost to bring this city hall and main library to current building code standards is greater than the cost to build new facilities that are environmentally superior, structurally, structurally resilient and functionally efficient. That's hard to imagine for most of us. It's still hard for me to imagine, even though I'm somewhat in that line of work, is how that that could be possible. But it is possible. And we've heard a great, somewhat lengthy presentation from our staff explaining why it costs us more to stay in this building. The most important for this council. It will be seismically safe. And I know that's important for our council because we feel a great responsibility to our city staff and their safety. And so the fact that it will be seismically safe for our employees, our staff members, our residents who work, the employees who work here or have business in City Hall, the residents that come here on a daily basis, we need to deliver a seismically safe building. The liability associated with the risk of our current city hall alone is immeasurable. We heard some of that from our team today, thanks to our downtown plan, and I'd like to be sure to acknowledge the debate. I know Mr. Craig cojones here with his staff. They were very instrumental in helping us with our downtown plan, the downtown visioning team that came together, the 12 members of this community that came together nearly ten years ago to lay out what a vision for the downtown will be. What we see today is their good work and their hope and their aspirations for our civic center come to bear. And so I want to thank everyone that was involved in bringing the downtown plan forward, the outward oriented layout, and the mixed use development that will reconnect the civic center with our residents, businesses and visitors in a way that's currently infeasible. That is thanks to the downtown plan that many of you participated in bringing forward. It will offer great access, greater access to decision makers and improve the economic viability of downtown. With the addition of employees from the Port of Long Beach Building located alongside City Hall. And there hasn't been that much focus about the efficiency of how public servants can work when we are all fairly close to one another. And so today, the way we work is not as efficient as possible. And I think with our new civic center and really recentering a lot of the functions that are at offsite leases will contribute to that efficiency. The city, the port and the project team have developed a project that transforms the downtown and will inject about $800 million in our local economy. It'll generate over 8000 jobs, as we've heard permanent, temporary, indirect and induced jobs. I like it when we can induce jobs. I think that's something all of us can get behind. And what's important for residents to keep in mind is that we are already paying about $12.6 million annually to maintain this seismically unstable building. And like many of you, I took note of the 17% increase in cost over the original estimate. But I think what we've heard tonight is, is something that is defensible and something that is reasonable, though I'm not surprised, given the news about asbestos above the parking lot, increases in labor. And I think Mr. Conway mentioned how much it costs us for every month that goes by the increase in material costs and project improvements. Another way to look at it is for $1.8 million more per year. We get a new civic center, a new main library and a new Lincoln Park. And perhaps we'll have our statue of Mr. Lincoln in a place where most of our visitors and residents can see it. I think right now it's a little bit of a struggle, and I believe it's a sound investment, and that's less than 3% of the general fund budget to eliminate our risk of liability and provide the city and the downtown with a vibrant, inviting and functioning civic center. We always refer to this current building as City Hall, and I appreciate that our staff has gotten accustomed to referring to this new project as a civic center because it does belong to the public and it is the center of democracy for the public. And so for us to refer to it as the center of government and its and our civic center for our community is something that I'm very proud of. So with that, Mr. City Manager, I have a couple of questions. I know you've gone through you and your staff have gone through a lot of this, but with the speed and everything, I've noted a couple of things. So if you'll bear with me, I'd like to just clarify a couple of things before I make a motion. And the first question is, in regard to security at City Hall and the library, I'd like to ask you if it's feasible to utilize our current city security officers to augment services provided by the project company and whether that's something we're able to amend tonight, if it's possible, under the project agreement. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Yes, that's possible. Through the meet and confer process with our labor organization that I am. We've been discussing security at City Hall and the concept of utilizing our current security officers in addition to our agreement with JCI. We feel very comfortable in retaining our current six officers, providing security at City Hall and a library to augment the base amount of security GCI will provide by reducing portions of JCI security scope and using our own City Hall security officers. The service fee payable under the project agreement will be reduced, but additional employee costs will be incurred. This will result in approximately $430,000 net increase in cost that would not be paid until occupancy in fiscal year 2020. Being the first full year, the council can make that change tonight if they wish, and we will adjust the project agreement accordingly. Specifically, we will adjust the proposal ordinance as well, which will show a net savings of $122,000 for the remaining services. So again, the answer is yes. Okay. I appreciate that. And I think and I want to thank you for that, Mr. West. I think that's a prudent course of action. Want one additional question that I have, and I think I heard it in the presentation. But just to reiterate, by moving forward with the change in security and with. With building maintenance conducted by JCI. Will And this is something that several of our council members have brought up before. But will any current City Hall employees lose their job? Vice Mayor and City Council We've committed to you as a city council. We we were. On record committing to that. We've committed that to our labor organization, the IAM. We've reiterated here in our presentation that no employee will lose their job or be reduced in hours, duties or compensation. So that's correct. Okay. I appreciate that. And I and I know it's redundant and we ask you time and time again, but this is a long project and I think you'll have to remind us also from time to time. So with that Clark clarification, I'd like to. Mr. Mayor, if it's appropriate, I'd like to move ahead with a motion. And my motion councilmembers is to adopt and approve items one through 17 as recommended by staff. Subject to the following. One that no agreements related to the project shall be executed prior to the effective date of Senate Bill 562. And that's the bill by Senator Lara, which is January one, 2016. Two that no agreements related to the project shall be executed if the city manager determines there has been a material change in circumstance related to the project which might adversely affect the city, in which event the city manager is directed to promptly return to this Council for further direction. And lastly, items five and. 14 and any other items are as necessary or amended so that city employees are primarily, but not exclusively responsible for providing security to the project and the city. Costs and savings included in the proposal ordinance are amended accordingly. And that's my emotion. Okay. Thank you. I think there's a second, which is Councilwoman Gonzalez. Councilwoman Gonzalez. Okay. Is everyone ready for my 45 minute presentation? Just kidding. I'm kidding. I'm just very excited to be here. As the vice mayor mentioned, I think all of us are very delighted to be at this stage of the project. And so I want to also thank our city staff as well for their very hard work, our city commissioners, our port staff and commissioners as well for working with us. Vice Mayor Lowenthal, of course, for her leadership throughout this whole process, our friends and business as well as the building trades and of course plenary edge more. But I also have to give a lot of gratitude to our community. I know many of them have also been in discussion about this so many, so many times. And to be able to be a part of a process that's really incredibly positive, including great partnerships, ideas for innovation, creativity and collaboration to collectively move this city forward . We're certainly doing a large part in that tonight and tonight. Together, we are making one of the most important decisions I know for myself as a council member, being in office now for about a year and a half, this is certainly one of the most important decisions I will have to make. But I'm personally proud of our city and how we've been able to slow this process down, make this project extremely inclusive, and incorporate ideas from each of our unique communities. It certainly was a mindful project as well, engaging discussions about park space, about homeless individuals who are here and how to handle how to best handle those situations . And from new developments sprouting up along downtown corridors that had long been vacant. I know the deal is here as well. I have to also extend my gratitude to them because I know they've been working very hard, but with vacancy rates that had gone up, you know, to be able to now have new new businesses coming in is really great and wonderful. And now we can revisit, of course, our branding and marketing as a city as well. And I think it's just an extremely important and powerful project that we are able to now vote on. I too have a few questions. I know the vice mayor was great in asking a lot of the questions related to costs, and I know that has been a question on many of our minds. I know it's it's kind of scarier on paper to see that. But when reading the information and when being presented with this, it's it's less scary. And so I just want to ask, as far as the general fund, how much will we be impacted? Percentage wise. This project will be less than 3% of the general fund. Okay. Less than 3%. And we are currently paying now how much to currently exist in our building. I'm sorry. We're paying. How much for what? To be here in our. In our. In our building currently. The current operational costs are. And operational cost is 12.6, including the leases. And then that's compared to the 13. Million. Correct that we would be. Compared to the 13.77. Yes, 13.17. Okay. So when I look at those, I certainly don't see a stark contrast. It's nothing. I think the return on investment that we're getting when it when we look at property values that will be coming about rising. As I mentioned, property values, new economic vitality, new tourism, and of course, a brand new, beautiful looking civic center. A few other questions I have, though, as well is we will have I know it's been discussed before. We will have gender neutral bathrooms. Yes, ma'am. We will. We will actually have a gender neutral bathroom accessible off of the lobby. Okay, great. And there's over 8000 jobs being created. Wonderful. Okay, well, those are all the questions that I have at this time. Again, I just want to reiterate how very impactful this is for many of us and thank city staff once again for all of their hard work in this whole process. And, Councilman, I want to just one thing. I think actually is the most important part of the discussion that you asked about. Mr. GROSS. You mentioned the current cost being 12 point. Would you say 12.4? I think it was right. Or six. It's 12.6 to the current cost, which is 12.6, which are paying right now, and the new costs, which is 13.7. I want to make sure that the one part that I don't want to get lost in what you presented earlier is what we're paying right now, 12.6 And we've been paying the 12.6 since 2005 six And so the actual cost that we should be paying every year is closer to 18, 19 million a year. That because we're not doing deferred maintenance, we're not investing in the building, the actual cost that we should be that we should be paying is dramatically higher than what we will be paying. And to me, that is the key piece of this of the conversation. I just wanted to highlight that. And with that, I'm sorry, Councilman, do you have any more additional questions? Okay. Thank you. Councilwoman Pryce, please. Thank you. I want to thank our city team for the presentation. And I do have a few questions moving forward. First of all, as a start, there's no doubt that this is going to be an excellent development. It's going to provide over 8000 jobs. It's going to be built with skilled labor, which will serve us well in the future in terms of the sustainability of the structure as we move into the future decades and the future generations. It's a well thought out project in terms of the design components, the the way that the different structures interact with one another and the opportunities for the public to engage in this space. And to also, of course, I share the mayor's excitement about the library and the opportunities to enhance our library system in the city by providing the solid, great foundation at the heart of the city. So no doubt all of that is is very positive. I do have a couple of questions that are really fiscal in nature. So perhaps they would be directed to John GROSS, although I defer to the city manager on the best staff member to help address them. The $940,000 in expected revenues that we have projected in in the financials. When do we expect that 940,000 to come to fruition? Is it when the development is completely. It's completely occupied including the center block structures that prior to that. The the. We will start receiving some property tax revenue actually as soon as the center block is sold, there will start. The third and Pacific is sold. And then when the center block is sold, we anticipate the third and Pacific to sell shortly so that it won't be $940,000, but there will start to be property tax revenue . The bulk of the revenue will increase as development occurs and the assessor assesses the project as a private development as it moves forward. Obviously that'll be after the city hall is demolished, but the 940,000 represents a steady state after development occurs and sales and property tax are coming in. And that that timing is as soon as development can occur after we demolish city hall. And maybe one more question. Third and Pacific will develop way before that. In terms of that that $940,000 figure, how did we arrive at that figure? Is that is that figure conservative in nature? Is it a best case scenario figure? What's our risk in making an assumption that 940,000 and expected revenues is going to be in our calculations? We are not sure exactly what the development is going to be. We did hire a development expert to review a low, most likely and high estimate, and the high estimate is more than double the $940,000. So we thought using the 940 as the most likely was a very reasonable methodology to use. Okay. We have talked a little bit about the cost to the city of maintaining the leases throughout the city for various departments. Can you please explain what the status of all those leases will be with the new Civic Center, perhaps, Mr. Conway. Councilmember Price. We brought in three or four leases. A couple of leases have also terminated over this period of time. I did mention in the presentation the two primary leases that remain offsite and the reasons why we want that. We recommend that they remain offsite. One, it's lease less expensive to lease space than it would be to build additional space in city hall to accommodate them. Plus, their parking demands would exceed the parking availability in our Broadway and Lincoln Park garage. And lastly, we believe the services that they provide are better provided in the community where their target population is located. So about 1.2 million or so in offsite leases that weren't brought in to the Civic Center. And are part of. John Gross's 3.27 in additional ongoing. Costs. Okay. So when we talk about a 15% increase in the annual payment, we're we're calculating in the leases that we're going to be maintaining offsite. That's correct. Okay. Mr. GROSS, you mentioned several times the financial close. What is that process for those of us who aren't in the industry? What happens at Financial Close, which is scheduled but could change near the end of January, is all of the documents, the project agreement that's before you tonight, the financial loan that C will be doing in order to finance this project, putting in the equity. All of that will be money, will change hands and will be turned over to a trustee and the legal documents will be signed and locked into place. So money will change hands and the contracts will sign and the project will be formally underway. Okay. And that's projected to be in January? Yes. Late January. I have a question. Probably best for the city attorney. We received I think everyone received an email this afternoon, late this afternoon from the State Lands Commission. Is there any concern on behalf of the city attorney in moving forward? Is there anything we need to do to augment the language of what we're approving tonight to make sure that we are complying with their requests? No, we I reviewed that letter. We're satisfied this is on here. We're satisfied that the flexibility is already provided in the motion before you right now. And we're committed to continue to work with the State Lands Commission, of course, between now and the time at which we execute the agreements to address their concerns. We're confident we can do that. Okay. For for Mr. GROSS, assuming that we move into this the process and and we go through that, the whole process, and the end of January, we go through the financial close is what is the status of our annual payments moving forward? Can they fluctuate? What types of situations would warrant a change in the annual payments? What can we expect as a council? The service fee, the payment to the private company will be locked as a financial close. And in general, I'll identify some exceptions. In general, that price will be known for the next 40 years. It will go up with inflation and a fixed growth in amount, generally under 2.4% a year. That's all been factored into the projections and numbers you've seen today. So those that number will be fixed. There are some exceptions, such as extremely unusual events that occur, relief events that could change that number. But in general, that number is is fixed. In terms of that number, I'm really focused on two particular years of significance, and that's 2019 and 2020, specifically 2020. And one while one may say, you know, it's shortsighted to just look at a year or two as members of the city council, we deal with short sighted because when we answer calls and emails from our constituents , it's about what's happening in their neighborhood on that day. So given the gap that we see in the general fund for those two years as a result of the increased payment, what expectations do you have or what discussions have you had with staff regarding the impact of that deficiency to our residents in terms of basic city surface services, police infrastructure, that kind of thing? Our approach and what we're recommending is that we build those amounts and I think you're referring to the extra 1.29 million and the extra three 3.9 million in FY 20 into the operating budget. We expect that we'll have to we will make those adjustments. The one the $3 million, even at the $3 million level, the FY 21 time adjustment, it represents just a little over 1% of the budget. It's it's it's not that it's not obviously it's not a trivial amount, but it's it's an adjustment that we've made before. We've had adjustments and where we've had to adjust $20 million in the budget, we've had adjustments of $7 million in a year. So this number, while it's certainly nothing to ignore and is and is significant, is not a number that is we're going to be able to handle that number. Well, and I understand that. But aren't we projecting a deficit in 2019 and 2020? In addition to this. We have projected deficit in F, y, 17 and 18, and we do not have a projection for FY 19 and 20 because it's too far out. We will do an F by 19 projection in March. We literally do not have one at this time. We're not going to do FY 20 simply because it's too far out to be reasonably accurate. We do have a situation where and we've talked to City Council about this before, that our pension costs are going up about four and a half million dollars a year and that will continue through f y 20. And we hope at that point it will level out. We'll be updating those projections. But that's that's the driver of our financial some of our financial issues. The key driver actually is is our pension cost. So that is an issue. We also expect debt service to drop in FY 20 by somewhere in the area of $3 million a year due to a natural decline. And that will certainly help offset cost increases in FY 20. Given the pattern that we have and again, we don't have a projection for FY 19 and 20, I wouldn't be surprised if we continue to have at least some level of shortfall in those two years. It might be better than where we are now and really we don't have those projections. So that's that's where I think we are. Okay. I say that because I have heard our city managers have probably a lot of people in this room when we've done the pension projections say winter is coming. And we've talked very often about now until 2020 in regards to our pension obligations. And so I just wasn't sure that we're all going forward knowing that in addition to our pension obligations, we're going to have a $3.93 million shortfall in 2020. And I want to make sure that we are committed to the taxpayers, as we have been from the start of this project, and saying that this project is not going to result in a reduction of services to them in terms of police protections and public works, the core services that we provide, parks, all of that. We've made that commitment from day one. And that's the message that I've shared, is that we're not going to be changing the level of service that they're going to get as a result of moving forward on this project of what, you know, what is our position on that, knowing that we can't anticipate what our budget is going to be in 2019, but we're anticipating some some pension obligations that are going to give us a deficit during that time period. I'm. Did you were. You looking for a response from staff on. That? Yeah. I mean, what's are we, are we looking at possibly cutting city services to make that happen? Mayor Councilmembers No, we don't believe we'll be looking at cutting city services. We have an excellent finance and we look at things with a3c and we'll be preparing for that and taking a look at other opportunities for revenue opportunities and other areas, how we do organizational efficiencies. And I think we've done a pretty good job facing some of the deficits that we faced during the past ten years. And as fine a point, I believe that this is rise's level of something that we'd be concerned about. It's service reductions. That's good to know. In terms of going back to the presentation that you guys provided. In terms of the 10% of the residential units being reserved for moderate income households, what is that? That figure has that figure of what that constitutes a moderate income been defined? It's about 120% of area median income. So for a family of four in Los Angeles County, it's somewhere around $60,000. Right. Our first payment. And I know we covered this will our first payment actually be in 2019 as a partial annual payment, or will it be in 2020? 2019 as a partial. Yes. We will be we anticipate moving in July 1st of 2019. Okay. In regards to page 79, the sources of the funding, the one times and you may have gone over this, but what is a park impact fee? So the city has several impact fees that are assessed against development projects and they pay for essentially improvements to facilities. We have traffic impact fees, we have PERC impact fees. There's a sewer connection fee or impact fee as well. And we also have a public safety impact fee. What we need to do as a city in which we do all the time is that there is a nexus between development and impacts to city services and city infrastructure. And so instead of, for example, a residential development being required to construct playground facilities, in this instance, there is a park impact fee that is associated with residential development. So for every unit of residential development, a fee is assessed based on that residential development. The impact fee goes into a special fund that is overseen by financial management but is managed by the Parks and Rec Department. And then they manage that those funds in accordance with acceptable practices and state law. In this instance, park impact fees can only be spent on new facilities. They cannot be spent on existing facilities. And so there are new components of Lincoln Park, which would which would be eligible for the use of the park impact funds. Okay, great. Thank you for that. The $4.5 million contingency is that for the city's portion or combined city and the port. That is just for the city. Great. Thank you. I have no further questions. I just want to reiterate, my my biggest concern going into this is. Hitting 2019 or 2020 and having to cut some core services. Police, fire. You know, some of the things that our residents rely on because the commitment that I've made, the legislative intent behind my vote in favor of this tonight is premised upon the fact that our residents are not going to suffer core services as a result of us building a new civic center. And that's that's my intent. And so if I'm wrong on that or if somebody anticipates that, I'm going to that that legislative intent is inaccurate, I really would appreciate that notification now because I could not support a project that would result in us having to cut services down the road to support, even if it's for one year, because that's that's an entire year that our residents depend on those services and we need to be increasing, not reducing those services. So thank you. Thank you, mayor councilmembers. I would like to point out, however, not to pursue this unless you're to do a ballot measure. We could virtually guarantee that we'd be having to reduce services to stay in this building. So we have an option to make. If the council wants to do a ballot measure to do a new city hall, we can guarantee no service reductions. But if we don't go forward tonight and stay in this building, we can guarantee service reductions. But we are anticipating no service reductions, is what I'm hearing. STAFF Absolutely. Yes, that's that's what I'm for tonight. Absolutely. I'm not yeah. I'm not talking about ballot measures. I'm not going to that dramatic, you know, place. I'm just saying we're what I'm hearing from staff is that we're not anticipating any service reduction. Given the plan that we're putting forth tonight. Absolutely true. Thank you. I just one thing I just want to add is I think Councilman Price makes some good points is just as a reminder, though, for everyone, the public, the council, every decision that we make has an impact on what will happen in 2020. And so if next month the Council approves a new policy on Policy X, that will have an impact if next year the Council approves policy. Why that could have an impact. So, you know, you know, obviously, I think staffs try to answer the question and I and I appreciate that. But just as a reminder, the council as well, we we every single Tuesday have the ability to dramatically impact the future of the deficit as well. Thank you. And I also have Council Member Richardson. Thanks. Before I get to my comments along that same vein, I want to just chime in on the way that this is being framed, because I think it's important that we're responsible in terms of providing the real picture to our residents. I don't think anybody I personally don't support cutting core services, and I don't think anybody on the council supports cutting core services. But, you know, any any decision we make, whether it's additional hours on a Sunday and a library to, you know, additional park rangers to all of those things have additional impacts in the future. So I want to make sure that, you know, we're talking about this decision today in the context of this budget and what we do in the future. As long as we're being reasonable in terms of the impact, I think that's something we can manage. I think we've gotten a reasonable understanding from the city manager on what the marginal impact is of the budget. And what I want to do right now is I want to ask what. Mr.. Mr.. West. The difference again between what we pay today and what we will pay is about how much annually. Mr. GROSS has a number we. And the key impact will be $3.93 million in FY20. Okay. So $3 million impact. Against against today's budget. Okay. And do we expect that to increase or decrease? After that, I think I think it would. The projections say that there will be no material change after that. And that's based on conservative estimates on what we're going to generate. Correct. Or based on what we think are the most likely estimates. Could be higher. Could be lower. But I think that's a reasonable estimate to make. And does that get us a fully paid for library, park and community center and civic center? Yes, it does. So the first thing I want to say is, you know this, when I came to the council, I paid it, paid some attention. But I thought that I personally thought that this is a you know, this is one of the largest decisions the city any city council has made in the history of the city. And so I think it's good that we took the time, hit the pause button, went back to the community, you know, community meetings in all parts of town, including North Long Beach, to talk about this in my particular community meeting. You know, there was one resident that brought up concerns, but there were really good questions and those were engaged, you know, those were engaged by the team. So I want to acknowledge city staff, the council, the development team for taking taking the time to go through this process so that I, as a council member and in my community, can warm up to this idea of doing something large and scary and complex. I get it. It could be it could be challenging. But I think it's important that we look at the whole picture, that there's this thing called risk and opportunity cost for not taking action. If we don't take action, it's on us should something happen. And the alternative would be to do something much more expensive on the ballot or find some other source of raising revenue and to speak in straight terms. I don't I just frankly don't think that that's an option. I think that what's interesting about this is that we're sending an interesting message to, you know, our community in terms of the approach in adding a historic loop and a cultural loop to make sure that everyone that, you know, everyone in our city feel some sort of way to connect with the building and see that they're interested in their history and their cultures are reflected into the design of the building. I think that says a lot that we made that effort to connect with them in the very architecture of the space. I think what's interesting also is that by taking, you know, a new approach in terms of the innovative way that we've financed this , I think that it really sends a message also to our development community and business and says that we're willing to to do something different and we're not stuck in the same old ways. And the fact that we're able to do that to achieve our goals as a city, if you indeed believe that having a new building, a new park, you know, great facilities that our city can be proud of are something that we value. Something our value also is the commitment to the workforce. So I've heard early on this was referred to as a a live work development or live work space. And I really see this as a work live space because frankly, the rank and file spend more time at City Hall than I do as a council member. And so I'm glad to see that efforts have been taken through the meeting confer process to make sure that our rank and file employees we're at the table have had a conversation about how we're going to approach things like security. So that's something that should be acknowledged. I also want to acknowledge I think it's important to note that, you know, Pkkp Whineray Edge Moore had a very successful jobs job fair last week and that we've had even more conversations about doing more of that kind of outreach , particularly in North Long Beach. That is something that I believe encourages the whole city to connect with this project. So I do support that. And so for me, with this vote, absolutely, this has major implications. I think this is one of those moments where, you know, you have to really dig down to your values on this vote and for worker safety sake, for the residents pocketbook sake, and for minimal impact on our budget, for our main library sake and the inspiration on the future for our Linkin Park sake. For those reasons, I'm going to vote in favor of this tonight. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Durango. I like your analogy of a live, work, work, live and not the amount of time I spend to get to my work live type of guy. The amount of time I spend in City Hall. However, having said that, obviously there's a lot of concerns about this project. There's a lot of concerns about the current city hall that we reside in. I see this project as very promising. It's one that has a lot of moving parts to it that has a lot of potential. I think that the I think it's historic in many ways in the sense that this project has been able to bring labor and business together in support of this. The fact that we have a play that's going to be in place, that's going to focus on jobs for local residents, for Long Beach residents, is wonderful. I think that the potential growth for business in in regards to a commercial corridor that we're going to have here with this project as well is going to be very positive and it's going to make a difference for downtown. It's going to bring more, more people here. It's going to be the center of government. It's going to be the place where people are going to want to come if if not just to have a picnic in the park and visit Lincoln, but to come to the library and to pay their bills. So I think that's going to be a wonderful opportunity for people to come to downtown even more than they may do already. I think councilmembers Lowenthal and Gonzalez said it very eloquently in terms of what the impact is going to be on this project here. There is nothing that I've seen and heard that is negative on it, even to the point where they're raising concerns about the amount of additional funds that we're going to have in the future come 19, 20, 19 and 2020. I think that that is manageable. I think that it's something that our budget people have looked into. I trust their analysis. I'm not a financial person, but obviously, but I think that what they have said is worth is we're taking the risk we have. Everything that we do is risk. And it's been said, you know, the potential for change and risk is every Tuesday when we make a decision and we push this button. The also, I think I'm very confident and the city manager's comments that there will not be any jobs lost city jobs. In fact, I think it would provide a potential for growth. And the fact that there's going to be 8000 jobs added as a result of this pride not added, but a pool of people employed as a result of this project is phenomenal. So I'm looking forward to having something in place here tonight that we can move forward with. And let's get moving. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember. Councilwoman Mongo. I want to thank the many residents who have engaged in this process. I've really enjoyed working through and talking with the individuals who come down to City Hall from the fifth District. And I have a list of questions that were submitted by members of the community, most of which have already been answered tonight by my colleagues and or the staff. And so I also want to thank many members of the community who thought, as I thought and I know Councilmember Price had mentioned one of my questions from closed session that I think was so engaging when I discussed it with members of the community about this park fees. And those park fees often are confusing because they cannot be used to revitalize the parks that we already have. That is the way that those funds were designated. And so while we would love to be able to access those funds for the parks that we already have, many of you know, the fifth District is in dire need , as is the rest of the city, of updating and improving our parks. We are moving in that direction outside of the park fees that are designated for a new park area only. I know there's been some constituents that have reached out to our office about the seemingly rush to act on the project. I think that city manager Pat West and Economic Development Director Mike Conway really laid out the process and how it started in 2007. And as my council colleague Richardson said, we've really taken a hit the pause button and reviewed and gone out into the community and engaged in that process. And I think that the 26 community meetings and three council study sessions, along with the nine district based meetings, was a aggressive and very appropriate engagement. And I think that that in addition to all of us as a council, working hard to include it in our weekly, monthly or quarterly newsletters, each district's different has really gotten the information out. I know that the components of City Hall are are quite large. It's important, as the mayor mentioned, to talk about the World Class Library that will be right here in Long Beach and the preservation of our history, along with the port headquarters and city hall and so much other important space in the redevelopment of Lincoln Park and the opportunity to bring mixed use housing downtown. I think the most important thing for me was when I was briefed that if we do not act today and move forward in this direction and we instead choose to stay in city hall, services would be cut and we are already facing potential cuts regarding our deficits ahead that are caused by the pension. And so for me, this public private partnership is the opportunity to ensure that those services are not cut because of the deficiencies of the prior decisions related to this city hall as built and voted on by our predecessors. That got us here. There is a quick couple of questions that had not been answered that I think the community would like to hear. And if I missed it when I took a quick bathroom break, please let me know that I did miss it. Why was the city? What was. Let me start with this one. Why was it in the city's interest to support Senate Bill 562 that was passed this year, allowing the city to execute the financial agreement for the new civic center lasting up to 50 years to. I apologize. I just returned. Did you say why was it in the city's interest to do that? So I know that we had originally talked about a 30 year plan, then we moved to a 40 year plan. When we went forward and supported the legislation, we supported a 50 year option. Can you talk a little bit about that and what that means to us as a city and where we ended up landing on that ? Sure. We thought that it was very likely that the structures that were being proposed about a year ago were legal, but it had not been done before. It was kind of a matter of first impression, and we didn't want to take the risk that there would be some sort of a challenge. So we sought the legislation. It passed, I think, unanimously, and we included, you know, I can't recall now whether we included a 50 year term or 40. I think we may have. Was it. Okay, Mr. Murdoch, do you want to just chime in on the details of that and kind of move up. To 50 to provide some flexibility, but we did not end up pursuing. That. Yes, that's correct. And why did we choose the 40 when we could have put it out over a longer period? Well, I can punt this to Mr. GROSS, but I believe that it's cheaper to to borrow over a shorter term. I believe he did say that in a closed session. I just wanted to make sure that it was out there in the public record. And I'm there in council, if I can add to that. In our RFP and RFQ, we had originally planned on a 40 year. And so, you know, that was really the direction from the council was the 40 year so that we endeavor to meet that target. I think that when discussing the long term maintenance and the viability and the condition that the building will be handed off to us in, I think 40 makes a lot of sense and so I'm supportive of that as well. There was some confusion in some of the discussion we had with a few community members related to how we future based the 20 $13. So the specific question would be why has the staff goal to achieve the annual cost of 12.6 million in the 20 $13 raised all the way up to the 2015 into 17 and $20 of 14.48 million. We use 20 $13 because those are the dollars when we went to council and council set the goals. That's why we use 2013. We report 20 $16 because the legal documents are based on 2016. That also happens to be in current prices. And then we reported other prices in their dollars like FY 2021 and 22, because those are when we actually make the payments. And we thought that city council would want to see what the payments were in those years. I appreciate that very much. And how does the 1.88 million additional, the 15% increase in the annual service costs impact future budget processes? How is that worked into it and accounted for? We have we have we FBI 13. That number 1.88 is an FBI 13 number. The actual numbers that we'll have to incorporate into the budget start an FBI 19. That's the 1.29 million and the 3.3 3.93 million in FY 20. And so that would be the respective numbers that actually get incorporated into the budget. And as I said, we'll just incorporate that into the regular budget process and into our projections. You'll be starting to see that in the projections and we'll work that out over the next few years. And then I really got several emails related to this question, and then I had a discussion with some of the city staff about the Taj Mahal city halls of Orange County that have completely gone out of control with their budget costs and the demands of those councilmembers. I think that here we are talking about a civic center, which is much more of a plan to ensure the fiscal stability of the city. But I think it's important to ask this question and have it answered is if the reason for the cost increases was a result of due diligence and realization of necessary asbestos mitigation, structural support deficiencies and new design features leading to changes in the project scope and the relocation costs and escalation costs. How can we be sure that that does not happen again? And and what does that mean? At this point in time? We've identified the risks that the city is exposed to, which is differing site conditions, regulated site conditions. We've got numbers that bracket around those exposures and we have some contingencies that the project company is accepting as well with those contingencies in place. Then project company takes all the additional risk relative to some of the design changes and some of the the change orders that occur in construction, the risk related to differing site conditions and regulated site conditions. If they exceed a certain number, then the city has the opportunity of terminating the agreement and paying a termination fee. That will always be an option that the city can consider if indeed it's facing some significant cost. But again, those costs that the city is assuming that I discussed in this presentation are considered to be relatively low and that it was more prudent for the city to accept a potential one time costs associated with those risks rather than financing over 40 years of contingency. And Mr. Mayor, if I can add to that as well, what you see in that, how this differs from some of those other projects that you talked about, is in that traditional model, which the other cities have used, it really is. The city is making the decisions and the city accepts all the risk, as Mr. Conway said, of change orders, of cost, escalation, of, you know, those are all things that the city, through its management, would have to accept in this agreement, which is completely different. Those risks are really, except for the ones explained tonight, are really on their set. They're defined and they're at the risk of the project company. So we do not expect to see, you know, change orders that, you know, unless the city makes specific, conscious decisions. And we've set aside a small amount of contingency for that. But it should be very different from what you've seen in other cities that are publicly managed and built. Thank you. And the initial project schedule contemplates that occupancy readiness for City Hall, the port and the new main library will be simultaneous. And then those transition costs are built in as kind of a bulk rate when moving people moving them all at once. Will there be an impact to our costs if that is not achieved? And how is that burdened by the team? Will there not be an impact if what happens? I missed it. If if all three buildings aren't ready at the same time as they're scheduled to be, where we would all move approximately at the same time of June 2019, and we have to do a phased in move in. Would those cost, as you mentioned before, be burdened by the developer? Our payment, our service fee, our annual service fee will be reduced by a certain percentage if buildings are not available. That's exactly what my next question was. And how will that impact the service fee? Thank you. And. The Exclusive Negotiation agreement and terms and conditions sheet and the global agreement. When and how will that be made public and how can we ensure that it's transparent and provided to the constituents in a way that doesn't hurt our negotiating standpoint, but gets out at the soon as possible moment? All documents are currently available at Long Beach. Civics are civics Entercom In-a term sheet and project agreement, formally known as. A global excellent agreement. I know they're in my next newsletter and I think Councilman Gonzalez emailed a note in her newsletter earlier this week. So you're a little bit ahead of us, but absolutely. I guess I'll end I have three more questions that I may or may not ask. I think a few other councilmembers have the same question because I know you are CC by the same constituents, but I just want to say that I'm really proud of the work that we have seen our partners do already in terms of negotiating and finding a place where we can meet common ground and it's best for the residents. I was thoroughly impressed with the job fair this weekend and the number of constituents that came. I think that it's great when our local residents are hired. It really reduces a lot of issues, especially most importantly, the unemployment rate here. It reduces if they get those jobs in the city, the environmental impacts of commuting to work and all of those types of things. And I also want to our also look forward to seeing I know that local businesses being on these teams was a big part of that. And I know that there are some conditions that allow for rebidding out business partners on this plan. But I hope that local businesses will be in the final plan because I know that many local businesses were on both teams at the beginning, and I hope that our partners hear the firm message that we expect to see local businesses as their partners when this is completed. So more on that to come. Thank you and I look forward to hearing public comment. Thank you. Council Member Supernova. Thank you. And speaking of public comment, I would certainly like to hold off on some of my questions and comments until we do hear from the public. That being said, I do have one question that has come up as recently as today, and that is what would it hurt to wait another 90 days? Like, we haven't done enough due diligence so either. Mr. CONWAY. Mr. GROSS, can you delineate some of those items, either construction costs, locking in those or whatever? We have our current estimate of delay cost due to escalation of both labor and materials is $600,000 a month for the city, $600,000 a month for the port. So about $1.2 million for the project delay per month. Okay. Thank you. Another question I've gotten is the amount we still owe on this building. I think it's 17 million and some change. Where does that go? Does that get rolled into the new project and etc.? The the project includes about $21 million. If I have the number right to pay off the debt, $17.6 million to pay off the debt on the current building that will be included in the and the financing of this project. Okay. And then just on a personal note, because I'm new to the council, I've only been here eight months. I've been asked, did I have time to do the due diligence? And so I just like to thank staff for bringing me up to speed on this. We certainly have done the due diligence. I believe that my staff and I have really researched this and asked every single question that's been framed here tonight and then some. So thank you. Thank you, Councilmember. Councilman Austin. Thank you. And I want to thank my colleagues for the thoughtful questions. Hopefully, I won't have too many to to follow up, and I am looking forward to hearing from the public. I do want to thank our staff, city management, for their all hands on deck approach to dealing with this to solve this very important issue. I think it shows the the talent that we have, the professionalism of our our staff, and they've done their due diligence and done a good job of keeping this council and public informed throughout the process. I want to thank our partners plenary edge more for their public process that I think was very, very engaging and transparent. Questions were asked along the way, but also they were open to ideas from from the public, public and of course, our public who participated in the forums and learn more about this and have been informed throughout the way to help shape the the ideas and the concept for the new civic center. I want to thank the building trades for for their vigilance and in this process as well. Certainly they have an interest in putting our residents to work in the local hire agreement. And the project labor agreement is something that I'm particularly proud of. This is obviously a major undertaking that I don't take lightly. City Hall is for for all of Long Beach, all of its residents, its visitors. It's not a district specific undertaking in any way. And this is a decision that and ultimately will will transform our downtown, put thousands of people to work and make for safer work and business space. When you look at All Things Considered here and there were a lot of numbers put forth and there was a lot of careful analysis here. It appears to me that it's it's cost neutral when you look at the risk associated with keeping a seismically unsafe building. However, there are risk and I want to ask some questions about those risk. I think the success of this, ultimately the success of this project is going to require significant oversight and management and great management from from talented staff with the long term interest here of our city. And. There were a couple of there was an area of the staff report that that that jumped out at me and maybe you can help me get some clarity on it. And that was regarding the three interest text that was wasn't too clear on terms of what our exposure really is and who would be responsible for that , how much it is or may be. Um, can you help clarify that? Absolutely. So the possessor interest tax is applied when there is a private interest in public property in depending upon the financing methodology, there could have been construed by the county assessor an interest by a plenary edge more in the leasehold estate. And because at one time we were contemplating a land lease in a lease back in our financing structure, and so staff was a little nervous that there could be a determination by the county assessor that possessor interest would apply at the current financing structure is a taxable bond. What is being provided to the city as a service payment over 40 years outside counsel has reviewed the status of that financing structure and does not believe that possessor interest will be applied. So we don't believe there is much risk associated with that. If at some point possessor interest is applied for some reason and and it essentially remains applied and we haven't challenged it, the city would then be obligated to pay that possessor interest. Under our current structure. The city would receive back 21% of that possession interest into their general fund, so that even if there is possessor interest applied , the costs associated with that would be abated somewhat to about 70% of the total possessor. So. So with that, I mean, we you said we you he got direction from outside counsel. Was the assessor's office actually consulted? We actually met with the assessor's office and their chief appraiser and and others, I guess in the assessor's office, they were, let's say, somewhat coy in whether or not possessor interest would apply and the process by which they would do that calculation. But that meeting was taking place at the time that we were facing or considering a lease and lease back of city facilities. That's clearly not our structure, our financing structure at this point. So we don't see much likelihood of the application of possession or interest. In terms of a assessed value of the property. I mean, do we have any kind of ballpark on what that would be? Well, no, I guess is the short answer. I think our best application of what might be a valuation of the property would be the cost of construction. Being a city facility, there is not a revenue stream associated with it that's comparable to the office marketplace, which would be a more traditional approach to value. So there's there's not a clear way for us to identify what the value would be other than the cost to construct. Well, I think everything is pretty much been been laid out for us except that unknown variable with it is kind of kind of leaves me very concerned. I think, you know, if there were some sort of scale, you know, if it's $10 million, it's $5 million. And what what is the possessor interest tax on it? On $1,000,000? Do you know or would you know? I don't know if. Yeah, it's probably 11.1 1.25% of that would be just like a property tax. Okay. And you can because that's your interest has a sliding scale as well. So it would be up to 1.1 or 1.25%. Okay. So I guess my next question is what sort of guarantees, if any? And I think I know the answer to the question, but does the council have that these costs will continue to increase? From what we know today. The, the, the annual cost. I think that's what you're asking. Council member are you not? The annual cost, once we hit financial close is set by a formula. It will not change. It will go up with more or less with inflation or something equivalent to inflation. And those are the numbers we gave you. There are other other annual costs that we talked about, the 3.27 million. There's no reason to believe that those are going to go up at a different rate than what we've projected there. They've been stable for years, so we're pretty confident that we have those costs correct where there are uncertainties. We've mentioned them and Mr. Conway has talked about them. But where we don't have uncertainty is what the cost will be. The service fee cost that's going to be pretty locked in. Okay. And I think lastly, I'd like to learn a little bit more about the $4.5 million contingency cost for design that's being included in the financing of the project. Is there any other option other than just financing this project? I mean, year after year we deal with one time revenues and obviously we appropriate those in our budget process. But but is there a way for us to to get away from financing that that component of this. That financed that $4.5 million because we're not paying for it in upfront cash? What I believe you're saying is that there is a financing cost to that $4.5 million, and you are correct, that is the case. But we have looked at a number of ways to minimize the cost. We are contributing quite a bit of money, $10.78 million to reduce the contract construction cost. Already we're putting 9.7 in for one one time costs. And unless we can identify. Another $4.5 million up. We think we have the most inexpensive way overall for this project is to include it in in the financing costs. Okay. That's all for now. Thank you. Thank you. Before I turn to Councilman Andrews and I think, you know, Mr. Connor, I think you and Mr. GROSS said and answered the questions on the on the statutory interest tax questions correctly. I'll just let them the council members know that I've been in pretty close contact with the county assessor, and so we've had multiple discussions on this topic. And I would just concur with staff that I think everyone's feeling like that's going in the right direction. Obviously there's no closer to that at this at this point. But in just the conversations that I've had with him directly and that staff's had to staff, I think that that's there. There's good progress being made there. Councilmember Andrews. Yes. And thank you, Mayor. I think sometimes it's pretty good to wait to be the last one to speak on asylum, because the fact that you get a chance to hear what are you your colleagues are speaking about? And I think they answered all the questions that I was sitting here listening to. But most of all, when I think of this, I want to, first of all, thank Mr. Conway and Amy Bolduc and also The Edward Edge, more civic partners for their hard work and its incredible, you know, project. You know, sure, it's a huge project for the city of Long Beach, and I think I'm very excited about it. But I think most of all, when I think about this, when you came to my district and you gave us, you know, oversight of what we're going to build and how it's going to be built. And most of all, you talked about jobs and if any. But you know me, my whole thing is about jobs because I know the importance of jobs. But Jessica, like me and you sat down with us and told us about 8000 jobs that could change the whole complexity, you know, of this individual that live in the sixth District. But not only that, but I think for the city of Long Beach, because everyone at this point is trying to figure out if we build this project, will we have the jobs that you spoke about? And from what I'm here and what I'm listening to, this is what you guys have promised and this is what will be. Because the theme of my parade this year called Empowerment of Hope, and this has given individuals some hope because the fact that I definitely believe that what you've said you will do and by doing that, it's going to make a city that I think everybody is always very excited about. But I'm really kind of excited to hear what the public is going to speak on because every question I think that they'll be talking about has been answered up here in the diocese and for city manager and all the rest of the individuals. I want to thank all of you for playing such a large role in a big part in this. And I hope everything goes well and I will be truly supporting this item. Thank you. With that, I'm going to turn this over now. Public comment on this hearing. So please come forward. And make sure you say your name for the record, of course, as we always do. Oh. Please begin. Good evening. I am Francis. Emily Dawson Harrison Oversight in District one. And I wrote the majority of my comments and I have given it to all of you. And I've been listening to everything. And I wanted to say that Tom and Vice Mayor Sergio lOth. I actually served on Cape Cod when this matter was being brought forward, and ten years is a lot of time to invest into working on a project. So I commend you for your fortitude and your patience and your perseverance. And each and every one of you and I have 3 minutes to talk, some to try to stay focused and give you the main points that I felt this past year. New technologies and innovations hit the market in artificial intelligence, robotics, augmented reality and 3D printing spaces that could pave the way for a major shift in society today and tomorrow. Steve Long Beach Proposed Plan New Civic Center project will be awesome. While strongly reflecting the city's present and future needs, the city of Long Beach is known for its accessibility, for its inclusion, and for its cultural diversity. Now focusing on inclusion, I think the time has come for us to move forward and be more inclusive. And then the points that I have four or five mentioned about having companions saving and this hospital in the city council chambers, the mayor asking for a seat similar to the kind that are in the auditorium to be moved down so persons can have their companion, the caretaker, sit beside them. These seats are so can be used by persons that use cane crutches and walkers. Making chairs are more comfortable and respect them are sturdy. Also in regards to the library is just so exciting about the library. It has an informational center for people with disabilities. Not every city has such a center and you based and the center helps persons with therapy. It helps persons. Quite a number of people disabled cannot afford to buy a computer and persons that are homeless. They'll go into the library. They can communicate with family. They cannot afford a telephone. So now in terms of the library, it is and it's my understanding that there's no plan to have a not tourism. The reason for this is the chorus. Well, I can accept that as that. The reason not to have an auditorium. But however it needs to be a backup plan. The backup plan is the fact that perhaps the city council chambers can be used by the library. And if that's the case, I think that the library should have first rights for the city council chambers for usage, and I feel also there should be no cost. And then I also want to share about the Lincoln Park in a playground and that I felt that the playground needs to be, of course, of be, you know , first seat designed. It'll be a day compliant. But I'm asking that it also be inclusive. And then the thing you'll see something. Thank you. Francisco rep at times. I'll try to you'll see some things that can be used to help autistics and Down's syndrome and like a talking to. I'm sorry Francis. Time seems all up anyway. Thank you very much. You. Absolutely. It. Crisis. And we have your note, Frances, so we'll take a look at that. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor and members of city council. My name is Randy Gordon and I'm president and CEO of the Long Beach Area Chamber of Commerce. I want to compliment staff for the great, thorough and very professional and well done presentation tonight. On behalf of the Chamber, we support the development of a new civic center in order to replace existing city hall and main library structures. It's been it's been almost eight years since both structures were deemed systematically deficient. Included in this new development will encompass the 16 Acres campus, a new city hall and port buildings and main library . We'll really develop this whole area and it's exciting, exciting project that our city has for our downtown. This is made evident by the downtown visioning process that was led by Mayor Long Vice Mayor, my vice mayor Lowenthal. A new civic center complex that will allow more modern amenities and efficient work place for staff. It's only the start of what should be a very beneficial for residents and business community to remain productive when conducting business in the new city hall. Taking this into account along with obvious safety aspects, this is the right decision for council to move forward at the right time. Plenary Action. Mary Edge. Moore Civic Leadership Partnership. The group who has been chosen. We have confidence in them and they will do a great job. Coupled with this 8000 or 8000 of, I should say, jobs, direct and indirect jobs being created. It's a win win for the business community and also for the city. While some have cited revised cost associated with the project as a potential issue, staff has conducted robust public outreach to the community, citing reasons for some of these new cost. Moving this project forward is the right direction for our city and our community. The chamber stands ready to assist the city and the downtown community in order to ensure that this project is one that's envied throughout our great state and our country. As our mayor likes to say, we're the only city other than San Diego and San Francisco on the waterfront. And this will give our community something to be very proud of, that we can show off our downtown for many years to come. Thank you. Thank you, Randy, very much. Next speaker, please. High level business and labor camp together, andI do that more often. Tom Beck. Good evening, Mayor and fellow council city staff in public. That's here today. I'm here tonight to talk about, you know, the the jobs that's been, you know, touted tonight. And, you know, and I understand that, you know, you have two factors here when it comes to public infrastructure that will work, that will create so many jobs and then private infrastructure that will create so many jobs. I understand that the building trades have negotiated a project labor agreement on the public infrastructure. But my concern and our concern is that we feel that private development has not come to agreement under a play. I understand that, you know, there's no there's no project that's actually in front of you today. It's only it's only a proposal. But we like to we like to see the developer and the building trades come together on a on a private agreement. Building trades has always negotiated private development agreements, like in downtown Los Angeles. Many, many of those projects have private development plays. So we like to see that, you know, moving forward. And, you know, let's let's talk about the port, the jobs that will be created out of this. Not just estimate jobs that they will be created. Thank you. Thank you, Tommy. Next speaker. Yes. Good evening. I'm Wally Baker with Jobs First Alliance. I want to start off by thanking the staff. This is not an easy task. And you've stayed right there. And I think the proposal is really excellent. You've thought of all the angles and just generally it's an excellent package. I do want to say something about plays and small business. The SBA sets a small business at 500 regular employees, which to me sounds pretty good sized, but that's considered a small business, and the play that you have on the public side is going to do a lot of good things for small business. But in the case of women, all of them will be paid the same as men. If you're an electrician, you're an electrician. Doesn't matter if you're a man or you're a woman. But the play makes that happen because everybody has a certain qualification. And certainly the qualifications and training that's provided is great because that means a small business doesn't go out and have to pay and organize all that. They can just acquire the labor that's already been trained and it guarantees them that their labor cost will be the same as a huge construction companies labor costs. So you don't have any battles over or using labor wages and benefits as a instrument of of reducing your costs, because everybody has to pay that cost. It also provides these local small micro-business with the ability to hire a certain number of veterans, train a certain number of veterans, train a number of local folks, which, again, they would really have a difficult time doing on their own. But through the play process that workforce provided, those objectives are achieved as well. And of course, the no strike clause, which you saw in the long term airport construction a couple of years ago, that is included in the play. That's very important. So I just want to conclude by saying, you know, this is a very good project. We hope you move forward on it tonight and you will have the support of everyone going forward. And we look forward to working together. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Good evening, Mayor. Council members. And. Staff. I'm Ron Miller, executive secretary of the L.A. Orange County Building. Construction. Trades Council. And I'm very proud of the partnership that we formed with Plenary Edge Moore Group. And they've picked a great contractor with Clark Construction. We've done many jobs all over the country with them. They're top rated. They've did some good jobs right in your own city. And I got to say that the staff sure has done their due diligence on this. This is one of the most transparent projects that I've ever been involved in, over 100 community meetings. That's like unheard of. So there shouldn't be anybody in the room that doesn't know about this project if they've been to one of the community meetings. So this is a good project. We've negotiated a good fair project labor agreement that mirrors a lot of what we have with your city project, labor agreement as far as the local hire. I was glad to see many of you come out for the job fair the other day was a great. Success from everything. That I've heard. And we're really looking forward to putting folks from the community, the local community, to work because they spend their dollars in your city, which helps your economy. So let's move this thing forward tonight and get some shovels in the ground. Thank you. Thank you, Ron. Next speaker, please. Good evening. My name is Richard Suarez. I represent the I am. And what we've heard a lot of discussion tonight about this project. I just want to clear something up. In no way, shape or form. My comments here today are to stop the project. I just want to redirect some of the discussion and bring it forward towards the legal perspective. The AM understands that the Council is considering a resolution this evening that would authorize the city to contract out what is performed by IAM represented employees. The city has failed to clearly define the work covered by the project agreement, but contracting out covers at least building maintenance, custodial security and refuge work performed by a and represented employees. At this time, I'd like to also bring to the attention that while everybody's known about this, we have asked to meet and confer over this issue . And since October we were granted a meeting seven days ago. Specifically, the member requires the city to negotiate the decision to contract bargaining unit work as well as the effects of the contracting out. The AM in the city have not completed bargaining over the decision to contract work out just this morning excuse me just this morning the city's attorney confirmed that the Iam confirmed to the and that the parties are not at impasse in negotiations because the IAM in the city have not completed bargaining over the contracting out. The council cannot authorize the city manager to execute the project. The agreement as it relates to contracting out of IAM bargaining work. If the City Council approves the contracting out of bargaining work this evening, the city will have will have in essence violated the duty to bargain. The state agency that enforces the MBA, the Public Employment Relations Board, would order the city to rescind the project agreement and start from square one. It is extremely disappointing that I have come up here this evening and deliver these news the city manager is well aware of. This city is violating the MBA. In fact, this is exactly what happened in 2009 when the city unlawfully furloughed iam employees before complete completing bargaining. All the IAM is requesting is that the city fulfill its duty to bargain in good faith. Tonight's agenda as it relates to contracting out should be tabled. The Council can only consider authorizing contracting out once the Iam in the city have exhausted the bargaining process. This is not asking for much. It is only asking that the city follow the law. The Iam desires to continue to bargain and once work wants to work collaboratively with the city to meet its labor needs for the new city project. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, Mayor Garcia's city council staff and guests. My name is Rick Foss. I'm with the sheet metal workers, local one of five. I'm a business representative and I represent 6000 members in the Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside Counties as long as well as Canino and mono. Tonight, I want to commend the the council. I want to commend the staff. It was a very thorough report, very transparent. And as we learned tonight, eight, nine, ten years in the making with Miss Lowenthal here. I want to keep this short and sweet. I think we all know what's going to happen tonight. You're going to hear a lot of things. This is ten years in the in the process. Proceed for tonight, vote yes and move forward. Let's get this shovels in the ground. Let's get the construction started. Let's get some of your constituents into the apprenticeship programs and start the career paths. Thank you for allowing me this time. Have a merry Christmas and happy holidays. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Larry Clark as the address I sent you all an email outlining essence number one. I think you should wait 90 days. The feds will be in here, I think, by the 1st of May, 1st of January or shortly thereafter. And you'll get a sense of when the new management structure will be in place. I would suggest possibly by the Ides of March. Number two, I have not had a chance to look into all of the financial aspects, and that's really not my biggest forte. But I rely heavily on and I have found to be very credible, as do a number of other people. The analysis of Terry Jensen, and I'm sure you've read that and this guy, he has underscored a number of major issues and major problems. Number three, I fully support a library. But there's no need to have the library attached to the city hall. I'm reminded that four or five times a week, every time I go down to Los Angeles, and it's not because my great uncle designed that main library. The fact is, a nice library can stand on its own. And I would suggest a good place for this one is in the location where the L.A. study has their arts school. I enter into a paradigm with them. What else here? Port offices and the City Hall Council offices need not be downtown. They can. You guys can be set up in cubicles in an airport hangar in the center of the city, making it more accessible to more people. Period. A nice advantage. Even though you will not have corner offices or paneled offices you will have. We will not have the expense or hassles of elevators. And I think the last point if this is still on. Now, I forget the last point is, but I think the the important thing is to go back and do the analysis and follow the follow the suggestions of Terry Jones. I know that final point was it was pointed out that there were some issues that were overlooked. They all. We got to come back and ask for more money. Take the business approach. If the person responsible for that, that was the contractor or the person that is in charge that you're working with, tell him he needs the cost or he can walk one or the other, period. That's an A. That is a lesson that I learned when I used to work for for a number of years from Roy Ash and Tex Thornton and one of their innovations. They had a project somebody had a project going with building a big hotel, nice and fancy. They forgot a little item like the plumbing or both. Roy Ash and Tex Thornton told them, Sorry, it cost havoc. Yourself. Thank you, Mr. Goodhew. Next speaker, please. Good evening, Mayor Garcia and City Council. My name is Brian Russell and reside in a third district. And my purpose of coming here tonight is to one compliment, city councilman and all the great staff for their analysis. But very narrowly. I'm representing the Seaspray Gardens Office Building right across the street at Chestnut End and third and ah ah, Broadway, rather. And our focus is making sure during the construction period that there's a plan in place for any mitigation of traffic impediment of getting the ingress and egress out of the building, costs related to construction, dirt, noise, things like that. So hopefully there's a plan for all the properties of private property surrounding the project. And, and it's a terrific project. I don't want to repeat so many things have been said today, but it's a terrific project. I'm here as a person speaking in favor of that. We just want to make sure that that building and the surrounding private property owners and and tenants are considered during the construction process. So thank you very much. Take care and appreciate all your good work. Bye bye. Thank you. Next speaker, please. My name is David Donovan. Honor those who put their lives on the line for our country. Please join the Parks and Recreation and Planning Commission in support restoring the Civil War cannon to Lincoln Park. Place the cannon in front of Lincoln. Historically, that was the configuration of the statue and the cannon. That's what the Union Civil War veterans wanted in 1915. As before, the cannon in front of Lincoln was streamlined and give visual direction to the monument, giving the overall design visual impact good landscape architecture. As opposed to a weak design that has a cannon next to or behind the statue. There is a cannon in Bluff Park that won't appear in Ocean, a gift from the citizens of Valparaiso, Chile. So the idea of displaying a cannon in a present day Long Beach park is well established in front of the statue. The cannon will be again in total context with the monument's chiseled rivals, names of battles and union generals and the Great Emancipator. My family will donate $500 for this historic project. I will be happy to work with Partners of Parks in the Long Beach Navy Memorial Historical Association. Thank you very much. And, sir, thank you for your consistent advocacy for for returning this the cannon to its location. And I know that we're working on this issue. We have all the information and know that staff also has an agreement in ensuring that we get the the memorial, the cannon, the statue. All right. So thank you. You've been great on this. Thank you. Absolutely. Next speaker, please. Good evening. Mayor Garcia, Vice Mayor Lowenthal, City Council members. My name is Margaret Smith. I reside in the third district and my address is on file. I am the past president and current board member and Vice President of Public Affairs for the Long Beach Public Library Foundation. As an independent nonprofit, the foundation has provided over $20 million in support to our public library in the past eight years, and we have been actively involved in this civic center discussion from the very beginning, over three years ago. We are extremely grateful to city staff, to the plenary team and to the City Council for your respectful approach to the library concerns, and especially to you, Mayor Garcia, for your commitment to an amazing new main library. But we have two major concerns about the design of that library. This project has a limited budget. Will the funds that are allocated to main library be enough to create this majestic, iconic, welcoming structure? Our city deserves the preliminary design is not that it is safe, it is plain and it is uninspiring. But it is not just about the size of the box and what's outside. We are more concerned about what will be inside. Main Library features, functions, flexibility. We've studied the current plans, voiced our concerns to plenary about specific elements such as technology. What will it be and who will pay for it? The city or plenary plenaries answer, which we understand is that that will be decided over the next five months in the design development phase. But with today's discussion about increased project costs, we are even more concerned about the quality of the design of the interior of main library and on the ability of the city to fund future library services. But our second concern tonight is about community outreach. Plenary has done an amazing job so far, but now as we entered this design development phase, it is even more important that the community be able to weigh in on the specific plans before they are finalized and at the November 9th meeting of the Planning Commission. The Planning Commission agreed with us and made continued robust community outreach a condition for their approval. So we asked the Council tonight to require that plenary address these two issues the interior design of main library and community outreach. Plenaries an impressive team. But Long Beach has dealt with impressive teams before. We have not always gotten what was promised. As library advocates, we look forward to continuing our active role in this process. And we thank you for your commitment to making this an amazing civic center. Thank you. Next speaker, please. When it's not this number is concerned. And, you know, you see it, of course, you know, and a little Hilton Aquinas with other Long Beach. I mean, you'll be working a lot with other lobbyists in at least three to a number of courtroom. In St Kilda. They always hold this year less because loyalty is virtue. Gives to this akin long tunnel national. Pollo Loco retro trabajadores or mas windchill on four. The NBN is the core of the puzzle overall. Mozart futuro para no sociedad nuestros familias which I. Will translate quickly. Good evening. My name is Hazel Andino. I am a cook here at the Hilton Long Beach Hotel. I have lived here. I live in the fourth district here in Long Beach. I am here today to tell you that I am pleased that you all have chosen to do the right thing in Long Beach. This agreement of labor peace gives our city and our families a better future. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, Mayor and council members. My name is Lorena Lopez Masumi. I am an organization director with the Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union. Our office in Long Beach is located at 525 East Seventh Street, Long Beach. And I'm here to inform you that we signed an agreement, Kartika Quality Agreement with plenary edge more with this on the provision on Labor peace and this cartoon neutrality agreement ensures that a low risk investment, it prevents the risk of labor strikes in boycotts affecting the revenues that the city will earn and it ensures that good jobs are created in the city of Long Beach. So I ask you to move forward on this project. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening. Mayor Garcia. Vice Mayor Lowenthal, City Council, thank you so much for this time. My name is Toliver Morris. I am president of William Morris Commercial in downtown Long Beach. I am also on the board of downtown Long. Beach Associates. And served as chair elect. Excuse me. I can never think of the word and I used to represent them as chair of their Economic Development Committee. So I'm coming here tonight to speak from an economic development perspective. As I said, I'm a commercial real estate broker. I represent about a million square feet of space in our downtown. I've sold or leased about a million square feet of space in downtown. And we've seen a tremendous amount of investment in downtown, as you guys have seen over the course of the last few years, over $1,000,000,000 worth of investment, private investment coming into our downtown. But we have yet to see is the new investment that's coming. And a lot of that is predicated on the Civic Center. I sold Landmark Square a couple of summers ago for $135 million. I can tell you that one of the big pieces of information that helped to spur that sale was that the Civic Center was going to be developed. I represent Ocean West, who just bought 100 Broadway for about 35 million bucks. They spent to spend a whole bunch of money there, a multi-million dollars. A big part of their decision to buy down here was the Civic Center. So we talked about 8000 jobs being created by the Civic Center. I think there'll be way more jobs created by development that happens in and around the civic center because it's here because of what you build. So that's something we can't quantify. The tax dollars that come from that are going to be fantastic as well. We're seeing all sorts of new interest and activity, enthusiasm for the city. We are arriving. We have not arrived. And so this civic center is a big piece of that. And I just want to thank you guys for your efforts in that. Thanks so much. Thank you to our next speaker, please. Hi. My name Alison King. And I'm the co-chair of the Historic Preservation Committee for the First Congregational Church of Long Beach, right across the street. And I personally live in the third district. Many members of my congregation were present at the Planning Commission in order to hear about the plans set for the three the apartment building that's set to be built on the corner of Third Street and Broadway. And I'm very discouraged to hear very little dialog about what's going to be placed there and how it will impact the surrounding historic structures, including the church and the. WILMORE The First Congregational Church has. Fragile stained glass and very fragile terracotta that is going to be impacted by a very abrasions. I don't know the condition of the Woolmer, but I'm sure they have similar issues with their historic terracotta. We don't know how that's going to be mitigated. We've asked for additional vibrational equipment to be placed on the corners of third and cedar for the Wilma and for the church. But we've heard nothing. The Planning Commission, when they did approve the site plan, asked for continued correspondence between the church and plan outreach more. And we have heard nothing in the past 30 days about how they plan to address our vibrational concerns and our concerns about what's going to be placed in that lot. So I hope for further discussion to be ordered for plenary more and I look forward to continuing to discuss what's going to be placed on that lot and how it impacts the historic structures surrounding it. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, Gary Shelton's my name. I live a block from where I'm standing at this moment to expand a little bit on what Allison King just mentioned. The nexus between this project and the project at Broad Broadway and Pacific Avenue is that the storm drain runs underneath there, and it runs underneath both the city block and the private development block. The city, in its wisdom, to enhance the value of the property of the city block, which is called the Third and Pacific BLOCK, has designated about $1.9 million, I believe, to share in the cost with the private developer of the other block in relocating that storm drain. That work is underway right now and is being financed with part of that, I believe, ten or $11 million bond issue. And so there's also on your item number eight tonight in this item is to authorize the conveyance agreement on that property. And that's an $8 million value, as explained by the staff, which was also explaining that the fair market value was $8 million on the item nine piece. But he didn't mention fair market value on the Broadway excuse me, on the third street corner. So I would have that question. Does that $8 million include the enhancement that that the bond is going to be paying for? I wanted to remark on number two as well, and that's that in the course of the environmental impact, the supplementary environmental impact, the due to public comment, the initial air was amended to acknowledge the fact that there is a homeless population and that that's going to need to be I would say that that's going to need to be dealt with in some way or another and may in fact, be a cost factor in the new civic center. On item number three, I want to make it clear that the site plan approval that you're doing tonight is only on the city owned blocks and not on the other private development blocks. It's not clear in the backup material that you're only doing approval on the site plan on about half of the entire Civic Center project. And then finally, I would ask about the question of how the $11 million of increased cost due to the removal of the asbestos film underneath Lincoln Park was somehow unknown when we actually knew about that about ten years ago when we were looking at redesigning Lincoln Park, and that's why it wasn't done at that time. So it's a it's a surprise to me why. That's a surprise to you. Thank you. Thank you. Nick Speaker, please. Hi. Good evening, Mayor and Council Members Tom Sullivan, District five. I just have a couple of points, mainly surrounding some of the financing. It seems to me that 17 million that we have left on our debt will be paid for in a matter of two years based on our current payments of about 12. 4.6. It would, I think, be in our interest if we could roll that into a future benefit. Number one, paying for our labor negotiations that are coming up in about two years, potentially putting more services back into. Back into the city. I don't mean to diminish the importance of this project. It is a significant project that will put people to work and will put the city on the map in many ways. The importance of deferring I think is a is is wont to be considered. My other point is on the interest rates were a lot of the numbers, I believe, and I didn't quite hear this. A lot of the numbers, I believe, were based on current interest rates. It's my understanding that the loans as we move forward. Will be based on an adjustable. Rate, on a on an annual basis. Invariably, that's going to increase our costs on this project in the long term. That's all I have to say. Thank you very much. Happy holidays. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Ray Gavlak, eighth district. Thank you. Council members and mayor. You know, I'm as disturbed today, tonight as I was in 2006 when Mayor Foster and Councilwoman Lowenthal brought this to our attention and wanted to have this discussion. While during that period of time, during a nine year period of time, we made $200 million worth of cuts. Those cuts were not simply jobs. They were services to the community. And now here we're talking about I mean, the numbers were all over the board, and I'm certainly going to make comments on some of them. But I'm also very concerned about people referring to this, about the safety aspect. If we had felt that this building was in any way putting anybody in harm, we would have vacated it in 2006. We certainly wouldn't continue to run business as it is today. And also, I want to make sure that everybody is really clear that this was not just simply myself, but there were a number of council members that felt exactly the same way. Your predecessors. It was not the time to talk about putting ourselves in further debt. If we had made investments in this building all along, maybe we wouldn't have the problems that we have today. Those were ongoing. And as Mr. West said, you know, it should be $18 million as opposed to the 12.6. The other question that I have or the concern I have is when actually Councilwoman Pryce brought up, can we promise no city city cuts? And Mr. West, you said you you didn't think that there would be any cuts, but you could find other efficiencies. We already know from the numbers that were thrown out there that there is going to be tremendous debt. We've got the millions of dollars excuse me. There's so many numbers. We have the pension costs of four and a half million dollars through 2020. We have the FBI. 22 for this project will be $21.8 million in debt. I think that we need more full disclosure than what we have today, and it needs to be better understood by each and every one of you. This council will turn over five times by the time this building comes back to the city. And I think that's being a bit irresponsible. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, Mayor Garcia, Vice Mayor Lowenthal Falls Council members, city staff Michel. Molina, managing. Partner of Newark's downtown business owner and property owner, resident of both the first and third District. Now, as the chair of the downtown Long Beach Associates, we want to come here tonight and strongly support the city staff's recommendation for this modern and innovative civic center project. We honor the process started by Vice Mayor Lowenthal and hard work by city staff and this development team. The LBA has been proud to have participated and often shared in the facilitation of over 100 community meetings. The project under consideration reflects many of those community. Driven ideas such as safe and inviting, flexible public spaces that accommodate fairs, festivals, events, and create a sense of place through entertainment and events, including music, theater, art, farmer's markets and festivals. A state of an art state of the art main library and facilities that engage and bring both innovation and information to our city. Pieces of architecture, urban design and history that Long Beach can be proud of while continually harkening to its main purpose to civically engaged via a well-planned design. And lastly, a were a park once strategy that will reduce dependance on cars through easy transit access and biking amenities. To really? Really. You could tell. It's like to reiterate. The last paragraph. Sorry. I lost track of myself right there. Sent to you by our executive director, Craig Cogen, in his letter today. As the proposed development moves forward, the debate will continue to work with plenary urge, more civic partners and the city in making the new Long Beach Civic Center. A world class base for our community. The redevelopment of the Civic Center poses a unique, once in a lifetime opportunity to reimagine this space in the heart of our revitalized downtown an inviting, well-planned civic core integrated into the existing downtown fabric. Could lead to increased civic engagement, greater accessibility to open space, added vibrancy through added residential units and retail, and much more. We enthusiastically support making it a reality. Thank you. Thank you. And before we go to the next speaker, these are our last three speakers. So Mr. Goodling is loud. There are last four speakers. Go ahead. I'll be quick, Mr. Mayor. Council people. My name is Jane Templin, long time member, resident of District two and involved in this. For the past ten years as an interested. Resident. Many areas interested in the. Opportunity of jobs, career paths. For our residents are youth bringing out. More opportunities. Trying to see our city as moving into the future. My grandkids are going to be probably coming. Back and living in the. House once we're gone. So it's an ongoing something we can pass on. It's an excitement. This project is quite. Wonderful and I want to thank you all for the opportunity to be part of it and to. See those shovels in the dirt and boots on the ground. I mean, I wish you a merry Christmas. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. A cut to the short of it. It's late. My name is Gary Cook. I represent 2000 plumbers in the area. I want to thank you, Mayor. Council members staff for such great teamwork work, making a transparent process for everyone to see. Thank you. Thank you. Mayor Council City Management. On behalf of the CVB, we would just like to say. Ten years ago we remembered when Sue just started this process and it was a downtown visioning. And it's exciting to see ten years later a project before us that actually is going to continue to enhance the development downtown. The conventions and the convention planners that come into our city and the visitors that come into our city every week to take a look at us to book their conventions here. I hear one of two things every time. Boy, has this city changed. Or Gee, I never knew. It doesn't matter, but I hear one of the two and this project will be definitely again excavating one of those two statements. We also believe it will continue to help us to book additional conventions, which overnight visitors and conventions drive 300 miles into our local economy. Anyway, thank you for a wonderful project and we look forward to sharing it and selling it. Thank you. Thank you. In our last comment the evening. Hi. Good evening. Tom Stout live in a third district co-founder lobbies taxpayer association. I just have some real reservations on, you know, many of the things that past councils have done that turned out badly and that it's going to probably happen again, but not for maybe 30 to 40 years. You know, you talk about the P3 project with a courthouse, that courthouse nearly bankrupted. The court system in the state of California. It's the most expensive courthouse ever built. They even the state estimates the P3 cost an extra $160 million to the taxpayers. That's a lot of money. And then you have Bill five, six two. Why was that brought forward by Laura and with the new U.N. and. O'DONNELL You know, they're basically her lackeys up there. The numbers obviously didn't work out for the the project. So by allowing you to indebt taxpayers for an additional ten or 15 years, I'm sure the numbers did work out. You know, is this place in as good a shape as it should be? No deferred maintenance. I mean, the problem is it cost too much money to run this city. 90% of the the cost of running the city is is compensation. It's not going to go down. And they brought up the fact that pensions. Pensions are going to go up about $4 million a year. Mr. GROSS stated that pensions will reach at the end of that by 2021, about $135 million. You know, I would say that's probably going to be low because there will be raises coming before that time and there will be raises during the whole tenure of this this building that we're going to have 40 years. I know I won't be here. The vast majority of you people won't be here. So the only thing I got to say is, you know, a lot of bad decisions have been made in the past and you guys will be gone and the taxpayers and the residents will be stuck with a lot of a lot of bills . And hopefully what you're saying is true because so many things you've said haven't been in the past. Thank you. Thank you. When I'm gone out of office, I certainly will continue to be a taxpayer and a resident of Long Beach. So let me go ahead and go back to the council and questions. I have a couple clarification and then I want to one one which I'm actually going to let the city attorney do because think it's important that the city attorney respond to one of the comments made by one of the speakers about the negotiation part and that Mr. Suarez made. So did you want to comment on that before I go to these other items real quick, Mr.. City Attorney. Certainly, Mr. Mayor, more comfortable with the council moving forward with the motion that has before it tonight, as amended by Councilwoman Lowenthal. And we remain committed to continuing the confer process with the AMP. Okay. Thank you very much. One thing I want to just say to the library supporters and others that they're curious about and concerned about the process for moving forward. So the way this project is designed by its very nature is it's done in these kind of specified chunks and timelines. And so as we conclude this part of the process tonight, there is absolutely additional process and there's absolutely will be additional process that we will commit to when it particularly when it comes to the library as we develop it. I mean, that is the whether it's the interior or the exterior that is all still being obviously discussed in the future will continue to have an open process. And same goes for the private piece. I think a couple of folks mentioned the private development. We are still probably a couple of years away from the many decisions that this council will have to make over the private development piece. Every every piece of this project that that it's private, there will be interaction with the city on how it's developed, what's developed, how it looks, etc., etc.. And so I just want to make sure that that was mentioned as well. And then also I know that there's been discussions already as far as ensuring that anything that we do, that we're working with our neighbors, including First Congregational, who is one of our key neighbors around the project. And so, Mr. West, just let's just make sure that that continues. And I know I will say to plenary adding more whose here plenary they very fantastic partner and so I there has never been an ask of plenary that's been made of the city that they have come back and said absolutely not. In fact every time we've asked plenary no actually have 50 more meetings or no go out to this community or do these meetings in Spanish and come committee or change this or give us a better deal on this project. Plenary has come back to the table every single time and provided us with a partnership, and I want to thank you for that. And so for for the questions that are out there and process moving forward, I'm pretty confident in this team. They're they're they're an All-Star team. And and I want to thank you for that. So let me go back to a couple of final closing comments here, and then we're going to go to a vote. Councilman Gonzales. Yes. Thank you, Mayor. I want to thank everyone for their comments. Really, really great. I think everyone, for the most part, seems very ready for this project to move forward. I myself am, as I had previously mentioned, a few quick comments and then a couple of questions on the third and Cedar for First Congregational Church. I remember talking speaking with them about it just real briefly, but where are we at? Do do we have another meeting set up with them in terms of impacts to them with noise and any disturbances that they may? So we are talking to the contractor who is doing the work right now. Plenary Edge. Moore is not a party to the agreements because they have not yet been approved, so they are not participants right now in the Third and Pacific Project. We have had the contractor make a visit to the Congregational Church and we'll follow up to make sure that those discussions are occurring. I do want to point out, though, that the downtown plan and the downtown plan are did anticipate that construction activities associated with construction could generate ground generated vibrations. And that was disclosed as part of the downtown plan earlier, as a significant and unavoidable impact. That impact does carry forward. There are mitigation measures associated with that, that we will make sure that both the third specific project and the Civic Center project comply with. Okay. Thank you. And I know since we're on historical and I forgot to forgotten to ask this question before for this city I'm sorry, for the courthouse and other historic mitigation measures. What are we doing specifically? I know there has been some talk about expanding the historical record, keeping at the library as part of mitigation. Would that be possible or potentially? There is. There are some requirements in the Supplemental Environmental Impact Report that's before you for consideration tonight that do require documentation, standard documentation of the courthouse, the main library and city hall to occur before any demolition occurs of those buildings. There is also a requirement that there be an assessment of potential historic artifacts, both in the courthouse, within the city, the library, and then also within the port's archives to see if those document, those artifacts could be publicly displayed, either through the cultural and history loop or through installation at the library or even, you know, some of our other cultural resources in the city, like the Long Beach Museum of Art or some of our other buildings. So those are requirements of the Supplemental Environmental Impact Report that would attempt to mitigate the loss of these buildings. But they are still considered a significant impact. And as part of your action tonight, you would be asked to adopt a statement of of overriding considerations, recognizing that. Okay. Thank you. And I appreciate the information in that. We're still staying on this. And then another quick question is how many local firms are working with culinary edge? More at this time. Maybe that's. At least three. Mr. Whereof. And Mr. Conway. I don't have an exact number. I know we've got three. Or four firms that are. Partnership, but. Kelly Sutherland McCloud sitting in the audience today is one of. Them. Todd Bennett, Landscape Architecture and then Cordero Consulting. Cordero Consulting. So we knew of at least three in the audience. Okay, great. Curious question. And and then lastly, I wanted to just say, I again, just reiterate my great pleasure with plenary more and all of their hard work with our building trades as well as just our community at large. And so I know that they potentially could be open to play on private development, but that's certainly for for us to discuss at a later time. But I just, again, want to thank you all for all of your hard work in all of this. And I look forward to voting and hoping that my colleagues will support that as well. Councilman Mongo. I think that perhaps Councilman Gonzalez and I were under the same understanding that there are still negotiations going on with some of the small businesses that were in the original deal. And those cannot go forward until this is finalized. Is that correct? Because I was understanding. They're still bidding out certain. Community partners. So the people who you mentioned in the audience, not all of them are assured of partnerships. So the ones that we mentioned are actually sub consultants to the development team. They're on contract and have been. So any any bidding that the development team is doing is not within our purview, that that is something that they're working on themselves. But there are no requirements that if they're in the original plan, it listed on local businesses. What happens if they decide not to work with one of their subcontractors or local consultants or any of those and they trade out? It doesn't actually have to come back to city council, is that correct? No, it wouldn't. And so what? How do we ensure we keep those jobs here in Long Beach? The the firms that are currently under contract with the firm, with the development partner, are under contract for the duration. They are required to participate in the process by virtue of what their tasks are. They will be involved throughout the process. Thank you. And Vice Marie Lowenthal. To close. Thank you, Councilmember Mongo, when you said those jobs, did you mean the those specific consultant jobs or the 8000 jobs. The jobs underneath the consultant job? So what I'm understanding is at least there's a large firm in my district that was mentioned in the original proposal, and I wasn't a part of the team that decided which firm was chosen, but I was really pleased that plenty more was chosen because a major employer in my district was a part of that team. And so my understanding is that they are not permanently chosen on the team, that there are still negotiations that are going to be continuing and that there's risk that those jobs could be Orange County jobs in the future. And so I don't know what assurances we have. I just want to make sure that a best put effort is made to both protect the taxpayers and the costs. And I appreciate that that would rip it out. But knowing too, that not only are the lowest costs, not always the best, sometimes bringing in people from the outside causes reduction in income to our employees, reduction and increase in pollution and traffic for people from Orange County driving up and such things like that. So I'm just looking forward to ensuring that the Long Beach businesses that are on the teams are secure and if not, if they choose to go with another option that other Long Beach businesses get that first option. So and thank you. Thank you for that clarification. I understand what exactly you meant and are talking about. And it is very important, I think if I can ask us to recall our history with Plenary and Clark Construction and their job at bringing the courthouse forward, just their history alone would inform us that that that would definitely take place. I'm also very confident that they are also looking out for our taxpayer's best interests. And so they'll probably want to assure that anyone that's on the team is competitive in pricing. So that's that's a key part and I don't want us to overlook that. And so I think those decisions probably are made with that. So thank you. Thank you for raising that issue. I just wanted to thank everyone that came forward and spoke. And many of you have been following this process for quite some time. It is late of all the deferred maintenance, I have to say, Mr. West, I wish you had invested in a heater. I look out at the audience. I look out at the audience. Everyone's got their coats on. They've been here for hours. Usually people take their coats off. So I'm sorry for that. We did not invest in a heater, but hopefully the efficiency of the new buildings, the new public buildings will will not have to have heaters. So I am looking forward to that. Mr. Goodling, Steve Goodling was here. He was one of our original 12 downtown visioning team members. And thank you for your continued vision. And I, I know that you do the best you can to sell our downtown and our city for conventions and visitors. And sometimes you work magic, and this time the public can invest and be sure that you're not always having to work the magic and to the library. Margaret, thank you for being here. And I know Sarah was here earlier and probably still is, but my eyesight gets very poor toward the end of the night, so everyone just looks happy in a right now. But I wanted to I wanted to thank you because it took a lot of faith, a leap of faith to have confidence in this process, whether it was in 2006 or any year after that year, all of the library advocates were concerned that the library would get left behind because of technology and because of all the reasons why libraries may seem unnecessary. And we made a promise to you. Several of us are still here. And and I want to thank you for your trust and for allowing us to fulfill that promise. We, too, want a majestic public library. We value the touch and feel experience of books and electronic resources, but really that touch and feel experience. And so we look forward to that as being a part of the public asset that this team will bring forward. And I think they understand that as well. They're very aware of the significance of main library. There have been many attempts to move it elsewhere throughout the years, but I am delighted that it is staying here right where it belongs. And to the comment about developers making promises and not delivering that is a key reason why I ran for council. I lived across the street from a project that was overpromised and under-delivered. But I can attest that since my service here and the service of others that have been here for the last ten years, that has not happened because we have learned our lessons. And when I look at the courthouse. That is a prime example of a team that did not overpromise and underdeveloped. I'm very happy for the community and the residents here, and I'm delighted that the courthouse was kept here in the downtown because of all of the jobs that would have left and all of the businesses that would have left that purposely co-locate because of the courthouse location. And so thank you for that. And I have faith that once again, we will have a team that is delivering exactly what the community coalesced to inform the project and what they wanted to see come forward. And finally to Jane, she is very modest, but I will tell you, she is our own Rosie the Riveter. She is an electrician. If I'm not mistaken, part of the IBEW. And she is living proof that women do not need to make $0.80 on every dollar. And so thank you for that. Yes, you're a second district resident, but you represent so much more than that. And I hope that this project will do you proud. With that, Mr. Mayor, I am looking forward to our vote. Thank you. And thank you all again for your comments. We have a motion and a second by Vice Mayor Lowenthal and Councilwoman Gonzalez. Members, please go out and cast your vote. Motion carries. Thank you very much. And. Thank you all. Just also, before we we have two votes additionally on this. They're not directly the Civic Center, but they're tied in to it. So I just want to make sure that we vote on those. Real quick, before we recess, we go to the rest of the meeting. So hearing number two, if I can just read hearing number two, please, which is tied into this.