Recommendation to request City Manager, or designee, to work with the Long Beach Health Officer and the Parks, Recreation and Marine Department to conduct outreach, draft safety protocols, and discuss and enact related strategic planning initiatives with youth sports leagues in preparation for reopening our parks to youth sports activities as allowable by the State and City health orders within 60 days.
Thank you. Item number six, please. Communication from Council on Mango Councilwoman Zendejas, Councilman super novice Mary Andrews recommendation to discuss and enact related strategic planning initiatives with youth sports leagues in preparation for re-opening our parks to youth sports activities. Thank you. I appreciate everyone who signed on to this item. As many know, our youth sports programs are many nonprofit organizations and some are many businesses. They employ people who are coaches or referees, and they also have many, many volunteers and parents that participate in keeping the kids out and about and engaged in athletics, which keeps them healthy and strong. So we need to have a focus on ensuring that we are prepared to take on the challenge ahead of allowing multiple sports who are typically spread over a year to really prepare to come back and potentially play simultaneously. An example of this is some of our sports fields overlap each other and we wouldn't be able to in some facilities throughout the city, host both soccer and baseball at the same time. But there are adjustments that can be made throughout the city to make those types of things possible. So when and if sports can come back, we are prepared to give all youth the opportunity to get out there and practice their skills so as they move through and participate in their school sports, they have those knowledge, skills and abilities and talents to really help them through and keep them engaged in their schoolwork. So I really appreciate the youth sports directors that have reached out with you on better understanding your goals. And I think it's important to have a formal process where Parks and Rec really sits with the directors and casting directors that know and understand the complexities that can come about as we roll out the new requirements, which organizations are really prepared to do to meet that challenge and for them to be able to share ideas with people that aren't yet getting that kind of guidance from their national association? Councilman Supernormal. Thank you. And if that was the motion, I'd like to second the motion and just add to it that I fully support this and thank Councilmember Mongo for bringing it forward. We have the good fortune of having some baseball leagues in the fourth district, Durant Park Post, Long Beach League, Whaley Post, Long Beach Pro Baseball, and then where the North has a number of volleyball teams. Our council district has invested a lot into these facilities. We support them tremendously, and we'd really like to see them get going once again. Also to reiterate what Councilman Mungo stated, and that is these organizations can bring their own protocols to the table. So let's make sure we we listen to them as we move forward. Thank you. Councilman Price. Thank you so much. I appreciate I appreciate bringing this item forward. And I have kids who are in their youth programs in the city, both the city sponsored ones and also club ones. And I really do think we need to sit down and figure out how to work on protocols that make participation in these activities safe and feasible for our youth. I can say that as a parent of two children who have been out of school now for since March and entering into the summer, there is a lot of downtime for them. And I think team sports and sports activities that we're able to reintegrate into our daily lives will assist them tremendously in getting outdoors, exercising, staying healthy, making good choices, interacting with people outside of the technology world that they're most of them are operating in. And so anything that we can do as a city to help partner with these organizations to allow for safe reopening and participation, I would support and I appreciate Cassell and Mongo bringing this item forward. Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilmember Austin. Thank you. I just want to add my my my support to this item. Obviously, youth sports are extremely important and I really think it's part of the DNA of this city. So when we get back to functionality, we should have a plan to ensure that that our youth are safe, their parents are safe, and that they are having an enriched activity, whatever sport they are playing, either super active sports or not. And so I think there are also a lot of national organizations that are connected to many of these sports organizations that they can draw upon information as well. Our staff can draw upon information as well. But I do like the idea of working with local youth organizations, sports organizations throughout the city to to be engaged in the process, at least as as important stakeholders in the process. So congratulations. I really like this item and plan on supporting it. Council member Adam Quirk. Any public comment? Yes. We do have public comment on this item. Joel Davis. Um, you have 3 minutes. I may regret not to thank you for hearing this agenda item and allow it. My name is Joel. There's a current president of one of our youth organizations. We provide baseball to our youth athletes. I'm here speaking on behalf of multiple youth, baseball and softball leagues in the city limits. First, I'd like to acknowledge and show my sincere appreciation for the city Long Beach, the Health Department, and Parks and Rec Department. The magnitude of handling a pandemic, it's incalculable, and I believe we are all doing a great job at that. So thank you. I would also like to specifically acknowledge our Parks and Rec staff. They've done a tremendous job keeping us informed and prepared to get back to the field and the kids given. Recently, a task force of Long Beach baseball and softball presidents developed a plan that would allow for baseball and softball to resume and operate safely within all current published city health guidelines. Additionally, each league has submitted site specific safety resumption plans for each park and facility plan. Our reports show that baseball and softball, by its nature, along with these guidelines, is the ultimate social distancing sport. We also recognize that there are priorities to the reopening of the economy. We unfortunately do the necessary way to reopen slowly to provide for safety. We are having this conversation at the end of our traditional seasons. We are asking that a definitive decision is made for our traditional spring sports who are still holding on. In fact, based on polling, 75% of our parents who were surveyed that they would have their youth athletes play over the summer and or the fall. If it is not until the fall, the parks will see a significant impact. We ask that IT solutions develop that provides all athletes of all sports in Long Beach the opportunity to play the game they love as soon as the UK is granted. We are aware that this will cause not only a large impact on our parks, but the staff to oversee them. The park's facilities are already highly utilized and this will cause further complications. For example, Hartwell Park is home to five baseball leagues and three soccer leagues, one of which is an adult league. We believe there are ways to decrease the impact and are willing to be a part of that discussion. These leagues serve youth from all over the city. We hope that as a city we can work together to find solutions. We are ready and willing to participate in preparing a strategic plan that will get our youth back to the sport they love and are willing to work collaboratively between the youth sports organizations and the Parks and Rec staff to find creative ways to make that happen. We were at that point. A hard decision needs to be made regarding the remaining time over the summer. We could play before fall. Sports are set to begin. If the decision is no, then we are ready to work towards a plan for the fall and the future season . We do hope there is time to play and we are ready and willing and we do have a plan set in place to prove that. Thank you again for your time and thank you for your service. Thank you. Next we have Victor Boosie. You have 3. Minutes. Oh, I get it. So right now. I keep saying to do find from the Long Beach Police Department that means policing is not the answer to our schools and communities pressing needs, including jobs, housing, homelessness, health and immigration. We want to divest from the police and redirect the resources so that black, indigenous and people of color can live successful lives, reimagine community safety without police terror, and grounded in restorative justice and black empowerment. Idea of my time. Thank you. That's the end of public comment for this item. Thank you. Councilman's in the house. Yes. Thank you, Mayor. First of all, I wanted to thank Councilmember Longo for bringing this item. I think it's incredibly important that our kids have much safe, much needed safe access to these recreational opportunities as possible, especially right now. I also think that it's very important for us to consider how impactful this could be for so many families that have limited access to childcare due to COVID 19. I'm so happy to support this item that has the chance to improve the lives of so many residents in this way. In addition to what my colleagues have said, I think it's also important that when city staff is working with with the leagues to create this opportunity, that they really consider equity and how this impacts the kids across our city. I'm thinking specifically of the neighborhoods on the West Side and the downtown and central Long Beach that could really benefit from this kind of programing. So I'd just like to ask staff to please keep those residents in mind when you're working on items like this. I'd also like to just really quickly use this opportunity to remind our community that as we continue to reopen in ways that are safe, we are still seeing a lot of COVID 19 transmission in Long Beach. Our hospitalizations especially have increased over the last four weeks. While we feel comfortable taking these steps safely. This is this is all dependent on each one of us continuing to take all the precautions we need to in order to protect the most vulnerable members of our community. Thank you again, Councilmember, for bringing this item forward, and I am happy to support this item. Thank you. I have Councilwoman Mango. Let me let me go first, then I'll go back. Go ahead, Councilman. Councilman Mongo. Okay. I don't hear Councilwoman Mongo. Let me let me make a comment and then I'll go back to Councilwoman Mongo. She can need her phone there. Maybe. I'm Mr. Modica. Are you there? I want to. I want to make sure also, because I think a lot of us have heard about youth sports and about obviously the enormous need for them city wide, but also just the unknown for parents. It's so hard to kind of plan. Obviously, summers and leagues and and schedules without knowing and having kind of definitive answers. The right. Now, as of today, the decision on whether a kind of organized sport league is going to happen is up to the state of California. Is that correct? Yes, that's correct. And so I know I've had a couple of questions and folks reach out and say, hey, Long Beach should allow some of these leagues like soccer or baseball or others. And what we've shared is what we know, obviously, with the health department has shared with us, which is they are not legally permissible right now under the state's health orders. And that doesn't mean, by the way, that that can change. You know, we've been we've been advocating for the state to give us clarity so that we would get an idea about what's ahead. Because there hasn't there has been very little clarity on kind of on on sports and youth sports. Is that right, Mr. Modica? Yes. So under the current stay at home order from the governor, team sports of any kind is not allowed. So they're still prohibiting gatherings which include team sports. Just last week, they released some guidance on camps in summer camps. So if there are very small group camps, we just got some clarity that those can operate as long as they're small staff ratios, small groups that don't interact with other groups. You know, these are things like four two, one, 621 and in some cases up to 10 to 1. So that's currently allowed, but not youth sports. And we think this item is going to be helpful so that we have a chance to talk to all of our youth sports so that if and when we get that, go ahead and and we can do it safely with our health officers direction, we would be able to move forward. Great. Thanks so much for that. That's great. Thank you. And Councilman Mongo on yet? Yes, I was here in my speaking just so I could hear you, but you couldn't hear me. Thank you. I just want to again thank my cosigners. I appreciate Rosalind Sunday House's comments. And in preparing the item, we were thinking about the whole city and preparing the city wide. We're really fortunate to have such a collaboration among our leaders. And then I also just wanted to give a big thank you to everyone on the city team who did what I believe to be a remarkable job in blending our summer engagement programs from the drop in and the standard camp. For this to be a blended program where more of our our our participants citywide can be involved on a more reasonable basis. So bringing the the melding and merging of those two programs, I really think was innovative. And I know that it's hard to find a silver lining in such difficult times of COVID. And so these are these ideas that are coming in from the staff and the community and can really change the way we provide government. And I think that this is a great example of that. Also encourage our team sports to think through that. And again, I think my cosigners and all my councilmembers are supporting. Thank you, Councilwoman. We're going to go ahead and go to a vote. Roll Call. District one. I district to. At District three. I. District four. I. District five. I. District six. I. District seven. I. District eight. District nine. High ocean carries. Thank you. Moving on to the next item that motion carries, that was item. Now we're going to go to item ten. Madam Kirk, did you have an announcement before we go? Item ten.