Recommendation to request City Manager to explore the feasibility of realigning the initiatives of the City's Safe Long Beach Violence Prevention Plan as well as the Language Access Program into the Department of Health and Human Services; and Evaluate the feasibility and benefits of establishing a new "Office of Equity, Access, and Prevention," or similar title, which aligns these critical initiatives with other key city programs and initiatives, and report back to the City Council within 90 days.
Perfect. Now back to you. Item 12. I know the clerk already read the item. So we're on item 12. I'm going to turn this over to Council Member Richardson. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So tonight, I'm proud to begin a discussion about taking our commitment to equity to the next level as a city. I want to thank my co-sponsors, Councilwoman Gonzalez and Councilmember Durango Ranga. I just want to acknowledge Vice Mayor Lowenthal, who couldn't be be here. But she she was well aware that this is she signed on more so in the second District as the incoming second District council member is very active on this issue as well and has committed to take this up and and move forward on it. I want to thank the community members and the entire council who have sort of put Long Beach in a position to lead around work work like this. We wouldn't be able to have this conversation if it weren't for the groundwork being laid over the years. So we kicked off this conversation last Monday where members of the community came together to explore some new or innovative approaches that cities have taken across the country to address issues of equity. So I want to start with a recap of last week's community meeting right now. Welcome. Welcome to our community conversation. And our theme today is Innovating for Equity. I am council member Rex Richards. Thank you all for joining joining us here this evening. And we're going to have a very interesting conversation that will hopefully turn into a good dialog of it actually works as a community. We are here to talk about equity. Talk about social justice and ways that we can innovate to do better as a community and achieve those things. We know that violence is now considered a public health problem. So we've established a citywide violence prevention plan to address a broad safety agenda. We know that boys and men of color need a greater focus. So we created My Brother's Keeper and recently launched our local action plan. We know that we're the second most culturally diverse city. So we created a language access plan. We know these things, and we're taking steps in our city to address these things. But what do these things have in common? They all help to achieve equity. They all have a common denominator. But are we doing all that we can to make sure that we speak the same language? And are we doing everything we can to innovate, better achieve equity, and to make sure that we connect all the dots and. We're talking about equity. There's a really large conversation right now going on at a national level around health equity. So everywhere that we stand, equity is the key focus of it. And so we start to think about what that really means. The things that really lead to health in our community is under social conditions over have 55% of health in a community is based on the social conditions in which you live. 30% are based on the behavior that you undertake. Only 10% is health care. When we're looking at this, we are looking at the entire area. We're looking at our air quality. We're looking at our crime rates or looking at our income. Everything matters. When you're looking at health, which is why I'm looking at all of it, if I don't look at all of it. I can't move a community forward, regardless of how. One might define. Equity. It is based. On the context in which you live in the life experiences of that, that guide you, that inform your view of the world. And when we think about equality, while everyone is given the exact same starting point, there's the assumption that we all will reach the same ending point. But it doesn't take. Into account those differences. That are inherent among us. There's a photo that has three. Individuals in. Varying heights who are. Attempting. To peer over a fence. Looking over into a baseball field. One is tall. One is of medium height, one is. Short, and a tall individual can already see over the fence. The median person. Medium height person, cannot buy the short person. Not at all. And so in the next frame, there is a photo with three boxes. Just three boxes. Tall person is already. Thank you and said the tall person is already able to see over there given a box they can see even further. Over the median person is able to see over the third. Person still cannot. It doesn't take into account the fundamental distinctions that people have. Oakland is a lot like Long Beach and so many of the issues that are confronting you here. We've also seen in Oakland. But I want to talk a little bit about the presentation that was made today, because I think that there is a critical component that needs to be said. You can now have a conversation about equity without talking about race. When you look at all the evidence. Presented with respect to the health department. The social conditions are really euphemisms for race. When you look at all of the data, if I looked at your city and I look at the data, white population is doing pretty well. People of color are not. And so you have to have an intentional conversation about race in order to get to equity. There's an intersection in just about each and every one of the issues that were presented. And it is race. When you talk about. And we talk about it every day when you talk about educational disparities. When you talk about health disparities, when you talk about the technology gap and all of those gaps, those are euphemisms. We're talking about communities of color. And they've somehow made us believe that that there is something deficient in us and that if we only found. The right program, if we only found the right program. That somehow we would change the outcomes when in reality, there is a systemic culture. A systemic culture that has to be changed. Privilege of leading the for the city of Seattle, what we call the Race and Social Justice Initiative. It's 12 years old. It was the first in the country. And its premise is, is that we are working to dismantle institutional and structural barriers in order to achieve racial equity within city government and across our communities in Seattle. You can imagine that 12 years ago that was a mighty vision, and it still is today, because despite all of our effort, despite all of our work, we are still struggling with what's racism and how it impacts every area of our life. And we heard about health disparities just a moment ago. But there's health disparities. There's criminal justice disparities. There's educational equity disparities. And what I have found in my two and a half years of being in this position is that people love to talk about equity. People love to talk about how equity is within our grasp. But what people do not like to talk about is racism. And if we don't talk about racism, we will never achieve racial equity. Thank you. So the idea tonight. Thanks a lot. The idea tonight around equity is that equity involves attempting to better understand the context, the systems, the barriers that prevent an individual from enjoying full and healthy lives. It means acknowledging that while there are a number of factors that contribute to inequity, systems do in fact play a role as well. And we are in a direct position to do something about that. So why is it important that we place a greater focus on equity here in Long Beach? First, let's take a quick look at a few different statistics by zip code in Long Beach. The first slide shows the poverty rates across 11 zip codes. The right side of the graph shows a much different picture than the left side of the graph. The highest poverty rates can be found in a number of zip codes with upwards of 46%, while the lowest are as low as 5%. So that's over 40% disparity. Then if you look at life expectancy for one year old in different zip codes across Long Beach, again, this graph shows a tale of two very different communities in Long Beach. Among these Long Beach zip codes, there's a seven year difference between them. When we look at the two zip add to zip codes that are very different side by side, the disparities are even more apparent. Take a look at some of the indicators in one in one zip code, 106 people out of 10,000 are likely to be victims of violent crime, while only 13 in another zip code are in one zip code. There are only 0.26 acres of open space per 1000 residents, while there's 8.774 thousand 8000 residents in the other zip code. So why are these statistics so different? What makes our what makes some of our neighborhoods healthier than others? These conditions, these statistics are all tied to what's known as social determinants of health. These are complex social and economic circumstances in which people are born. They grow up in, they live in, they work in. These circumstances are shaped by a wider set of forces, including economics, social policies, politics. You can see from this slide that among the social determinants of health are public safety, violence and trauma, which are not always thought of as health issues. But some of you, as some of you and most of the people in this audience might know, the CDC and many large public health institutions now categorize violence as one of the major public health issues facing our nation in modern times. And while crime increase increasing while crime is increasing across the state of California and recent reforms to the criminal justice system such as realignment, now is the time for local cities like Long Beach to double down on violence prevention and treat violence as a public health epidemic . Epidemic that it is. And by giving it a permanent home in our health department and establishing a dedicated office in our city, we're doing just that. Now, we as a city are already tackling many of these issues. We're one of only three cities in California with our own public health department that has 30 programs working with community partners focused on improving the health of people in Long Beach, including equity work. We just adopted a comprehensive My Brother's Keeper Local Action Plan that addresses disparities of boys and young men of color. We have a commitment to violence prevention with our comprehensive, safe Long Beach violence prevention plan, which we've adopted in 2014 and the cities. And as as the second most culturally diverse city in the nation, we've adopted a language access policy to make our City Hall more accessible to all communities. And we are a city who values human dignity, equality and civil rights. So what does all of this vital work have in common? Like I said, they place a lens on equity for our city, and equity is there is all of their common denominator. So while Long Beach has had a commitment to preventing violence and creating better outcomes for our residents, the efforts are fragmented across departments. My proposal tonight is demonstrate that Long Beach is serious about equity, violence, prevention and diversity. By taking the natural next step of providing these critical areas of focus, a real home in our city, realignment of our realigning our complementary initiatives and creating one central office and health department will bring a number of benefits to our city, including expanding our capacity to serve our residents, allowing for more coordination of efforts, and increasing our ability to leverage our limited resources for grant and philanthropic dollars. If we truly believe that Long Beach is a city where all of its constituents of any race, gender, age, sexual orientation deserve to live in a community that is healthy, safe and thriving, that we should take this natural next step. We've passed resolutions. We've crafted programs. We've written grants. But the next critical step to making this commitment is by reorganizing our government and establishing to an office dedicated to placing an ongoing focus on these issues. So while I'm taking the privilege of making the motion tonight, I want to clear clarify some direction to staff. So, number one, the focus of the proposal is to is to realign existing funded programs into one central office. This includes our safe Long Beach work, which includes My Brother's Keeper. This includes our language access work and much of the health equity work that's already taking place in our health department. In second, with respect to timing, I would amend the motion to say that the fiscal evaluation we want that is completed in the next 60 days so we can evaluate any potential budget considerations through the FY17 budget discussions. In terms of actual implementation, it would be unreasonable for this report, for this new office to be established by the beginning of FY17. So I would like for the visit feasibility report to provide an implementation timeline based on implementation sometime within the period of the entire FY17 fiscal year. So that's it. That's my my motion and I urge a yes vote. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. There is a second I'm going to turn to Councilmember Ringa. Thank you. I want to thank Councilmember Richardson for inviting me to participate in this and this motion more than 18 hours. I think equity has been a very important conversation that we've had for a very long time here. And aligning these programs excuse me, in one office, I think makes sense. It certainly makes sense to include it in the health department. They certainly are very adept and well versed and capable of maintaining many of the grants that will be going in there, as well as being able to apply for others. So I totally agree with the motion and I hope that I can get the support of my council colleagues as well. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman Mongo. Yes. I want to thank Councilmember Richardson for bringing a well-researched and thought out item to council. I think that there are a lot of efficiencies in our government that we have not yet explored. And I think that having this young and innovative council that has a new look on the way things are operating really has been a big asset to the city. I think that looking at specifically the social, social determinants of health, no matter where you are, no matter what you believe, everyone knows and understands that public health and the health of our communities is the top priority. There is nothing more important than health and safety of the communities. And so I think that this is a great step in the right direction. I think that we will be better able to leverage federal and state grant funds when we consolidate. And so I look forward to hearing what the proposal looks like and I look forward to staff spending some good time on it. I know that there's a small revision to the 60 days. I know our staff is miracle workers and I wish them the best of luck with that and I hope that it comes back as well thought out as the Councilmember intends. And if there are additional components that take more time, that at least we have a timeline for that, because I know we've had a couple of 60 day turnarounds, 120 day turnarounds that we've kind of. Made the mark, but we could have done a bit more. And I know that summer's challenging, but I think that this is something worth the time and effort. So I look forward to seeing what that looks like and I'm very supportive of this item. Thank you. And thank you all for being here. Thank you, Councilwoman Gonzalez. I just also want to say thank you to Councilmember Richardson for bringing this forward. I think it's certainly long overdue. As he mentioned, the city is doing so many different things and we're really piece mealing a lot of this. So we've we've worked on language access, we worked on LGBT issues and and rights, and we work to push women's issues. We've done a lot of symbolic gestures to remain in support of many of these things. And now to have these condensed and consolidated into one office is really a really great step in the right direction, in my opinion. I'll look forward to see what this report will bring. I know that this could only do nothing but positivity for us here in Long Beach in of Austin is doing it. Portland is doing it. Seattle is doing it. These are all cities that really in many cases, we're at the forefront. We're actually doing a lot of things that mirror what they're doing, but they're actually doing a lot of things that we're doing as well, a lot of things and having the opportunity. And I think Councilmember Richardson, again, for bringing potential counterparts from Seattle and from Oakland to Long Beach to talk about how their office looks like was a really great option, an opportunity for many of us to to see what we can do here in Long Beach. So I look forward to this coming back, I think every single one of you for the work that you do every day, because I know that once if this does pass down the line and we do get this office, that many of you will be working very closely with us. So thank you so much. Thank you. Councilman Andrews. Thank you, Mayor. I would also like to thank Councilman Richardson for bringing this item forward. You know, the idea of having one office with all of these resources and services available to the community I think is wonderful. And I would also look forward to seeing the magnificent work of the Department of Health and Human Services. It's going to bring to our community hope that the office, you know, also and truly I'm seeing this in all honesty, that the office also at Aging can be implemented as well, because I think that's very important. And thank you again, you know, Councilman Richardson, for this item. Thank you, Councilman Austin. Thank you. I also want to thank my colleagues for bringing this forward. I believe that equity should be part of our core mission. And as a city and in public safety is what we do as a government. We should that should be a priority, the health and safety of our residents. But hopefully this this office will be looking at housing access and education and access to public services and jobs and aging and understanding that it's going to be a big job. It's going to be a big job. And I think it's going to require more than one person to actually accomplish this and do it well. One thing that I'd like to just just. Ask our council to do is is focusing on doing something. Well within the last few months we've. Brought forward the violence prevention plan. We brought forth My Brother's Keeper. We brought forth a language access program that that has not a lot of those programs have even had an opportunity to work yet. And so I like to make sure that that in doing this, that, that it makes a lot of sense to realign and in focus. But I'd also like just to ask the maker of the motion as well as the rest of the council to to look at not just prescribing necessarily maybe one position or one office, but look at realigning and allow our city staff to to come back with some options. I remember very vividly when the City of Long Beach established its Citizen Police Complaint Commission. That was a charter in our city charter. It was a it was a bold move that that that went to the voters and the voters in the city approved that. That that commission had made it part of our charter, but they put it under the office of the city manager to give it a lot more robustness, strength. And I think some of the issues and not to be critical of it, but some of the issues that that could be facing the the the implementation of these these programs in a department could also be challenged in another department outside of the office of the city manager. And so I'd just like to say take that into consideration. And of course, I'll be supporting this. Okay. Thank you very much. With that, I'm going to go to public comment on the item and then we'll come back to council. So if you have public comment, please come forward and line up. Make sure you say your name, please, and your address or residence for the record and we'll begin. Thank you. Great. Thank you, Mayor. Members of the council, we want to really think. Well, my name is. Renee Castro, and I live in the third district. I want to thank Councilman Rich Richardson for bringing this forward. I think this is a really innovative idea. I appreciate the research that's gone into it, particularly the fact that there are areas of the city, obviously, that have very different health outcomes. And I appreciate the focus on. Prevention and access as well. I think that's really forward thinking. I work with a lot of foundations, both locally, as well. As national funders like Kresge for others. And as Kelly Colby said in in the video, I mean, this is where all funding is moving, both at a government level as well as foundations are looking. At access equity prevention. So it really. Allows us to become more. Eligible for a lot of funding as well. So and I also just want. To speak as the chair for the Long Beach Gang Resistance. Intervention and Prevention Program that, you know, as was said in the video, violence is a public health issue. And I think placing it in the health department is the right thing to do. So thank you so much. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, honorable mayor and council jeanine pearce and I am councilmember elect in the second district and I was asked to speak tonight by my soon to be colleague. I want to thank everybody for your hard work. But I first want to ask everybody in the audience that supporting this item to stand up. Stand up, everyone. Because you guys are the ones that have been on the front line every day for the last several years, working on these issues of equity, working on these issues of violence prevention, making sure that we're working with our council members on on issues of immigration, women's status, raising the wage. And I know that this office, while it's one office that we're hopefully getting to and that it's going to be housed under the health department, which I'm. Hugely supportive of. Gives us the opportunity to have one lens as to which how we close that gap. In my district, the two zip. Codes that I have in my. District are that zip codes, those zip codes that have the highest life expectancy and the lowest life expectancy with that seven year difference in between. And so it is a great honor today to be speaking. In support. Of this. I was at the table with the California Endowment in 2013 when we started having this conversation. We looked ahead and said, Do we think we could ever do this in Long Beach? Could we ever have an Office of Equity in Long Beach? We thought, sure, it's going to be a while. And so you guys beat us to it. I definitely am inspired by the work that you guys are doing today, and I hope that we move with a thought about every single person that could be impacted, whether it's around youth, whether it's around violence, sexual assault, immigration, wage theft . All of these issues are things that we can have a a lens which we are asking questions about equity. And that's the first step. If we can ask questions and have a shared definition, we can get a lot of things done together. And so thank you guys very much for your leadership. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hi. Good evening. Dr. Jane Galloway, Third, Third District. Good evening to all of you. I'm happy to speak to this measure. When I was teaching victimology in the 1990s at Cypress College, we learned from both L.A. and Orange County sheriff's departments that the policy of rehabilitation had officially been replaced with one of punishment, and that this spanned the lifecycle from children and parents finding themselves engaged with child's product protective services to middle school, dropping out housing, food scarcity issues and the myriad elder concerns. Nothing happens in a vacuum. We're all products of our environment, and the consequences of economic inequality are graphically detailed in that really great Health and Human Services presentation. I have a concern when when symptoms are criminalized and causes seemingly not connected to outcomes. We aren't getting at the root of human suffering. And this is tragic and less than who we are capable of being as the human family. Combining the strong teams who are already working on elements of the larger challenge under one umbrella as an Office of Equity is a great move toward a holistic solution that is up to the standard of our great city. I strongly support the measure. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Karen replied. I live at 714 Pacific Avenue and I'm a community activist and I want to commend you all for taking the foresight to bring this forward and have this community discussion. It's way past time that we break down the barriers for all of our community and not just afford certain aspects privilege of living in a clean air environment and having healthy housing. I'm. The conversation about race and social justice needs to happen as well as the ageism. And I support wholeheartedly this movement to bring all of these humanistic functions under the health department where they really belong. And it's going to be really important, the people that work on these issues that they understand and care about our community and about people as individuals. So, again, thank you for bringing that discussion forward. Councilman Richardson and the supporters look forward to continuing the dialog. Thank you. Next speaker. Hi. Good evening. Dr. Ilene Bernal. 1364 Grand Avenue. I live in the fourth district. I know the new doctor. She just she actually just defended her dissertation a few months ago. Yes. Thank you. And and my my degree literally just. Posted like two weeks ago. Yeah. I hate to embarrass you, but Dr. Bernal is one of the new leading people in science to I mean, I love seeing a woman in science in what you're doing teaching chem and so many folks at Cal State Long Beach. So congratulations. It was a big deal for you. So thank you. Thank you. And a fourth district. Yes. Go forth. Thank you. So I teach at Cal State Long Beach, and I'm also a commissioner. And thank you for having me here this evening. And I fully support the establishment of the Office of Equity, Access and Prevention. And what I look forward to in the creation of this office is the coordination of multiple commissions currently in the city of Portland. You have the Disability and Human Rights Commission working together, and in Seattle you have LGBT disabilities, human rights as well as and women commissions, all working together within the same office. And with that, and I think when you assemble a team with that common purpose, there is a level of accountability involved in making sure that we have the feedback that we need from our constituents to better inform us of what we can do to ensure that we are all serving everyone equitably. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Sabrina Sanders. I've moved to Long Beach because it was such a diverse city. I value ethnic, cultural, sexual orientation, gender identity, ability, socioeconomic, and so many other diverse characteristics that make our community so special and sometimes so complex. Having lived in various parts of Long Beach, the sixth District in central Long Beach, the ninth District in Lawrence and North Long Beach, and in the historical California Heights area and engaging the broader city, I've also seen the disproportionate level of access to resources and services by the city in these communities. Past conversations like The Atlantic Corridor Project Rethinking Greater Long Beach in the State of Black Long Beach by Building Health Healthy Communities, highlighted these disparities throughout, highlighting the data, the disparity found through the data as it relates to health, violence, employment opportunities, education and poverty can be delineated in citywide presentations. Some of these disparities are so significant it can be considered a crisis leading to a civil rights issue. As a community, we need to be accountable to these issues of equity in our city. As we look at economic development opportunities, we're at a crossroads of a perfect storm to acknowledge, embrace and call them out or to turn a blind eye. We know that we're addressing them all in all the ways that we work and manage our city. But the mentality that all boats will rise in addressing an issue does not address the specific communities that are facing the fortunate treatment and the issues of equity. I think back to when the city passed the Office of Sustainability and I mean, we all should be saving water planning, planting drought tolerant plants, looking at our behaviors as it relates to sustainability as a city. But until we moved forward with an office that brought together all these departments that was specifically accountable for this mission with strong leadership support and a team of community leaders financed by the city, did it change the mentality and significant change take place in our city? We see this affects in the change of culture and our priorities as a sustainable city all around us. This is why I'm committed to the commitment of the Office of Equity and Access and Prevention and commend you for this discussion today. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Sanders. Next speaker. Hi. Good evening, Mayor Garcia. City council members. My name is Nicole Ababa. I'm actually on the Human Relations Commission and I'm also a community organizer with the Filipino Migrant Center, as well as the Coalition to End Wage Theft. And I to I would like to applaud our city council members, particularly Councilmember Richardson, Gonzalez Lowenthal in your UNGA for taking this initiative on this issue around equity. When we assess how our resources are distributed in the city, we need only travel from the south end of Ocean Boulevard and Alamitos, Martin Luther King Avenue, which changes into California Avenue, Bixby Knolls, or even go from the west side of Willow to the east side of Willow towards Studebaker, and really see the disparities for ourselves, our neighborhoods and the health of our city are really largely shaped by our local economy and the local policies that are passed here. The heart of our economy is really the workforce, the working families that make this city run. But what we continue to see today is an inequitable economy, a tale of two cities where poverty, unemployment and wage theft is a daily reality for local residents, particularly in communities of color. For women, the formerly incarcerated and immigrants, equity is about social justice. It's about fairness. And what's unfair is to let workers get robbed of their wages every single day from their employers who face little, if any, consequences to endure a state process that takes 1 to 2 years and still to come out empty handed. 83% of people who actually win their wage theft cases never see a dime. And Long Beach can and must do better. And this is an opportunity, I think today is very much so a positive step forward in considering this Office of Equity. But we also have to consider that workers every single day are denied their meal and rest breaks, denied their overtime, denied payment at all. And so while we applaud this positive, positive step forward, we know that early January, the city council made a commitment to ensuring local strong wage enforcement. And we expect that the City of Long Beach will continue to pass more equitable policies to ensure workers collect the money that's owed to them, protect workers that are actually retaliated against, and to also invest in fully funding a wage enforcement officer bureau. If we want the city to really take equity, public health and violence prevention seriously, we also need the city to partner with local residents, community based organizations and consider policies that lift up all workers and all families. And together we can really create and shape that equitable city that we're talking about. Thank you. Good evening. Council members. Dr. Garcia was here a second ago. Sorry. My name's Stella Su, second district resident president at Green Education. I chair the neighborhood's workgroup for building healthy communities. And I'm a member of a board member of the LGBT center of Long Beach. Thank you for this opportunity. On all of these roles, I have been part of an effort to create healthier communities, environmentally healthy neighborhoods, good jobs, and a city that lifts up working class families. So thank you, Councilmember Richardson, and all the council members that are in support of this recommendation for producing the recent Community Conversation Forum, innovating for equity, and for bringing these subject matter experts from Oakland, Seattle and our own Health and Human Services Department to talk about an issue that is so broad, yet so critical to creating a vibrant and equitable city. In the presentation, we learned about the serious disparities between zip codes, between neighborhoods in education, health care, life expectancy, open space, poverty for the LGBT community. We are really excited about this recommendation because LGBT community members face more barriers to accessing services due to existing existing discrimination. LGBT people of color face higher rates of violence. Trans women of color experience higher, highest possibilities of hate, motivated homicide. Homeless homelessness, HIV and poverty. Affect LGBT. Folks at a disproportionately. Higher rate for LGBT older adults, a lifetime of employment, discrimination and other factors have contributed to disproportionately higher poverty rates. Seniors in the LGBT community sometimes do not have support systems access to family members due to not having children themselves or longstanding issues with coming out. We need to ensure that our burgeoning senior community is safe, has access to equitable and affordable housing and medical services. And for all of these reasons, we believe that Councilmember Richardson Richardson's recommendation is a very timely one, and we wholeheartedly support this effort. And like any great organization, we need to ensure that our city's values are supported by sound systems processes, and that each department and employee understands their role in creating equity across the city. Thank you so much. Good evening. Excuse me. Council members. My name is Kimmy Monica's, and I am associate executive director of the California Conference for Equality and Justice. And my family and I are also residents of the Sixth District as well. On behalf of CCJ, I would like to thank Council Member Richardson and the other council members who are supporting this initiative for taking positive steps in the direction of consolidating funding and implementing steps toward a robust equity and violence prevention program in the city of Long Beach. CCJ has served as a partner with the City of Long Beach for over 50 years in promoting equity and preventing violence in our communities through our programs with youth, adults, police officers, businesses and city departments. Most notably, CCJ CO staffed the city's Human Dignity Program and provided training to city departments on an as requested basis. Currently, CCJ serves on multiple committees and Task Force Task Forces through safe Long Beach, My Brother's Keeper and Grip. The need for United, concerted, organized and well supported office that will tackle the complicated issues of equity and violence prevention in our city cannot be overstated. Racism and inequality will not go away unless, unless and until we specifically work to dismantle them. That cannot be done without an organized effort by the city. We strongly support Councilmember Richardson's proposal to look forward and look forward to continuing the partnership with the city and create a place where equity and justice are real and not just ideals for all the residents of Long Beach. Thank you. Good evening, Mr. Mayor. City Council Members Derek Simpson, executive director of the Long Beach Language Communication Partnership. I want to begin by thanking Councilman Richardson for bringing in content experts. Last week, which I've been. Working in the community. For many years, really opened my eyes to the issues and differences between what we speak to as equality and what we speak to as equity, and that indeed, we need to have a common definition of what equity is that transcends not only into the community, but up and down the ranks of our city leaders as well. So that we all speak the same language. We often speak of Long Beach being a very diverse city, and we're very proud of that diversity. And I believe that by establishing an Office of Equity, Access and Prevention, it demonstrates a commitment to what we speak to every day as a source of pride in our community. Not only do the socioeconomic equality issues need to be addressed, but also the equitable access issues need to be addressed. Just as importantly, it demonstrates a real and relevant commitment to the success of programs that we've spoken about already tonight, such as My Brother's Keeper, Safe, Long Beach and Language Access. Violence is indeed a public health issue. As I read the papers and looked at the news to see, a former student in our lab program was killed just last week. It reminds me of just how real and just how close these issues are and just how much more we need to do as a community. And we believe that working at it as a public health issue in a unified department will give us a much more laser focus. And I am 100% behind it, because we work in this community every day, as you do, and we see the need and we thank you for your support. Good evening, members of the City Council, and thank you, Councilmember Richardson, for bringing this item forward. The city of Seattle, in their analysis, they have here the equity analysis, page two of the equity analysis. They talk about working to enact policies and programs that allow marginalized populations to stay in their communities. So for the city of Seattle, it goes beyond just, you know, police and violence prevention and language access actually goes to preserving our communities and preserving our diversity. They claim to be the second most diverse community in the United States, and I think that we want to work to maintain that. The Office of Equity is a great idea. Housing justice. Housing Justice should be included in the conversation. The cities that were cited, the cities of Seattle and Oakland have included housing within their agendas for achieving their equity. In fact, on page two of Seattle's equity analysis. They have a displacement risk index and they've been tracking their displacement that has disproportionately impacted communities of color. Long Beach is no different. A displacement that our community has been experiencing has also been impacting our low income communities of color, our Cambodian community, our Filipino community, African-American community. And that is why today, housing Long Beach put a call out for just cause eviction protections in the name of a responsible renters ordinance so that we can work on maintaining our diversity as a community. We can start working to prevent displacement from occurring. All the great things that have occurred in our city are wonderful. But when we're standing in front of a building of tenants who've been kicked out for no fault of their own, and the building next door to them has been sold and they're going to be kicked out for no fault of their own. These are these are people of color who are being impacted in our downtown area. So if we're truly committed to being equal and creating a diversity in our community, then we need to maintain that diversity. So we encourage you to include housing justice in this conversation when we have an Office of Equity. And again, thank you very much for bringing this forward and hope that you'll consider passing it tonight. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor. City Council, city staff in our impressive and dedicated audience. My name is Laura Merrifield and I'm a second district resident. I'm speaking tonight on behalf of my organization, Building Healthy Communities, Long Beach. Our mission is to reduce health disparities and improve overall community health through policy and systems change. We are very happy that this important conversation around equity is happening, and we appreciate the Council's leadership on this. In conversations that have led us here tonight, it's been very helpful to hear leaders from Seattle and Oakland share about the work done in their cities and to learn about similar efforts happening across the nation. Building Healthy communities. Long Beach is happy to support the realignment of safe Long Beach and the language access policy into an Office of Equity to be housed in the Department of Health and Human Services. Equity for long beaches, diverse communities is a common thread that connects these programs, and equity should be at the center of our decision making as a city. With the realignment of these programs. We want to ensure that their reach remains citywide and that all departments of the city continue to work collaboratively on their implementation. Equity and programs to better achieve it cannot be compartmentalized. In order to make this work meaningful, we need to be explicit about how race shapes the inequities we see in our city. As we heard at last week's community conversations and referenced in tonight's video. Leaders from Oakland and Seattle said You can't have a conversation about equity without talking about race. And also people love to talk about equity. But what people don't want to talk about is racism. Similarly, in Long Beach, we love to celebrate our diversity, but we shy away from talking about the racial disparities around us. We talk about the seven year life expectancy gap between zip codes, but we rarely talk about how race directly links to that gap. We don't talk about how that division of zip code breaks down to a West Long Beach that's predominantly people of color and an East Long Beach, predominantly white, that enjoys about seven more years of life. We cannot ignore racial disparities as we strive for an equitable city. We also need to be serious about the change we want to see. As this work moves into the Health Department. We need to ensure that we set goals and measure the progress of our efforts. We need the health department, but also you as a city council, as our mayor, as our city manager, as heads of our departments to establish concrete goals for moving towards equity and to track our progress each year. I heard from the dias tonight calls to do this well, to do this thoroughly and that I fully support building healthy communities. Longreach is excited to continue partnering with you to create an equitable city for all Long Beach residents. We look forward to the staff report in 90 days and the fiscal report even sooner to help move Long Beach forward as a model for language violence prevention, inclusive language access and the promotion of equity. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening. Honorable mayor and members of the City Council. My name is Myles McNeely and I'm. A city commissioner, a Long Beach native and a resident of the second district. I wanted to offer my strong support for this office and thank Council and Richardson and the rest of the Council for their supportive comments about this item this evening. I wanted to help highlight the point that there are numerous disparities in Long Beach when we look at poverty, education, health and a number of other quality of life indicators. And as mentioned in the video presentation, we can't ignore that these disparities are not only associated with race, but are rooted in historical and systemic racism. It's not easy for everyone, but we must try to develop our sense of comfort in talking about race in this context and establishing this office is a huge step in bringing this dialog to the surface. As Long Beach continues to develop. It is more crucial than ever that we enact policy that ensures that everyone has a fair opportunity to be part of the city's growth. It's up to us to act locally, take responsibility and demonstrate that Long Beach can be a little more just fair and equitable. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Evening, Mayor and City Council. My name is Shane Devins, and I'm the first District Commissioner for the Human Relations Commission. A number of my fellow commissioners have already spoken, so I'll keep this very brief. But I wanted to just urge the support of this and thank you all for bringing it. And I believe that this the coordination of these programs and initiatives will let us address further address the disparities in our city. Thanks. Thank you. Next speaker. Good evening. Mayor Garcia, members of the city council. My name is Jessica Quintana and I'm the executive director of Central Cha and also a long time resident of the city of Long Beach. I'm so glad that we have a young city council because I think if folks remember in 2012 when we were trying to move the violence prevention safety plan and the implementation, it started out in the health department. And so I'm so glad today Councilman Richardson and other council members are bringing this forward. But, you know, the need for a reinvestment in our communities to boost health equity is the common thread. Binding the city and community and faith based organizations endeavors to provide equality will realize when all of us have access to opportunities necessary to satisfy their essential basic needs, advance and well-being, and achieve their full potential. For over 15 years, Central CHA has served as as a violence prevention leader, engaged in a number of areas important to Long Beach, such as addressing and preventing community trauma by creating safer communities through reentry job training. Be Safe, formerly known as the Summer Night Lights, implementing youth and parent development initiatives in a walkable West Side Safe Passage program. We have engaged multiple sectors in effective prevention, including community and business sector, and delivering community centered programs and advocacy. Taking Action to prevent violence injury. Our injuries are responsible for countless lost lives, which we've had too many of those here in the city of Long Beach decreased quality of life and substantial health costs. While injuries affect everyone, people of color and low income populations are partly vulnerable. Quality injury prevention is essential to closing the health equity gap and improving wellness outcomes for all. Center Child Bloods Councilman Rex Richardson Gonzalez Roberto Franca for the leadership and supports the establishment of an Office of Equity, Access and Prevention and Strategic Alignment of violence prevention efforts under the umbrella of the Health Department. These efforts under their belt of the Health Department to better align resources and funding opportunities to support better life and health outcomes for all residents in the city of Long Beach. I just especially want to acknowledge my councilman in the eighth District and and, you know, the note that he said in regards to, you know, we can develop these initiatives, but they're as good as they are as if they have teeth into the action. And so it's very important. And, you know, I truly appreciate all the expertize that has been brought to our city from other areas. But it's important that, you know, we really look to partner with community based organizations and really learn to see what some organizations are doing in the city as well. You know, I think what's been missed over and over again is that true partnership with with faith based and community based organizations and the residents and the youth and families who are most impacted by violence in our community. So I really, truly look forward to a meaningful conversation. It's been said over and over again about race. Sometimes we talk about gangs, but the issues that we really, truly have in our city is race. And it's systemic for a very long time. Thank you. Thank you so much. Speaker, please. So. Good evening, city council and Mayor. I would just first say that, oh, my name is Christopher and I would first like to say that I strongly support the city's. State Long Beach violence prevention plan because. Just today I was almost robbed of my wallet, but we luckily got it back. And I come from a north Long Beach and immigrant background, so I notice a lot of these violences and things happening in our city. I have a lot of experience in the melting pot that is our city, and I believe that this is a great step towards making it so that our youth, both ethnic and not, can have equal chances and make it so that we can create a greater, always improving city. Thank you. Thank you. Inexplicably. Good evening. My name is Sonia Sanchez. I'm 74 years old. I attended in high school, and I live in North Beach. I. I. I'm sorry. The people. Long Beach is made of people from different race cultures and genders, which makes it more diverse and more open. I prefer the youths perspective, which is most likely similar to mine due to the amount of open mindedness that is my generation. I believe the community should come as one to help each other to make things more fair for everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker for you. Good evening, Mr. Mayor. And members of the Council. Friends and staff. My name is John Taylor. Effie and I am here to speak on two matters. But tonight for this for this item, I want to speak on the matter of the Pacific Islander Caucus, of which I am the chair, including the area of the Pacific of Melanesia , Micronesia and Polynesia. And so part of our charter and part of our agenda is to support social justice. And this item speaks to the fact of humanity. And so I want to commend Councilman Rex Richardson for having brought this forward. For the record, I'd like to say that we as a Pacific Islander community wholly support this and hopefully to come out will be wonderful. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Peter, please. Mayor. Councilman, I just want to say that I my name is Danny Gamboa, and I live at 5437 Cherry Avenue in North Long Beach. I'm wearing multiple hats, but I'm representing the Coalition for Healthy North Long Beach, which is a grant based and Long Beach Health Department based organization as well, also Empower Communities. And I'm also a board chairman, co-chair of the Walk Bike Long Beach Coalition. I support the creation of the Office of Equity because it is an opportunity to leverage the power of City of Long Beach with community based organizations like myself and our people. Our residents. I think. To do more to do most good. When we examine the city's policies, practices and systems through the lens of equity, we are examining the root cause of health. So I support this and thank you, Chris Richardson, for bringing this up. Thank you. And we have our last speaker, actually, Mr. Goodhue, I guess, is our last speaker. So please come forward and close the speakers list. We can get it back to the deliberations. Thank you, Mr. Good. Here. You're the last speaker, correct? Okay, great. Go ahead. Shirley. You start. As I listened to the. All the persons who stood I saw the ones who stood and all the speakers who said that they were for this office. And it reminded me in 2012 when we were voting on the moratorium on cremate crematoriums mortuaries. And then we just had the residents who didn't want the planes flying over. Their airport, over their houses, because they live near the airport. But when they. Got on the plane, no one was concerned about how loud the plane was because they were on it. And as I listen to everyone tonight and I look to see who was being represented. And I thought, okay, this is the community. These these are we are the US. Our federal government has a fair housing. We have labor. Laws, we have. Discrimination laws and departments, we have EEOC, human relations departments, we have our police departments, we have violence prevention. We have neighborhood watch programs. Health and Human Services are in every city in the country. Homeless services is here and many churches on just about every corner. If without that department ever being implemented, each one of us are not willing to become the answer for this and other departments are going to do any good. If every white person in this room has never had dinner with an African American or a Spanish or an Asian person or an a Pacific Islander, a department won't help . This will just be adding a more budget would be adding more expenses to an existing exhausted budget. We have to become the change we want to see. Not ask the city for more money to open up another department to replicate a redundancy for something as individuals we don't want to do. If we won't step out of our doors and knock on house number five and say Hi, I live on house number two and I notice you're black and I'm white. I think we should have dinner because I don't know what pinto beans tastes like. And you may not have had a hog mog. We got to do that or we're just just bigger building, no more big business. Another department. I hate. To say this, Rex, but another. Department is not the answer for equity prevention. What? What? What is it? Equity. Access. We have a human resources department. We have a lot of representations of the problems that are in our city. But we don't have you. We don't have an individual. We got to get back to just being individual, committed neighbors. Times are a lot. Thank you so much. Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you. And our last speaker, Mr. Good here. Previous speaker made sense this evening. One of the downsides. This may not hurt the situation, but I really don't think that's going to help that much. So. Disparity in housing that will always exist. And quite frankly, it should exist. Otherwise it takes away the incentive. One of the biggest things that could be done is to. Disavow. And reversed the DNC is de facto policy. You want more kids or you want more money? Pop out a kid. You traced those numbers back, and that's probably the greatest single problem this or any major city faces. You just stated what the facts were in terms of where the where the crime goes. I've lived in the city since 1977 and I have never seen a there's a council that had a direct policy of excluding anybody. They did the. Best they could. There will always be disparities. When you take your kid to the hospital, you're not interested in diversity. You'll want the best there is. Same thing with your pet. If you take the dog to the hospital. You want that? There is. I see this as becoming another political. Debacle, pitting one group against the other. I'd give it some thought. I don't think it'll help. I'm not so sure it's going to hurt. I mean, I'm not sure it's going to help. And I don't know what his total impact will be, but I just think. You're going down the wrong tree. You're the wrong path. If you want to have a real impact on crime in this city, start listening tonight. Every council meeting, the number of people that are shot or killed from now until this new city hall is built. Urinating away $93 million on that. And as a reminder. Take the names of those people who were shot or killed. And put them outside the city hall. I just think it's poor policy. You're not thinking you're use. This is a policy that will be designed to pit one group against another, in my view. Thank you. I hate to. Please forgive me. Please. That's okay. Just come down. But it'll be your last speaker. Close the speakers list. But the last speaker should force me to address. I'm Leon Wood. I live in the. 36 or to break down venue. The thing that bothers me so much, I think that what is being done, our councilman is attempting to give us some options to do what has not been done, and that is bring programs together so that we can actually begin to assess our effectiveness. And also that office could work with the other local agencies and programs of the community programs so that we could actually build a team, a community team. And I think that's what they're trying to do. I think what we also have to understand, as I just heard from the person just spoke, that kind of thinking people need employment. People need an opportunity. Crime goes down when people start working. Crime. Health improves when people are working. So anything that you can do to help improve those conditions, I applaud you for trying to do it. And I think we have a fantastic city council who are coming together trying to new ideas and new and new and new avenues for things. And I think you're doing the right thing. It may not always be the most ideal, but it's a start and it's better than waiting and doing nothing. So this is an opportunity that we can that we can try to look forward to, and it can always be improved. And if it doesn't work, we just stop it and start over and do something else, because that's what this is all about. We keep trying until we finally get it right. We have to change the lives of people who are suffering, and we have to begin to help those people who are trying to make it. And there's a lot of men in this city who want to work but do not have a job. So they are angry and we must do something about that. So I thank you very much, Councilman, for making an effort. And I think Olive was supporting him. And thank you, Mayor, for this opportunity that I'm sorry for. I just couldn't hold it in long. No problem. You should see how I feel every Tuesday afternoon. I just a constant. Thank you. I want to go back to the council. Councilman Price. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'm glad I had a chance to hear public comment on this. And I want to thank Councilman Richardson and the coauthors of this item for bringing this forward. I think with many of the issues facing the city, having a better coordinated effort and a central location is important because a lot of times we have different departments, different community based organizations and different faith based partners all doing work. And we're not doing the best coordination together to try to make sure we don't duplicate things or that we're complementing the work of others. And I think that that's the great opportunity I see with this, is aligning all of the efforts so that we're able to build upon the work of other organizations and actually complement each other in moving agenda items forward for each of these organizations. And if each of these entities and I appreciate, Jessica, what you said, because I think working with our partners in the community is a huge resource to us that as a city, sometimes we think about how limited our resources are. But we have a lot of resources out there through nonprofits and community volunteers that we could take advantage of and really put into play in a way that's a very efficient use of those resources. And we haven't been doing that. We're probably not alone in that. It's it's hard to coordinate. So I think that the opportunity to better coordinate is great. I will say, you know, there was some discussion tonight regarding this area or this zip code versus another. I choose to live in Long Beach because I believe it's incredibly diverse. I live on the east side. My kids go to school on the east side. True, they are children of immigrants and they are, you know, only half white. And they have a mother who learned to speak English at the age of seven. But I don't think they see themselves as different than anyone else, and I don't think they see their classmates as different. It's just something that is such a norm in the way that we're trying to raise them. And I hope that that's the case for many families in Long Beach, because it is what makes us unique. And I think hearing some of the comments tonight about diversity and in parts of Long Beach as opposed to others, I think there would be many, many East Side residents who would say that one of the things they love about living on the east side along which is its diversity now, is it as diverse as other parts? No, but it is a very diverse community in terms of just everything race, ethnicity, religion, lifestyle, all of that. And that's a beautiful thing. So we can have a department that's focused on bringing in grant money to address these issues. And violence prevention knows no zip codes. Violence knows no zip codes. We have issues like bullying. We have issues with people feeling displaced and not feeling like they fit in and lashing out in communities where they look just like the people all around them. But they're lashing out because of other issues that might be going on. So raising awareness and providing whatever resources we as a city get citywide to raise awareness for things that cause violence and cause the root of violence is something I'm 100% in favor of. So I think this opportunity to be more efficient with our structuring in the city is is a welcomed opportunity. And I thank my colleagues for bringing this forward. Thank you, Councilman. Super now. Thank you. As usual, my esteemed colleague to my right is a tough act to follow. But she used the word alignment, and I think that's what I would like to address. The third, the last speaker, Shirley Rizzo, mentioned possibly a lot of money being poured into this. I and staff can correct me, but I don't think we're talking about a brand new office. We're talking about aligning existing resources for greater efficiency and to council member Osment's point about we haven't decided which department this is going to go into. That's what this study is for, I believe. I think only I only counted 25% of the speakers who mentioned the health department. Everyone else just wants a solution, I believe, independent of what department we end up in. Also, I'll just briefly mentioned about the zip code issue. I have the great privilege of representing a district that runs on the far eastern border of Long Beach to Cambodia town. So diversity is all part of what we do. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, let me just add a couple comments. I think we've had a really, really good discussion by the council. I want to obviously thank everyone that came out and spoke. A lot of people have been involved in the community. Community work for a long time. I wanted to just use this opportunity, obviously, to to thank everyone that's been involved in the work, especially in the last few years, whether it's been through the Building Healthy Communities Network of organizations and certainly all the other non-profits and faith groups and Central Cha and so many other organizations that have been very involved. But I wanted to take a moment because we don't get to do it often. To think also the city staff that have been tasked with this work for the last few years, we have very few resources within the city to actually do a lot of this work. And I want to just give you a sampling of what we've added to to our goals in the last few years as a council, we have launched Violence Prevention Plan, which a lot of you were involved with, My Brother's Keeper, which the city is very committed to now, the language access policy, which is incredibly important, you know , minimum wage has been important to this body and moving that that issue forward, including local hiring, which was an ordinance as council discussed the PATH program, which our city prosecutor and also Councilman Richardson were very, very involved in that. So that's just a sampling of the new initiatives that our team has been incredibly involved with. And I'm talking about folks in the prosecutor's office, in the health department, Tracy Kohanga and her team, the health the health folks throughout the city. And so if we can just give them a round of applause, first of all, for for doing all that incredible work, the Parks Department, it goes on and on, because they're there on the they're there, like all of you are also on the front line of some of that work. And I know that there's a lot of interest from them. The other thing I will I will add is as this work continues, because we're all involved in it constantly to make sure that the two key I heard the faith community tonight and that's important I heard from our nonprofit community and the partnerships there are incredibly important . But the other key key important institution in this is our education system partners. And those are folks in the K-12 system. Community college and the university system are incredibly important for this work to be successful because the access to a quality education, as we all know from the research is is incredibly important to the success. And so that that will continue, I know, to be a part of that of the conversation as well. And before we go to a vote, I just had a question because a couple of the councilors have brought it up. This will come back. Councilman, I know that. And I'm under the assumption that I know that the agenda item speaks to the health department is being an option or maybe the preferred option. But I'm assuming that the that city management staff will come back and kind of bring a menu of what are some of the some of the options, knowing that that is seems to be, at least right now, the preference by the agenda makers. Our preference is the health department. And we've been working with staff hand-in-hand for about six months, just talking to everybody about what a motion might look like that is doable, frankly. And and so that said, you know, my preference is the health department. Now, should something come up, I'm not unreasonable here. If some if if something might come up that seems more prudent or reasonable, then I'm okay with that as well. But I think from a public health standpoint, it makes sense for violence prevention, all these things to be centrally located and looked at from a health lens. And I would agree, I think I think public health is and certainly there's a be consensus here, but I'm just hearing from some of the some of the folks on the council. I think we want to make sure we do give our staff the flexibility to bring back some some options. Right. I mean, maybe health is the centerpiece, but we certainly want to make sure that there are key connection points, whether it's the city manager's office or the work happening in other departments. So what we think the creativity of option is in. Absolutely what we did talk about, we had some conversations early on about things like KPCC, you know, I sat down and interviewed the executive director, fact finding myself, and I think there are some limitations to aligning everything, but I certainly would want to see a relationship between this new office and some of these other other offices like KPCC or work that's being done in the city manager's office. And frankly, it's important to make sure that this isn't buried somewhere right in some other office. So I'm totally okay with that. And the city manager, we've talked about this already, so I'm 100% okay. Great. Perfect. We have a motion and a second on the floor. And if members, we can please cast your votes. And thanks again to everyone that that came tonight. Motion carries. Great. Thank you. We're going to now move on to public comment and we're going to use this opportunity as we set up to transition. If you're here for the last item, you can quietly if you're planning on exiting, that would be a good time as we set up for public comment.