Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record, conclude the public hearing regarding an economic subsidy in connection with a Revised Transient Occupancy Tax Sharing Agreement with American Life, Inc., pursuant to California Government Code Section 53083; and Authorize City Manager, or designee, to execute any and all documents necessary, including the First Amendment to the Purchase and Sale Agreement, attaching a Revised Transient Occupancy Tax Sharing Agreement for the property located at 100 East Ocean Boulevard, with American Life, Inc., a Washington corporation, or assignee, subject to compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act. (District 2)
Thank you are hearing I remember to. Report from economic development recommendation received supporting documentation into the record conclude the public hearing regarding an economic subsidy in connection with revised transient occupancy tax sharing agreement with American life, and authorize the city manager to execute the First Amendment to the purchase and Sale Agreement. Attaching a revised transient occupancy tax sharing agreement for the property located at 100 East Ocean Boulevard District to. Thank you. We will just begin by doing this staff report, please. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Our staff report will be given by John Keisler, our director of economic development. Honorable man. Members of the city council. I'm happy to bring to you tonight an update on an agreement for vacant property located at 100 East Ocean Boulevard, popularly known as the Jurgens Trust Building. This building was built in 1919, but demolished by private property owners in 1988 and purchased by a redevelopment agency in 2011. It was designated for future development in the Long Range Property Management Plan, and in 2015 the city issued a request for proposals for the purchase and development of this site. The proposal that was chosen was from American Life Hotel Developer and located in Seattle, Washington, for the purchase price of $7 million. Also executed at the time of the purchase and sale agreement with a transient occupancy tax sharing agreement authorized by the City Council on May 17th, 2016 as part of the original purchase and sale agreement. There were a few conditions prior to the transfer of ownership, which included an executed contract with a nationally recognized hotel operator for star or equivalent designation. Fully executed project labor agreement between the buyer and the L.A. Orange County Building, Construction Trades Council, and evidence that the hotel operator had agreed to participate in a card check neutrality agreement for the hotel, not including the restaurant. And the original Transient Occupancy Sharing Agreement was based on an analysis for a 350 Room four star $165 million project, which established a $47 million feasibility gap and verified by a third party review. The projected $54 million in total transient occupancy tax that would be generated over 20 years was determined to be shared 5050. Over that 20 year period between the city and the buyer, the developer, which would be approximately 27 million for for both the buyer and the city. What we have since that time that occurred are a number of changes, including a 2016 lawsuit that was filed by the Citizens Against Downtown Long Beach giveaways, ultimately that the court ruled in favor of the city and a petition for writ of mandate was denied in 2017. And also changes in the market costs for labor construction materials and financing had grown over this period of time and to to make the project work. The design was increased from 350 rooms to 417 rooms, with the construction costs increasing from 165 to $262 million to complete the project. Since that time, we've conducted a new economic feasibility gap analysis and established that the gap was now $61 million. And we verified that with our third party financial consultant, Kaiser Marston and Associates. So what we have for you tonight is a revised transient occupancy tax sharing agreement. The purpose of this agreement is to address the feasibility gap by restructuring the timing of the total sharing in this new amendment. The buyer would share up to 80% or approximately 27 million, the same amount from the original agreement. But they would be reimbursed in the first nine years rather than over a 20 year period. The city in the new agreement would receive 20% or approximately $7 million of the TOT over the first nine years, and then at year ten would start begin to receive 100% of the TOT generated from the project starting at about $4 million a year and reaching over $6 million a year by year 20. As part of this new agreement, the developer has committed to a minimum investment of $230 million to receive the full benefit of the TOT sharing agreement. And the agreement would continue to remain in effect for 20 years. There's a number of other benefits of the revised TOT sharing agreement. The project will be much bigger, as we mentioned, creating more jobs for both the construction project as well as for ongoing operations. Construction jobs are estimated to be 1700 for this project in ongoing operations. The estimated job creation will be 360 ongoing jobs in the downtown. The new project will include more amenities, which will create more sales tax and jobs than the original project. The cost of the project going from 165 to 262 million are almost $626,000 per roomkey will result in a greater economic impact for the city. It will require this minimum of $230 million in investment, which was not a part of the original agreement. It will command higher average daily room rates estimated to be over $220 per night, which will generate both. Higher wages and more transient occupancy tax to the city. And the developer has also agreed to include worker safety improvements such as panic buttons, to make sure that we have a safe working environment in our hotels, as well as a good faith effort to identify a local restaurant operator if a third party operator is chosen for the restaurant itself. I wanted to give you a quick estimate on the on the timeline. If we do have an approved agreement amendment, I'm sorry, and the buyer would begin the process of securing entitlements, as well as a card check neutrality agreement in a hotel operator agreement in 2018. There would also be a play or a project labor agreement for construction in 2018, and if all the permits, entitlements, environmental review and agreements are presented to the city, we would approve the transfer of the asset and begin construction in 2019 with a grand opening estimated for 2021. And just to conclude, the existing agreement that is in place that the City Council approved last year. Already requires. The project labor agreement and a card check neutrality agreement before the property could ever be conveyed or escrow could be closed. The amendment maintains these requirements and the transfer of property will not occur until these requirements are satisfied with that. I would like to conclude my report and answer any questions. Thank you, Mr. Commissioner. Thank you for the update. And just to want to clarify, and I'm going to go ahead and go to the Council on the public. So, Mr. City Attorney, I know that this was mentioned briefly by Mr. Keisler, but get both the former proposal as well as this proposal of Mr. City. And if you can just clarify this piece, they both contain both a project labor agreement, a full project labor agreement on the site, as well as a contract agreement on the site as well. Is that correct? That's correct. And is it correct also that the the support from the city in our commitment financially to this project would not happen and this project is not eligible for those funds? When we close this deal months out, unless both the contract agreement and the project labor agreement were in place, is that correct? If I understand your statement correctly, we we do not have to close unless those items that you indicated occur. That's correct. And that's part of the agreement is for those items to be included. The transfer would not occur. Okay. Excellent. Thank you very much. Want to just reiterate that. So I appreciate that. And with that, let me go to you. There's a there's a motion on the floor, Councilmember Pearce. Great. Thank you. I want to thank you for clarifying. I want to thank staff for their incredible work. And I want to highlight a couple of things with this project. This is the first hotel project in my district that's been on city land that I will be participating in approving, possibly just want to keep my options open here. I want to make sure that we highlight some things that have changed in the process. Never before has everybody really had a seat at the table in creating a what we're not calling, but what is essentially a community benefits agreement where we're hearing from all the Labor Party's as a city and it's not the city's job to negotiate those Labor contracts, but the city ushering through best practices to try to make sure everybody is at the table. And so I want to applaud staff for forming a relationship with Unite Here Local 11, where they have not had that before. I also know that we've had a lot of outreach from other stakeholders and different issues pertaining to local hire piece and a couple other components. I have a couple of questions, then I want to go to public comments and then hear from my colleagues. I know vice mayor has to leave, so if we could hear from vice mayor and the public comment and then behind the rail, I think it would be helpful. The city attorney I have a my first question is you you stated that we do not have to. Approve. The ask the land sale if those things are not met. But is it a requirement that we have to? Have those. In place. Mayor and members of City Council. Assuming I understand your question correctly. No, it's not a requirement. There's the possibility that the failure of a condition could be waived by the city and the closing could proceed without a card check agreement or without a labor peace agreement. But I think, as you just heard staff publicly say. That's not their intention. And I don't. Think they would ever do that without seeking further clarification or guidance from council. But it's theoretically possible. Theoretically possible. But we could say tonight that if something were to happen, it would need to come back to council. We could ask for that tonight. That's correct. Okay. You could make it so that those two conditions there, they are described in section. 3.2 H and I of the current. Agreement that those conditions are not waive able by the city. Thank you for that. I also wanted to clarify in the communication we've received this morning, it has the Los Angeles Orange County Buildings Trading and Construction Trades Council is outlined under 3.2 H under 3.2. I'm assuming I it just says that there's a card check neutrality agreement. So tonight we could put in there that that needs to be done with unite not here local 11 I'm assuming. Well no I think the card check neutrality agreement, the idea is that it needs to be executed by the hotel management company. Right. And then I'm not a labor law expert, but my understanding is that the that the employees could opt to unionize or not and become part of whatever union they might choose to. It may well be that unite here 11 is the one they would, but I don't think legally they're required to. All right. Thank you for those questions. I'd like to hear from my colleague and then hear from the public, please. Councilman Richardson. Thanks. So I do have a hard stop at 630. It's my daughter's first Christmas show tonight. But I wanted to. I'm already late, so I wanted to just chime in and just say this is a very important project. And I was here when the first agreement went through, and I remember hearing from the parties, you know, everyone hasn't seen that corner and wonder what the city of Long Beach is going to do with that corner. It's really important. It's going to be a tremendous success. My comments last time that came around are the same when we want to make sure that there's, you know, that that, you know, I congratulate there's a project labor agreement and it's great to hear that the 1700 quality jobs are going to be created through this process. And I hear the commitment to the commitment to labor peace for the ongoing operations. I just think that's the way that we go moving forward. So I wanted to express my support here and also acknowledge the president of the school board. Well, both the president, the school board and Dr. Feldman Williams, school board member. I won't be here for your recognition tonight, but I just wanted to acknowledge before I have to take off. But thank you and express my support here. But unfortunately I won't. Given how long the last item went, likely this will go for another hour. I won't be here for that. Thank you. And thank you for that moment, Jenny. Thank you. Okay. So, Councilmember Pearce, you want to go to the public comment, is that correct? Yes. Okay. So we're going to go now on to public comment on this item. So please come forward if you have a comment on this item. I'll go first. Ron Miller, executive secretary of the L.A. Orange County Building Trades. Really appreciate the partnership here. We do know this developer. We've done agreements in the past with him in Los Angeles. They've been very successful agreements with both the building trades and the hotel workers. You can go over to Olympic Boulevard and see a see the hotel there. And it's been very successful, put a lot of folks to work, create a lot of new careers and should be good. We'll have local hire just like we have on all the other projects in Long Beach and moving forward with more success. I did get a thing from a researcher today in my office that through Long Beach City College we put numerous people through our apprenticeship readiness program. The latest numbers I got, we've put 50 people into careers, into apprenticeships in the building trades. 16% of those 50 are women, 16% are African-American. And so it's a good success. We're building on this project. It's going to be something to help us go further. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Thank you, Shirley. So with respect to this hotel and I'm sure that each council councilperson representing the homeless in your district, you know who they are. You you talk to them, that you meet with them regularly and they have access to you as your more affluent constituents. The Seaport Marina closed, and a lot of those people who were using vouchers to live there are now without a place. Some of them lined PCH and Second Street. When you're allowing businesses, particularly coming into the state or other cities to operate here. Other cities are building. Now, building in to the base. Knowing that they need to do more for their homeless clients, building it in so that somewhere in there the working homeless I'm not talking about the dirty, sloppy one that you don't want to shake their hand. Their teeth is green and creamy. Their clothes look like they haven't bathed in 12 years. I'm not saying that homeless. I'm saying the working homeless person who. You wouldn't even recognize that they were that. But they're sleeping in their car, some of them. What if we built in? And I know it might be a little too late for this hotel? What if we bought into the coming forward so that vouchers can be accepted for those who may or may not be able to afford the $700 a night a night fee for that hotel? But, hmm. If you say to the business coming in, you know, we're trying to work with our homeless community. Oh, we want to rename them to not homeless, but people without housing. Possibly you can build that in so that, who knows, they may be able to reside there. The statement going Long Beach kept ringing in my ears last week and I laughed every time it was coming up. Go, go. Long Beach. Well, we go in with the homeless. What creative ideas are you thinking moving forward? Or are. You only. Sticking to the letter of the law that other cities are doing? Where the home is going with you. They think. They're going to go if there's nothing more. Than. Around the. Corner and back. They're going with you. Thank you, Mr. Speaker, please. But even they are seeing a fellow concern in the city staff in the public as here today. I just wanted to recognize the brothers and sisters that's here to support this idea item moving forward. IBEW folks there living here in Long Beach that wants to support good projects like this moving forward. I can tell you that the track record that American Life has is a really good track record in L.A. City, L.A. They've done a project under a project agreement in Seattle. I spoke with our our sister local union there, Local 46, which represent IBEW members out there. And they've implemented project labor agreements under American lives projects out there. So they have they do have a good track record on utilizing place and in the benefits that come with it. I urge the city council to move forward with this item. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you for coming out next speaker, please. Very good. What I am going to impart here, I was going to impart also. On two other items on another agenda. But the same principle applies regardless of what regardless of what project we're entering into. I think the city should adopt as a policy. If before they enter into an agreement and sign the agreement, they must secure from the company. No matter who it is. A letter that states and discloses. Any. Financial. Embezzlement. Crimes. That they had their companies had been involved in. Like we discovered after after after we signed the contract for was a near near $10 million for the parking structure used in parking lots. And we found those people, you know, they came here like flies on garbage. They know where the you know, they know where the corrupt is or are. So I think it you adopt it for this cup and I, I the building certainly we need to rebuild that. But let's make sure. And I know nothing about this company that you do your due diligence, see how many, if any, have been convicted of crimes. And had them just you sign the agreement in saying that if if. It's later discovered. That you didn't do due diligence and they in fact, were convicted of the crimes such as the person is such as a company who signed the contract with the market like did then. The contract is null and void, period. Not only that, the city would get any money back. That they spent. Having to deal with this company. Thank you. And my apologies to the company. I know nothing about you, but I do know some of the people here in this city and on the city council. We have a great many that are honest. Unfortunately, that's not 100%. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. next speaker, please. Good evening. Warmed Lisowski Long Beach Citizens for Fair Development with a group that brought the original litigation and have a pending appeal. I applaud my union brothers and sisters for trying to get this developer to sign some type of labor agreement. But as you could see, the answer to council person's second district's question was that, no, they can still buy the property without your union agreement. So I urge the union to if you see how fast these buildings go up these days, you really are only going to have about two months of work there. You should be looking for longer term sustainable jobs in the in a renewable energy sector. The city is still arguing that this is not a project council person papers, not a project. And as you can see, they have selected a developer. They have selected hotel brands. And this most certainly is a project. In fact, if you look on tonight's agenda, the address is not even on the agenda item number. So who was trying to pull a fast one and not even alert the community that there was a hearing on 100 East Ocean today? The transient occupancy, occupancy, tax sharing agreement, it's kind of become a frank agreement. I don't think even people behind the days understand what's going into this agreement. If the gap all of a sudden has expanded to 61 million, how is the same $27 million going to cover that gap? It just doesn't quite make sense. And so we also take objection with the fact that in the staff report, the staff gave our organization an incredible amount of power, saying that delays caused by our lawsuit , where we were merely asking the city to follow, secure the law, just merely holding the city to account, to follow the laws that that other cities make their developers follow. And then use this to speed up the rate at which the developer gets their $27 million tax rebate. So we support development in the city, but we support development with local developers that have a benefit to the community. This is an out-of-town developer that is just giving some lip service to the labor movement. And this project does not help the residents of Long Beach. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Yeah. Good evening. My name is Rita moreno. I been a hotel worker in the city for four years now. I live in the ninth district. I'm here on behalf of the hospitality workers of Long Beach. I have. To oppose American lives proposal. To restructure the existing tax sharing agreement with the city. We believe this would set a bad precedent for the city's upcoming conversations. Of studies of the city wide tax initiative policy for hotels. We also we are also here to tell the city council that we oppose broader tax initiative policy that carries the intent of subsidizing future hotel development near the city, near the city center, without any assurance that the working families of Long Beach like mine have tangible benefits, either as our city hotel industry continues to grow. We, the hotel workers of Long Beach are a reminder, are reminding our mayor and the Council that it is your duty to protect us, all of your working people, not just the businesses we hope to. We hope that the mayor and the council respect other workers and and the community. You call to put people over profit. Profit. Thank you. Thank you. Speaker, please. Good evening. My name is Rachel Smith. I currently work in and formerly resided in the first district. I'm here to oppose American Life's proposal to restructure the existing tax sharing agreement with the city, because we do not know how this may impact a potential. Citywide incentive policy. I'm also here to tell the city to tell the city council that I oppose a broader tax incentive policy that carries the intent of subsidizing. Future hotel. Development near the city center without any reassurance that workers in Long Beach will have tangible benefits and protections in hotel. Workers are the backbone of Long Beach tourism industry. Working women of color make up more than half of all hotel workers in Long Beach. In my experience, as time goes on, workers see an increase in workload and consequently an increase in injury rates. I call on the mayor and the city council to prioritize working families, not only business. Thank you. Thank you. Speaker, please. Good evening. My name is one. I'm a lawyer. I am a hotel housekeeper here in Long Beach. Last week, Time magazine feature me as proud a group of women called The Silence Breaker, and we were named Time's Person of the Year 2017. It was an honor to me to be included with a brave woman, a man who came forward publicly against sexual harassment at all economy levels. For years, I have been fighting for the rights of women working in the hotel industry. After. After I decided that I was tired of being harassed, ignored, abused, and that I will fight back. I am so proud of this moment where women everywhere are standing against abuse. But I'm. Here tonight to condemn. The actions of the city council. They have failed the woman or this city. Mayor Garcia and Council members Pryce, Huston, Mango, Soprano and Andrew in known our pleas to heal and instead fight with the rich hotel company who profit off our exploitation. Tonight, Austin in Price will propose an investment policy for city employees just a month after they deny one for hotel workers. I said to my male Garcia will promise them a new hotel, a bellman requiring the company to do nothing about the abuse its workers will no doubt face. I know this because I have to spend my life, my life cleaning hotel rooms, save them by breaking what that fell foul me honorable to predators who too often are protected by the fact that they are also paying customers like so many other women in the Long Beach hotel industry. How come? For what we know with my story, to demand that the theory is stand with women I think are being ignored by councils that spend more time talking about giving away millions of dollars to hotel developers than that it does about protecting hotel workers from an abuse. The honor of being named Time's Person of the Year is an honor that should be shared with the entire city. Long Beach. But as it is, then, that person that the year awards show the hypocrisy of a city council who will rather have us stay quiet and suffer in silence. I am here tonight to tell you. We won't stay quiet. We will persist. Thank you. Thank you very much. Go ahead, sir. Good evening. My name is Andrew Mayorga. I'm a representative of Laguna Local 39, representing our membership. I just want to. I just came here in support of this project, and I'm glad I was at the end of the line. I heard a lot of negative stuff. Let's just start with first. You know, American life doesn't just give lip service, say they came. And wherever they build, they build with the community. They outreach to the community. They come to individuals like myself and my brothers back here. So to sit here and say that they give nothing but lip service to us or to you as homeless, an insult. I know wherever they go, they reach out. I probably share that. There's developers here in Long Beach that are building right now that have never once approached anybody from our community to come help them put a shovel in the ground. But that's on a separate note. And again, to address something else that I heard tonight, and just for the young lady, I think started all this conversation about how the council doesn't do anything to help the homeless when projects like this come. I just want you guys know that's not true. Through projects like this and agreements through plays, I've come across many of our membership that started out in their cars and now live in apartments are on their pathways to owning homes, on cars, new cars and on their end are starting families. And that's because of people like you, people like American life and my brothers and sisters back here that we tend to build things. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. I just have a point of clarification because I'm confused is like the agreement, essentially the company is going to pay the city a lump sum and then over nine years they're going to get money back from the tax cut of the taxes because I know resort tax from Palm Springs where I'm from like goes entirely to the city to fund like all of our special projects and social projects. So I just I'm curious about that, like to understand how like are they getting all the money that they paid the city back in that nine years? So they're breaking even and then we're going to start getting our money. And then with subsidizing like developments like a hotel, wouldn't American Life Inc be, like, big enough to be able to support itself and not need a subsidy when developers like like local real estate developers that are trying to build, like, low income homes for people that already need it because we have a population problem already. So to bring in like a hotel. Yeah, we have we have conventions all the time, but we have plenty of hotel space for those conventions already. As it is, we need more housing subsidy. So I'm just wondering. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Next speaker, please. Good evening, Council. My name is Max Norris. Thank you for giving me an opportunity to speak today. Following Councilwoman Pierce's line of questioning, I can assume that she's likely to make an amendment to require the play conditions as well as the card check and hopefully as well the safety call buttons as a matter of condition for the the passing of the transfer of the land between the city and American life or whatever this company is called. I would just want to point out that without that amendment, this is simply just a lip service to the trends of the week. The hashtag of the week, the TIME Magazine article. You know what? You guys all turned your back on a couple of weeks ago. So without an amendment like that, this is nothing, obviously. My. My brother's in labor, and the trades will get their play. It's coming quick, and the trades will make sure it happens. But on the back end, without assurances by amendment, as I assume Mr. Pearce will introduce shortly, this is nothing, this is nothing at all for the hotel workers or for the rest of Long Beach because those 7000 jobs will be gone. And as important as they are and and I do think that they are important, those jobs aren't going to go anywhere by adding that amendment. Thank you. Thank you, Nick. Speaker, please. The last speaker speaker's list is now closed. Good evening, honorable mayor, honorable council members. My name is Greg Steinhauer, president of American Life. I thought I would come up here and you could hear directly from my mouth. So, as you know, we're under a purchase and sale agreement to buy the property. And in the earlier agreement, we have agreed to sign a card check agreement with the unions. We will commit to that. We have committed to signing the project labor agreement with the unions. We've always had excellent relationship with the labor unions. We have excellent relationships with Unite here up in Seattle. But for some reason there seems to be an issue down here. I don't know why that is. The but we're not going to sign the card check agreement until we have a flag in place. It's just that simple. It makes no sense to do that from our standpoint until we have an operator for the hotel, which we hope we'll be able to announce in the first quarter of 2018. John ran through all the economics of the proposal. One other point that was not made, and that is by changing the structure of the proposal and reducing the length the city actually benefits to a tune of over $6 million that receives $6 million more during that time period than had we stuck with the original agreement. It's just as the hotel's gotten bigger. These projects, hotel developments, a cyclical type of development. There is no assurances that when you come online, there's going to be a market. And this is a way to help mitigate the risks so that we can and make this investment and create jobs for everybody. These projects take between 24 and 30 months to build. That's a lot of construction work. And I appreciate your reconsidering this from from my view. Where I sit, I see no issue and we will honor our word. Thank you for your time. Thank you very much. Kim he was the last public speaker. Mr. Pete. I called last public speaker. So I will, sir. Yes, I called last of the speaker already. You want anyone in the audience? I will let you speak because for public comment, please be quick. We all recall that public speaker. Go ahead, sir. Quick. So I don't get the whole 3 minutes, so I actually don't even have to let you speak because I recall. Come Speaker said be quick, but go ahead, sir. Up there. Go ahead. So you told me I'm getting I'm just saying out of respect, but you can go ahead. Speak. Quick, 3 minutes. Quick. Yeah. So as far as you know, hey, I wouldn't even come up here, but let me switch this out. And so I want you to go come on up here. But the lady the young lady spoke and it sounds like she was making threats, like, oh, well, well, they always giving funds to the hotel. You're supposed to put funds to the hotel. The Americans. She only she can speak English. She's up here reading off of a paper, you know? Sir, could you please address the issue? Can you please address the issue? If you believe? Because check this out. You know what? Check that 8834 B of the penal code is about citizen's arrest. Hey, watch your threats. I organize a brother service officer, you know, stay on topic. We're. I'm telling you. 834 B.S. And I'm not shy about it. I'm not having that. This ain't going down in America having non-Americans threatening Americans. You American men and I don't give a damn about. Hey, sir, you know that. You know, you have to stay on topic. Topic? No, you're out. I'm talking about the lady with you. Go ahead, sir. I'm going. You didn't tell her she was off topic about threatening Americans, did you? Go ahead, sir. You did. You did you hold on second to the public as as as reprehensible as what's being said. But this is he has a he has a right to say it. So continue. Yeah, yeah. Oh, shut up, sir. Anyway, address me. Thank you. Well, okay, you could take that too, but check this out. Hey, the thing is, is America for Americans? Okay, and when we up here, I like to see it as such. I don't know. I'm 53 years old. I ain't never seen it like this to where a non American could come with a threat towards an American. Hey, I don't know. We ain't having that. I know some yoga don't turn into snowflakes and got sore but we ain't no snowflakes in this side Are we going to melt the snowflakes? Snowflakes melt and they're going to get dealt with just like just like all the people again dealt with now for what they did earlier. So back to this issue no more non Americans then we're gonna deal with your own non Americans think you got something going that ain't being forgotten and all of them sorry people this with you so that's a warning. That's it. Trump is running the stuff in the United States. Amen. John, thank you. So public comment is now over and now we're going to back to the council. So public comment is over. Thank you very much. So we'll start off with Councilman Pearce. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you to all the speakers that spoke tonight. I do want to give a little bit of context and a little bit of my background. When I first came to Long Beach and I first started volunteering, it was before the release of The Tale of Two Cities, which Gary Heidrich, who was wrote the foreword for that, is actually here. And what came out of that study was that we had given $1,000,000,000 of subsidies to our downtown tourism industry, and we've done that with zero strings attached. We did that without asking for a play, without asking for a card check, without asking for environmental protections, without any strings attached at all. One hotel rent free for ten years on city land. And so for me being here tonight, talking about this tonight, it's been a challenge for me in looking at what the ideal situation would be. Would I like to have things signed in front of me and a guarantee? Yes, I would. Do I have faith in the process and the commitment from developers, from labor, from the community members that we're going to have a fair process in the end? I do. And I do want to hear from my council colleagues, but I would like to make some amendments to guarantee us some of that process. So I just really want to make sure that those folks in the audience and at home recognize that having a community benefit agreement that's going to be comprehensive. It's the first time we've done this with the hotel development in our downtown. I'm going to go ahead and list the amendments that I'd like to make. And so city attorney, if you don't mind. And then do you want to do the play stuff for the requirement? Okay. So first, I just want to clarify on you. Make sure I read it right. I want to make sure that we do amend Section 3.2 to require council review before finalizing the sale. As I had asked previously of our city attorney's office, it's a requirement. And so I want to make sure that we do ensure that it comes back to this body before a sale is final made. You can require that. That's not what I understood you to ask earlier. When we had our discussion, I thought that you were seeking the city would not be able to waive requirements three to H and three to I. It would only come back before you if the city proposed to waive either one of those. But if they do not waive them and there is a labor peace agreement and there is a carbon neutrality agreement, then we would close without coming back to council. So only if there is a request for a waiver would I like it to come back. Perfect. To be clear, I would also wouldn't mind having a report after that sale is done, a staff report just given to the council so we know where we're at on the process. I would like for the restaurant peace. It's one thing that I've always talked about. I think that our downtown is an amazing downtown and we have that balance in between some corporate businesses and some local businesses. And we tend to be a fantastic place where we've got things like the chocolate place and the juice place. And so wanting to take an opportunity on the corner of Pine and Ocean to celebrate a local restaurant. Should there be a third party restaurant operator? Just clarifying that the developer would work with the Economic Development Department to identify a Long Beach restaurant for that operator if it is a third party operator. So I wanted to make sure that was clear on the record because in the report it just kind of lays it out. Lucy For the workers safety, as you know, as some people brought up today, it is not a it weighs heavy on me that we had a very lengthy meeting about Claudia's law and a two weeks later we had an agenda item around giving a subsidy to a hotel. And so it does weigh on me, and it is an opportunity for us to highlight a developer that's saying, hey, we're going to do it voluntarily without even it being part of a labor contract, but we're willing to do that. And so I do want to lift up the specifics for me that are important. As I raised at the last council meeting, we talked about this, that the developer has agreed to have panic buttons. I would like to clarify that these panic buttons be given to each hotel employee assigned to working in a guest room without another hotel employee at no cost to the hotel employee. And that panic button should be able to communicate with security, not simply be a noisemaker like a whistle that could only be heard on one floor. I'd also like to include establishing a process for the employees to notify their employer about unwanted sexual advances, requests for sexual conduct or other verbal or physical contact, which is typically included in a personnel file or not file but protocols. But just wanted to make sure that we highlight that there's a process where an employee has an opportunity to step out and do that. Those are the changes that I would like to have included as a requirement for this. And these are changes that I've had conversations with our developer on. And so I now ask my council colleagues to support this motion to approve this total restructuring. The benefits to the study are great. Adding the additional rooms is fantastic for our bottom line and having a developer that's willing to do more than just sign a card check agreement or labor peace is the right choice for us in this city. So thank you. Mayor. May we clarify a couple of the amendments? Sure. Councilmember. Councilmember Pearce, as the deputy city attorney that will be tasked with drafting the amendment, I want to. Just bring to your attention to things that might be difficult and ask for clarification. The first two conditions. I think are clear. The first of which is that the three two age and 3 to 1 cannot be waived without coming back here. I think it's also pretty simple to include a requirement that the panic buttons or providing immediate contact with security be included for all workers. The other two are you requiring that the any restaurant be locally owned, or is it best effort to. Best effort with working with our economic development team? If it is a third party. Okay. So it's only if it's a third party and working with them to identify and it's a best effort. Okay, great. Thank you. And then lastly, the it had to do with the employment policies with respect to reporting. That gets into quite a bit of detail. Can you provide me with more? Yeah, it's not actually reporting. It's just making sure that there's an employee process in place for which the hotel employee notifies the employer, the operator, about unwanted sexual advances, and that they have time on the clock to do that, which is pretty standard in every H.R. policy. But I wanted to make sure we lifted that up because we have had so many issues around sexual assault in the industry. Okay, great. Thank you. I can certainly draft it that way. If if it's okay with staff and the council, I can do that. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Councilwoman Gonzalez. Yes. I want to thank city staff as well. And I know the developer. Gregory spoke with him earlier today, as well as our building trades and unite here. Who is here as well. I think this was a very good collaborative effort and Councilmember Pearce brought forward a lot of great items that I know she worked behind the scenes on to make sure we got it right, not just for any city, but for a long beach. And as we know, we try to do things very customized here in the city. And I think this was a really good example of what we could do when we all worked together. And for me, I think, you know, seeing that the average hotel investment, hotel unit investment will be $630,000, give or take. We're right now at about an average of 350 to $400000 of investment per unit of hotel speaks volumes to where the city is headed. And with that, I really am appreciative that we have these benefits for our community that will come back with all that investment. So absolutely ensuring that there is a project labor agreement, that's something that my office authored a few years back with a few of my council colleagues here that embeds in that 40% of our of the workers on site will be local hire. And we'll we'll certainly do everything that it takes to get to that target. And then 10% of the workforce on that specific project will be disadvantaged workers. What's exciting about that is that we know that, like I said, it's an all encompassing project that will include the workforce as well as great development. And I have done some research on American life and I've seen the projects and the stature of the projects in other cities like Seattle and other cities in downtown L.A. and it's just fantastic that they're willing to invest their time and money here. And as far as that's concerned, I think the only question I had was just clarification. I know I spoke with John earlier today on the six or $7 million that we are going to that we're projected to see within the total that, you know, from the former restructuring plan to now, will that be realized within the nine years or within the 20 year term? The nine years, correct? Yeah. Councilmember So that the 7 million projection that is cited in the the staff report is just the city's portion of the first nine years. Yeah. The actual number of four for Tom projected on this much larger project will be 77 million over the 20 years. City will realize an estimated $50 million in total over that term. Great. I appreciate that. So I'll just end with saying that we're going from a $165 million investment to a $230 million investment. That's not just dollars. That's workers. It's employment for the city of Long Beach. And I think all of you, again, for being great players in all of this. Thank. You. Thank you. So I would like some clarification on the amendments and what requirement that puts on the developer, because I have to admit, I'm a little bit confused at this point in terms of what the amendment does to the developer. I may have missed that along the way, but I know we can't force them to do certain things, but then we're including them as amendments as part of this contract. So I'm sorry, Councilman Price, what what amendments are you referring to? The amendments that are included in the staff report. Or the amendments that were made on the. Floor? The amendments that were made on the floor. So I'll walk through the four amendments again to the extent I remember them off the top of my head. The first one is that right now 3.2 H requires the buyer to execute a labor peace agreement prior to the city's obligation to transfer the property. 3.2 I requires the buyer to I'm sorry, the hotel operator. So it's the buyer's contracted operator to execute a card check neutrality agreement with its employees or agree to do that when it has employees prior to the city's transfer of the property. Both of those conditions right now, as the agreement reads, are craveable by city staff, which is normal in purchase and sale agreements. All conditions that run to the benefit of either the buyer or the seller are waiver bbl by the buyer or seller respectively. I want the first amendment was not to make those craveable. So those two are hard and fast requirements to the extent that the staff wants to close without either one of those two agreements, that council would have to approve that. Is that clear? I think so, yes. That's the First Amendment. The Second Amendment was the inclusion of a panic button, as it were. And I'm sure that I will be able to work up more detail for the agreement in a commercially reasonable, commercially standard panic buttons for all the employees of the hotel. The third one was requiring the developer to use a best effort to work with the city economic development. To the extent that there is a third party operator or there will be a restaurant at the property. Keep in mind that this property may not be developed with a restaurant. It may not even be developed as a hotel. There's still the entitlement and squat process to go through, which is completely separate from what we're doing here. And the last request was. That's right. That's right. That last request was the system in place for the hotel operator to work with its employees to take sexual harassment claims and make sure that that's not done on the employees time? As I understand it, that would be on the clock. So that's all the detail that I expect to excuse me, including the amendment. Above and beyond what was already disclosed in the council letter, which Mr. Keisler spoke to. Okay. So a couple of questions on the panic buttons. How many rooms does this hotel have? Councilmember. It's proposed for 416 rooms. Okay, that's good. Because as I indicated very strongly the last time this item came before council. I believe all. Employees should be protected from sexual assault and harassment regardless of the size of a hotel. So it's good to know that this hotel is over the threshold of 100 rooms, which was arbitrarily set in a prior proposal. But but surely that policy should apply to hotels of even ten rooms. So that's that's good to know. In terms of the first and second provisions, how is that? I mean, we heard the operator, the owner of the project, talk about their commitment to those the play and working with their employees on the union aspects. How are these two amendments changing? What the understanding of the city or the hotel owner? What as to these two elements, how how did these two amendments change that understanding? My understanding is that these amendments. Don't change the substance of either agreement. Okay. So the substance stays the same? Yep. Okay. And our contract, our contractual obligation, would not change as a result of these two amendments. That's correct. I mean, the contractual obligation would change in that the city staff can no longer waive them. They no longer have a contractual right to waive. They have to come back to the council. Perfect. I understand that. I'd like to hear from my colleagues on this, but I think some of the amendments are definitely make a lot of sense, like the panic button. And I support that entirely. Thanks. Thank you, counsel. I'm in Austin. Thank you very much. So this is a been a very, very interesting discussion thus far. I was really struck by listening to public comment, particularly those from labor. I'm thrilled that this hotel is in the works. I think it's going to be a great luxury hotel potentially for our our downtown skyline, but also for to improve economic development. And it's been mentioned it's going to create jobs, construction jobs and hotel jobs as well. I was struck by the comments. Labor clearly is not on the same page and not monolithic on this particular item. And so from time to time, there are disagreements within even the House of Labor. And I think that speaks to some of the leadership today. I think these are this these kind of public disagreements should be avoided in the future. But I'm curious regarding the amendments, and I appreciate the effort put forth. We want to make sure that we we have a sound public project. Labor agreement is something that the city has worked towards for some time. We've actually, I think, work toward getting card check neutrality agreements as well. I don't think this would have been accomplished or even be entertained five years ago or with council's previous to this council. And so I think we've come a long way as a city. But regarding the the amendments I gave, number one and number two, I'm fine with. But in terms of what we are doing this evening, it's it's creating a in agreement with the developer correct over TLT and some of these issues will be borne out after the hotel is actually developed in. We're talking about operations of a hotel. And so my question is what and I was going to ask this question is what enforcement mechanisms will the city have, you know, after this hotel is built, should any one of these provisions not be adhered to? For example, number four or number two, what what what provisions what kind of enforcement can can can happen at that point? At this point, we're talking about a well, an operator that we don't know who is going to be. Right. Right. We would hope that they have a contract neutrality and a collective bargaining agreement in place which could be negotiated at that point. But but what kind of this is this is what kind of enforcement is. Councilmember Isom? That's a good question. The enforcement before the sale would be that they don't get the developer doesn't get the property, which which is a pretty big hammer to wield. However, at their after after escrow closes, the city would have very limited enforcement powers over that. But the idea would be that the developer won't get the property until such time as an agreement is signed with the union providing for the panic button. So it would be incumbent upon the organized labor to then enforce its rights under the written agreement, which I would expect it would be able to do on an ongoing basis . And so, with what I understand, organized labor coming back or enforcing their rights with their collective bargaining rights, but would they come back to the city or would we be the arbiter at that point, or would that be? No, I think the courts would be the arbiter at that time. Okay. Thank you for that. I will. I'm looking forward to hearing more and more comment and conversation about this. Again, I'm in the spirit. I am certainly supportive of of building and developing a hotel in our downtown. I think it's necessary, particularly on that that corner something this is something that we should be be working towards. I want to congratulate and thank our staff for negotiating what I believe is a creative agreement that gets to yes with American life. And I want to thank American life, the president, for being here personally and for for his commitment. I've done some research on the developer. They've had some very great projects throughout the country, throughout the downtown L.A. area. And I hope we're able to to reach an agreement. Here this evening to help to move forward with something that I think is will be an economic development boon for the city of Long Beach. Thank you, Councilman. Councilman. Mongo. Thank you. I am so excited about this project. I think that I hear from my colleagues that their support to build another hotel in downtown Long Beach. I think that it's great jobs, great local hire program. Locally owned and operated restaurant opportunity. I think that a lot of credit goes to the staff for all your work on this. The developer for coming to the table, labor for coming to the table. I think that it's a tipping point for Long Beach and I think the projects like this will continue to come forward at a benefit to the city and a benefit to the residents. It is no wonder that we are seeing record levels of lower the lowest levels of unemployment in our city's recorded history. Local hire programs create that, and that is really important. We're also seeing impressive household income growth, unlike is being seen in the rest of the country. We are top we are number seven in the country for income growth. And projects like this continue to contribute to that. And so thank you to everyone who cares about our neighborhoods. And thank you for working through this together. I look forward to a ribbon cutting. Thank you, Councilman Ringo. Thank you, Mayor. What a difference a couple of weeks makes. While I'm very, very amazed at this city council, I'm very proud of the city council today because of the support that they are giving. Not only a new development, not new perhaps, but new to the city of Long Beach and their willingness to adapt and change and include some of those key points that we want to have to protect not only workers, but to give jobs to people. And I think that that's amazing. I want to thank, of course, Councilmember Pearce for taking that bold step and included some of these items in there and in her amendment to the project, because I was already looking at the possibility of us not strong enough, we need to include support announced by. The bottom line is that as long as we have a labor agreement, then a project that's going to be working for Long Beach, it's going to be unprecedented, from what I understand, for us and for the region. I think it speaks volumes about the city council, how progressive it is, how mindful it is of all of its responsibilities to not only its residents, but to the working class and to the working people of Long Beach. So thank you very much. I will be supporting the item. Thank you. I know that all the other council members have spoken. I want to just say just one thing and then we'll go it will go to the vote. I want to just you know, this is have been a parcel of land that's been empty for decades. And I want to thank, obviously, the team that's come forward to develop. What is going to be Long Beach is first a four star hotel. It's going to be incredible activator and job creator. I want to thank, of course, our partners in labor the fact this will be the largest private labor agreement, I believe, in the entire city. You guys are going to build a pretty substantial project and I just want to congratulate all the good jobs are going to be created. I think it's great and complete as we did the first time support. There'll be a contract agreement. And of course, this is also going to provide millions of dollars of economic development into into the city as well as into the jobs from boat for both the hotel workers on site, the food service workers. And of course, the workers are going to be building this incredible structure on the corner of ocean and pine. So these we're the largest hotels in the city. This will be also, I believe I was talking to our economic development folks, Mr. Chrysler, but it will be it's one of the largest hotel construction projects, I believe, happening in the state of California. If that's not if that's not correct. Is that right? Honorable Maria. It's one of the most certainly per room. It's the one of the most expensive. Okay, good. Well, good. Okay. Excellent. Well, thank you. Look forward to seeing this thing come out of the ground next year. I want to thank the councilmember. I want to thank the the the staff who worked incredibly hard and also want to thank the folks that don't get a lot of thanks often. But you guys worked so hard on this to our city attorney team. Thank you for the years of this work. So, member, please cast your vote. Motion case. Thank you very much. Great. Okay. We are now. That's believe it or not, we're about to start the regular agenda, which is crazy. So the hearings are over. We're going to we're only going to one request to move an item up. So we are going to hear the first. Two things we'll do is hear the item and then consent calendar. I'm sorry, then public comment, then we will do a consent calendar. So we are going to do Councilman Austin's item. No, no, no. I'm sorry. Oh, I'm sorry. That was the item. I meant the item for Dr. Williams where I'm looking at the wrong one that got moved up. Item 26, 26.