Recommendation to declare ordinance amending the Long Beach Municipal Code by adding Chapter 8.97 relating to Tenant Relocation Assistance, read and adopted as read.  (Citywide)
Our next item is. 710. Item 17 Communications from City Attorney Recommendation to DEQ to declare ordinance amending the Long Beach Minister Code relating to tenant relocation assistance. Read the first time and lead over to the next regular meeting of the City Council for Final Reading City. Okay, thank you. Let me turn this over to Mr. West or someone from staff. Mr. Mayor, members of the city council, the city attorney is going to walk through a presentation of the ordinance and then staff will be available for questions. Honorable Mayor, members of the council. As you know, on April 2nd, the council directed our office to prepare an ordinance establishing a tenant relocation assistance program, requiring that, among other things, and under certain conditions, landlords make relocation payments to tenants upon termination of their tenancy. The that motion adopted at the previous council meeting was as detailed as could be reasonably expected, and it provided our office with specific direction on substantive provisions to be included in the ordinance. And I, on behalf of myself, of course, and our office and staff would like to thank Council for taking the time to provide us with that detailed direction it provided. Very helpful in drafting the ordinance. With that said, the Council direction understandably did not provide detail on all aspects of a relocation payment program and the implementation thereof. So therefore we added certain provisions which were not discussed at the previous council meeting and which were not included in the previous direction. We are we are very sensitive to and appreciative of the fact that both supporters and opponents of this ordinance, many of whom are here now, hold their opinions dearly and are otherwise passionate about tenant relocation. So with that in mind, our intention was to make such additions and tweaks to the provisions of the ordinance as proposed by the motion, as reasonable and fair as possible, without unduly favoring either landlords or tenants. And we hope we did that. I'd like to briefly point out the additions and tweaks that I just mentioned and explain the reasoning behind them. There are three in particular that I'd like to highlight. The first one is section 8.90 7.020 gee, which is the definition of a tenant in good standing? The council motion directed our office to define good standing as a tenant who has been in a unit for more than one year. That provision has not changed and the motion directed our office to attend in good standing would be more than one year. And then the second component would be that the tenant had not violated or or committed any of the nine valid causes for eviction as outlined in by state law. There was quite a bit of discussion about those nine causes for eviction as outlined by state law. I think we were all a little misguided in that, in assuming that maybe the California civil code or code of civil procedure outlined in one place nine different reasons for eviction. That's not the case. They are sprinkled throughout the state law. And because of that, we didn't think it made a lot of sense to specifically call out each of the nine causes for eviction as a reason why a tenant might not be eligible for relocation. A lot of them had to do with specific things like engaging in cockfighting, dogfighting, the illegal discharge of ammunition in the unit. Those are basically have been simplified and boiled down into one just saying a tenant would not be eligible for relocation if they have used the unit or the surrounding property on which the unit sits for an unlawful purpose. That was while it could win against what you directed me to do. I think it was within the spirit and I think it made things simpler. There was also a fair amount of discussion regarding if a tenant had violated one of those provisions, had committed either been late in the payment of rent or had committed unlawful activity while on the premises. Would there be any way to cure that in so many words, so that if they made things right, they would thereafter be eligible for relocation assistance? My me working with staff made the determination that it would be fair. Things that are reasonably susceptible to cure, like the payment of rent. If a tenant had been late on rent several months or years prior to the trigger event, that would give them relocation and they had otherwise made things right. Paid late fees, brought rent, current, and anything else the lease required them to do. They would still be eligible for tenant relocation if the tenant in the past, however, had committed an illegal act at the property had her. And so on and so forth that would permanently render them ineligible for tenant relocation assistance. The second thing I want to highlight is the timing of the payment that Section 8.90 7.0 30c as in Cat. No specific direction was given to our office regarding when relocation payment would be paid. However, effectively, it was required to be paid on the last day of a tenant's tenancy because of the fact that failure to pay relocation would be an affirmative action to to an eviction. So a landlord would have to make payment on the last day in an effort to provide more specificity on on when tenant relocation payments need to be paid and to ensure that some of the money is paid earlier than the last day of tenancy, but also to incentivize the tenant to actually leave after they've received half of their or a portion of their tenant relocation payment in 8.90 7.30. See, I have split the baby, so to speak. Half is due within 14 days, more or less depending on the trigger event 14 days after the trigger event. And then the other half is due five days after the tenant vacates the unit. The third item I'd like to point out is that the landlords this was not discussed on April 2nd and through nobody's fault the landlord requirement to pay relocation. I think it's important that if the county or any other government agency were ever to require relocation of a landlord to a tenant, that the relocation payment due under this ordinance would be reduced by the amount that that landlord would have to pay the tenant under some other provision of law. I don't think it was anyone's intention to place two relocation payments upon a landlord, and it was something I had not considered until I reviewed some other ordinances that other municipalities have recently adopted that are very similar to what is before you tonight. That's it. As far as things I wanted to highlight in the ordinance, it's been public for some time. I'm sure there'll be some comment regarding other provisions, but I'd finally like to note that another item that was discussed quite a bit on April 2nd was an additional $2,000 in benefit payable to disabled and or and or senior citizen tenants. That is not included in this ordinance, and that's by design, because I believe that the council's direction on April 2nd was to make that a city funded program. So I just wanted everyone to understand that it wasn't left out on purpose. That is still something it would be inappropriate to have it in the ordinance. But my understanding is, is that more detail regarding that additional $2,000 of funding, therefore, will be brought before the Council at a later date by staff. That is it for my presentation. Myself and staff are standing by to take any further direction that you might have with respect to the audience and or answer any questions you may have. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman Gonzales. You want to go to public comment first? Okay. Public comment on the ordinance is proposed. Please come forward. Please come forward. And so we will go down to. There's more than ten folks. So unless there's any objection from the council, we're going to go to 90 seconds. Oh, there's there's no objection from the council. So we will go to 90 seconds. Got it. Stop listening to paid speakers bustin here to tell you exactly. What they claim. A problem is there is no problem in Long Beach. For affordable housing. Look at other beach cities. Look at Manhattan Beach. Look at Malibu. Look at these places. You're fixing a problem that doesn't exist. What you're doing is you're driving out landlords. If you go ahead and pass this ordinance, my property will lose easily. $100,000 in value. If there's 1000 such five plus units in Long Beach. You're taking away $100 million from property owners. The persons here. That you're harming are going to be the tenants also. You're going to cause problems between the tenants and the landlords. In Santa monica, you will have. Tenants that are paying $800 for a property because they've been there since the 1980s. Their neighbors are paying $4,000. This is going to happen in Long Beach. You're going to have tenants that are paying extremely low rent. And the landlords are going to make up for it by charging. Other tenants more. You're harming the exact people you're claiming you're supposed to be saving. Stop this. Just be shamed at yourselves. Thank you. Next week. Hi there. I'm Linda Olsen. I'm a small property owner in Long Beach. Also, thank you for allowing me to speak here. One thing that hasn't been factored into this discussion of tenant relocation assistance is the law of unintended consequences. If you are going to ladle on to property owners and their operating expenses an additional 40 $500. Per unit. Per year potentially there's only one place for that money that's got to go into the operating budget to come from. It's only one place it comes from and that's from the rent that is collected from the tenants. Therefore, property owners are going to have to increase rents to cover that cost. So landlords throughout the city who otherwise might not increase rents, you know, maybe more two or 3% are going to have to increase 10% every single year in order to make up. That cost of 40 $500 per unit. The law. Of. Unintended consequences. This does not make for better housing for tenants. Every tenant in this room, every tenant in this city is going to see their rent go up more than it would have gone up if you had let this be the law of unintended consequences. Thank you. HUME Let's pick up. Vice Mayor Andrews. Councilmembers. My name is Mike Murchison. I'm here on behalf of quite a few rental property owners. The organization, as you know, a spot. I think one of the big concerns that I have tonight is, is that we spent a great deal of time since April 2nd when this first came up to try to get the rental property owners and the various groups on the same page. And we accomplished that. We've had significant number of briefings. We've had communications with all of you individually, and there are just two items that are left that we are advocating for change. One is 180 days notice in lieu of reload, and the other is the four units to five units. And we settled on a middle ground with that argument, too. I'm asking that after you get your viewpoint from the city attorney tonight, if it's deemed substantive, if Charlie deems it substantive, those two items, then you postpone this first reading until June 11th. There's no reason. There's no reason to not do that. There's nothing that I can figure out that makes sense why this needs to be voted on tonight. Those two issues are critical to rental property owners, and these are rental property owners that have all come together to throw away their differences, narrow it down to two items, and try to keep it as simple as possible so that the tenants and the rental property owners can move forward. But if we jam this through tonight with some promise of a future date, it puts at risk everything that the rental property owners have been discussing since April 2nd. Thank you. Thank you. Next week. Hello, City Council. My name is Bob Stallings. I'm a broker owner of Remax, real estate specialist in Long Beach for the past 32 years. Very concerned about private property rights as everybody that owns property should be. I'll read very quickly since the time is short. I'm representing, by the way, not only my company, but I'm speaking on behalf of our association, Pacific West Association of Realtors. The passage of just cause eviction laws eliminate property owner or operators right to serve on a non non-renewal notice on a resident at the end of lease term unless in case the property owner pays the tenant to move. This only creates additional housing and. Financial burdens for everyone. We respectfully request that the Long Beach City Council take a look. Slow down there. As the gentleman just said, you don't need a rush requiring because the ordinance requires means. Testing for tenants to. Receive relocation benefits, increasing the number of units that trigger tenant relocation to five units or more. We'd like to see that. And removing just cause eviction elements in order to protect the good tenants that we have from bad tenants. Very important. So please postpone any vote until you have further study. The city government should take care of hurting people from public funds, not from an individual landowner. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Joshua Christian. I'm an attorney at the Legal Aid Foundation of L.A. I work in the Long Beach Office and our homelessness prevention department. I wanted to comment on a few provisions that we propose that we do not believe are substantive to the ordinance. First, I want to talk about splitting the baby in terms of relocation assistance. Right now, the ordinance says that relocation should be paid in one piece before a tenant moves on one piece. Afterword. I think this fundamentally misunderstands the purpose of the ordinance. Relocation assistance is necessary because tenants do not have the money to move. It's not a reward for moving. Tenants don't have the money for a new apartment. Now my clients don't have $1,000 for a security deposit and for some last month's rent. They need to have the full relocation prior to moving if they're even going to apply. So we proposed two straightforward and effective timelines. One is, if there's a 60 day notice, the landlord pays relocation in full within 15 days. The other one is if a landlord raises the rent and the tenant chooses to leave, the tenant lets the landlord now and the landlord pays within five days. This means that the tenant is empowered to search for an apartment immediately upon payment. I also want to note that a landlord's failure to notify a tenant of relocation rights should be added as an affirmative defense to eviction. Civil damages and penalties by themselves do not effectively enforce the ordinance. A small claims judgment and a civil penalty 18 months down the line does not help my client 18 months later when she's been evicted and she's living on the pavement. So thank you. Good evening. My name is Alex Flores. I'm also a staff attorney with. The Legal Aid Foundation. Here in Long Beach. I want to start out by. Giving you a reason why we need to vote on this tonight and have it go forward. Just last week, our office was contacted by Ms.. Gloria Varanasi. She is a tenant in Councilmember Andrew Soucek in the sixth District. She received a 218% rent increase. The only help that she could get was contact LaFleur. This is why we need this. And this is why we need this now. As my colleague explained, we have suggested three, three things that would clarify the law to make it what it's supposed to be, to allow tenants to actually leave, but do so on their feet and not evicted, not straight to the pavement. Obviously, we want this ordinance to go to be passed as soon as possible or else. The longer we wait, the more that there are. Gloria's out there, elderly, not being able to find a place to move should any of these changes be deemed substantial. I think that there are different things that we can do to be able to work with that. I would ask the. City Council to please inquire. With the city attorney to see what we can do in order to keep these. Possible suggestions alive as we move on with the statute. Today. There are other options, like removing some of the problematic language, like the 14 day requirement, like the like the requirement regarding when the realtor has to be paid by the tenant, by the landlord. Thank you. Yeah. Joe Soto, you've got my name and number on file. And, you know, I'm an investor and there's two fellows who spoke before me would scare the crap out of me. As an investor. I wouldn't come to Long Beach to put money into this this city. I wouldn't do it. I'd go somewhere else. I'd go somewhere else. That city wants to continue to grow and upgrade and make it a wonderful city. Long Beach used to be a Navy town and people bought properties, investors bought properties and they knocked down old buildings, they attracted new businesses, and all of that was capitalism. You can't put a cap on our rent and say, you're a capitalist. You can't you're not. You can't do that. In fact. You all gave your word to P.W. Ah. When you interviewed them for their support and. And their endorsement. You all said that you were against rent control. This is rent control. It's an aspect of it, but it is rent control. Now we're going to see who keeps their word tonight. Thank you. Good evening, Council. And the mayor who's just coming back. My name is Rob Feldman, my wife and I, Debbie and Rob Feldman. We've been with Keller Williams Coastal, but we've been in the real estate world for. Over 28 years. And we've seen. Ups and downs, seen it many, many times. And I could go over all the specifics tonight, but it looks like we're on the tail end of this. And all I really want to say is that the current. Proposal I. Believe and we believe excuse me, in the realty world that'll make housing crisis worse and will only have unintended consequences that will hurt our communities for years to come. At its most basic premise is government control and regulation of how much property owners can charge, undermining the key provisions of landlord and tenant relationships. Let's not forget that. Excuse me. Let me speak. We recognize the various goals and policy options the City Council is trying to balance and are confident that upon more robust discussion, a long term solution that addresses the concerns of housing, industry and homeowners and tenant groups can be achieved. A policy of this magnitude needs to be discussed more in depth, and hopefully you all will see it tonight. I understand there's going to be the vote, but love to see it discussed even more. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. My name is Jim Meyer. And we have we're we're a mom and pop operation and I'd like to address the Andrew sent me a letter on a response. I sent him and he said things like unusual, large number of rent increase. How many is unusual large number ten for three. Now, if you want. And you also want all your tenants here, your constituents. Well, you didn't bark when when the city raised the tickets for street sweeping 20%. But you only allow us 10%. There's something wrong that you do this to your constituents. And I know because I got property in your district and these people scramble every day, you should see them scrambling like like ants to move their car so they don't get that big increase in your in your penalties. So why are you rate able to raise it 20%? And you you say we can only raise 10%. This is the case of the the camel getting his head under the tent. This is all it is. So let's just let the land we get along. We have people have been with us 25, 26 years. We get people Christmas presents, we get people hams. Whenever there's a tragedy in the family, this is what individual landowners do and this is what we do. We're not the big guys, so why penalize small people? Thank you. Good evening, counsel. Robert Fox, executive director of the Council of Neighborhood Organizations. I'm here to speak on the just cause eviction aspect of this. Number one, the city attorney has made it very amorphous in terms of nuisance behavior. Very difficult to prosecute in court. We have council members who are attorneys who actually know what civil procedure is. I'm here to protect the neighborhoods. When I founded Alameda Speech, it was a drug infested, thug, gang infested neighborhood. It was not considered quality when we went to evict tenants. We had to have tenant testimony in order to have a preponderance of the estimate of the evidence. However, we forgot that there's a 3 to 4 week lockout period. These same tenants that were so brave to testify were beaten within an inch of their lives. We cannot morally ask tenants to testify when it puts their lives at risk. So I wish that we will reconsider this, take more time to not read this into the into the record tonight. I think that you have serious things to discuss. I was a tenant for 27 years. I know exactly what this is all about. I agree that we should be careful with our rent increases. But let's let the neighborhoods protect themselves. Because if we go down this path, it'll be like going back to 1990. And that was not a good year for Long Beach. Thank you. I call loosely. I'm the president of the East Side. Voice My address is on file. I just wanted to talk for a moment about just cause eviction. I was at someone's house one day that was a property owner and his property manager was there. And a phone call came in and he looked frantic and he was going to run out the door. And I said, you know, what's the problem? And he said, Oh, I just got a call from a tenant. Saying There's bugs all over the apartment. And he grabbed his stuff and ran out the door. I happened to be there when he got back and I said, What was that all about? And he said, There wasn't a single bug. That was a guy on crack. And these were nice apartments. These weren't, you know, junky apartments. So that made me think about what would you do if you were the landlord in that situation? How do you prove. Somebody is on crack? Do you get to. Go to a get together urinalysis, walk to the door and ask for that to get a blood sample? How do you prove it? In the end, what happened is, you know, the other tenants have to be brave enough to join you. And I can. Tell you from having bad neighbors myself, I was the only person willing to take them on. People are afraid of going up against someone who's working in the drug world. Imagine the cost of trying to move them out. The lawyers fees of 50 K. What ends up with your apartment building? When that happens, the other people move out. The good people move out. So just cause there's so many unintentional. Thank you. All righty. Kozol. Chuck Brewer, proud Long Beach resident since 1976. I love the city and I love what you have done to the city. So I remember the council. I like to say thank you. The place looks a lot better, but use of what's going on now will be consequences. It'll come back to bite us in the back and. But five, ten years from now, I deal with investors, and I'm a firm believer that investors are going to do exactly what we've seen in the state where you see Toyota leave Nissan, leave, Nabisco, leave, 16,000, 16,000 businesses have gone out of state. I know of investors that are all right now talking about a credit I'll get a listing of. But after that, you're going to get other people coming in to buy and they will not. Be able to keep up the places because of rents go with repair. And I'm saying to you. The landlords that I know want to have a good, solid community. To work with. They do not. Want to buy into rent control. And this is right on the edge of rent control. Don't say it. It. So it isn't. And I wish you the best in this decision. But one other item is I do not understand why in the provision and it has a 1 to 3 units are exempt. And the fourth is not that loans are not sold in that manner. Thank you. You already know, Ms.. Andrews. I'm a proud sixth district rat that took the magic school bus. That took the Magic School bus of righteousness to be here. And I'm so happy I'm here. I'm here for the tenants, you know, I'm here for the people who who pay for these. Fortune 500 companies are behind us. Coldwell Bankers, that's a Fortune 500 company owned by Realogy Remax. That's a Fortune 500 company. These are not small business owners. This is not mom and pops behind us. This is crony capitalism. Excuse you. This is crony capitalism. Who's ask? Excuse you. You need to be quiet. You need to be quiet when I'm up here. That's. That's called decorum. Please, you. Guys, please show some respect for this. Please continue. Thank you, sir. You know, proper decorum anyways. You know, we learned about that in the you know, when those hand out the the hands and everything. But, you know, here we have crony capitalism that complain about communism. Right. But they're asking for government intervention to prevent the market from doing what the market says. So it's okay for you to get Prop 13 and it's okay for you to get the inherited tax breaks and in tax incentives. But it's not okay for me to inherit the fact that the communities that I grew up in, the communities that sustained you while you talk about the nineties, well, we had to live through it. We had to live through the gangs and the crack. You didn't want to you don't want to put any money into the buildings now and now that new people are moving in. Now you want to pay an okay, guess what? Thank you. That's my time. Thank you. Well, that's something you can borrow. Oh. Hello. My name is Kathy. Edam, and I am a street minister for the last seven years living here. I moved from Lancaster. I love Long Beach. My compassion is for the homeless, the elderly and the disabled. And right now. With the relocation I have seen, many of the elderly and the disabled be displaced because of the buildings that have been made and created. Their buildings have been destroyed. They were told to leave within 60 days. They have no money. There's no way. That they're able to pay the the deposits, the rent. That's enormous. You have to have high credit scores. You have to have triple the amount of for your money for what you make. There's a lot of people don't make that kind of money. So I also have compassion for the people who have rentals. You know, it's not easy to be a rent, you know, to own businesses and have people respect your properties and stuff like that. So I think what we need to do is that we need to have equality on both sides. But with the relocation, the money needs to be right away because they can't get in apartment without the money first. God bless you. And I hope that you really think about this. All right. Thank you. Hello. Council mayor, not mayor. Okay, council away. Murchison. I'm in the second district and the lady mentioned law of unintended consequences. And I was talking to a landlord outside one of these small business landlords. They're good landlords. There's a lot of good landlords out there, too. And it's the ones that are the investors that don't really give a crap that are ruining it. And, you know, it's not good money for them if they got to attend to things properly. The good landlords do do that. If if all good landlords were good or all the other landlords were good, we wouldn't be looking at this now as regulation comes because there's not good people and it hurts. As the lady said, the law of unintended consequence hurts smaller landlords in a way. But maybe they should join with us and fight with us against these people that are giving them a bad name. I mean, they feel bad that come out of this meeting. They feel bad or were beaten up on them. No, they're good landlords. And, you know, but there's not. And that's why we're here. Good evening, Mayor and Council Members. I'm Elsa Tang, seventh. District resident and research and policy analyst at Long Beach Forward. First, a huge. Thank you to. City staff and mayor and council for your leadership in bringing this ordinance forth in such a timely manner. After Council adopted the motion last month, your urgency today echoes the urgency of our housing and homelessness crisis. Long Beach. Forward has been working. Alongside Long Beach residents, empowered housing. Long Beach Legal Aid Foundation and. Many others to support a strong. Tenant relocation assistance ordinance. As a critical homelessness. Prevention. Strategy. We want to see the ordinance adopted tonight with three common sense procedural improvements that are. Within the confines of Council's original motion and essential to the. Success of the ordinance. First, tenants should receive full. Relocation assistance upfront. Before they move out so they can. Actually use the funds. To help them move. Common sense. Second, to. Comply with state law, tenants should give landlords notice. When they intend to. Leave, not when they intend to stay. Common sense. Third, if landlords don't. Notify tenants that relocation assistance is available. Tenants facing eviction can use this as an affirmative defense in eviction court. Common sense these limited common sense approved minutes align with Council's intent to. Protect our vulnerable neighbors and are not substantive enough to warrant an additional first. Reading. Thank Council members. We urge you to ask the city attorney why he believes so. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. My name is Christine Pettit. I'm the executive director of Long Beach Forward and a member of the Everyone Home Task Force on behalf of Long Beach Forward on my task force colleagues who signed on to the letter I sent you earlier today. We appreciate the quick work of city staff and the Council to bring this ordinance back for consideration. The letter and my colleague before it touched upon three procedural issues that need to be addressed in order to ensure that the tenant relocation assistant reaches qualifying tenants and doesn't place an unreasonable burden on those that this ordinance is intended to serve. I'm going to focus on the first one of those now. It is imperative that we ensure that tenants receive the full relocation assistance payment prior to vacating their unit, regardless of when the notice is given by their landlord. Many renters, those who are low income seniors, have disabilities, etc. are living paycheck to paycheck or on fixed incomes and do not have the ability to save up for moving expenses and the equivalent of three month's rent for a new apartment. Relocation causes many disruptions to one's finances, work, school and overall well-being. It's really stressful to find a new place to live in Long Beach, given our crisis. Those who oppose tenant protections are attempting to further weaken this ordinance by proposing more exemptions. Already, the proposed ordinance excludes duplexes, triplexes and all units built after February 1995. If anything, we need to be working toward a stronger policy that will apply to more renters and protect the most vulnerable from falling into homelessness. Thank you for your leadership on this. Good evening, City Council. My name is Adriana Wences and I'm an organizer with Laundry, Long Beach resident empowered. Thank you for your votes to get this important an ordinance moving in April. I want to request that you continue to do the right thing by supporting a tenant relocation assistance policy that truly protects tenants. We want this policy to ensure that tenants receive the funds before they move out. As well as failure of notification from the landlord regarding their right to the relocation assistance must result in affirmative defense. We also want this ordinance to protect tenants from running the risk of losing their homes if they if they do not provide no notice to the landlord of their intention to continue their tenancy despite a rent increase of 10% or more. Thank you. My name is Marlene Alvarado. I'm District one and I am here for tennis. And I'm a landlord. I'm a small landlord. I haven't raised the rent to and I on my little condo in ten years. And it's great because as far as fixing the apartment goes up, they my tenants will help me fix the apartments up. I will buy the thing. They'll fix it. They put in a new sink for me. There's so many other things. Also, I get I get allowance. They're paying my mortgage. They have paid off my mortgage. I get I get exemption for depreciation allowances. Any time I do anything in the apartment, they cause, I get a tax write off. I get tax credits for taxes. I mean, this is absurd. To. Say that somehow. We poor little people who own properties are being somehow taken advantage of. We're taking advantage of our of our renters because they're paying off our mortgage. I lived in in West Hollywood before I became a property owner. And we had we had rent control. And I lived there for ten, 17 years. And gradually my rent went up, but it was okay. And guess what? West Hollywood right now is one of the wealthiest cities in in the in the in Los Angeles County. So rent control works. This ordinance is going to help your tenants. Why would you? They want to leave if you pay. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Excuse me. Excuse me. We'll get started. We're going to cap it up. Are you the last one? Young lady in the back? What about you? Please. Yeah. And need. Oh. Guys got to get in line, please. So we can't keep it up up there. I don't know. The man. Oh. Okay. You want? You want to start? Okay. I'll go ahead. You can speak. Good evening, Honorable Council members. My name is Fred Sutton. I'm here on behalf of the California Apartment Association. We represent housing providers throughout the state of California and here in Long Beach. We continue to have very deep concerns as it relates to this ordinance. Although well-intentioned intentioned, the actions being taken today will have broader negative effects that will make this city more expensive in the long run and hurt tenants. The termination control provisions commonly known as just cause, have serious implications and are putting housing providers in a position of facing litigation or paying relocation to individuals who are creating nuisances in the community, as has been said prior. Property managers are your first line of defense on protecting the quiet enjoyment of the residents of this city. We urge the Council to reform aspects of the just cause provisions. If housing providers are fearful of making mistake, they will respond by raising tenant screening through screening standards. That would be counterproductive to all of our goals. It is also essential that this Council takes further steps to protect independent rental owners. Providing housing is not only an essential service to the city, but it is a vital step in the economic ladder as individuals seek to secure their own retirements and financial security. We appreciate your time and thoughtfulness on this. If it needs more time to fix these just cause issues. That's what this council should do. Greatly appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. We're going to stop you right there. The young lady at the top. It's a black and gray. And it was. So you know. Okay, fine. We're going to stop. Okay. Well, how many in the world? Okay, fine. Would you hold just 1/2. We have to get the wheelchair. Yes. Yeah. Could you speak from that side of the wheelchair and you be right up to him? Young lady, please go ahead. The wheelchair up at the top. Okay. Fine, go ahead. In this you can speak. Okay. Good evening, councilman, but. Excuse me, but we're stopping in right there at the young lady in the gray sweats there in the black T-shirt. You're the last one. Thank you. Okay. Go ahead. Excuse me. Okay. Good evening. City council members and city staff. My name is Christine Bass and I serve as the government affairs manager for the Long Beach Area Chamber of Commerce. I'm here tonight on behalf of 800 members, leadership and community stakeholders, many of whom are property owners, to stress the need for the more robust review of the wide sweeping potential policy. Although we recognize the various goals and policy options the City Council is trying to balance, we continue to have concerns regarding the proposed tenant relocation policy. Earlier today, we signed a joint partnership letter to the council staff detailing our concerns and solutions for the city in the interest of time. A Summarize and reiterate a few of those points for your consideration tonight. We encourage the city to extended no cause noticing period of six months in lieu of the four cause provisions and relocation. And we encourage the city to extend the vesting period to two years before just call it just cause policies apply. And we encourage individuals to become housing providers by protecting independent rental owners. As you know, we face a severe housing shortage and the city should be looking for ways to ensure individuals that want to become housing providers can get to the market to do so. More regulation will only create a deterrence. A blanket exemption for buildings up to four units is an incentive to get into the market and would increase independent rental ownership. We look forward to working with all the stakeholders in order to ensure Long Beach remains an attractive place for business while seeking for ways to create extra housing. We appreciate your time and on these considerations. Thank you. Good evening, honorable counsel. My name is Manuela martinez. I am a resident and voter in District two and a member of Long Beach Residents in Power. I am here to ask that you continue doing the right thing and please revise three aspects of the Relocation Assistance Ordinance. The first tenants should receive the full amount of the relocation assistance within 15 days of notice to vacate and within five days after tenant informs landlord of move due to rent increase. This will ensure Tenant has the money and resources needed to relocate. The second tenants do not have the burden of notifying a landlord. They will stay in the unit after increase. Some tenants may not be aware of this requirement as it is different from state law in which tenants only are required to inform landlord of intent to vacate and that if the landlord fails to notify tenants of relocation assistance, this should serve as an affirmative defense to an eviction process. Thank you for your time. Good evening. My name is Lily Ocampo. I live in First District, and I come here to thank for the. For the ordinance, the tenant relocation assistance. And to ask you to give support. An ordinance that will help for low income and below low income families to ask to stay in their houses and not become. Thank you. And hello, Council. My name is Alice. Alice? I'm a proud resident of the second district and a member of Libra. I want to thank you first for the step that you took last month with the tenant relocation assistance. But our work is not done despite the callous tactics of the apartment association and landlords. We are all too aware that the housing crisis we are facing is displacing hardworking people. It is relegating people to the streets and draining people of their financial resources when they're forced to move. I encourage you to show your renter majority city that you care about their dire situation and see an ordinance that includes one timely payment of rhloh too that tenants should not have to notify landlords that they are staying in their unit following a 10% rent increase. And three, that failure to notify tenants of their right to reload allows for an affirmative defense in the eviction process. Renters are overdue for some support. We need your leadership tonight. Thank you. Good evening. Council members and staff. My name is Wendy Henning. I have had the pleasure, along with my husband, to own small properties in Long Beach for over 40 years. We have had. Tremendous respect for our tenants as they have for us, and that is because we've been very careful to not raise rents. Too much in the 40 years we. I object to any kind of rent relocation fees and I also object to any restrictions that the Council have put on rents for us, because that will make us. Continue. Make us make us raise rents every year to our tenants, which we don't want to do. Thank you for your time. Union members of the City Council. My name is Josh Butler, executive director of housing Long Beach. And I've heard for now a number of years stories, just like the woman before me who come here and say I never raise the rent on my tenants. But if you create any rules, I'll be forced to raise the rent on my tenants. These are the kind of threats that we've been hearing now for years. These are the kinds of threats that tenants have been living with for years. That we're going to raise your rent. We're going to throw you out if you ask for anything to be fixed. If you want relocation assistance, we're going to throw you to the curb. We're going to make you homeless. They want to maintain the power and control the power. They want to control the city. They can't do that anymore. They have picked the wrong time. They may not realize that there's a housing crisis going on right now. If they are if they haven't realized there's a housing crisis, I encourage them to pull their heads out of the sand and take a look around. Last week there was an article. I know you all read Long Beach Post that said Long Beach is one of the most favorable places to live in, but it's also one of the most unaffordable. And the number one complaint of residents is the lack of affordability of living here. We can do something about that here right now, today, and take the city back for the residents, for the people, and out of the hands of the landlords who are squeezing us with every last drop in the middle of a housing crisis, in the middle of an economic crisis, in the middle of their tax cuts. They still want to squeeze us even more until the city is bone dry. We got to stop that tonight. We encourage you to take action. Thank you. Right. Hello. My name is Norberto Lopez, and I'm involved in various community organizations here in the city of Long Beach. And I urge to support I urge you to support the relocation assistance policy being reviewed today, but also raise the question of the policy as approved. What is going to happen to all the people who get eviction notices from now until the day of implementation? Because there will be an increase on evictions and rent increases that cause people to move before the policy goes into play. After doing housing work for eight months and seeing the many unjust evictions and high rent increases, in some cases over 100% rent increase, there should be something to help tenants until the implementation of the policy and look further into tenant protections to help keep families in their homes and make sure we save Long Beach. People should receive a relocation assistance prior to moving. Tenants should not have to let their landlord know whether they will stay or not in 14 days and tenants should be able to defend themselves from an eviction if landlord fails to notify a tenant of the relocation assistance. Right. As many of you know. Right. The Cedar Assistance last year as well. Right. Took on their property management company and they had to delegate that company in order to get some money out of them in order to be able to move. I believe that it's only fair that the tenants receive the money before they move. Right. That's the only way that they're going to be able to do that down payment that they need to put in order to get that new unit. I urge you to support this policy and really look into further tenant protections and thank you for your time. Good evening, council members. My name is James McGrady. I've lived and owned rental properties in Long Beach since 1992 and I wanted to say when I first started saving up money to get my rental properties, minimum wage was 475 and I was pretty young. Since then, inflation has caused a lot of things to go up, including rent and including the minimum wage. It's well over $12 now. I just wanted to say, if I could do it, anyone can do it. I see both sides of the issue here. But I wanted to say that. If government intervenes with any type of my rent, I will have to increase the rents. I don't increase the rents, hardly ever. But if you guys intervene, it also forces me to take my money that I need to invest and invest in other areas of the city. I don't want to do that. I love Long Beach. I've lived in Long Beach for many years. I've invested in Long Beach. I can tell you a quick story. I had a renter that was with me for 16 years and she got separated. She could no longer afford a full rent. So what I did is I cut her rent by $800 for six months so she wouldn't have to leave. So there's landlords just like me that do that for the renters. So if you guys intervene with our rents, we have to invest somewhere else. That's all I have to say. My name is Silvana Arreola. My address is on file. I've lived in California since 1958 when we came to this state. And I have to. Say that I come from a real estate family and I have seen the progressive. Diminution of. Ownership rights, which concerns me gravely. A lot of people, a lot of my clients are now taking money out of California rather than developing in California. I see the future of real estate ownership, income, property ownership to go be going towards large syndications. Who can handle all these problems? I would counsel and beg the council members to consider, well, what you do postpone a decision until you've really worked out all the details that are so punitive towards owners and not considering the fact that the problems are a shared problem. So it isn't just a landlord problem, it's a shortage problem. Can we address that in some way? Can we create a body that would lend the tenants funds to help them through the crisis and. That way work with both owner. And tenant rather than impose the entire responsibility for making the move on the tenant. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. And I think I'm just I'm I'm going to cut the speaker's list. I think that is that Ms.. Where's in the back or now? Okay, then the lady over there in the glasses will be the last one. And then the speaker's list is closed, which is where? And then the lady in the back and then the speaker's list is close. Hello. My name is Ray Mailer. I've lived in Long Beach for 30 years. Owned some residential properties for 21 years. Excuse me. Landlord ing is, as a small property owner, is fundamentally a personal business. We know our tenants well and they often become friends. We have long since we have all long since forgotten the Great Recession of 11 years ago, when low rents naturally occurred through the market. As the economy slowly improved, rents recovered. At a point, my wife and I noticed that market rates were exceeding the comfort level of the incomes of our tenant applicants. We decided to hold our rents below market. The threats of rent control, particularly the county action and the proposed ordinance here, have prompted us to stop these low rents. As each unit has turned over. All our units are now at market rate. There are now five fewer below market rates in Long Beach. Our city has experienced some excesses from some big money that came in that found our city to rehabilitate units. The ordinance under consideration moves well beyond regulating these big money interests and affects many small property owners. Like the previous motion you considered regarding airport security. I urge you to scuttle this overreaching ordinance. Thank you. Next. Next speaker, please. Hello. My name is Benjamin Chow. I am a ninth district resident. And I just want to thank Council Member Rex Richardson for really identifying the housing crisis and homelessness as an issue in our district. And I, I'm definitely in support of this Tenant Relocation Assistance Ordinance and preventing homelessness in our district. I've spent many weeks knocking on the doors of renters and the ninth. And, you know, in that time I have found that investment in our district is leading to increased displacement due to rent increases and eviction notices. And so I would really recommend the council member and other council members to really to investigate the unintended consequences of investment in commercial properties in our city. Because, you know, just just put yourself in the situation of a working class family and having to after receiving 60 day notice to find a new place to live if you're living paycheck to paycheck, raising a family, having to take your children to school while, you know, working, working day after day, finding a new place to live that is affordable to you and going through the process of moving can be very stressful and puts an unnecessary toll on the lives of the people in our city. So thank you for listening to me today. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hi, Linda. So, Beau, I live in the fifth district and, you know, kudos. I think the thing that strikes me with all of this is that we keep taking a big, broad stroke to solve issues. And it seems to me we're going about this wrong. I honestly think you should throw the whole thing out. And it's not because I don't. Not because I don't care about the tenants and the rising rents. But it is those big conglomerates that came in and are raising rents 218%. It's not the mom and pops as far as Fortune 500 companies. I knew several people who got up who. Were accused of that tonight. They are not Fortune 500 companies. They have nice things because they've done it under Sweat and their hard work and they're still working in their eighties. So you just all take a chill pill. I looked at rent control today and the first thing that popped up was a company called California Tenant Tenant Law dot com. And the first thing it says is rent control is a special set of laws that particular cities adopt. It generally includes rent increase limits and eviction restrictions. Some cities rent controls require relocation assistance to be paid to tenants under certain circumstances and interest on security deposits. So again, it is rent control. It is tied in with rent control. The other thing is I found something that was very interesting and said the American founders, our forefathers understood clearly that private property is the foundation not only of prosperity, but of freedom itself, human being. Okay. And thank you very much. And thank you. I provide housing for human beings and I don't raise rents. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Thank you for having me here. I saw many of you in the parade I was in last week, the pride parade. Thank you all for that. Now, getting down to the point here, in fact, we talked about the law of unintended consequences. Somebody brought that up. Well, the way the landlords want to keep it now is so we have the law of unintended consequences, which is evictions without any kind of protection being forced out and having to spend money to try and relocate without any kind of benefit to help do that. What we see is a lot of, quote, unintended consequences, which are intended consequences. Now, you almost always speak when I come to these things, not about how much money or the interest rate, but the fact that when we have stable neighborhoods and children grow up to be better people, when we take away stability from families because they can be evicted easily and because of this, because of that or old people get put out on the street. What we are doing is destabilizing our society and a possibility of having a good life for many families and many young people. Now, I don't say the landlords want to take that kind of thing against young children, but they do it and there has to be some kind of protection so that we have a way of working out the different strings that come on in neighborhoods and through housing. And it's one of our biggest problems. And what I want you to do is take and make go forward with this thing because it's a good idea and then try to make it as fair as possible. But do it so it protects families and those children we have growing up that we need in our society to be healthy and good. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hi there. I'm a resident of the seventh District and I fully support the Tenant Relocation Assistance Policy at its full power. I just want to say, we've heard a lot of people say they don't raise rents. If there wasn't a rent increase issue, none of us would be here tonight in the first place. I want to say I just want to spew some statistics here. Long Beach ranks number seven, least affordable city in the entire country. Recent report came out just a few weeks ago. 8.1 guys, everyone over Long Beach is population. I really think this is important to hear. 58.1% of Long Beach is population is cost burdened by housing. That's nearly 300,000 people in our town. Let's also talk about the homelessness crisis here, because housing and homelessness are interrelated. Let's look at what's happening in California, Long Beach's numbers. In Los Angeles, numbers are yet to come, but in Orange County, 43% increase in homelessness from 2017. In San Bernardino County, that number jumped 23%. In Riverside County, 22%. Ventura County, 28%. In San Francisco City alone, 17% increase in homelessness. We control we are. Seeing guys on both sides. Please, on both sides. When someone is speaking, regardless of their position, please let them speak. Thank you. Do you mind? I got a little bit run over here, but I'm going to try and finish this up. Basically, what I'm trying to say is we need to think about the human problem here. We need to think about the people, the old people, the young people, the people who cannot move out of their homes , who are at threat every day of being evicted of facilities. Thank you very much. And I incentivize you to please. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Hi. Good. My name is Richard Keller's city attorney. I take great exception with your attitude of simply splitting the baby. That's a very, very casual solution to a very real problem for many of the tenants who advocated tonight. You said we need the money right away so we can move. I get that. I really understand that. But for the landlords tonight, you do happen to be split up side by side. But anyway, for the landlords tonight, our concern is if we give you that money up front, then guess what happens in the next 30, 60 , 90 days? You don't pay rent, you trash the unit, you move out. We lose twice. Not fair. So, you. Know, guys, we just let the speaker speak so everyone can speak. Continue, sir. So somebody else talked about unintended consequences tonight. When the ordinance is written so poorly like this, the unintended consequence will happen. The tenants will not be served. The landlords will not be served. There are there is a way to address this that can serve both sides. It's called an escrow account. And the escrow landlords can immediately, immediately fund the escrow account. The tenant can take that account to the next landlord and say, I have the money. Here it is. And they that the landlord heard that payment will come. I strongly recommend that we back up, take a little time and figure out how. To thank you, sir. Right. Thank you. Thanks, Speaker. Good evening. My name is Juanita Gallo. I am a lifelong renter. Five of those years in New York City. And my experience in New York City firsthand with tenant relocation assistance is it was a lose lose proposition for both renters and landlords. First of all, there is upfront discrimination when screening tenants. Secondly, there's no guarantee that the tenants will depart. So it's a lose lose situation on both sides, as the gentleman just said. And also, the tenants lose out because eventually the rents get so high, there is nowhere else for them to go, even if they get relocation assistance . So it increases homelessness all the way around. It's an endless cycle. This is really a policy housing policy issue which should be taken up at a higher level. It's a Band-Aid solution for a lack of affordable housing. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Thank you, David Clement, third district. When I came here to Long Beach in 2002, Long Beach was not such a desirable place to live as it is now. It's improved drastically. And a lot of that is because of our property values have gone up and and our taxes are paying for that. I own a few properties in Long Beach. I've lived in each of them, fix them up with my own blood and sweat. And I have only raised rents very irregularly. I fully support keeping families in their homes. And and I think it's the big corporations that are really giving the small mom pop operators like myself and the rest of us here a bad name. So if we're going to you know, I'm opposed to this because 40 $500 is a lot of money. And and it shouldn't be a burden on me. This is an excessive burden. Okay. So I think we're good at raising taxes, sales taxes. One, we just add a quarter to our to our sales and be done with it. I'm kidding, by the way. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening. My council and mayor. My name is Laura. I am a tenant at a building where all my neighbors and I received a rent increase at the time the property was being sold. We all expect that a, uh, a fair increase. Instead, this is what we got. A two bedroom. We have an increase of $550 a tree, which is 48% for a three bedroom. We got an increase of 775, which is a 67%. I believe this increases are too high and only work to price our families. These families, my neighbors and I deserve relocation assistance and fully support this lot to pass today. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Okay. Great. Okay. We know Rafael Castillo is tearing up la la la lay there as he stays here. Then move onto. If you have the assignment, we will leave on the in. In a kilometer. He'll be on that one. You need to think of all the red tape. Not a puzzle. America. Your long travels story. This ability to read that he. He built up. Okay. But he's sympathetic to Malala like a. A lot more than that, he says he. I thought, Oh, gracious. And never. Okay. Good evening, counsel. My name's Kevin Yeager. I'm a resident of District two and a member of Democratic Socialists of America Long Beach Chapter. I want to echo a lot of the points that tenant advocates have already made, and I just wanted to emphasize the aspect of the hap now half later, relocation funds. It's really concerning to hear city staff proposing that landlords could withhold relocation assistance from tenants until up to five days after vacating in order to incentivize tenants to leave. That seems like a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose of this ordinance. The purpose is that low income, fixed income, senior disabled folks, etc. There are tenants in this city who don't have the resources to relocate. The ordinance is supposed to help those tenants and make sure that they have the money to get into another place and not end up falling into homelessness and on our streets. And so this compromise where a tenant could be kicked out of their home and fall into homelessness, but only up to five days, and then the landlord could get the funds for them in order to relocate five days later. That's not preventing homelessness. We need to act immediately and make sure these people have somewhere to stay. So I just want to thank City Council for acting tonight and recognizing that this is a crisis with 58% of tenants rent burden in the city even higher for women of color. So thank you for acting. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hello. My name is Andrew, a community organizer with Long Beach Forward working on the best art center, a Long Beach initiative working on issues related to the birth to five population. Housing was recently identified as one of the top issues our groups wanted to work on. What I found working with parents, caregivers and children is that displacement is all too apparent in their lives. It's important that you ensure these families are given relocation assistance at an appropriate time, are notified of their right to relocation, ample time to see if they still can reside in their homes. And the next time a five year old comes up to me crying, asking why they're being uplifted, uprooted and displaced from their homes, I'm gonna ask you all to explain, because it shouldn't be our burden as black and brown folks to explain. It should be you and your privilege. And the next time and the next time. All right, let's let the speaker speak. Thank you. I don't know how you think you can properly manage property. Can't even manage to spell destroys on your signs. So thank you for your attention to this important issue. Mayor and City Council, I really appreciate it. And hopefully we can get this resolved. Thank you. Thank you. And before they get before our before our next speaker, just as a as a general reminder, please, when we're addressing public comment and you're addressing it to the body, so think please to the body and next speaker. Hello. My name is Vanessa. My building is currently facing the crisis of eviction. On March 20, 21st, 2000 1919, families and my own receive 60 day notice. It's around 8 p.m.. All our families woke up to displacement in this sit in and this. It is only reasonable that all 20 family receive relocation assistance and all families facing this tragedy. I support this law because it means we will get a chance to find a home and most importantly, not become homeless. Pass passes today. And we thank you for our leadership. Your leadership. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, council mayor and members of the public. My name is Maria. I'm a proud one resident since I migrated here at the age of three. I'm undocumented, unafraid and unapologetic. Plus, I am the director of Community Organizing for Housing Long Beach. It has been my pleasure and my pain for the past three years to work with loving, hard working, responsible tenants that are being evicted, tactfully pushed out, and maliciously increase the rent by 50, 60, and even 90% to price them out. Today, on behalf of all those renters, we applaud you for taking up this policy and urge you to pass something today and then work along community to give it shaping based on community needs and for the benefit of community. And I must remind you for when eyes cities thrive. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker, please. Good evening, Council. My name is Johnny Weir and I'm with better housing for Long Beach. And I was told by my attorney to let you put you on notice that this what you are passing is not constitutionally sound and that you should revisit it and not pass it tonight. If you pass this tonight, you are breaking the law and you're encouraging people to break the law. It's not okay to push something that is illegal. So I want to show you something. These are the petitions that we collected throughout all of Long Beach. We have 10,000 petitions of tenants in this community that do not want rent control. I want you take a look if you want to look at every one of these petitions. So we have them here and I made a copy of them. You got to look at your community. You're pushing stuff that is not supporting the community. You're pushing rent control, Robert. This is not a dictatorship. This is a community. This is a democracy. And you're pushing your push, your policy. But the people in Long Beach don't want. So I don't understand why you would do it. Why would you push something you told everyone you didn't want? Rachel, this is Rachel Alston. Bird says this is rent control. The woman that spoke earlier said this is rent control. Why push, Rachel? If it's going to drive the tenants out, it's going to drive the tenants out. It's going to raise rents. Tell me a city that has Rachel that has affordable rent. People. Google. Google. Highest rates in the nation. Google it. San Francisco. Santa monica, New York. What other ones? Highest rent animation. And they all are sorry for hurting your ears, Susie, but I'm passionate. Thank you. Very much. Good night, everybody. Time's up. Thank you. And then our last speaker. I'm sorry. I didn't see the gentleman here, so. Sir, why don't you go ahead and go speak, sir? Just. This is perfect, right? Thank you. Good evening, everyone. I just. We've been to this place so many times. I just wanted to say. Not this side. Not this side will be happy tonight. Either way it goes. My thing is this. I totally understand all those renters. When they get this large corporation, when they buy the place, when they get to 200% whatever increase, let's slow down. Let's sit down. Let's discuss what needs to be done to have this site and this site. This is not going anywhere like this because you're really going to piss somebody tonight. Not only that, the previous one, the airport guys and everything else. You guys have no business to get in that business. Thank. Thank you for doing what you did on that one. Please do the same thing on us tonight. Thank you. Thank you. And our last think. Our last speaker. Yes. My name is Ben Damascus. I live in the beautiful second district. I'm here today to speak to you as a tenant. I'm also disabled. I am a mother of four children. And like everybody else, I'm not going to ask you, Mayor Garcia or anybody else on here, if not congratulate you, because this is a very difficult matter . You have two sides that have different points of view. And I'm going to be real with you. No matter how many times you go back and forth. We're never going to agree. We're never going to agree. And. Q for coming up with this. It is the grace. The best thing possible that we as tenants have right now. And I just want to urge you guys to. Really keep doing. What you're doing. You're always going to hear bad things no matter what you do. Being in leadership comes with a lot of burdens. And I just want to commend you guys and also just wanted to clarify real quick something that we noticed and I just wanted to mention that is that while all those opposed to the tenants are up here speaking. I didn't see. Nobody. That resembled anybody that I speak to on a daily basis that is getting displaced, that is getting evicted. So I just find it hard to see their point of. View. When you're not living what I'm living or my tenants or my neighbors or my children or anybody else's child. So thank you very much for your time and I won't take any more of your time. Thank you. That concludes public comment. So we'll close from a comment. There is a motion on the floor for the ordinance. And so we'll go first to Councilwoman Gonzales. Thanks again for everybody for being here. So I'll be pretty quick because I know we don't want this to be a very long night, but I'll just be short when I say very, very quickly that I do support this as it stands. And I do have a quick a few quick questions, but I'm going to be supportive of this. As mentioned in the statistics, you know, we know that 60% of our city are renters. So we have an obligation, I believe, as elected leaders, to ensure that renters have a voice and a very strong voice. And I hope tonight we we we make you proud and making sure that we push something forward that really will be able to support a lot of the strife that we've been seeing, and especially in places like we've seen in downtown that have been incredibly difficult for renters. So a couple of questions I have for a city attorney, and I know I love that you've brought this back very quickly, and I really appreciate that from on behalf of my office and city staff. Thank you very much. A couple one question on the repayment, because I do think to that to the points that we've been hearing, I do believe the repayment should be done quicker than later. And I know and I'm not really of the mindset that we should split the baby in half of it, should be before, should be up front and then the other half afterwards. That also wasn't discussed in detail by the city council. So can we. Propose to include that repayment be done within 15 days to ensure that it's done before someone receives a 30 or 60 day notice. Certainly that would not be a problem at all. If I could address generally there were a lot of suggestions made by members of the public without writing down every one of them. I've also received a lot of suggestions in writing from various interest groups and stakeholders. For the most part, all of those suggestions are reasonable. They're policy decisions. None of them give me any trouble as far as they would violate the law. However, with respect to every one of them, and I know this is disappointing to people on both sides of the aisle and maybe many people behind the dais. However, all of those changes would be substantive. They could be made. If I'm given direction to make them by the council. But that would require a second first reading of the ordinance. Whenever the next meeting is. But but certainly I stand ready to take direction from any of you, particularly on the payment issue. I am not wedded to half and half. It could all be paid at one time as you so direct. Okay. All right. So I want to make sure that for because this wasn't discussed at all. So I'm just trying to understand this in the beginning because we didn't discuss the relocation payment at all in the very you know, when we took this up back in April. And so why would that trigger a another reading? Because that's what I do not want to do. Right? Well, primarily because it wasn't discussed the first time the public saw it was on Monday or whenever the ordinance that I drafted went public, there would be I would consider that change, a substantive change to that ordinance. And and it needs to it would need to be read again. And the reason why generally we take this position our office takes the position is three reasons, really. Number one, it promotes transparency. Number two, it minimizes any legal risk that someone challenges under the Brown Act, that they didn't have the appropriate notice. They didn't know what was going to be voted on tonight. Something changed. There's really no downside in reading. Having another first reading on June 11th, exactly as the ordinance is to be, is to be read based on the direction that I receive from this body. And then the third reason is it's consistent with the position that our office has taken for several years when it comes to making amendments to ordinances. We require a second first reading before the second reading, which effectively becomes the third. Okay. Well, thank you for the explanation and I look forward to hearing more from my colleagues. But I do like the ordinance. I want to make sure we push this through. We absolutely owe it to our tenants and our residents here in the in the city of Long Beach. And I also am looking forward to hearing more about that. We we also discussed seniors and people with disabilities. We know that it's so much more difficult for them to move. I have someone in my office who has a wheelchair. And not only is it more difficult or more costly for her to move, the options are limited, especially with an older housing stock. So I want make I want to make sure we remind ourselves of that. And what I'll also say is, you know, to our landlords, you know, I certainly respect every single one of you and what you're doing. And to the mom and pops, if you're not raising your rents, this need not apply to you. This need not apply to you at all if you're not raising your rents. And I just hope that you hear us out that this is not rent control, this is certainly a protection for tenants. You can you know, you can laugh at that however you'd like. But we see it very differently. And this is something that our residents and we were elected to to to represent our residents and to do. The city has been very mindful. I will just mention as well, affordable housing plan, land use plan. Homeless shelters. And many times we've been set. We've been told, no, not in my backyard. Now this time, we're going to say yes, yes, in my backyard. So I will just leave it there and I will just say thank you so much for your time. And I look forward to moving this forward a. Thank you. I really think everybody that came out tonight, I didn't necessarily appreciate the catcalling on either side because it did make it hard to follow. But I appreciate the passion that you guys bring to this and recognizing that it's a really big issue for a lot of us, for landlords. I recognize that you have bought a piece of property and you're allowing strangers to come in and live in something that you own. That is something that I don't think I could ever do because that would make a night with anxiety. So I applaud you for that business decision. And for those that have decided to make Long Beach their home renters like myself, we often feel at the whim of what might happen and not having any control over that. We know that stress when we talk about mental health, when we talk about how we as a as a community live together in a healthy way, those little stresses, like not knowing if your rent is going to be increased, not knowing that tomorrow you're going to get that $500 increase is a big deal and it is a big deal to be removed from your community and moved somewhere else, often outside of Long Beach. So while we're doing rent control to me, while we're not doing rent control, while we're doing relocation, you guys got me what we're doing relocation. This is not rent control because it does not keep people. This is a way for you to relocate people. And so I do not want us to get the too mixed up whenever we do this. I want to applaud staff. I know that we have nine of us up here, a mayor and lots of stakeholders in the community. So I want to applaud you for heard with us. I do want to just echo the same concern that Councilmember Gonzalez brought up in my mind when you say when we said we want to go forward with a relocation policy that provides relocation funds, that those are funds that are supposed to help somebody get into their next place. And if it's five days later, how in the world is that supposed to help them get into their next place? So I recognize the position of the landlords and wanting to make sure that they have a guarantee. I mean, there are lots of mechanisms to do that, and so I don't want to make that vote tonight, but I would like to revisit that in the future. So my question is, if we vote tonight and we come back with, say, a cleanup item that not only includes that, but possibly the six month or some other items that the landlords would also look at, what is the quickest timeline that that could happen, that it would get into the ordinance? Such an item wouldn't be appropriate before the second reading, but after the second reading of the ordinance, once it's adopted, any Tuesday thereafter would work. Thank you for that. I appreciate that. The ordinance is not a while. It goes on the books after the second reading. It doesn't become effective until August 1st. So great. You can bring anything back after. The session, after the second reading. Wonderful. And one of the items that we talked about in detail when I met with you and also when I met with city management today, was around the one pager that we, the city, would be drafting, that landlords would be required to provide to tenants. Can you walk through that one more time for us and just some of the things that would be in there so that we can make sure that both landlords feel like they have something that protects them in getting out a bad tenant and tenants have information that protects them to move forward with legal action. Councilwoman. First and foremost, we would have to summarize the ordinance so that it was readable by both tenants and landlords. We would spell out the process in detail and we would include information on our website. In addition to that one pager. But but that would ideally would help both tenants and owners navigate the ordinance. So I know city attorney, when we spoke, you were able to give me some more specifics about what you wanted to have included in there? I think it's in the ordinance, but just for community members that are here, if we could. Well, yeah, there's one other one other clarification. Part of the motion on April 2nd was to include information. And I think it may have been in you one of your your substitute, if I recall correctly. And I think there were two things needed to be included information to each tenant about the availability of renters insurance, information to all tenants, about the possibility that their landlords could report on time payment of rent to credit rating agencies, and that would become part of their credit score. That is not in the ordinance, but we intend, based on your motion and direction, to put that into that one pager. Great. I appreciate that. I also wanted to make sure that the legal language is in that one, that tenants legally know that they can go forward if they do not receive reflow, and that that's included in the one pager. And that landlords will have spelled out that if as defined in the ordinance, if someone is a bad tenant, that they have the ability to take action without a very long, drawn out process before they get to court. Thank you. That's what I wanted to clarify. One other thing I wanted to mention is I do feel like this is a balanced approach for those mom and pop landlords. We made sure to include a mom and pop. Exclusion. We've lowered the original amounts as proposed by staff. Staff originally proposed that landlords pay an additional fee for seniors, and that is included that the council will create their own fund. We still have to fund that, but the Council will do that. And so we have really not tried to split the baby on those things, but figure out where the government can can play their role and where landlords can play there. So I'm really proud of the step that the council is taking today. I think it's important that we take the vote tonight, move forward, and we can come back and make sure that we have a little bit more time to kind of finesse some of those other details. But I'm pleased where we're at. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember. Councilmember Richardson. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So it's been a it's been a long evening. I want to thank all of you who've come out time and time again on this issue to speak with us. I'm tired. I know that you're tired. And so we won't take a lot of time speaking this evening. Want to lift up the last young lady who spoke who said, you know, we've you know, every time we come, it's sort of the same two factions are never going to completely agree. We understand that. That's why we have to not be confused about what it is we're doing tonight. We asked city staff to prepare this ordinance as defined by the motion, that one, and that's what city staff brought forward. And so I'm supportive of what was brought forward tonight. I think that I appreciate that there were some you know, a lot of feedback has come in, but I want to lift up two letters that I think made a lot of sense to me or some recommendations that made a lot of sense to me. The whole first reading, second reading. This allows us to get feedback and figure out how best to tweak it. So there is an opportunity, I believe, to move forward with this tonight, but take some of this feedback that we've received and make this ordinance better. So just to raise up some of them, I'm looking at this this everyone home task force letter signed by a number of community leaders, from clergy to community members, and the three things that were asked were already raised by the last two speakers. And I think that that makes sense. I think the idea that, you know, someone gets a portion of their the reload at some point and then the second part would come at turn in the moment you turning your key that that kind of makes sense. And this conversation that I know that there's always a risk. But at the same time, we do know that the landlord also holds a deposit. So there is something to back it up if 50% of that is is sort of taken. So, you know, there's always a little bit of trust on both ends on who's going to do the right thing about money. So so I understand that. So that's something that I think makes sense. I'm supportive of doing in some other iteration. This these clean this clean up. Now, it seems like it's reasonable about removing the the, you know, wording that's not consistent with state law. I think that makes sense. I think some of the the things that are raised up by some of the landlord groups, you know, I think there's something we can do there. So particularly this conversation about, you know, I think the trigger of rent remains in place. I think the 10% rent remains in place. I think the trigger on if you're being displaced because they're turn around the property makes sense. And then if you're relocating someone with a 60 day notice for no reason at all, give them a little bit more. Heads up in, Lou. I think that makes sense. That came up last time in the conversation. I said if it's legal, if it's feasible, that's something I'm open to. So I'll reiterate that tonight. But I don't think that's something I think we should pass the ordinance as written and then bring it forward sometime in the next few months. There's there's you know, one other thing. This conversation of switching from, you know, 4 to 4 plus, there are simply just too many for Plex's to exclude that . I'm not comfortable with that. I did lift up res up the conversation about the mom and pops and there were some, you know, good conversation that's happened since then about expanding that definition of mom and pop. I'm open to that. I'm completely open to expanding the definition of mom and pop. If someone is buying a duplex or two duplexes, I mean, four plex or two, four plex is. I completely get it. Those are some of the only opportunities you have as a residential person to use conventional financing to to buy for plex. That just that makes sense to me. So I'm okay with having another look at the mom and pop provision. But I think the integrity of the ordinance that's in front of us is what I support. That's what that's what garnered six votes last time. That's what I'm going to be supporting tonight. And I'll just say I'm open to where if if there are councilmembers that feel like this needs to get a little bit better. If we're talking about within the framework of the five things we just mentioned, I'm willing to, you know, in the next few months work together on item to help tighten it up. But it's important to me that that, you know, we've heard a lot of things take place in the last few weeks of people being displaced. And so I don't want to delay that process. I think people need benefits as soon as possible. And this ordinance in front of us provides that. And so I will encourage the Council for us to support this tonight. And we work together to see what we can do to adjust it in the future. Thank you. Thank you, Counsel. Thank you, Councilwoman Pryce. Thank you. I want to thank everyone who came out tonight and everyone has passion for this topic on both sides. But one of the things that I'm getting a sense of is that there is an urgency to pass something tonight. I've heard things like, let's push it through. Things like there may be ways to tighten it up, but let's wait to do it in the next few months. This is a major, major policy change for the city of Long Beach. And I don't understand why it's not effective until August 1st anyway. So I don't understand why we wouldn't try to tighten it up tonight and vote on it on June the 11th. It still won't go into effect until August 1st. So I'm not really sure. Maybe there's something going on here that I don't know that somebody needs to to use this outside of this room for some benefit, I don't know. But the ordinance would not be in effect until August 1st anyway. So coming back on June the 11th really wouldn't put us behind in terms of this issue of displacement. Now, political win, that's a whole other issue. But the issue of displacement, this law would not be in effect until August 1st. So I would I would recommend that we take the time tonight to have a conversation about what tightening it up looks like and what people are open to, and add that as an amendment and ask the city attorney's office to come back with a recommendation that not while not everyone will like, we'll be a little bit more in line with what good policymaking for the city would be, because we're all in agreement tonight, even if we vote on it, that it's not where we want it to be. So I'm not sure why we would vote on an ordinance that we're all saying is not where it needs to be. I don't understand that. But if there is but if there's people out there who feel like that's a huge political win for whoever votes yes tonight, for an ordinance that they're agreeing as they're voting yes, is not the full policy for a major policy change regarding displacement. Then, you know, I guess we all have a different definition of of what progress is. But I think what I would like to do is continue to hear from my colleagues regarding this idea of adding in some amendments that we agree with or maybe not agree with, but having that discussion and coming back on June the 11th for a first reading. I also want to reiterate that there are three triggers under this ordinance that. Put relocation fees into play. The triggers regarding a rent increase I have zero issue with. I think that's a very fair trigger. The trigger regarding a major rehab and relocation being necessary. I have no trouble with the trigger that I have trouble with that. I already stated at the last meeting and I'll reiterate today is the 30 to 60 days notice still triggering relocation? Because there are many situations where a landlord should, in my opinion, have the control and the freedom to be able to to determine the type of living spaces they're creating for the other tenants. And right now, as it is, unless it's one of the enumerated sections under state law, they cannot get rid of a tenant. So if the tenant is doing something that's detrimental to the other tenants, that's short of one of the enumerated sections in the state code that landlord has to pay a penalty to ask them to leave. This is just cause eviction because we're asking the the landlord to pay a penalty. We, we can't say, oh, sure you can, you can let them go in just cause eviction. You can't let them go in our statute. You can let them go with a penalty. That's still a deterrent to being able to exercise your rights as a landlord. So I think it's an it's an intellectually dishonest to say that it is something other than a ban from being able to exercise your rights because. Yes, right. But you have to pay a penalty. And that, I think, is not fair. And so that's the one that I don't like. And that's something that I feel if we had more time as a council, I really think we could reach some resolution on that. I really do. And I would vote for this in a heartbeat if we could find some resolution on that trigger. So that's where I'm at on this topic. And again, I thank my colleagues for coming forward with their thoughts. It is a passionate issue. We're going to have to agree to disagree. My request would be for more time for us to be able to put in some of the suggestions that were made by some of the advocacy groups. I think those were great suggestions. The tenants advocacy groups. I think there were some great suggestions. Why wouldn't we put those in tonight? I'd vote for them on some of them. So that's where I'm at. Okay. Thank you. Next, guys, please. Thank you. Next up is Councilmember Herring. Thank you, Mary. You know, I really have a lot of respect for my colleague from the second district. But however, everything we do, whether it's a yes vote or a no vote, is political. Everything we do is political. And everything that we do is going to have one effect or another, whether it's on the right side or the left side, whether it's affirmation or a negative, it's political. What we do here, we get elected by people to do a job. And because we are here to do a job, we really have to lay this over and talk about it a lot. And, you know, this is not a new issue. This this has been an issue that's been. Going on for a great. Number of years. Getting here to tonight is not something that just happened in April. And we're here with an audience tonight. It's been a long time in the making, so I'm very supportive of the motion on the floor. One question in terms of the the senior financing that was discussed earlier, I think Council Councilmember Jenny Pierce brought it up. Is there a timeline for that? Is there a plan? It's really an action that we can take forward. But what can we do with that, if anything? Yes. So, Councilmember, we reported back to you based on the direction that we got. So if you remember, the council considered a number of options of how to do senior or senior or disabled payments and chose to look at the city fund rather than putting that on the landlord . So we provided some information in order to from forum. And it really is it comes down to money. So what we have outlined is that we try to estimate how many people might be eligible that are living in housing. And when said, if 1% of those people or up to 5% of those people would need to use this fund going forward on an annual basis, what would that cost be? And so we came up with a cost of about $600,000 if one person, a 1% would use it, and up to $2.5 million if it was that 5% every year. So we're really kind of looking for direction from the council. We don't have those funds identified, given that there's an ongoing shortfall that we're dealing with. And therefore, at 20 budget, we can continue to look for funding sources. But or it can you can go a different route either tonight or in the future. So we'd be looking for direction. Thank you very much. And I was looking down the down the day I met third district colleague, not second. So but thank you for being here. Civic engagement is very important because you tell us what you're saying, what you're thinking, and we need to know what you're thinking. Thank you very much here. Okay. Thank you. Next up is Councilman Mongo. Thank you. City Attorney. I know that the current. Timeline is before us. Would you be open to communicating. What that current timeline is if it were to pass tonight and then. My understanding is. If it were to pass on first reading tonight, maybe I should just say what my understanding is. My understanding is if it were passed at first reading tonight, the second reading would be June 11th with an implementation date of August 1st. That's correct. If we were to make some substantive changes tonight, the first reading. Would be June 11th with the second reading. June 18th with an implementation date of August 1st. That's correct. So it sounds. Like we're all on the same. Page, that there are some challenges with the ordinance. And that we're all on the same page, that we want it implemented August 1st. And so I'm going to try to bring some things into. I think we all agreed on Mr. Anthony. On our previous council meeting. We discussed an item that was. Determined. In a memo. You sent out to be legal in the case that. I've spoken with some tenants and some landlords and both were in agreement, that time's the biggest barrier is not financial. Oftentimes the biggest barrier to finding a new place is time because there are challenges. Related to availability. There's a very, very low rental inventory available. And so I had asked whether or not a a. Friendly amendment of a six month. 180 day noticing would be possible. I know that at the time the motion was being handled by Councilmember. Richardson and there was. Concerns about legality. But I believe that you made an opine on that. Yeah, that's right. If the council were to adopt a provision which allowed a landlord not to pay relocation, if they gave six months notice to a tenant of their intent to terminate tenancy, that would be legal. Wonderful. Then I'd like to make a substitute motion to include my. Original friendly amendment. This would still mean that the first reading would be on June 11th. Or would that be able to be included tonight without a substantive change? No, that's a substantive change. Great. So the first reading of that item, which you've already determined to be legal, would be on June 11th with the second reading on June 18th, and there would be no impact to the implementation. We would still be able. To implement this and help renters. Effective August 1st. Thank you. I appreciate your work on that. I know this was an extremely. Hard lift for you and your office to get back to us very quickly. I appreciate the hard work done on that. I had thought that my friendly amendment asked the legal language to be available and as an option tonight. And that it wouldn't have had to have been a new first reading. And I apologize for that. But I'm also open to friendly amendments from my colleagues on both sides of the issue to make it more agreeable to everyone. And so I'm open to hearing more from my colleagues. Next up is council member not. Okay. I would like to add to that. So technically, this would be a substitute substitute motion that we add the change from 4 to 5 units. What we're calling the 4 to 5. I'm not sure I'm clear on exactly what that means. Could you could you provide some more detail on what part of the ordinance is switching from 4 to 5? Okay. Page three, subsection H. But the vernacular we're using is the threshold being I'm sorry to use the shorthand, but the five units as opposed to four. Got it. So. So the tenant relocation payment regime would completely exempt four unit buildings. Correct. Okay. And otherwise that motion was everything that council member Mungo's motion was the sub sub now added that change to 8.97.0 20h. I think it's, it's clear to me what the sub sub is on the floor. Hopefully it is to everybody else. I think I think I think that's a subset subsub. So we have a sub sub on the floor. Let me just keep going down the line. Next up is Vice Mayor Andrew's comment. Yes. Thank you, Mayor. You know, I've been listening the most and I believe the most landlords are responsible and they're fair in their dealings with, you know, our tenants. But I also don't believe that that the tenant relocation measures, you know, are really rent control. You know, but under this ordinance, I think landlords will still be able to charge as much as they want, ask people to leave whenever they choose, subject to any lease agreement. The only difference in this is when people enforce the tenets to their tenants, the tenants that they're from, the convenience of, you know, landlords, that the lenders will have the financial assistance of tenants and their relocations. So further, this ordinance will only apply to the narrow number of situations such as mass eviction, high rental increase. People are asked to leave because of the reason beyond their control and only in the rental for five units or more. This is a very, I think, situation. And the problem that we are having in seen in my district and across the city, I think too many residents have been, you know, evicted. But for reasons that landlords wish to raise rents beyond the capability of the current tenant to pay. And we've seen a lot of that. But the thing about it, I think a landlord you don't really see really very fair in a lot of these situations because I'm hoping that our tenants and landlords can, after we tweak a lot of this, will come together and try to find out because I think a lot of the individuals see what we're going through with this day and time. You know, they said we're going to have a massive eviction and we're going to have, you know, homelessness. But that could go either way. It just all depends the way individuals if you have a place that you're renting, I think you should be able to understand that is your place at that time. Take care of it. And I think a lot of these landlords, we don't really understand to keep the rent the way it is. I heard the individual say he hadn't raises rent in ten years. That's fine and dandy, but we would hope everybody else will understand because you guys realize everything is going up. And I'm hoping that tenants really seriously will understand that we have a responsibility, just like our landlords. And I'm definitely going to vote on this measure tonight, you know, because it'll be able to stabilize some of the enjoyment rent and increase on any other thing. So thank you very much. Next up, thank you, vice mayor. Next up is Councilman Austin. Thank you. I've been entertained by public comment here this evening and I learned a few things. So thank you very much and also with my colleagues. I appreciate it. Councilmember Granger's comments regarding truth in politics and sometimes, you know, that gets confused in reality. You know, people want us to tell the truth. But if the the the truth is and what they want to hear is not the truth. So there there there's been much discussion about this issue, a lot of public comment for for several months. But what I've heard here tonight from both sides is that this this before us is not perfect. I've heard from my colleagues that, hey, we want to make it better. I've heard staff compliment it for, you know, bringing this council, this this item to council at like a rapid pace. I don't think I've ever seen a item with this this gravity come back so quickly. And so they should be commended for their their work on this. Obviously, they're taking it very seriously and understanding that this is an issue that is important to not only this council, but the entire a lot of people in this city on one side or the other. I want to be reminded of our goal here. The goal was to provide a tenant relocation policy, but also protect tenant tenant protections. Right. And what it was one of the the the individuals who council members who voted to bring this or this policy to to the city attorney's office for for drafting , but also expressed some reservations about it, because I expressed it that I wasn't completely comfortable with what was in front of us. There were a number of questions posed to city staff during that last meeting a month ago. Right. And then the last couple of days we received answers to those questions. Right. One was regarding the impact on on cost of Hawkins. Another was regarding the legalities of creating a a an extended noticing from 60 days to 180 days as an option to tenant relocation. And and those answers, I think, have. Merit in terms of the policy that we're looking at tonight. They're significant in terms of impacting the policy. I think some of the points raised by the Legal Aid Foundation and some of the tenant rights activists or advocates were duly noted in terms of the the when the relocation payment is actually made. That is that's significant and I think should be massaged through this process. I'm not completely, again, comfortable with what's in front of us, but I do support I will say I do support the and I do with the second on the motion to provide an option in terms of a 180 day notice. I think that is is fair. And I think it does add an element of protection for for our our our tenants. I'm a little disappointed that this policy before us also came back empty. On disabled the benefits for the extended benefits for the disabled and elderly. Because when I signed on to this as an initial cosigner on this issue several months ago, that was a priority, kind of lay it out and for us to come back empty on that is disappointing. It also sends a message that it's okay for for for for the burden to be on you, but not for us, except on our end of the burden. I thought that was an excellent, excellent addition. I think it was a creative point. I think Councilmember Pearce brought that forward. But I think we need to to really show our commitment as a city council to making this policy whole and in protecting and creating extra protections for those who are disabled and elderly. Our seniors are are vulnerable. Those with disabilities are most vulnerable. And I know that that was a a foundation of the policy that we set to create. The timing, I think, is is unique for for a lot of reasons. I personally don't know that that moving this two weeks is going to be a big difference. And in understanding that staff went and made significant changes, put together a policy in one month. I think the additions could certainly be be worked out in the next couple of weeks. And so my my objective is to make sure that we come out with a good policy, a well, big policy. If you put a put a. A cake in the oven and you take it out early. You don't have a good cake. So I think you have to to make sure that we bake this fully. And one thing that this continues to continue to struggle with, I know that we're going to create some and I want to say ten protections. We will create a policy that will trigger relocations if if if anybody or property or landowners landlords abuse. But at the same time, I think the question that keeps kind of bugging me is, does this policy make housing in Long Beach more affordable? And I'm not sure that that that it does. And we still are going to continue to have substantive and ongoing conversations about this issue moving forward. I know. So on with that. Those are my comments and I look forward to taking this to a vote. Councilmember Councilman Price. Thank you. I appreciate all the comments. I want to to just comment on the the point about everything being political. I have deep, deep respect for my colleagues. But I will say this is local politics, which is supposed to be mostly about doing good for the community and focusing on community needs that are very specific. And so we are. All. Talk and I get it, everything is political. I completely agree with them. I have nothing but respect like in District seven, but I do hear that a lot is that everything is political, but it's true. But what we do as a city council is we're setting policy that involves day to day lives of people on both sides of this particular issue. And so we have to look at factors like the fact that Councilman Austin just said there was an aspect of the item that's not even included in today's ordinance and we're going to vote on it tonight is is surprising to me because we had a long debate and we tried to listen to all the stakeholders. So my recommendation is, is that we we wait. I'm going to be supporting the subsub and the sub. The one thing that I will ask my colleague who's made the sub sub council. There are two things that I would like to ask you to consider as a friendly for the sub sub. And the first is that the tenant should not have to notify the tenant that they are staying. I mean, the landlord that they are staying. I think that is a fair request, and I would ask if you would consider that friendly. Okay. And then what's the second? The second one is that the landlords would have to notify the tenants of their rights to relocation. Okay. So those are intercepted. Hold on a second. Ordinance already requires the landlord to notify the tenant of their rights. I think without putting words in your mouth, I think what you're getting at is that failure to provide such notice should be an affirmative defense to eviction. Is that right? Yes, I think that was one of the requests that the tenant organizations made. And I think that's very fair. That's correct. Yeah. I anything on the disabled there. Oh. And that we include the disabled provision that Councilman Austin had asked for and made as an issue when we last discussed this. That didn't make it into the current ordinance. I'm. Well, that shouldn't be in the ordinance unless you're proposing that the apartment owners fund that, which I don't think is what you're proposing. That's a city funded program that wouldn't be in an ordinance. It would just be at the direction of the council. So would that still be included tonight or are we not voting? Voting on. That? Not voting on that. Okay. So we couldn't vote on that tonight anyway because that's not agenda. That's right. Understood. Okay. Thank you. So. So there's two friendly amendments. I think I understand them. You're good with them. Mover, council member. Both. Both accepted. And I assume that the since the secondary was Councilwoman Pryce. You're good with them as well. Okay. Yes. As amended. Okay. Thank you. Consumer prices. Anything else? Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Councilmember Richardson. Thank you. I initially cued up to highlight that point that was just highlighted that when we initially brought up the conversation about the disabled program and the senior program, it was that we intentionally said we wanted to keep it separate so there wouldn't be discrimination on the part of landlords on who they're going to, you know, lease to seniors or disabled, but that the city would create a program and not place that burden on the landlords. So I'm glad that was clarified. I also want to say that, you know, the perfect should not be the enemy of the good. This is a good ordinance in front of us. It's good enough to pass today, and we can always improve on every single ordinance on the books. The question for me is did staff do what we asked them to do? When we made this motion. And they did. And that's what's in front of us. And we voted for that with an expectation that this is what's going forward. Now, we've learned that there are some pieces that we didn't give direction on and it wasn't clarified. So. So the city attorney's office clarifying on some of it, like when the relocation is paid, we didn't give direction on that. And that's a tweak that we can do later, but by no means should we slow down the process of moving forward. So in my opinion, what we should do tonight, what we should do tonight. I've already said that I am willing to work with council members on both sides to bring forward something, something different, you know, a tweak from both sides of the issue. Right. To come together and address some cleanup because it will it's not something it's something that will need a little bit of fine tuning. The angel is in the details and I will do that work over the next month or two to make to make it happen. But what I think we have tonight is an ordinance that's ready to go. It's ready to go. So I would encourage so I would encourage right now that we get back to the main motion that would be a no vote on the substitute substitute. A no vote on the substitute. And I vote on the motion that yes, motion. And the other thing is to assume and I'll just live in the room to assume that someone who has been a good ally and champion this issue, that they might want to actually vote on this. You know, Councilwoman Gonzalez, I think that's okay thing. Right. She's going to be elected to the Senate. And and to do that with this ordinance, I think it's okay. And we don't have to dance around it. I don't think we're shortchanging the process. We have plenty of time, you know, to have more conversations. But the ordinance today is it's an ordinance that's ready to the city attorney put his stamp on it already is ready to go. So I would encourage a no vote on the sub sub a no vote on the sub. And I vote on the main motion made by Councilwoman Gonzalez. Thank you. Councilman Austin. Thank you very much. I just wanted to to address the elephant in the room. And first of all, let me just say congratulations in advance to Councilmember Gonzalez for it. And what was that? The the and I don't know what the timeline is. You know, there will there will be we're dark on June 5th. Fourth. Okay. June the fourth. Yeah, I forgot the date. So we're dark on the fourth. There's no reason why we can't be here to to vote on this on the 11th. Right. Well, in the question is, Councilmember Gonzales, will you be here on the 11th? Keep. Maybe that's a question. Mr. Mayor, can I can I pose that question to my colleague? Yeah. I mean, I don't know the answer to that. Do you plan to be here on the 11th? Here? I will be here on the 11th. But I would like to move this forward today. Right. So I would just like to say. I think that that's. Either way, Councilmember Gonzalez will have an opportunity to vote on this, whether or not we we work to fine tune this with the motions on the floor. And and I will just tell you, you know, I've been in tricky situations. I've understood how these votes go. I will not be voting no on any of the items before me, because that's always twisted against you in the truth of politics. Excuse me. Just excuse me. Okay. Well, thank you. We had the first vote. Right now is a is the sub sub, which is council member supervised motion. So it's councilmember supervised motion. Please cast your votes. Guys. We got it. Thank you. I'm. Push and fail. Okay. Thank you. The. The next. The next motion is the substitute motion, which is Councilman Mango motion. So this is the councilwoman mongo motion. Motion fail. Okay. And the last the last motion is the main motion, which is the Lina Gonzalez motion. How many? Motion carries. Great. Thank you very much. We are we're we're we're going to go ahead and. Thank you, Renee. We still have a little bit of the meeting left, so please, people can just please exit quietly. Would appreciate that. Thank you very much.