Recommendation to direct City Manager to work with all appropriate departments to report back within 180 days on piloting an innovative citywide Clean Parks restroom facilities initiative to address resident concerns and improve the cleanliness, accessibility, and use standards of our public park restroom facilities.
And so we price. Motion is carried. Thank you. Item 32, please. Item 32 Communication from Councilwoman Mongeau Councilwoman Allen Councilman Super Now Recommendation to direct City Manager to report back with 180 days on piloting an innovative citywide clean parks restroom facilities initiative. Thank you, Councilman Mongo. Thank you. Throughout the region, cities have been tackling the public restroom issue differently and starting six or seven years ago, when I was first elected, we had park bathroom issues within our parks, adjacent to our sports fields and other areas where the ability to keep them clean throughout the day was just impossible. The volume of participants in our programs, the growth of the programs now as the environment has changed after hours has become challenging in many cities throughout the region have just shut down bathrooms, as have some of the community parks in our city that we just can't keep a handle on. We've tried multiple things. We've staffed bathrooms where we would lock them at night. Staff that were requested to go out and do those lock ups were often threatened and put in harm's way. We need a better solution. So my staff pulled up some pilot programs across the region that include new technology of bathrooms that have floors that are sensitive to when a person is using it. It only allows people to be in the bathroom for a limited amount of time, that amount of time necessary to use the facilities for how they were intended and not other uses. The door then opens automatically so that other types of activities cannot be held in these facilities. And then when the doors closed again without wait on the floor of the bathroom itself cleans. And so these potentially could be a solution to provide bathrooms. Many know that families often choose to use certain parks and park playgrounds and sports facilities based on the ability of their children to use facilities. And when you have a little one, it's important that they get to use a bathroom regularly. And occasionally you might have to make an exception where you allow them to perhaps pee on the grass. But you'd prefer that not be the case because you don't want that to be another type of issue that can't arise. So we would like to experiment and find some solutions for the many park bathrooms across our city. Many know that when I was budget chair I asked for funding to be set aside if there was additional measure that came in specifically for rehabilitation and solutions for park bathrooms. At a subsequent meeting, staff brought back alternatives to spend the money on that was approved by the council, which was disappointing. But I think that this needs to be a priority and I think a unanimous vote tonight will demonstrate that this council is behind ensuring that there are safe and clean places for our kids and communities to utilize in our parks. Thank you. I hope I have everyone's support. Thank you. Councilman Sabrina. I'm supporting the same as I am. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Price. Thank you. This is a great item, and I thank my colleagues for bringing it forward. And I thank Councilwoman Manzo and her staff for doing that research on some of the innovative ways that cities are using technology to make sure the bathrooms are clean. This is a super important topic right now because we have a lot of residents who are avoiding going to certain parks and definitely avoiding using the restrooms because of the condition of the restrooms. And we want to make sure that that doesn't continue to happen. Also, I know that we do have some bathrooms that we have had in the past, some bathrooms that stay open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and they start to create a nuisance issue if they are not cleaned regularly and things are left in there that are dangerous to the people that are using the bathroom who are park users. So I want to make sure that we're sensitive to that. If we're not able to maintain a bathroom in a park, my philosophy is that we shouldn't have that bathroom open. We really need to make sure that we're maintaining the bathroom in a way that's safe for everyone and all users, and that we're not creating a space where people are spending extended amounts of time and depositing things that might be dangerous to someone that might stumble upon it. So I really support this item. I think it's a good quality of life type item because our parks are wonderful. We're always talking about how we enhance our parks and our park programing, but if we don't have clean facilities for people to use, they're going to be disincentivized or deterred from going to use the city facilities. So I want to thank my colleagues for bringing this item and I will be supporting it. Thank you, Councilman Allen. Thank you. Thank you very much, Councilwoman Mongo, for including me on this item and just allowing us to collaborate. And Councilwoman Pryce, I agree with everything that you just said. As the item states, public restrooms are necessary and they are for everyone. But we need to make sure that they're clean and they're safe and they're not monopolized by any one group. I know that we are seeking to include some new and helpful technologies on our new build restrooms, but we need to strategically look at how can we retrofit our existing locations as well. So I just look forward to working with staff on this item. Thank you very much. Thank you. Councilwoman in the House. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Again, thank you, Councilwoman Mongo, for bringing this item forward. And I couldn't agree more with my fellow colleagues up here on the dais in regards to the restrooms that we have in our parks. I think that they need to be extremely clean, extremely safe, because the purpose of having the restrooms in our parks is for them to be able to be used. And when they are filthy, when they are used in appropriately, it doesn't help anyone. So I'm really looking forward to that. And I was hoping that maybe during this pilot program also that we look into those those parks that are smaller, that don't have a restroom on site. So that might be something we could probably look at, too. And I really, really am excited about exploring the technology that could help us maintain the restrooms, because I do think that it's a big responsibility for us to be able to maintain the restrooms that we do have in these parks. So I welcome that opportunity. So thank you again for that. Thank you, Councilman Mongo. Thank you. Just to piggyback on the comments of my colleagues, we have a lot of bathrooms that have a lot of need. And when we did the infrastructure documentation, we're talking about millions upon millions of dollars that we need just to retrofit and fix the plumbing, much less the the looks and feels of a lot of the parks through the years. One of my staff members and I have gone through seven or eight iterations of solutions, including code base doors. They're open. I know Councilman Price and I both have code based gates on other types of facilities that allow community members and others to access them. Those have not been possible in a lot of our facilities. And then kind of piggybacking on the comments of our 3:00 meeting and our study session, I think we really need to undergo and I think Dennis and I have talked about this for about six months, an understanding of Parks Master Plan, our community pocket parks, including some in my district, don't have bathrooms. And and what what is the the standard that we talk about and furthermore. What is the standard timeline for when something is stolen out of a bathroom, like a sink or a toilet seat or all of the toilet paper or any of those things? And what does that replenishment time and what are the tools that community members can use? Should there be QR codes on the bathroom where you can QR code and let the city know that we're out of toilet paper, we're out of soap? Kyle on my team when he came on as an intern, used to on Saturday mornings, go around to all the bathrooms that were used by all the leagues and stock them with toilet paper and soap and replace toilet covers that were stolen during the night. And we spent a considerable amount of money and time and resource and effort to get that started and for leagues to take that on. But those people change over time, and a lot of those parks are now without toilet seats or without toilet paper, and it's very challenging for parents. So I look forward to this and thank you all for your support. Thank you for all your comments. Thank you. At my support, I think it's important across the whole city. I think, you know, I can remember some very, very ugly situations in some of the parks and park restrooms throughout the years. So technology always presents an opportunity to look at it from fresh eyes. So I'm happy to support this item. A public comment on this. There is one public comment on this, Mr. Franklin Sims. Members. I'd like to thank counsel. For this agenda item. It really brings. Us back to the basics for our forgotten working families in Long Beach. When I first became a Long Beach dad to a little girl, the Long Beach Park bathrooms were really my biggest learning curve. It's hard enough being a dad, taking a little girl. And last night there to the bathroom. Well, last week I talked to a local mom who takes a who like today she takes large trash bags to our local park with her because my her little girl has to go. She's forced to create a makeshift toilet. You know, there are Red Cross refugee camps that have better facilities standards. And it teaches a civics lesson to our kids at an impressionable, impressionable age that this is what they should expect and what they deserve from our city. And it's not. Recently I've. Been visiting. Parks across the city, and when they're not locked, I go inside the park bathroom. Neither what I've seen or the odor are something appropriate for me to describe in such polite company. And while this agenda item narrowly focuses on clean bathrooms. When I visited the parks, what I see is that the bathrooms are a symptom of the problem. But the root of the problem is our homelessness crisis. So now over the past five years, $122 million has gone through the hands of our Homelessness Service Bureau. That's a lot of money for my neighbor and her young daughter to have to be humiliated in our public park restrooms. Or for my family just last week at a Bixby Knolls park to have to watch a homeless man take the number two in a park trash can in front of a. Child and mother. So this agenda item calls for the city manager. To return with a clean bathroom plan and 180 days. I'm sorry. If you're a parent taking a child to a bathroom, it's urgent. And six months is just too long for a plan and six months, I think we ought to have a concrete action because we've already waited for too many years. My daughter's in middle school now. So and we're going to keep waiting until people rise up and tell you, like I'm telling you that we're tired of it. And this isn't about just clean bathrooms. It's about cleaning up our act when it comes. To decency and family values that ought to be top priority. I know a lot of you are and agree with me because you're parents, too. So I thank you for the agenda item and thank you for the time and space. Members, please cast your vote. Motion is carried.