Recommendation to request City Manager conduct a feasibility study on Public Banking in Long Beach. This study should explore a possible partnership with the County of Los Angeles as they consider a regional public banking program. (Citywide)
Mr. two District 3i4, five, six, seven, eight, nine. Motion carries and the appeal is denied. Thank you very much for that. That concludes all three hearings. We are now going to move. I said we would get as close to 630 as possible on item 22. We still have two items in between them. I do these very, very quickly. I mean, item 20, Madam Clerk, if you could please read. Communication for Mayor Garcia Recommendation to request City Manager to conduct a feasibility study on public banking in Long Beach City Wide. Thank you. I'm just. Just just to be brief. Earlier this last year, the California state legislature passed Assembly Bill 857, which is the Public Banking Act. It was signed by Governor Gavin Newsom and included support from both State Senator Lena Gonzalez and Assembly member Patrick O'Donnell. That information is attached to the item and the bill, which really began as a grassroots effort by numerous community members and advocates and activists across the state. It would encourage and provide a road map for cities to study and then possibly implement a public banking system in the state of California. For those that are been involved in these conversations, public banking is something that has been extensively studied. It exists in other other places across the country, but is not active here in California. And many other municipalities and states are looking at this as a way of allowing folks to reinvest their hard earned dollars back into a public system versus into a system that is really set up to make profit for a bank or a financial system. The legislature, the legislature's intent is to which is to strengthen local economies and allow cities, municipalities, counties in the state to pump funds directly back into cities. Clearly, there are a lot of questions as it relates to public banking. The way it would work, the way cities would set up these these institutions, whether or not there would be county partnerships and how involved the state will be in this process. What the what the state legislature laid out in in the bill is that for cities to participate, they essentially have to go through a very stringent and extensive review process that includes a feasibility study and working with the state to see if it's even possible within their community. Some municipalities have already engaged in this work in the state of California. The state is own is also only providing a limited number of these kind of feasibility licenses annually. And so for Long Beach, it's an opportunity for us to begin our own study like it's happening in many cities in the state. And so we can get the information back and learn more about public banking and if it would be a fit for us as a community. Separate of that. I just personally want to say that I find public banking and the idea of public banking to be one of the great new innovations and probably one of the most innovative initiatives that municipalities and states can embark on in the future. When you think about some of the great public goods of of our country, whether it's public education, public transit, public libraries, these are systems that are set up for the public good. They're not set up to make a profit. And if there's any opportunity for us to reinvest people's hard earned labor in dollars back into a municipal or public financing system, that could have an impact not just on this community but across the country that in my in my opinion, could substantially change the way people invest their dollars back into their neighborhoods. So I'm very supportive of public thinking as an innovative idea for governments. I want to think this this isn't, you know, my proposal. This is something that's been developed by the community, by by activists up and down the state. They lobbied at the state legislature and got this done. And so I'm very happy to support that. There is a motion and a second on the floor before I go to them. I want to just do the public comment on this item. And so I have three members of five members of the public that are here. Please come forward as I call your name. Cicero. Medeiros, Snake can fee is Miss Cantrell and is Christiansen going to speak to this note? And Peter MATTHEWS, please come forward. Cesar Mendez. Welcome. And I'm the chair of our revolution, Long Beach, and I live in the third district. zipCode 90804. Today we take the first step in the process of creating our Long Beach Public Bank. I want to thank me, Robert Garcia, for putting this item on the agenda and for recommending that the city manager conduct a feasibility study on public banking in Long Beach. Over the past few years, activists across the country have been working through the state and city legislatures to establish local public banks. We're talking about Maine, Hawaii, Washington, Alaska, Arizona, Florida, New York, Illinois, D.C., New Jersey, New Mexico, Michigan and California. Blue and red states. There is a national movement of people wanting to take back our power from Wall Street and make our dollars work for our local economy. Cities across the country, including Long Beach, pay millions of dollars in fees, fines and interest rates to traditional private financial institutions who hold our money. Why don't we create our own public bank owned by us? The Long Beach residents in keep our tax money here in Long Beach to rebuild our infrastructure, fill in potholes, keep our libraries open and build affordable housing. Our Long Beach Public Bank can extend credit to our own city at a low interest rate. And when we pay back the bank, whatever profits the public bank makes, it is then reinvested back into the community. This is because, unlike private institutions, a public bank measured its returns and investments not only by profits, but also by its success in supporting our local community. A Long Beach Public Bank will partner with other local banks and nonprofit credit institutions to extend credit to our communities and expand services to the underbanked. It would enhance local bank and credit union activities, increasing lending capital for local businesses. A public bank would promote a transparent, independent and publicly governed finance system that is accountable to Long Beach residents. Unlike the private banks that crashed in 2008, a local be a Long Beach public bank will provide strong protections against insolvency of large banks in periods of economic duress. For me, most importantly, a public bank would create a stable means to divest public funds, our money and investments from banking organizations and industries that may not align with the values of our community. So, for example, a public bank will help us divest from the private banks who are using our city's money to invest in fossil fuel companies and projects that are destroying our climate, our planet, and my kids future. For these reasons, we urge you to support the recommendation to have the city manager conduct a feasibility study on public banking in Long Beach. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker. Please. Sunday, January. He's a good guy. We were saying. My name is. And I can feel. Born and raised in the sixth district. Born there because of, ironically enough, things like private banks and their hold on the community. I say that because, you know, there was an error, uh, where legally banks could, uh, practice a, uh, nationwide policy known as redlining. And so because of such things as that banks wouldn't give loans to returning guys like my great grandfather would fight for, you know, to save the world from oppression and fascism, only to come back and, you know, be forced to live in certain areas due to the not just due to the federal government's, you know, loans and who they giving them to, but also to who banks decide where you can live it. And so here I am. That being said, I'm in support of a public bank because, you know, it's imperative to us that we stop can we stop continuing to support and give our money to private banks who have done nothing but time and time? Excuse me. Excuse me. We have done nothing but time and time continue to, uh, you know, support the idea that they can discriminate against us. We have Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Chase not just being, uh, recipients of. Of the slave trade, but also have been sued multiple times by the federal government for predatory lending and lending discrimination. Just recently, a year ago, Wells Fargo was fined over $300 million by the federal. Excuse me, sorry. I can't hear it from here, but there's conversations going on out there. Please allow the speaker to speak. Thank you. Actually. Please allow the speaker to speak. Thank you. As I was saying, the federal government, they just sued Wells Fargo not just a year ago for discriminatory lending, discrimination towards black and Latino potential black and Latino homeowners in the in the city of Sacramento who were not only denied loans, but also were found to give continue to begin higher interest rates for the loans that they were given at a frequency of 2.8 times the average white loan applicant. So why are we going to continue as a city to allow these people to bank in our city? I'm completely in support of the public bank. One aside that I would like to see in the study would be that, you know, if you look at low income areas in the city, if we can push for more branches in these areas in the sixth District, there's no credit unions that exist in the sixth District, no branches there. And the only branches that do exist are the bigger private banks, which have, you know, limits that most people in these areas can't even afford. A $3,000 membership rate is something that's not feasible for a lot of these people. So if that could be also included. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you very much. That concludes Peter Mathews here. Peter, Matt, is Peter Mathews here? No. Okay. So I'm going to go ahead then and go to the council. Councilman Richardson. Country councilman's in Vegas. Anything? Yes. I just want to say that I'm excited to see the results of this study. I think this is a right step in the right direction. Thank you. And Consumer Reports. Strong support of this item. I did have a question on timing because I know when we talked, there's kind of a cursor, a very quick kind of glance at what needs to happen. Mr. Marika? Yes. So I don't have a timeline yet. I think we're. This is a brand new concept. This is something that is just getting going. We see this as a high level feasibility scan. So we understand the item. It's to understand what other what the law is, how it works, what other cities are doing, and then bring that back. I'm hoping it's not going to take too long. Maybe 90 days, 120 days. We'll give you an update on where we are, if it's going to really get into that high level feasibility or that deeper feasibility, that's where we're going to need, you know, much more resources. So this is a high level scan to begin with. Wonderful. Thank you. And just to be clear, though, it's going to be a study to meet the requirements laid out in the in the legislation. I just want to make sure that's very clear. Okay. And then with that and I. Clarify that, sir. So does that mean that we're moving forward and doing public banking in the law? That's that's not that's not the legislation requires a feasibility study that would then come back to the council. And so we want to make sure that as part of the study process and I understand that there will be check ins. And if we need to spend additional resources to do the study that does come back to the council. I understand the way that works, but just the motion itself is to conduct the feasibility study as laid out in the legislation. There's a motion and a second. Please cast your votes. District one. District two. District three. Yes. District four I. District five I. District six. District seven. I. District eight. District nine. Great motion carries. And then I know we're going to quickly do item 2001 and then we're going to go to item 22. We're almost there.