Recommendation to conduct a Budget Hearing to receive and discuss an Overview of the Proposed Fiscal Year 2015 Budget for the following: Department of Health and Human Services, Public Works Department, and Water Department.
Thank you, Mary Garcia. The recommendations conduct a budget hearing on the 2015 budgets for the Departments of Health and Human Services, Public Works and the Water Department. Before I turn this over to Mr. West, we'll do this in the same format. We've done the other budget hearings. Mr. WEST. We'll go through we'll go through all the all the departments, and then we'll bring it back to the two questions for council, and then we'll open it up to the public. Mr. West Mayor, Councilmembers. This is just another one of our budget hearings regarding showcasing some of our departments. Tonight, you're going to hear from our Health and Human Services Department, our public works department and our water department. Our first stop is going to be the Health and Human Services Department with Director Kelly Collopy. If you could remove the slide. We wanted to highlight that. Originally, we attempt to have like Parks and Recreation, Library and Health and Human Services along with P.D. and Fire, because we considered these departments very tight with our public safety continuum. So we just want to know and let you know that Health and Human Services the department are going to hear from tonight. We're very, very, very closely with all aspects of PD and fire specifically and keeping people healthy, providing affordable housing in some cases, adding our Section eight certificates. They do, I believe, 7000 units a year serving 20,000 people in poverty. And in addition to that, our homeless population. So they're very, very important with our public safety continuum, working with PD and Fire. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Kelly. Good evening, honorable mayor and city council members. Thank you for this opportunity to share the Health and Human Services Department budget and priorities. We are one of the three city health jurisdictions in California with Pasadena and Berkeley. We are one of the lucky few with an account within a county of 10 million people. You have a department whose sole focus is to coordinate over $116 million from outside sources, bringing best practice, innovative services and over 300 employees committed to improving the health of your city. It allows for local focus and local control of resources to support city goals and meet city needs. In addition, we are in a place to coordinate the many departments and services from Los Angeles County in a more integrated approach locally and in coordination with our local nonprofits and health care system. The Health and Human Services Department is a key player in the overall continuum of public safety in the city and considered one of the three legs of the emergency response triangle in partnership with police and fire. We work closely with city staff on emergency preparedness and response to ensure the public safety of our residents. We actively engage community members in preventing the spread of disease through public education workshops, clinical lab services and responding to natural and man made disasters. As a recognized health jurisdiction in the state, in partnership with the CDC and other California health departments, we are the key surveillance information and prevention hub for infectious diseases that can affect the health and safety of Long Beach residents. Our day to day Health and Human Services programing directly impacts the quality of life and public safety of the city of Long Beach. We address health through the lifespan from before birth until death. Creating opportunities for healthier families and neighborhood environments by increasing access to health opportunities. In addition, we work collaboratively with various departments and community partners to create an integrated health systems approach to provide a wide array of services. Our core services are promoting and encouraging healthy, active living through health, education, immunizations, testing and treatment programs for families and their children and services to seniors to improve the quality of life. We ensure safe, physical environments by testing the city's recreational waters, doing restaurant inspections and training, hearing, load testing, mosquito abatement, disease surveillance and prevention and emergency and disaster preparedness and response. We also improve access to healthy, active living by supporting families with housing assistance, outreaching to homeless populations for housing placement and supportive services, expanding community gardens and neighborhood fitness zones, and expanding health coverage to the underinsured and the uninsured. Our accomplishments this year. We have over 30 programs and many accomplishments. So this is just a sample of the many things that we've achieved this year. First of all, we provided safe and affordable housing to approximately 21,000 residents and nearly 7000 units in the city of Long Beach. We were recognized in the American Diabetes Association Education Program. The city of Long Beach as highly impacted by diabetes, with over 42,000 people in Long Beach having been diagnosed with diabetes and many more are undiagnosed . One in three hospitalizations are due to diabetes. Our department provides diabetes education in English and Spanish in a six weeks program. This recognition indicates we are a best practice site and we'll be working very closely with our health care providers as referrals so that we can support their patients and helping them manage their diabetes. We expanded access to nutrition and exercise citywide by reaching nearly 25,000 youth and their parents through programs such as Long Beach, Junior Runners, the Junior Champions Program, Harvest of the Month and Kill Zone in North Long Beach. We saw a reduction in infant mortality by 44% over ten years. This dramatic decline is as a result of the health department and their partners across all sectors. Our community working together to ensure that mothers have access to healthy food, engage in physical activity, and are linked to care and social services programs in the Health Department, including Nurse Family Partnerships, our work program and Black Infant Health. Among many, we were able to reduce the tobacco access rate among youth from 36% in 2009 to 7.8%, the lowest in history. This is done by the Health Department or the Environmental Health Bureau conducts routine inspections to ensure compliance with tobacco laws. We conducted 493 last year and we implement tobacco decoy operations where teenagers go in and try and buy tobacco products. And if they do sell them, then they're cited. We also provided over 23,000 clinical visits at the Health Department, and these include family planning, STD, HIV, tuberculosis and immunizations. We delivered nearly 18,000 immunizations last year, many of them free or at a reduced cost. And finally, it's not on the slide, but we held a public health conference this past year for over 400 people who are engaged in serving the health of our community. It was a huge hit, and we received a national award for our social media campaign, which highlighted our city's innovative use of technology. I proposed budget. Our budget is about $717 million of that. 77 million of it goes to housing authority to support low income housing in the community. It goes through housing vouchers. 38 million of it is from the health fund that the health fund is made up of re-alignment funds, which is vehicle licensing fees and sales tax, other fees and grants. About less than 1% of our department's budget comes from general fund. Our major changes for this year in the budget is really a focus on stabilizing our workforce and maximizing our grant funding. Almost all changes in our Health and Human Services budget are health related rather than general fund. A key focus is to ensure we have sufficient staffing to maximize our grant resources that we receive. This includes moving previously part time employees to full time and combining part time and non-career positions to provide full time positions. We realigned two positions to address the impact of Affordable the Affordable Care Act. Last year, nearly 2000 individuals received direct enrollment assistance from our department. We provided education outreach to another thousand individuals in the city. We extended hours and participated on weekends and fairs and an open hours. This extra capacity will help us when enrollment season opens again. The Health Department is also currently going through the National Public Health Accreditation Process, which ensures that our department is engaged in best practice in public health. To assist in this year long effort. We have created a vacant position to lead this effort as well as support ongoing implementation of our five year strategic plan. And finally, we added a chronic homeless initiatives coordinator who will coordinate local and regional entities to mitigate homeless encampment locations, manage the COG Homeless Initiative and the Downtown Homeless Connections Initiative, funded by the Hilton Foundation. This person will also lead the city's effort to track, monitor and respond to chronic homeless. Working with our quality of working with quality of life teams, the Met Teams and the DOJ. The funding for this position will be split between general fund and grant funding and approximately $49,000 each. Our issues and opportunities coming up. I had the opportunity to attend the mayor council retreat over the weekend and to hear about the vision for the city. What you described really is a healthy city. In addition, you focused on collaboration as a mechanism to achieve it. Each of the departments you've heard from so far. Plus Public Works, Development, Service and Workforce have been engaged in collaborative planning to build the health of our city together. We'll also be engaging in conversations and planning with many community partners who are engaged in supporting our city's health. And we look forward to engaging you in this conversation as well. Our Continuum of Care received the unified funding agency status, which will allow for greater flexibility in local resources targeting to address homeless. We are one of only two nationally to receive this designation. The other being Columbus, Ohio. This is seen as a national best practice and they're actually turning to us to help them organize it and figure out how to. Move it forward. Health and wellness. Health and wellness really includes being physically and mentally healthy. We're seeking to expand mental health opportunities in the city through work with new funding sources and partners. In addition, we're working to integrate mental health services into our clinical services to improve the likelihood that people will access them. We've been participating in a pilot with Mental Health America as an integrated service model, and the early results are promising. We're looking to seek we're seeking to continue this model moving forward. Another key issue for us is improving the coordination of local data systems. There are many data systems in many organizations related to health in our city. However, the data are not coordinated and they're not easily accessed across our system. The stymies effective planning and Coordination of Service. The Health Department is planning to implement a common database to track health indicators in the city. In addition, we'll be working closely with our partners to ease data, access for planning, coordination and reporting. In other issues, return is reducing health disparities in our diverse neighborhoods. Research indicates the social determinants of health such as poverty, trauma, safety, education, employment have a significant impact on individuals and communities. In Long Beach, we have neighborhoods who are heavily impacted by social issues that are struggling with their ability to improve their health overall. A key challenge for us with our partners is providing the same opportunity for health in all of our neighborhoods. And finally, identifying sustained funding for our services. 84 7% of our resources come from federal, state and local grants management. Department of Programs. With grant funding as a primary source of revenue is both a science and an art. Thankfully, my staff have both of those skills. While some grants are stable and we've been receiving them for years, others are more project specific with limited time periods. In addition, we are directly impacted by policy and funding changes at all levels of government and sometimes with little notice. While we've learned to be nimble and do our best to maintain staffing and to maintain and grow services, we seek more sustainable funding solutions in the future. So each of our presentations so far have been framed as the public safety continuum, and we're so pleased to be part of it. But I'd say there were also our key players in the health continuum of Long Beach. Physical and behavioral health promotion is a crime reduction strategy. It's an education strategy. It's an employment strategy. Crime reduction, education, employment are also health promotion strategies. They're also closely intertwined, although we tend to talk about them separately. Health, safety, education. Sustainable income, housing in place are keys to success of the people in Long Beach and Brenda one breaks down. The likelihood of success is reduced. When people are physically and mentally healthy, they do better in school, they do better at work, their families do better, and there's less crime involved to achieve a healthy line, which for everyone requires all of us. The partnerships across the city, our long standing, your Health and Human Services Department is a key resource for bringing and coordinating outside funding streams, social service and behavioral health partners, hospitals and other nonprofit agencies to build health and a coordinated strategy with you, our other departments, our communities, and our partners. I know we can achieve our collective vision of a long beach where people are healthy, safe and thriving. I look forward to working with you. This concludes my report and I'm available to respond to any questions you may have. Thank you. So next up, we will have public works with Director R MOYEN. And Mr. City Manager. Just wanted to let councilmembers know. We'll just allow staff to make their presentations and take questions at the end. Thank you. Good evening, Honorable Mayor and City Council. Thank you for the opportunity to provide a brief overview of the public works departments at 515 proposed budget. To put our presentation in context. When residents step out of their homes, businesses open their doors and visitors come to Long Beach, they see public works whether they realize it or not. Every street, sidewalk, traffic, light, storm drain, street sweeper, refuse truck, tree trimmer, graffiti truck or traffic sign and a pothole truck affects the public in one way or another. In order to maintain a structurally balanced operating budget, we focus on core service delivery. It is Public Works mission to maintain and enhance the city's infrastructure and environment for the benefit of the public. The department's five bureaus have very diverse functions, including building and roadway design and construction, infrastructure maintenance, refuse and recycling, stormwater management and real estate services. We envision a better tomorrow by serving and exceeding the expectations of the public through the performance of our valued employees. Although we have very diverse functions, our core services are to provide for and maintain safe and adequate infrastructure for the community, provide for sustainable environmental protection in a positive service environment, and safely and efficiently design, construct, deliver , protect or maintain services for the public facilities public right away and stormwater management. Next. That's why 14 has been a very productive year for public works with the ongoing and one time funding provided by the City Council. Some of our accomplishments are we completed $74 million in capital improvement projects, including libraries, recreational, other buildings, park infrastructure and traffic signals. This includes 5.8 million of sidewalk repairs totaling 22 miles and 34 million in arterial and residential streets, totaling 73 lane miles. We completed the construction of Chaddock Field and or Zumba Park Community Center, installed class, two bike lanes on seven major streets and class three bikes, bike lanes, routes on three major, major streets collected 190,000 tons of trash for residential and commercial accounts swept 155,000 miles of streets and alleys and collected 10,176 tons of materials. Environmental Services Bureau Refuse Diversion Recycling Program has been very successful. Customers generated only £3.7 per person per day, far exceeding the state mandate of reducing the trash generated to a maximum of £7.6 per person per day. We repaired 40,000 potholes. The major and secondary thoroughfares response rate was within three days and local streets and alleys response rate was within 15 days. We responded to and removed 957,000 square feet of graffiti within 24 hours and of being reported trimmed, 26,500 trees removed, 400 tree stumps, and we strive to center lines of miles of city streets, responded to 22,000 facility, 9000 traffic signal and 11,200 go Long Beach and not service requests and completed the 9 million remodel of Pacific Ballroom at the Arena. I would like to add that my regularly scheduled meetings with each one of you has been valuable to maintain constant communication and ensure we're on the track with service delivery . We are having some technical difficulties. Public works overall budget is 145 million. As you can see, we manage a significant number of funds. All briefly mentioned key funds shown on the pie chart, starting at the top and going clockwise. The capital project funds are 4.2 million is primarily for for sidewalks with the balance for pothole repair and bike paths. 44 million is for the refuse collection and contract recycling operations, waste diversion programs and litter free Long Beach Program. Public Works 32.7 million General Fund portion is 8.6% of the city's general fund with offsetting revenue. Our general fund impact is only $7.5 million. The Civic Center Fund of 9.9 million handles the ongoing civic center system, custodial and parking operations, $15.6 million of gas stock Street Improvement Fund. Our money's received from the state for ride away improvements. The transportation fund of 14.6 million includes monies received from the county for transportation purposes. Prop eight for 3 million. Prop C 6.5 million and Measure R points for 4.9 million. Tidelands is primarily for the aquarium and public parking lots, commercial center and PDC permits and compliance and beach parking enforcement. As you know, the stormwater environment is important. Just to provide a little background to this. The city has four major beaches. Each council district generates non stormwater runoff that is transported through street gutters, storm drain pipes, ditches and channels and then two rivers and eventually ending at the beaches. The city of Long Beach is mandated to comply with the Clean Water Act guidelines through the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination Elimination System Permit, in accordance with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and State Water Resources Control Board. Within the permit, the city is responsible for nine total maximum daily load compliance regulations. Fines totaling from noncompliance with the NYPD's permit can range from 5000 to $10000 per day, a violation. There are 17 participating cities in the three watersheds Lower L.A. River, lower San Gabriel, San Gabriel River and Los Cerritos Channel that contribute additional money for their portion of monitoring plan and watershed management programs. The program directly impacts the quality of life in our rivers and beaches. The 199,000 will fund the Lower L.A. River, Lower San Gabriel River and Los Cerritos Channel. Watershed to handle compliance monitoring. The 451,000 will fund the Greater Los Angeles Long Beach Toxic Pollutants and Los Angeles Liver River Estuary and Long Beach handle as as well as the Alamitos Bay Compliance Monitoring. According to cities and PDS permit, 395,000 and Tidelands funding is to be to develop a citywide master watershed management program and a reasonable assurance analysis which will include the Greater Los Angeles. Long Beach Harbors, Long Beaches and Alamitos Bay. Public Works plays an essential role in maintaining and enhancing the community's quality of life. During the past year, I've taken the opportunity to review our operations and obtain employee feedback on how best to move our department forward. We're looking at ways to restructure service delivery. As mentioned in the mayor's budget, recommendations will look forward to working with employees and the street sweeping division on implementing efficiencies such as reducing the street sweeping time block. The payment management program I initiated is winding down, and we will have a comprehensive report on our street condition shortly. As technology expands, the Long Beach reporting will also impact our resources. Significant strides have been made in the last few years to address the city's aging infrastructure with additional nonrecurring funds. However, it is not anticipated that these non recurring funds will be available at the level in the in the near future. Aging infrastructure is a constant issue facing our city. Our 23 storm drain pump stations are approximately 60 years old and serve service at 380 miles of active stormwater infrastructure, including pipes, open channels, ditches, culverts and drains. Public Works has identified that the storm main pump stations need to be refurbished as they are unable to support the needs . The wide variety of core services public works provides positively affects residents, businesses and visitors within our city. Public Works School is to provide as many of these essential services seamlessly. To put the level of service in perspective. Public works inventory includes 800 miles of streets, 215 miles of alleys, 600 miles of sidewalks, 600 miles of curb and gutter, over 400 public buildings, 145 bridges, 190 miles of storm drains, 23 pump stations, 303,900 catch basins, 95,000 street trees, 180,000 traffic signs, 640 traffic signals, 3300 parking meters and nearly 125,000 refuse and recycling accounts. I take pride in our 421 public works employees that deliver quality, ongoing program and CIP projects on a daily basis. Thank you for your support in the past and I look forward to working with each one of you going forward. This concludes my report. I think you are next is Kevin water with the water apartment and I believe in the audience is the chairman of the water commission. I think. Good evening, Mayor Garcia, members of the Council, thank you for the opportunity to present the water department's budget there. It comes for fiscal year 2015. And I would like to introduce the president of the water commission, Harry Salts gave her. It was right up here with the bright red tie. So it's easy to see. Go ahead. In the water department, we have two separate and distinct funds. The water fund and the sewer funds are there. They're the. It's just as it sounds. The costs of the water fund are provided for by our water fees and the sewer fund. Likewise. So I'll cover the water fund first and then later the sewer fund. The water fund there. You can see on the the pie chart on the left is by far the largest fund. It constitutes about 84% of our budget. And then the sewer fund, about 16%. And then you see the the breakdown of our major components of our water fund. So roughly two thirds of it is non-personal services or operation and maintenance costs. And we'll talk about some of those on the next slide. About 20% is our personnel or personal services budget, and then our capital budget is about 13 million. Really, what's driving what's happening with the water department is really this slide is the key to it. This shows you we get 60% of our water supply from the groundwater basin and 40% of it we buy from the Metropolitan Water District. And what you're seeing here is a chart that shows on the top what the rates we were charged by the Metropolitan Water District have done since 2008 through 2015. And what the the charges that we pay to the water replenishment district for the groundwater that we pump have done, and in both cases, they've gone up 81% over that time period. So the numbers on the top are in dollars per acre foot for those of you that are are trying to follow this. And then the graph on the bottom is in millions of dollars. So you can see and if you look at it, that basically those costs have gone up about $14 million. So while we've absorbed in some cases these 81% increases in costs from the Metropolitan Water District and the the water replenishment district, our rates, including the 4% rate increase we're proposing for 2015, have only gone up 44%. So we've been absorbing many of these costs and have been running a deficit budget for the last few years now. And so we came to the water commission last year into the City Council. And the next slide will show that we couldn't continue to run a deficit budget forever. We've been using reserves to meet this deficit. So last year was the first year of our five year finance plan on our water on our water budget. This chart shows you the remaining four years with fiscal year 15, they're highlighted in yellow. The finance plan essentially accomplishes two objectives. By 2018, it would balance our budget, so it will bring our revenues and expenditures into balance. It's right now unbalanced, as you can see, to the tune of about $7 million deficit budget in 15. And the other thing it would do is it would use our remaining reserves to to smooth those rate increases in. So we what our studies show and what we did this year and what we're proposing, again, in 15 is that with 4% rate increases by 2018, we achieve those two objectives of being in a balanced budget situation and having our reserve level at the 11 to $12 million target, which is what the rating agencies have told us , is the lowest amount that they'd like us to maintain as a as a reserve for our water fund. And so we have assumptions of continuing rate increases from MWD and the water replenishment built into that plan. And of course, if we can be successful at reducing those, then our future rate increases would come down accordingly. But again, this is what's driving our our budget and our rate increases as these increased costs from MWD and the water replenishment district. Moving out of the sewer fund. We have a similar situation there. We were faced with some new regulations about seven years ago that required us and other water utilities or other utilities that operate sanitary sewer systems to greatly expand our sewer activities, both in terms of maintenance, cleaning, inspection and capital investment. And so we've been doing that now for the last seven years or so. So there you see the sewer budget broken down again. It's heavy on O&M or non-personal services. And about a $4 million or about a 20% of our sewer fund goes towards capital improvement programs. Go ahead. The situation we're facing with the sewer system is so we've been in spending this additional money for the last several years now out of a line of credit, we took $20 million , line of credit we opened several years ago. Now we've been able to extend that twice. It's a very low interest, a line of credit we wish we could continue forever, but it is going to expire in 2017. And so that's what's planned for here is in 2017 to retire that outstanding, outstanding line of credit and convert it to a regular long term debt issuance where we'll have to be paying both principal and interest. So that's why you see a fairly large increase in our expenditures as we go from 2016 to 2017, almost $1,000,000 in increase as we start making principal payments on that line of credit after we convert it. And again, we've got nominal increases assumed in our budget. And then again, what you see here is, is that by 2019, we again would achieve a balanced budget, our revenues and expenditures would be in balance and our reserves would be down to around $4 million, which is again the target for our sewer fund, for our rating agencies . They'd like us to maintain about $4 million in the sewer fund. So that's so again, our forecast there is we need a 4% rate increase this year and then 5% rate increases each of the next four years to achieve those two objectives. Go ahead. So what does this mean in terms of rates? Again, what we're proposing for 15 is a 4% increase in both the water and sewer rates. How does that stack up? Go ahead. On the typical monthly bill. This shows are our combined water and sewer rates for a typical single family home in Long Beach. Compare how it's changed over the years. You see that what the increase there, the total increase the purple is the water and the yellow or gold is the sewer and it's against a 4% increase in total is $2.12 on the combined water and sewer bill. How does this compare to other cities throughout California and our peers in our in our area? This is the total water and sewer bill. And in this analysis, we also include the fee that our property owners in Long Beach pay to the sanitation districts through their property tax bill. So it's a true apples and apples comparison because there is an additional fee that that's paid for sewer service provided for the sanitation districts. So when you combine that, you see how we compare to what's called the L.A. County Average, a grouping of cities in Los Angeles County, how we compare to other large cities in the state . And then we also like to show Golden State Water, which is a private utility that provides water service in a very small part of northeast Long Beach. We provide their sewer service, but Golden State provides the water service. So the entire difference there for the Golden State customers is, is their increased water bill that they pay to Golden State water. And I think I'll I'll conclude with a couple of comments that are that I don't think I should be here tonight and not talk about the drought and conservation. I want to thank the members of the Council for your ongoing support of what we've been doing in the law, in the water department and for what you've been doing in the community. This is a very, very serious drought that we're engaged on. You've all heard that Long Beach is once again leading California through this drought. I'm sure you've seen that we in July, we reduced our consumption for water to the lowest level since 1958. We'll do the same again in August and we'll go for a three peat in September. So this is a very, very impressive thing that the city of Long Beach is doing. I want to thank the council. I want to thank the city departments who are working closely on this. And I certainly want to thank our constituents who are doing a wonderful job of setting a great example for the entire state of California . With regard to water conservation, we don't know how long this drought is going to go on. So the more we can save, the better we are. Thank you very much. Thank you. And thank you all for the for the presentations. What we're going to do is we're going to first, I just wanted to make a quick comment. I just wanted to thank there's a lot of you in the audience that are either here for this or public comment. And thank you for for bearing with the longevity of tonight to this point. I also want to ask the heads of each of the departments one department head can each can take the mic so that when we ask the questions, it can go go smooth. So someone from water, someone for our public works at as well as our health and human services. That way the questions can be asked and we'll have a smooth process. And we'll start with Councilmember Price. Thank you. I wanted to address the Department of Health and Human Services, and thank you really for the work that you do with the homeless program and operations that we have in the city. I was recently at a restaurant and a resident came up to me, which happens a lot more often than I ever envisioned nowadays. But a restaurant. A customer came up to me, also a resident of the third and said, you know, talks about the homeless problem and the issue that they perceived as a problem to be near the Belmont Pier area. And and said, you know, why are aren't the homeless and why doesn't cities like Newport and Corona Del Mar have the same issues with the homeless? And I explained to them that because Long Beach is not Newport or Corona Del Mar or Long Beach, and how very proud I am of our Health and Human Services Department and trying to work proactively and with the limited resources that you have to come up with constructive solutions that provide those individuals with options, choices and positive. Options that are available to them that otherwise wouldn't be without our city. So I wanted to highlight that and and say that I understand that you're working with a very limited budget when it comes to our homeless programs and the efforts that you do for that program. Can you elaborate a little bit more in terms of anything new that you plan to do in the coming year to enhance the program that we currently have? We received the unified funding agency status, which is that for the continuum of care, what that will allow us to do is to be more flexible in the way that we the way we use our resources for homeless. So as we see different priorities pop up, it will allow us some more flexibility in how we address those issues. In addition, we're working very closely, as you know, with the quality of life teams and with our met teams. Quality of life is with the police department, includes an officer and a mental health provider to do outreach. So as people are seeing homeless and they're seeing situations where we ask that you do contact us because we will send outreach workers out. And the multi-service center is being it's under construction right now. It will open again in October. At that time, we will have our partners co-located there and we will continue to do all of the different services that we've that we've done in terms of helping people find housing and address their other needs. Well, thank you for the work that you do, and we look forward to supporting you in any way that we can. Thank you. Appreciate. Council, Councilmember Gonzales. Thank you and thank you for the report. So I'll first start with Health and Human Services. Again, I have to reiterate. Thank you very much. I know we see the effects in the First District because we often see homeless individuals. And quick story, we I believe your outreach group took a family off the streets, a family of about four or five off our 14th Street area. So it was a huge deal to not see them, you know, struggling up out in the street. So that's just one example of how we see it every single day. So just in speaking with the homeless coordinator that I think you have proposed here, I know there's some reorganization within your department. Is that replacing anything or is that in addition or what what can we expect from or what is that position exactly? The new position is in addition, it's not replacing replacing any service. It will this person will help sort of coordinate, exist, coordinate new programs and existing programs. They'll be there to provide greater coordination around outreach to the chronic homeless population and to work with that to work with other grants. We see it as providing up to 2000 hours of extra outreach because they'll be sort of helping to reduce some of the other work of other people who are doing direct service. Great. Thank you. And public works are a thank you for your presentation. I just have to say thank you for all that you do because I we also see the work, you know, in our district daily. And if I can just say one thing, I know it wasn't really touched on here, but just in regards to just privatization and inner city employees. And I know that it's it's really important, you know, in my perspective, to be able to identify other cost savings, to be able to keep our street sweepers, our refuse and other city employees, you know, within within the city. And that's certainly something that, you know, I'm supportive of and just. Thank you. That's all I wanted to say. Thank you very much. And also, actually, I think we love the street sweepers. Can they sweep our alleys? I know we talked about that, but that's something that always comes up. So I hope that, you know, we can certainly address that somehow. As we discussed yesterday at your budget presentation. By request, we will have streets. I mean, street sweepers will go into the alleys. But it's not a program that we have currently. But if there is a need, will accommodate that. Great. Thank you. And then lastly, the water department. I just wanted to also say thank you as well. I know you're great work. It's very progressive initiatives. Linda Garden, we, you know, handle a lot of that in our office, keeping our rates low and also being fiscally responsible. Thank you. And and a question about cast iron pipes. I know that when do we expect to upgrade those outdated pipes or what is the process for that? We've been regularly replacing cast iron pipes, which is our oldest pipes, which are the ones that are most susceptible to breakage since the early 1990s. So over 20 years we've had a significant program. We've replaced about half of them thus far. So, you know, the remaining half will take us about another 30 to 40 years. But, you know, so again, strategically, we've replaced all the ones that we've had problems with. As we talk with your office and particularly in your district, a lot of the ones that are in your district are in the alleys. That's a very difficult situation and a lot more time consuming and and expensive. But again, at the rate we're going, it's about a 30 to 40 year period before we replace the remaining little less than half that we still have. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Mongo. Yes. I want to start by thanking the great work of our health and public health department. For those of you who don't know, I started my county career as a budget, a budget analyst for health services, L.A. County. And so the work that you do is imperative. And I appreciate how thin of a margin our matching funds are against the revenue that you draw down. That's quite a testament to both our financial management division and your department to be able to leverage those funds effectively. One of my areas of concern is that over the last 10 to 15 years, mental health funds into the region have more than doubled, in some cases almost tripled. And our city has not seen that same gain in grants. Is there any strategy that we could take in the next few years to better partner? I believe L.A. County has seen an increase from in the $700 million area, up to $1.9 million in terms of additional funding to the region. I recognize that a large portion of that is to deal with some of the issues in our correctional facilities. But there are a lot of correction facilities to community programs, as a lot of our officers will attest to, that we have many issues in pulling them out and back into society in a meaningful way. Are we working on that with our probation officers and our police officers? Is there a way to draw down that major funding? Yes. So there there are multiple different services in Long Beach to the Department of Mental Health from L.A. County, has an office here and they provide direct service. We're working very closely with them. Mental health America provides there are key partner with that with us in providing mental health services as part of our continuum of care and other services. They're also part of our integrated physical health and mental health program that we're working on in terms of working with our criminal justice partners. We are in conversation. We are we will be one of the pilots through the L.A. County Mental Health Diversion Program with Jackie Lacey. So we we have been meeting and talking about that with both the police department and with the city prosecutor's office to develop that model. And we will be working with L.A. County to look to move that forward. Our goal is, is that we can address those issues here before they end up in the L.A. County jail. Please let me know how I can be helpful. Public Works. Thank you for your expedient response to the flood of constituent requests through the GO app recently. We've received a lot of positive feedback in the effective ways that your staff have responded to our graffiti issues that have recently arisen from some releases that we've had in the area. Could you give us a quick update on the Street Payments Pavement survey? Yes. Approximately a year ago when I joined the city, as far as being the direct, not the director of public works but the city engineer, my first vision was to update our 2005 payment management plan. We have already a consultant on board that have finished their survey. We're working on the the implementation phase of it. I should have a very comprehensive plan for you within the next month or so. So after you're done with your major hearings, I'll bore you with that. And will that comprehensive plan come with a dollar amount that would be required to move our current street conditions to a. More manageable scale of accountability across the city. I will give you all that data in regards to where we are with the current index. How much money we need to spend per year to stay as status quo. And what you need to do to increase that index. Great. I look forward to it. And thank you for your partnership on a potential program that we might be bringing to the fifth District soon. Related to pilot programs will add efficiency to our street sleepers while not outsourcing that. My grandfather was a tree supervisor for the city, and I know the great pride that our community employees take in the streets that they drive down and that they live in our community and they care about our community. We recently had a few calls for service, about one medium, and there was a a street sweeper, and he didn't he got a new route and he didn't know about this particular median and which day of the week it was handled. And I thought he was very professional in his response to our constituents and they've given some great positive feedback. So thank you for making the adjustments to the route. And lastly, last week I made my first water waster app declaration, so I'm sorry to the resident who was wasting water, but you have been reported, I think that your app is wonderful. It is both creative and innovative. The kids in the community of our neighborhood association have been tasked as water enforcement officials and their parents have used their little not iPhones, but they play iTunes on it. We call it an iPod there, their Wi-Fi, iPods to report. So you will be getting many reports from the fifth District soon as we have deputized a team of young people. And I wanted to comment on the lawn to garden program has typically been only for turning a grass lawn into a garden. One of the things that's happened in our community is we've actually explored artificial turf, and that's currently an expense that's completely burdened by the homeowner. I've made that personal choice to change over, but some of our senior citizens are less likely to make that kind of change because of the restrictions and moderate income that they're depending on . And so I appreciate the discussions we've had on a pilot program to potentially experiment with a lawn to garden option and was hoping that, Kevin, you might be able to let us know it would 90 days or 120 days be a reasonable amount of time to discuss the components of that pilot program so that our senior community could reduce their water intake without any changes to the Neighborhood Association's happiness with their lawns. Oh yeah. I think 90 days is very reasonable. We can put a pilot program together and have it implemented within that time frame, I'm certain. Excellent. The senior citizens of my community. Appreciate it. Thank you. That I have no more questions. Thank you. Constable Richardson. Thank you, Mayor. I want to be I want to be quick, because I know there's a number of North Long Beach residents here waiting for the council meeting to begin. So. So let's let's start with. Well, we have water just that just chimed in. So I know with the scarcity of water and our our aging infrastructure and the increased price, you're hit with like a triple threat to your budget. So I'm happy that the the water water board and our president here's a ninth District resident Mr. Salts gave her. I'm happy the water board in the last council took steps to ensure that we will have a fiscally sound water department that will maintain services for our residents and jobs, you know, quality, quality employment here in the city. My question is really about the lawn garden program similar to Councilmember Price. So my wife and I, we just converted converted our lawn. We love it. It's low maintenance, relatively no water. But across the street from my home, the neighborhood across the street, they they don't have access to this program. And we've talked about it loosely. But I wanted to just ask out in the open, you know, there are certain areas in the town who aren't you know, who are not customers of Long Beach Water. I know that a significant portion of our lawn to garden programs funding does not even come from the city of Long Beach . What would it take to to expand a similar program to all corners of the city so that everyone can participate in this water conservation effort? Well, thank thank you for bringing that issue to our attention. We were actually unaware that you have a small section in your district that's served by the other large private water company that does business throughout this region. That's Canal Water region. That was the Domingo's Water Company. So so those constituents are eligible to apply through their water provider for the rebates that the Metropolitan Water District has. So that's $2 per square foot. So they could do that today. They wouldn't. So they wouldn't go through us. They're not our customers. And it wouldn't be appropriate for us to spend our ratepayers money since they're not contributing to our revenue stream. But they could do that today through their water providers. And same situation with Golden State in the fifth District. If we wanted to do more than that, then we'd have to have some legal analysis in terms of who would be appropriate to provide the additional funding to bring the level up to the $3.50 that we pay all of our ratepayers. Our ratepayers. Thank you, Kevin. And I don't know that the pilot would necessarily need to be the same program as what everyone gets, but even $2 is better than better than it really. We want to make sure that they're included in the outreach efforts and ensuring that they are they should they are encouraged to participate here. So what I'm really interested in is maybe a conversation at the at the commission level or maybe maybe we have a conversation about, you know, working with the city manager to work with these other agencies, Cal Water, Golden State Water, to ensure that we're taking this seriously and making it easier for our residents to do this. So that that would be my suggestion. I don't either respond to this point, but we're going to we're you know, that's something I'm interested in pursuing next. In terms of the health department, I want to begin by thanking them for the work that they do. They mentioned very clearly, Kelly mentioned very clearly that it's a science and an art to manage a department that's, you know, upwards 90% grant funds. Our office, the ninth district office, has worked with them very closely in the in recent years, and I've seen their commitment to our community. I was hoping you can provide an update on a couple of things. First, you mentioned very quickly a proposed healthy Long Beach plan that might be coming. That sounds really interesting. Could you just shed some light on that? As we started to look at all the different activities that we do across the city, across our departments, as well as a lot of the place based efforts, we all are working in a way that that applies to a healthy Long Beach. And so what we've been doing is meeting as a team of department directors. And so pretty much everybody you have heard from so far in terms of the public safety, the library, code enforcement, neighborhood services, as well as public works and workforce investment, all of us together are sitting down to say, okay, how do we, as a coordinated effort, move forward the health of this city? Because it takes all of us. There have been many plans that have been done so far within the city, including the Community Health Improvement Plan, the safe Long Beach violence prevention plan, mobility element. The land use element is underway. The housing element. We are working on a healthy living policy and there are active living principles. All of these things are already in place as well as a lot of strategic planning for many of our partners. And so we're coordinating all of that into one document and then starting to move that forward for the city. Thank you. I think that's really important to do. And along that same vein. Would you mind chiming in with a quick update on the Kaiser Permanente Heal Zone program in North Long Beach? Sure. So he goes on really is an example of how it takes all of us to move things forward. So we've been working with Public Works Department to make street improvements as a result of the walk out at findings at Grant Elementary, Starkey Elementary and Hamilton Middle School. We've been working very closely with the Parks Department around implementing a fitness zone at Coolidge Park, and we're putting in a new one also at Hilton Park. And we are in partnership with Long Beach Community Action Partnership. We have a grant elementary farmstand that's open after school every Tuesday when it's in session. And we're partnering with the Jordan High School AIMS program and working to identify and implement a project there to improve nutrition and fitness at the school, as well as working with the children's clinic to create sort of a voucher system where they can they can write a prescription and have a voucher redeemable at one of the local and at the farm stands at our healthy corner store, the farmer's market. Great. Thank you. And then finally, so I'm really interested in this chronic homeless initiative coordinator position. I remember just months ago, we pulled together a number of the agencies that that have homelessness issues in North Long Beach with their police by different agencies, Caltrans, L.A. County, flood control along the river, Southern California Edison right away. And and we we came together as all four agencies and talked about a strategy to to address these encampments from a holistic standpoint. Is this something that this position would take on and really build on? This position will be really coordinating different efforts such as that, as well as some of the other chronic chronic homeless initiatives. Yes. Great. Thank you. And then the public works. I'll be quick. A number. The questions I had were were a number of the questions I had Councilmember Mungo brought up. So I won't chime in there, but I will I will say that I am interested in seeing the valuation, the numbers that come back from this study as to how much it would cost to actually keep up with, you know, with the level of of the level our streets are or to improve on that. So I'm really interested in that. That's it. Thank you. That's all I have. Concern Boston. Well, I'll be shorter than Councilmember Richardson. But that won't be tough to do. And I know my colleagues in the audience would appreciate that. First of all, I'd like to just thank all three department heads for being here today, and thank you for the excellent work that you and your department put forth on behalf of the city of Long Beach. Each one of you have contributed in your departments, have contributed to making Long Beach a leader leading city in the state of California, particularly in the areas of health. I think we have the best public works department in the state and our water department is leading the way in conservation efforts as well. Noted. Now, my question is for Mr. Malloy, and right away something jumps out at me on the the financial summary and the budget, particularly in the 515 expenditures. It's markedly different than 514 in the areas of material, supplies and services. It's a significant reduction, I want to say close to $39 million. Can you explain that? I'm trying to find that. Is that part of our presentation or you're talking about the budget document. The document? Yes. Welcome. Can I have my document? You know what he was asking? So so under the proposed you got it. You're looking at adjusted f y 14 and propose that y 15. Correct the difference of 2 million. No, about 39 million. Oh, okay. So these are basically the one time funds that were allocated to public works to be able to perform all those projects. So it is just basically the one time funds that fluctuated from a 514. Okay. But it's it's under the line under the materials, supplies and services. So would it would it be largely weighted on services? Now he's talking about materials. I really. I thought this would be quick. So it takes a village to raise me, right? This. This is basically the difference between private services or services that we we have for all those special projects. Okay. So you have a significant or would you say you have enough in the budget to to carry out the services at the level we expect? Correct. So this year's budget, basically, it was flat for us. It's it's possible that what you're seeing and if y 15 is the movement of one of the bureaus into the city manager's office, therefore there will be a reduction in our budget. Okay. Thank you. Maybe we can get some further clarification on that at another later date. I'd like to also, while I have the director of the water department here, think your department is doing a great job. You know, we hate to see rate increases, but they were pretty much imposed upon us by the Metropolitan Water District. Is that correct? That's right. Can you explain the metropolitan water districts where rate increases and and and their reserve fund? No. I'll leave that up to our med director to do. And even I can't explain it. So so I understand that they have a pretty robust reserve, yet they rate raising rates. Absolutely. And I want everyone to know that Mr. Guardia has done a tremendous job to point out the financial irresponsibility of that. But to no avail. Okay. I just thought it was important for the public to understand that. But I wouldn't pass up this opportunity to give you some information. Please. So. So today at their board meeting, despite the fact that they revealed that instead of the $352 million in surplus reserves, surplus reserves that they last reported that they had, it was reported today that that was actually 400 between 400 million and 425 million. So another 50 to 75 million that materialized in the last two months of their last fiscal year. So despite that, they continue to raise their water rates and they kept their property tax at the same level as last year when they. The only reason they're supposed to be allowed to do that is if for purposes of financial necessity, they can't reduce their their parcel tax. So they made a decision today, which director Lowenthal did not vote for, which said that for purposes of financial necessity, they need to keep their property tax at the same level as last year instead of reduce it as they would otherwise otherwise be required to do by law. So I can't explain it. Well, thank you for the briefing. And I'm sure now that our that we're aware, our residents will pay a lot closer attention to what's going on in other public agencies that impact us. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Much shorter. We think just getting counts and branches. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. And for all you individuals who don't know the budget in all nine districts, we will have a budget summit. So this is our quick. This should be. I just want to talk to the health department and the public works. One question. The population by seniors is growing in Long Beach in our current program and services in the health department. I just want to know if they're keeping up with the increase, you know, especially for our seniors. And that's for the health department. No. Okay. That's all I need. We we we are planning, though, it is a key strategic goal for us to increase those services. And we're working closely with Parks and Rec, who also have the senior centers, but that is a key focus areas of ours moving forward. Currently, we do not have the funding. I say that being a senior citizen. Thank you very much. The other would be public works. And I would like to know. How. Does we you know, how do we support our school and their recycling efforts? Could anyone tell me that in public works? Councilman Andrews, thank you for that question. This one I can answer gratefully. We this we required a city contractor, which is Waste Management, to provide recycling collection at all Long Beach schools. And we support the green for the green teams at different Long Beach schools and we provide technical assistance to the school. So we are definitely involved and we provide those services. Thank you very much. That's it. Thank you, Councilwoman Price. I'm not queued up. It was on the Red Canterbury ring. Uncomfy. Okay. But nobody ever addressed it wrong again. But actually, Councilmember Andrews, I was going to ask the same question about senior services, because it's not here in your in your for future applications. Some programs I would love to see some programing in their next next budget round or even shorter. You know, that's you know, for me, I just became a senior citizen. So there's a point for me as I reach another era in my life in regards to and this might be a totally different, different topic that we might be getting into. But I wanted to ask about the the housing, the affordable housing that's out there for 21,000 residents. So a thousand units I know that we've been talking about the housing element and the 20% set aside for affordable housing. Does that come into play with this at all or is there is there a nexus to this? The these units, they're they're the housing authority vouchers. So they are funding directly from the from HUD that that that we support people and working with different landlords to house them. It is not part of this piece of it is not part of the the building of additional housing. Yeah. Okay. That's a city manager question and you know, where are we going with that, with that, with that project, with with our housing authority, with the 20% set aside for affordable housing in the in the overall housing element? Yes. Earlier earlier and there was a report given in the Budget Oversight Committee where as Barack gave a presentation on the 20% housing set aside dollars that are coming back to the agency, that are getting repaid, back to the FSA, to the city, excuse me, in the form of affordable dollars and going to our housing trust fund . So that was a pretty thorough report. It's available in the Budget Oversight Committee and we could certainly give you that. Okay. Yeah, I missed that meeting, so I was wondering about that. Also, in regards to the Health Department, the yeah, $1 million in general fund, which is great. I mean, that really says a lot about the health department and all the money it brings in. I think I've said it before in regards to the wonderful staff you have and being able to go after grants and bring them to the city and but what does that 1 million go to using in general or general types of services? I know some of it goes to homeless services. And those resources are primarily for homeless services. A good portion of it in. Okay. And I had one more than know when you're looking at identify sustained funding for the health department. What things are you looking at as examples. Looking at some different federal grants? There are a number of large federal grants out there right now looking at health promotion and other prevention strategies. So we have applied for a couple of purple. Of those are waiting to hear back. There are multimillion dollar grants we are working at, looking at different partnerships with our local health care systems and with other with other partners to start to build and more consistent grant funding that's not related to a specific project, a short term project, but something that is more sustainable. There might be an opportunity there for some senior services. That is one of those key areas we're looking at. Yes. All right. Wonderful. Thank you. That's it. Or by the way, I am not that I don't like water and public works. I love you guys. But I met with him earlier this week, too. I think I got a good orientation at that point. Thank you. Thank you. And finally, Councilman O'Donnell. Thank you. And I'll try to make this as efficient as possible with regard to public works. Thank you for all you do. You did a great job an of park started expanding that park about eight years ago and I just finished it off with a nice community center we opened a couple of weeks ago. Beautiful building, much loved by the community. So thank you. You did a lot of work this year on Stearns. We've got more to do now. WHALEY The same thing, more to do now. And we've got plans for the Nature Center done a little bit out there, but we'll do more. So thank you for your help on that. That's my point. You guys do wonderful work. All right? You're really on top of it. So thank you. Question about parking meters. As I recall, we were going to put 800,001 time money into parking meters. That's you right that your department, is that accurate? Correct. This is being worked with the city manager's office. I believe you had a two from four that explained where we going. There was an initial request from Belmont Shore Associates that they wanted to go to a more advanced technology as far as parking meters that utilize. ID cards. So we have done extensive studies. We have looked at financials, and our next task is to talk to the stakeholders. And when everybody is on board and understand what the issues are, we'll come back to city council. I guess I don't necessarily have a problem on the credit card. I've used those before, but the doubling of the rates, as I understand it, seems a little excessive to me even though they are competitive now. I think that's a bit of a jump and we're putting $800,000, I guess would be one time. General fund money to Belmont Shore keeps part of the funding. Correct. So would they carry part of the burden? Belmont will fund their SIPP portion. The 800,000 is for the rest of the city, which includes downtown and other areas that have parking meters. And downtown doesn't keep a portion of their money. Downtown keeps 50% of the parking, creates the rest, goes to the LBA. So they'll they too will carry some of the burden of the cost of the correct that that should happen shouldn't be all on the general fund if they're going to share some of the I mean they all they may have revenue. Balances now that would cover those expenditures. So again, they should participate in that. With regard to street sweeping, I hope we're working on finding some efficiencies there. I mean, around here, we've had the two extremes. And from my point of view, you know what, we're good at contracting out. We're good at cutting, but we're not good at finding efficiencies in innovation. And that's something we need to work on as a city. So I hope as we look at. The street sweeping bureau. RVO label it, that we can look at finding efficiencies and innovation over there that will save costs and enhance service levels. We've talked about the two hour window, etc., so I hope that that can be done and I hope that's ongoing. You know, Robin, you propose, hey, not contracting out. You know, Pat was on the path of contracting the amount that the council last council, not all of them, but put them on. And I get that. I mean, that's management, that's leadership. But we need both here and both means finding efficiencies in innovation. So I hope we can do that. I hope we can really look at that. I mean, a couple of years ago, we were going to contract out time. We never did. But did we ever find efficiencies in innovation there? I don't know. So again, let's think like that. We need to do more thinking like that. With regard to water, thank you. And are you going to meet with Parks and Rec tomorrow? As I understand it, I made some comments a couple of weeks ago that sparked some interest over on your site. I know I had a conversation with your president there. Great conversation. And hopefully we can find ways to work together on the on the water front, especially with regard to Parks and Rec, because it's so expensive for them to maintain their their fields, etc., that, you know, our kids are on every weekend. And this isn't just about water, this isn't just about grass. It's also about what we want as a community for our kids. So that's a big deal to me. And with regard to your fund balances you have down here, I noticed the water fund and there's probably one on the sewer fund too. You talk about your ending fund balance. I'm assuming beyond your ending fund balance, you have reserves for your CFP projects too. So with these be separate from your CFP project, set it set aside dollars. You know, there's no there's no additional. So there is no it is. Okay. So I guess so it's that thing. That's it. Okay, great. And one other question for our I'm going to punch back to you on page ten of the community handbook. It talks about some one time expenditures and fleet. And I thought the way we funded fleet operations typically and you could correct me was that we bill interdepartmental so that when let's say you know the police department has as a vehicle public works bills them I don't know maybe on a monthly basis $600 per vehicle. I don't know what it would be. And that would cover, you know, the maintenance and the cost of the vehicle. So my question would be, what are those one time expenditures? I believe they're $8. If off the top of my head, if I'm correct, 4 million I'm sorry, 4 million. It's a jump. And it says one time there. That's what piqued my curiosity. Council member. The fleet operation is under finance so I'll. Answer that question. The that you are exactly right as the funding this is the expenditures related to collections from the departments to buy replacement vehicles for them in FY 14. The amounts of purchases were kept low below the amount that was collected in FY 15. We are proposing that fleet replacements start to catch up with our aging vehicles and have a more normal fleet replacement schedule. So that increase of four is just to get us to our normal replacement level with money collected from the departments. Okay. So if it's. Money collected from the departments, why? Why? Or is that figure that we're seeing on that chart from the departments? Yes, it is revenue. So it's from the different departments. And then what you're seeing is the expenditure of that, an increase of four. Okay. Got it. With that, thank you. Thank you. Councilman Price, would you come back up? Sorry. Mr. GROSS right on that same point. Is it possible for us to get a list of. What specific priorities you and or department heads contemplate in regards to the Fleet Fund? We are. We are. And Councilmember O'Donnell talked about innovation and the whole area of how we replace vehicles and fund vehicles we are looking at from top to bottom. So at present, that is a a holding point for what we know will be a required replacement list. But we are engaging a consultant to help us look at and review which vehicles should be replaced to do it in the most cost effective manner so that we are not replacing vehicles where it is more cost effective to keep them in service a bit longer, and that we are replacing those specific vehicles that are costing us more money than it's worth keeping. So we are in the process of reviewing that and we can certainly that probably will take several months and we will not be spending that money, but we know that based on our study. But that management partners suggested that that $11 million, which is the total amount for FY 15, is an amount that we will need to spend. We just don't know exactly what vehicles they will be yet. Well, then, is it fair to say that we also aren't ready to spend the money until that study is complete, and that that probably won't be for another 4 to 6 months? It will be shorter than that. And we and so that money will be needed fairly early on in the FY15 cycle because we have to meet when the cars are available, the new models are available, we have to order at that time. So we'll be ready for that. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Just I just have one comment. Mr. West, also through as far as the health department. I'm really happy to see another one making a lot of changes to adjust to the changes in the Affordable Health Care Act and all the new the new reality of where we are with health care. I just want to make sure that that one we're reinforcing with all of our part time employees at the city what their options are when it comes to the Affordable Care Act. And I just mentioned it because I casually was talking to one of our part time employees who was mostly a Spanish speaking employee who didn't feel like she had the information about what her options were. And so I think the more that we can do to provide all of our our workforce, that particularly the part timers that may not be met may not be getting the medical benefits through the city, as much information about their health options. That would be that would be great. And then second to that, I think that we can do as a city hopefully a lot more moving forward as we partner and promote the Affordable Health Care Act. I think it's in our best interest to get as many Long Beach residents signed up as possible for the long term health of the entire city. And so if there's ways moving forward that the council and the city can partner to and really begin a larger campaign that's already happening through that through obviously to the federal government and that we can get our our residents signed up. I still find large amounts of people in our city that don't have all the information, particularly those that don't speak English. And so I think we need to do a better job of that, particularly in in different languages. Mayor We've worked very closely with our community partners to holding events throughout the throughout the different times. And we are certainly willing to reach out to our, you know, to our employees and and broader community as we do that. So we are part of a large a large consortium of people, and we'll continue that process. And the work you've done so far has been great. And so I don't take it as a criticism because I think I see the Health Department out there all the time. I see the table and the community worked with the nonprofits. It just I think there's opportunities for us to go beyond that. And hopefully we can we can work together on that. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. So with that, going to turn this over and open it up for public comment on the budget. Please come forward. Hi. My name is Gregory Moore. I am here to speak in favor of one of Mayor Garcia's budget recommendations, and that is a one time $50,000 in matching funds for a marketing plan for the Arts Council for Long Beach. I. I have a pretty good. Lay of the land in Long Beach artistically. I have covered it a lot as a journalist. I'm also a musician and a writer. Long Beach has a tremendously vibrant art scene. It's definitely one of our cultural strengths, but I think, as we all know, Long Beach has never really done a good job establishing itself as a destination location for outlying areas. It's something that we all want to see, and culturally it's one of the things that we can attract. We we have this great scene going. So a marketing sort of a marketing plan developed, good marketing for this would be really helpful. And one of the things I understand that would be would be used, I understand from the new executive director of Victoria Brian. Is would be. For a comprehensive arts calendar something we don't have no publication in Long Beach provides a good arts calendar, something we desperately need not only for outlying areas to be aware of what's going on, but for people within Long Beach, which is a pretty big city, to be aware of what's going on. With their own community. So I haven't got a. Good chance to know this, Brian, yet. I do know Mark Austin, Michael Sugarman, the president of the Arts Council, the city of Long Beach, couldn't have a more a better presence and a better advocate for the arts than Marco. The Arts Council recently released. A. Strategic plan where they did some self analysis. And one of the things that they themselves noted in the past is that they haven't done a great job marketing. That kind of self-awareness, I think, really bodes well for this money being spent to some new strategies to really put Long Beach more on the cultural map. Thanks very much. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, Bear. Members of the council. My name is for de Castro and I'm a resident of the third district. My address is 616 Grand Avenue. And I'm speaking tonight on behalf of our housing advocates. And I had the pleasure of being at the Budget Oversight Committee that Vice Mayor Susilo Atwal facilitated. And I think tonight as well and last week, just seeing the complexity of the decisions you have in front of you, I'm really I have to say, I'm really impressed with the amount of homework each of you has done and the work that you're doing to really ask critical questions. So really appreciate that. I'm here tonight to urge you to engage us, the community, stakeholders, on the critical issue of housing that is affordable to Long Beach working families. As we heard tonight from Director Kelly Collopy that the city has provided safe and affordable housing to approximately 21,000 residents in 7000 units through housing authority. But we still, as she admitted, there's still a huge gap with regards to housing production. And as all of you know, the Council of Governments instructed the city that we need 4009 new units by, I believe, 2021. So we're still in a housing crisis. And I realize. This is a really, really long road we're on, but we have to begin that journey with one step. So I encourage you to to engage us on this issue. It's been a discouraging, to be honest, that we've been at every budget oversight committee meeting, council budget hearings, sharing testimony, written materials regarding dedicating the boomerang funds for affordable housing. Yet there has been no council dialog or response to our presence. It's also very significant to have this level of community involvement, as you can imagine, this complex time to have residents provide their testimony, either, you know, their personal stories on this issue. So there's been a lot of community engagement on it. I also want to share I facilitated back in 2005 actually for the department Health and Human Services, the ten year plan to end homelessness. And there were five key elements that we identified back then. And the first is, and I'll just mention it right here, the first finding was how the housing goal was increase the number of homes that homeless and low income people can afford. So I think Director. Colby is doing a great job of helping to meet that need. But we again, we. Need new housing production and let's let's begin that journey and let's work critically together. Thank you. Thank you. Speaker, please. Good evening, Mayor and City Council. My name is Carrie Gallagher. I'm the executive director of housing Long Beach, and my information is on file. You know, last. Week, 100 people came out to the city council meeting and stayed very late to show their. Support for the use of boomerang funds for housing. 35 people were there at the Budget Oversight Committee tonight, and even 20 people have stayed linked to the night as well tonight to show their support. And we're here especially tonight to address housing as an issue of health and as an issue of infrastructure health. It's a pretty simple connection, right? I mean, the health department does an excellent job at addressing homelessness, but. We do not prevent homelessness until we actually make sure that people have affordable homes in which to live. And as it relates to infrastructure, you know. We don't get homeless people off the streets by building more streets. We get homeless people. Off the streets by building more homes. And so I want to make it very clear, since so many people have asked, well, if we, you know, put the boomerang funds towards housing. Or a percentage of the funds, where will the money come from? And so we are proposing tonight that infrastructure is the first place. Where the money should be realigned and rebalanced to represent the full. Extent of community infrastructure with. Housing as one of those basic building blocks of community infrastructure. So for those of you who are not at the Budget. Oversight Committee tonight, like Mr. Ranga, thank you for your. Question. I will give you a quick recap. We were very grateful to see the agenda item or to see boomerang funds. Finally, agendas. But unfortunately, because of time constraints, the many speakers were only given one minute to. Speak and council made absolutely no comments before receiving and filing. The recommendation. So we recognize again, we were on time constraints, but we are here again and we will keep coming to urge you to take this behind the. Rail and please have a meaningful discussion about housing and the boomerang funds. I'd like to spend the rest of my time reacting to the staff report that was given to the Budget Oversight Committee and CC Blanc, a carbon copy to the City Council. Around the Boomerang funds. This report paints an. Inaccurate and misleading. Picture of housing resources available for housing creation in Long Beach, and it diverts the conversation from addressing the topic at hand. Now the eight page report made an extensive list of different resources available in regards to housing, but. Unfortunately it does not actually. Address the question of creating a. Permanent new local revenue source. Many of the funds. That were identified, over 9. Million were home and call home dollars, which do not create new. Housing at all. These are rehabilitation and homebuyer assistance programs. Other monies that were identified were debt obligations that are legally required to be spent, such as the 24.7 million from the mayor's proposals, and the rest are state and. Federal dollars available only to developers, not to the. City. And though these are resources, this is not addressing the actual need for funds. Lastly, the. Report was discouraging because it seemed to assess that we're doing more. Than enough for housing. And we cannot have a meaningful discussion with you around housing until we actually admit that. There is a housing crisis. And so we hope that we will move forward. This discussion tonight that you will address the issue of boomerang funds behind the rail, and we urge you to support the. Commitment of these funds for housing. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hello, counsel. My name is Ben Fisher. I'm a resident of the First District. I'm here to let you know. I personally attended multiple community meetings on the housing element, multiple planning, commission meetings, council meetings, budget meetings, budget committee meetings, and frankly, my opinion. Yet nothing has been done around funding new housing stock. Nor do I feel the community input process around housing has been sincere or impactful. This is set to be the fourth year without any new city funding for housing. Please do not be fooled by the recent report touting state bills or some of the other things I've seen touting things coming from housing, rental assistance from the federal government. This is said to be the fourth consecutive year, despite needing to produce 4000 new affordable units by 2021. We've been asking that 20% of the funds returned to the city go to housing, and many of you in your actual campaigns have said that housing is a priority issue and even specifically mentioned that 20% of boomerang funds should go to housing. The funds would not create a deficit, but it would redirect existing funds. So I have a question for all of you. Do you feel you have the power to shape a budget someone else created, which is pending your approval? If your answer is no, then what is a function of your approval? What is your role in this process? Assuming there is no political will to move the funds around. And if you guys want to have a meaningful dialog about where those funds would come from, we would love to have that conversation. I ask that you please make sure that during your tenure you do not allow a fifth year to go by without any new city funds for housing. If you feel that you do have the power to shape a budget someone else created, then please take time to evaluate where housing is in the infrastructure, safety and health priorities of your constituents. I particularly emphasize this for those of you who spoke of housing as a priority during your campaigns. If housing is a priority to you and those elected to you, it should be prioritized in any budget that you approve. Someone once asked me after the seat took on none of the community and housing element. Why is it so hard? I answered, Because it's the most important element, the biggest part of people's budgets. So if it's the biggest boat to turn around, it'd be easier to just let it be. Don't be a council that lets the big important choices continue floating on into the sunset. Roll up your sleeves and turn it toward your constituents voices. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker. Good evening, Mr. Mayor and council members. My name is Gloria Rivera, resident of the second District and a community organizer with Housing in Long Beach. We are here before you yet again today to talk about boomerang funds because it was advised by the city council during the housing element last year that we bring it to the budget and talk about it within the context of the budget. We came today during the Budget Oversight Committee hearing, and as you heard before, not only was our time cut down to one minute, but there was absolutely no discussion behind the rail about this. So what good is coming to the budget hearings if there's not going to be a healthy, vibrant, robust discussion about this housing crisis and its need? Recently, we have heard from you, Mr. Mayor, that the next big issue city leadership is going to be tackling is affordable homes. But before we talk about building new homes, we have to talk about where the local, permanent local source of funding is going to be coming from. The community continues to present themselves in support of remedying this housing crisis. Just think about what this would mean to the community and to the members, which you all serve. It would allow us to to as a city, to leverage other resources everywhere to help foster safer and healthier community and neighborhoods. More importantly, it would demonstrate your commitment to the well-being of your community and your city. It will set a higher standard of leadership for the region, and it will establish trust through your support of the community's needs. On the other hand, imagine what happens if we don't allow boomerang funds or locate any kind of local source of funding. Are you willing to be the one to say to a homeless vets, Sorry, you can't find an affordable place to live or to a single mother? Sorry, you have to decide between paying rent or your medical child's expenses. You know. Sorry. I understand that this is a hard decision to make. I understand that this is politically challenging. I understand that these funds have supposedly been allocated within the budget. But when you do what I do and you hear these stories day in and day out, you know what? It's not that hard of a decision because you see firsthand how this will affect thousands of lives in Long Beach. We recognize the resources that the staff has discussed in the memo, but they are not new. They are not local and they are not permanent. And if not boomerang funds, then what funding are we allocating? And if not in this budget, then when we have heard over and over again that now is not the time, how far down the road are you willing to kick this can? This is an issue of health, of public safety and an overall benefit to the community. So if the question is where do we pull the funds as it has been, then pull it from infrastructure because it's a benefit to the overall community. The time is now to show your leadership and to show your commitment of service to the people of Long Beach. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Just to make sure I'm unless there's another speaker who's going to line up, I'm cutting off the speaker's list. If you haven't, unless you want that, please line up, sir. Okay. So that gentleman will be the last person on the speaker's list, please. Honorable Mayor Councilmembers. Dave Sterling. With the IAM and as many of. You already have expressed. Tonight, I'd like to express our support on behalf of the roughly 3500 employees within the city that we represent for the mayor's budget recommendation of stopping the pursuit of outsourcing, street sweeping, but rather searching in word inside the operation to find efficiencies and cost savings or at the same time maintaining the high standard of service that exists currently. The idea of city management partnering with our members, the city employees who perform the work. On a day to day basis makes sense, and it should serve as a model for other operations as well rather than than outsourcing. Look at ways to make current operations better, more cost effective. The employees who perform these services, many of them live here in the city, and they. Take ownership and pride in the work they. Do. And that's something you won't find by excising an operation and outsourcing it. And if the charge truly was to find cost savings and efficiencies, it's my hope. Management partners would have found this solution long ago, as we already could have been saving the amount of money that we hope it will. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Hello. Good evening. My name? Gigi Fusco. Ms.. I am a proud member of the Arts Council for Long Beach Board of Directors, and I'm here to speak about the one time allocation that's in the budget proposed for for our organization. It's a great group, the Arts Council of Long Beach. We are very committed to the arts, the artists and all the art performing arts, visual art groups here in our amazing community. They bring they bring up the raise the quality of life for all of us. They feed our souls, and they're also big employers in town as well. If approved for this money, it will help in our strategic plan and mission to make Long Beach a number one artistic destination, arts destination in the state of California. And I think it's real easy to do. We are so lucky. I love Long Beach. You don't have to leave the city limits to find anything you want. We have the Long Beach. We have a symphony, opera, ballet, the Long Beach Playhouse, Musical Theater West, the Found Art Exchange, the Expo Building. We have so many wonderful organizations which time will not allow me to list them all here tonight. So don't get mad at me, guys. We have so many wonderful things. What a lucky group of elected officials you are that you have these treasures in your town, in your own districts. We went out and talked to them and we found that they really need our support. They have weathered the financial downturn. They are still here. A lot of organizations, museums, performing arts groups, they have not weathered the storm as well. And they need our support. We need to see them thrive and grow. We need to see them bringing in new people into town and also providing all the wonderful educational programs that they have. We need to let people know that they exist and they need to be supported. I know this firsthand. I ran the Long Beach Playhouse for many years and worked with musical Theater West and it's really great to see the faces of people who come to Long Beach for the first time to see an exhibit or a show. And that is not just something that's fun and to to feed our soul, but it drives the economic engine of our community. When you go out for dinner, for a show and dinner or to go see an exhibit, you're employing a babysitter or a parking attendant, you know, waitstaff, restaurateurs and maybe a bartender or two. That being said, this money will help us really shine a light on the arts in this amazing community, drive tourism and let our residents know about all the wonderful assets that they have. They don't have to leave the city limit at all. Long Beach is the best place for arts. We need everybody now. Thank you. Thank you so much. Next speaker, please. Oh, hello. I'm Joe Weinstein. Eighth District of the Community Budget Book encourages citizens to come out and say, what are the services that matter to them? And so that encourages the kind of special pleading you have heard tonight. And we'll hear more of I'm not here for that. I'm not here to endorse or oppose a specific recommendation for this budget. I would like to point out that those of us who would like to take a broad picture rather than advocate for one program and expand one program, and if the money somehow won't have to come from somewhere else, I'm here to advocate for those of us who are ready to make trade offs. If only we had the information to suggest those tradeoffs four years ago and more. The budget, as posted in its papers, provided a certain basic amount of information to allow you to cast out specific services and therefore compare their costs and therefore decide maybe you would like more of this and less of that. The one signal example that I have seen tonight and I commend I commend that example is the Water Department's presentation, which showed us the difference in costs between MWD and WMD or WMD. At any rate, that enables you. To make a comparison, enables you to make policies that don't call for increasing funds, but says, Gee, we ought to shift things a little bit if we only can. Well, we don't have such guidance in the budget ever since four years ago, even recommendations that I made based on cost comparisons and another occasion of ordinary trash collection versus straight sweeping, they were based on cost that I could assemble only from the budget of four years ago and more. Because you have given because the budget's given the citizens no real tools to suggest rational alternatives, and they apparently give yourselves behind the rail. No more such tools either. I find it very difficult to participate any further in this kind of so-called budget process. So I suggest that if you really are serious about crafting a budget, give yourself more time between the first public unveiling and the time you've got to pass a budget. And second of all, make sure that that budget document once again breaks out unit costs for specific services. Thank you. Thank you, Joe. Joe, you will be happy next year where we're looking at some new budget software and the end also is restructuring the process a bit to make it much more open and interactive. And there's some great stuff happening out there with some open government budget software and some of the process, participatory government stuff that's happening , budget stuff that's happening in some of the districts. And that's all going to come together next year in a new way. So I think you'll you'll be back here, I hope, saying that you look forward to it. Okay, great. Please. Hi. My name is Kathleen Irvine. I am the president of Whitmore City Heritage Association. And first of all, I want to thank the mayor and the council members, because I have no idea how with a part time job, you are able to take care of this budget oversight and take care of your districts. So thank you very much for everything that you guys do. I really, really appreciate it. I came here basically to thank the mayor for his recommendation to put in a preservation planner into the budget. I understand that it's not supposed to cost any more money, but I want to emphasize how important it is to our districts. We have 17 historic districts. It is not just about paint, color or fence heights. Historic districts are wonderful because they speak to the character of our city, the craftsmanship of the people who lived here. It is a sustainable solution. New buildings are always less sustainable than repairing old buildings. So I just want to thank the mayor for his suggestion. And please all of you support this suggestion for a preservation planner. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hi. My name is Jim Darrow. I'm also with Willmar City Heritage. How do I follow that? That's exactly what I'm here to say. Thank you for suggesting the preservation planner. It helps with the integrity of the or the historical historical integrity of our neighborhoods. Really quick, also, I want to thank public works. I wish all departments in the city were run as well as you guys. You guys have always been there for every call we've had regarding everything from new parks, helping us with planners and such as well as street sweeping. So thank you very, very much. You outstanding. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker. Please. Hi. My name is Jenny Searson. I, too, live in Wilmore City. I just wanted to thank you, Mayor Garcia, for coming through on your campaign promise of supporting preservation in our historic districts. And I love the Long Beach. Next speaker, please. Good evening. My name is Michelle Dobson. I'm a third district resident, grew up in the seventh District and my business is in the fourth. So I am here tonight to speak on behalf of the Arts Council and the Arts Council Board of Directors and the Board of Directors members and and the staff. I am in my final third year term, final three year term, so that's nine years total on the Arts Council. During my first three year term on the Arts Council, our meetings were at the ungodly hour of 730 in. The morning at Bixby knows, but we had 45 people at those meetings, including a staff member from each of the council districts, a member from the mayor's office, a staff member from Economic Development, a representative from the cannabis office, and a representative from the police department. Those meetings were full. Everyone was a participant and everyone had a buy in to the Arts Council. What we were trying to do. I'm not an artist. I'm not a photographer, a singer, a writer, a director, a Delson, an actor, a professor of art. I do none of those things. Nonetheless, our board has that level of diversity where we have arts professionals alongside accountants, college professors, lawyers and marketing professionals, each with a full buy into the new strategic plan. So I urge you to adopt the recommendation for funding to implement that strategic plan. When I was interviewed as an Arts Council board member for the Strategic Plan, I reiterated why I have served three three year terms as an Arts Council Board of Directors member. I expressed to the Strategic Planning Committee that it continues to be a priority for the Arts Council, that we increase our engagement, our presence at arts events , and providing marketing support for arts organizations in all districts in the city. Full engagement from west of the Los Angeles River. The Los Angeles River, which we call the flood control. If you grew up here to north the area around Jordan to Long Beach Poly, which we call the east side, when I was growing up because I didn't know there was anything further east in Pali and to the true east of Long Beach over by Eldorado Park. It turns out that other Arts Council board of directors, members and stakeholders had the same ideas about what they desired for the Arts Council. That we become engaged in all nine Council districts and we make everyone aware of the events that are going on within walking distance of their homes. We recently partnered with and co-sponsored a joint skateboarding BMX art event where we featured skateboarding and BMX artists. We had a second event where we set up a mobile gallery at the Long Beach Formula Drift Racing event and featured Long Beach, Long Beach artists. We also partnered with Stuart Ashman at Miller, Chris Stokes at the University Art Museum and Michele Roberts at the Carpenter Center. So they would show each of these artists works and would also give free entry to their families so their families could come and see what they were doing. The implementation of the Arts Council Strategic Plan will bring us right back to where we were, where we're asking you to partner with us, assign a staff member to come to our meetings and be a part of each one of our meetings and help us implement the strategic plan. Thank you so much. Next speaker, please. Hello, everyone. My name is Aaron James Lawrence LeMay. I'm new to Long Beach. I've been here about six months now for those months out of the six, I've been on hiatus, so I really haven't been involved when it comes to making money for my living in Long Beach, but I have spent from my living here, I live at the sovereign across the street and I notice actually called the previous mayor when I saw the advertisement for the up and coming mayors. It should be noted with the assistant that was there, I called and I said Hi, I'm curious about running for mayor and the assistant transfer me to the person taking care of the current mayor and then said he's already endorsed him. I said, Were there any other positions available in the city? It's a true story. I was at the Newport Beach AT&T store, where I was account consultant for a year and a half with businesses in and around Irvine and Newport Beach. Before that, for about 15 years I was an entertainer and I took myself. To I just want to make sure this is budget. This is this is budget related. This is well, I reviewed my budget. I came in tonight because your door was open and I literally just got off the train from going to Universal Studios today where I was visiting lots of friends. So budgets are everywhere. The reason why I felt compelled to speak to this budget matter and to all of these issues, I'm deciding whether or not to stay in Long Beach for my own personal housing. If that issue didn't come up tonight, I wouldn't. It came up a lot. So I came to throw my personal voice instead of everyone else with budgets and studies and paperwork's in there pledging everything. I'm just giving you a personal perspective, saying that I'm deciding whether to move myself to North Hollywood or other places that I can be involved in arts. Because I studied I lived in Japan for a year and a half. So I know a lot about technological homes and living and working in Japan. There is technology where I could take a card and it's still there. At the Shinkansen station I would get off and I'd go to my home and I'd put a card in and the electricity would turn off. When I would take that card out to leave, the only way I could get in is by tapping it, getting in, putting that in the slot, and then the electricity would come up . So I know that you guys are going to do everything that you're going to do to study to make sure that Long Beach does the best it can do. I just wanted to throw my name in the hat and say, I hope that the decision. That everyone makes to make the city better entertainment wise and bringing in consistent revenue for everybody. I hope it keeps me here. You know, I'll be around. My name's they. Call me A.J.. Thank you, A.J.. Hope you stay in Long Beach. Okay. Thank you. That was. Thank you for the attorney for the the budget hearing. With that, I need to take a motion to table the discussion to the next budget hearing. Second. There is a motion and a second on the floor. All those in favor say to table it. Okay. Budget hearing tabled. And from there we're going to move on to consent calendar. Kate in a second I was in favor say, okay, we're going to turn that over now to the item that Mr. Mayor.