Recommendation to authorize City Manager, or designee, to enter into an agreement with the California State University, Long Beach Foundation, to provide continuing education workforce development classes in Downtown Long Beach, in an amount not to exceed $1,000,000, for a period of ten years.  (District 1)
. And so I want to I know that President Connolly is already past her time, that she's supposed to be heading out to a next meeting at the university. So, Madam Clerk, if you could please read item 27, please. Report from Economic Development Recommendation to authorize the city manager to enter into an agreement with California State University of Long Beach Foundation in an amount not to exceed 1 million. District one. Great. Thank you. I'm going to give up before we go into the staff report. I'm going to go out and give some opening comments and then I'll turn this over to Mr. West and another councilman. Gonzales also will have some comments, comments as well. I want to just say that I think there's no there's no question that one of the best things we have in this entire city is our university. And Long Beach State is a very, very special place. And we are so fortunate in our city to have a university with the students, the faculty resources that we have, one of our faculty members here in the front row, in the front row who does amazing work and so many resources in in the staff and in everyone that works at the university. And so we're lucky with the economic impact that's being made. There has been a proposal that the city and the university have been working on for the last couple of years, and that has been to bring the university to downtown Long Beach. And as we know, when universities go to downtowns, the downtowns thrive and the students also open themselves up to incredible opportunities and experiences. This has been a proposal that has many parts. One large piece of it is actually bringing faculty, classrooms and teachers and students to the downtown to learn. And there is also a phase that we're talking about that also includes student housing and faculty housing that is affordable and accessible for our students and faculty to also be here in the downtown tonight. What we have in front of us is incredible work that's happened between the university and the city as it relates to the classrooms and the educational component. It's a huge, huge step forward, one that everyone should be proud of. I have to really thank Councilwoman Gonzalez and her staff for being incredibly supportive and shepherding this deal through the process and really to the work that staff has done and the university to get us here today. So with that, I want to turn this over to staffer one for a minute. They're going to do a presentation on this, and then I'm going to over to President Connolly. Mr. West. Economic Development John Keisler and our workforce director, Nick Shultz. So good evening, Honorable Mayor and members of the Council. The purpose of the recommendation and proposed grant funding tonight is to engage with California State University, Long Beach College of Professional and International Education, CPA to deliver a best offering of classes closer to the city's professional employment center on the city's West Side and downtown business district. The downtown location of university classrooms adjacent to the Metro Blue Line will also provide a more convenient university access to the city's central and north Long Beach residents. The proposed ten year agreement of $1 million to the California State University Long Beach Foundation will provide the university with a portion of the resources necessary to establish 16 classroom classrooms, with an estimated 25 C each, 400 total seats to deliver CPE continuing education programs to advance the careers of current professionals and to provide additional space for classes provided at its main campus. That will conclude my staff report, and I'm available to answer any additional questions you may have with regards to the agreement. Thank you, Mr. Schultz. This time I'm going to have President Connally make a few comments, and then I'm to turn this over to Councilman Gonzales. Thank you, honorable mayor and council members. I'm delighted to be here today to speak in favor of this item. And thank you very much for presenting it. It gives us a chance to deepen our partnership with the City of Long Beach and really be part of the economic and cultural development of the downtown area. As already mentioned, this is a three phase project. The first phase will be educational. We'll be offering programs such as Human Resource Management Certificate, Emergency Medical Technician, Event Planning Certificate, Cybersecurity, an I.T. program, health science degree completion program, public safety, for example, criminology, social work degree completion programs, and a psychology degree completion program just as initial offerings that we've found from serving here would be popular. The second phase will be to establish an innovation center that we feel will spur innovation and entrepreneurship in this city. And the third phase that we're very excited about is to create faculty, staff and student housing that is currently conceptualized as 800, bringing 800 individuals in this in this third phase to the downtown area. So thanks for the chance to deepen the partnership. We're fully committed to the development of downtown and really want to be part of it. Thank you, President Connelly. And I'm going to turn this over to Councilwoman Gonzalez. I just want to say thank you to city staff of Nick and John and, of course, President Connelly. I know this is going to be a great addition to downtown now. This will be one of two innovation centers, the other which will be on third and pine, which will be lovingly called the Sean the McKee Innovation Center and connected with Long Beach City College and Blink Spaces. And now we have Cal State, Long Beach and IT services in criminal justice and cybersecurity. I would have never thought ten years ago that we would ever have two innovation centers with both of our academic institutions in downtown. And this is very, very exciting. You know, when we were away on behalf of the city, we talked about the patent office, that we have opportunities as well to talk about with in collaboration with Cal State, Long Beach. Currently, we have about 300 patents in the city and about a bulk of those are health sciences. So thinking about biotech and other sort of technology areas that we can flourish not only at the at the university but in downtown and creating and research and development is going to be a really exciting element for the area. So thank you again, everybody. And I know Tony Shoshoni is here as well, who has been a great part of this. And we look forward to this evolving. And I'm 100% behind you. So thank you very much. Thank you, Councilwoman Councilmember Durango. Thank you, Barry. And I want to thank President Connelly for being here today and for allowing us to participate with you. And I hope that we can take credit for this with the college promise that the city of Long Beach also went into into an agreement with the City College, Islamic State and the Long Beach Unified School District. And this is a great example of how college projects can and can really do great benefit and great work out the committee. Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you. Councilmember Pierce. Yes. I, too, want to applaud everybody's efforts for coming together on this. You know, Councilmember Gonzalez did mention. But I think it's your ten year anniversary, Cal State, Long Beach. Yes, mine, too. So it's been ten years this year since I graduated from Cal State, my college before Cal State was the University of Houston, which had another downtown location. And that really changed the downtown in Houston. And so I think bringing science together, technology innovation together, where you feel that energy around you is really important and really critical. And I know with our new main library that there also be some synergy there. And so I'm just happy to see our city working and thinking outside the box to really change the dynamics. So thank you. Thank you. Councilwoman Mongeau. Just a big congratulations to Long Beach State and our team for working on this every week. I am so impressed of the opportunities that are coming to Long Beach and what great things we can do when we all work together. Thank you, Councilor Richardson. I think you're right, Councilwoman Mango. It's like every week there's something amazing coming. This is a great move for for downtown. And I got to say, you know, there's multiple efforts in town and I'm learning more about the benefits when you get college off of campus and into the communities, all the exponential benefits that happen in those communities. So I'm excited to see that happen in the downtown. There's other conversations in Uptown, but in general, I'm really supportive of this effort. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Vice Mayor Andrews. Yes, thank you. And Doctor, I just want to let you know, these kids talk to my teen years. It will be my 35th. But with that, if programs like this, I think I would have still been there. Thank you very much for bringing us together. Yes, thank you. And before I go to comment, let me just also say that Councilmember Pearce's right when when the Arizona State University moved into Phenix and began opening classrooms, it just dramatically changed affordability, student access to affordable housing, the opportunity for faculty to engage with with the community. And it was huge benefits. And this is something that I know for for me and for for Councilman Gonzales and others has been a top priority to get lobbied state in a big way to downtown. And not only will the university open up a significant amount of classrooms just across the street on the other side of Long Beach Boulevard, where you'll be located, we're building, as you know, a large development where there will be affordable housing for faculty in the arts department. So you will have across the street gallery space, the university will manage. You'll have faculty and residents with earning their MFAs at in the Broadway block project just across the street and on the other side of on Beach Boulevard, you will have these classrooms and students and then you have the student housing and now you are adjacent from the Metro Blue Line and you're opening up our students to, you know, to the rest of the Los Angeles region and to the rest of the. And so I think it's a it's a really important and special moment. I'm just really proud of all the work. And so thank you again, Dr. Conley, to you and your and your team and to Tony Shoshoni, who is also helping make this whole thing happen. So thank you. Any other comment on this item? Seeing nonmembers, please get Ancaster votes. Motion carries. All right. Go beat. Congratulations. Thank you. And let me now go back to the presentation that we have. I'm going to turn this over to Councilmember Durango.