Recommendation to conduct a Budget Hearing to receive and discuss an overview of the Proposed Fiscal Year 2021 Budget. (Citywide)
You know, queue up here with me. I have to be on the phone. So okay with that, would you? Okay. Now we're going to go to enter into our first budget during the 2021 fiscal year growth. Could you please call. Report from Public Works. Recommendation to conduct a budget hearing to receive and discuss an overview of the proposed fiscal year 2021 budget city wide. It's actually mayor and council. I think we would prefer to do the the first presentation of the budget and then do the CFP and then we would get into questions on. Okay. So Mayor and members of the city council or vice mayor and members of the city council, we are here tonight to really walk you through the FY 21 proposed budget that was released yesterday. I am going to be going through the staff presentation and the city manager's proposed budget. The mayor wouldn't normally be here today, but due to the passing of his mom, he's working on arrangements for her, for her services, which are coming up. And so he's asked me to, in that moment, do his presentation at the end of my presentation to kind of some of the mayor's recommendations on top of the city manager's budget. I think somebody might have an open phone line and then we will get into the CIPA presentation. And so as we start this budget, I want to remind ourselves how many accomplishments we have to be proud of. We have spent nearly $100 million or have received or have spent or will spend $100 million on COVID 19 response. That's over 80,000 free public tests sheltering for our homeless. Free medical care. Food. Rent support, business assistance, residents assistance. The the scope of the investment that the city has done in COVID has been spectacular. We have supported over 20,000 bids, put online sessions to help our small businesses. And we've issued nearly 13,000 building permits. The council has passed some very significant housing policies, including inclusionary housing tenant assistance policies. 650 new affordable housing units are in the pipeline. We have also just finished construction on our year round homeless shelter, the very first one. The final touches are going on right now and then we'll be opening that later this year with a private provider who will help 125 people find housing while they transition into other, more permanent solutions. We have continued the largest investment in infrastructure in or I'm sorry, largest infrastructure investment in a generation. And we've also opened the brand new Billie Jean King Maine Library and the LEED certified City Hall and Civic Center Plaza just a year ago. Heal the Bay is continuing to notice our progress on our water quality. And 87% of our city's beaches received A and B grades during the summer. And our animal care and compassion saves approach is working. And our live release rate is is very, very high, over 89%, I believe. And so it's important to remember that we are a full service city. $2.6 billion in operations. We provide a wide array of services through our 23 departments. We're a very complex organization. We have 37 different financial funds that represent a number of different operations, and they each are funded in different ways. The majority of those funds, though, those $2.6 billion are restricted by law for certain operations. And the general fund is the only really complete discretionary fund, which is about 20% of the budget. And really, that is where our tax dollars go. Before we get into the budget, I do want to really focus on some of the challenges that we've had and also really explain some of the coronavirus services that we are providing. And so we are in the middle of the biggest health crisis that we have ever seen in our generation. And it is a global pandemic. So not only are we addressing that for our community, but we are also addressing the major fiscal and economic challenges that are occurring that have been completely exacerbated by COVID 19. We've seen movements to end systemic racism with thousands of people taking to the streets. And we also have the largest general fund shortfall in recent history. That 30 million. That shortfall is $30 million in fy21. We are seeing huge revenue losses, a 9% loss in sales tax. 38% loss in our hotel bed tax and over 40% loss in oil revenue. At the same time, our costs continue to grow as the costs of services increase. We are seeing nearly 20% unemployment and we have that major economic uncertainty both locally, state and nationally. And so we are prioritizing the health and safety of residents in light of that pandemic. And this budget maintains core services in a balanced way while making some very difficult reduction decisions. We've had to balance that budget with an approach that considers a number of different factors and at the same time we're implementing bold actions and investments in the areas of racial equity and reconciliation. And we realize that this budget is really just a first step. So let's talk a little bit about COVID. We have responded incredibly swiftly to the biggest health crisis in a generation. Over 100 personnel have been dedicated to our city's emergency operations center since March. It's the longest running disaster that any of us can remember. And disaster response. We have over 8000 cases reported, tracked and investigated. We have established free medical care for over 4100 individuals and what we call a rapid assessment clinic. We have sheltered over 300 people experiencing homelessness, first in our community centers, and then as we transitioned into hotels. And we've tested over 123,000 people through our city free drive thrus and then also through our private medical providers. Right at the beginning of the pandemic, we went out to the community and asked for support and raised $1,000,000 very quickly and used that to support nonprofits in our COVID 19 response. This council created the first ever eviction moratoriums. We also provided business support through delays of fines and fees. We created brand new permitting processes to quickly get businesses back up and running again. We had creativity in adapting to new models like Open Space and Parklets and Open Streets. We created, we found and we distributed free personal protective equipment. We've also managed a huge warehouse with $1.7 million or million items in inventory of that personal protective equipment. And we've created a COVID business inspection task force, which has visited 4700 businesses. We also rerouted city staff into dedicated call centers, managing thousands and thousands of calls. Just in the past 60 days. It's been over 24,000 calls or 400 a day. We will have spent, as I mentioned, over 100 million that we are planning on on spending or receiving. We also are investing in our community support programs, $14.4 million in the areas, things like homeless, sheltering, food insecurity, nonprofit relief, youth leadership, the arts, digital inclusion, also investing in business support programs $6.75 million for recovery grants, transition grants, helping with technology, helping with PPE and other things. And so the pandemic has really changed our operations and our focus, and we've had to make that our number one priority and divert significant staff time. We've drafted our city employees as emergency disaster workers and have them doing completely different jobs than they thought that they would be doing. And so we've done things like provide a relief to residents and businesses. We've done fee waivers, find cancelations, we changed street sweeping, we've done rental relief. All these are incredibly important, but they've also had adverse impacts to our revenues and our expenses. And there's been some some silver lining as well as we look at different ways on how we provide service, how we reimagine our work. We do a lot more over the phone now. We do a lot more in terms of telecommuting, in terms of online services. And so that telework has really become the way that we operate. And and it's worked very well. And so on June 23rd, the City Council adopted a resolution acknowledging racism as a public health crisis and created this framework for reconciliation. And so that was a bold, bold move that this council took and really took our city to the forefront of the discussion on racial equity. The team went out and held four town hall meetings and 13 listening sessions in a two month period of time, engaging over 600 participants, an incredible level of outreach. And we're investing in the work that and the ideas that we heard. $3.2 million are in this budget in the area of racial equity and reconciliation, 2.5 million structural and 702,001 times. Here's a summary of those items. And we're going to be bringing this plan to you next week, and we'll talk a little bit more about the specifics when we get there. But in the area of health, youth and violence prevention, we have a $1.5 million increase structurally for racial equity. These are things like youth programs, violence prevention programs, trauma informed responses to community needs. We're redesigning our heart team model and moving it from a firefighter sworn program into the health department, using nurses or social workers. We're looking at using social workers in our libraries. We started a pilot last year and we want to continue that. We're looking at some different library models. On investing in libraries seven days a week. We're looking at our senior program at the Expo Center and making the only program that serves kind of a northern part of Long Beach permanent. And we're investing in summer youth programing in areas of high need, including the Be Safe program at 11 sites. In the area of public safety, we've created a new office of Constitutional Policing in the police department to really look at data and reforms and new ways of doing things and best practices that can be implemented along with training. An implicit bias and implicit bias training. We're looking at supporting an effort to look at the PCC $150,000 that in the first year would be to bring an outside expert on to look at all the best practice models, to look at what we're doing now with the PCC. How can it be strengthened potential ballot measures, other models and then ongoing to be able to provide staffing for that, for that body, whatever it becomes? We are investing in our fire diversity recruitment program with one time dollars and continuing that great program. And we're re-envisioning how we do policing looking particularly at civilian ization and converting 34 sworn positions to about 29 civilian positions. In the area of equity. We've got a brand new deputy city manager, that's Theresa Chandler, who's going to be overseeing all of this work in addition to other things. And we are enhancing the staffing for the Office of Equity by a position and a second one that's one times. And then moving that Office of Equity into the city manager's office to elevate the importance of that work and to have it also touch a broader area of the city. We're implementing training for our city employees at $100,000 for implicit bias and equity and also investing in our language access program. And so when I brought the budget approach to you back in May, we talked about using what we call a balanced outcomes based approach. And we knew we had a $30 million shortfall we had to address. At the same time, having to invest in racial equity and reconciliation. And so we prioritized and protected those core services while adjusting others to what we have to understand are acceptable service levels. They may not be what we're our hopes and dreams, but they are the level of service that we can accept. And this budget is balanced using both structural, which are permanent solutions and one time solutions. So before I get into the areas of reduction, I think it's important that we recall what's in it. So what is maintained. And so this budget preserves emergency response, including PD priority one and priority two calls emergency medical and fire services. We're investing in our infrastructure for sidewalk and potholes. We've got our major facilities maintenance. We're investing in our parks and facilities and public spaces. We continue our graffiti abatement programs in our landscaped medians, continuing our are clean teams that pick up trash on the streets. We continue our youth and senior programing and and improving and implementing affordable housing. We're investing in our business assistance programs, in our water and gas customer service. Continue to have strong economic development and business programs. We still have our multifaceted homelessness response and in fact, more money than ever due to a lot of federal grants coming in to address homelessness. We've got investment in technology in our green fleet and in our energy efficiency and greenhouse gas reduction efforts through upgrades to city facilities. We continue to do a permitting and inspection for businesses so that they can do what they need to do and invest in our animal care services and tree trimming. And so as we look at how we're going to reduce and solve that $30 million deficit, we came up with a five step plan to those savings in reductions , assistance from employees, new and reallocated revenues, strategic enhancements in efficiencies and innovations and service reductions. And I'll go through each one of those because it's important that you understand those. So the first one is assistance from employee groups. We're seeking $11.3 million in the general fund, which could come in in a variety of ways, including employee furloughs or other types of contributions while we negotiate longer term contracts. It's important to say now we don't have a lot of details in the budget on the specifics because that really needs to be done at the bargaining table with our partners in labor. And those discussions are ongoing. So those furloughs are one time solutions. They do have limits. They're not a permanent reduction in work hours. And we're going to have to deal with the structural solution in the following year. And it is a huge impact to our employees. It is the potential for up to 10% loss of pay for a year for non sworn employees, which could mean 26 furlough days. If it were that level, we would be looking at closing city services, most city services one day every two weeks and we would have a loss of productivity by 10% in hours available to serve the community. So there will be community impacts. But it does provide much needed immediate relief in the budget. It helps avoid significant layoffs. We estimate that is the value of about 106 positions that would not be eliminated, and it helps minimize permanent structural service impacts to the community. In the second area cannabis business. I'm sorry, second area is new are allocated revenues. So we are looking at where we can bring in some additional revenue. The voters, when they approved Measure May, which is a tax on cannabis, they gave us a range and from 6 to 8% for medical and from 8 to 10% for recreational . And the council set it at the lowest possible rate as that industry was getting started. We are recommending that the council increase it by 1% as allowed by voters and that would bring in about $800,000 in revenues. And those would cover structural things like racial equity and reconciliation in addition to cannabis oversight and other services qualified under measure. Amy, we're also looking at bringing in some more measure Measure A for maintenance, about four and a half million dollars, which prevents additional reductions to police and fire. We're looking at a new youth sports registration fee. There currently is no fee, just a $10 fee for equipment. And so raising that to $25 and the mayor will talk a little bit about that in his presentation at the end. We're looking at increasing fees in our Eldorado Park and also on our beaches, going from $0.25 to increasing by $0.25 every 15 minutes at the beach parking lots, which is comparable to our other beach agencies and increasing our ambulance rates. Our costs are going up as and we're looking to cover that with revenue. And this would also line up with the county rates. We're looking at some additional support from our gas fund, bringing in about $1.3 million in transfer. And the gas fund also is having investments and they do need additional revenue to make those investments. They are currently 32% below SoCal Gas and there has not been a gas rate increase since 2016. And so this budget does propose a 10.4 overall effective increase. We have some increase in towing fees to keep up with the cost to provide that service. And Measure B is in this budget for the first time at a 1% increase in the total, which was approved by the voters. And that money would be dedicated for arts and Convention Center in the budget. The third area is what we call our strategic investments. We have a capital improvement program of 491 million, which you'll hear about later in the presentation later tonight. And that's in the area of airport mobility, public facilities, utilities and harbor. And I want to focus a little bit on mobility and facilities as this is what we hear about the most from our community. This budget has a $1.2 million and alleys 13 million. And our arterial streets. 14 million in arterial corridor enhancements. 11 million in residential streets. Almost 10 million in ADAS. Sidewalk curb improvements. 1.6 million for Fire Station nine. And investments through AB 32. Energy efficiency in our facilities. And so a big portion of those dollars are from Measure eight, and it's $18.5 million in investment. The Council also asked us last year to really help out a a jewel of the city, which is Sunnyside Cemetery. It was having a long, strong I'm sorry, prolonged financial problems and really couldn't operate as a nonprofit anymore. And so that's been transferred to the city. And but it takes money to be able to to keep it up. And it's about $300,000, which is included in the budget measure passed. And that is calling for a new ethics commission. And so we are bringing on a staff member to support that work. The work is likely needed is more probably 2 to 3 staff members. But we do believe we should start with at least one. It's important that we have dedicated staff into this commission and the city attorney's office will reallocate $150,000 in cannabis funding to support their work on the Ethics Commission. We're also investing in our health department ten administrative focus positions, a non general fund, but these are funded off of grants to help them manage the money that that is in the health department. 98% or roughly so is funded out of grants in our health department. We're investing in animal care, a full time veterinarian, and $100,000 for medical supplies to support compassion saves. We're investing in our park needs as the water rates go up, we need to also raise the dollars that we put towards water to keep the same level of service. And with all the grants that we're receiving, it's important that we invest in infrastructure, in people who manage all those grants. And so the financial management department, while taking some pretty significant reductions, is investing in a grants officer. We're going to have 1.5 million for our runoff elections that are November ballot. We'll have money for our redistricting and census, which is measured and approved by voters. We will also be investing in looking at fire operations. How can we save money in the fire department? How do we look at different service models? How do we raise revenue? How do we lower costs at 200,000? And we are looking we're investing in our homeless rapid response like every year and also setting aside some additional water budget. This budget has several strategic studies. We're studying the CPC. We're studying our fire operations. We're implementing a multiyear citywide Ph.D. study. And we're going to be investing our AB32 funds into energy efficiency projects that both reduce our greenhouse gas emission footprint and help save us electric or money on our electric bill. In the area of the police and fire academies. They are continuing to be funded in this budget and we do think that we're going to have higher than normal attrition in these years, especially in the police department. And so we are planning, even though there are some reductions in PD and some in fire, that to keep those academies. And however, if we always have to estimate how many we may lose to attrition and if it's not enough, we would be asking you to cover that with unallocated measure revenues to avoid any layoffs. And so we also in the safer grant area, unfortunately, looking at the dollars and looking at what is left and how much money we would be able to have and to invest in the future, we are recommending that you forego the decision to go after the safer grant. We would have to spend about $4.1 million to draw down the SAFER grant, which is currently valued at about 1.7 1.8 million. And so I'm sure this will be a subject of a lot of future discussion, but we just believe right now, given what we know in our budget situation, not to pursue that engine 17 remains in the budget. It is funded by a measure for another year. And of course, situations and circumstances can change in a year. It efficiencies and innovations is the fourth area. So we're looking at reduce cost from strategic investments. We've been investing in our cities fleet for the last several years to get our new, more modern fleet, and that's helped us save money. So we are now looking at about $900,000 that we can reduce out of what we spend in our fleet fund. We are getting efficiencies from our investment in technology and lbe coast our new enterprise resource program saving $600,000 and we've got other efficiencies from lbe coast and our east citation technology and accounting efficiencies. In the area of public safety, we're reimagining and redesigning the delivery of public safety services. We are looking to reduce 34 sworn positions, but replacing them with 29 civilian positions, which saves $3.8 million. An example of this is taking 16 police officer positions and instead using civilians to respond to priority three, the lowest level calls that come in to the dispatch center. We also have city police officers that oversee our public safety equipment and facilities and having those be civilians instead. And our helicopter air support unit would be civilian ized. We would streamline our jail operations and consolidate into one jail in down in the public safety building and eliminate 12 non sworn positions in the fire department. We would shift that from a sworn firefighters to civilian nurses or social workers. Saving $450,000 and we'd be transferring our crossing guard program out of the police department to public works. This budget includes both contracting in and contracting out. Wherever we can, we like to replace contracts, work with city staff when it saves money. And that's what we're doing in this budget and saving $1.1 million. At the same time, we evaluated some options where the private sector may be able to do it for lower cost. And so the city manager is proposing about $950,000 in savings. The mayor has an item later asking us to reconsider that. So that will be up to the council to take a look at. And then we're also eliminating vacant positions where we can. So the last area is really service reduction. So after we've done all of that, we know that we still have reductions that we have to make in terms of services. And so our goal is really here we're to provide core services at acceptable service levels. We still need to meet all of our local, state and federal mandates and legal requirements. We have to preserve our organizational capacity so that our our employees out on the street have the support that they need to operate effectively. And so we do not do a across the board approach. I ask all departments to submit reduction ideas and then we go through them and look to see what that balanced outcomes approach is. And so all departments ended up taking reductions except for the health department. They only had their very little general fund, only about 2% of their budget. And and that really is in the area of homelessness. And so we're looking to actually increase in the health department through the equity work. But then all other departments took reductions in this process. And so in the area of public safety, we have proposed 59 sworn police positions being eliminated. That's 54 and police and five and fire. And of those those 34 in police and four in fire are part of the civilian ization efforts that I mentioned earlier. There are some reductions in the area of vice and traffic and narcotics field detail the K-9 team over time, reducing some of the blue line officers and eliminating the Long Beach Unified School District contract in fire. We've got a reduction of 1.9 million. But the specifics are really going to be identified through that comprehensive study in FY21. The FAA 21 reduction will be covered by a one year delay of vehicle capital replacement. So there is money for FY 21 and the structural solutions will be helped to be identified through that study. They are eliminating positions through the heart. Teams transfer. They're eliminating a marine safety officer and reducing some career non-career lifeguards entitlements. And disaster preparedness is reduced to public safety dispatchers. Throughout the organization, we're looking at reducing our administrative services. We've got management reduction, support, position reductions. We're redistributing workload that comes at a cost. We already have employees who are doing an incredible amount of work, and now we have fewer people doing the same amount of work, if not more work. So we'll have an impact on the organization and you'll see some of the positions. Here are just examples that are being reduced. We are reducing in cannabis and oversight and enforcement. That was a brand new program that we put in place. We are recommending a 30% reduction in the positions, which is seven positions. This will have an impact. We won't be as nimble as we get new applicants or a few. Counsel wants to look at new policies, but we do think it makes sense. When we look at the balance outcomes approach and community service area, we really strive to minimize any negative impacts to residents. We had looked at our libraries and rather than reducing any one library or reducing all libraries by the same amount of hours, we looked at a different model where nine libraries would go from 5 hours or five days a week to three days a week. And our three newest flagship libraries would go from five days a week to seven days a week and still save about 300,000. Those seven day libraries can serve the entire region. The mayor has some comments on this as well in his recommendation. When we put this together, we weren't really sure if libraries were going to even be open during COVID, and they continue to remain closed except for a pick up service in the area of youth programing. We're looking at reducing our summer fun day and teen center by an hour a day. And we're also going to have a little bit less proactive property maintenance on our city properties. In the area of Thailand's, as I mentioned, we're reducing a marine safety officer and some lifeguard hours. We have to look at our landscaping in the marine areas and reducing that to kind of match what we do in the general fund areas. We are going to go to biweekly mowing of green spaces and going down in tree trimming from every year to every other year. And special advertising and promotions is the money that we get to do our communications and art and a convention, visitors bureau, business and special events. And so we are reducing two positions in special events. One position and public affairs, eliminating the recently added community concerts funding and reducing Museum of Art by about $18,000. Arts Council by about 25 or so. And Convention and Visitors Bureau by about 450,000. And so those really are the summary of the reductions. Altogether, it's about 136 positions are impacted, 77 of which are field positions and 59 are vacant. We're continuing to look at that and getting the specific detail and we would be going through a process with civil service that would determine the actual layoff process. We will work and do everything we can to try to prevent layoffs for city employees. And we've been holding positions vacant in the in the idea that we may need them for city employees, if at all possible. I did promise you, counsel, when we started this that we would also provide options in the budget and they were in there. We had to look at some very, very difficult decisions as the departments presented. And so these are just some of the real items that were considered and rejected. So these are not in the budgets, but they are listed so that you have some information on what we looked at. We had to look at things like closing branch libraries and our graffiti program and tree trimming and additional engines and paramedic units and our homeless services and animal care reductions. It was a very painful list. I do need to point out that a number of things are not funded or underfunded in this budget, including some of the initiatives that you bring to the city council. And we come back with information on. So this is the time to really revisit those lists as we give you those costs. And so I provided that in the budget for you to take a look at. We also have important unfunded and short term and long term liabilities, which include things like our ADA compliance and additional funding for tree trimming and plant water needs in our insurance and pensions and climate action plan and others. And so those are in the budget to review as well. And so we're relying on both structural and one time solutions to balance the budget. Normally, we only do structural solutions. That is really kind of a core tenet of the of the council. But I am I am recommending that you look at both and there's a reason for that. And because of the significantly challenging factors, the magnitude of the problem, the more we cut in terms of services structurally, the more impact on our residents and businesses who are hurting right now because of COVID 19. And there's also a lot that we don't know. There may be both positives and negatives coming. There could be additional money from the Heroes Act, which could be millions and millions of dollars under the House bill, and that could come as early as mid-next year. And so we're looking in highlights about $18.8 million in department reductions. We're adding back two and a half million for racial equity investments. We're asking for our employees to help us at $11 million. And then we are using some reserves, $2.9 million. For the one times in the budget we normally have one time dollars to invest and this year we do not have one time dollars to invest, but we still have one time needs. And so we are looking at funding that through some additional gas fund transfer and also some use of reserves. And so all told, between one time and operating, we are recommending in the manager's budget 6.1 million in reserves. It's important to remember we still have shortfalls for the next few years. They actually total about $76 million over the next three years. And after we solve this year, we're going to have $32 million next year than 23 than 22 and 22. Excuse me. And SAP is looking like it's going to be down for several years and we would actually deplete all of the reserves and all of the fund balance in just a few short years at the current rate . And Tidelands has some very significant cuts or losses in the in probably the next 2 to 3 years. But then it does get a little bit better out in the future years. And so the budget timeline, you know, we started this back in December. Then we took a pause through COVID, unfortunately, and restarted it back in May. And here we are today. So we are back on schedule. The team had to do a very abbreviated and prepare preparation of the budget, but we are back on the normal schedule. We've submitted that proposed budget and now it's up to the council and we have a lot of meetings scheduled. The community can get involved. We encourage you to attend the budget hearings to come to our community. Budget meetings will be four of those come to the Bossie meetings. We also have a survey that I think we're already at over 4000 responses now, and we have a brand new tool that we've launched called our Budget Balancing Simulator Challenge, which allows you to play mayor and city council and see the different choices you have to make. And it's nascent, it's in its infancy, it's not perfect, but it gives you a good sense of what could what those options are. And so I want to remind us all that this is a city of many, many accomplishments. We continue to be a full service city. We're addressing our challenges head on, and I'm so proud of that. From the pandemic to our major budget shortfall, to our work on racial equity and reconciliation. And we're providing those great services to our communities. And so I do need to end with some thank you's. Our employees have been amazing through all of this. They are. They put themselves at risk as emergency workers. They are out there doing the work of COVID. They're being reassigned into things they've never done before. Our police department, our fire department, our health department are protecting us. They're protecting our freedoms and our expression, freedom of expression and our health. All departments are pulled together during COVID 19. We've had the staff that have put together this budget are just phenomenal and it's amazing what they've been able to accomplish. The same thing in our Racial Equity and Reconciliation Initiative staff under some very difficult conditions. Our technology team has been adapting and helping us learn in this new world of COVID 19. Our city clerk and her office have been fantastic and learning how to do these huge teleconference meetings. And I do want to really thank our employee associations for really recognizing how serious this is and being at the bargaining table with us to look at both the short term challenges we're facing and also as we address longer term compensation. And of course, I need to thank all of you, mayor and council and the support of all of our citywide elected officials attorney, prosecutor, auditor, our clerk, our civil service director, our harbor director, and our water general manager. And so I know that was a lot. That's a lot for me. There's a lot in this budget to go over. I do want to briefly kind of go through the mayors recommendations. I will not do it nearly as eloquent as he would, but I do want to kind of read those into the record. Um, in the area of COVID 19, he's asking the council to consider public health councils that facilitate education concerning workplace safety and health guidance in the industry's most affected by COVID 19. And in that post-COVID-19 economy, he's asking the council to restore some of the positions recommended to be contracting out. Those include parking citation, customer service, public works, surveying and parking meter collection and maintenance. Also asking us to take a look at job training and how we help our disadvantaged workers and explore and supports penalties for noncompliance in the workplace. He's asking us to address and invest in the area of income inequality, and that could come in the form of public banking and really exploring that concept and universal basic income and adding some resources to start the intense study of those areas. In the area of racial justice and equity. He's asking the council to make justice fund funded and permanent, as well as the language access program and make those both structural. And that the Council should continue to look for opportunities to invest in black and communities of color by funding health partnerships, a community led crisis response, violence prevention programs and investments in public social, public social workers and mental health professionals in the area of housing and homelessness. Asking to create a right to counsel program for renters in light of the national eviction crisis. The area of public health and safety is to really look at the nine on one calls for service and explore that transitioning of non-emergency calls to models that have more emphasis on mental health and social services and in infrastructure. With the adoption now of Measure A, we have new dollars that aren't in here now, but they come in FY 23 and to start looking at a new five year infrastructure plan beginning in 23, when those moneys materialize in the areas of arts and culture, libraries and youth sports investing 1.7 million through Measure B, that's brand new money that we now have coming in into our local arts and and our convention and entertainment center. He's asking the council to maintain the existing library's hours for a year and with the opportunity to look at other ways to expand access when it's safe. And in the city manager's proposal, there was the youth sports program, and he's asking to keep those fees at their current levels. Looking into the future, he'd like the Council to consider implementation of the CAP Plan, Climate Action Plan and really look at the city's dependance on oil production. And how do we identify long term sustainable funding options to support those services as oil is likely not going to be in our future. In the future. And he's asking the team to look at different budgeting approaches, including the concept of zero based budgeting and really starting a process for the F 22 budget that brings community engagement even earlier in the process. As we look at just how we do our budget, what those approaches are and how to engage the community so that are there, those are the mayor's recommendations. There's also something been distributed to all of you and uploaded into the register on the specific dollar amounts that he'd like to consider and that those would come out of our measure be a rainy day fund reserve and our other reserves in order to fund those items. So I've spoken a lot. Vice Mayor, I will turn it to you. We can take a break and answer questions here or go on to the CIP program here, that short presentation, and then take questions so as to the will of the council. If that's okay with you at a time. I'd love to have a copy report presentation, if you don't mind. Yes, sir. We're ready to go. Here we go. I will now turn it over to our brand new public works director Eric Lopez. And please give us a minute while we pull up the presentation. Good evening, Vice Mayor. City Council and community members. My name is Eric Lopez and as your new director of Public Works. I'm pleased to present to you the city's capital improvement plan for Budget Year 21. Tonight's presentation will cover a few highlights of fiscal year 20, the fiscal year 21 proposed budget, a brief focus on Missouri and some challenges and opportunity for the city's capital improvement programs. I want to. Start by highlighting what the public works team has been working on in fiscal year 20. Starting on the top left, you'll see the Atlantic Bridge Community Shelter Project, which represents the city's first year round shelter for people experiencing homelessness. I'm proud to announce that active construction is now complete and we're working with the health team on the final preparations for this critical project. The Halton Park Community Center has been completed as has improvements to our city place parking structure and we are in the process of completing the Alamitos Beach concessions improvements and our first of several first new first new beach playgrounds. We've also done a series of street improvements and ADA curb rent ramp improvements. The city is proposing to invest a total of 109 million and new capital projects this year from a variety of funding sources, as shown on this slide. And you will see that the funding allocations have been organized by section of the Capital Improvement Program Book and Fiscal Year 21. Funding has been identified in the four sections listed here. I'll start with the mobility program. The mobility section of the CHP represents the largest section as a majority of funding that comes from the state and county taxes. For example, we have gas tax SB one measure R measure and measure W, Prop eight and Prop C. Some example of mobility projects that we've delivered include residential. Street repair projects. ADA ramps, arterial street improvements, and various EV charging stations citywide. Specifically in fiscal year 21, we're looking at a total investment of $55.2 million comprising of, again, transportation bonds, gasoline tax measure and general capital projects. This funding supports a multitude of uses. The top four main uses, as listed in this chart, include the arterial corridor enhancements, arterial street rehabilitation, residential street improvements and ADA curb ramp improvements, among others as listed here. The map on your screen now provides the city's infrastructure investment plan. I want to highlight the Green three segments, which represent the work that has been completed completed to date by the public works team. We are making great progress, but obviously still have some important projects ahead of us to improve the commitment that we made under the existing infrastructure investment plan. This map represents the major residential street investment plan for this fiscal year and the proposed plan for fiscal year 21. The proposed rates on the map represent fiscal year 20 projects, while the orange represents the proposed fiscal year 21 streets. Now to our Public Facilities program. The proposed projects for fiscal year 21 include energy efficiency upgrades as well as other facility improvements to city buildings identified in our facilities. Conditions Assessment. One example of work that is identified in our facility conditions assessment is roof replacement. And as an example, in this picture on the left, we have the Los Altos libraries that that was leaking. And so we were able to replace those roofs and and and put one in that's much more energy efficient. Thanks to a B 32 funds, the city will continue investing in projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, including our EV charging stations and public works. Looks forward to implementing more projects that will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve energy efficiency citywide. In fiscal year 21, our airport plans to invest in improvements for accessing the terminal and rehabilitation of the airfield. The runway and the total of that investment is about $1,000,000. In our utility program in fiscal year 21, there's this total investment in this program is just under $46 million. It includes 3 million in council Measure W funds. Measure W was passed by voters in November 2018 and has been identified for use to construct new stormwater and water quality related projects such as the Long Beach Ms. treatment facility. Long Beach Energy Resources has proposed an $11 million investment in the city's pipeline infrastructure. And the Long Beach Water Department is proposing 35.8 million to invest in the city's water and sewer infrastructure. Now I want to take a moment and highlight Missouri and the investment it has made into the city's infrastructure. Everyone should be familiar with the measure investment plan and hopefully you've had the opportunity to visit the cities measure a web page at Long Beach dot gov. That measure. A. First, I want to take a moment and highlight some measure a investments and some projects that the team plans on completing this fiscal year. The top two pictures represent the Rancho Los Amigos project, which included repairs and improvements to the masonry garden walls. Archive room roof resurfaced. The driveway and parking lot replaced electrical systems and seismically retrofitted the exhibit rooms. The bottom two pictures represent improvements to the bank branch and the new branch libraries. Improvements include a replacement of the existing circulation desk where a new ADA compliant desk that not only improved accessibility but will also improve the user experience . The large picture on the right is of the Los Altos Library Roof Repair Project. In addition to the facilities discussed, investments have been made to the parks, facilities, roadways and sidewalks. Pictured here are Silverado Park, where improvements are made to the sports courts, including updating electrical equipment. The Martin Luther King Junior Avenue was repaved from Seventh Street, 2/10 to 10th Street. The project included resurfacing the roadway, sidewalk replacement, new curb gutters, driveway replacement, ADA compliant, curb rounds and traffic improvements. We also see the new playground at Jenni Rivera Park and improvements to sidewalk path of travel. Measure a proposed budget this year, we have a total of 18.5 million investments and mainly going into the mobility and public facilities programs. If you are the programs that are proposed to receive funding in fiscal year 21 for Measure R alley improvements, arterial street improvements, curbs and sidewalks, facility improvements, and some additional funding for Fire Station nine pictured above. We have some street improvement and alleys and the fire station. Since the inception of Measure eight in 2017, including the this year's proposed budget, almost 133 million has been invested into the city's infrastructure. It's truly hard to imagine where the city's infrastructure would be without the investment measure it has provided to the city's roadways, alleys , sidewalks and public facilities. In addition to the projects identified in the fiscal year, 21 capital improvement program, staff is also providing recommendations for investment. The future measure a infrastructure projects. This slide represents the total estimated investment measure A will provide for the city's infrastructure since it was passed in 2017. Originally, Measure eight was estimated to provide approximately $100 million. But as you can see from the chart, the amount has grown to just over 160 million. Um, what we've been able to accomplish a lot of work. We still have a significant amount of unfunded needs. And whilst that while significant, the city in the public works department has accepted the challenge and we are doing the best we can to address as many needs as possible. Investment in the city's infrastructure is driven by successful, successful strategic planning, which starts with understanding the specific details of our needs. This slide represents the various studies that Public Works uses to address the city infrastructure needs. In closing, the proposed budget of 108 million will continue to provide significant investments into the city's infrastructure during these unprecedented times. Without the investment imagery and recent county and state funds passed by voters. The investments would not be anywhere near what they have been. Not just this year, but in the last couple of years. That includes the CIPA report that we're here for questions. Thank you, Mayor and city council. So we turn it back over to you. Thank you for allowing us to really present all that information. And we have our finance team, our public works team and also our department directors here to answer questions. And then we're going to start doing department presentations as early as next week. So you're going to start seeing kind of the major city departments that we normally present to you and getting feedback from you on any others you want to see. So that concludes the staff report. Thank you very much, Tom. I just want to congratulate you and a beautiful presentation. It's very robust. And I mean, you guys really did what we needed here. And now I want to tell my colleagues here, since we have such a large, you know, public comment group, I like to really allow them to start first with you guys or mine so you can hear what they want to ask you. So with that, I would like to turn it over to public comment in Korea. Could you please read the names? Seconds, 90 seconds, because we have a very large company coming through. Our first speakers. Jordan, when your time starts now. Hi there. Can you hear me? Yes. Hello. Hi there. We've been. Anticipating this budget for quite. Some time and I'm glad that. It's finally coming forward and that there are some substantial public investments. But frankly, based on the protests and the ways in which we understand our city budget should work, I think the people wanted and expected a little bit more in terms of defunding the police. I think we need to, as a community, recognize that certain services that are being invested in the police department are suitable much more when they are given to community resources and community investments. I hope the Council will consider looking deeper into how you can integrate community programs, youth focused programs, senior focused programs, and specifically programs that start to circumvent the carceral system and bring justice to our black communities in Long Beach. I hope the Council will consider that when thinking about fiscal year 2020. Thank you very much. Thank you. Our next speaker is Lisa Okamoto. Your time starts now. Good afternoon or good evening, Mayor, and members of City Council. My name is Lisa Okamoto. I'm the directing attorney at Immigrant Defenders Law Center, also known as Index. And I'm also I am submitting a public comment in support of the renewal of the Language Justice Fund, and thank you for the mayor to increase, including in this budget . We are requesting for an increase amount $400,000 and in death is currently the legal service provider of the fund for its first year. As you may know, individuals who are forced into deportation proceedings in detention are up against a trained government attorney and are alone unless there are some intervention like not from nonprofits like us, or if the immigrant themselves can pay for the legal service, the longest justice fund is necessary to protect the due process of our language family members, friends and community at large through the referral of advocates like Long Beach Immigrants Rights Coalition in Dallas is currently representing 37 individual and family units. The average residency length of our clients in the city of Long Beach is 14 years. 79% of our clients are brought to the United States before their 25th birthday, 65% of them arriving before they were 18. And therefore, many of our clients only know language is home. The urgency, a need for representation, has escalated with the pandemic, as many of our community members are detained. Long Beach City Council should follow the steps of the city of Santa Ana, as well as the county and city of Los Angeles, in investing in this legal representation, as well as services that that invest in community and making sure that communities and members. Thank you. Our next speaker is Tanya Jimenez. Your time starts now. Good evening, Tanya Manners here from GSA Long Beach. This fiscal year, you are allocated to 43.8 million of the general fund to OPD, a hair shy of 44% of the fund. The proposal for the upcoming fiscal year allocates 239.7 million of the general fund to a over 44% of the fund. The actual percent of the general fund allocated so this year looking more like 48%. So however you want to frame it as a $4 million decrease from this year's adopted number or 4% decrease from this year's actual number, it does not meet the demands of the people. Maintaining the overall amount of staff by converting some sworn positions to civilian positions is a very underhanded way to reduce the slice of the pie. It does not accomplish what the people have been demanding that you defund PD, divest from APD and reinvest in bad policy. In the last 20 years, 89 people and counting have lost their lives due to fatal encounters with the LAPD. The lackluster changes that are being advanced in the budget proposal make a mockery of all the lives lost at the hands of APD since the department was created, as well as everyone that has and continues to demand that you defund and divest from LAPD, who are you all accountable to? To the money that will be pure in your collective direction, to an institution rooted in white supremacy that perpetuates violence against black communities and communities of color? Or is it the people as it should be, do better? Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Jordan. And during your time starts now. Hello. Council and city manager. My name is Jordan during. I'm also a member of DSA Long Beach. Tanya put it quite well, but I just wanted to say that, you know, we've been holding our breath for this budget and honestly, it's it's kind of embarrassing, but this is what we've come up with. You know, what is this? About $3 million for racial equity is like less than a drop in the bucket, especially through the fact that you're barely covering LAPD. Mr. Monica put it that there were protests to end racial inequality. That's not true. These protests were to end racial inequality and to defund the police. And the fact that you're not defunding the police. It's frankly despicable. Also, more importantly, you're talking about up to all these budget hearings, talk to the budget hearings, even though the reconciliation process got completely rattled by the fact that you took out all the comments that said if they'll be speedy. You also took out mentions of black people in place of a posse. So nobody has any faith in that process. So let's move on to what that means. So that means we're going to have to get back out in the streets to demand that you cut at least 50% so we can have 1200 more workers. That means we're going to be following you to the ends of the fucking earth and harassing you to make sure that you're actually accountable to us. So I look forward to seeing all of you through the month of August. Are you in my time? Thank you. Our next speaker is Dave Shukla. Your time starts now. Next week, we're going to need to see the plan. I'd like to explore charter changes for the general fund because 51% of the operating budget does outcome based approach should be viewed within the capabilities and wellbeing economic market sense. Now, when we say diverse, we do mean to suggest, ladies and gentlemen, that there are two systems. Of just two systems for public access and participation. Two systems of social investment. One for the mayor and his friends. And one for everyone else. We mean to abolish the wrong system. And system. Ladies and gentlemen. Furloughs are a fine example of shared sacrifice, but they should not become shared punishment now. Instead of utility increases, we need to explore progressive taxation on AB32 strategic study that involves community factors participation and it needs to start with climate disadvantaged communities. The clear needs to be adopted in 2020 and the $11 million for oil and gas pipeline tell big fucking glass. That needs to be money we use to take that crap out of the ground. That rust itself is not going to get us through this century. Divest from the wrong systems, defund the police 50%. Start building the right city. A city of equity. Don't waste my time. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speakers and control your time starts now. And Cantrell. And I understand that you have a lot of cuts to make. I. I'm unhappy with the fact that the usual suspects are taking the cuts of the employees that are being furloughed, the library hours that are being eliminated. And I'm wondering if there's anybody. In top management that is taking a cut in their pay. We have. I believe it's. 80. Members of, uh. Paid employees that are making over $300,000 a year. And I believe that the cuts should start at the top, not at the bottom. Um. One of the ways that I. Think that we could save some money is to stop having. Recycled pick ups because there is no place to sell the recycled. Uh. Items. And, uh, as I understand it, they're just being burned at surf. So it would seem that it would save the city money to just have one pick up or. To have. Green pickup for the. Thank you. Our next speaker is Seagrams. Your time starts now. All right. So for two years, Black Lives Matter, Long Beach community allies have created and adopted the people's budget. They've done the work. They've put in the time and done the work. And with the clear and stated goal of ending anti-blackness and structural racism in the city and addressing a history of disinvestment in communities of color. Since. So since this land was stolen from the Tioga people over the last two years, these efforts have forced conversations and actions for equity and justice. These conversations have been going on and these community members have been doing the work. But it's interesting to me that Mr. Garcia at the budget release stated that you did not have enough time to change the budget in favor of the people or what the people are demanding, which is defunding the police and investing in communities, specifically communities of color. These are not new issues, Mayor. This is not a new process. This has been going on forever. There have always been brutal LAPD, LGB, PD and LAPD. There has always been this fetishization of development and gentrification. This has always been the case, and it's time for bold change as we see these systems crumbling. So I call for you as a member of District three to see the person looking at you to adopt the Long Beach People's Budget. I don't know why you're so proud. Thank you. Our next speaker is Iris. Your time starts now. When I said there may not is the one long listed botanical history. So no competition for this important epidemic. Is the removal from the hospital the longest? Oh. They made their partner proud. Good afternoon. My name is Edis. I'm a member of. I live in Long Beach and I want to renew the budget for the justice that just prevailed in Long Beach. We're not together until I get the warmest for some, Nicholas. Every medal. And my soul is the one that's simple. They have a lamp or portable medicine. Maybe I'll give for the up for the lack of money that my husband was detained on March 1st and he was detained until June 15th and he was released until June 15th. Adelanto Detention Center. And thanks to the help of the community, he was released to see other empty. Other than needle and thread on this up by the middle, either for better or for worse. Guess where? A while he was detained, I went into a deep depression and deep fear because I didn't know what I could do. See how that anti. As a reporter and confidant, I. Lech Walesa, under the rights of the immigrants, is a long way from gaining momentum on momentum. As I begin knocking on doors, I found the Immigration Coalition of Long Beach, and there were the ones that were able to help me out. See how they. Dante. Eyebrow raising is the font. Nicholas represents Austrian Rhapsody telling me in such a thorough walk, and through this help of this coalition, Nicholas was able to get legal aid while he was detained in the Adelanto Detention Center. Here. If there's some momentum, I get it kind of to guarantee electability that they recognize that it's the mantle of most vulnerable Minnesotans. This is the time to guarantee the health and the security of everybody in the community, especially those of us that are the most vulnerable. So you love it then. See, I'm being me. Get emphasis. You can probably if you noticed and ran into the multiple damages. Detention of immigrants is very cruel. And with the spread of COVID 19, it turns into a death sentence for those of us. Sia ever since I live in Israel will be a guarantee that it gets all those things more accessible. Allow them to see the use of invoices set up a schedule that they just fundamentally, if they feel like party know, it's important that our government guarantees access. To all. Everything that we need and to protect us, especially those of us that are most vulnerable. Sia. Thank you. Our next speaker is Jamil Ochoa. Hi, my name is Jemima and I'm actually going to be speaking in English. Can you hear me? Yes. Hello. We can hear you. Okay. Hi. My name is Jamila and I work with the Lumbee Immigrants Rights Coalition, but I am also a community member with immigrant parents. I am here after a long battle with the clerk's office, advocating for interpretation in Spanish for this very meeting for my fellow community members that speak Spanish only. I would like to speak about language, access policy and the justice fund. It is unfortunate that because I called the clerk's office in Spanish, I was treated poorly and mocked because I was asking for basic services that community deserves. I went through the whole process in Spanish and I was told that since March there has been no interpretation of the city council meetings until today. And let me tell you that I have gone through this interpretation process this evening, and my experience and of that community that I work with hasn't been the best. I am taking notes and I am willing to work with you to get this right. The city needs to invest in language, access policy and take this seriously. Our non-English speaking community needs to be able to understand what is being discussed in these meetings. I am aware that the Mayor has proposed structural funding for the language access policy and the Language Justice Fund, and we need this Council to approve and to provide adequate funding for the two programs that matter and are literally saving immigrant lives. Our community members not only worry about the bills they have to pay and that they can't even afford right now because of the out of work right now, but also the possibility of being deported at any time and being permanently separated from their families. It is the budget duty. It is the city's duty to take a stand and fund these programs as they reflect the community and the law. Thank you. Our next speaker is Maria Lozano. Your time starts now. Okay. Well, when I started. Hello. Yes. We can hear you. Hello. Okay. Good afternoon. My name is Maria Lozano. So residents of the Willamette. I'm a resident of Long Beach. But then I was quite honestly thought of. I belong to the district number two. If I keep up with this, you're so relaxed. Excellently working. I'm here to. To present a petition about access to language. I mean, my mind and I personally like to say that my mother my mother is a senior citizen. If way up. I don't bill the gas out of selfishness. She went to pay a gas bill at your offices. Anthony, I want to, but I want. That's all. This went very well, Bill. She had a question regarding her bill. In one episode, let us leave you alone. And there was no one available that spoke her language. But I will get you into the lead. I think that being a resident of Long Beach. Then among all the rhetoric in personalities office in Ireland and. When we think we have a right that all police some personnel in your offices can speak our language. But I guess I'll know them on a circular. But unless they're comunidad Latina. That way our Latin community will not encounter these obstacles. If they're okay with the decision, says co-chair and whatever is. I do hope that my petition is heard. I do think you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Ruby Mueller. Your time starts now. See. I guess, too. Yes, I'm here. Get her thoughts. Testimonial. Throw it up. There it is. Do you want me to start with my meditation all over again? I did go first. Whether this service or just the word of the Spanish language, I think I can repeat myself because it is in accordance with what we're talking about here. CIA. When I started this article there, Roberto Garcia, the Argentinean. Good afternoon, Mayor Robert Garcia and all the council persons. My number is Ruth Miller. My name is Ruth Mueller. But then there's at least three. Don't know my daughter. I belong to district number eight. You saw Miembro de la quality on the Long Beach. And I'm a member of the Coalition of Long Beach. You may put this your name. My petition is the following. 7 million loss from those that we seek to renew the funds dedicated to the justice. But I love it. But it seems that you only got it to address a legal representation. De La Familia. Immigrants. Of all. Immigrant families. Yes. He broke the headlock by loading something that is the most common idea which will protect the family values of our entire community. I target Roberto Garcia. Mayor Robert Garcia. Guess so, guys. But it's time and we're stuck, and we need to help our community. The company that is studied with the community is willing to work with you. It's can be an architectural commentary. I also want to comment something else. In this example, I did see that they learned what? We need diversity. We need language diversity in all of your offices. But then after chat. To take advantage. But the reprobates are those. I love supporting me about it. They know that. That's too bad. They allow me. To take advantage. Of all the opportunities that are offered by the. City of Long Beach. And you know so it will start. To look. And not to make the in which a barrier. But for that, they do not need that much ground to. To make this community larger and more diverse. Thank you. Our next speaker is Chico Zarzuela. Your time starts now. Yes, I'm here. Yes, I'm here. Okay. When I started working on. Good afternoon. A wholesome adult in Long Beach. I live in district number two in Long Beach. The Department's policy on validating immigrants in Long Beach. And I do belong to the coalition of immigrants from Long Beach. Well, the other is God for a wonderful, special day, Long Beach. Today, I'm here to promote the justice fund for Long Beach. Baraka continued. That's the only thing you granted. They expect you back to continue the vital representation of all immigrants in this city. Has been, which is important to foremost. And the other thing would be that this is very important that we have security. So they all know the potassium of the eye that in case there's a desperate deportation by ICE. But then at the same time, we reckon we could have representation an attorney before an immigration court. Lamar, you're real looking. You granted me the most aliyah. Most of the immigrants that live here live paycheck to paycheck. You know, somebody almost I'm a native. If I got a lot of don't have the answers and we would not have the capacity to pay for an attorney or to pay for bail. David McCallum, you're the person other to me, the father of the mother of the family. We know that most of the people that get detained are also fathers and mothers with a family. The Solomon Islands also see hope. They only work to make sure their kids and their families get ahead. A economy outlook keep people almost impossible. They are. They contribute to the local economy and they do pay taxes. So yeah, people don't want to hear what the sample means already. I am here to petition for an amount, a just amount of $400,000. I those who are in Long Beach to the justice fund of Long Beach. Considerable conspiracy, so get them the message from those they are stuck to rather. And I also think that it's important that this fund be structured. Then the step up to seven them on their disability that they all feel they left Europe in such a way that it becomes part of every year's budget established within the city. I farewell the Rachel Mammal. I'm appealing to human rights. Thank you. And that concludes public comment for this item. Vice Mayor Andrews public comment is concluded for item 22. You know, now we're going to go to our behind the diocese. And at first I was calling Austin councilmen, asking excuse to approach Councilman Richardson and Councilman Pearce. Well, thank you, Vice Mayor. And I want to thank the city manager, Tom Mollica, his entire team for their work in preparing this very difficult budget. This budget proposal is very bold and represents a very different approach to some areas, especially when it comes to recognizing the need for public health and also the very different approach to our police budget. There is no comfort in what is before us today in any way. I think it's important to note that when we started the internal budget process at the very beginning of this year, our fiscal outlook was very much different than it is today. It was only a few short months ago that the full scope of the economic impact of COVID 19 became clear, and our staff had to work with all of the departments to identify how to close an unprecedented $30 million shortfall. While all departments were working overtime to address the immediate public health crisis. At the same time, the city council passed the city team with undertaking a framework for reconciliation and developing recommendations for investment to address racial racial inequities in only two months time. So I appreciate the immense amount of time and work that the budget team, the entire city staff have put into. Rising to the challenge is now before us. Enough can be said about that. Our city manager and Mayor Darcy have provided us with a rough draft, which we now will undertake the next 5 to 6 weeks to assess, deliberate and engage our community in a process of prioritizing how we move forward as a city. And there are some meaningful structural changes in how we conduct business here in Long Beach. Proposals that really merit our full attention. At the same time, the budget that we adopted in September would definitely not be the end of our challenge. A Budget Oversight Committee. Last week I had a very sobering presentation from our Finance Director, John Grosse, on unfunded liabilities and anticipated budget challenges in the coming years with additional costs and other demands. So therefore, this budget year, I think this Council and I'm challenge enough to also look at it in that context as well. With that in mind, our concern is to exercise wisdom and discretion on how we utilize our research fund in this year's budget and make sure that any use of these funds are in areas that provide us the best long term benefits for ensure that for our residents, our city operations and of course the taxpayers. We're still dealing with plenty of unknowns when it comes to COVID and how long we'll be dealing with the economic impacts of this pandemic. And so I think we need to be very realistic. And I do think there's room for some departments to do more. I don't also, because I'm also concerned about the furlough impacts on many of the lower paid employees. We're already struggling to get by. They work hard and they are probably most at risk during these difficult times and their families. So I hope to drill down on this further during our bills, hearings and council presentations, I want again take this opportunity to thank the mayor and city manager for making recommendations that are VOCs and innovative and looking for innovative, creative ways on restructuring how we provide services to our residents during these challenging times. I look forward to a robust discussion with the Council and encourage plenty of community engagement as we consider this upcoming budget or this coming fiscal year. But also look at I want us to really look at the fiscal health of our city and the model of the service we provide for the next several years. This is a long game, a long term approach that we need to be thoughtful about. And I'm going to yield my comments for now because I think we've heard a lot of great presentation from the manager, and I do appreciate the public comment. People were already engaged, paying attention and holding us accountable as city leaders. So those are my comments for now. I look forward to the process. Vice Mayor. That concludes my comments for now. You very much. What you said. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I have some comments and some thoughts here. First of all, our staff and the entire city family. I know it's been difficult times, unprecedented times, but I've said it before. I'll say it again. Our city continues to meet this moment. We have been in an emergency operations mode for six months as we face a crisis on three fronts. When the pandemic first came to Long Beach, we laid down on our public health department to have the smartest, most comprehensive response across our region, aligning our response with meet. We led the most robust economic relief program in the region protecting workers in our most impacted industries residents, renters, businesses and more. And when community when thousands of community members hit the streets, demand equity and change. We met that moment as well and are meeting this moment now by acknowledging racism as a public health crisis and asking staff to make this a top priority. That's what they did. They developed their comprehensive racial equity and reconciliation initiative. Our chance to read it last night. They're meeting the moment today with a budget that invests in equity, reimagine public safety. Our city manager's office, the health department offers equity. They jumped in with both feet. And we're making tremendous progress. And I think the future of our city is better off for it. And while we face these crises, we have to take an eye off the ball on issues like homelessness. Investments in our communities. We committed we completed our Highland Park Community Center, which is a decade of advocacy to get that done. Just finally completed our first citywide bridge housing community to help move individuals out of homelessness in our streets and upgrade bridge back into permanent housing. These are big steps that we got done during sleep while facing the crisis on three fronts. Hats off to the entire city team, including our public works team and our new poll work. And so this body I feel it's a great starting point acknowledges and I know there's still a lot more that we need to do a few things to highlight. I think that it's important to note that our health department was invested in the middle of a pandemic. We invested in our health department. They received investments in this budget. I see that there are some tough decisions, terms of contracting out. I have some concerns about that. So I want to discuss that at some point in the future. I love the concept of creating library hubs seven days a week on three three sites, and I want to figure out if there's a way that we don't reduce service in some of these other other sites. So maybe we should think about ways that we can. Well, I want to make I love the idea of social work program going in. You know, the role of libraries is changing. We have to continue changing with it. Are you concerned about the increases? Do you support fees? I know that we may some money off the pandemic. If the restrictions have lifted. You may be able to save some resources heading into the early part of the next fiscal year. I'm really interested in learning more about the alternative response model new non-emergency phone number, the Community Health Councils, the alignment wellness with our health department enhanced warm responses to nonviolent emergency. I'm you know, this is you know, these are new ideas. Well, not new ideas, but these are new attempts for our city. And I really am curious to really better understand them. I want to acknowledge the commitment, racial equity in this moment, structural funding for justice, fund language access, funding the rights of right to counsel. I think there's a great first steps, particularly the right to council. I think given our housing authority, we have a number of different departments eviction moratorium, rental assistance. I'd love to see us begin moving toward sort of one front door on issues related to housing and with respect to renters as well. Given 80% of African-American population, our cities renters, 70% of the Latino population are cities renters. We need to wrap our minds around how we are doing it. I acknowledge and support the next victim in the relocation of the Office of Equity, the reforms part of a commission. The public has been very, very clear. They want us to repeal that and redesign a new modern oversight commission. Well, we just did an equity and ethics commission, which did a redistricting commission power to make commissions with my business. I love that we invested resources to make that happen. I want to pay more attention to the reorganization of the heart teams. I want to hear more about that. One, learn more about the office, the Constitution, policing in terms of what to think about it. I think now is the right word. You sent Councilman Newton's time. You know. I can't understand what you're saying. I go in and just finish out a couple of questions in one minute. Let's. School. Asking questions of the banks. She's at the Radisson. You will come back up. I'd love to finish now, Vice Mayor. Okay. Well, go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. We're going to stay close to that 5 minutes real quick. That's why I get there for you. So I got a few questions for you. I acknowledge the good things in this budget. I know there's been in addressed these questions. You know, I know that we're talking about people's jobs and livelihoods. So I ask these questions with great, great thoughtfulness. So I know that there's been a lot of public demand to reduce the police department budget. And I need some clarity on what's presented here. What would have been and this is a question for state. What would have been the proportional cut to the police department versus what is the proposed cut to get the effective proposed cut and what would have been proportional cut? So Councilmember, I'm not sure I can answer the first part of the question on proportional cut. We did not do a proportional fund budget as we've done in the past. We looked at a number of options for each department, and then we we made those decisions. When you total the cuts to the police department that are included in the budget before you, it is a 5.2% reduction. Okay. So so can you explain to the public how you arrive at 5.3%? I'm looking at this book. What I see is about 1.5 in a straight line. So can you walk us through through how you arrive at 5.2? Yes. So essentially you take the number that's in that book, but that that was last year's budget. You then look at what the cost growth has been because that's what creates a deficit. So you add that amount that to and that becomes your new problem to solve. You then put in solutions. And in the police department it was about ten and a half million dollars worth of reductions. And then we had, you know, the other impacts in in PD like they're taking furloughs as well in their non sworn and others. You had all of that together and that is $5.2 million worth of reductions from the police department. It comes out to about 63%, I believe, of the solutions to the reductions that we had to make. Okay. So, so I, I think it's important that we we talk about the sort of the fiscal context here, how much of our budget is made up by public safety in general. And over the past decade or so, what direction has has the budget trended in terms of growth? So public safety has been about 70%. Early on it was in the fifties and sixties and it was growing and that was in the 2002, up to 2010, and it was nearing over 70%. The mayor and council and the city put together a program that was keeping it from moving beyond that. And we've been around 70% with the addition of measure. It started to go above that. And but with these reductions, we are currently in that same amount. So we did not increase that we know of. We haven't done that final calculation, but that is our best sense. So in I asked that, but we can understand, you know, what is the risk if in hindsight that really wouldn't make this fair to everyone you can cue up again. Please keep your thought. Let me answer that one question. If you. Which is what? Because you guys really want to keep it fresh for everyone. So please. Yeah. Thought the next speaker right now is Councilwoman Pierce. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I think that it's a it's probably going to be a little challenging because we've been doing the virtual for so long without having the five minute rule and to have it in place on a day whenever we probably all have a lot of questions. So I will do my best to set my timer and save my questions for a second round of. As everyone else probably will do. So I, I want to say that I think that this is a good first step, but I've never seen a budget like this come from our city staff in recognizing that this is Tom Morata's first budget as a city manager. It's not an easy task at all. And so I just want to thank everybody on the front end. I know that you're in the middle of contract negotiations with Labor, putting together a city budget with a $30 million shortfall and also tackling reconciliation at the same time, all which really take a lot of energy. So I want to recognize staff's efforts for that. I also want to recognize that I don't think this budget would look like it looks today as the very first step without all the community members that have been advocating and organizing and emailing and calling. And that's business owners, small business owners, people that are tied to tourism as well as the Black Lives Matter movement. And so I really want to say this is because of you that we are here with the city manager budget looking at this way and knowing that the next five or six weeks we have more work to do and hopefully get to a budget that really is fully reflective of the diverse community that we have while being mindful of our budget shortfalls. I like the general tone of it. There's a couple of areas that I really, really support. Obviously, the changes to PD, I think you've outlined one of the reasons why that number might look different. I know we've got a lot of community members that are looking at the chart and saying that it's 1% and some change. That's a difference. So I would ask that whenever the police budget does come in front of us as a staff presentation, that it's really clear on how we got that we are cutting 5.2% and making sure that that conversation is transparent and accountable. I know that one of the things that we've talked about is making sure that we have every line item that we possibly can have for our police budget in particular. I think that the budget is reflective, as Councilmember Richardson said, of the COVID concerns, that we have, the racial inequities that we have in the city, as well as trying to make sure that we're not cutting services. So I guess I would start by saying one area that that is a big flag for me is the Hart team and my very first budget on city council. We approved the very first Hart team. And I want to remind people that this idea came from me going on right along. So I went on three ride alongs with fire out of station two and I forget the exact percentage. And hopefully when the Hart team presents they can share this number. But it was somewhere like 80% of the calls for that police for that fire station were for people that were struggling with homelessness or mental health. And so the idea was not just to have social workers or paramedics out there. The idea was that if somebody called 911, that they would be able to get a Hart team instead of a fire truck or a firefighter or a police car, an ambulance, but that the Hart team could come out first. And I know that at least one of our teams can respond to nine on one call. So I have a very big issue and questions that we can dove into at that presentation around how are they going to respond to 911 calls, what cars are they going to use? How do we make sure that we've got first responders on those calls and that they're also being proactive? And so maybe there's a hybrid model that includes our firefighters and social workers, and you guys can present that at that time. But yes, you have one minute. That's one that's 5 minutes. It's hard. So other areas that, you know, I'll dig in more on the hard when that comes. But I wanted to make sure that folks knew that was a very big concern of mine. Our libraries plan. I love that we would have key libraries. The Downtown Library, which is now the Billie Jean King library, has not had seven days in years. And I think the community really deserves it. I think there's some good areas in police changes, but again, want to understand constitutional policing and why that would be housed in the police department and not the city manager's department. The other areas that I want to lift up are fully funding the justice for making that structural language access. We've been fighting for that to be structural for so long that I was happy to see the mayor's recommendations to make that structural right to council when we get to it. I've heard a lot of news stories and I myself have experienced a lot recently as well. And so I think that we absolutely need to have right to council. So lots of other topics to talk on. I know that we'll get to those. I'd like to be able to give staff kind of a heads up on some. My questions and concerns, which is why I'd like to begin a little bit. So I will, as public commenters, will yield my time and queue back up. Thank you. That's Mango. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I'll do some of the additional questions that we're headed down with Councilmember Richardson. So we were talking about PD in this budget is receiving a 5.2% reduction. And while I appreciate the question about public safety and when we're talking about PD, we should just focus on PD. And so my question would be for Grace or Jon. I believe that PD is 50%, 51%, 49% of the city budget. What was that number. Councilmember? Yes, they're around 50%. The exact number right now as of the proposed budget, we still have to calculate because there are some moving pieces like negotiations for other groups that are still being considered. But on average, as Tom was mentioning over the past few years, they are around 50% of the budget on the expenditure. So. Okay. So PD is receiving 62% of the reductions, 5.2% of their budget. And I'm just trying to help clarify. So one of the things that's important is that we also look at the specific things that are being. Re reallocated reauthorized. So I'm interested when PD does present their budget. We're talking about not utilizing sworn for priority three calls. So I would like a report by zip code for priority one, two and three calls last fiscal year. And then, uh, no, not last fiscal year. I guess I would say last calendar year if possible, or a comparable period to where we are this year. And then since we're doing public safety, I think we should set the table on the same for fire, the number of bells and fire calls by zip code. I think that would help give some perspective because what you don't want to do is if you are stating that, you're going to. Civilian eye is priority three calls. You don't want to then have certain parts of our city without the resources should an emergency happen. We're already seeing what happened with the civil unrest that happened and our ability to call in additional resources from outside the city. And it's also very unpopular to call in outside resources from the federal government or National Guard. And so we want to make sure that we have trained people here that know Long Beach and the Long Beach Way and the Long Beach authorities and issues. We don't want outsiders coming in and using their tactics, which may not really coincide with the values we have here in Long Beach. And so what I don't want to do is take some of our most vulnerable communities and then take away their police officers and replace them with civilians. And so I just wanted to see what that outlay looks like by zip code. I guess I agree with. A lot of the comments on things we want to make additional investments in and also agreement with some of the things that the mayor said related to frustration, related to some of the ideas that were brought forward by the city staff. And I think my biggest concern is when I open up the budget tool for residents to try to play along with the budget. You only gave them the options that you considered, but you didn't put all the options on the table. So similar to what the mayor said. I've been saying for two years, and I know that this year we were making great progress in starting our budget hearings in January and kind of going through our vacancy list. But we looked at vacancies made up $6 million. If you took the average salary times, the number of vacancies over a if it was annualized, it would be as much as $6 million. And so I think that that's an interesting component. I don't see where that is in this budget and that savings. And then I would also say that to bring forward a budget with $30 million when we only have one, we have a $30 million problem. I'm hearing from council members that there are a lot of items that are just not in agreement. And so I feel like the city. Place is not. Perfect. I don't even need the whole minute. I think that the city manager needs to bring forward an additional 5 to $10 million of potential cuts so that we could balance those things against the things that he has already proposed in this budget, so that we would be able to potentially consider some of those cuts and not take the cuts that he's laid out. Some of them, I feel, are, again, not options, and I've heard some of those listed, but I think that a robust list of all options need to be presented so that we would be able to make good choices. Right now, there's not a lot of choices to be made. It's here's what we're cutting. And if you disagree, we don't have the background in information from each department on what they proposed could be cut. So if a city manager, you ask every department to cut. How much? In their scenario. What percentage? Thank you. That was the question. I need the city manager to answer it, if you don't mind, sir. And then I'm done. Yes. We looked at reductions of up to 12% for most departments. For them to come up with some ideas and we do have a list, it's in the budget book of a number of different options that we've costed out. And so those are in there. We'll get you the page later. But it's not the 12%. It's a fraction of that 12%. It's not everything. There are things in there that I wouldn't don't believe were actual reductions there. You know, there's I do ask for a little bit of discretion as a manager to put things together that are actual reductions. And so that we put ones in there that we thought were real and were implementable and were part of the consideration for the council to look at. Are you saying that departments put forward things that were not real? Or there were things that were unverified or items that, you know, we we would never, you know, consider. So, you know, again, that's part of the process. We asked them to come up with some concepts and ideas, and then we have those discussions. And then if they put forward things that are off the table because they are council priority, then you ask them to go back to the table and bring up more items or additional items or different items or not have that type. Of event which has try to the 5 minutes you got. Absolutely. Well, please, you guys follow the rules. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council. Well, thank you, Vice Mayor. First question is regarding public works. And on this, if it's in the budget book, in the interest of time, just send me that information or two from for memo would be great in response. So the question is how how much of the planned 2021 infrastructure projects are not attached to matching dollars to state or federal dollars and also a total dollars budgeted from Measure A. So if you understand the question, I'm the one. So I got the second part of the question. Can you repeat the first part? Understood. The measure eight. No, it's the second one. Okay. The first part. How many projects 2021 have? Structure projects are not attached to matching federal or state funds. We want that. That's going to require some analysis because most of our project is something. If that, you know, I get it. So I don't want you to even try to take a stab at it now. But if there's a simple solution to that, if you can let me know later, that would be great. Or in a to come work. Thank you. Okay, then. Moving to public safety. Um, if the city manager. I just let me know if this is acted or not. So I take the staff recommendation is not to eliminate engine 17. The recommendation is to eliminate the safer grant. Would that be accurate? That's absolutely accurate. Okay. So in that, again, if you could come back to me and if if this is in the budget book, I apologize, but I, I need some help explaining to residents exactly why we're turning down the save for grant money. I don't know what that total or total dollar figure, but some of those dollars were used to support E 17. So if we could get those numbers crunched, that would be great for us to share with the public. Yes. So we do have a section in the budget book that explains some of it. I'll have John GROSS answer that question right now. Okay. This is Grace. So part of the reason why we are recommending not to accept the safer grant and again, just to reiterate what you are saying, council member that does not have anything or exactly to do with Engine 17. Turning down the safer grant does not take away the funding for Engine 17 from the Missouri Plan that's currently in the proposed FY 21 budget. But the requirements of the SAFER grant require that we have to maintain a maintenance of effort level of staffing that's above our budgeted level agreed with with the grantor. And in order to reach that budget at staffing level, taking into consideration the attrition that's going to happen and the academy that is slated to happen late this September, we need to have another second class, an Academy class in FY 21 to get us to that maintenance of effort level. We are estimating that second class, which is unbudgeted to be another cost of about 1.6 million of one times that we have to find. And with the timing of everything and the anticipated grant award amount that we were anticipated to receive, we're only thinking that we're going to get about $1.8 million from the safe for Grant anyway . And then also we are required to maintain the state staffing level throughout the whole time period of the Grant Performance Awards. So that takes us into about FY 23, I believe, the three year grant period performance time frame. And so then we would need to find another additional approximately 2 to 2 and a half million dollars for continued investment into academies to keep that level at that amount. And that also means that we would not be able to include fire in any reductions in the future to help try to solve any shortfall. Okay. Understood. Thank you for that explanation. And so I think I can extrapolate from that that you are not planning this for Tom Modica to answer a 2021 Fire Academy. We're doing the one this fall. But you don't have one scheduled for 2021, correct? We have one for this fall, but not for 2021. Okay. Thank you. Did I make it under 5 minutes? No, you didn't. Okay. Thank you. It was used 3 minutes to read. Minutes away. And good job this is going on. Next. Go to one. Place. Vice mayor, did you just say yes? Yes, yes. Yes, yes. Okay. Thank you. I lost you there for a second. I just I got I'm going to save out of my question. But the. But do you know what's wrong? We're not here. Isn't that what you come in. You come out in the middle of the park like there are aspects of the budget. I really. Can you hear me? Okay. Let me try again. Yeah, that's much better. Okay. So I just wanted to thank city staff for putting this budget together. I know a lot of hard work went into it, and it really was a very difficult time for them to come up with the budget. So I really appreciate the work that they did. I'm going to save my questions for when we have the individual department presentations so that we're a little bit more I'm a little bit more efficient with my focus in regards to those particular budget presentations. I do want to let the city manager know in advance that I know he was copied on. A lot of emails that we've received over the last week. For. Third Council member. You broke up again. We heard, Mr. President, we heard over the last week. Councilwoman Pryce, we can't hear you very. And start learned about. Public. You're going in and out. We can't hear you. Don't. If you funding specifically police. Departments are being funded. And and the residents really wanting to have. Some assurance that. Okay. I will queue up back up in just a minute. You got two marriages in. Thanks, Vice Mayor. You're doing an incredible job managing the time. I just want to get back to the question. I was I was focused on this context, the risk. I think it's important right at the beginning or what the pace. About this any better. Although I think the vice mayor moved right on. Back to you, Mrs. Bright. If it's okay, we'll come back to you. If it's okay that you're going in and out. Mrs. Brice. I can't tell you. Lords is in place. Thank you very much. Okay, so, so quickly, I think it's important we know this about the context of city manager financial management. Tell us about a little bit about the credit 70% and what risk that potentially. So I believe the question is about kind of the elevated cost of public safety in the long term. So we have seen significant cost growth for both our police and fire departments just for the cost of providing the same level of service from salaries and benefits and pension. And so what we've seen in the past from studying other agencies is once you go beyond 70%, unless there's some other dedicated funding or source of revenue, it starts to put pressure and on the other services, the quality of life services. So when 70% is public safety, that is clearly an important service and one of our very most important. But there are only then there's only 30% left of the budget to spend on other services. So that is something that we keep an eye on. And the council's been very disciplined at trying to hit that balance of investment of services. Thank you. I think it's just important that we that we understand that that this trend has been going on for a long time and our responsibilities. Therefore, we do have to talk about changing course in terms of of that trend in order to preserve a well-balanced city. Final question. I know that there's been some questions about civilian aviation, and I see two numbers. I see 34 sworn positions eliminated and 28.7 civilian police positions. What's the relationship between the two? Are they. Sure. Just a little bit more about these are these non these non sworn positions? Are they new hires? Are they the 34 sworn positions converted into 28.7 still positions. So it's a reduction of those police officer positions. So those go away and then we add in additional positions that are new positions not yet hired that are civilian ized. And so, for example, in patrol, we'll have 16 police officers that are no longer there, but 16 civilians doing those services. Another example is in the area of air support, which is our helicopter. There's currently six officers that are providing that we would go more to a contract model with about two pilots, commercial pilots, instead of of the six officers. Those are two examples. So those are some of the with this, I think, you know, there's some we got to stay focused on state and federal stimulus and what we have to do in the course of the next year. You have opportunities with the stimulus in discussions, the Additional Cares Act and the Heroes Act. That's going to require a lot of focus on state lands, Federal Lands Committee, Conference of Mayors and others. But I think the approach we've taken in recent months, I think it does bode well for our long term health, our fiscal health, our community health, our economic health. And and it's important to me that as Long Beach comes out, this recovery, we do so in a way that leaves no one behind in place, our community, on a better future footing moving forward. Thanks, vice mayor for the for the time. Appreciate. Thank you, councilman. Russian Councilman. Woman Price, could you please come back in? Sure. Can you hear me? We can. We can hear you now. Okay. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I just want to go back in again and just thank staff for putting this together. Look, I. I understand we talk a lot about public safety budgets and what percentage is healthy and what percentage of the end of the day residents need to feel that the taxes that they're paying are going into critical services that make them feel safe. And I know that the mayor, the city manager and I received lots of emails over the last week from third District residents who really wanted to express their support for our public safety infrastructure and for continuing to have a system in place where when people call 911, they get a response and there's follow through on that response. So as we go into the next series of budget discussions with the specific departments, what I will be asking our police department, our chief, is whether or not the civilian positions that are going to be utilized to take initial police reports, which I think is a fantastic use. I'm using civilian investigators to do a lot of that work, I think is very prudent. There's a lot of agencies where I work that do utilize that. But what is the follow up going to look like? Will detectives be assigned to follow up on those reports? And can residents expect that they'll still get the same level of service from Long Beach PD, whether it's from a sworn officer or a non sworn civilian investigator? That's really important to me. I really appreciate the departments that came forward with creative solutions. And again, I just want to thank our city manager for at least putting this out there. There are aspects of this budget I love. There are aspects of this budget I really don't like at all. And I'm glad the mayor addressed some of those issues, and I look forward to talking about them further and BMC as well as with the entire department. Presentation. So thank you very much, Mr. Vice Mayor, and I hope you were able to catch all of that. Thank you. VICE Thank you. Councilwoman Price. Councilwoman in the house. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I just want to thank our team for this presentation and all the incredible hard work that has gone into it, into this budget proposal. I know that this is a very, very, extremely difficult job to do, especially now that we have COVID 19. So it's usually a hard thing to do any year, but especially right now. I also want to echo all of the comments that were made by my colleagues, and I also wanted to to say that, you know, I'm very glad that we're looking into some cuts, some that are more necessary than than others. And so I'm glad that we have this this document going forward and that we're going to be having a lot of, you know, discussions and meetings so that we can give our input here today, but also have an opportunity to give more input not only for us, the council, but also for our community. And that to me is very important. Going forward, I really am glad that we are talking about the Justice Justice Fund, because I think that's very, very important, especially to my residents and my district as well, is the language access. So I look forward to having more one on ones and and getting more details on, on all the cuts and, and where we're going to be able to cut. Because I think it's very important not only to all of our to all of our residents, but also to those who have other languages as their primary language, like Spanish or Combi or Tagalog, who are the residents that are most vulnerable? And we need to make sure that we include them in all areas of opportunity that we give to all. So with that said, thank you. Moms and dads. Councilwoman, here's. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Okay, I'd like. I'll try to be brief, although it's budget. So I think I want to pick up on the on the idea of of safety. Obviously, this is going to be one of the contentious items that we tackle on this budget. And I agree with Councilmember Price's comments. We need to make sure that people feel safe, that all people feel safe. And I understand that for some that means a police officer, for some that means social worker, for some that means a firefighter. And so when we've had a budget that's had such a high percentage going to our police department, this moment calls for us all to really reevaluate. Yes, the percentage, but I think the conversation is right. Partnering with the framework to say what are the services that we can provide that are not police services? And so I agree that the civilian positions that are here, I totally support that. I don't think that it goes far enough. I know that one of the biggest things that we've heard are people that are struggling with mental health, with drug addiction, that are survivors of violence, that's being a police officer in their full gear is triggering for them and that the conversations that they have with police officers is triggering for them. And one of the stories that comes up for me is a young gentleman who was shot and a firefighter was on the scene first and how calm that person helped the people at the scene. And so I think that when we talk about public safety, we have to talk about the public safety continuum, that it is police, it is fire, but it is what the staff has started to do in this budget, which is which is mental health, which is nurses, social workers. And so there are areas that I look to hear from staff areas that I'm interested in are our quality of life team. I was surprised to see that the full quality of life team is still in the budget. We had paired that down when I was first on council. We didn't have that many and then it. An amp back up. I know that there are other models like the hard times that have been successful. I know that there are some concerns within civilian staff about when they go out and how they're engaging people that might be struggling with homelessness or mental health. And so I really I encourage us to explore what a new model might be for the quality of life so that it's not with police, but it's with some other lifesaving department. Another conversation that Councilmember Price and I have been talking about is park rangers ethics. And, you know, as we talk about this, it's something that makes people feel safer. Bixby Park I've recently heard some concerns, particularly from my constituents, that they don't want to have police in the park. And I know that we have different levels of police in the park, which are important because of drug use and sales and everything else. But having a park ranger that's overseen by a police department is not something that I think this moment calls for. And so I hope that we can also have conversations about park rangers going back to the Parks Rec and Marine Department. And I also want to want to say that I think that the mayor has lifted up zero based budgeting. And one of the things that I talk to my constituents about is we can cut this budget, right? We can cut it, we can shift it. We could get to a healthy level, which is closer to 40 or 50% of our budget being PD instead of where it is now. But if we're not talking about how we budget every year and how we have a longer process and getting to zero based budgeting is the way that we can ensure that people have a voice. But we also have to recognize the inequalities in our voice because people are. One minute Mrs. Fears. Here. I just want to say as we embark on this. Our libraries are closed right now. There are people that don't have access to this meeting right now. There we have a digital divide still. And so I know that staff is working really hard to make sure we're engaging more people than before. And obviously the framework showed us that. But we have to be mindful about who we're governing for, and it has to be everybody in the city and not one group and those that have been left out for a long time that are asking for a realignment in this budget. I think it's fair and I think all the staff time that we've put to the framework in this budget demand us to follow through on that. Otherwise we will, as a city, lose complete credibility. And so it's more of a comment, obviously, than questions. I'll say my deeper questions for when the presentations come. But I'm really proud of this moment, and I'm really proud of the things that this council has done together, particularly during COVID that haven't been easy. And I hope that we continue that same. That same intention. As we move forward these next six weeks, because it is so important. So again, thank you staff for your work. And I'm thank you to all the community members that continue to speak about your truth. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman Mango. Thank you, Mr. Modica. I was confused by a comment you made. You stated that, and maybe I misunderstood. I know this is difficult on calls that the cut to the fire department is an elimination of a grant we don't have. I'm confused. No, I'm not advocating. And I guess just a follow up. Are we not advocating as a city to the federal government to essentially relax some of the safety requirement so we can still receive that funding? We can certainly ask that question. The our understanding right now is that funding requires that you put aside additional funding to continue it after the grant expires. It also requires you to hold a second academy that we would have to invest in in order to get a maintenance of level of effort, level that you then qualify for the grant. It would then also prevent us from making any reductions in any sworn personnel for any type of fiscal problem or challenge we would have in the future. So those are the the main reasons we would essentially have to spend about one and 1.6, $1.7 million in order to draw down 1.6 or $1.7 million, plus the amount to keep the engine per the contractual requirements. So I guess my ask would be, and I know I don't need to make a formal motion, but I would love for the Federal Legislative Committee and our legislative team to work diligently on advocating with our local elected officials at the federal level and to the FEMA office and others for changes to that grant so that we might be able to secure that funding and elongate the restoration that this council believed was a possibility. I guess I'm confused. I'm reflecting back on a discussion about the police department and pilots and gasoline and the cost of helicopters. And I guess I'd have to go back and pull my notes. But I remember hearing something along the lines of one helicopter in the air is the equivalent of nine or 11 patrol officers on the ground. And it's a a way to avoid high speed chases, pursuits, all of those things in a a much safer manner. It also reduces risk to the community when those violent offenders are fleeing that you're able to back off and let them do that. And I think we need to talk through what that means, because I understood the biggest cost of our aero bureau to be gasoline. And so if that is not the case, then great. But I don't know that pilots are very cheap these days. Agencies across the region are struggling to get pilots are actually paying for the full weight for any sworn to become a pilot. And so I would just state that if there are other things involved with that process. The community, I think is asking for civilian aviation is. Most likely asking for those that are most engaged in the interactions. And so at least that's what we're hearing from Janine and their approach to the thing. And so I don't know. I'm not saying that I'm an opinion one way or another, but it just causes some concern for me that I need more information. And then I also wanted to kind of follow up on another comment from Councilman Pearce related to the uniforms. Our department used to have a more relaxed uniform policy. More of our officers were in cargo pants and polo shirts with very thin bulletproof vests. Underneath their polo shirts. They were more approachable. Under a previous administration, we re-implemented a very, very strict uniform system that does have a different look to it. I don't know if there is a potential at the bargaining table to look at relaxing those standards back to we're not relaxing the standards, but restoring a previous left, I think the word she used with militarized uniforms and moved back to that and not nice one you. Have one minute. Thank you. Not just in our police officers service, but also in our our park rangers. I know that you and I have had some talks lately about park rangers and some intimidation that some senior citizens dealt with Eldorado Park. So I think we need to be cognizant of that as well. If you do consider moving parks and Rec rangers out of the police department, I will be firmly against it unless you take away their guns, because I want to remind the communities of the issues related to use of force that we had when we had sworn individuals reporting through a command structure where individuals at the top of the command structure had no knowledge of escalation of force, had no knowledge or training in utilization of a firearm. And it led to outcomes and. Different things that were not of great use. And then my final thing is for years there are things that we have implemented in the last 90 days that as a council member I led on and this council supported and we were constantly told we don't have the resources, we can't do it fast enough. That would take too much time, including specifically telecommuting. We talked a lot about telecommuting. And one of the things and the reasons that it was brought up in the past was that the cost saving measure and I don't want any ongoing job. Right. I don't see any costing specifically. On that unless we have another. Company. If I could finish my sentence more than 5 minutes. We have to follow the rules. We only give our constituent 90 seconds. And you guys, why can't we follow what we voted on? No, no problem, sir. I'll meet you for another 5. Minutes, letting you know. Okay, fine. This is you guys. This is just not fair to our constituents. You will not. Oh, that is not a fair statement. I think that it is not a fair statement. What are you doing? We got 5 minutes, you guys. So my. Problem. That. Finish your sentence. I can't even remember what my sentence was. Thank you for the interruption. I didn't mean it to be like that, but. I. Wish it was more equitable. Councilwoman. I'm good. Thank you. You know. Okay. We have a first class in the second. But Mr. Richardson, could you please call for both? Mayor. I reviewed your request. Like math. Yes, I understand. Second District. Councilmember Mongeau had recused. Okay. Fine. Mango. Thank you. I would just like to know what the unloading of real estate costs that we could reduce if we continue a model of teleworking or employee hoteling at different locations for the future. Because we wanted to move most of our employees to City Hall, but there were still lots of offices that were not able to do that. And so if we knew what those real estate costs were, and we might be able to make some significant savings. Also in the budget tool online, there was a request from residents to determine whether or not we needed $250,000 for additional maintenance. If city staff could explain what has not been funded, that has either increased or is. Necessary but not budgeted for in this upcoming cycle. That would be helpful when that presentation comes. Thank you. The. But could you please call for the vote? District one. I district to. I'm District three. I. District four. By. District five. I District six. And District seven. I. District eight. District nine. All right. Ocean carries. Thank you. Now we're going to go into our non non-related agenda items. Could you please, you know, nonpublic agenda items? Could you please everyone who signed up?