Recommendation to direct City Manager to request a report from the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation (LAEDC) regarding 1) the feasibility of and potential benefits and risks of implementing a citywide minimum wage in Long Beach; 2) proposals for incentives, tax breaks, fee reductions and/or process improvements to assist businesses and non-profit organizations in complying with a higher minimum wage; and to work with the City's Economic Development Commission to take public input and review the study's findings and make recommendations to the City Council.
All right, so great. Congratulations. All appreciate that for being out here. So we're going to move on to the next item, which is item 27. Madam Clerk. Communication from Vice Mayor Lowenthal, Councilwoman Gonzalez, Councilman Andrews and Councilmember Richardson recommendation to request a report from the L.A. County Economic Development Corporation regarding the feasibility of any potential benefits and risks of implementing a citywide minimum wage. And proposals for incentives to assist businesses and nonprofit organizations in complying with a higher wage. Higher minimum wage. I'm going to turn this over to Vice Mayor Lowenthal. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'd like to make the motion to move this item. And I want to thank my co coauthors as well on this item. We have. Sorry, I have to adjust my seat. We have numerous reports from cities regarding the growing gap between the rich and the poor. I don't think that's a surprise to anyone while the economy is certainly improved. For many of us, it hasn't improved. For all of us and various investors and companies in certain lucrative sectors continue to accumulate wealth. Cities and counties. What ends up happening is we are left to deal with the impacts of a growing class of residents living in poverty. Throughout the years that many of us have been on this council, we have noted that our city tends to be a tale of two cities, and I think that continues to be palpable here in our city , even when many of us have. Experienced an increase in our economic benefits, increase in our household income. We don't see that across the board. What ends up happening when cities and counties are left with the burdens of this disparity that exist among those living in poverty? It affects our health. It affects our housing. It affects emergency services, which ends up costing more tax dollars to be used in a reactive manner rather than proactively through people's wages and in the local economy. As a result, the subject of minimum wage is being discussed and decided upon in numerous state and local council chambers throughout the nation, including the county and the city of Los Angeles. So Long Beach, as a city, doesn't have the luxury nor the reputation for shying away from this conversation. It's at our doorstep and it's here. Whether all of us like it or not, it is at our doorstep. I believe that the mayor, as well as my co-sponsors and I wish to approach this issue in a methodical and logical manner. We welcome any conversation that may improve the health and well-being of our residents. But we also believe there's another element to be considered here, and that's the impact on small businesses and nonprofits. That's why this study has another component to determine whether incentives or fee reductions could help local businesses. In as much as we have economic engines such as the port and downtown. We also know that small businesses, residents and our local economy are connected to one another. And so we'd like the study to look at the different perspectives and provide us with feedback and before any decisions made whether to move forward or not. And I encourage everyone to engage in this conversation and to engage in it in a way where our city can improve. And the quality of life of our residents and workers who don't live here can improve. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. I'm going to turn this over to Councilwoman Gonzales. And if there is any objection, what I'd do is after the maker of the motion in the second or I'm going to open up the public comment and then I'll come back to the rest of those cued up. Councilwoman Gonzales. I, too, want to thank my colleagues, Vice Mayor Lowenthal, Councilman Richardson, Councilman Andrews, for bringing this forward. I know it's been said before she said it so very eloquently is that we still do have a problem with poverty and people trying to make a living for not only themselves, but their families, but also businesses that are trying to do the same thing as well. And while this is a current theme in adjacent cities and counties, I think we certainly still need to look at this and we need to take a really comprehensive look at this, a very mindful approach, as the vice mayor had mentioned. And for that, you know, I will be supportive of, of course, of this study as I'm a coauthor. But I hope that my colleagues can be supportive of this as well, because this is certainly not going away. The people that you see here work very hard. I know that as well. My father worked very hard and he still continues to work very hard to this day. And sometimes it's just not enough. And so I commend every single one of you for taking a stand and to to advocate for your for your what you believe is right and also for our business owners as well. And so I hope that this study will look at this comprehensively and so that we can so we can create something that means what is most for Long Beach? I know with other plans that we've done before, similar to like our project labor agreement, we wanted to make sure it was something that was that made sense for Long Beach. And so I look forward to seeing what the study will bring and I look forward to working with my colleagues on this. So thank you. Thank you. And as we begin public comment here in just a sec, I want to just say a few words that hopefully will set the stage for for the conversation. And so that we're clear about what is actually happening tonight with what the council is being asked to do tonight is to support a study that will be conducted by the L.A. EDC, which is the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation. That's this is an organization that's widely respected, not just within the in the business community, but in the workforce development sector as well. They did considerable work with the county's proposal. And so they will also be and already have a lot of the information on the issue that will be incorporated into Long Beach. So the idea, of course, is for them to take a look not just on what's going on with wages across the region and state, but also on how we can do things here that could support small businesses and our nonprofit community. I just want also everyone to know that it's very important. I know to the vice mayor and to the council members that have signed on to this, that the process be inclusive, that it includes obviously workers, but also small business owners and our nonprofit community, and that we collect, most importantly , data. This is about collecting data and information in a way that's open and transparent. In the end, the final thing I'll say on this is one thing I pride myself in is that we do things in our community in the Long Beach way and we are going to do this our way. And I include and welcome everyone to be part of that process. L.A. did there, there, there process. The county did theirs. And the county was a little different than LA's. There were differences. We'll go through our process. And our process may also be different than the others. And I think that's important to note. But we will do we will complete this data and we will be open and transparent. And so I want to thank you all for being here tonight. This is a very important conversation. There is no question that there's a need and there's no question that wages and the growth of the economy have grown at a very different level. And so thank you all for being here. And with that, I'm going to open it up for public comment. Please come forward. Yeah. Feel free to line up. And when I say begin, I'll let you guys go ahead and and start. So please go ahead. Um, good afternoon, city council. My name's Alyssa Salazar. I'm the student body president for Cal State. Long Beach. Um, we are here today excited about the prospect that the Long Beach City Council will be tasking the Economic Development Commission with assessing the feasibility of increasing the minimum wage here at this great city. With recent alarming statistics about unemployment rate of college students and recent graduates aged 18 to 24, we believe it is necessary for students to be part of this process. Reasons that statistics state that unemployment rate among recent graduates is nearly 20%, nearly 40% among the Latinos and nearly 50% among the African-American community. Clearly, this is unacceptable for our country. We are passionate about this subject, and we would like to encourage the city to require student representation as part of this study. Thank you for your time, city council. Have a great day. Thank you. You know, you've got two former senator presidents up here, so congrats. Next speaker. Mayor. City Council representatives. My name is Susan Blair. I was born in Long Beach, and I've lived here my entire life. And I'm here to speak against the raising of the minimum wage and the study. Only one third of the workers of Long Beach live in Long Beach. So why in the world would our city council want to spend tens of thousands of dollars of my dollars and the city's citizens of this city, $2 for the two thirds that live outside of the city? Why are we worried about them? They're not going to spend the money here because our business owners are going to have to raise their their rates. To be competitive or to be able to afford to weigh the the increase in the wage. So one third of the city workers in Long Beach live in Long Beach. So they're going to take that raise back to wherever they live and they're going to spend it there. Why should an individual's pay be put on the back of business owners? If you don't like what, you make better yourself and go find another job. So what I did. I'm sure that's what most of you did. Raising the minimum wage will put teenagers out of work. Caused problems for seniors having to pay for home health care needs. Nonprofits in every other industry in our small business community. Raising the minimum wage also has huge rippling effects. What about the social programs that you provide and that government provides us with a minimum wage? All the taxpayers are going to have to pay more to compensate for the rise in the minimum wage. Long Beach will never be able to overcome their image of not being business friendly. If they pass this language as a small business community, it has been my entire life and it still is. You can count on both hands the number of large, large corporations that are in Long Beach. This is a small business community. This is not Los Angeles. This is not Seattle. This is Long Beach, California. Small Business Community. And that's as if that's not enough. The labor unions did everything they could to get the minimum raised to the minimum wage, raised to $15 in Los Angeles. And from what I understand, they're going back this week and asking the L.A. City Council to exempt them from the $15 minimum wage. Now, what's sad about. Are we supposed to believe that's fair? Raising the minimum wage is a serious issue. In a small business community like Long Beach. And I ask you, mayor and city council representatives, to not simply take this on because it's trending politically. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Mary Garcia. Councilmembers. My name is Bill. I did not plan on speaking on this topic. I came here for other reasons, which will be later on in during council members. But on this particular topic, I just want. To encourage extreme. Study on this and foresight. Our neighbor to the north, Seattle, had put the $15 minimum. Wage into place. Some hours got cut for some employees. Our new employees, their hours are like limited to 30 hours or 30 and a half hours or trying. To stay below 40 hours a. Week for employees. The other thing is the current issue of Fortune magazine has a very good. Article on the future of the workforce in our country as our workforce moves towards a more technologically. Advanced economy. Robotics will take away some of these jobs. So we need to find out how we're going to replace those workers. So the article here in Fortune magazine, which. I will scan and send to Clark to distribute to all of you folks, emphasizes that human. Values and collaboration are really. The human commodity of. The future. As we move towards technology. So I. Kind of want to discourage the $15 minimum wage because some employees that are already making higher wages. Within a business, they may and this is already happened across the country are leave the business because it's like, well, this. Person is not doing as much job as I am. Their job is not worth that value. I'm giving more value. To the company. So it's a really human study here. Aside from the actual wage itself. So thank you very much for let me say my $0.02. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, Mayor. Council members. My name is Mike Murchison. And a while back, several months ago, we formed the Long Beach Business Alliance, Gary DeLong and I did. We hosted a forum at the Long Beach Airport, Marriott. There were 50 business owners and executive directors from nonprofits to a person that left that. They were, number one, shocked and surprised by the developments are moving forward and city of Los Angeles at the time and now with what's going on this evening, they recognize that a study is needed. However, they want to make sure that it's a comprehensive study. Mayor, as you alluded to and as the vice mayor alluded to, but some of the things that you will read in the L.A. EDC report and I've shared that with about 100 different business owners already because we've met with the Belmont Shore Business Association and other various groups, is that teenagers are going to be impacted. It was mentioned. Earlier, a couple of minutes ago. Social service workers will. Be, in fact, impacted. In-Home health care workers will be impacted. So we all focus on restaurants and the owners. And to a great degree, they're going to be impacted. You're going to hear about it from them as they form their groups and they come together and tell you their stories individually, how they're going to. Be increased in disability insurance, unemployment. Insurance, payroll taxes, workers comp. But some of these other areas, I don't think everybody takes into account teenagers. What are they going to do when they can't compete against experienced. Workers for. That same hourly wage? How is that going to work? How are you going to address the Boys and Girls Club and the Boy Scouts here in Long Beach when they have to cut workers and they have. To cut programs. Because they can't afford to keep that kind of budget moving forward. Ultimately, I think you need to see what's going to happen with Senate bill. I think it's Senate Bill three up at the state of California. Maybe your city attorney can chime in. What's going to happen when the state passes that bill and its impact on the city of Long Beach? Last but not least, the city of Long Beach has hourly workers. What's going to happen with your own budget here in the city? How does that impact the general fund? You have hourly workers just like restaurants do. I ask you to include that in your studies. I encourage you to reach out to business owners, to nonprofits. Into the in-home health care workers. They need to be heard. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Richardson. Next speaker, please. Hello and good evening, Mayor. Members of council and city staff. I'm Christy Allen, chairman of the Long Beach Area Chamber of Commerce and vice president of hotel operations for Ensemble Real Estate on behalf of the Chamber and our leadership. We welcome the opportunity to give comments tonight. First and foremost, as we move this process forward, the chamber remains committed to protecting its members and businesses from any type of ordinance that puts them at a competitive disadvantage. But given the momentum for increasing the minimum wage around the region and in some parts of the country, we know this conversation needs to take place in Long Beach. Also we are extremely appreciative that is that it is currently a conversation and discussion of process rather than an outright ordinance per the agenda item. We agree that empirical data needs to be collected and in a way that is relevant to Long Beach, not to any other city or region. The hiring of L.A. EDC is a favorable approach and we appreciate the direction of including the potential benefits and risks of implementing a citywide minimum wage in Long Beach. Even more important is the fact that the study will include proposals for incentives, tax breaks, fee reductions and or process improvements to assist businesses and nonprofit organizations in complying with a potential higher minimum wage. The Chamber is proud to be part of this process and offers its assistance in coordinating, outreach and public input as the EDC study calls for it and sees fit. In fact, we would like to start the process by partnering with the business improvement districts such as LBJ, Bixby Knolls, Belmont Shores , East, Anaheim, Uptown, the new Embiid Midtown and other business areas not represented by a specific bid. Included in this process as well. We would like to reach out to you, the mayor and the city council members, to work to keep the study moving in a direction that would benefit all. As you know, a majority of businesses operate on a relatively small profit margin, especially restaurants when wages increase. Many forget the employer has to account for payroll taxes and increases to employer contributions such as Social Security, Medicare, unemployment and disability insurance. As wages go up, so do these additional contributions by the employer who has to take into consideration the overall payroll cost. This impact on employers and this aspect of raising the minimum wage is rarely talked about and is something we would like to discuss when the time is right during the study. Thank you for the opportunity to address you tonight and for allowing our comments on this item. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Good evening, Mayor, and members of the city council. My name is Hilda Sanchez, and I'm honored to be the chair of the downtown Long Beach Associates. I'm also a small business owner here in downtown Long Beach. I appreciate the opportunity to speak tonight on this agenda item. The need to address the issue objectively is paramount. Without empirical information that shows valid possibilities rather than pure speculations about the impact of any wage adjustment. We demonstrate that we're only engaging in the emotional side of the issue, that this can be harmful to both workers and employers. It is for these and the following reasons that the debate supports this proposed study, as presented by the Vice Mayor and its coauthors. And then we look forward to the results to determine what we can support in the future. The passionate side of the issue cannot be entirely ignored. While the majority of citizens may feel strongly about this matter one way or another, the issue deserves the respect of having accurate information that is authoritative and verified. The proposed study isn't just for workers or just for business owners. It's for everyone in Long Beach. The implications of a recent wage adjustments in the city of Los Angeles and in the unincorporated parts of L.A. County have yet to be realized. It is because of that uncertainty that we must approach this matter with utmost caution in regard to Long Beach, whose economics are different from other areas. The proposed study enables us to conduct our proper due diligence and find the most benefit both for both the worker and employer. It is identifying the advantages focused on the worker, as well as recognizing any and all business initiatives that will best further and create a healthy public policy. In the spirit of collaboration, it is encouraging to take these important and necessary steps to engage in an open, inclusive and balanced process that will make Long Beach stronger and just as importantly, help create a public policy that reflects the needs and interests of everyone. Our workers, small business owners and nonprofits. We place trust in the mayor and our elected officials to pursue this process and encourage you to also consider convening to the same table the leadership representing business, nonprofits and workers to discuss any potential wage adjustments and business initiative that the study reveals. This practice could be could produce a template for all future discussions between these parties. Recognizing that it would be difficult to ensure that all involved will receive 100% of what it wants or seeks from pending deliberations. Dolby appreciates the opportunity to work with all sectors of our city and its civic partners and remains committed to stay engaged with this issue while participating in an open discussion that embodies a constructive discourse to ensure a positive and equitable outcome. Thank you for your opportunity and we encourage your support on this study. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. A la Jeanne's Long Beach already has a reputation for not being business friendly. Raising wages that would double would kill many businesses, especially the small mom and pop ones. Have you even considered what would happen with the seniors who are on unlimited incomes? I'm one of those. I have five grandchildren. I have five great grandchildren. I'm not a spring chicken and I'm on a limited income. In seven years, we have only had approximately a 1.5% raise per year. Yet looking at 100% raise plus on a worker raise, the prices would have to rise. Money doesn't grow on trees. How will those on limited fixed incomes survive? I guarantee if this kind of a wage is put through all at once or even, you know, in a small period of time, I guarantee there's going to be layoffs. Closed businesses, higher youth employment, unemployment, and a very strong downward quality of life, especially those who have worked all their lives to put into Social Security and to contribute to society. You have to think about the entirety of the picture. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hello. My name is Tori Baker. I'm a resident of Long Beach. California. Have been a resident for. The mike. Right next to you there. Thank you. Perfect. I've been a resident over 50 years. I am a home care provider for the city of long before my consumer that lives in Long Beach. I feel that the minimum wage should be raised because we work hard at the jobs that we do. It is a very stressful job. I love the job that I do. That's why I'm not looking. For other. Employment. I love. I have compassion and. A loving heart for those that are not able to take care of. Themselves. And I feel that if we have a better wage. That the cost of living would be much greater in the city of Long Beach, because we will be able to contribute more to our city to. Help it thrive and grow. That's all I have to say. Thank you. Right to the point. I appreciate that. Next speaker, please. Mr. Mayor and council members. My name is Jerry Stinson. I live on Los Altos Avenue in the third district. I'm the senior minister emeritus at the First Congregational Church of Long Beach, about a block from here. I'm here tonight on behalf of Clue Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice, which is an interfaith network of clergy and faith leaders here in Long Beach. We meet regularly here and throughout Los Angeles County. We are committed to good jobs for everyone. And a number of our clergy and lay leaders are here tonight from CLU. If you're part of CLU, if you'd stand up. I know several of them have had to leave, but we do have folks all around the room. We're here tonight to let you know that we strongly favor a $15 minimum wage that will include sick leave. And that in addition, we hope in your study you find ways to enact strict measures for ending wage theft in our community. I was part of the Proposition N campaign, and I saw the Chamber of Commerce and others try to frighten people into opposing a living wage for hotel workers, saying that Long Beach hotels would close if we passed Prop eight and the people in Long Beach would lose their jobs, even that there would be fewer police on the streets. None of that happened, and it won't happen with a decent minimum wage. Almost two thirds of the voters in Long Beach saw through those arguments and voted to support a living wage for our hotel workers. But mostly I'm here to say that those of us in faith communities see the issue of a living wage as a moral and a spiritual issue. Our traditions and sacred texts, whether it's the Koran or the Torah or the Christian Scriptures or others, call for justice and making sure that workers are not locked into poverty. So I hope as you continue this process, you will listen to those who bring you lots of facts and figures. You've heard that already tonight. But don't lose sight of the moral imperative of a just minimum wage, of adequate sick leave, and for making sure that employers don't steal the wages and the tips and the break times of their workers. Doing what is morally right will make this a stronger, a better and a more just city. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please get in. My name is William Ferris. I am the co-director of the Warehouse Worker Resource Center. We are part of the Long Beach Wage Theft Coalition, and we are here supporting a raise to the minimum wage, paid sick leave and also an effective, strong local wage theft enforcement mechanism. We work with warehouse workers, which is over 300,000 warehouse workers in this region and growing and particular. We've been working with warehouse workers from California Cartage, which is at the port who's most of the workers. Temp and Durex are residents of Long Beach and the headquarters of California Cartage is here in Long Beach. And the owner, Bob Curry, has close ties to Long Beach as well as Los Angeles. This warehouse, which is located at the port, the Los Angeles Living Wage Ordinance, does apply, which says that they have to be paid higher than the Los Angeles the California minimum wage and have paid leave for vacation and sick. That hasn't been the case since it started there. So that has been millions of dollars have been stolen from over 400 families that are struggling to make ends meet. And because of this, in December last year, workers had to file. They saw no other recourse but filing a lawsuit against the company. And this shows clearly that them fighting to have good jobs for our community, the need and example they need to have a strong wage theft mechanism. And sadly, this example at the warehouse, it's not unique to warehouse workers. We stand in solidarity with home care workers as well as restaurant workers, hotel workers and port truck drivers that are having their wages stalled daily. And with this, it clearly shows the need that Long Beach we cannot allow and should not allow employers to see this as a safe haven to still wages from workers that they've earned and that the moment is now to take a stand against this and raise the minimum wage. And we ask you to do so. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hello, everyone. My name is Carlos Rodriguez. I'm a father of four kids and I have a live in LA mitchell for many years. I'm also a warehouse worker and a California college. Oh. I earn minimum wage and I don't receive any benefits like like publications or sick days or health benefits. It's a place where every every day you have to show up through the warehouse to see you will you will want to work, but you will not be allowed to work. If you call sick, you are punished by not being allowed to work two or three days. This means that. When you have the being a really sick. Oh. For example, the fever. And it went to work because. And I knew I didn't, you know, go to work was I was going to lose days of peace, which will hurt my family. And that will mean not having having enough to pay food or bills. I will be working hard every day. But the company shows that they don't care or they don't respect you. Because that makes it does that make it easy enough to provide or basic needs or wages that are stolen? And I can't afford to even be sick. Our community, my family deserve better. And we want an end to stolen wages and to have paid paid sick days in my family, my coworkers and I as far as support to make this happen. Thank you very. Much. Thank you. Next speaker, please. When I know J.M. Barrie is Alberta somewhat. I think I'll sink when you talk my your mom. Good evening. My name is Adalberto Small. My name is said live at the Sonora Inn. I have a work five years, approximately year. Through a handle in Calgary, California, Puerto Beneficio Medical. In the nearby case, your name not political or not. I hope that they do not you want retired or optional? I have work for the company of Cal Cartage for approximately five years and we don't have any benefits there. You can see reparation talaga on the left person not great doesn't talk girlfriend and also prostitute around month. And so for me like on salary or minimum I know what I poor pervert forgot got those. I would like to ask everybody sitting here in front of me if you will be able to pay your bills in all your expenses with a minimum wage of $9 an hour. We've got awesome at the mall now. Amanda, a control companero control contract accompanies the California Kakadu in the hands of temporal porro and beyond that the Salado. I look at the Metro 100th parliamentary. Back in December 2014, we filed a wage and hour complaint for stolen wages that the company has been stealing from us. Chopper collector Melissa Harris Well, those. KAGAN I'm going to throw out the mantra, Genesis, it's almost only a monsoon system. I think the way your DeNardo. Our fight is to is to make a living wage ordinance a better pay and to have a better system. But completely is the role of the salary source in caso de novo. So the company has to comply with with the law and not to steal wages from us. Bless you. Thank you. Thank you very much. And next speaker, what I'm going to do also is so I have the gentleman in the back who's the last speaker, because I'm going to cut off the speaker's list. I think we're we have a long list here. So that gentleman, our last speaker, they're waiving and no one is taking their full 3 minutes, which we appreciate because we want to get to deliberation. We have another very long item after this as well. So if you want to continue that process, that that thoughtfulness, we would appreciate it. But you obviously, you're entitled to your 3 minutes, but please continue. When I. You know Rodriguez. Good evening. My name is Rosa Rodrigues. And I think one of the real. I am 65 years old. People bought into those. I knew how they got to Calgary and Alberta. And I have worked for 22 years in Coal Courage at the Port. I got to go with this korando content. A lot of them are considered a manual. But when? But alas, the various Diferentes companions came out of theaters Lowe's, Amazon. Loading and unloading containers by hand for different companies such as Lowe's, Kmart, Amazon and some the other ones. LDS in whether they marched or they may not seem to know and they trace implicit trabalhando. And if the company ganondorf was already Laura. The 19 of March of 1993, I started to work in this company, and I was making $9 an hour. I'm puzzled almost. Having people signs here, civil, incremental, those dollars go out into centavos. It's been more than 20 years in. I have got a raise of only $2.40 in all this time. Mr. Duval is the owner of all our warranties and order. I actually make $11.40 per hour. ES Una Volta rispetto para mi. He promised companeros. CASTANEDA Meanwhile, sitwasyon the authorities companies get un Rwandan monitors. That's lack of respect from the company for me and my other coworkers that they're stealing our wages. Mr. Skill as company alpha and rigorous in color. The mass nosotros trabajadores sugimoto viviendo in la materia. While these companies make themselves richer, we are living on their misery. And there is the pencil, then there is a composite it a longer parable by that narrator. It's very sad and it's embarrassing to have to share a space. They have to have to be able to pay for it for a rent. Bell Country. There's a. The whole country states a. Okay. Look, I know they wouldn't miss complete withdrawal. Normal cancer. But I sadly see that even with my salary of a whole month, it's not I'm not able to to afford the dentist. A number at all of our calories list below can offer you within a configured will not allow you use these channels. On behalf of my coworkers, I'm asking you to help us to. To get better, better salaries, better pay. You system are effective against you. The I guess a complaint alleges control contract with salary. And an effective system that help us to punish the companies that steal the wages from the workers. You'll see people there that are monstrous chameleons. When was they're either. And our way be able to give our families a better quality life. Gracias. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Russia's crisis on your watch. Yes, sir. Hi. My name is Rick Linder. I live in the seventh district. It has been estimated that. 40% of Long Beach residents. Earn less than. $15 an hour. I urge you to conduct this study to verify this. But by raising the minimum wage in Long Beach to 15 an hour, you would have more disposable income among the residents in your community. This would assist. Local businesses and the economic business. Corridor by having more disposable income spent there, and that would improve the quality of life and standard of living of most of the residents in the city of Long Beach. Some employers don't want to pay 15 an hour, but if they cannot afford to pay above poverty level wages to their employees. And. Can't turn a profit. Maybe they don't deserve to be in business. They're not competent as businesspeople. And as for younger workers, possibly tax. Incentives and other devices. Would. Encourage employers to hire younger workers to gain some work experience. But anyway, this is a great opportunity for you to improve the quality of life, standard of living of the residents in your community, enhance your business and commercial corridors. So I urge you very much to approve. This study. And approve a $15 an hour minimum wage. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Next speaker, please. Good afternoon, esteemed mayor and council members. My name is Carlos Quintero and I am a port truck driver. I've been a port truck driver for the past five years and currently working for Pacific nine transportation, moving cargo from the from both ports, L.A. and Long Beach. On behalf of my coworkers and their families, honestly, thank you. Thank you for introducing the idea of raising the wage in the city of Long Beach. I know from personal experience just how transformative this could be for workers in the city and their families and just. As we support raising the wage, we are also here to support wage enforcement. Many of you have heard the stories of wage theft at the trucking companies that do businesses in your ports. Just two weeks ago, we came here to tell you our stories to the Harbor Commission about our low paychecks, horrible safety conditions and extreme workloads . Many of us have gone on strike up to seven times to demand justice for all moms and dads who are being stolen their wages through illegal misclassification. I have been a misclassified driver for the entire time. I've worked for Pack nine. I have filed a claim against him for over 170,000. But the problem is, how do we make sure we enforce those claims? You know, we talk about the money, but we never talk about what's behind the money. In my case, I am fighting for my four children and my wife. My oldest son is 13 now. He's officially a teenager, which we all know how scary that can be. He loves playing soccer, playing music. He's been practicing the violin for the past two years in the school orchestra. He's respectful. He's helpful around the house, helps his brothers with their homework, irons, their clothes, talk to them about the dangers that they will find out on their life. All that time away from my family has pushed my son to take a fatherly figure. He should enjoy his childhood, explore and invent. I have not spent enough time with him. My boy is growing up too fast. I've been pushed to work over 70 hours per week. I have slept in a truck a day camp for days at a time to make enough trips to cover our expenses. This is just not fair. Raising and forcing the wage can be life changing for thousands of families in Long Beach. We're not fighting for dollars, but for opportunities to send our kids to college, spend more time with them, taking them to the parks, and be sure as they grow they will remember the experiences they had with their mom and dad. Thank you for your time. Let's collect, protect and enforce the wage. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. I will be translating for hospital. When I started snorkel the innumerable Consiglio me no cause Portillo is soy joe fair del Puerto de Lomas is some plus era etc. kicking status e competition nuestras stress condition this. Hello and good evening major members of the council. My name is also party owner, more port truck driver, more than 13 years working for several companies and it is a pleasure to be here with you and share our current working conditions. I mean, there's some places that I would stress. So it is possible to get La Ciudad a Long Beach. I went there in salary or minimum, but first it gives me a great pleasure to know that Long Beach will be the next city that will increase the minimum wage. E. Key personnel maintain. On the walls. It puts on possibly poor care. Say you that I would show him to the British Parliament. They are less familiar among many more men than Liberal areas. I personally support this proposition because I know it will help thousands of people. We are hardworking people and we deserve a fair wage and that compensates all of our sacrifices. The only person that saw you. So you know, that person, that middle class, if he got in a rowboat, is you. I am a misclassified. I have been misclassified as an independent contractor. Somebody. He is close to Fido for multiples company as they purchase their the Long Beach Los Angeles is unpalatable. This means that the last couple of years have been cheated by multiple trucking companies that abuse our community here in Long Beach. Our nosotros estamos pro. Leonardo Nuestra. Mr. Company. Intermodal Breeze Transport. On that campaign. Yeah. But as they would argue see almost correct them into classify Carlos Como Empleados. Now in our company Intermodal Transport Bridge, we are in a campaign to ensure that we are properly classified as employees. Most voters see one man the most. And that's what's going on here. Well, think in terms companero the pug naim or Cee Lo Afectados por el mismo sistema. The company get $10 mil, as in Emile, as they do all areas in Caracas, the ville de la de la. The talk is calm, money harmless. We, like our colleagues in Pag nine, have been affected by the same broken system. The company has stolen thousands and thousands of dollars in deductions and usage of their trucks. Is the system a crook or ruthless combo of you who likens the whole law with hell? Low, low, low quintile. Una semana. Si said Serbian reporter, contrary to this corrupt system, was well explained by Councilwoman Lowenthal a few weeks ago. Servants by contract. Estamos trabalhando. The internship for. Cinquanta says Santa Rosa tend orders La Semana but up or their mountain there unless they're familiar. We are working days and nights putting 50, 60, 70 hours a week in order to provide for our families. Tanto trabajo. Tanto sacrificial. No sol, no. Solo. May affect our mission more than being an mi familia. All of this hard work and sacrifices not only affects me, but my family as well. So it's still there. The commercial is still the huddle. Army is boss. Anyhow, though, I must pause. I'm sequencing Siguro Mariko. As a answer investor in Mr. Medecine. I am a witness of how this has left my wife and children without health insurance or access to our medicines. Joy while Kim's companeros Carlos. But people thought those lost these, but that our pirate trial is a total loss and still is. Lord Necesario but up in the air. Una Vida Como. I like my colleague Carlos fight every day to bring you what is required for you to live a comfortable life. But inside Kenya is the ample thumb being gay nuestro maestro that is a ballgame for nosotros get them being no menace nomadism resembles. It seems to me that it's time that our leaders to advocate for us. We deserve it. A remarkably long mental this allowed you know a Allah Malakal efficacy on suicide. Pretty good access to your call. And we stand with a wage increase. Let's end domestic, miscast, misclassification. Apartheid. Yes, we can. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good afternoon. Uh, Major Garcia, City Council members, workers and community. Community members. My name is Daniel Injuries. I'm a father and proud port truck driver. I have been working in your port for the last 15 years. I have much history here and how much things have changed. Not much has changed for the positive. I have seen how the trucking companies have grown and how much more poverty exceeds exists with my coworkers of Pacific, Knight Transportation and other companies. Many people think that truck. Drivers make a lot of money, but that is a lie, a myth. I'm here to give you. Just one example. I have been working for Pacific Night Transportation. For the last eight years. During the whole time I have been misclassified as independent contractor. I have worked day cheap, sometimes working 14. Hours per day so that I can afford all the expenses that they forced on me. Many times these charges are more than what I make during the trips, which means that I take. Home. A. Negative paycheck. What that means is that I owe the company for working for them. I have fought for years to change this, but I can not. Do it alone. Me and my coworkers are Pacific and. I have filed claims with the Department of Labor. We estimate that my claim is worth over one for $200,000. The company has. Retaliated against. Us by not giving. Us work. Fortune is more and more into debt, more and more into poverty. Two weeks ago, I gave testimony to the Department of Labor. To defend my claim and force the company. To pay. What they owe. Me. This is where you can play your role. We need senior leaders to help protect us against. Companies like. Pacific now. They are not just. Stealing from us, but also from the city. State and federal governments. In unemployment. Insurance. Workers compensation. And taxes. Are are. There's a bunch of drivers that they bought the truck up from. Pacific and air transportation. Under their. Companies. Promise that they will. Make a lot of money. But so far, these drivers are jumping from. Company to company, still looking for that money. So there's a big lie from the companies that, you know, under being a independent contractor. They will make more money, be more happy. But that's a big lie. Yes. Thank you, sir. Next speaker, please. Hello. My name's Laura Simon. I'm a local business owner. Thank you for having me tonight. Regarding the issue of minimum wage, $15. We've been in business in Long Beach for 11 years now, and most of our employees are not at minimum wage. They're significantly above that. If we raise minimum wage, all of those employees are going to expect a raise to justify the imbalance, which as a business owner increases our worker's comp, it increases our payroll taxes, it increases all sorts of things that we need to take into consideration from the small business perspective. I was talking with one of our employees about this and she said, Well, what's going to affect me is now this my landlord is going to think that I'm making more money, therefore they're going to raise my rent. So in reality, I make no more money as a business owner, if our wages go up, our prices have to go up because we cannot. Totally directly take all of that increase and all of those prices. So although we think that raising the minimum wage will increase. The living standard of people in reality are our economy goes up. To help balance out those increase in wages. So thank you for having me tonight. I appreciate it. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, Mayor. City Council Members My name is Gary Hetrick. I'm a sociologist and a professor of sociology at Cal State University, Long Beach, and I'm also a member of the steering committee of the Long Beach Coalition for Good Jobs and Healthy Community. And I'm here tonight to speak in favor of the citywide minimum wage study. I believe this is a reasonable and our coalition believes this is a reasonable first step towards developing a policy that can address the persistent high level of poverty in Long Beach, a level of poverty that has continued despite a decline in the unemployment rate and driven in large part by the growth in low wage service sector jobs. Yet raising the wages for the lowest paid will do little if those workers do not see that money. And herein lies an issue that's come up a couple of times already tonight. The idea of wage theft or the deliberate nonpayment of money or underpayment of wages owed to employees. Some of the most common occurrences include include working off the clock, not receiving rest or meal breaks, not receiving overtime, not receiving tips. Illegal deductions are simply just not paying minimum wage. And so the question is how pervasive is wage theft? In a 2010 study of 4387 workers in low wage industries in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York, the study broken laws, unprotected workers, found that 26% were paid less than the legally required minimum wage in the previous workweek, 60% by more than a dollar an hour. And 43% of those who complained experienced one or more forms of illegal retaliation from their employer or supervisor. For example, workers were fired, suspended, threatened by by their supervisor that he would call immigration services or threatened to cut workers hours or pay. A more recent study in 2014, UCLA found that Los Angeles was the wage theft capital of the nation. Estimates place the amount of lost wages to low income workers in Los Angeles at over $26 million per week. Not surprising, wage theft drives workers deeper into poverty. And with lower incomes, workers find it difficult to afford adequate housing, healthy food and other resources that Vice Mayor Lowenthal mentioned earlier. And these conditions put workers at risk for chronic illnesses such as diabetes, hypertension, mental health issues. It also means that they often can't afford medication for serious health conditions. As an educator, I've seen how wage theft often forces my students to work more hours to support their families. While these students that we're often told, we know that students get financial aid, their families do not. And this, in turn, creates greater stress on these students as they try to maintain good GPAs and stay on track to graduate. Some even postpone their studies. As a city, we cannot afford to ignore wage theft in the impact of poverty wages on families. As we move forward with this discussion, we need to be sure that any policy recommendations include mechanisms for workers to recover their wages and retaliation protections for them when they speak up about wage theft. Such a comprehensive policy will improve family well-being of low wage workers, and this will positively affect all who. Thank you to be. Long Beach teams all up. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Yeah. Thank you. I'll be real brief. Good afternoon, Council. Good afternoon, Council members. My name is Donald Blackwood. I work at the Hilton Hotel and I've been working there since 2000. Five of embezzlement. And B, I just wanted to talk about the impact of the measure. M Before measure. M I was I was paying child support. At the same time. I was taking care of my mother who was on it, Social Security. So she did. She had a disability during that time. When I was putting in child support, I was getting paid $9 an hour at the Hilton. And I was told, because I'm a living wage. I mean, I'm I was a tip employee. I would never get a raise. So from day 25 to the living wage, I made whatever the minimum wage was. During that time some checks because I got child's face, child support, which I volunteered for. I wasn't forced to volunteer. I was sometimes take home $237. Sometimes I'd have to rely on my tips. If I didn't make tips that day, I couldn't buy food or I would just get a bag of potatoes. I get, you know, some butter or whatever I could do to do to handle that. What I was really grateful for was the living wage and being able to participate in that because it actually changed my life for the better I can now because of the living, the measure M and the minimum living wage, I'm actually can give my mother an allowance. She can buy clothes, she can we can have, we can buy furniture, you know, just basic stuff. I couldn't even for basic stuff I really didn't have. I couldn't afford a medical. So I had to go to free clinics before, you know, when I was only making them when I was paying child support, I paid all my child support, the living wage pass and now making just $13 an hour. I feel much better. I mean, it just makes me feel more like I'm a regular person, you know, like, I'm not poor, I'm not living. Check the check. I'm not scraping change, I'm not counting pennies, even though and I just want that for everybody else in the city because. Because I mean, really, if, if you were working in a restaurant, in a hotel and you're getting a living wage and in a look in a restaurant right across the street and you get them a minimum wage. It doesn't seem fair to me. It seems like everybody should get a basically a living wage. That's what it is. It allows you to live even though it's a minimum wage. And it shouldn't be just a minimum wage. It should just be a living wage. So we can basically buy the necessities you need to live and work for your company. And that's all I want to say. Thank you. Thank you at the time. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening. My name is Joanna Conception. I am a voting resident of the First District and also the executive director of the Filipino Migrants Center, a nonprofit organization here in Long Beach, serving low income Filipino families in the city. And I'm also here representing the Long Beach Coalition to End Wage Theft. We want to thank Mayor Robert Garcia, as well as the council members who are supporting this study. We think that it is an important step today for the advancement of the economic well-being of thousands of struggling Long Beach families. We want to ensure that the diverse, low income communities we serve will have a voice in this process because because it is they who will be the most impacted and often are the ones who disproportionately suffer during times of economic turmoil and changes. Our communities deserve a minimum wage that meets the basic needs of our families. It is not only about an increase in the number, but about seriously considering the average cost to live in this city and the rising costs of basic expenses. We also urge you to give priority to combating the widespread practice of wage theft because as it currently stands, many employers continue to violate existing minimum wage and other wage and hour laws, placing law abiding businesses business owners at a disadvantage. According to the Department of Labor Standards Employment in the Long Beach Office. From 2008 to 2011, they have found that over $31 million worth in wages were stolen from workers who have filed cases. And that does not count the number of workers and residents here in the city who do not have the resources or information to be able to file in the Department of Labor. And out of that stolen wages, only 8% were collected from employers. It can take an average of one year or more to resolve a case, but once a judgment has been determined, there is no guarantee workers will be able to get a single cent. We need to create easy, simple and efficient tools for hard working employees to collect the wages they have earned. We need to protect courageous workers who speak up when they face wage theft so they do not go to work in fear. We need the city to create the authority to take charge, to enforce wage and hour laws correctly and efficiently. It is time to level the playing field so that responsible business owners can compete. And we want to work closely with you to make this happen. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, Honorable Mayor Garcia and city council members. My name is Chandler Kemp. I am a ninth district resident in Long Beach and president of the Long Beach City College Political Science Student Association. This is my first time addressing you as our city leaders, and today I feel motivated to share with you why I care about this campaign to raise the wage and protect workers against which stuff. Waste us. Death is very common and it has happened to many of our community members, especially the immigrants and youth population. I'm one of five children in my family. I immigrated to Long Beach from Cambodia in 2001 at the age of seven to live with my sister. In Cambodia. My dad worked as an insurance claim adjuster for 15 years. My dad left Cambodia and emigrated to Long Beach in 2009 to find better opportunities. My dad worked for a local Chinese food restaurant. He worked for 12 hours a day. Six days a week. It was paid $3 an hour. He has received numerous, no lunchbreak, no overtime. When my dad was working for the Chinese food restaurant, we barely saw each other. I was either at school or I'll be studying and he would be working. I know working at that restaurant took a toll on him and he was always tired and his day off it would catch up on his sleep. He was not living. He was just going through the motions. His help support us. I'm also I used to be a restaurant worker. I work at La Lune Palace by the Long Beach Airport, a local Cambodian restaurant. We were always short staffed servers at different special events, and we worked from 6 p.m. to 3 a.m. in the morning with no uninterrupted breaks, lunch or overtime. Wage wage stuff. It's not only affect my family financially, but it affects many aspects of our lives. I am a full time student at Long Beach City College and I also work part time. My days are spent attending classes, working and studying for classes. My time and money are very precious to me. The money I earn from working is just not to paying for groceries and bills. When I work until 3 a.m. at La Lune Palace on Saturday nights, I usually be exhausted on Sunday. My day to study. Then I am usually. Then I usually have to play catch up on my schoolwork when I'm exhausted from working at Loveline. It is a perpetual downward cycle. When I finally realized that La Luna was committing waste towards me, I was shocked. That was a crime. I was raised on the idea of working hard without complaining. Working without break was normal for me and I realized it shouldn't be that way. The solution to weight stuff is accountability. I want employers to be more accountable and stop committing waste stuff while we should adopt rules to make sure waitstaff does not happen. We need the city to enforce wage and hour laws. Thank you. Thank you. Hey, good luck on your studies at Long Beach City, by the way. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, Mayor Garcia. City council. Members. My name is. Tanya O'Malley Nelson IAU and I am the founder of Project Alpha, which is a Long Beach nonprofit focused on. Supporting formerly incarcerated Pacific Islanders and Asians that reintegrate back into our community. I'm here tonight because I was invited by our friends at the Filipino Migrant Center to speak on why raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour and enforcing it matters to all of us. Never would I have thought wage. Theft would have occurred with me. I speak on behalf of my community members whose policy and cultural humility is often mistaken as a weakness and taken advantage of. This is an important issue to me. Personally, because I understand what it means to live paycheck to paycheck. Counting on every dollar. Earned while an employer decides not to pay all wages. A multitude of feelings begin to. Manifest and they're not nice. I grew up with both my parents working two jobs, watching them come home tired and go without. Just so we could have food and the basic necessities growing up, as you've heard with so many others. I started to help out when I was 11 years old by delivering newspapers and pulling my weight. I knew I had to contribute to my family. Eventually, I worked hard enough to become a food and beverage director. At a hotel in a room. Revenue ROOM's Revenue Manager. But unfortunately, I made the mistake and I made the choice, and I made a few bad. Decisions that placed me in the custody of the law and under the governance of. The law. Still today. After my first incarceration, I found myself in the struggle of finding a job that would hire me with a criminal background. It was very discouraging. And at times the anxiety and angst took a toll on me. I did become homeless, but I eventually found a job that acknowledged at least some of my qualifications. I was hired as the night auditor. I climbed the management ladder, but within a month I found myself taking on upper management duties and all that. The humbling hour of $10 an hour working 60 plus hours a week. I asked our ownership Would I be getting. Overtime with an answer? Pathetic. No straight time. I'm here to tell you that wage theft needs attention. I speak for Kuia. And the other brothers that I work with at the. Hotels who don't have this voice who won't speak up. Their choice of. Voice is to be that past a person. I'd like to be that choice of voice today to support this. Raising the minimum wage would. Incentivize those of us in the API and formerly incarcerated community to attain employment and become healthy, productive assets to our families and not be seen as liabilities while we have statewide labor laws in place. We need stronger local enforcement mechanisms. That protect workers. Like myself and increase increasing penalties against employers. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening. My name is Bianca Sauvage. I own a business in Long Beach. I've been in business for 18 years, so I've contributed to this community that I love so much. I came from Orange County 31 years ago and fell in love with the city. And I'm never leaving. And I know a lot of you guys like Susie and Stacy and Darrell and. I love that you guys are all here and can listen to us. And so I came as a business person and I've heard. Some really heartbreaking. Stories here tonight about wage stealing and theft and stuff. Like that. I've never heard of such a thing. It's horrible. People need to have a compassion. Everybody needs to have be able to put. Food on their table and clothes on their back and on their children's back. But I just my I'm just here to tell you that there are you know, there's the other. Side of that equation. And then there's people like me who put out my personal money. I mean, I'm going to have to retire a little later than I wanted to because I used a lot of my money to pay all my rent and. And all the insurance that I had to carry. And my business license and all that stuff that goes with being a business owner. And I chose that because I wanted to be I wanted to be a business in Long Beach. So it wasn't what I had planned to do. I. Had a. Completely different. Dream but anyways ended up being. A business. So I think that may be perhaps a consideration regarding public. Policy on this issue might be done by industry or something like that. I mean, it sounds. Like the port has a whole different moral issue. Going on over there that has nothing to do with people like me. Or, you know, friends like my Mario who owns La Traviata. He's going to have he's going to be impacted by this. And so a lot of other people who are business owners. So this there's a lot to consider here. And I know what we're talking tonight is about the feasibility study. My only concern is that this organization. Did they do the study for Los Angeles and for Los Angeles County? Because if they did go ahead. They did the study for Los Angeles County. They did okay. For Los Angeles. So I'm concerned that they might be predisposed to think this. I mean, if they advocated for it or if they did a study and the result was to go ahead and do an increase. Then I just hope that they're fair. And like you said, I loved your opening statement when you said that this is going to be balanced and all the consideration is going to be is going to be given to everybody and that everybody is welcome to come to the table. And so I just want you to know that as a business owner, there's another side of the equation and some hopefully something will come out of this that can benefit everybody thinks. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, council people. Mayor Garcia My name is Peter Savage. And if you didn't catch the last name, I'm married to the last speaker who was just up my wife, Bianca. And like any good husband, I'm going to agree with about 95% of what she said. But no, I got a couple of more points. I'm not leaving just yet. Anyway, on a serious note, I guess my big question is, after hearing all this, it sounds like a big can of. Worms has been opened. This wage theft issue sounds like a really huge issue. I'm not sure it's directly related to the minimum wage, so I'm not sure whether you guys, including that in this study, are going to have your hands full and that maybe be a whole separate thing, I don't know. But it sounds like a real administrative. Legal quagmire for the city to develop a system and a way to stop this wage theft, which it sounds like they should or somebody should. But I don't know how that happens without the city maybe spending millions of dollars out of its budget in order to study that and. Remedy it sounds like an easy remedy. And I don't know how you do that. I really don't. The other thing is, I'm not sure what the hurry is. Yeah, we had a couple people talk about. Well, other cities are doing it. Seattle, san jose, new york, l.a. Well, okay, you got five cities, six cities, a dozen cities. How many other cities are there in the country that are not doing this because they realize it's not that. Good for business? So before you jump into this whole hog like you're doing, you got the wage theft issue to think about. I'm not sure what the hurry is because you need to get the facts. This study here. Is is a month old. And how long is the wage increase started or been in effect in L.A. County? L.A. City, less than a year. New York, less than a year. There's no hard facts. And how can you guys make a decision until we have hard statistics and facts to go on? Right now, everything's anecdotal and emotional. We need to wait some time. I don't think you guys need to act on this right away. Maybe wait a year or two. I don't know until you get some facts and statistics to back the emotions that are present in this room tonight. So that's the last thing I want to say. Haste makes waste. And just be careful. Thank you. Thank you. Next week, police. I am going to be. Translating for Mr. Bartholomew Pérez. When I notice Senor Garcia Miembro de la la la la la la la. Good evening. Mayor Garcia and members of the council. In Paris think of it resigning as Carla Hondo para la comida rapida and principalmente de magdalena. My name is Bartholomew Perez and I have been working for 23 years in the fast. Food industry, specifically of McDonald's. Oh, is that the employer, Ms.. Alario? Meaning whether the assistant I think. My current salary is 1075. Throwaway. You also realize a monopoly represent like a s corporation DNS over some organism. I only work for a total of 22 hours for that company as they are observing our hours as a big corporation. Organizers is that the simple tell me more press you'll get the NL combo numero uno on the lot in the morning or cycle unless you are Long Beach, Pasadena, California, either. Those who need more here. At this moment. The combo number one is cost the same at Long Beach, Pasadena. And in California. Seniors throw caramel carton the way it was only through the late. Tell me more presciently loud on the way. Wherever you go, you can also get eggs and milk at the same price. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. We rounded up our restaurants. You are as well. Now, the laboratory principles that all Californians. We know the total price. Today is a big day for Long Beach as well as California, if not the entire country. Oh, yes, a little like a cake like Lassie movie and also a World War poverty. Today is a day where we can make sure that the middle class does not become the lower class. Logo. We are no longer called capitalism because you are like an object and I look forward. For a long time, government has helped inject benefits to the rich, and now we hope that this is an opportunity to inject rights to the poor. Oh, yes. The implication is there is a pointless repetition and are companies are not so keen to let us in not annoy Roberts a lot you get get permitting meeting when the owner then throw lostrillionhoc but will not be the Worcester. Today is the day that we hope that you can help us get a better salary and then to wage theft, as well as allowing workers to organize should they choose to. Always meet the actual guarantee that they will. Captiva Cargo Studios. Sorry. Look, a significant salary or minimal yanking or proving salaries, Larry. But we are beloved remote bahauddin developer Reza. We encourage I encourage any educational facility or to make a study and to prove that $15 is needed. But even 15 is not enough. We'll probably still be in poverty. Menstrual cycle, says Rwanda alone. The serious calamities will be the end of those yellow futuro poverty surrounding the youth. Our youth and children are graduating from college in that, and they are the future of the next line of poverty. Generation of poverty. But I'm over like on loan me on this thumb up in the air. All power and loopholes are parakey even for comedy. Also awesomeness. If we're going to improve the lives of workers, we have to give them an increase so that they can take better food to their tables. Or you sultanpur senor del Gobierno, you are the killer. Boondoggle pueblo is pointless. A law around which aggressive. This is a time for the governmental bodies to please inject money back into the workers, into the community. And the community will respond back with a big thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening. I'm, uh, I'm with the five for 15 campaign. I'm also speaking on behalf of a factory workers here in Long Beach. And I know that there's a lot of. Can you give us your name, please? Oh, my name is Samuel Homer Williams. Thank you, sir. And I know that there's a lot of workers who are needing of this. This, you know, 515, this money that they need. And there's a lot of workers who've been going through wage theft. And with this wage that I mean, you have to think about, there's taxes that have been taken out. You take away taxes. You take away, you know, their expenses and need for the necessities. And then you take away or their money has been stolen from them. And it's not just money that is not stolen from the missile. It's also these workers futures and their children's futures that have been taken away from them. And I know I'm only 21 years old, but I've seen these workers go through so many hardships and struggles and. It's really hard for me to watch my coworkers work so hard and yet have nothing to take home. And these moms that have children, they take care of, but they can't because they don't have enough money. And they have to think, do I take my child to the doctor or do I pay my rent? It's a lot of things that go on and people don't see that. And having these voices come up and speak, I hope that each and every one of you have heard these stories and it's coming from another young person. But it is these stories are true. And it's also true for myself, because I'm a student that had a drop out because my tuition was too much and I couldn't afford schooling. So I ended up in a job like this. And there's a lot of students that end up in the same way. These jobs, you know, they're there to help. But I still can't afford schooling because, you know, because I don't make enough to pay my tuition. And there's a lot of students who are stuck and they can't move forward on their financial ladder. And I am one of those students standing here before you, and there's many other students like that. I just want to speak upon also that there's a lot of, you know, businesses, small business that we're talking about that are, you know, they're going to have to like cut back, just throwing out hypotheticals. But these people can't wait for, you know, for for that, you know, they need this now. It's very urgent for them because the more we talk about this, you know, bills go up, rent goes up, and we're still stuck in the same place and we can't move further. So something has to be done because if it's not done, then we can't just stay here and be still and be quiet. We have to move forward and we have to bring it forward to you to help fix the problem, because that's why you are here, to fix the problem that we're bringing before you . So the problem is to fixed, which is that you hear our problems and that you do something to actually fix it. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, mayor people. My name is Alex Bass. I'm a port truck driver for over nine years. Right now, I'm currently working for a company called Equal Fraud that properly classify their drivers as employees. And I once was misclassified driver. And I know firsthand what it is to be a misclassified driver. When you're taking negative paychecks home. You can put you can't provide for your family. Can't take them to the clinic, to the hospital, or even when it comes to Christmas season, you can't really blame the gives because y you're your employer takes all your check and illegal deductions for fuel expenses, truck repairs for a truck that's not even yours. And I'm also here to support the workers out here, the city of Long Beach workers. It's time to raise the minimum wage. I mean, this is Long Beach, not a third world country. Now, you know, people need they're over here trying to support their families, okay? They're here to support their families. And, you know, provide the proper. Education with the young man said is true. He's a young man and they're getting better with with their tuitions. We all know this. What's going on? It's time to change everything. Reach the way is stop wage theft, raise the minimum wage and paid sick days. That's all. That's all. We want. Thank you. Thank you. And our our final speaker, Mr. Mayor and Council, I commend you that we're having this conversation. There are a lot of cities in America that should be doing this. But if swept it under the rug. I want you to know the ten of you you represent. 50,000 people, a lot of whom are voters. But before they were voters. Their souls were gods. He said, All souls are mine. He also said Mazel, not the ox that traded out to coal. The world will see us as the. Grand Prix City with lights. They see us as the largest port combine. Los Angeles, Long Beach. God see a lot of these people here. Where our night out. Is a Costco hotdog and soda for a dollar at $0.64. That's not a good balance. I believe if you take it into your heart, you can help bring that together somewhat. You may not be able to fix it all. But most of all, not the arcs that shredded out the corn. Every business that makes a profit. Somebody is working. In that business. Those people should not be muzzled. They should get a fair day's pay. For a fair. Day's work. I spoke to the Los Angeles City Council on this subject to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. And I ended with these words. For God's sake, do the right thing. Thank you, sir. Thank you. And I want to thank all the all the speakers that came out. Obviously, the workers and the clergy and the business owners and obviously the organization leaders. We really appreciate the the input. I'm going to go now to go back down to some of the council members. I also wanted to note, and I may have missed this the first time, the proposal before us is is a two part proposal . One, of course, is moving forward with the L.A. County Economic Development Corporation feasibility study that looks at both the benefits risks of implementing a minimum wage. And then the second piece of that is, which I think is also as important, is we're also asking our own city's economic development commission to also take public input and review the study's findings and make possible recommendations to the council. And so I want to make sure that that is said as well. That's an additional opportunity for public dialog and input. There's some great folks on that commission. And with that, I'll turn it back to the council. Councilmember Reynaga Thank you, Mayor Birmingham, and take care of the gracias those days giving it and keep it to the actual test eagle story is the demo. First of all, I want to thank all of you who came here tonight to provide testimony on this subject. Very important that that you're here. And I want to not only thank you, but welcome you here and for sharing. You know, I have a favorite quote from Benjamin Disraeli, and it says, Change is inevitable. And in a progressive society, change is constant. And every time that we talk about change, I always hear the same the same other refrain as well. And that's the refrain from Chicken Little, saying that the sky is falling and it's not falling. It's change, it's progression. It's a movement that takes us forward into the future. And I think that when we talk about minimum wage, we talk about minimum wage, we talk about wage theft or we talk about horrible working conditions. Those are all part of what we need to look at and what we need to study and what we're proposing to do tonight. And what this motion is, is to study what's what's going on, to study what's feasible to study if we need change. We all know we need change because change is progressive and we are a progressive society. And I'm very proud to be part of a progressive city council that has brought this forward because we need to look at what's going on with our wages. I have my own story about when I started working at the age of 12 and I was a as I always say, I was a petroleum transfer engineer. I push gas, I check the oil. I clean windshields in a checked tires. And I was doing that for $1 a day. Of course, there's about child laws and all that type of business. But the person that I was working for didn't care about that. All he cared was that I was pumping gas, cleaning windows, checking tires. Not not aware that I was working there for a reason. I wanted to buy a bike, but I had the but I had the the gumption to go out there and say, you know, can you use some help? And I said, sure, but you have to do it for a dollar a day. And I did for a whole summer. And I bought my bike but eventually got stolen. But that's that's that's another story. But I think what's important is that we look at this rationally, that we not think like Chicken Little, that the sky is not going to fall. A lot of the testimony I heard tonight is compelling. There was some history given. We know a couple of years ago we we worked for Measure and we heard that the sky was falling and in fact, tourism went up. The businesses are doing. The hotels are doing very well. Hotel workers are spending their money in Long Beach. But we talk about what's gone up. What has gone up? Prices of gasoline has gone up. Prices of groceries have gone up. Medical costs has gone up. What has not gone up? Minimum wage. So we need to look at that in regards to how it fits within our economy. And I think that this study, with the help of our own Economic Development Commission, will work at that. And I encourage you to participate in those hearings, give your voice so that we can provide what we come back with. This comes back back to us as the city council that we have basically all the information we need to make it well informed and and the right thing decision for everybody in Long Beach. One final thing I want to say. Is that when we talk about the minimum wage. We're not talking about changing the minimum wage from night into morning. It's an incremental change. Everybody talks about the minimum wage is going to affect businesses and that and that people are that the business owners are going to fire people. There's gonna be more unemployment. There's going to be more kids out in the street without jobs, that the business owners are going to raise their prices. And it's going to be the sky is falling. It's not. Let's be real when we're talking about a minimum wage. And when we looked at L.A. and we look at L.A. County, when they're talking about a $15 minimum wage, you're talking about 2020, folks. They're not talking about tomorrow. They're talking about 2020. They have five years to implement that change. And when we look at it realistically, $15 an hour in 2020 is going to be 13 or $12 an hour in today's prices. So let's be realistic. Let's look at this from a objective point of view and look at it from a perspective that if we raise the minimum wage, we're raising families, we're raising kids, we're raising businesses, and we're raising our economy. That's what it's all about. All right. So finally and just one last point. I encourage my colleagues to support the study. Thank you, Councilmember. Next up is Council Councilwoman Price. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'm going to be voting in favor of the study tonight. Anyone who has followed me in the way that I think in regard to these issues is I think that data is good. And I think it's important for us to get information before we move forward on policies like this. I absolutely reject the argument or the suggestion that because we're concerned about what the outcome of the study reveals, we shouldn't study the issue at all. I think that that is a mistake. It's a flawed form of thinking. And I think about many issues that become that come before the city of Long Beach. And some of those issues are issues that some of us may have expertize in. Some of those issues may be issues that we have constituencies who feel passionately about. But unless we do studies, objective, comprehensive studies to find out what the true impacts will be, it's I think it's irresponsible for us to make decisions. So I doubt that there would ever be a situation that I would vote against studying an issue and getting more information, because I think that's, generally speaking, a very good idea and a good practice. To those to those who say that this item is politically driven. I have a few comments for those because I did receive a few emails today. First of all, the city of Long Beach is not the first to initiate this discussion. And anyone who's been watching the news or reading the paper knows that this is a nationwide discussion. And in fact, in our very own state, SB three is now pending before the Assembly's Appropriations Committee. So this is not this novel concept that's coming before the city of Long Beach out of the blue. It's certainly something that is a nationwide discussion. And as the seventh largest city in the state of California, it's reasonable and foreseeable that we would engage in this discussion, if not now, within the near future. So I think it's important for everyone to to have a little bit of a reality check in terms of where we are as a nation, where we are as a city, and where we're headed moving forward. I think the key to any study that we do has to be that the study needs to be objective. And I think Bianca Soviet, she made some some good points regarding that. You know, we don't want a study that's preaches predisposed to certain conclusions or recommendations. And I don't I've reviewed the LA ATC reports and studies, and I believe that this is an objective study that we're going to be engaging in. And I and I hope that proves to be true. And I personally intend to reach out and be present for any discussions on this topic with workers and with businesses. I happen to represent a district that has many successful business corridors. And we can speculate all day long about what a raise and minimum wage would do to the businesses in those communities. But what's important to me is not to have that discussion where we're speculating about what might happen, but that the business community and the people that operate these businesses for their livelihood and to help raise their families, that they not have angst and anxiety about what this might do to their business, that we try to weave in some mitigation measures that would incorporate some of their concerns into any policy that might eventually be considered by the Council. I hope that. When the study commences that the following recommendations are considered and looked at in terms of the study, because I agree with Mayor Garcia, who said it best, which was, you know, we want to do this the Long Beach way. We want to do the study and recommend policy changes that are unique and specific to the city of Long Beach. We don't want to do what everyone else has done. And what I've heard over and over again. There's no new issues with this minimum wage debate that affect Long Beach differently than any other cities. I disagree. I disagree. I think that there are some unique opportunities for us as a city to fashion some remedies that would mitigate some of the concerns that our business community has. So I'd be looking for a study that considers the impacts of proposed minimum wage on our businesses and specifically our small businesses and our nonprofit organizations . And some of those options that I'm hoping we get feedback are on are, as Councilman Durango mentioned, whether or not any proposed increase would be incremental in nature so that it would allow for a smooth transition. That's something that's easier for our business community to absorb. I'd want to know what the risks are of the dialog that we're hearing about the possibility of losing businesses to nearby cities. That's a very real thing that we have to look at as a community. When businesses say to me, Well, you know, if you do this, our businesses are going to move to another city. What I say is, well, you know, possibly that's something we need to study. But we also know that the City of Long Beach offers certain opportunities to businesses, especially certain types of businesses, and given their proximity to the beach and different areas that other cities don't give. We are in a place where a lot of businesses like to do business as as much as I often hear that we're not as business friendly as we could be, and we're definitely working on that. But it's certainly a city that offers a lot of opportunity to businesses. It really is. It's proximity to the beach, the diversity of the population, the income potential and the sales tax revenue potential in certain parts of our city provides a lot of opportunity to businesses. It is a great place to do business. So I want to know, you know, what is the risk of losing businesses to nearby cities and what cities would those be? I'd want to know also whether or not there are any exemptions and delayed implementation opportunities for small businesses and nonprofit organizations that we might want to consider. And also whether or not applying any of our state exemptions that are currently exist for minimum wage, such as an exemption for a parent, child or spouse to the employer, exemptions for employees who have no previous similar or related experience below the minimum wage during a training period. Exemptions that might apply to our local businesses the size of the business and whether or not an exemption might apply. Those are real things that I think we need to take a look at in the study. And I know that the study will look at those, and I hope that we work together collaboratively to come up with legislation that really addresses some of the fears and the risks that businesses feel that they're taking with this kind of legislation. I think anyone who is following council and can count would be able to conclude right now that the policy would probably pass today if it was presented as a sort of a legislative change for the city of Long Beach. I think that the mayor is trying to get us all together so that we can communicate and have a conversation that allows for a balanced approach, so that when the legislation impacts the city of Long Beach, it impacts the city of Long Beach in a very balanced and fair way, the best to the best extent possible. So with that, I will be supporting the study tonight. Thank you. Counts Counsel Councilmember Richardson. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I want to just first thank Vice Mayor Lowenthal and Councilmembers Gonzalez and Andrews for allowing me to sign on to this this recommendation tonight. I want to thank all of the public who came out and testified on From All Perspectives. And I'm really proud of Long Beach in this moment. And I'm particularly proud of the tone and the tenor that this discussion is taking so far. I know that there are a number of stories that we heard tonight, a lot of misconceptions about this population called low wage workers or the working poor. I heard a man say that he received a $2 raise over 20 years tonight. To me, that means that the system is broken. The minimum wage is in place to ensure that people aren't taken advantage of in the system. And I also understand that our small businesses and our nonprofits might be afraid of this conversation. And that's why I think I'm very proud of the tone that our city has taken, our mayors taken, our fellow council members have taken, and ensuring that small business and nonprofits are at the table as we have this conversation. I think that that's a step that. That's the reason I'm proud tonight, is that Long Beach is taking this step and doing it the right way and doing it in ways in a collaborative manner that other communities might not have done it. Tonight is about facts and not rhetoric. Who are the people who actually make up this group of low wage workers and the working poor? I think that the study is important for a number of reasons, but there are particular a few, particularly a few misconceptions that I'd like to talk about tonight. So first, I heard one of the first speakers say that this is something for teens or young people. But the fact is, 27% of breadwinners residing in Long Beach make less than $15 an hour. That's 39% of our Latino breadwinners in this community. 28% of our African-American breadwinners in this community. And 29% of our women women breadwinners in this community. These are people who are heads of household. 85% of our low wage workers are not teenagers. Well, I guess if you count a 19 year old, but 85% are between the age of 1955. They're adults. They're held accountable by our laws. They're adults. Secondly, I think that so we have to acknowledge where we fit in in terms of the national conversation. 22,600 of our workers residing in Long Beach who actually work and live and work in Long Beach have incomes below the federal poverty level. Third, the the I heard a concept about use this as a stepping stone to get to another job. And I understand that concept of pulling yourself up by the bootstraps. But I think that that conversation is a bit unfair considering that the middle class jobs that maybe our parents might have known that you might not have needed a high school, that you might not have needed a college education, those manufacturing jobs, those are those are gone. And a significant amount of our jobs that we have now are service based jobs. Our industry is particularly changed. In fact, 36% of workers living in Long Beach. So a over a third of all of our workers make less than 15 an hour. And so in that, 69% of all bar and restaurant workers, 60% of all home care workers, that's 60% of all childcare workers, 55% of retail trade workers. So a significant part of our population is considered low wage workers. Fourth, we can't really look at minimum wage in a silo. I think we have to look at everything that's happening. Councilmember your Ranka mentioned this. Families who make minimum wage still have to pay rent. The affordability gap between housing affordability and wages continues to grow. And the reality is, we can't just say that we raise the wage, and that's the way that you fix the problem. We have to get serious about affordable housing in this city. We need to get serious about thinking about ways to connect our disconnected population in this city. So I think there's a larger part to this. Another another point misconception. Folks say that raising the wage is a handout. I would say that folks who make a certain wage work oftentimes harder than than in management level or higher level level people. They work really hard to make that living. And the fact is, statistics and data will show you that a minimum on a minimum wage, every dollar that you raise the minimum wage, these folks aren't investing them into IRAs. And for one case, these people are spending in their local community on daily needs. That's a local economic boost to our local economy, to Long Beach. So so finally, I was moved by particularly a lot of the stories today about wage theft and enforcement. And I do understand this in a in a deep and personal way, how what it means to live paycheck to paycheck. Many folks might not know, but my mother was an in-home care provider and an a nurse's aide. And and my my stepdad was a a contract truck driver. And the reality is, they were able to make ends meet, make it work, and get to be two kids through college. But what we need to remember is that raising the wage, enforcing this wage is just as important as raising the wage, because we can raise a wage as much as we want to raise it. But if we become someone said, I don't remember the words someone said, but if we'd be a safe haven for wage theft, then I guarantee you we're going to have significant legal issues to look at. So. So here's what I know and here's what I'd like to do tonight. I know that that raising the wage so the Fed and feds have a responsibility at enforcing federal minimum wage. State has a responsibility to enforce state minimum wage. And my understanding is that local it's incumbent upon the local community to rate to enforce any elevated level of of wages. And I know that a number of cities that did go through the process of raising their wage, they didn't have the comprehensive conversation about what it means to actually enforce. I know that this conversation won't fix all the issues of wage theft that we heard with truck drivers and so on and so forth. But we could make sure that we're not opening ourselves up to be more susceptible to wage theft. So so I want to ask I want to ask our vice mayor if she'd be open to asking our city staff, which would be city manager, city attorney, city, whoever that might be, to really make sure that while L.A. EDC is evaluating their study, we can also internally do the work to make sure that we're prepared to enforce the wage that we we raise here. And in general terms, what I think is really there's certain elements I'm looking for to hear back on. I think we know what our. I'd like to better understand what our legal authority is today. And if we were to raise the wage, what would be our legal authority in our city? What are the tools that we can count on from other agencies, perhaps the state, maybe adjacent cities who are tackling this way? The county is developing its enforcement measures. What tools can we utilize in partnership with others as well as internally? What tools can we utilize through our department's financial management, so on and so forth, to ensure that we are not opening ourselves up and we have a robust enforcement system? And I'd like to understand the costs, the cost, the fiscal impact of that as well. I'd like to I think that's the general gist of it. I want to see what we can do internally with our systems, what we can do across agency boundaries and and what our legal abilities are today and what they will be moving forward. So that's something you'd be amenable to in your motion. Before we go to the vice mayor, I just want to just just add to that because I think I think what you're talking about is actually some of that's happening already. And I want to just just mention that over the over the last few weeks, as we as staff is know this is coming, there have been actually multiple conversations between staff and the city attorney already, because if obviously where we are right now is at the study phase, but if this were to go anything beyond the study phase, the city is responsible for the enforcement piece. I mean, that's just that just law. And so I think what what you're asked what you're requesting is something that the staff is already is committed to doing. And so I think vice mayor, I think I certainly make sense to begin looking at enforcement. It would be our responsibility regardless. I agree. I think it's important to raise that issue tonight. And I'm very glad that Councilmember Richardson did. Tying excuse me, tying those two issues together tonight may not be the best approach, but we heard from several speakers who also attended the Harbor Tidelands Committee meeting on that issue. So it is a critical issue for our local economy, and I believe staff will do that. So what I'd like to do is make sure that we divorce the larger issues that we've heard maybe at the Harbor Titans Committee, but really focus in on those things I mentioned in relation to this minimum wage. I think it makes sense that as ladies study, we do our diligence as well. So tonight is really about fact finding. I would feel more comfortable if I just heard that. Yes, this is a part of our intentionally a part of our effort as a friendly amendment or just hear from staff that they hear me. Mr. West, we hear you. Thank you. That's all I need. Okay. Thank you, Councilmember Austin. Thank you. And I want to thank the full chamber here. Obviously, this is a momentous occasion for the city of Long Beach. It's a historic day that we are actually talking about raising wages. I just want to lament, I've been involved in the labor force as labor for many years, for over two decades, well over two decades . We've witnessed the economy change drastically in Long Beach over the past 20 years. Thousands of manufacturing jobs in aerospace and the shipyards were lost. And when I say thousands, I mean tens of thousands of jobs. And I can remember, as a young labor organizer fighting the North American Free Trade Agreement and such trade agreements in the nineties . Today, our economy and our workforce is really a result of those agreements. And, you know, I want to speak to some of the comments earlier. Teenagers are truly competing for similar jobs as their parents today. We need to change that. I'd like to leave my support to this item because I think it merits our attention. We are a progressive city that values both business, but we value our workers as well. Our neighborhoods and our neighbors in L.A. and L.A. County have already adopted a minimum wage increase that would, over the next five years, will increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour. I. I. I want to speak to the. The famous aphorism mentioned by President John F Kennedy. Kennedy. A rising tide lifts all boats. I would like to believe that every time we wait, raise the minimum wage, we advance the vanguard on the war on poverty and all wage earners benefit. Our economy will adjust and have done right. Small businesses, retailers, restaurants will benefit by creating more disposable income for consumers. Low income workers will have more disposable income to pay tuition at our community colleges and our classrooms to advance their education and advance their situations. And and and to a point raised earlier regarding potentially losing business by raising the minimum wage, the risk of not taking action on this conversation about wages and moving forward with this study, we may lose workers to nearby cities as well. It was mentioned that SB three is before the legislature, which would address minimum wage and there is work on a statewide level to do that. There's also signature gathering going on for potential ballot initiative in 2016. And and so the work that we're doing here as a city council tonight, the the the study that we, I would hope are moving forward with is timely and necessary. We it's it's our responsibility to have this conversation. I want to speak to the process because I'm encouraged by this process for the proposed study as well. It includes labor and includes big business and legitimate stakeholders throughout our city. I think the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation is a credible and biased partner that can provide us with facts on the feasibility and impacts of the minimum wage increase on our local workforce. Small businesses in Long Beach and surely using local data, right? Long Beach data. I'm also pleased that the minimum wage increase will be vetted through our Economic Development Commission. This is a citizen participation process as well. It doesn't, but I still do have a few questions. I think Councilmember Richardson addressed one of them because I was really concerned about the the the enforcement of measures. Are we considering that? And is that being studied in this measure? You know, we heard from the city manager that that he'd heard that also from many of the speakers here. I know that there is a sick leave component that is being requested. And I was curious to know, was that included in the L.A. City and L.A. County measures and will certainly be studied in this study as well. Can anybody from staff answer that question? Actually, vice mayor or the. I think there was a I think there was a question about about sick leave. So I think in terms of this item, it should be separate. It is something that's of concern. When we did the living wage for hotel workers, sick leave was included in that. Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez had passed legislation statewide regarding sick leave as well. So. On this issue or on this particular item. If we can hold that separately, I think it would be best it would be a best approach. Okay. And is there a speaking of a measure in. I'm curious to know how the minimum wage increase will affect the measure in measure that was approved by the voters in 2012. Would that include them or would we have to go back to the voters to to address their wages in any way? I think the city attorney is probably going to be looking into that, from what I understand. Yes, mayor or members of the council. I think that if the council were to pass a citywide minimum wage ordinance, that's higher than the than the living wage, the minimum wage ordinance would be the floor. And if that the living wage for the hotel workers, based on how it was written, whatever increase above that, it would apply to them. Okay. We don't want to leave anybody behind. And is there an expected timeline for the study? I didn't see any any timeline associated with this. I don't know that there's a timeline per se. We actually do have someone from the L.A. EDC that's here in the audience. Please, if you want to come forward. I know that. If you can answer that question, I know there isn't a timeline asked, but I know you've done a lot of the work prior. What it's for is how much time do you need to present something to to the council? So thank you. I don't think we've had any discussions yet on starting work, but I would anticipate it would be around 60 days because we have done a lot of the foundational work for it on behalf of the county. And that would be a minimum of 60 days maximum. And 92. It would be hopefully within 60 days. From a contract. From a contract point of view. Okay, Councilman. And lastly, I just would maybe offer some consideration for possibly a friendly amendment. Because my point regarding youth employment, I think, is extremely important. We want to make sure that we are preparing the workforce for the future as well. And and I would love to to know that we are giving some consideration to our youngest population, our youth workers, as well as we are studying this this minimum wage. And so in that study, I would love to at least have some figures, some information about how if in any way raising the minimum wage impacts youth employment , because I think that that's merited for discussion as well. And lastly, I would just offer my support and ask that the entire council support this this measure as well. Thank you. I think that youth employment piece is going to be looked at as part of the study. Vice Mayor So I think it's a part of your motion, yes. Okay. Thank you, Councilman Andrus. Yes, thank you, Mayor. You know, I know it's getting late and everybody's kind of sitting around wondering what the outcome is going to be. That's going to take some time. But I think a lot of this is very well put. I've heard a lot of, you know, conversation here tonight. And I think a lot of us really are very compassionate about, you know, the minimum wage. And, you know, what we're trying to do here is really let individuals know that our compassion, our concern not only for you as an individual, but for your families, for your kids , because this is something that we all need and we know we need it. It's just think about time. How long is this going to take? This is what you weren't about it. We're talking about, you know, year after year after year, people are still in school and everything is still going up. So where do we get to the point that we're going to have to hurry up and make a decision to let these individuals know that we're here for you and we're going to try to come up with some type of solution to be able to help individuals here in the city of Long Beach. I don't think we're trying to follow a trail any other city. This is for Long Beach. And I know the business people are looking at it also. But I think the more they make, the more they're going to put back in. And I'm totally in support of this. And I want to thank my colleagues for allowing me to ride in on this. And thank you very much. Thank you. Councilmember Superdome. Thank you. And I'd like to thank all those who attended tonight and especially those who spoke. And I'd also like to thank Mayor Garcia for his comments that this should be a Long Beach focused study. And I believe he's in alignment with Georgia Economy and he's of the Language Business Journal and thinking that Long Beach is unique . We're not L.A. and the study should reflect that. I believe that all the speakers here tonight spoke in favor of the study, and that's been the commentary I've gotten from the business community in recent weeks that everyone would like to go forward with the study. So I will be supporting that tonight, and I thank you. Thank you, Councilmember. Councilwoman Mongo. Yes. I am so thankful that we have been able to have such an equitable discussion today. It really means a lot to be able to talk with both business leaders and our employees alike to discuss the opportunities and risks with raising the minimum wage. I think that it's important that our businesses have a voice in the process and generally speaking, when wages increase, what does that do to the prices of the things that you're purchasing? And does that mean that people purchase their goods and services outside the city of Long Beach? And what does that mean to our businesses and potentially lost clients? So when we talk through I really appreciated the comments from so many of our neighbors that discussed that raising the minimum wage does not necessarily increase your discretionary income. When you talk about the business owner, they cannot change their lease agreements very quickly. They cannot change the requirements for inventory. They cannot change a couple of the other things. But what they can change is the number of hours that they allocate and how much goes out in payroll. And a lot of our business owners have told me stories of the times when they chose not to take a paycheck so that they could meet payroll for their employees and how important that is. But that, in turn, some of those employees, whether they're making $13 an hour or $15 an hour or $20 an hour, depending on where you work. The costs of working there are so much higher in Los Angeles to park in downtown L.A., a monthly permit is $120 a month. And so to no one understand that if we increase the wage, that does not necessarily mean that there's additional money for these individuals to spend in our local businesses, and we have to be mindful of that. And so I appreciate the so many that came out on both sides of the matter. I, like my colleagues, have said before that I am always in favor of a study, even if I do not feel that I would be in favor of the end result. Because I think data and a fair and balanced approach that I know the L.A. EDC will bring to the table is is what we need before we make any big and crucial decision. So thank you to ladies EDC for being a partner on this and so many other matters of bringing business to L.A. County. Your work on so many of the initiatives of bringing major businesses to the region has been phenomenal. I think that your organization is really plugged into the industry specifics that many of our neighbors talked about here today. There are certain limitations within the state law that are really limiting for our restaurant owners. For instance, there are waitresses that make minimum wage, but still with tips at some of our high end restaurants. Clear six figures a year. And yet state law doesn't allow them to tip out the back of the house. And what that means is your cooks, they can tap out the servers and they can tap out the bartenders. But there are certain state laws that are that are really restrictive in allowing that balance. And so finding a way to take into account those tips and service charges and other things like that, I think are really appropriate in finding that balance. And then specifically in looking for the small business programs that we have already started to initiate and other tax credits and incentives that we can provide to open businesses here in Long Beach are really part of the exciting things that will keep it attract businesses here, regardless of what we decide on the minimum wage. And so and with that, I hope that we can have a fair and balanced discussion and be really involved in the process of understanding the impacts to our neighbors because our neighbors come first. Thank you. And Vice Mayor Lowenthal, finally. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I just wanted to close our discussion by thanking everyone that came forward today with the diverse perspectives on the issue. And I think we are headed toward a great path to study this issue. And similar to what Councilmember Price indicated, I think all of us are very interested in studying issues regardless of where we are personally on the issue or where we may believe we may land. I can attest that. This council is honestly looking at this issue not just to follow suit with what other cities are doing, but really to look at this issue and see what's good for Long Beach. We don't believe. I don't believe and I think it's fair to speak on behalf of our entire council and mayor. We don't believe that what's good for workers is mutually exclusive from what's good for business. I think we we see the shared commonalities in in both groups being able to prosper. And so I'm hoping that as we continue this dialog, we don't bifurcate the two qualities of life between business and workers and business and families. They can't be mutually exclusive. They have to be shared. And so I, too, am concerned about any potential impacts to small businesses. It is not one that I would intended, is not one that this council wants to see. We also, as it was said earlier today, we also do not want to be a labor market that is unattractive because we are not competitive. And so there is that concern. So I trust that the EDC will look at all of those components and all of us know that when the state and federal minimum wage was established and all of the increases it has gone through, the value of the minimum wage itself has fallen dramatically. But everything else and you've heard this from real, real life testimony tonight from workers who struggle and whose families struggle, the cost of everything else has far too far surpassed the value of minimum wage. And I think it is fair to do a study and to determine where we are and how we are benchmarked against those items and those and really the cost of living. And so with that, I am hopeful that we can continue that dialog as we've had today. I'm hopeful that we all consider and empathize with families that are not one able to live in our city or not able to live in our city independently and are living in situations where we see bedroom splitting and all of the negative impacts of poverty that spreads society wide and certainly citywide. And so I'm hoping that we are all positive in how we go through this study of this conversation and regard that everyone's while being really is our own well-being. With that, I thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Vice Mayor. And that concludes the deliberation. We have a motion on the floor and a second. I want to thank everyone who came and spoke tonight. I think it means a lot to have valuable public input. And I just want to remind everyone that the tonight is the beginning of a discussion and will go in over the next few months and go out to the community and begin a a dialog that will be inclusive and open and transparent. So thank you. Thank you all for being here for that issue. Please cast your votes. Motion carries nine zero. Thank you. We're going to take a two minute recess and then we're going to the item on coyotes next. Well. Really, that's next. I really got I got. Really? All right, um, let me see what I can do. We'll get back to you. Yeah, that was. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's where they go. It's gonna be, you know that. You know, you go in there. George and George. Jimmy. The other one is the. Other one I was getting mixed up with week. Well he doesn't work his his brother at the door. He's the one that goes that didn't want to do that. He didn't remember. Me. Well, who cares? Yeah. He gets everybody. He's got good. Yeah. Yes, I know how you got to work. Working. Okay. We're going to call the the city council meeting to order. If I can have everyone, please take their seats. Oh, there's no cake. Then it's cupcakes. Madam Clerk, if we can just have the roll call. Councilwoman Gonzalez. Vice Mayor Lowenthal. Councilwoman Price, Councilmember. Super. Now here. Councilwoman Mango. Councilman Andrews. Council member. Yarrawonga Councilman Austin. Council Member Richardson. Mayor Garcia. Thank you. We are now moving on to item 26.