Recommendation to review draft ordinance amending the Long Beach Municipal Code by adding Part IV to Title 5; and by adding Section 5.06.020.A.7, all relating to a Long Beach Minimum Wage Ordinance, and provide further direction.  (Citywide)
agenda at this at this point. And so, Madam Clerk, if we can please here, I believe it's item ten. That's just a continuation. Communication from City Attorney. Recommendation to review draft ordinance amending the Long Beach Municipal Code all relating to a Long Beach minimum wage ordinance and provide for the direction citywide. Thank you. Councilwoman Mongo. I think it's important that we hear from the community. I'd be encouraging a public comment. Start us off. Let's see if staff has a report before we go to public comment thing. Staff Report. Vice Mayor Richardson, Members of the City Council, as you know, this item has been in front of you before. As the clerk indicated, we are requesting further direction on three specific items if you would prefer a more detailed staff report. Amy Webber of our office, who has been working on this for a number of months now, is ready to provide a more detailed report to you, should you want that? Thank you. Let's go ahead and begin with public comment. 3 minutes with the speaker's pretty please a line at the front and give us your name and your give us your name and we'll get started. Thank you. Go ahead. Hi. Good evening, Mayor and city council members. My name is Nicole Taylor and I'm community organizer at Building Healthy Communities Long Beach. I'm here tonight to speak in favor of a comprehensive minimum wage increase and strong wage enforcement. I'm going to focus my comments on one aspect of the minimum wage discussion tonight outreach and education around wage enforcement . It's important that outreach and education on wage and force enforcement be focused on low wage workers who are who are most likely to experience wage theft. Funds allocated for wage enforcement education need to be dedicated to culturally appropriate outreach for workers building healthy communities. Long Beach requests that the strategy around this be to invest in community contracts with organizations who have a track record of working with low income workers and families. There are many such organizations in the Building Healthy Communities Network, such as the Filipino Migrant Center and the Long Beach Immigrant Rights Coalition. Looking at unemployment in poverty rates in our city, we see that although unemployment rates fell by five percentage points from 2010 to 2014, poverty stayed fairly consistent and even increased slightly. It's not enough to add more jobs. We must ensure that we are promoting living wages. There is a strong connection between poverty and the health of our city. We see a seven year life expectancy gap in Long Beach. That leaves low income people of color dying seven years sooner on average, than others in our community. In order to address this inequity, we need to reach the people most impacted by it. Which is why building healthy community Long Beach supports community contracts for organizations that serve these populations. Thank you for your consideration. Thank you. Next. Hello. Good evening, Vice Mayor, Council Staff Jeremy Harris, senior vice president, Long Beach Area Chamber of Commerce here tonight on behalf of the chamber, our leadership, the business community, and also on behalf of the representative, the Long Beach Council business associations, also known as COBR. Here tonight, I respectfully request that Long Beach adopt what the state has already accomplished. Simply mirror the current state law and do not decide to augment or carve out a local policy. It's been a few months since we've been here last discussing this issue. Allow me to talk about Cobas process and the proposal for the original minimum wage, minimum wage ordinance and policy. This included an extended business outreach done in concert with the mayor's initiated public outreach program. The City Council approved report and the study that was prepared by L.A. EDC. It was critical for COBA to do its due diligence for its members and nonmember members. This includes the business community and oftentimes, which oftentimes is goes under represented in a process such as this. It was data driven and testimony was captured from those who bear the burden of such an ordinance. If it were to go in effect. Well, no process is perfect. It's it's important to take into account the process. I'm trying to provide an economical answer to an otherwise very political and at times very emotional issue. We understood there was a number of factors to consider, which you all did earlier this year. Now, we've gone through the process here locally, only to be outdone by the state, and that's the critical juncture we're at now. Long Beach based business owners need a chance. 2016 has seen the minimum wage already increase a dollar. Regardless of what we do tonight, business will see another increase. In 2017, business owners saw a 1% sales tax increase here locally within their countywide measure potentially being considered in November. And let's not forget the countless state regulations that are updated and added each year, such as paid sick leave, worker's comp, insurance rate increases and the like . Coming down from Sacramento, business in Long Beach needs a chance to compete with neighboring cities such as Lakewood, SEAL Beach, Cypress, Los Alamitos, Torrance, Carson and the many others that currently have no plans to adopt a local minimum wage increase and deviate from the state. Allow our business community to compete locally by adopting the statewide minimum wage policy. Long Beach needs to keep our momentum going. As we all know, great businesses have come to Long Beach and will continue to come. Now let's take care of the businesses that are already here. We respectfully ask that Long Beach adopt the statewide policy. Thank you for the opportunity to address you tonight. Thank you. Next. Hello again. My name is Paula Abad. A resident of the second District and the chairperson of Unagi and Lombard, a progressive Filipino youth and student organization working to educate, organize and mobilize the community to address issues that affect us locally, such as wage theft. Our community here is strong and vibrant, with over 30,000 Filipinos primarily residing in West Long Beach and nearly 2000 Filipino students at Cal State Long Beach. We sit at the crux of two identities being children, of immigrants and being young workers. When an immigrant youth takes up a job, they're usually juggling, juggling classes, family responsibilities, as well as navigating issues that affect our daily lives, like getting access to affordable housing and health services. When it comes to finding good quality work, most of us are in love with many options. So we either join the military or drop out of school. For those of us lucky enough to get into college, not only do we have to struggle getting by on minimum wage jobs, but we do so while costs for everything increase from tuition to rent to books and even meals. I'm deeply concerned with the conditions of effecting affecting youth and students today when food pantries are being installed at the university to keep people from starving during classes. But even more angered when I realize that the city does not address the root issues. That are worsening our lives. When we talk about wage theft, where workers aren't being paid the full amount for the hours that they worked, we're talking about our parents who take up under the table caregiving jobs. We talk about our uncles who get engineering degrees back in the motherland, but only get hired here as shipyard workers. We talk about our friends who want to afford their own apartments but can't because all they can find a short term, low wage jobs. We can't keep postponing hearings for wage enforcement and upping the minimum wage. We cannot pass this training wage. Businesses want to save costs, but people want to be able to live. Let that sink in. When you talk about earning 85% of your wages, your first six months at a new job, you're talking about my peers, my family, my community. You'd be taking away so much from us when we already contribute so much to the city. Without input from us, we will just be another. This will just be another anti-people policy, giving lip service to the low income residents of the city, but only keeping money in the pockets of wealthy business owners whose basic needs are already met. What we're fighting for isn't new. It's not complicated. It won't even be hard to implement, but it will change the lives of so many people in this city. All we want is a wage enforcement policy and office that will one collect back wages. Auto workers whose wages were stolen by their employers to protect workers from backlash when they file wage claims against their employers. And three, enforce the new wage raise. Each year it goes up so wages will catch up to the rising cost of the standard of living. That's all we want. If you want to come out and support all of the people in your districts, the workers who make the city of unemployed, please pass this wage enforcement policy. Keep the city's path to 13 $15 by 2021 so we can be at the same level as Los Angeles, Santa monica and Pasadena. Serve the people. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, please. Good evening, Vice Mayor and honorable council members. My name is Vincent Passing ADC, and I'm the owner of Santa Fe Importers. We're a local company that has been in business here in Long Beach since 1947. We employ almost 70. Employees here in the area. I would implore you to please adopt the state regulation for minimum wage and not to carve out a local ordinance just for the city of Long Beach. I think it makes perfect sense to just go with the state. It makes local businesses more competitive. We have to. Compete not only with cities in the area, but with. Other businesses in the state of California and also other businesses in other states around around the country. To adopt a local ordinance. I think is just caving to special interests. I think it's in the interest of the community and businesses and the residents to just go ahead and adopt the. The state regulation. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next up. Good evening. I'm Jack Smith. I live at 240 Chestnut Avenue. That's in Plymouth West in the first District. You know, you're not here tonight to figure out if you're going to do a minimum wage that's already been done by the state. The governor signed that law in April. You're here to decide how Long Beach is going to fit into that law. I suggest that you abandon any effort in a city ordinance and live by the state law. The state law addresses all of the issues that you keep hearing about. That might be in. A city ordinance. It's accomplishing all of the goals you keep being asked for here by proponents of minimum wage. Everything is in the state law, including the issue of wage theft. Wage theft is handled very effectively by the State Labor Commission and they happen to have an office almost right across the street from us here at Ocean Gate. Perhaps our state representatives need to have that agency do a better job of outreach to our residents who are having problems with wage theft. Wage theft is a state issue. It is not a city issue. The state law now does what you folks wanted the city ordinance to do. Forget the city ordinance. Abide by the state law and save the millions of dollars. I believe the number I saw in the TFF was $1.3 million per year. It would take the city of Long Beach to enforce a local ordinance. Say that money. Get some more police. Live by the state law, make it level for all the cities around us and abandoned a city. Ordinance for minimum wage. Thanks. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hi. My name is Jordan Meters. I'm a student. And. I'm a college student and a worker at Little Caesars. After graduating high school, I had the opportunity to partake in a four year university. But I could not because of the. Because I can not make with my family enough to. Going to the school. I come from a mixed families household, so it is very hard to make ends meet, which is why I'm here asking for city council to continue to have a minimum wage to 15 the Long Beach Way. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next, meet the police. Hi. My name is Mary. I'll fix this. My name is Man Chicago. So I'm a researcher. At Cal State Long. Beach, where I study health among our working class families here. In Long Beach. I'm no longer a therapist, but thank you for allowing me the opportunity to serve as a commissioner on the Board of. Health and Human Services. I'm here to urge City Council. To raise the minimum wage as soon as possible. I'm sure many of us know that one's economic income correlates with one's health status. For example, obesity is a huge issue in our nation. We live in a nation. Where fast foods are more accessible and affordable. Than healthy foods, and the consequences of this can be very dangerous and expensive. A higher minimum wage in Long Beach could potentially uplift our health status across our communities. In fact, a national study found that for every dollar increase in the minimum wage, there is a 6% decrease in body mass index. And that was a study done by the National Bureau of Economic Research that looked at. Data across the country that said declining or. Stagnant minimum wage rates may be contributing to the rise of obesity. In Long Beach, where 31% of adults and. 40% of 2 to. 5 year olds are considered obese. Personally, I have a father who is prediabetic, and I've seen how time consuming and expensive it is to manage his. Diet in order to avoid diabetes. And for families who are constantly working to make ends meet, I can only imagine that it's harder to. Practice this kind of preventive health care. As a city. We have the opportunity to bring one solution among many solutions to the table. We are a strong city full of creative, innovative and hardworking people, and right now we have the opportunity to pave and what is inevitable. So I urge you to raise the minimum wage and implement wage enforcement as soon as possible, because each minute that we wait to take action is is an opportunity to improve the well-being of our city. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, members of the Council. My name is Joanna Concepcion, director of the Filipino Migrant Center. Our organization, together with other organizations of the Coalition to End Wage Theft in Long Beach, have been to every meeting, every hearing related to this issue and every meeting we have brought residents and workers and they have testified how wage theft has affected their families, personal testimonies of how they have become victims of wage theft. It's just wanted to. Remind folks here in. This room that. Wage theft is a city issue and not just a state issue. Right. So existing state wage and our laws, our organization has been for many years have been helping workers file wage claims in the state State Department, existing state wage, state wage. And our laws that are meant to protect workers are being circumvented and ignored by many employers. Everyday violating employers are not afraid to break these laws because of a lack of strong mechanisms to hold them accountable. And thousands of workers are not receiving proper education about these laws, which is why we want to re-emphasize to you today the importance of strong local wage enforcement and push you to adequately invest in community partnerships. Because community organizations are critical to make enforcement work. Local community groups are already doing the work on the ground and ready to work with you to ensure that hard working families secure all of their hard earned wages. We need properly funded community contracts to identify wage theft cases. Community organizations are already trusted in the community and are important partnered to help low wage workers combat their fear of coming forward. They provide services in workers native language and are the frontline experts in industry wage and hour loss community organizations outreach to educate workers in the community. Prepare evidence for investigations that are fact intensive. Fact intensive, and community organizations can assist with evidence gathering to ensure that claims are valid. Local community organizations are usually the ones hard at work, making sure that local, state and national laws which serve to improve the lives of thousands of working families are enforced and that these same families understand how to advocate for their rights. We strongly urge you to invest in well-funded community contracts and follow the Long Beach way of ensuring that $15 an hour by 2021. Thank you for your time. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Hi. My name is Rabbi Jonathan Klein. I'm the. Director of Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice. And you've seen our people here at many council meetings before this. And I want to say we've been involved in pushing for minimum wage increase and wage enforcement all over Los Angeles County and even down in Irvine, where we were pushing back against a wage decrease that happened there earlier last year. Look, it's very simple. It says in in the book of Xs, it says by smite Hashem Naka Tom, God heard their groaning. God heard the sound of people who were being mistreated and jumped into action. You, as a council have heard of mistreatment of workers over and over again in this city of Long Beach. And by the way, that's a local conversation. And the hope is that you can be in the imitative day tradition of imitating God, in the sense of responding to that call, and very smart in ikotun hearing. The groaning of workers in this. Community who have been mistreated by their employers. It's actually in the best interests of business to to make sure that a wage enforcement policy is established that's funded, that ensures that community groups who know. Where the mistreatment is happening can. Be engaged. In the conversation because to do so means that you. Actually are pursuing justice, which, of course, is what we hear in the book of Deuteronomy. Justice. Justice, shall you pursue? It's not enough to passively. Wait for the justice to come. It doesn't always come that way. We know that over and over again that it's about enforcement. It's about ensuring that we have not just good laws on. The books, on the. Outside, but that we engage in pursuing at that more justice system for all. And I would like to just also add that it says and also in the book of Leviticus, it says Low TimeCode Aldama I do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor. Well, this is a community. This is an ecosystem that's very much what we're trying to create in Long Beach is a community sense, a sense of connectedness between people. How can we do that unless we take the struggles and the pain and the invisible suffering that we see that undermines the health of our community if we take that for granted. So I implore you, from the deepest place of my commitment as a rabbi, as a representative with many other religious leaders who I work with, I ask you to make sure that you move forward. With the minimum wage. Increase at the rate that this city has already made a great commitment to do. Just to stand with that commitment to keep going. Enforce the laws through the support of the community groups that know where to go. And I thank you very much. Thank you, Rabbi. Next speaker, please. 1859, huh? I want to thank you guys, actually, for one, just give give your name for the record. Well, first, my name is Anthony Velasco. I'm here with my son, Grant Senior. Well, right here. This is the future right here. This is what you see here. And he's and the future I see in his future is actually a struggle. Unfortunately, if we don't get this wage enforcement as well as the policy of, you know, not only locally wage enforcement, but in really enforcing it, because that's a struggle that we have to even go by. The state is it's a hassle just alone. And to be able to, you know, go through that hassle every single time, it's a struggle for our coworkers and my coworkers, especially. And this is a this is a time where you guys have the opportunity to make a positive impact and a positive change, not only for us, but for my son and for the future as well. And so I hope you guys really do pay attention and understand the struggle that we are in every single day fighting these battles against not only wrongful employers. But there are good employers, don't get me wrong. But I'm hoping that you guys will understand what we're struggling every single day. Thank you for your time and your patience, which I know you guys are here every single night with us. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Next, meet the police. Good evening, Vice Mayor and Council. I'm Stephanie Howard. I am a business owner on Fourth Street and also on the board of directors for the Business Association down there. I just want to encourage the Council to take this. Policy. And use the funds. That it would save from developing a local policy and direct that towards wage. Theft abatement and enforcement. Thanks. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening. My name is Johanna Cunningham. I'm the executive the executive director for the Apartment Association, California Southern Cities. And I'm here simply just to address the city council and ask that you support the minimum wage law that has already been approved by the state. Thank you. Thank you. Next week, please. My name is Steve Askin. I'm a longtime. Resident of our Rose Park neighborhood, and I'm a corporate financial analyst working for the Service Employees Union. I hadn't planned to say anything tonight, but there was one statement from where the speakers, which I think merits. Correction on the facts. One of the speakers. Said that state. Wage theft enforcement is adequate. In point of fact, what we know, what we know from a study done by UCLA a few years ago is that in Los Angeles County alone, a quarter million people are victims of wage theft every year. What we also know from a recent report. In the L.A. Times is that. In any given year, only 5000 people file wage theft complaints with the state. And only 17% of those claims are actually completed. So what we're talking about is a problem on. Which fewer than 1% of our people get redress. So what I'd like to suggest to our city council is in the interest both of workers and also of the many honest business people in our community, the majority who pay fair wages, that we have robust. Long Beach enforcement. On wage theft, partnering with the community organizations that know where the problems exist. I think that would be a great thing, not just for workers. But especially. For the many members of our. Business community who do not want to have to compete with somebody who's. Undercutting them by cheating on wages. Thank you. The next speaker, please. Hello. My name is Steve Gillan and I am a fifth district homeowner and fourth district business owner. And hopefully future next business. Is the first district. So I am a. Business owner and I grew up locally, you know, from from Downey. Paramount was born in East Los Angeles. I grew up in the neighborhood of Lakewood and Rosecrans. And for all the people here that are about wage theft, if there are employers that are stealing your wages, that is a problem. And we don't believe in that. The local businesses that are here today. Okay. But it sounds like from the majority of the people that are here that. It's wage theft. That is a problem and not the timeline. Of whether or not minimum minimum wage needs to be implemented. So I would urge the Council to please vote unanimously. To follow the state's guideline and focus more energy so that people that the people that come work for us and others are not getting their wages stolen from them. And. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, Mr. Mayor. My name is John Sagmeister and members of the council. Thank you for your time this evening. It's a pleasure to be here and it's a pleasure to be part of Long Beach. I was married here 21 years ago, and in another life I had the privilege of serving on our Economic Development Committee as well as our downtown Long Beach business associates. My last two years as chair, I employ 150 people in the city, and I'm thrilled to say that many of them have been with me since before we opened our doors over 12 years ago. I would encourage you to adopt the state standards and maintain a competitive stance with our neighboring cities. I own four businesses in San Diego as well, and I will tell you that announcer in north San Diego County and I will tell you that we and what I've witnessed and I care. Deeply about the economic vitality of our city. But we have become a flyover community for economic investment and opportunity. And we have districts that desperately need jobs. And at this level. We're business owners will make decisions between technology and labor. And I'm sorry to say that and that and the economic realities, we must remain competitive with our neighboring cities. And those are difficult decisions to make. And it's not a decision that I would like to make. I encourage you to keep Long Beach strong. Keep us active and help develop more jobs in the city because desperately we have communities that need more and more jobs, not just increase in labor, but better employment numbers. Thank you. Thank you, John. Next speaker, please. Joshua Beadle, business owner in the second district. I'm just a man of few words. I'd like to just recommend that we keep with the states increases. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please, Mr. Brock. Good evening, Mayor. Vice Mayor and council members and staff. I'm Brock Howard. I'm with the downtown Long Beach Associates and I'm here tonight on behalf of Adobe and its stakeholders, as well as a member of the Council of Business Associations to strongly encourage you to vote in support of aligning. With the statewide minimum wage. In doing so, you will place the thousands of small business owners and medium sized business business owners in Long Beach on a level playing field with surrounding cities, and provide a greater level of predictability for them in years four and five. And both of these elements will improve our chances of retaining existing jobs. Not to mention those businesses finally emerging from what has been a historic recession past. This last point has an even greater consequence when one considers that many of our small business owners are also residents of our city. Thank you for your time and your consideration. Thank you. Next speaker. Good evening, Mayor. Vice Mayor. Council community workers. Familiar, Mr. Henty. My name is Nestor Rochat, and I am one of the steering committee members of the Coalition to End Wage Theft, as well as a community organizer with Lane with the Hope the Clean and Safe Ports Project. I'm taking it back today by the numerous presents and voices that have been sharing their very deep personal connection to what it means to be stolen their wages. What it means to have their minimum wage being raised and what that means to a young student like Joel Rose, who you heard just a few minutes ago talk about the difference of being able to go to a community college or attend a four year university because he had to make the choice. To help his family out. And I want to make sure that you are very mindful that the stories that you hear today or that you have actually heard are very interconnected with this city. Wage theft and raising the minimum wage. Although it is a numbers game, it is also a game to save our community residents and our folks to be able to lift their spirits and reach their highest potential. And so when you have cases like in the port trucking industry. That since 2011, 705 port truck drivers have filed wage and hour claims and the upwards of, let's see, $2 million just in waiting of those determinations. We're not just talking about millions of dollars that are being taken away from businesses or what have you. But we're talking about these millions of dollars that are going not to the families that need it the most. And so I want to make sure and that you all understand that this is definitely something that's an issue that affects our city. It is not a state issue. These port trucking companies operate in our ports. These men and women live in our neighborhoods, most of which are in the seventh, sixth and ninth District. So we're not talking about foreign folks, people that come from other places. We're talking about folks here. So as the coalition, we're asking for three very simple things that you align yourself to what you all promised, which was a Long Beach timeline. Number two, that you enforce that timeline. Wage enforcement needs to be in the city. You have community that is willing and ready to support you with that. And number three, for those young workers that they deserve the chance to get their equal pay for the equal amount of work that they do. Consider local timeline, wage enforcement and eliminate the learner's wage gap. Thank you. I have just just to clarify, also have two final speakers. It looks like on this issue, Tom, it closes speaker speaker's list here. Last call speaker's list will now be closed. I'm fortunate. But you're the last one. So last speaker. And then the speaker's list is now closed. Please. Good evening. Council members. Mr. Mayor. Mr. Deputy Mayor. I am a Long Beach resident and I believe I'm in Councilwoman Mango's district. I don't know for sure. I have not gotten active in city politics before. I am also a member of Clue. I'm a retired federal employee and by the grace of God and a good job and good wages, I am able to live and the city of Long Beach in a city that I graduated high school from and a city that I have come and known to love for many years. My children were born and raised in this community. And what I am concerned with is this council made a commitment on a wage. And now there's discussions of backing out from your own commitments. And you know, I found it interesting. I read this article here which says Long Beach is booming. Mr. Mayor, thank you for that comment. It is. And, you know, the interesting part about it is the business owners want to stay current. They want to be able to stay competitive with the rest of the communities. Business owners cannot stay competitive if they don't have competitive wages for their employees, if they are not offering a better wage. They cannot pull in better employees. They cannot pull in the kind of caliber of employee that wants to commit to the city of Long Beach, that wants to commit to the loyalty of their companies, that want to stay with small business, large business, it doesn't matter. But employee wages are a part of the loyalty and part of the commitment that the owner and the company makes with that employee. The employee will suit up and show up and do just about everything you want them to do when they're getting a fair and equitable wage . I am imploring you to stay with your own commitment and consider the fact that Long Beach needs to be a standout in this state, not a stand aside. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next speaker, please. My name is George Sebag. I'm a current small business owner in Long Beach. A few months ago, the city of Long Beach paid a large amount of money for a study to determine the pluses and minuses of. A minimum wage increase. One of the major things that came out of the study that I think everybody has forgotten is that 60% of the people that work in Long Beach don't live in Long Beach. That means those wages that are going to be increased in the city of Long Beach don't get to be spent in Long Beach and they don't get to be spent by Long Beach residents. The point of this to make it to you is that the state minimum wage requirement is going to affect all of the cities in the area, not just the city of Long Beach. That means that that will put Long Beach on an equal footing with all the other cities in the area as opposed to now. We are exporting 60% of our wages to other cities that are more competitive than we are because they don't have to suffer through this artificial minimum wage. The point I'm trying to make is that we should go along with the state requirement up in the minimum wage so that everybody is put on an equal footing. Thank you very much. Next speaker. Final speaker. Good evening, counsel. I'm here. Robert Molino, representing Rock Sans Lounge in the seventh District. I reside I live in the fifth district. And it is true there is a struggle with a lot of businesses that aren't being fair. And I think that is should be looked after as a city. But to represent the businesses. Being a small owner, small business owner, it is not easy. It is difficult being a small owner business. But I think it is better to be with the state. Coming from parents that came from Central America, from El Salvador, going through school is something that entry level jobs, it it's just an entry level job. If you want to look for careers, look for careers. But if we put ourselves in a position as a Long Beach to make businesses or allow businesses not to be attractive, we're not going to be in a good situation. Short words. Thank you very much. Thank you. You can turn this over to Councilman Mongo. I want to thank everyone for coming out today. I know that over the last several months we have held not most recently, but before that held many public comment meetings where the community came out. And I think that it's important to have our voices heard. And I think that the voices of Long Beach were heard not just in Long Beach, but more importantly in Sacramento. And I really feel passionately that Long Beach ended up being a leader at the state level. And many businesses who came to our meetings felt strongly that making sure that we were on an even even playing field with our neighboring cities was important. So with that, I'd like to make the motion to follow SB three. Just for clarification. Also, SB three for those that are in the audience essentially is the state mandated weight schedule. Okay. That's just for. Just just to clarify for that, Councilwoman Gonzalez. Yes. I, too, want to thank everybody for being here and speaking today. I had the last course of many months researching all of the ideas, listening to everybody's feedback, having meetings with labor and business and everybody in between to ensure that we got this right. And so I have a few things that I'd like to add. I, too, would like to also follow SB three and make sure that we align with the state. I think that's the most appropriate thing to do at this point. In addition, I'd like to offer a friendly amendment that would include a strong to ensure that we're developing a strong, weak wage enforcement program. So there's a few things that we've done already when we were looking at the economic impacts of a minimum wage, minimum wage ordinance, when we were looking at that. And so it did include $475,000, so $475,000. First, I'd like to ensure that we dedicate to supporting to the support and outreach, working with local community groups to ensure that the public is truly informed about wage theft. Two I'd like to, in addition to the $475,000, I'd like to add to wage enforcement investigators to ensure that we are have something on the city side to complement that outreach and support. And three, we do have a local Department of Industrial Relations office that Jack had mentioned to me about last last week. And so I think that it's important that we have a Department of industrial relations here locally, because we may be able to leverage funds , the funds that we're putting together, the $475,000 funds that they might have to be able to work with them. But that's just in addition to what we're going to do here as a city. So, again, $475,000 dedicated to wage enforcement investigators on top of that funding, and then also finding additional avenues, additional ways to enforce wage theft . So that is my friendly amendment. I hope you'll accept I will also support your your motion to ensure that we're aligning with the state. Will you accept? I will take those under consideration. And I'd like to hear from my colleagues. Great. Councilman Orson. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. This has been a long road. And I want to, first of all, thank the many advocates who have spent many, many nights with us. Many public comments and many public hearings on this issue over the past year and a half. I want to just say that I've been inspired by many of the young people, the advocates who have really worked hard to change the landscape for workers in L.A. County, the city of L.A., and here in Long Beach, and ultimately statewide. You have really made a difference in our state, and millions of workers in the state are going to benefit from your actions and your activism. And so you should be saluted for that. It hasn't been an easy conversation because people feel strongly on both sides of this. But this city did take an affirmative stand several months ago to help force legislation in Sacramento, and I think we were all successful in doing so. We now have a statewide minimum wage and I will be in support of that part of the motion also. I just want to just say that I think it's very, very important that that we find balance in policy. And I got to tell you, making policy is not easy. It's not an easy effort, particularly when you have people on both sides of an issue that make them feel so strongly. Many of our small business owners are not wealthy people. They are their middle class folks who live in our neighborhoods who are struggling to make ends meet. Just like everybody else today, we have an opportunity to, I think, do something significant. I'm going to support I thank you, Councilmember Gonzalez, for for bringing forward the wage enforcement component, because I think that's important. You know, I think it's important because it's been very it's been articulated very, very clearly that we have some challenges in our city that we need to address and perhaps we can assist the state. I was on the state of California's website the other day, and I noticed they're actually hiring people with the Department of Labor Standards in enforcement right here in Long Beach, which is, I think, good news in a positive direction. And so perhaps we will see some assistance along the way. I like the idea of doing community outreach and education and you know, and in going into community contracts, obviously, there are people on the ground who have been working for several months who have identified the need and know where the say the bones are buried, so to speak. And so with that, we will be able to, I think, assist with with education, which I think is most important in wage enforcement. Oftentimes, workers don't know what their rights are, even though every employer is supposed to post with the minimum wages, every employer is supposed to have OSHA standards and things of that nature. Oftentimes, people are just going to work to make, make, make ends meet, and they don't pay attention to that piece. And so to have some enforcement and some some oversight, I think is is very, very important. I've also heard over the past several weeks about concerns over this training wage. And I've heard you loud and clear. I was the person that originally brought that forward. And so I'd like to make it a friendly amendment because, you know, at the end of the day, the minimum wage is the minimum wage. And you've heard me say that over and over again. My position has been consistent. Six months ago, a year ago, I told you I support a statewide minimum wage. And we were we achieved that. And so with that, I'd like to add a friendly amendment to remove the training wage component of this this ordinance, if that would be acceptable. Because I think the speakers have made it very clear. I mean, when I was 16 years old, I made the minimum wage and it wasn't any different then than the wage for for four for anyone else. And so that's a component that I'd like to remove from this this ordinance. I will be assured that there are no variances and no training wage, and my motion. Is that clear? Mr. Bass. As I understand it, we would be following the state S.B. three all the way, which does have a a provision that allows for 160 hours of pay at 85%, as opposed to what was proposed earlier in the city's ordinance, which was 480 hours at 85%. So the state the state would if we follow the state, as was suggested, someone would be able to employ a new entrant into the job market for that 120 hour period at 85%. Thank you for that clarification and I'd be fine with that. Thank you. I just think, you know, the role of local government is in particularly in this on this particular issue is is is is being challenged, is changing. And I appreciate the fact that that so many people have feel so strongly about this. Generally, the wage enforcement component is something that would be done by the state and has traditionally been done by the state. But I think the workers here have made their point, and I think that there is a will from the council to to move in that direction. So I'll support that. Thank you. And I also want to thank you. I know that the wage dialog throughout the weeks has been complicated, and I feel that you've been very thoughtful and really looking to examples across the state, and I appreciate you being a leader on that. And of course, I would take that recommendation. Thank you. Councilman Pearce. I'm sorry. It's Pierce. Councilwoman Pierce is next after Councilman Price and Mary Richardson. So I'm looking at the wrong thing here. Councilman Price. No problem. So I have a few questions for. So, first of all, I support the motion to. Adopt the state's minimum wage policy. I definitely think one of the biggest issues that was raised through the discussion with our business community in advance of the vote last time was making sure that our business community is on a level playing field with nearby cities. And I think that's hugely important. And as some of the people in this room know, I'm grateful that I'm able to be part of this discussion, because the last time this issue came to a vote, I actually received a phone call in the middle of public comment from Chief Terry because my kids had called 911. My husband had been taken to the hospital. So I had a very legitimate reason for not being here. And I was texting my colleagues from the E.R. and I'm grateful for the council colleagues who voted last week to allow me to be part of this conversation, because it's very important to my district and to the city as a whole. So thank you for allowing me to do that. The few questions that I have really have to do with the ways wage enforcement piece, and there's a few things I want to talk about and then I want to hear what my my colleagues have to say regarding some of the concerns that I have. So I'm going to go through a little bit of data on some research that I, I did along with my staff in preparation for tonight's meeting. But just preliminarily, before we get into the slides. Mr. Mayes, can the city actually enforce a state ordinance? If the state ordinance specifically gives this city to have the authority to do that, it can. And we will go back and review SB three thoroughly to see if there is that authority to do that. So sitting here today, we don't even know if the city has the authority to enforce a state ordinance. This particular state ordinance? That's correct. So we would be voting on something that we don't even know that we have the authority to do. Well, basically, as I understand what you would be voting on if the motion stays as it currently is with the two friendly amendments that were accepted, we would see. Only the second friendly line as it's still pending. Oh, I'm sorry. Sorry, sir. With the second friendly amendment that was made, there wouldn't necessarily be a need to bring back a city ordinance. We would simply follow the state regulations, but add the component, which would basically be budget adjustments to hire additional city staff who would assist in community outreach and waive wage theft investigation. Okay. And I shared with a few of my colleagues that I have some data that I wanted to share with this group tonight. And so I put it into a PowerPoint just a little bit ago just to make it so that we all kind of follow along on it. But my question is this the friendly that's proposed asked for $475,000 in addition to two investigators. How much would those investigators cost? Councilman Price. We are estimating that with salary benefits and some materials and supplies and in some vehicles that it would be about $220,000 for for two positions. So we're talking about about $700,000 total. Correct, for the first year. Okay. And then how much would and this I'm assuming if we're going to set up a wage enforcement department in the city, it's some if if the amendment was approved. What's the problem? I think there's a misunderstanding. There was no department set up in the friendly. Unless I misheard the price. Oh, okay. Let me. Gonzales. Let me. Let me rephrase. If we set aside $475,000 for wage enforcement and added to investigators, I'm assuming that the employees who want to see wage enforcement in the city of Long Beach would want that to be an ongoing thing, not a one time thing. Is that an assumption that we're making? Do we? Yeah. Do we know? I have. We. Have we? Is this going to be a one time fund or is this something that we hope to do on an ongoing basis? So, Councilwoman Pryce, my understanding for the original city manager's proposal, we did use one time funds for the for 75. And we will work to to look at how much it actually cost to run a program on an ongoing basis. That could be less than that amount, or it could be more depending on the actual case loads. But what I'm saying is we wouldn't be able to use one time funds for an ongoing program. We would at some point when we have an ongoing program, would want to build it into the budget structurally per our financial policies. Okay. So in regards to this 700,000 or so, more than 700,000, what enforcement mechanisms do we expect the investigators to be able to do? Have we thought about what they would be able to do that doesn't already exist through the state? Councilwoman Price, we we were planning to enforce the local minimum wage now that we have an ordinance now that we're following the state's ordinance. We would be looking at following all types of minimum wage and wage theft items. So that would include we would like more direction, you know, exactly on that. But that would include overtime issues and wage lost wage items issues. Okay. So. Can the city adjudicate a wage theft claim that's made in the city? But that's against a state ordinance. Councilwoman Pryce, as I indicated, will be reviewing SB three thoroughly to see if they did delegate any authority to local municipalities to do that. If if they didn't specifically do that, the answer would be no. So it would be more if the motion passed, as it's currently phrased, it would be more gathering information, taking complaints, perhaps working together with the local state agencies to provide them information about our investigations, those those sorts of things. And we'd outreach, obviously, to the local DA to see what assistance we could be. Okay. So the friendly that I would like to make and I'd like Councilmember Mongo to consider it is setting aside the money, but allowing our city to work with the Department of Labor to I'm sorry, the Department of Industrial Relations to determine how exactly the city could work with the state. First of all, we need to review the state ordinance to make sure that the city has the power to get involved in its own enforcement, to assuming that we do. I'd like us to work with them to find out how exactly we could augment their services. Because based on my conversation with them and I spoke with the Labor Commissioner's office, they are under the umbrella of the State Department of Finance. They're currently funding numerous new positions for this coming fiscal year in order to deal with wage enforcement and wage theft specifically. And one of the areas where there's been a lot of progress statewide is the mere idea of calling it wage theft like that. Calling it what it is alone has resulted in the claims being treated differently. And that's really only happened with Governor Brown's administration. And one of the things that we had a very long conversation that we've been talking for a while with my staff and today I personally spoke with them. I'm calling it what it is has resulted in a very different focus from the statewide level to the issue of wage enforcement. So they are funding a whole new crop of positions for this fiscal year, including positions in the Long Beach office. The majority of the new positions are going to go into the retaliation team because that's an area where they found people are hesitant to file wage theft claims because of retaliation issues. Their field office in Long Beach is very active and will be receiving both field investigators and folks to work in retaliation statewide. They actually received in this past year 32,000 claims that they forwarded to their adjudication office. It's my understanding that even with our own wage enforcement arm, the city of Long Beach could not assist in the adjudication of claims. We could not we would need to work with the state in order to be able to adjudicate claims. So we would be we would not be able to advance or move along or are fast track any of these claims because we would still be on a state timeline for adjudication. The field office last year in Long Beach received 2500 claims. That's how many claims were filed in that office. The claims were handled. The L.A. Office received 3100 claims. The claims are handled anywhere from a few days to up to a year if the process is actually going to go to an adjudication hearing. But every claim that was filed was resolved in some capacity. Only a third of the claims actually went to adjudication. So two thirds of the claims were actually processed by the state's wage theft enforcement team. To me, that sounds very effective. What they said is they work routinely with community groups in order to enhance their outreach efforts. They have a budget already for outreach and marketing. They have a field investigator team for field enforcement team. They have retaliation services. That's a very robust team that, again, they're adding to. They have an adjudication legal team. What the labor commissioner told me today is that if the city were going to adopt something like this, we would absolutely need because we'd want to do it right. We wouldn't just want to say we did it so that we can, you know, get a headline or to get a win. We would want to do it right, because that's what the workers deserve. The workers deserve a team that is actually committed and has the subject matter expertize we would need. In-house labor attorneys like the State Department of Industrial Relations has they have a whole team of attorneys there. We would not be able to afford that with the $700,000 that we're planning to put into outreach. They also do outreach and marketing that's pretty robust. They have news radio ads. They advertise on Spanish radio as well as Spanish TV. They have bus ads. I shared this with one of my colleagues today, and we both agreed that this was a really great thing that we didn't know about. I told her I was going to mention it tonight. They have fliers that they pass out. They have TV ads that they do on Spanish TV as well as regular TV. And they also have a video on the process that they show. They have a video that they show people on what the process is, how you can apply for a wage theft claim. When you go in to make a wage theft claim, they talk about what the process is to make sure that your wage theft claim is adjudicated, who you can contact through the process. These are all things that they offer and they do offer at the Long Beach office. They also have a public works team that specially enforces prevailing wage claims. So they work directly with prevailing wage claims. They were very, very open to coming to the city of Long Beach, coming to council for a study session. If we were interested and talking to us about if we wanted to augment our enforcement somehow, how we could do that so that it best aligns with the state. They also talked about and some of the other states that we researched have done consequences for wage theft violators. So wage theft claims can serve as a basis for rescinding or refusing to enter into a contract with violators. Wage theft claims can be the basis for denial of a permit or a license, and the requirement that a business post a notice when they are the subject of a wage theft investigation are all different methodologies that other states have used and other states have utilized very effectively to address wage theft issues. So these are all options that I would like us to consider and so that we can formulate if we want to do wage enforcement. And we feel like there's something that we can do to augment what the state is already doing, then I think we should move forward with a plan. So right now we're allocating, we're proposing and I know the friendly hasn't been accepted, but over $700,000 to something that one we don't know if we can enforce yet. And two, we don't know how we would go about enforcing it. My recommendation would be I'm not opposed to having some sort of an enforcement arm in the in the city of Long Beach. I actually think it's a great idea. I just don't want to duplicate what the state is already doing. And I also don't want to take money that we could be using for other things if we're talking about a structural budget. We could be talking about additional police officers, which is what we need more than anything right now. So I would rather say let's take a look at what the state is already doing and how they think we might be able to augment their services to really neat meet the needs of our city. And if we're able to do that, then I think we might be able to come in with a number that's less than $700,000, which really would be a service to our constituents. So that's just a friendly that I want to propose and, you know, put out there. And I would love to hear from the rest of my colleagues. I'm open on this, but that's just given the data. I don't want us to be paying to duplicate something that's already being done. Thank you. Councilman, are you going to keep going on the speaker's list or are we back to you? I'd like to take that under advisement along with Lena's motion at the same time, I'll keep those in the list. Thank you, Vice Mayor Richardson. Thank you, Mayor Garcia. And thank you. Maker of the motion councilmember mongo and Seconder Gonzalez. And I love the tenor from the entire council about compromise and having, you know, been a part of this debate for more than a year. Hearing hours of testimony from the community, from business, from workers. I am proud that Long Beach did lead and encouraged the state to go ahead and take action. And we did it what we considered the Long Beach way. We said when we passed this, it was the Long Beach way. But when we passed the Long Beach way, we didn't necessarily know that the state was going to go ahead and pass as well. And that sort of, in my opinion, before the idea was you get to 2019 and you hear, you know, you do a study and see what those impacts are and then you make decisions based on that. And the floor at that point was nine or $10. But that's changed. The floor has changed. We know that the fight for 15 is one on the state level. People are going to get the $15. The question now is when do they get to $15? And the question now is, what do we consider the Long Beach way? Well, the process that we've gone through over the course of the last few last year has highlighted a number of issues. Workers have come forward and said very clearly that Long Beach need someone said it's night. Long Beach needs to stand out and not stand aside and protect workers and make sure that workers can can have their forces, their wages enforced. We've heard from businesses that they want a stable environment to run their business. We've heard that tonight. I think I'm here to speak in the spirit of compromise here. Gandhi said all compromise is based on give and take, but there can be no give and take on fundamentals. Any compromise on mere fundamentals is a surrender, for it is all give and no take. So what are the fundamentals for me? I believe that in order to find a middle ground, we have to make sure that everybody who came here understand. I have to value, you know, the opinions of everybody here. And if anybody leaves without necessarily getting their way, I understand. But you need to value their their point of view and the perspective. And I've heard a bunch of testimony tonight specifically about wage theft and balancing out the interests of business with aligning so. So, that said, if we're going to lead, I need my support. Tonight, I want to be able to support and be in consensus. But it is contingent it is entirely contingent on the acceptance of the very first friendly made by Councilmember Gonzalez, because there's no path for me to support this. And I would encourage the whole council to say no if there isn't a balanced a balanced approach here that talks about not just meeting the needs of business, we support that, but we need to acknowledge the fact that people have come here time after time and highlighted that the state is not cutting it. So without that, I can't move forward. So I'm going to ask, what is the motion on the floor right now? Okay. Let me repeat that. The motion on the floor. There's a motion on the floor in two friendlies that neither of which have been accepted yet by the maker of the motion, which is Councilman Bongo. Currently, the motion on the floor is to, one, align the wage schedule to follow the Senate bill, a state program. That's the motion on the floor then. Then there's two friendlies, one which was made by Councilwoman Gonzalez, which included a a strong wage enforcement and kind of wage theft investigation policy with the addition of investigators to the already budgeted amount. And there was also a friendly by Councilman Price, which was to add, if I get it wrong, Councilman Price it just to do more research and to how we could work close closer with the state and other agencies to find ways of doing wage theft in that direction and not necessarily allocating the amount of money that was put forward tonight. Well, actually, what's that? We come we do we meet with the Department of Industrial Relations and come up with a better estimate of how much we think it's going to cost the state to not duplicate their efforts and have an effective enforcement team. Because right now there's nothing our investigators could do to adjudicate the process faster than it's already being adjudicated. Thank you. So so back to you. Vice Mayor Richardson, thank you. So. Well, first point of order, can we even have a debate on friendlies that haven't been accepted? It would be better if the friendlies were accepted and debated. Yes. Thank you. So I would love to support. I know how much work Councilmember Mongeau has done on this. I know how much work Councilmember Gonzalez has done on this. But. If I don't hear an acceptance, then while I have the floor, I have no choice but to offer a substitute. So I would like to hear which of those are you going to. I don't want to debate or speak to something that's not on the floor. I respect that. And I would appreciate if before you make a substitute, I have the opportunity to hear from Pierce and your anger. It's only fair that I know that the order of which people queue up has some advantages, but I think that they've also been major players in this. And so I just want to hear their perspective before knowing where I stand. Okay, so and I'm fine with that. I'll be ready for your substitute in case. Thank you. So here's what I'll say. And I. And this is out of order. I prefer not to do it this way, but this is the option that the Council is putting in front of me. The on the first substitute, I agree on the set. I mean, on the first friendly. I agree on the second friendly. I agree there are certain certain questions that need to be answered. But this debate has linger for too long and frankly, we can move forward with the city staff has already put forth a plan and really it's a question on whether we legally can enforce it or and then what can we integrate from the state level. And that's not something I feel like needs to be debate. That level of detail needs to be debated at council. I think we can move forward tonight with staff's plan and if anything needs to be adjusted based on anything we learn, then there are ways to do that. And we do that all the time. We learn something that happens, you know, through the state and but, you know, through the state. And we need to make adjustments. But tonight, we need to set aside if we're going to if we're going align with the state, we need to set aside the funding tonight to make sure that we are we are one of the best in Fort. We've done it the Long Beach Way, which is now going to be defined as, you know, a city that takes its workers seriously. And we don't wait on the state to make sure everyone's paid a fair wage. So that that would be what I have to say. And I look forward to seeing what the final motion is. Thanks. Councilman Mongo. And then we're going to go into Councilmember Pearce. That's chair of Budget Oversight. I will state that over the last several weeks I've had more meetings than I can possibly count, both by phone and in person with the budget officer of our city. Erickson I think she has done a phenomenal job. I think that within the 475. There's a lot of components that are not. Restricted. I think that what Vice Mayor Richardson is saying is really a testament to how the city staff had worked with putting together their budget. And then additionally, the mayor's recommendation. So I definitely see your perspective and I appreciate that you're going to wait to hear from our other colleagues before making a substitute, because I appreciate that you're allowing me to maintain the floor. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Pearce. Thank you. And. Thank you, everybody, that's done so much work leading up to this point, to the small businesses that got activated and got engaged. I think you guys took a lesson out of the organizing handbook. Job well done. I really applaud you guys for that work. It would be a surprise to anybody if I said I wasn't in support of increasing the minimum wage. I have sat in too many living rooms talking to workers. Many of them, yes, they deserve a wage increase. And yes, the state has done that. But many of them have said shown me paychecks where they're not making what they're worth and what they have been committed to make. And so the conversation around wage theft is a real win for us. And Long Beach and one that I know from watching procedures. I know from having workers go through the process that, yes, there is things that the state and the county can do, but nobody can ensure that workers in our city are making sure that they're getting the wages they deserve, that they're getting their meal breaks that they deserve, their 15 minute breaks and all those things that wage self includes like those in Long Beach. And so my my very first question is to be clear that this would say that we are following the state level, we're following the state level on wage timeline, but that there would be a wage enforcement ordinance around wage theft . Is that what you're proposing? Council Member So I think that in my discussions with Mr. Mays and with Councilmember Gonzalez that we are not clear yet. There are instances in the state of California like a sworn law enforcement officer such as myself, that we can't enforce state laws and ordinances. Today I met with someone from the federal level of the federal executive board, and there are things that a city is able to do. And so before we bring anything like that back, I would say that that would maybe perhaps be something that Councilwoman Gonzalez, this committee could look into and discuss before we get ahead of ourselves . I think that leading and making the Long Beach way a part of the discussion and figuring out what the right fit is, I think also needs some process and some voice. And so I would like to empower Councilmember Gonzalez when we know what that looks like to meet with city staff, to meet with the community and figure out. And that committee would potentially long term, if we felt it necessary, which it might not be, bring something to the council if we find it necessary. Is that make sense? Yes. I just wanted to be very clear that it's not just about staffing, not one person, but that we're saying we support going on the state timeline, but recognizing and empowering us as a city to enforce locally because we have local small businesses, we've got big business here. But while the state, they just don't have the resources, they're understaffed even with looking at new staffing that that's very clear. And I'll say again and I can't say the year for certain because it's been so long, but. When I worked at a factory, I took a claim to the Labor Board and so in discussions with my colleagues, including you, we kind of talked about that. I went through the process, but one of the reasons that I was able to help several other workers at my office is because of outreach efforts and those other components that are built into the 475. And so again, it takes it takes dialog to get there. And oftentimes those those crucial moments in your life, you don't remember all the components that that really weighed in. So I appreciate your in my dialog on those matters. And I think that those are the components that are really going to make a difference for the Long Beach Way. Great. And so thank you for that very much. Councilmember Mongeau going on that. I think the other important part that's that's really important is the cultural competency and making sure that we have people that live in neighborhoods going meeting with workers that they have community with. And that, again, is another reason why I would support Councilmember Gonzalez's motion to have two compliance officers. I'll go so far to say, and I don't want to complicate things too much, but even those two compliance officers, while they will be helpful, I still in my heart feel like that's not enough. And so I say that today by saying that supporting this motion with the friendly amendment is still so much less than I think that our workers deserve and want to make sure that we are just moving forward with the proposal on the table. But recognizing that. As much as we can advocate to have more funds, go to those community groups that are able to outreach to workers. The more worker outreach we have, the more turnaround we'll have and the more funds will come back to the city based on how many bad actors there are. And so I. I'm not going to make a friendly I'm not going to make a emotion for the sake of making sure that we move on today, but that I would fully expect for us to make a a full office of enforcement down the road that we continue to support not only the funds that are here, but the two compliance officers that are here as well on the table. And so. I'll leave it there for now. Calcium for your ring. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. This has been a long discussion tonight. Also, it's been actually a long discussion for the last two years. I recall when we first when I was first running for council, this was an important issue to the public. Wage theft was huge. Also, minimum wage. We're there now. We're here at that point where we're actually ready to take a vote on this issue. I'm somewhat disappointed and I want to be clear on that, that, you know, we didn't really or we are not moving away from the ordinance that we had that we adopted a few weeks back, a few months ago in terms of doing it the Long Beach way. It was a very aggressive methodology that we were going to use. And I think because we were that aggressive, I think we actually led the field and let the state to also get aggressive and get ahead ahead of us by adopting a minimum wage that led to a path to $15. So, you know, I think that the city council needs to take a lot of that credit because of its aggressiveness in pushing $15 a year before the state. So I'm really pleased with that, the fact that we're now moving towards in another direction in adopting the state's plan. Okay. So, I mean, we're going to be moving towards the end and it's not it's not bad. However, the other part of it, in terms of the enforcement aspects of of wage theft is and always has been a very important, important component in this path to $15 an hour. And and I'm very pleased with with the motion that that is being that is setting the table now in my I would think are beginning to set a pattern here that, you know, enough of studies, enough of investigating this or investigating that. Let's be aggressive, which we are. Let's adopt this proposal of a path to 15. Let's get two enforcement officers there, which would be awesome and let's fund it. I mean, there's nothing that says more about who we are as a city council and as a city than to put money where our mouth is. Let's fund it. Let's stop it. Let's get it together so that when we are encountering these issues of wage theft. An iPad 215 that we're going to be aggressively investigating it now if we're not allowed to do that, because our city attorney has decided that maybe we're in conflict with the state, so be it. So we are we save some money with the state, takes it over, not a problem. But the fact that we have aggressively invested with that, we are going to aggressively investigate it ourselves. I think speaks volumes for us in terms of the city and what we want to do and how we really, really want to support our employees and our our workers and anybody who works within the boundaries of the city of Long Beach, I think that speaks volumes about what we are and how we feel about our community. So I'm really I'm going to be very supportive of the the motion. I have one question. However, Councilmember Mongo, you mentioned a committee that Mr. Gonzalez is in charge of. What committee is it? Our Burntisland harbor. Entitlements that were the that this would relate. No, it was just an idea that should the city attorney find the need to look at wage theft, that is a particular committee that has some expertize on it that might be helpful in that the wage theft community that it's come forward most strongly has been specifically in the trucking industry. And so we're we're not sure we need anything additional. We think we are fine. I think we're fine where we are. And I think that we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. But I agree with Vice Mayor Richardson. We need to make a decision tonight what that decision is. I have one more councilmember to listen to and then I'd like to figure out where I am. Okay. I appreciate that. And again, I will re-emphasize my support for the motion by Gonzales. I mean, excuse me to the amendment that includes Gonzalez is perfect. Thank you, Councilmember Supernanny. Thank you. I do not have a friendly. I just have a couple of questions, and I just want to. Clarify what Councilmember Turanga just said, that we need to send a strong message, but we also have to be efficient with our funds and that's our fiduciary responsibility to the taxpayers. I had a question also about the line that we need to set aside funding tonight. I guess this is for Mr. Mays. Could city council come back at a later date after we study the issue and and come up with some funding at that time? Yes. Okay. I'd also like to just. This is an emotional issue, so I'd like to just provide an analogy. My council district, part of our northern border, is the four or five freeway, which is the state agency Caltrans. Right through the heart of my district is PCH and the traffic circle. And both of those are controlled by Caltrans. The local agencies here working with the state agency in those cases is not a model of efficiency. So I think I'd like to recommend that we we look at in detail what is required for enforcement and study the issues a little longer before we move forward. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman. Councilwoman Gonzalez. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, my God. Okay. Thank you. I just. I appreciate the discussion. I, too, am I'm just very I'm going to just reiterate that I think that the the funds need to be set aside today. You know, this has gone on for way too long. I think a lot of us thinking that we had originally gone with the Long Beach way. We've now moved to going with the state alignment and we believe in that. And I think that, you know, there's a seems like the council's headed in that direction, but I think that the wage theft component is. Very, very important. It's extremely important. And we may think that it's not a big deal. And of course, we don't know exactly what this is. Going to look like. There's still a lot. Of ideas and details to flesh out. We hope that maybe down the road this could possibly be an ordinance we're looking into that what we do have the luxury of having next to us is the city of L.A. that is already enacted. And so there's a lot to learn from that. There's a lot to learn in this next year as we are still in alignment with the state. But I think setting aside this money now specifically for wage theft, education and outreach, all of this money will go towards that to ensure that we were we are truly doing what we can to inform the public of their rights and what they can do and how adding an extra layer of fear of local enforcement. So again, we're going to have to hopefully with this friendly amendment, if it is accepted that to wage the investigators, wage investigators, and then in addition, the $475,000. And then, of course, as Councilwoman Pryce mentioned, we'd love to work with the Department of Industrial Relations to see what other methods that we can do to leverage additional resources with this local office. So I just wanted to reiterate that point. I think a lot of people have spoken. I appreciate everybody's ideas. We're certainly open to more ideas. As this. Evolves and gets, you know, bigger and better and who knows what happens. So thanks again. Thank you, Councilwoman Price. Thank you. So is it possible for us and maybe this is something for Councilwoman Mango to think about, to set aside the money, which is 770,000 or whatever the case may be, set aside that money and have staff come back with a report back to us on one whether we can even I mean, we're setting aside money for something we don't even know that we have the power to enforce. So can we set aside the money and then have staff come back and tell us, can the city even enforce this? And to if we can, what would be the plan of how we're going to use the money? Because I don't even know what I'm what we're voting on right now. I mean, we're voting on two investigators and $475,000 to do outreach. I mean, I don't even what kind of outreach are we going to do for $475,000? So what I'd like to do is, is get us in a position where we know what our city dollars are going to. I mean, I, along with a lot of my colleagues, have to we all have to report back to our constituents on where we're spending our money and why. So, you know, a wage theft, there's no doubt about it. And I know there's, you know, heckling and stuff going on. Wage theft is an important issue. Just because someone doesn't vote the way you want, just because they don't give the amount of money that you want doesn't mean it's not an important issue and it doesn't mean they don't care about it. And that's just the reality. So let's just stop being divisive and saying, just because you don't give me exactly what I want, you don't care about it. What I'm saying is, can't we educate ourselves a little bit more about I mean, when else have we voted blindly to allocate a certain amount of money to something that we don't even know how much it's going to cost? So my recommendation would be, I'm okay if we want to set the money aside, encumber it, don't use it, set it aside. I know that they had 475 listed in the proposed budget, so we're going to have to come up with another 222,000 from somewhere. So can we set that aside? Don't touch it. Don't encumber it. Leave it there. It's safe. But we don't actually allocated to enforcement until staff comes back and tells us one we can enforce. There's no prohibition against it in the statute, in the state statute. And to this is how we would enforce because I'm not clear right now, we're voting on positions that I don't really know what they would do or how they would fit with the state. It's like it's like hiring some traffic and engineers to monitor the portion of PCH that Caltrans currently oversees. What exactly are they going to do? Because they can't change signal timing. They can't repave the road. There's nothing they can do. They have to work with the state. So I'm not really clear the that of what we're voting on. So I understand. We want we want everybody to get a win. And I get that. Let's keep the money. Let's not spend it. Let's keep it encumbered. Let's keep it safe. We won't touch it. But let's find out exactly how we're going to use it before we vote on it. So I would like to actually bifurcate the two issues because that that would to me be the simplest way to to go forward with the vote, because I do want to support us going with the state minimum wage. Thank you, Councilwoman Pierce. Thank you. I. Want to first say that, you know, that this is about compromise, that we're making a lot of compromise today. Whenever everybody in this room, business, community Workers Council, the mayor, I've worked for a long time to do the Long Beach Way and have a Long Beach ordinance so that the wage enforcement part is so critical and so important, and that the money that was identified, this 475 was money that we already talked to our budget committee. We already talked to city manager. We already had briefings to figure out what that money would be spent on. And the majority of that money was earmarked for outreach. Yes, because outreach and making sure that workers are making a fair wage is in getting the money that they deserve is more important to me than spending money on a fountain, which I know city staff is tired of hearing me complain about spending $700,000 on a fountain. If we can do that, we can spend money and make sure that enforcement locally is being done. And so I had a question for Councilmember. Could we make it? Are we looking to make it a specific ordinance for wage enforcement? Would that be that might be a city attorney question. Right. So just to repeat where we are, the current motion on the floor is to follow SB three, which is the state regulations and escalation and all the avenues that have options related to the governors changes and things like that, so that we as a city are following the state. One state with relation to the for 75, you are correct that was budgeted and just and we have as a council had I guess eight weeks of meetings related to the budget where those questions could be asked. It actually is a bit more I know that you definitely keyed in on the outreach component. The 475 is more than just outreach. It's actually some staff in the city attorney's office that are necessary for a couple of things and then outreach as well for CBOs and a few other things. So it's a it's a comprehensive plan. And to be fair to all of us, I know that I've had 40 budget meetings between staff and constituents and all the different matters. So I, I have notes in this big pile right here of what the specifics are. But when I discussed it and I believed in it, those were things that keyed up to you. And for me, the staffing in the city attorney's office is key, because one of the components of this is we do not know if we need an additional ordinance or not, but that stuff would be available in the city's attorney's office to do that research and that look. And we would not need to make those decisions tonight. We are completely capable to set aside and follow the recommended budget of the city manager and the mayor's proposal, along with the potential. Should I accept Councilmember Gonzalez's motion a friendly which I'm inclined to do at this point? It sounds like that would be the compromise that would really move us towards following SB three, which has been my priority, and I know it's also been Councilmember Austin's priority since the beginning. So to do that, we would have to and I know you said the word compliance officers, but I will hope you take the clarification. It's going to be investigators, which are actually a compliance is a reactive versus an investigator, which is a proactive. And I knew that that was really important in discussions with the community. And so I hope that that clarifies and unites us as a council. Thank you. Thank you. And finally of Councilmember Austin. Thank you. And I promise not to make any friendly amendments. Just want to get some clarification. Thank you. Because I did not hear much about well, what I did here is Councilmember Elina Gonzalez is a friendly amendment, which I support. I just want to get some clarification because I am on the Budget Oversight Committee and we have been kind of massaging our budget for FY17 over the last several weeks. Is the intent to make the for 75 one time or structural? It's currently one time okay. And I think that's good because entering into the community contracts. I would hope that there is a mechanism to to a support for accountability and real deliverables. My hope is that, you know, this wage enforcement thing is not something that is necessary. You know, five, ten years out, maybe we can jump in, get into it immediately, address some issues and really, really work hard to educate and do the outreach and education of the community where it may not be necessary as part of, you know, just what is what is day to day operations for the city, particularly. And then these community organizations then become somewhat employees of the state of the city. Correct. So I want to make sure that that that there is some mechanism in place to make sure that there is accountability for the outreach and education and that we we can have some report backs on deliverables, as we would any other city department that we tasked to do do a a function. So it takes. Okay. See no other council comment. Thank you, Councilmember. I'm going to turn this back over to Councilman Mongo to take action on the friendlies in front of her. And then we're going to go to a vote. And I want to just also make a couple clarifications we think are important. The first is just as a as a reminder. I know it's in the budget. The 475 that is in the budget as presented is for a couple of different things. Part of that money is set aside for the attorney. So we actually bring in an attorney to look at the labor issues, to look at wage issues. That's dedicated to enforcement. The attorney also has support staff as part of this budget for the Force 75. That, as we know, is one time this year, but certainly could could continue on in in years as we go forward. There's also probably $100,000 of that for 75 or maybe 150. Correct me if I'm wrong, Leah, that's dedicated to education and also work with community groups to ensure that there's actually education happening about wage enforcement and about wage laws. And I think, at least in my opinion, that it's been presented that regardless of whether the council was going to go and align with the state or not, that those resources are still needed so that we can do education regardless of that decision. At least that's been my impression of the of the conversation. And so that's where I think that 475 is, is going it's attorney enforcement, it's education, it's working with community groups. And and then the friendly motion that's being done by Councilwoman Gonzalez is to add two investigators to the already budgeted for 75, which, in my opinion, is the beginning and really the creation of a pretty strong wage enforcement and a a this and somebody to address the conversation about wage theft which had been going on in this community for a very long time. And so to the community that's here and I know that there's a difference of opinion on on on a variety of things being discussed. But we are going from having essentially no dollars at the city dedicated to wage theft and enforcement to a pretty significant program if the motion and friendly is accepted tonight. So I, I strongly support Councilman Gonzalez's friendly motion to Councilman Mango Councilwoman Price, and then we'll, as anybody else, will go to a vote. So it's since we're voting on two different things. One is whether we have our own city ordinance and another is creating basically a new. Enforcement piece. Can we bifurcate this vote? Councilwoman Price, you would have to make a substitute motion to divide the question, and then we would if there was support for dividing the question, we could do that and we would take two separate votes. But you'd need a motion to to divide the question first. Okay. Well, I would make a substitute to divide the motion so that those of us who don't agree on the friendly can have the option to vote, you know, in the way that we believe on the first part. So as I understand, if the so the substitute would be to divide the question to in the first instance, vote to follow the the the schedules and so forth set forth by the state and S.B. three. That would be the first question that would be voted on. And the second would be whether or not to accept the two friendly amendments as stated, provided that Councilwoman Mongo eventually accepts those friendlies. Yes, I mean, that just would allow all of us to be able to lodge a vote and be able to, you know, voice our our our our vote and still have things go the way they're going to go. But it would allow everybody to be able to vote the way they want. Case. Was that a substitute motion? Was that funny? And is that a substitute motion or no? Yes. Yes. I was there a second on that motion. Casey no second on that motion. The motion doesn't have a second. So back to the original motion, which is Councilwoman Stacy Mango's motion and what have you. What have you decided on the friendlies? I will accept Councilman Lina Gonzalez's friendly amendment to add. And I think, Leah correct me, I can add them tonight, even though we haven't passed the whole budget, it would just be a supplement. Councilwoman Mango, we would you would direct us to Adam, and we would need to work to find an offset or a source of funding. Within the next week. Wonderful. We'll work on that. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So there is now a motion and a second on the floor to go with the state schedule and to create a strong wage enforcement and wage theft component within the city budget. Please cast your votes, members. Sorry. Vice Mayor Richardson jetting off to say. Okay. Motion carries. Okay. The motion carries. Thank you very much. We were going to go take a one minute recess and we'll begin with the rest of the council meeting. I can go in and get all the council members back so we can start the meeting. You don't. Always get. Oh, I suppose. Your. Okay. Madam Clerk, if you can, please do the roll call. Councilwoman Gonzalez. Councilmember Pearce. Councilwoman Price. Councilmember Superman here. Councilwoman Mongo. Councilman Andrews. Councilmember Otunga. Councilman Austin. Vice Mayor Richardson. Mayor Garcia.