Recommendation to direct City Manager to give an updated report on the December 2014 memo, and the process for submitting a grant request, which City projects are being considered, research what other cities and counties are doing, how local community partners are being included, what kind of staff resources and structure are needed for the City to be competitive for the funding, and any other factors pertaining to the "Cap and Trade" program.
Item number 18. Communication from Councilwoman Gonzalez, Council Member Oranga and Council Member Richardson. Recommendation to direct City Manager to give an updated report on the process for submitting a grant request. What staff, resources and structure are needed for the city to be competitive for the funding and any other factors pertaining to the cap and trade program? Councilwoman Gonzalez. So I want to thank my colleagues, Council Member Ranga and Rex Richardson tonight for helping me bring this item up. This agenda items intent is for the city manager as I mentioned, to come back to the council with an updated report on cap and trade. I also want to thank Diana Tang. I don't know if she's here tonight, but I want to thank her for her December 2014 memo, in which she did a lot of hard work, and which also included a letter from the Mayor to the Strategic Strategic Growth Council on their draft guidelines on the disadvantaged communities scoring and the need to change that. In addition, I'd like to thank our community partners Renee Castro, Dean and Giselle, as well as the BBC, for always being on top of these issues and ensuring that this stays on the city's radar. And what the intention for this is to certainly look into working together collaboratively as a city and as a community to allow us to have the biggest impact and best proposals to this and offer the best proposals to the Strategic Growth Council. We also need to clearly understand the process and be in front of this versus chasing after it and make sure, making sure that we are making as, as I mentioned, the best impact as it relates also to public health, transportation, housing sustainability and overall investment in our disadvantaged communities. So I look forward to. Making the motion and then we did that already and thank you for your support. Council member Gordon Gunn seconding that. Yes. Mr. Elanga. I also want to thank Councilmember Gonzalez for bringing this forward and and to our community partners to keeping that keeping us on tap. What's going on with the issues that are important to the community? This is important public policy and strong support. Thank you. The only public comment. Excuse me right after this. Mr. Councilman Alston. I want a public comment to too long, but just to let you know that this is a high priority and it's something that we are looking at on our state land committee. We we do talk to our legislators about this. We have talked about this and as well as with the Gateway Cities Council of Governments, we have raised these issues. The methodology in which how these funds are going to be delivered back to communities is so important. And I want to echo your your applause of our government relations manager, Diana, actually, because she has kept us completely briefed and on point on this issue. And so I'm glad to see the council is engaged in talking about this behind the rail. As a council, this is extremely important to to the entire city of Long Beach. I mean, it's going to how this methodology works will determine, you know, how we are able to to apply those funds and if we have the funds to to work with in the near future. So I applaud you for bringing this forward and recommended unanimous support. Yes. Spencer and I failed to mention in our agenda item the timing. So I would like to ask for staff to come back in 45 days, if possible. And Diana, I don't know if you have any information you'd like to share any a small report. I know we're getting full information back in that time, but do you would you like to share anything at this time? Sure. Councilmember members of the city council, this is an incredibly complex program. As you know, there are multiple different grants, programs that are being administered as a part of cap and trade. So cap and trade in and of itself is a source of revenue. But underneath that revenue source, there are about 11 different grant programs, the majority of which is the high speed rail project. So that takes up a large chunk of the cap and trade revenues that are out there. The Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities Grant Program that is administered by the State Strategic Growth Council is the primary program for which cities are eligible for funding. And in this year there was about $130 million that were available to cities. However, staff did do an extensive review of the grant guidelines, as you noted, and that December 2014 memo and discovered that the window of funding or the scope of funding, I should say, was quite limited. And so for that reason we did not apply. But based on what we know this year, the grant guidelines for next year haven't been released yet. But based on what we know this year, staff is strategizing between several departments Public Works, Health, our Department of Sustainability to put together a proposal development services. Sorry for that omission earlier to put together a proposal that does meet the criteria of the existing proposal. And if things change in the next year, then we will adapt as needed. But there are a number of programs, one of which the city is most eligible to apply for. The majority of the funds, I would say, is for high speed rail and transit. And so we are working and and will see what we can do to bring some of these funds to Long Beach. Thank you. You know, we're probably coming. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Members of the council. Thank you so much. My name is Rene Castro. Live at 616 Grand Avenue, proud resident of the third district. And I want to congratulate new councilmember supernova. Congratulations, your victory. And we are looking forward to working with you. First of all, I'd like to thank, of course, Councilmember Gonzalez, Councilmember Ranga and Councilmember Richardson for putting us on the agenda tonight. As Councilmember Gonzalez stated, this is a really unique time. This is trance transformative legislation at the state level, cap and trade. What's happening? And tonight, we just have three speakers. We just want to illustrate what we see as an opportunity, as Dana Tang mentioned. Of course there is. There are dollars available through the Strategic Growth Council, but there are so many other programs where the city can access necessary funding. So I just want to take a minute or so just to illustrate illustrate some of that. I see I have 2 minutes left. So there are many programs. There's lots of money. And most of Long Beach is eligible for a cap and trade dollars. Finally, we can do a lot of work by working together. So just really quickly, in terms of programs, of course, rail and bus capital, improvements in service expansion, affordable housing, as Tania stated. Electric and hybrid vehicles, busses and trucks. In fact, I just applied for a $2.3 million grant to bring electric vehicle employee shuttles to Long Beach to purchase eight shuttles for three of our largest nonprofits, reduced emissions from diesel trucks, weatherization and renewable energy for low income households, energy efficiency and state owned public buildings. Water, energy efficiency projects. Wetlands and watershed restoration. Waste diversion just to name a few. So the Strategic Growth Council is one agency, but there are many other agencies. For example, the $2.3 million grant I just wrote was to the California Air Resources Board. So the main objective of cap and trade in SB 535 is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. So anything related to that at Long Beach and our partners, we can we can actually say that we're reducing pollution. Greenhouse gas emissions will be eligible for funding. So just some numbers here really quickly. The cap and trade program will get at least 1 billion this year and possibly more. The program is projected to bring a total of between 12 to 45 billion through 2020. And 10% of the revenues must be invested in projects located in disadvantaged communities. These are communities, as you know, and this is why we're so thankful that the councilmembers along the 17 corridor partnered with us, because you represent the most vulnerable and pollution burdened communities in the city, and there are ways for us to rectify years and . Years and years of. Marginalization there. Thank you so much. Yes, thank you. Good evening, council members. My name is Sylvia. I'm the project manager with the Long Beach Alliance for Children with Asthma and also a steering committee member with the Building Healthy Communities Hub based here in Long Beach. I wanted to speak on this item tonight to establish for you the need, because we work with families whose children asthma is out of control. Oftentimes we find that many of those triggers are from triggers within the home, but also those are also triggers from living near roadways or being exposed to diesel pollution. USC conducted a study and over 20 years following children from elementary school through high school. Some of those children were based right here in Long Beach, and they found that children who were growing and whose lungs were developing and being exposed to near roadway diesel pollution that their lungs actually did did not fully develop. There were also higher numbers of asthma. And when the U.S. followed up that study more recently and their their study there, their findings were published recently. They found that as air pollution was as air quality had improved, that the children living in these areas, their health had also improved. So what I wanted to establish for you is a support for for this item this evening. Because as we invest in some of these other transportation projects and affordable housing, we're also we would also receive a co benefit for families whose children are experiencing asthma and other also other kinds of health conditions that are caused by diesel pollution. So I wanted to share with you some of the statistics that were found in some in some of the journals. They found that 9% of all childhood asthma cases in Long Beach were attributed to traffic proximity. In other words, the closer you are to the source of pollution, the the higher that that risk. This cost was actually $18 million per year. They also found in 30 to 40 studies of long term effects of exposure to diesel, that studies of workers like truckers, railroad workers, miners showed an elevated risk for lung cancer among these exposed workers. They've also found that there was a higher rate of death and for cardiovascular disease or COPD. So as we invest in these projects, we would find that there would be a co benefit to children, to our workers and our families in the city of Long Beach. So I would encourage that support for a shared, collaborate, collaborative table that could further explore opportunities for partnership and benefit to the city of Long Beach. Thank you for your time. Thank you so much. Thanks, Speaker. Good evening, everyone. My name is Giselle Fong and I am a resident of the seventh District. And chair of the Building Healthy Communities, Long Beach Environmental Health Work Group. I'm commenting on this item tonight because we believe that Long Beach can be more competitive in accessing cap and trade and SB five through five funds by working with building healthy communities, Long Beach and our partner organizations. As mentioned previously, Long Beach is very, very competitive based on the indicators that are laid out in the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, grant guidelines, leverage, leveraging our expertize of our environment, of our environmental health partners and the resources of our broader collaborative will help the City of Long Beach move its current plans and priorities forward plans like the mobility and health elements, the West Long Beach Livability Plan, the Healthy Communities Policy and many, many more hold important potential for Long Beach residents who are burdened by pollution. We realize that the city staff currently have an internal table to discuss the the opportunity of cap and trade program. But a quick review of the guiding document reveals that the state of California is looking for applications that demonstrate holistic approaches to maximizing the opportunity of cap and trade and SB 535. This will require local partners, partnership with local assets, partnership like Building Healthy Communities, Long Beach City Fabric, Green Education Inc and our environmental health work group , the Long Beach Alliance for Children with Asthma, East Yard, Communities for Environmental Justice and many, many other partners. In fact, PHC and our partners have already applied. For 3.2 million in grants, but we could apply for much more and have projects that are that are comprehensively connected if we partner with the city. Our hope is that from today's motion that the city manager comes back with a recommendation to establish a collaborative table to share learning, resources, design and planning with grant writing skills. There's evidence of our partner history of partnership. For example, the partnership between city city fabric, the city of Long Beach and the Terminal Island Freeway, for example. We support the recommendation for a shared collaborative table and we are building healthy communities. Long Beach want to extend ourselves as a resource to the city and are excited about working with the city. We appreciate the leadership of the City Council for bringing this forward and also recognize the Mayor and the Council for their leadership and vision on sustainability. Thank you so much. Thank you. In public comment. That 19. Okay. Now, would you please take a vote? Motion carries seven zero. Item number 19. Communication from Councilwoman Mongeau. Councilman Austin and Councilmember Richardson. Recommendation to request City Attorney to draft a resolution in support of Assembly Bill 88. California Legislature 2015 2016. Regular Session.