Recommendation to increase appropriations in the Capital Projects Fund Group (Capital Projects Grant Fund) in the Public Works Department by $1,900,000 for the Shoreline Drive Realignment Project, offset by Measure R funds from the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MR306.60); and Increase appropriations in the Capital Projects Fund Group in the Public Works Department by $1,900,000 for the Shoreline Drive Realignment Project, offset by transfer of Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority Measure R funds from the Capital Project Grant Fund. (District 1)
Thank you. Let me go to item 23. Report from Public Works recommendation to increase appropriations in the Capital Projects Fund Group and the Public Works Department by 1,900,000 for the Shoreline Drive Realignment Project, offset by Measure R funds from the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority District one. Can I get a motion in a second, please? Motion by councilmembers and they have seconded Councilmember Austin. This is a pretty, pretty significant project. And Mr. Monica, do you want to have just to kind of briefly share what we're doing here? Yes. Eric Lopez will give the staff report. Thank you. So staff is is happy to announce that we are in the process of receiving additional funding for the realignment of Shoreline Drive. This is part of the Early Action Project. 17 early action projects are related to that. Shoemaker Bridge Rebuild. The realignment from Shoreline Drive is the first major phase of kind of our new gateway westward and then try to and and so we received grant funding in the past we got some more that will help us complete the engineering design and helps and help prepare us to request that future funding now for construction. So this is a really big project, one of our bigger projects in the area and we're really excited to continue moving forward. Thank you, council members and perhaps any comments? Yes, thank you, Mayor. I just cannot express how excited I am about this project. This will enhance and revitalize the area near our beloved Cesar Chavez Park Islam. Absolutely love this vision. There are many details and different components to making this vision come true. Thank you. Thank you, Director Lopez, for your comments. And thank you for all the hard work that you've been doing along with the team and everybody involved. I am really looking forward to seeing this this item come alive. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Austin. Thank you. And this is really. Really amazing to see it come to fruition. I had a great pleasure working on the campaign for Measure. It's been a lot of sweat equity to get that measure passed in to see that that that those funds. Now, literally ten years later or more coming into the city of Long Beach, making our our our downtown more accessible. The Shoemaker Bridge Project, the Shoreline Drive realignment projects were all listed as potential early action product projects for several years. And so, you know, working with the Gateway Cities Council, the government through that that body to see this, this these funds are being appropriated, something that certainly I'm happy to support and I would encourage our colleagues to do as well. This is all good for our downtown, our economic development goals, but also make our city more accessible for for visitors. Thank you. Thank you. Just just what is really public. I mean, first. If any members of the public would like to speak on this item, please, you just raise a hand feature or press star nine. See none. That concludes our comment. Thank you. I do have a couple questions. So this is just for staff. So obviously incredibly supportive of this project. Of course, I've been following it since I joined the council and very active and in the development with the community early on. And want to ask Mr. Lopez or anyone. Obviously this project has a lot to to also to do with our Schumacher Bridge project and all of the other smaller early action projects that we have happening in that area from a construction perspective. Mr. Lopez. Remind me again, as far as the Shoemaker Bridge Project, how far away or where we are from fully funding that that project. The shoemaker bristles. Yes, Mayor. So the shoemaker bridge rebuild. If that's the design, the engineering, the design is fully funded. So we're working with Caltrans on the design. We're going through our process. We hope to be ready in the next couple of months to really bring forward the latest design proposal, proposals to the community. But but the design is fully funded. We have to reach a milestone, a certain percentage milestone in the engineering to be able to make a request for construction funding. But because it is an early action project, we really feel good about about securing the construction funding as part of our standard process, working with the state and the federal government. And I just want to, again, just uplift that. The time to get this funding is now right. I mean, the infrastructure money for this project that qualifies for top of federal funding for the infrastructure bill is right now. And so us making sure that we are prepared to receive that funding and are aggressively lobbying for it in D.C. with our with our team is really, really important. And so I know that obviously you're all aware of this and you're on this, but I just really want to hope that we're really pushing hard. I mean, we we pushed hard outside the normal system to get the port, the $51 million that we got for the fair for Pier B and the rail extension. We got the largest grant in that first infrastructure cycle for for the port. And I'm hoping that we do the same for this project and others. And so I just hope that we're doing more than just the regular checking the boxes on on the on the applications here and there and that we're being aggressive. Secondly, on this part of the project, Mr. Lopez, which is the Shoreline Drive realignment. When do you actually think we're going to actually see construction? Oh, at the, at the current schedule, we, we are looking at starting construction in the next 12 to 15 months. So we got to finish the design. We have to make our formal request for construction funding and and then we've got to gear up and go through the normal bidding process in order to kick out that construction. But it could be as close to 12 to 15 months as our current estimate. And what what percent. I know that a big percentage of the funds for this project are the county or county, and are we doing a county state funded combination or what's the biggest piece of the funding? May we expect a combination of state and federal funds. We actually think this this realignment project and Shumaker are going to be very competitive with the recently approved, approved Federal Infrastructure Fund. And so we're coordinating with Caltrans and the local groups to ensure that when the opportunities are actually there to apply for funding. This is one of the top regional projects that we push forward. So at the end of the day, I really think it's going to be a combination of both state and federal funds. What federal funds being the bigger chunk? And okay you said that the designed to be ready soon for for this for all of this project. When do you think that will will be will be done. So the first part of the project will be the design of a short realignment. So that design will be done within the next 8 to 12 months. So that gets us through shortly. Great. Okay, great. Great update. Thank you all very much. Roll call. Vote, please, Madam Park. District one. I district to. My. District three. I district for. My. District five. I agree. District six. I. District seven. District eight. By. District nine. I motion is carried. I think someone asked for a public comment. We did take public comment on that. That is correct. Great. Next the next item will be let's go through the four ordinances. And then we have we do have a report for the an end of year budget performance. So let's kind of quickly go to the first reading of the ordinances and then we'll go back to our final item.