Recommendation to request City Manager to provide a public briefing to Council on how the July 15th (and subsequent July 30th smaller event) major power outage was managed along with the types of communications received from SCE and also to provide updates to be discussed at the September 1st Council meeting. The briefing should include the following: • The City's current plan - Natural Hazard Mitigation Plan - 2014; • Overview of Council and City department roles and responsibilities in a crisis, emergency or disaster; • Exploration of City and legislative staff emergency response training (ex. CERT, Search and Rescue, etc.) other than what is written in the City Manager's Emergency Contact Booklet and the City employee online emergency training; and • Technology and outreach - current protocols and possibilities for future improvements.
New business item number 38, communications from Councilwoman Leena Gonzalez, Mayor Robert Garcia, Vice Mayor Susan Lowenthal and Council member Roberto Ringer. Recommendation to request City Manager to provide a public briefing on how the major power outage was managed, along with the types of communications received from SC. Councilwoman Gonzalez. Yes, I wanted to thank my council colleagues for joining me, Vice Mayor Sujatha Lowenthal and Councilmember Ranga and Councilmember Andrews as well for being a part of this. This, as many of you know in the city, was a significant event that we encountered. And although we will have a town hall this Saturday with some of our legislative representatives, I thought it was also important to bring something forward here at the city council level to understand the magnitude of what happened and also understand our current plans as it stands. So again, this is to review our natural hazard mitigation plan, an overview of our department roles as city council people, as staff members. You know, many of us have badges that say that we if a natural disaster, something happens, you know, we are the first ones that would be able to respond. So like some clarity on that and also exploration of, you know, some some of our amazing training opportunities that we already have and available. So cert, search and rescue and perhaps other training opportunities that our city staff could partake in, as well as technology and outreach. I think we did a great job on our end of getting out the information, but it'd be great to know what that is, you know, streamlined and all in one place, whether it's Twitter or our Long Beach city of Long Beach Facebook account. Nicole, how are our residents getting this information and how can we make it a little bit easier for people that may even not have technology so far through hotlines or anything else? So that's my information. I look forward for it to be coming back with with great information on how we can better serve our residents in this process. And I just want to thank our city staff again for everything that they've done. I received many phone calls through the extent the first district was hit the hardest, I think the worst in downtown. And so I just want to thank them for their diligence and their commitment to keeping us connected. So thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilman, your anger. You second that motion. Yeah. I want to thank Councilmember Gonzalez for bringing this forward and look forward to the report. Vice Mayor Lowenthal. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I want to thank Councilmember Gonzales, Councilwoman Gonzales, for. Bringing this item forward and raising the topic. I think she said it best. The recent outages were extreme, extremely difficult for our residents and our businesses. And it I, I know none of us have seen anything like this before. What I can say is that it offered us a glimpse into the necessity for our city team and community partners to review our protocols against what really happens in a time of crisis. I am oddly, it's rather awkward to say how proud I am of our city staff because these are not circumstances that we want to ever experience. But having had that glimpse and having seen what what takes place, I know that I know what our team state is capable of. And I think we all recognize and acknowledge that we're fortunate that this was not a crisis brought about by a natural disaster. So is this one of those opportunities where we don't squander a crisis, where we look at this and figure out a way to do better? We know there's room for improvement, and from our conversations with Edison management, this experience has affected their own set of protocols and communications. And I think they've learned that our community expects different things and expects more and certainly expects communication. And that's not to say I'm less than proud of our overall effort. Our residents were tremendous. I think Councilwoman Gonzalez and I and others can attest how our residents have changed have come forward. The city team, the residents, your collaboration, persistence and use of social media to communicate with a broader community. I don't think I've ever seen us operate like this, and thankfully I didn't have to because of a crisis. But I'm I'm glad that we were able to demonstrate that level of organization. But having gone through this experience with constituents and the city staff alike, I'm really interested in hearing not only from staff, but also a city manager charged with disaster and emergency preparedness about what we did right and how we can improve on things that didn't go so well. I know we had daily conversations throughout the time of the outages and now that that is behind us, hopefully behind us, we can take this opportunity to review those and improve where we can. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Councilman Mongo. I, too, want to thank Councilwoman Gonzales for bringing forward this important item as a designated disaster service worker for ten years. And we take those responsibilities very seriously, and and we get a lot of online training for those opportunities should they arise. But to be able to also look at what which of those online trainings that are given to staff members throughout the region are available for the community to take free of charge. Or I know that through some of our library card opportunities and the new mobile app with Overdrive Media, there's been a lot of connectivity in those trainings being able to be given online through our library card holders. And so I think that those are some opportunities that technology has recently brought us that I hope that will come forth in this study. So thank you for bringing this forward and I look forward to the report. And thank you, Councilman Andrews. Yes. Thank you, Mayor. I also would like to thank Councilwoman Mina for bringing this forward and the other colleagues who signed on with it. I think this is just to give a chance to show our city how well we are equipped when things really kind of go a little bad and that was going bad. So thank all those individuals who jumped in and made Long Beach Finest what they're supposed to be doing. Thank you guys again. And thank you again, Lena, for bringing this forward. Thank you. And just to be clear, I'm very supportive of this. This is great. This will a report will come back from staff on the response that we a public report to the council. Per the item on September the first. And then it's also my understanding and I just want to make sure this is clear that the staff the council retreat that we're going to have in a few a month or so, a large chunk of that is going to be about disaster preparedness and emergency response citywide. And so I'm assuming there are things we discuss, a large chunk of that would be included in the retreat, but we would also have an update on the steps to the council. Is that is that correct? Yes. From what I understand, there will be some information at the retreat. I know myself I cannot attend. So that might be a little bit of a problem for me. But I mean, nonetheless, of course, the council can. Okay. Well, we'll get information. All right. We'll coordinate that then. Okay, great. Any public comment on the item? Please cast your votes. Motion carries, etc.. Next item, please.