Recommendation to adopt resolution authorizing City Manager, or designee, to execute a contract, and any necessary amendments, with SCI Consulting Group, of Fairfield, CA, to study the feasibility of establishing a benefit assessment for vector control services, in an amount not to exceed $200,000, for a period of one year, with the option to renew for two additional one-year periods, at the discretion of the City Manager.  (Citywide)
Thank you. Senior morning comments which placed catchable. And now she can substitute motion. Right. Thank you. Okay. Let's go down to item 21, 22. Excuse me. Item 22 Report from Health and Human Services recommendation to adopt a resolution to execute a contract with SDI Consulting Group to study the feasibility of establishing a benefit assessment for vector control services in an amount not to exceed 200,000 citywide. Well, probably coming from this item. Mr. Vice Mayor, council members, this is something we've been talking about for about the past five years. And Health and Human Services. To help them regarding their budget, which gets pretty tight. So we're asking permission to look into this program and come back to the city council with results. I'm going to turn this over to Kelly Collopy and Nelson Kerr. Good evening. Honorable vice mayor and council members. I'm going to ask Nelson Kerr, who's our bureau manager for Environmental Health, to share a little bit about the program that we're going to be moving forward with and that consultant, and then we'll be open for questions. Okay. Thank you. The item before you tonight, council is a request for approval for the Health Department to enter into a contract with the engineering consulting group SCA. The purpose of the agreement is to study the feasibility of establishing a benefit assessment to fund vector control services in parts of the city that are not currently covered by a benefit assessment. This area represents over 60% of our city, including areas in north Long Beach, west, Long Beach, south and southeast Long Beach. And there should be a map attached with your item. And you can also note that the whole East Side is covered by Greater Los Angeles Vector Control District. To be clear, the order before you tonight is wanting to explore the level of support among parcel owners for such a benefit assessment. And we would need a simple majority from those folks eventually to approve it. We will return to council with a recommendation on whether or not to move forward within 3 to 6 months. Just a little bit of background. As our world becomes more connected, we are seeing more new vector borne diseases that have been previously unseen in Southern California. We're seeing these diseases emerge, such as West Nile virus, Zika, and now again with Saint Louis encephalitis. Just recently, the developments of emerging vectors and diseases reinforce the need for a sound public health vector, public health oriented vector control programs to protect our most vulnerable residents against these emerging diseases are emerging vector control issues are more resource intensive and require highly specific approaches that tend to be more labor intensive and research focused and past issues that we've dealt with. For example, addressing the AIDS aegypti mosquito that we've recently discovered in Long Beach required door to door education and outreach and in certain impacted neighborhoods as well as extra staff. Time for researching new approaches to address these new threats. The benefit assessment, if if supported, eventually would provide Long Beach Health Department's vector control program with a sustainable and dedicated source of funding for a stable and long term comprehensive vector control program. If there is adequate support, the General Fund and Health Fund would save a significant amount of revenue which could be freed up for other uses . And vector control in Long Beach would have a dedicated and sustainable funding source to guarantee sustained services to protect our residents and visitors from these emerging diseases. This concludes my report. Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilwoman Pierce. Thank you. I want to thank staff for their work on this. I know it was an area that I was not well-educated on before having my briefing with, uh, with our director of our health department and looking at the map, I think it is really eye opening to see how much of our city is not covered by the county. And so I fully support, you know, this discussion and moving forward with this. I wanted to ask, you know, should this happen, should this go forward? And they assess what what do you see possible for our for the budget, for the health department. I know we talked briefly about this. I guess I understand that it would free up some moneys in our health department. Well, that's a good question. And the the engineering firm that we're working with will be conducting what we call a scientific survey, and that will determine the level of support among the parcel owners. And depending on what level that is, these these benefit assessments for vector control are generally inexpensive, running between ten and $20 per year. So if we were to we have about 100,000 parcels in play here. So we would if it was a low amount of support, we could maintain our program status quo, but we would have a sustained funding source and it would also free up money from the health fund where they wouldn't need to support our vector control program anymore to the tune of approximately $500,000. Okay, great. Thank you for that. Appreciate it. Thank you. Councilman Richardson. Thank you, Vice Mayor. So is the idea that you would pull areas that don't already have a vector control district or if you have overlapping vector control districts, will still pull those areas as well. This would be this would be only. For those areas that are not currently covered by the Los Angeles area district. So Ann Compton as well. So those two are already covered and we would cover the remaining. Okay. And I was going to raise up the Compton Creek Mosquito Abatement District. I didn't hear that earlier. So and I'm curious to know which area. I know that North Palm Beach has the Compton Creek Mosquito Abatement District. I know that we appoint a representative there. I know that I receive outreach from them. But I'm curious to know how much of North Long Beach is in that district or would be in the city potentially this district? In theory, I think this is smart to, number one, acknowledge that we have a health department and we need to take steps to to engage them so they can better inform our residents on how to how to remain safe. I think that makes sense. I also think, you know, with our ongoing conversation about identifying structural ways to support the health department in its work, I think this makes sense. And I think finally, this is a smart approach to engage in the scientific survey to see if it's even feasible for all of those reasons. This is smart and I support it. Thanks. Councilmember, to answer your question. Compton Creek covers the extreme north west corner, which we would call the coolies triangle. About maybe about 10,000 people in that area are covered by Compton Creek, which is just a very small portion of the Compton Creek Creek. Mosquito Abatement District. Clarification. It's not just the coolest triangle that the coolest triangle. That means you get the College Square Star King and Longwood Neighborhoods. Just want to be clear on that. That's three neighborhoods, four neighborhoods, things. When it comes to immigration. Okay, fine. I know I'm asking either, sir. Yeah, I'm fine. Okay. WOMAN Yes. Nearly all of the fifth district is already covered by L.A. County. And so I'm not really. For or against this at any time, but I will support the item for the feasibility study. But it would not impact that district. It would actually. Currently, the fifth district is paying for vector control and receiving vector control. And so it's almost as if you don't do this. The Fifth District's actually double taxed. So things. Huntsman Soprano responded to that last comment. The fourth District is a little more complicated. The border between Long Beach and L.A. County is Lakewood Boulevard and then PCH from South, a traffic circle. So about splits the fourth District in half. So I'm just curious. So. Mr. Kirk so so the the county system doesn't get changed at all or we wouldn't even have the authority to do that. So this Long Beach. Well, the results of the study show that we'll have a similar system to L.A. County's. Ah, how does it work? Yes, the. The services would be large, largely similar. However, we would have some as a health department, we would have some expanded services in our assessment area. However, we would also provide those same services in the greater L.A. area. Any any service that Greater L.A. doesn't cover, we would cover in greater Los area. My next question is, does it make sense to have these dueling systems if we're going to convert part of Long Beach, this is it. We just don't want to bite off that much at this point. The in order to have the city health department cover the entire city, it would be a very complex process involving LaRocco in a changing of district borders. And I don't know that there's an appetite with greater Los Angeles or Compton Creek at this point, but perhaps we could discuss that at a later date once we get our assessment done. Okay. Thank you. Yes. This comes from last year. Thank you so much and I appreciate the great questions. I'm going to be supporting this item because I think it's it's as Councilmember Richardson said, it's smart for us to at least look at this. I do have a question regarding a comment made earlier regarding the how are vector control program is currently the current cost and the impact of on the general fund. What are we looking at in terms of general fund today? So currently the. The vector work is funded through our Health Department's Realignment. Fund. So that is that that is a. Small portion of funding that we receive. From state that we. Utilize for all services not covered through grants so that the current budget for us that is about. 50 little. Over half million dollars. In addition and then in the general fund is another approximately. $100,000. That we that is. Build back to the general fund for certain services requested by the department. Okay. And then I was just going to add that, that if we were to achieve the benefit assessment, we would no longer need to charge those services to the general fund. So the general fund would realize that $100,000 savings. Great into councilmember supernovas. Just to follow up on his point regarding the the county, obviously, you know, we prefer local control, but I'd like to at least understand what the what the options would look like. I mean, if if that was an expanded service with L.A. County for for the taxpayers. Right. We want to make sure that they are getting the biggest bang for their buck with the and the bottom line is, it's it's the delivery of services. And so I really I mean, his question was was was a good one. I think it should be explored as well, but I'll be supporting this item. Thank you very much. Is there any more any or no, any more that any public comments on this item? If not, would you please cast your vote? Motion carries. Item 24. 23. Excuse me, I'm 23.