Recommendation to review Chapter 8.100 of the LBMC which provides for a temporary eviction moratorium and rent deferment due to the COVID-19 pandemic, consider and discuss potential changes thereto, and if necessary, direct City Attorney to prepare an ordinance amending Chapter 8.100 of the Long Beach Municipal Code. (Citywide)
Thank you. Next item, please, is going to be on the eviction moratorium discussion. 26. Communication from City Attorney. Recommendation to Review 8.100 of the Long Beach Municipal Code, which provides for a temporary eviction moratorium and rent deferment due to the COVID 19 pandemic. Consider and discuss potential changes there to and if necessary, direct city attorney to prepare an ordinance amending the chapter citywide. Okay. I don't know if we first need a. I have a I have emotion by account. Number one concern. I'm not sure if we need any type of report. If you want one council member or if you want to make some money, can you give us a little update of the agenda item? Absolutely. This is Rick Anthony. Can you hear me? Yes. Yes. Richard, we can hear you. Yes. Okay. Honorable Mayor in Council Member. As you'll recall, on May 26th, you extended the application of the current eviction moratorium through July 31st, 2020 and also extended the deferred rent repayment period through July 31st, 2021. At that time, council gave staff explicit direction to bring back an item. Council could consider potential changes to the ordinance in light of updated information regarding the COVID impacts on the economy and to check in with what state and county governments have done with respect to their eviction moratoriums and orders. So that's why we're here before you tonight to give you that opportunity as we were directed to do. And before you begin any discussion you might have regarding any possible changes to the moratorium, including a possible extension of the application of the moratorium or the rent deferral period. I want to note a couple of things. And the first is that I've received a couple of questions from a couple of council members wondering if the city moratorium were to expire. No action between now and July 31st and it expired then. Would the existing county ordinance, which also imposes an eviction moratorium, apply to any tenancy tenancies sorry, in Long Beach? And everyone, if they don't know, should know that there is an existing Los Angeles County ordinance which applies to tenancies in the unincorporated, unincorporated areas of the county. And it also applies to cities that do not have moratoriums in place, but cities that do have moratoriums in place are exempt from the county ordinance. So Long Beach currently has such a thing in place. But if it were not to come August 1st, it is not entirely clear to me that the county ordinance would for sure apply to Long Beach tenancies, and I think a lot of people are assuming that it would, and therefore the expiration of the Long Beach eviction moratorium would not have a significant impact on Long Beach tenants. I'm sorry that I don't have a clear answer for you on whether it would apply or not. It's it's I didn't have time to really bottom that out, but I just want to let everyone know we will be doing that. Our office will be doing that over the next couple of weeks, but we should not move forward. Assuming that the county ordinance would necessarily apply if the Long Beach ordinance expired. Its second thing, if it did if it did expire, I'm sorry. If it did apply. So if the Long Beach I'm sorry, the Long Beach City ordinance expired and the county ordinance did apply, it wouldn't necessarily cover all of the tenancies that the city one did, because while the ordinances are very similar to one another, they are not exactly the same. And that might lead to some incompatible application of the two ordinances to the same tenancy. One would be covered in, one wouldn't, which would be legal, but it would be odd and maybe a bit cumbersome. The second thing I wanted to note, and this is noted, I think in the letter and this is the final note I'll make is that Governor Newsom recently extended one of his executive orders, which suspends the application of certain state laws which would prohibit cities from enacting eviction moratoriums. In short, any city in the state can but is not obligated to extend its eviction moratorium through September 30th of this year, subject to further executive orders. And with that, I'm happy to take any questions and look forward to the discussion. Thank you, Councilman Richardson. Thanks, Mr. Mayor. Just first, thanks to city staff. City Council asked that a periodic basis before the eviction moratorium expire that you have not given us an opportunity to weigh in on what we want to do so we don't have to continue what's not on the agenda ourselves. My thoughts here are that we've moved in alignment with L.A. County. I want to thank you for the excellent explanation of what the county is doing. I want to what I think the right thing to do here in this place is engage with the county directly, see what they're going to do if they take action or don't take action. I want to hear from from Mr. Mayor that we can, if needed, we can pull a special meeting together at a later date, within this month, prior to the end of the moratorium, to take action if we need to in terms of aligning with the county. Mr. Mayor, is that something that we can do? Yeah. We'll be having a special meeting later this month, to my perspective, to address the oil tax burial tax measure as well. So there will be a special meeting and an opportunity of the council wants to take action later this month. I think that makes I think that makes sense and gives us some time to engage. Because, you know, when you have the conversation about if they moratoriums the it triggers the conversation about extended repayment periods and resources this so a large conversation that we need to make sure that we're we're in alignment with the county. I would say that's the direction we should go and that would be my motion receive on file this tonight we're engaged to see where the county's going and then come back, you know, at a later date, you know, prior to end of the month so we can take action. Thank you. That's the motion. There's a second by Councilmember Pearce. Councilor Pearce. Thank you, Mayor. I agree with this direction. I know that we've had a lot of conversations. I would want to make sure that the motion is very clear, that it's been filed, a staff report today, and that it's directing the city attorney to prepare an ordinance for council consideration in late July, which would amend our muni code at that time. And so I definitely want to make sure that that's just clear. Councilmember Richardson, is that clear that something. Is if what I want to make sure is city staff or rich city attorney. So when we say I'll come back at a later date with, you know, perhaps a special meeting for the in the month. The idea is if we're going to take action to expand the urgency ordinance, we want it noticed. In that way, we can go into effect immediately. That makes sense. Yes. This is rich. So what I want to make sure I do get before I don't I don't know what I'm bringing back exactly in the very end of July. So I would like to get I mean, I think I know, but I don't want to guess. I want the council to give me explicit direction on what you expect to see in the ordinance that I bring back. So I'm afraid and I know no one likes to hear this just because it makes it just start up agenda items. But I think we need to agenda items. At some point we're going to need a discussion and direction given to the city attorney's office to bring back an ordinance with specific detail on what you want to see in that ordinance. And then the second meeting hopefully will be a quick one, because I'll bring back exactly what you told me to bring back, and then you will actually have an up or down vote on that ordinance. You don't have to give me the specific instruction tonight, but I'm afraid that you will have to give me specific instruction, perhaps on July 14, assuming I think I know there's no meeting on the 21st. And so I need we're going to have to have that conversation at some point before the special meeting on July, whatever it's going to be. 28, 29, 30th. Okay. I believe I still have the the floor, so I will. You know, I went straight into the motion. I want to say that, you know, the county might extend. They might not extend. It's important, as Councilmember Richardson says, that we go along with it. I know that there's, you know, a. Different opinions of whether we should move forward or not or how we move forward. I think that a lot of us in the community and on the council are exhausted about bringing these items forward. And we have to have two votes every council, every time that we bring it forward every month. And it would be my hope that we would be able to act swiftly, act in a manner that gives the city attorney direct, you know, direction, that says just come back at the end of the month so that we know what the county is doing and align it at the end of the month with the county. And we can vote at that time whether we move forward or not, bringing something on the 14th, then at the end of the month, then another reading at the beginning of the following month. It's just a lot. And I know that I've talked to people, you know, like Jeremy Harris at the Chamber as well as some of our other community members. And a lot of folks, I think, would appreciate a simpler process as we continue to move forward this crisis. So, you know, I I know that Councilmember Richardson has spoke at this point, that I really would encourage us to be able to give clear direction to the city attorney, as he's asking, so that we can set up that next process and not have eight more meetings about it. So I might queue up again. I'm curious to hear what my council colleagues have to say. Thank you. Thank you. Before I before I continue, just wanted to clarify. So, I mean, the way I interpret Councilman Richardson's motion is to receive and file and to then obviously continue engaging with the county to assess what the county's next step is going to be. And, of course, keeping in mind that if the county moves in a certain direction, there's got to be enough time for the council to react. If the council chooses to make a policy decision based on any additional action the county the county would take. And obviously we would work with the attorney or anything else to give the council the opportunity to do that. And so Mr. Anthony obviously will ensure that that happens. But I understand the motion that's being made, which is to receive and file and to give us time to see what what happens over the next few weeks with the county. So let me go out to Councilman. I think you're right, Mr. Mayor. I think that's pretty simple and straightforward what you just described. That's that's the idea. You know, once we understand what they're going to do, we do have time to come back and do it by the end of the month, which is the spirit of why we ask staff to come back and do this update. It puts us in a position to think about how we want to move forward. If council wants to go a different direction, that's that. But I think what you articulated, that's what that's the process that I think we should take. CEP is counsel, among other. Thank you. Hi. Sorry it took me a long time to unmute with the double button push thing. I think you could. Mr. Anthony, could you explain the difference by date of the variance currently between the county and the city of Orange? I'm sorry. Did you say by date? Yes. There there is ends when and their repayment period is until when. There's ends on July 31st. Same as the city of Long Beach is does I think it's widely anticipated that the board of Supervisors will extend that? I don't know how far I think people are getting to August 31st, but that's not going to happen in the end of the month. And I'm not sure on the specifics of the ordinances repayment period. To be honest, talking about the count. So we are currently in alignment with the county with the July 31st date. With respect to date, correct. Susan. And would you say that you mentioned specifically that there are different things that are covered? Do you can you outline any of the contingencies that are covered under there that are not covered under. Sure. Or vice versa. I can give you some examples. And one of which is in the dependencies in the tidelands, as you'll recall, commercial tenancies in our tidelands are not covered by the ordinance, and they would be covered, in my opinion, by the county ordinance. Assuming that it's not more than 500 employees and the county has similar exemptions along those lines, multinational companies, companies with more than X number of employees. But we have a tidelands exemption. We also have an airport exemption. I don't believe the county has either of those. Those would be important. Okay. That helps me a lot. I would only ask just from a procedural standpoint, Mr. Richardson. Would it make more sense to, instead of receiving a file today, carrying this over to the July 14th meeting, then to Mr. Pierce's point, there wouldn't have to be any agenda by a staff member. It would already be ready to go. So just just a thought from a procedural standpoint of that for you that you hear that analogy. And then at that time, if it's not ready, we could just take a single vote to carry it over to the 21st or 28th or whatever happens. That's just a thought. Other than that, I appreciate the presentation and the report, and I think those are very notable variances that could be important to distinguish how we handle them locally. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman Sunday House. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Councilmember Richardson. I as you know, I am a renter here as well in Long Beach. And these times are very uncertain. So I can just imagine the difficulty it is right now for tens, maybe thousands of residents here in Long Beach. So I just wanted to say that I support the motion on the floor as it is right now and that we come back to. To to do this in a quick way. We also need to recognize that this is this is a crisis, and this crisis is certainly not over. Just last few weeks, we have seen our our reopening process needed to scale back because of this. This is not the numbers that are that we would like to be seen as far as COVID 19 goes. And it's just, you know, we don't know what the what the future near future holds for us. So the better the faster we can get this approved and extended hopefully and aligned with the counties, the better, because we really are facing some very uncertain times right now. Clearly there's there's an incredible need for assistance in our community. And we need to find those solutions to help without, you know, just simply being able to be there and create policy that helps them. And this is going to be a way of doing that. I'm so very grateful to the rental assistance programs that we have developed through the city. And I you know, I'm really happy about that, but I also am realistic about it in that it's only helping a very small percentage of those people, those residents that are in much need in our community right now. So, again, thank you for the work you've already done on this city staff and the work that you are going to be doing in the next couple weeks to bring something forward to us so that we can have a vote. Thank you very much. Thank you. And Councilman Soprano. Thank you. During our last discussion of this topic, Assistant City Manager Linda Tatum was going to research funding from the CARES Act that would, I think, provide for a 50% program to pay for deferred rent. If if there's an update on that, I'd like to hear it now or at least bring that item back to our next discussion. Also. Councilman Supermom. This is Linda Tatum and we are working on a TFF that will provide an update on that. Those additional funding sources are not committed funding sources or better yet, we understand that we will be getting them, but we don't have a timeline for those additional sources. So we are going to, in the TFF per vote, provide an alternative to address the matching issue that we talked about during that last council meeting and that TFF will be coming back, I want to say, next week. Okay. Thanks. Thank you. That concludes council comment. Let's go to Republican. Our first speaker is Seagrams. Your time starts now. District three. It seems like there's a lot of talk going on, but very little action. Conversations are in the making are going to be happening. But this is stated as a temporary eviction moratorium and rent deferment. And we need a permanent eviction moratorium and rent deferment. When you're in these conversations, I hope you consider the demands of the people. Which is. Cancel evictions, cancel rent, defund the police, and pay the people's rent. Get us out of this hole they all created, maybe not created. These problems were definitely created by greedy forefathers, but you perpetrate them. No. You. Yeah. And it is your job to create the solution. So September 30 sounds all good, but we need a permanent eviction moratorium and rent deferment. We need it past September 30. We need it until people are back to work, until we have a health care system that can support all people, until our house people and house people are housed. So consider that when you're in these conversations. Thank you so much. And I see you next week. Thank you. Our next speaker is Joshua Christian. Your time starts now. Good evening, Mr. Mayor. Members of the council, I think I've begun. So, first of all, to say that we don't support the motion to table this debate and that we prefer it be resolved sooner rather than later. I'm going to start getting panicked phone calls from tenants this week asking what's going on August 1st? And I'd like to have an answer for those people quickly. But either way, let me let me talk about what we'd like to see in the final version of the ordinance. There are gaps in the eviction moratorium. They're preventing renters from enjoying substantial protections that are available at the county level. We've seen no abatement in no fault. 60 day notices issued to renters. And we've seen a substantial increase in, honestly, very startling incidences of landlord and tenant harassment. And both of those are banned at the county level, but neither was included in the Long Beach moratorium. Now it's our opinion that the simplest way to deal with that is simply to let the Long Beach moratorium expire, at which point the counties will kick in. You know, the foundation believes that that is clearly what will happen. So we have a disagreement with Mr. Anthony on that point, although we we entirely respect his opinion, of course. So if if the moratorium is not permitted to expire, then I'm going to urge the Council to consider introducing amendments to the Long Beach Ordinance. There was no way to predict several months ago exactly how serious this problem was going to be. But it is very important that tenants have these protections on the ground experiences showing that it's a real problem. Regardless, I request that a final ordinance extend the eviction moratorium to September 30th, which will align it with the governor's moratorium , which he just signed, the executive order that was signed on June 30th. Two weeks ago, I testified here, and I mentioned UCLA's prediction that 120,000 renters are going to experience homelessness in the next year because of the pandemic. That number came out after eviction moratoriums were in place. So that wave is coming. So jurisdictions that choose to end their moratorium sooner are simply inviting that wave of evictions and homelessness sooner. So most of those newly homeless individuals are going to be from vulnerable communities, low income communities, and especially communities of color. The Census Bureau reported that 43% of black renters nationally were having either little or no confidence that they would make rent in July. The number was the same for Latino renters, 43% of renters, there were 20% who had the same concerns within the white community. And that is that's within the national numbers. So it does not account for a community as diverse or as a renter impacted or as coded impacted as as Long Beach. Thank you. Next, we have Mike Martinson. Your time starts now. Good evening. Gary, the mayor and council members on behalf of rental property owners, I urge you to look at other options before you extend the eviction moratorium later on this month. You know, we've been going round and round with this, and it would seem to me that there may be another alternative in that we get this into like a subcommittee, either housing or economic development, so we can start looking at creative ideas to try to resolve this. The one thing I do know is there's no evictions going on right now, and there's none this year in California. Judicial Council has already come out and said the civil courts are not taking unlawful detainer cases. So this talk about evictions occurring right now, it's not accurate. It's not real. So we need to come up with something else. I'm concerned on behalf of property owners that while we support Rex Richardson's idea of getting CARES act money to pay 50% of the deferred rent that are owed, that's what the assumption that there's no strings attached, i.e. income levels. As for the assumption that the tenants going to pay 50% of the deferred rent, whatever that amount is. Those are great assumptions, but that's what they are assumptions. So we need something a little bit more definitive. We need something to give some kind of mortgage relief. We darn well know that the city is not in a legal position to forgive rents. There's this talk going around town that the city council, the county, the state can forgive rent. They cannot forgive rent. To my knowledge, the only person to forgive rent the federal government. So unless the federal government decides to chime in and forgive rent and forgive mortgage payments, it's all stuck on the landlords. So I just urge you to come up with some kind of creative solution in the interim, prior to the 29th Council meeting, set up a subcommittee meeting, set up an opportunity to discuss this through, see what else we can come up with. Landlords are willing to come to the table and come up with creative solutions while this is going on. Thank. You. Thank you. That concludes public comment for this item. Thanks. I just want to make one quick clarifying point. I just it's been mentioned and I talked about this with our city attorney today as well. There was a public comment and I've heard other comments about whether or not we would align with the county. And I know that our city attorney has an opinion on that. I think I think that we'll have an opportunity also to make some clarifications on that over the next few days. I know that the county might have one opinion and we might have another and certain groups might have a different opinion out there. And so I think there's also just gives us an opportunity to kind of clear some of that over the next few days. And the county is going to be having some discussions as well. And so I would encourage us to use the next week or so to get some of that clarity and just make sure we're on the same page with L.A. County, because there is some difference of opinion about what about whether or not we should just have ours expire and whether or not that county would kick in. So I appreciate your opinion, Mr. Anthony, and we'll go ahead and go to a vote. There are about one clarifying question, please. We go to the queue or your queue? Okay, go ahead. Here. Thank you. Yes, I appreciate the explanation. As I mentioned, we did a lot of conversations today about what would be covered in the county and not. And I just want to stay on the record so that we recognize one of the areas that I'm was told that would not be covered if we weren't with the county are the entities that we left out of the business part, which would be our port or tidelands and our airport. So I just want to recognize that while I wholeheartedly have talked for five days about going with the county, that when that information was brought up, it raising concerns for me, which is why I was supportive of the motion to give direction to come back with the county. To be clear on timeline, I think there were public comments concerned around clarity when the council would take action and the city attorney wanting direction sooner rather than later. So should we assume that this item will be on next week's agenda? Because the next county meeting is on the 28th and I know that we're having a special on that, but if we don't get clear direction today, we need to do that before the 28th, correct? Yeah. This, right, Anthony? Yes, I would like that. Clear direction before the tape. I assume you should assume that it might come back in a week. I think the mayor and I won't speak for the mayor, but I think I think there is value in in doing some fact finding, talking to the county and allowing our office to do a little more research. If we can get a better opinion and a more clear opinion on whether or not the county ordinance would apply to Long Beach in the event that the city ordinance expires. I appreciate that. So that's. I just wanted to make sure before we went to a vote that we were clear that you needed to have some of that direction. I appreciate the time and recognize that today we we all felt like every half hour the facts were changing. So I appreciate this and support this motion. Thank you. Councilman Mongo. Councilman Bango. Then you hear me? Now we can. Yes. And we're going to go to a vote. Okay. So one thing I would like to say is if we do find out that the counties would take over and the county is considering an extension, I think it's important for us to advocate for the similar exemptions of the tidelands, the airport and the. I can't think of one right the second so that we don't lose a lot of those federal grants in the airport area at least. But that was one of the reasons that I was a part of it. And then I just have some hesitation. One of the biggest Tidelands clients has a conflict of interest with one councilmember. And so maybe if we could make sure that the other eight of us are the ones doing the advocacy with the county on that specific thing, I think that that would be the most appropriate way to handle that next. I think it, Councilwoman, and I think that the exemption question was brought up that you just brought up also. Absolutely. I think that's something we have to work out. You know, those are important to this body. So with that, we would go ahead and take a vote and do a roll call. District one. I. District to. My. District to. I am District three I. District fourth. I. District five. I. District six. All right. District seven. I. District eight. I District nine. I. Motion carries. Okay. Thank you. Next step is item 14. You know. I'm sorry, Adam. 15.