Recommendation to request a series of public safety measures designed to proactively address this public safety concern: 1. Request City Attorney to draft an ordinance requiring the following: All hotel and lodging employers, to include motels, shall provide an emergency contact device, often referred to as a panic button to each hotel employee assigned to work in a guest room or other space without other hotel employees present, regardless of job classification, at no cost to the hotel employee. A hotel employee may use the emergency contact device if the hotel employee reasonably believes there is an ongoing crime, threatening behavior, unwanted physical or verbal contact, or other emergency in the employee's presence. The hotel or lodging employee may cease work and leave the immediate area of danger to await the arrival of assistance. The hotel or lodging must allow guest room doors to be left open during cleaning. The hotel or lodging must also allow any employee reporting abusive or concerning behavior to be reassigned to a different area, away f
I don't think he's ready yet. Okay. All right. Let's move on to the next item, please. Oh, maybe they already. Tom, did you guys have it ready or. No? Okay, let me go. Let me keep going with two more items. So let me just keep going. Item 26. Please. Communication from Councilwoman Price. Councilwoman Mingo. Vice Mayor Andrew's Councilman Austin. Recommendation to request a series of public safety measures designed to proactively address hotel worker safety concerns. Thank you, Councilman Price. Thank you. So these recommendations were actually drafted in November 2017, but I didn't bring them at that time. They followed a an October 2017 public safety meeting where we had a presentation from Long Beach PD and others regarding some of the measures that we felt were responsive to the comments that we had heard at the September 2017 council meeting. And then we most recently heard a lot of similar comments. So the item actually speaks for itself. I'm not going to go into it in too much detail as it is late in the morning, in the night, early in the morning. But I'd ask my colleagues to support this measure. I think it's prudent and frankly, it addresses concerns that have been brought directly to the council and expands upon them. Thanks. Oh, I would ask that recommendation number four be removed because my understanding is that although it's not asking for the responding officer to be female, but that the officer taking the call be female, that that does present some resource limitations for our police department and serious that that's certainly not our intent. So we'd ask that it be approved absent number four. Thanks. Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilman, Mongo. I appreciate that the entire council has consistently said that they support this, so it makes sense to bring it. Thank you, Council Member Pearce. I really wish it wasn't 1230. So can we go. To public comment? We have some people here first and then we can speak. Let me just first make the motion. Councilman Price, we came with it. Of course, the soup can't do public comment, so please come forward. Hello. Just a conclusion because it's just two folks. Great to see you. Okay, great speaker this close. Hello. My name is Zoe Nicholson. I live in Rose Park. I happen to be one of the three proponents of Measure WW. I'm going to briefly recap my understanding of what's happened so far. We spent four years discussing the protections for our hotel housekeepers, and over the last 13 months there were two failed voting rounds 5 to 4 against labor protections of ours, weight limits and square footage. Secondly. Decisions around sexual assault protections, specifically supported emergency alarms and working in pairs. So we did what we had to do after those failed votes. We spent 55 days collecting 46,000 votes. Just to show you that we're serious about this. The city of Long Beach counted those 46,000 votes. I was there most days as they did so those then went up to our Saint Louis County where the signatures were validated. They were able to stop at 43,000 plus because that's all that was required. This is a matter of record who voted against it. For those five people have registered and asked for this new ordinance. Here's my offer to you. Join us. Join us. Let's do what's right. Let's support labor protections. Let's support square footage protections. This is the week of Labor Day, after all. Let's do more than unsupported panic buttons. I've read this proposal several times. It says nothing about who's answering that call. But in fact, ordinance WW. Does. So I welcome you. Councilman Price. Councilman Mongo. Councilman. Deandra is vice mayor. I beg your pardon? And Councilmember Allyson, we'd be happy to welcome you to support the proposition that will be on the November six ballot signed by 43,000 members of the Lambert community, which, by the way, is more than voted in the last voting round. And let this go. This last ditch effort to be recognized that you care. Join us. We really care. Thank you. Thank you. NICHOLSON Next speaker, please. Our last speaker on this. Welcome back to the council. Dave Shukla on file. This is not my issue. Climate change, I believe, is a is a generative issue in the most fundamental sense. But since I was here for the hearing a few weeks ago and had to leave the room because I was shocked at the level of racism and outright. Castro. How do you say that word? Because you history case based reasoning, moral equivalency, equivocation there words for things. The whole point of. This effort, as I've seen it unfold in this town that I grew up in. With some of the people who like me, who look like me, would actually be the kids working some of the hotels and motels in question that are, as an industry, being asked to bear the brunt of a very. Specific set of players. Structural problems. If you don't include, for instance, square footage, you don't include work ratios, you don't include how structurally some people who are given sweetheart deals on land and all the rest that we all know the game with don't run the hotels very well. How do you expect an Indian kid respect defender, a shukla's son to look you in the eye? I mean, I mean, you'd literally be giving me or my most some of my friends a panic button to do what? Like tell our parents that somebody, you know, who you know, like, let's say in the nineties when all those bases closed and we didn't have that conversation about the peace dividend. That we should have. You know, we had epidemic levels of syphilis and gonorrhea and some of those people were having real problems and, you know, mental health, whatever you want to call it. Those would be the people who you'd have to ask your parents about, like, hey, you know, is it all right that they're walking by and causing problems for people here? I mean, there's all kinds of issues that people in storefronts in many parts of town see because they're externalized literally onto their doorstep. And some of them directly. Have to do with which players get to have which say at what time of day or night. I mean, for a town that wants to say. That we're making progress on women's issues in a town where we still have to like police ourselves, that rapists don't play. Beloved venues. Atonement has so many rape kids circuits just sitting around. I mean, please. How much longer are you going to tout yourselves as a place you want tourists to come, people to start new families, and you're not going to protect them at the most basic level. That's so obvious. Thank you. That concludes public comment. Let me go back to I guess I think it was that Councilmember Pearce who was speaking. So did you. I see you did. You were. But I'll speak. Well, you have you had the floor. So let me go back to you. Okay. So I think I want to take off from the conversation that that the comments that Zoe made. While I appreciate and I know there's been lots of conversations around, hey, we should make it for everybody. You know, I think that that is is a conversation that is a valid conversation. I have to go through this process where we ask, how do we end up here today after having it put on the supplemental and on a Labor Day weekend where none of us found out about it until yesterday? I have to ask the questions around how many of these hotels that are 50 rooms or less were outreach to my staff spent the day outreaching to 12 hotels in my district just to find out if there had been any community engagement through this process ever since 20. You know, what was that 2014 that we started talking about this policy, 2015, 2016 when it came here. The members of this council said we need more time. We need to engage more. The members of this council two weeks ago asked for a financial study so that we can look at the impacts. And then two weeks later, without that financial study or directing the city attorney to go forward with an ordinance. So for me, I'm struggling today with this item being what appears to be politics, playing with what hotel workers lives. And I know that that might not be the intention of some of the council members, but that's how it feels when it's done in this way after having two years of debate over it. So I have to get that part out because when I saw the item, I was personally offended at all the work that we have done and how far I thought we had come. And so I, I have to just put that out there first to say that I feel like we have been trying to get to a place of of healing and recognizing that the voters are going to vote on something. And in my mind, the best way to move forward would be let the voters vote on it, because God knows we've done the work. And then, too, after we get the financial report and after they the voters vote, that then we can say, okay, now let's apply this policy that's appropriate. So hotels of 50 rooms or less. So I have questions. Has any communication outreach been done with hotels of 50 rooms or less? Does this policy, the way that it's worded and leaves it vague, does it include Airbnbs? Does it include bed and breakfast? So those are my first two questions. Okay. So I think there's questions. I can ask all the questions or we can have a dialog around. I mean. Sure. I think if you want to maybe put all your questions out there and then we'll go from there. Okay. So all my questions, one is understanding why this has to happen. Today. After we've had a long budget meeting. What is the significance of the timing? My second question is, is there a legal concerns that having this vote while we have WW out there does put us at risk for making it look like we're dealing with politics and trying to make a position on the measure. Two or three is the item doesn't include. Let me get to my specific questions, not about politics. Language doesn't cover subcontracted workers, which is a major issue in the hotel industry. Is there a reason for not including subcontracted workers? It leaves off notification of guest, something that we know the hotels have lobbied against. But something that we know is a distract is a. Deterrent for people. If they see a sign, they're going to think twice. It's something that we. Fought really hard for with. Sex trafficking in the hotels. So is there something we can do about it? Amidst the retaliation language to protect housekeepers whenever they do speak up and it leaves out hotel workers ability for legal remedy if the law is not complied with. So those are policy questions that I think need to be answered. In addition to understanding from the city attorney, the timeline that we're working. With the council. Have requested that you come back in 30 days where we are with that 30 day report. Does that 30 day report include the impacts of hotels of 50 rooms or less? And what liability does that put the council out for voting on this? Now, while we're waiting on a measure to be voted on in November, I will leave those as my questions for now. Okay. So I know there's there's some questions in there that are probably for the city attorney and there might be some others are there for the makers of the motion. Maybe we should we keep going, maybe hear from the members or did you want to get those when I have a lot of questions answered now are. You want to just do those now? Okay, let me. I don't have those all in front of me. But do you want to start? I mean, Mr. City Attorney, do you want to maybe answer some of the questions that were posed to you? There's a number of questions that I wrote down that are either a policy question or the maker of the motion. Question on why the timing of this. The way I read the motion and the language here, it would not include Airbnb's. The legal concerns versus politics. I can't address the politics, but the legal concerns. This does cover areas that would not be covered by measure WW. And depending on what was adopted, if anything, was adopted by the City Council when a ordinance came back, if the measure WW applying to the larger hotels was more restrictive, that would apply . And so if you didn't have some of the other things that you brought up, that would be a policy decision to include in an ordinance such as the subcontractor, the notification language, the retaliation in the hotel, the legal remedies for the individual workers. All of those protections would apply to the hotels of 50 or more would not be required on the ordinance applying to the 50 or less unless council amended the ordinance at some point. So I'd need further direction from the City Council to if there were going to be ads and there would be an opportunity to do that one this evening or at first reading. And when that came back for the Council's consideration, if at that time the Council read it and either wanted to add things to it or change things to it, obviously we could do that at that time and we would come back depending on those changes by for another first reading if necessary. I can I can answer one of the questions in there and then someone quickly if I if I'm wrong. I think when when a initiatives is in front of voters all of that but that is passed by the voter essentially becomes kind of supersedes and become becomes the law. It would trump the ordinance. And then what if whatever whatever is presented in front of us that goes beyond the scope of what's in front of the voters would apply as long as it doesn't contradict anything that is currently in the other measure. And if it did this, it is superseded by whatever is actually implemented by the actual voters. So and that's the my understanding of the way I know this question came up when we had Measure M and May as well. And so that's. Correct. That was a little bit different because there are competing measures on the ballot. And I actually part of some of the council discussion that we were voting on when it came to the tacked to the tax structure. But I think that I think that that is the response as far as the voter initiative would always supersede if there were areas of conflict. And currently, I think that the the way our municipal code reads, motel, Airbnbs and bed and breakfasts are not considered motels. I think that's correct. Mr. City Attorney say lodging. And I think that the way I read this all hotel lodging employers including motels. I want some additional clarification on that, but I hope it doesn't indicate that they want Airbnbs in here. So we would go generally speaking, we would start with our municipal code definitions of those items, the hotel lodging employers, if we have that in motels and use that as our definition and then obviously come back for first reading if that's not the intent of the makers. So my other question was around the timing of the report in 30 days, how much information is coming back, what's going to be included in that? And then I'd like the maker of the motion to answer the questions around the policy. So the study, if on August 7th we were asked to do a study, it was originally a 30 day study, but then was kind of modified to give us a report of where we are in 30 days and come back with a study. So by next week we'll have an update to kind of the process and what we're doing. We expect the full study to be available to the Council by the beginning of October, probably first week of October 1st, second week of October. And does that study include hotels of 50 rooms or less? And as I understand it, we're doing some comparative analysis of some of the other ordinances that are out there. And some of those will be for hotels, 50 or under. I can ask John Kiser to further speak to whether or not, you know, what level of analysis we have for 50 or less. The honorable mayor and members of the city council. Yes. So. So we're working with our consultant on the scope of work and refining that now. We will be taking a look at how our ordinance is proposed, compares to some of the other ordinances out there, which are inclusive of different numbers of hotel rooms, as well as different square footage and different requirements that are included in their audiences. So what we'll get back. We're looking at Seattle, Chicago, Sacramento County, Miami, Las Vegas in New York City, all of which have ordinances. But they're all different in their own right. We'll compare our proposed ordinance to those other cities in and we'll have a matrix that will point out the similarities and differences. And then from that comparative review will also do an analysis of economic impact. So what these different proposed measures might do and how they might influence existing and proposed future hotels. So as Assistant City Manager mentioned, our goal is by the end of this month, within the next couple of weeks, be a consultant, will be conducting interviews as well as that literature review of other ordinances. And then we'll have a period to review it internally and have something back by mid-October. Okay. Thank you for that, John. I do want to note for the council and for those listening that the proposed ordinance that's on the ballot in November is an ordinance that was spent, as mentioned, four or five years in the making with large hotels as part of that conversation. One of the first groups that I met with when I got into office was all of the hotels, minus the renaissance of 100 rooms or more in the city, and that we had a real understanding about what their operations is like and the fact that those are not mom and pop hotels and the fact that these hotels that are 50 rooms or less are often owned by a family and their operations is completely different from, say, a marriott that has a national standard for how they operate. And so that is one of the reasons not that we wanted to exclude a population I absolutely support. Housekeepers are having sexual assault protections in their hotels. I just think that if we're going to include that, that doing it in this short time frame without any engagement with that business community is short sighted. So I, I will start my comments and hear from the maker of the motion on some of the policy questions. Kay. I'm going to count somebody. Want me to keep going through that? You want to drive some of these now or. I can provide some of the answers. I'm not providing a staff report. This is just an item I'm presenting to my colleagues. So I'll do my best to. I'm sorry. Was there something. Yes, this is a proposed ordinance, but I'm not providing a staff report, so I'll do my best to articulate for my colleagues where I'm coming from, and then they'll have to make the determination as to whether it makes sense for them or not. It's not you know, it's not a staff report. So the timing of this well, first of all, this is an item since September of 2017 that I have indicated very clearly and unequivocally that I would support the panic button option, because I do believe that that is a public safety concern. However, we did hear this at the Public Safety Committee meeting. We heard this issue and there really was no data to support some of the concerns that we were hearing regarding the need for panic buttons. And it wasn't until the most recent discussions that the need and desire or perceived request for panic buttons was highlighted very clearly to the City Council. And I. If that public safety concern is in fact legitimate and honest, which I believe it is, then it makes no sense for us to wait. I'm assuming that this ballot initiative is going to pass. Absolutely. But why would we wait to implement a public safety aspect that we have repeatedly meeting after meeting, heard from people that they want and it will make them feel safer. The Fiscal Impact Study, as council member Pearce may recall, was about the impact to the city for compliance of the square footage requirement. The panic buttons would not be paid for by the city. They'd be paid for by the entity that would be disseminating them to their employees. So there would be no cost to the city. And that's why in September of 2017, I recommended both privately to council members who were supporting the item and publicly during the council meetings that I believed we should move forward on the panic button item, since that appeared to be a very necessary item that had no nexus to some of the other provisions that were in the ordinance and something that I believed the Council unanimously agreed was necessary. So. While I understand Councilmember Pierce's concerns and thoughts and I respect them, while I may not disagree with them, I assure you that sitting here on this side of the dais and hearing woman after woman say they're not safe because they don't have panic buttons, and that's something that the city council can easily fix and remedy from a public safety standpoint. Why wouldn't we? If something were to happen between now and when this ballot initiative passes, wouldn't we want to say that we did everything we could in our power to protect those women now that they have raised that as a public safety issue for the city, not for the hotels, but for the city. So I think, you know, it's it's a prudent thing to do. Frankly, I don't really understand the basis of the opposition. Is it that I. So there's a couple of things in regards to subcontracted workers. I, I've no objection to including that. In fact, I'm totally amenable to any recommendations colleagues want to make. So we can include subcontractors. If, if, if that's a friendly, I would absolutely accept it. We can also I do believe there was some outreach done with the motels. But remember, this is a proposal for an ordinance that will go through the proceedings, for an ordinance to be adopted. And we can certainly phase in implementation if there's going to be a financial burden for hotels similar to what we've done with other policies that we've set where we've been concerned about the impact on small business owners. We can certainly phase an implementation to address that. But I do believe that if hotel workers are concerned about not having public I'm sorry, panic buttons when they're accessing public and the private rooms, then motel workers would have the same concerns. And so I do believe and again, I remember having this conversation, Councilmember Pearce, with you in a public setting and September of 2017, where I said I believed that any provision should apply to both hotels and motels. So, you know, while I understand the concerns, it it's a very simple item that places at the disposal of every hotel worker and every motel worker access to an alarm system so that they feel safer. And that is really a public safety concern. And it separates it out from other issues that really don't have a nexus to public safety. So this is purely a public safety item with no other factors attached to it. Those factors will be addressed by the voters at the ballot. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman Councilwoman Gonzalez. Thank you. So I have some. A few. Questions. I am also struggling with this due to a few things. So the first and foremost is the process. I agree with Councilmember Pearce that this was submitted very late on a Friday over a holiday weekend on the supplemental agenda when we've been oftentimes chastised for doing that, if for any reason. But this is a very heavy item. I understand that it's looked at as maybe just a public safety item. But it's a pretty heavy item submitted very late. Not even including any of the Claudia Law stakeholders or any of the council colleagues that have pushed this through. So I feel that that could have been, you know, one way to to just have us weigh in on on this work because it's been done for so long. So the process for me is a little bit shaky in that sense. Secondly, I would have to disagree on the fiscal impact. When we say fiscal impact, we talk about city resources. Well, when the bulk of the item includes PD resources, we should actually ask for a fiscal impact. A female officer website information on a website, outreach to hotels and motels, which is fine, and I know our PD may be doing that already, but we haven't had a report, a full report back at the city council level to understand what they're currently doing and what we need to do. We absolutely I think many of us agree that we want panic buttons. We want extra security measures at motels or hotels, less than 50. But there's a lot in here that we're not talking about. And there's no fiscal impact, especially after we. Talked about the financial policies of our Bossi. Including fiscal impact not included. So again, like I said, public safety resources that are being expended. I understand we're taking out the female officer component. But I think we need additional information and it would be great to have additional information on how these how we were how we derived these resources and. How much they'll cost. Lastly, I. Agree the timing seems very bad. It just seems very negative. It may look like it's confusing voters, which we don't ever want to do. And it makes it unclear as as to whether as to what the city council is currently doing versus. What WW would do. And I think that that to me seems a bit I don't know, it seems a bit unethical in my sense that we have this coming down the pipeline. People don't really understand or may be able to differentiate what. WW and what. The what this item may or may not do. So I would actually like to see additional information and I'll let I'll let my council colleagues speak as well. But I'd like to hear additional information on fiscal impacts. I'd like to hear additional information on timeline and additional information to any legal implications. We have the Political Reform Act, and I don't know if that will have any repercussions with this. I mean, city attorney parking, do you find that we're going to be having any issues with this, at least with perception? We we again, we got this on Friday. Also, we have not done any legal research on any of those issues at this time. Thank you. So I would just ask us to review that because I think that those are very key, important issues. And in fact, you know, when we put this item together a year ago, I spoke with every hotel. Whether they liked what. I was saying or not. I spoke with every hotel and made sure that they were engaged. And so I don't think that our motel owners are engaged. I would also say on top of the motel thing, we have a nuisance abatement policy that Councilmember Richardson has brought forward. Do we even think people that are not even keeping up with the quality of life in their motels, do we honestly think that they're going to add a panic button for women and men that have been potentially could be sexually assaulted? I don't know. I think we need more information on that as well. So I'll just put it out there. Thank you. Councilmember Orinda. Thank you, Mayor. Let me ask a question, and I know that this is a we've got a long speakers list. Do we want to take a last vote briefly for our budget? Folks can head home and then we'll continue this conversation if they know that they're ready for us. It's just a quick vote if there's no objection with the council we have. Can you please read the item?