Speaker 1: Item 24 Report from Development Services Recommendation to receive and file the Green Terminal Island Transition Plan District seven.
Speaker 0: Mr. City, Assistant City Manager.
Speaker 6: Vice Mayor, members of the council. We have a staff report on this. This is an item that will be given by Angela Reynolds from Development Services.
Speaker 8: Oh. Good evening, Vice Mayor. Um, little history. The city accepted a planning grant from the Department of Transportation Caltrans on September 19th, 2013. The focus of the application was to prepare a concept plan for the potential decommissioning. Of the northern stretch of the Thai freeway, which.
Speaker 2: Is owned by.
Speaker 8: The city. From PCH to Willow Street, the grant is considered a social justice grant, which directly applies to addressing negative environmental impacts such as unhealthy air quality and noise from goods, movement and port operations on the west side of City of Long Beach. The Livable West Long Beach Plan was adopted by the City Council on several Tuesdays ago. One of the projects in the plan was to potentially decommission the TII freeway from PCH to Willow. The primary goal of the plan of this particular plan that we're presenting tonight, the green tie, is to provide a buffer between schools and neighborhoods on the east side of the Ty Freeway from.
Speaker 12: The heavy.
Speaker 8: Industry on the west side. The consultant, which is Melinda is and I'll introduce Melanie in a moment. And staff did a very robust community stakeholder outreach for this item. The outreach included small community and neighborhood focus groups, three or four large city.
Speaker 12: And.
Speaker 8: Community and stakeholder workshops, discussions with environmental groups, and also discussions with an assortment of goods, movement stakeholders in and around the port area in regards to good in regard to goods movement. We were able to reach Harbor Trucking, West Coast Marine Terminal Operations, Union Pacific, the Future Ports Group, which quite a few goods movement folks attend Tesoro , Calle Cartage, Three Rivers, Nova, L.A., Grain, Watson Land and Fast Lane and the Wilmington Chamber of Commerce at their request. If this plan was to move forward, there will be many next steps to achieve it. The implementation chapter of the plan lays out a likely seven year project timeline from inception. To build out. The first and most important step in this process would be for the City Council to receive and file the concept plan and then direct staff, including development services, public works, Parks, Rec and Marine and the Harbor Department, to proceed with more study and investigation of the feasibility of this project. At this time, there is no identified funding to start the process. The presentation tonight will discuss those next steps a little bit more in-depth, including design, environmental documents, secure NEPA and continued community outreach. So with that, I'm going to introduce Melanie Smith from Melendez, and she'll go through a brief PowerPoint presentation. Thank you, Angela. Thank you for having us here tonight to talk about the Green Tea Project. It's been an honor to lead the team through what's been just about a year long process to take very, very first steps toward a project that could have really great implications for the city. As Angela has already said, this was funded by a Caltrans environmental justice grant and supported by the the city and put forward by the city and supported by the port of Long Beach. So we start by asking ourselves, what is this? What is this project rooted in? And it's really rooted in City of Long Beach Mobility Element Policy The Mobility Olmec calls for deep free weighing the city owned segment of the Terminal Island Freeway. Again, we're not talking about the whole freeway. We're talking about the city owned segment of it ending the truck route that exists today at PCH. So that would be the furthest point that it would go on to the north and that would have the result of shifting truck traffic that exists today on that segment to other routes, including potentially Alameda Street, which is also an available corridor. So again, this is a first step in a long process. We'll talk about how other cities are taking a look at their infrastructure and reevaluating it really as a benefit to provide different benefits to the city. So again, why are we looking at this segment of the city? We know that the tie we'll look at it on the map in a second and it's, you know, the western edge of the city. And this is an apart the study area that we're talking about. City is really part of the city that has suffered really from a number of difficult existing conditions. So it really outstrips the rest of the city in L.A. County, by far in particulate matter and fine particles per square mile, it has a higher level of asthma rates than either the rest of the city or the county as a whole. And so and these are just like two statistics that I picked. We could look at, you know, other disparities in this part of the city. I think we were all quite familiar with the challenges that West Long Beach faces. So again, why do cities look look at this or why is this city looking at this? In addition to it being rooted in its adopted policy, you know, cities across the U.S. and really around the globe are taking a look at what is really being known as freeway freeway removal and looking at ways in which to consider their existing infrastructure, reconsider it as a community benefit. And just one example. Pretty well known around the country, the example of Portland's Harbor Drive. You know, this is a facility that is far more intense in terms of a traffic artery than what we're talking about in terms of the segment of the TII. This is what it looked like before. This is what it has become. And the city really had a different vision for what this how this could function as a community benefit and what has become a destination, really, and a well known facet of the community and a destination within it. So, again, what are we specifically talking about here in this project, in this very first step and very conceptual look at this, where we're talking about a segment of of the right of way, again, north of PCH and really north of the Cloverleaf that existed at at PCH. Those are controlled by Caltrans. So we're looking at the right of way north of that to Willow. We'll look at other maps that show that we're talking about an area of about 25 acres. So on this map, you can see Willow Street to the north, PCH to the south. But again, we're really talking about the area north of the Cole Relief's, north of PCH. And what we really notice when we look at an aerial is this contrast right in the land use pattern west of the Thai freeway versus east of the Thai freeway. We're looking at really a very industrial industrialized area there, just beyond the edge of the city with the refineries, other industrial facilities and the rail yards directly adjacent to the western edge of the city. And the uses then that we see in. Contrast to the east of that are really very residential in nature. So we've got century villages of Korea housing a really facility there with with a community living there, career high school to the north of that read, Hudson Park and Hudson Elementary and then other Long Beach Unified Land and just some snaps of the of the site adjacencies which I'm sure we're all familiar with the community gardens at Hudson looking to the West, the buffer that has been developed recently adjacent to villages of Cabrillo, really that was early days in that buffer. And it's it's some of its outdoor equipment areas, fitness zones of you looking down Hill Street to the west and where it terminates currently and does not really connect to the Tai and Hudson Park itself. So, you know, again, even at this very early stage where we have not done a traffic study, we have not done technical analysis yet, that would be something that would be done in the future. We have taken a just a look, a very high level look at existing conditions. And again, I was talking about other arteries that have really changed in other parts of the world, in the country and really much higher volume facilities. We're talking about a a segment of the freeway, really, and this is just depicting existing volumes that it carries about 11,000 vehicles a day and about half those are trucks. So about 6000 ish trucks per day, higher volume north and south. And we can see that PCH, it's a little difficult to see sorry on this, but PCH being a much higher volume east West Street even then, Willow Sepulveda to the north. But obviously, traffic is something that would have to be considered and studied in much greater detail at this project were to move forward. Also, certainly as as we know, we're talking about a segment of the Terminal Island Freeway. You can see it in blue there with the logo tie next to it. And we're certainly aware of the network of truck routes that exist in the area that serve the port of Long Beach and the Port of Los Angeles as well . And so what we're depicting here are the state overweight routes, the Long Beach designated overweight truck routes and other jurisdictions overweight routes as well, and freeways. And so you can see that that this segment of the Thai is currently a locally designated overweight route. So that's another consideration and another area that would certainly have to be studied if the project were to move forward. So in terms of project process, as we mentioned, there were four major convenings as part of this project. This is about developing a community vision, high level community vision for the facility. So we so starting last year, we were able to convene the community in a large way and we'll talk about that briefly. But we first really asked the community, what are your top priorities for greening the TY? And number one, really was providing environmental benefits to the communities that the space needed to work to provide positive benefits and not then cause unintended spillover traffic into the neighborhood and introduce new linkages for pedestrians and cyclists. And you'll see those themes come up again and again in the outreach that we've done. But we didn't just limit the outreach in this project to large community convenings, though those were really a large requirement of the grant. So we did reach out to environmental justice stakeholders and as you can see, a very large number of community groups in drop ins to their their meetings as well as inviting them to the larger convenings. But we also engage the good movement industry and other government agencies, utilities and then specific T.I adjacent trucking companies, businesses that would be impacted by this just to get their initial take on what the issues were so that we could document those should the project project move forward. There were additional things that would need to be studied. And just to wrap up about outreach, we celebrated the conclusion of the project process with an actual Open Streets event on Hill Street and again showed folks conceptual designs. Ask them to give us input about really what were the things that were most important to them. So we asked them a few times during the process pedestrian and bicycle facilities at the top and a planted buffer urban forest came in a close second. This was about 86. 87 people provided us with comments. It was a well-attended event as really all of them were. I mean, you can see nature, plan, play, wetland, water cleansing area, native education gardens were the top five of interest to folks. So as a result of of this initial work on this project, we have come up with a conceptual design concept. This is the illustrative of that. You can we've been looking north on all of the other graphics, but we're looking west so that the south is to the to the left. North is to the right in this view. And you can see that the view is dominated by planted buffer. The dark green area to the west is really that buffer, other native gardens and then road facility, a local road facility through the through the the space that could be a mirror and ring road that could help us to slow traffic, keep folks safe while they're in the space, but also provide eyes on places for folks to park. And then a connection that could be made at Hill Street in the center of the space as well. And and some of the active uses that were of interest to the community, like a skate area or a plaza gathering area, could be located there adjacent to the schools and really accessible by the kids. So just to conclude a few views that we did of the conceptual design, this is at 20th Street, an entrance that would be sort of north of the existing cloverleaf. So looking north and you can see the real focus of passive open space, the buffer to the west, areas in which we could capture water, cleanse it, handle stormwater, which is a significant issue on the west side as well. And you can see the the road access area, the parking and the the broad areas for folks to access and promenade on pedestrians and bikes. And this is looking at Hill Street, we're looking to the East and Hill Street is coming into the space again, connecting for vehicles, but also for pedestrians and bikes. And these are some of the play areas that we're envisioning, again, adjacent, accessible to the schools, areas for the community to use. And then for the north of the park, looking south near Willow Street, again, just areas for folks to use and enjoy in sort of passive ways. And with that that strong open space buffer to the west beyond the roadway so that we can get get some great use. But but also separation, appropriate separation for safety and and for keeping folks safe in this in this space. So that is where the concept ended up as as a result of this process, clearly a very first step in in one of many that would have to be taken. And so in the implementation chapter of the of the study, we talk about next steps and we identify really that should the council recommend this were to go forward. The very first step would be to work with Los Angeles, Carson and the ports to develop a plan for goods movement. So we understand the importance of that and certainly the city is aware of that. And so there would need to be direct, direct consultation about that with with many stakeholders, additional outreach, with stakeholders, further design , detailed design to get you to a more detailed level of design and start to consider operations, governance and and further funding analysis as well. An environmental review review would obviously be required and extensive likely. And so we've certainly identified that as starting a beyond year one and then really identifying a 3 to 7 year process, assuming it all really went forward stepwise and addressing funding operations and governance, design, implementation and maintenance. So that I think gives you an idea of where we've been in this project, and we look forward to your questions.
Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you. Councilmember Gonzalez. Actually, let me go to the maker of the Motion Councilmember Your Honor.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Mayor. So, as we can see, over a year ago, we initiated this process of going to the community of West Long Beach. Which this project takes most of the the space out there. And we ask the question. If the Thai freeway were to be decommissioned between PCH and Willow Street, which becomes supported. What would you like to see there? And so there was a series of scoping meetings that were held at Admiral Kidd Park with a combination exercise or event and Hudson Park. Where some conceptual. Conceptual plans were developed about what the community would like to see if it were decommissioned. So where we're at today is that this is just a conceptual study as to what we would like to see if it were decommissioned. It's a conceptual plan that addresses many of the issues that are that West Bromwich residents face and that many of us take for granted in other parts of the city. We want clean air. We want better mobility. We want our schools to be clean. What are schools to be safe when kids go outside and play? We want to lower particulate matter. We want green space, more trees, bicycle lanes, people or passive parks where people can walk, walk through, maybe even with some exercise areas. And there's also a plan which surprises me. Also maybe creating a wetlands area as well, which is awesome. I mean, it's just a comprehensive conceptual plan that would address many of the concerns that the residents have who live in West Palm Beach and who abut the freeway. Now, having heard the presentation right now there is there are a lot of questions about mobility in terms of transportation. Where are those trucks going to go? What's the connection going to be? Where trucks near the port and heading north into the rail yards or into the other storage facilities and up the Alameda corridor? How do we manage that? There are questions to be asked. So at this point, I'm going to to stop before I make my motion. But I would like to hear, obviously, from from for those who have an interest in this in this item here to hear their viewpoint. And if we can bring the discussion back and listen, my councilmembers would like to make their points known at that. That's certainly up to you.
Speaker 0: Councilmember Andrews, would you like to address the motion? Okay. So your request, Councilmember Urunga, is to hear from the public. Okay. Council members is that. Is that agreeable? Thank you. At this time, we'd like to hear from members of the public that wish to address the Council on item 24 relating to the Terminal Island Transition Plan. Please come forward.
Speaker 2: All right. We're baby.
Speaker 8: Sitters. We were waiting for the timer. There we.
Speaker 2: Go.
Speaker 8: All right. Good evening. Good evening, vice mayor and honorable council members. Thank you for the opportunity to speak again this evening. My name is Elizabeth Horn. I'm the executive director of Future Ports, and I'm here this evening not only representing future ports.
Speaker 10: But also.
Speaker 8: A historic coalition of labor, trades and business organizations here to express our concerns and and opposition to the decommissioning of the Terminal Island Freeway. Many of them are here tonight and will also be speaking in the history of the ports. As far as we can determine, this coalition has never happened before. So we are very, very concerned about this. Earlier I sent a to get to each of you. Hopefully it's been distributed some letters, one from Senator Isidor Hull's office and then also our coalition letter. One additional point that's not in the letter that I'd like to make is that even though that other freeways that have more traffic volumes have been decommissioned, as we saw in the presentation, none of them have been running through a port complex like we have here in Long Beach in the San Pedro ports. It's the largest port complex in the Western Hemisphere, not just in the United States. This is North America, South America combined. So comparing our Terminal Island Freeway project to other projects, we feel is more like comparing apples and oranges and not really relevant to in this case. So as we've mentioned, the Thai freeway is a state designated overweight corridor. The trucks would be diverted from the freeway to surface streets not combined and not designed for those trucks. One of the points that we'd also like to make is that with those 6000 trucks that we heard that would be diverted to those surface streets. Those are overweight trucks now that those would be regular trucks and not for overweight. The one truck would have to now make two trips. So the 6000 trucks would probably be more likely like ten or 11,000 trucks in realistic. So we want to make sure that we're familiar with what would happen to all those trucks. We do believe that a full environmental impact report should be performed if the city chooses to pursue the decommissioning. We are confident that the air would show that this freeway would result in rerouting traffic to surface streets throughout throughout the community and intensifying traffic already at those places. So we don't think this is a very well thought out plan. We'd like to see it go back to the drawing board with an in-depth traffic analysis and environmental review if it's going to move forward at all, which.
Speaker 0: We hope it will.
Speaker 8: Not. So thank you very much for the opportunity to speak this evening.
Speaker 0: Thank you.
Speaker 13: Good evening, Vice Mayor Lowenthal and council members. My name is Floyd Bryan. I'm with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Southern California District Council. And we are.
Speaker 11: Opposed to this. Our closure for a number of reasons. And one of the main ones that I, I, I have trouble with is that.
Speaker 13: They say that there was so much outreach, community outreach. And I believe I asked Councilman Aranda how many people were in this district, and he told me 50,000. And about 50,281 people attended.
Speaker 11: If you add all four meetings together and some of those people had.
Speaker 13: Been to two or three meetings, so that 281 is a very, very small percentage of the people in the area.
Speaker 11: And I have worked many years last 15, as a matter of fact, on environmental projects to make the port greener. This project is not going to necessarily make the port greener. You take those trucks are not going to go away. They're going to be moved into a.
Speaker 13: Non-Free away situation where they're going to be traveling on surface streets. And anybody who's done anything on the environmental end of this with truck movement knows that idling trucks are slow moving trucks, double and triple. It's exponential. It isn't just an arithmetic.
Speaker 11: Addition of particulate.
Speaker 13: Matter and the particulate matter that they listed in 2011 has come down since then. In that area, we've worked real hard to bring that down, and we've got we're still working hard. But when I went to two of the presentations and we've written letters to you at their presentations, they weren't open to any suggestions. We have some alternatives that we'd like to discuss. I mentioned Councilwoman Gonzalez. There are alternatives to this closure and or there are alternatives before this closure that aren't brought up at all. And to do this without.
Speaker 11: An E.R. is.
Speaker 13: As far as we're concerned, pretty much, you know, unconscionable, really, because you're moving the stuff, you're moving the particulate matter, but you're not going to make it better. That's the problem. E.R. would show that, you know, there's no reason not to have an area that we can think of, you know, other than the fact.
Speaker 11: That so, you know, push this through.
Speaker 13: And, you know, we're we're against it. Thank you.
Speaker 4: Good evening. My name is Giselle Fong and I am a resident of the seventh District. I am chair of the Environmental Health Workgroup of Building Healthy Communities Long Beach, and I'm also a City Commissioner with the Board of Health and Human Services. I'm here to tell you that we sent a letter to your offices through email so that you can reference that for more detail. But I just wanted to go through some of the main points of that letter, and that is to voice our support for the Green Tea Project, mostly because of its health benefits. So you saw from the presentations that the residents that are adjacent to freeways and to the big industrial facilities such as the ports, the freeways, refineries are in in full and direct contact with the highest levels of particulate matter in our city. And we know all of the severe health impacts that that entails. We believe strongly that the Green Tea Project will create a health protective buffer for especially those residents that are directly on the fence line communities including students at Cabrillo, students at Stevens Mills Middle School, the all of the residents that enjoy the facilities at Hudson Park . So we we do believe that there is an extreme health benefit for this green tea project. We also believe that the the truck traffic can can be with planning, with strategic planning to be diverted to the Alameda Corridor, which was intended for the movement of freight as a freight corridor. We also just wanted to say that this is an area of the city that is very underserved. The West Long Beach has one acre of open space per 1000 people versus the east side of Long Beach, which has 16 acres of per 100,000 people. And so we do feel like this is an important community benefit for the west side of Long Beach. And lastly, I'll just wrap up that we did really appreciate the process that the meaningful community participation process where residents were asked and were given the opportunity division, what we wanted for our city, including the types of health and health benefits, the types of amenities that we wanted for our city. And we would encourage that the Council to support this project moving forward and to include meaningful community participation as we move forward. And we support the community. The City Council to approve the green tie plan going forward and that we ask you to to direct staff to pursue next steps, including environmental analysis and identifying funding sources. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you.
Speaker 11: Good evening, Honorable Vice Mayor and council members. Thank you for the opportunity to speak this evening. My name is Mike Williams and I am the California executive director of government relations for the International Warehouse Logistics Association. I am here tonight representing a unprecedented coalition of labor, trade and business organizations to express our deep concerns and opposition to the decommissioning of the Terminal Island Freeway. We have five local unions, two trade unions and one business organization together as one coalition unified in opposition to this project. Our association has been around since 1891 and this is the first time that the labor unions have jointly signed on to a coalition letter. This indicates the significance of the concern that we have as stakeholders in the community and in the warehouse logistics industry. We have raised many points of concern about the proposal. In our opposition letter one The Thai freeway is a state designed overweight corridor. Trucks would be diverted from the freeway to surface streets not designated for those trucks or the loads would have to be split and more trucks dispatched to keep within the legal weight requirement leading to increased truck traffic. Alameda and Anaheim Streets and PCH would suffer tremendous congestion due to the influx of those and other trucks on those streets and exacerbation of noise and air pollution. We had Melanie Smith provide a presentation on September 17, 2015 to our members that provided more questions and relatively no answers. You saw that presentation. Today was the same when we were presented. Some of the questions raised included who would provide the billions in funding that may be required for the project? Is there an ETA for an air or traffic study or would the surface street traffic be diverted? Uh, has this been thought through? When we would win. Would this go to vote, which is happening today? Possibly. But essentially, many questions were posed. Another important issue to consider. Is this a conflict of interest to have the former Long Beach city planner from 2014, the commissioner, her architectural firm, awarded the contract? Were there any other groups that were considered? On page 72 of the city background materials what is being exempted under sequel? Does tonight's action exempt the project from Sequel altogether? So in conclusion, we would like to request an opportunity to have a full on workshop with a small group of representations, representatives from Labor and business to seriously look at alternatives to decommissioning the freeway. We think that we can look at a real solution and come up with compromises to achieve the goals of everyone efficient goods movement, better neighborhoods, equal economic prosperity and environmental improvements for everyone. Thank you for the opportunity to speak this evening.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 6: Good evening, council members. Vice Mayor My name's Joseph Sullivan. I work for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 11 in the National Electrical Contractors Association of Greater Los Angeles. And I'm here to express our opposition to the decommissioning of the freeway. Our contractors and electricians are doing a lot of work at the ports, electrifying the ports, making the ports more green, work on projects like LED lighting, retrofit solar projects, solutions for idling ships. And there's more work coming around microgrids, energy storage and resiliency. And these are good jobs. They're local jobs. They're going to local businesses. There's a project labor agreement for the Middle Harbor that requires local residents complete work on these projects. One out of every eight jobs in Long Beach is related to the port. And so the port has a really important job engine and it's really important to our electricians and our contractors and the ports and the surrounding areas are being are becoming greener. We know that from studies, and we're working on these projects. Our apprenticeship program. The contractors and Labor are spending millions of dollars to prepare our workers to do this work. But removing critical infrastructure is not a viable solution. It's a wrong decision. One, it hurts competitiveness. Other ports would gladly take this cargo. And due to changes to the Panama Canal, they're becoming more competitive to do so. Ships are bigger. We're going to see larger bottlenecks. And what we're going to see is reduced productivity. And with reduced productivity, we're going to see less infrastructure projects, which is going to mean less greening of the ports. Right now, we're seeing terminal operators invest in greening their their areas. It's been mentioned. Where will this traffic go? It's going to go to surface streets. Do we know the air is going to become cleaner? We don't. It this you know, this is a little bit like moving homeless people out of a homeless shelter. It doesn't cure the homelessness problem. It just puts them in a worse position in some other area. And that's what we're doing with this cargo. So in closing, I'd like to say we're in the middle of an energy revolution, a technology revolution, and we're seeing new solutions all the time around, battery storage for electric vehicles, around fuel cells, natural gas solutions. And just closing a freeway is not. That's lazy thinking. There's other approaches and other solutions that are much more viable. It will create jobs and help this area to continue to thrive.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 4: Good evening, Alison Gallagher here on behalf of Assembly Member O'Donnell. I join others here today with several concerns pertaining to this project, including the outreach for this project has been limited, although it's been stated that there have been several community meetings and forums for stakeholder input. Neighboring cities such as Wilmington and Carson have not been included on this project. As the Assembly member representing the harbor area and both ports, I want to ensure that we are including our regional and industry partners. In addition to the immediate communities surrounding the TY Freeway, we have not fully discussed all of the burdens that will be placed on the community communities surrounding the freeway. Further study is needed to ensure the continuity of the port's ability to move goods efficiently and timely. We need to ensure that other heavy weight corridors exist, and we need to ensure that clear route alternatives are in place to prevent truck traffic from going through our neighborhoods. And also an environmental impact report should be conducted as well as transportation and economic impacts should be explored as well. I urge you to consider these concerns before moving forward with this project. Thank you.
Speaker 8: Vice Mayor Council members Pilar Arroyo with Watson Lane Company. Art Company's name was listed as one of those who had participated in the outreach. I've asked the city clerk to distribute a map for you because I think a picture is worth a thousand words. The comments made by a number of the speakers expressing concern about this project, I did show them so I won't repeat them. When you look at this map, those areas outlined in yellow are Watson land companies, existing master plan industrial centers. It represents about 12 million square feet of industrial space. Been with the company almost 30 years. Most of this space is port related. I also serve on the California Straight State Freight Advisory Commission that has been a Caltrans led program to look at the importance of of goods, movement, infrastructure. I think you are probably very familiar with that. And to have this concept and I understand recognized and it's been said over and over again that this is just a concept. But I want you to think about the unintended implications, the serious implications and messages that this sends to potential customers. Previous speakers have talked about competitiveness. What about the competitiveness of being able to attract? Customers that bring their goods through this port or other ports when they don't know if they're going to have that Terminal Island free way. And it's not only about the overweight corridor, I might add. It's about the time inefficiency. And when you close down this major infrastructure or even send a message that you're considering doing it. Those start to impact decisions. And those decisions have serious implications in terms of jobs. So we have to think. Brodeur and not look at a conceptual project that, sure, how can anybody be opposed to something as beautiful as those renderings? The process has been really quite incredible. We in I personally helped with assembling a number of our customers to the meetings and the feedback we got back, and I didn't hear a word about the concerns that were raised. Serious concerns. Those customers are the employers. And like me, a Long Beach resident crosses that city boundary to work in Carson. So this is a huge, huge issue. And I ask that you take time to do this right, to not move in a direction that has unintended consequences. Thank you very much.
Speaker 0: Thank you.
Speaker 13: Good evening, everybody. Vice Mayor Lowenthal, members of the city council. My name is West in the bar. I represent several organizations that are opposed to the current the current project that is being proposed or concept, including the Harbor Trucking Association, Foreign Trade Association, South Bay Association of Chambers of Commerce. I'm also a Long Beach resident, very active in my community and very proud of Long Beach. And I think it's important that we don't cut off our nose to spite our face here. I'm not going to complain about the issues or raise more issues, but more talk about things that can be done so we can move forward to try to identify solutions, one of which is we need to identify other infrastructure projects that could replace the freeway moving forward. And it needs to be done in a meaningful way in a meeting and in concert with this, looking at this as well, because we need to make sure that we are not going to move forward with something while we don't have the funding or ability to put something in its place that could actually be better for both the community and for our goods movement industry. I think that's the first thing that's important, and the only way that we can do that is by looking at one, a complete traffic study from a regional analysis. That would be part of a secret process as well as a full environmental impact report to see what the consequences or unintended consequences of moving cargo and freight to other, more seriously impacted traffic. Intersections in the region are at a point in time when in California and I have testified multiple times in front of state, state assembly and Senate committees on infrastructure, on on ports and good movement, when we're looking at how to reduce bottlenecks and invest in infrastructure in a way that we can create efficiencies that reduce air emissions. I think it's important that we take that to heart here locally as well. Long Beach is home to the green port and we need to understand that that means moving a lot of cargo in an environmentally friendly way. What we need to do is take a look at how can we move this cargo in a way that may be quicker and does not impact the community in a negative way and identify each of those alternatives. I do have one question for this evening, though, and that's really within the entire packet. There is a negative declaration in that packet. And one of the big concerns we have moving forward with just a receiving file would be does that negative declaration that was filed in January of 2015 show as some sort of secret exemption for moving forward with this project? I think if if the project moves forward in any way, shape or form, there are certain studies, a complete air regional traffic study and also goods movement alternatives that be considered with it. And thank you for your time.
Speaker 1: But even in Vice Mayor, City Council members.
Speaker 8: Thank you for the opportunity to speak this evening. My name's Stellar Sewer District two resident.
Speaker 1: I'm also with Green Education.
Speaker 8: And the chair for the Building Healthy Communities Neighborhoods Work Group. I was fortunate to attend the groundbreaking Today at the Future DeForest Wetlands in North Long Beach. Really exciting project. There were so many residents, community groups, local representatives that had been fighting for over the past ten years to bring this wetlands project to fruition. Their community, they were committed to creating more green space, more green open space for their families, for their community, for recreation and exercise, to enjoy nature.
Speaker 1: And to help.
Speaker 8: Mitigate the high levels of pollution in their neighborhoods. I attended this event not just as a Parks and Recreation Commissioner, but as a Long Beach resident that bought her first home right down the street that enjoyed the Forest Park for many years. And as someone that walked those trails and wondered when the area would be cleaned up and made safe for everyone, just like the divorce wetlands effort, community members in West Long Beach, where Green Open Park space ranges from only one acre per 1000 residents, compared to over 16 acres per 1000 in the east district have been looking forward to the day when they too can enjoy additional park space and less pollution in their neighborhoods. Having attended several of the visioning sessions for West Long Beach Livability Livability Plan, I heard extremely creative and forward thinking ideas from community members to include in this project things like an urban forest, wetlands, meadows, pedestrian bike paths, native gardens and nature and skate areas. The open space element of our general plan states that the city should be establishing open space buffers between vulnerable populations and manmade and natural hazards, including those emitting toxic pollution. The decommissioning of the tree freeway and the creation of this park would be a huge step in achieving this goal and would serve a higher and greater use for the public as open space. And the green tea would be a huge statement to our underserved, pollution burdened communities that the city and our elected officials are committed committed to creating, healthy, engaging and state of the art, green spaces and parks for all of our restaurants. Finally, I leave you with this from the National Recreation and Parks Association regarding parks and social equity in our communities. It is a right, not just a privilege for people nationwide to have safe, healthful access to parks and recreation. Because of this, people connect with one another, build bonds that last a lifetime. Places transform into destinations with influx of new businesses and local economies flourish. Parks and recreation. Truly built communities. Communities for all. So I ask for your support for the.
Speaker 1: Green Tea Transition.
Speaker 8: Plan.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
Speaker 0: Thank you.
Speaker 11: Good evening. Vice Mayor Lowenthal City Council Member.
Speaker 13: City Staff My name is Brian D'Andrea, president of Century Villages at Cabrillo.
Speaker 11: As many of you know, CBC is the nonprofit that is the owner, developer.
Speaker 13: Manager and steward of the 27 acre villages at Cabrillo Community in West Long Beach were home to more than 1300 residents, including more than 550 veterans. Very pleased to report that we've recently conducted a grand opening for our Cabrillo Gateway Development and have recently broken ground on our anchor place development. Those two developments combined will add another 200 permanent supportive homes for homeless households in Long Beach. So we're very excited about that. The secret of our success over the years and it's been nearly 20 years that we've been at it, resides in this growing collaboration of organizations and government agencies that that play a role in helping us to restore health and address our homeless crisis. And really, at the heart of that collaboration is the city of Long Beach, which is the true backbone to our efforts at the villages and much beyond in the larger community. Over the years, the city has invested extensive resources at the villages, including more than $16 million of capital project base rental support and extensive support of service funding through its continuum of care grant through the Department of Health and Human Services to support the larger mission that we're attempting to achieve. The Villages is located.
Speaker 11: Directly adjacent to the TII freeway.
Speaker 13: Where a neighbor to the freeway and we're also home to a highly vulnerable population homeless, veterans, children, families victimized by violence, persons suffering from mental and physical ailments. And many of our residents have respiratory illness. These conditions are exacerbated by the reality of our location next to freeways, the ports refinery and the extensive manufacturing base and in and around West Long Beach. And over the years, we worked really hard to help mitigate those impacts. Thanks to funding from the Port of Long Beach under its Community Mitigation Grants program, we've developed a 303 hundred tree urban forest that the western perimeter of our campus actually on a piece of land that was leased on a long term, long term basis from the city of Long Beach itself. The land separates our community from the TI Freeway and has been transformed into an urban green space that sequesters carbon dioxide, scrubs the air of harmful particulates, beautifies the area and provides passive recreational opportunities for our residents. And while that urban forest is a great amenity and has been a great success, it's only the beginning and it's only a piece of the puzzle. We're very encouraged by the Green Tea Plan that's before you tonight, and we'd like to commend city staff, its consultants and the many community stakeholders on both sides of this debate.
Speaker 11: That have participated in what we believe is a very collaborative process. We think the result.
Speaker 13: Is an incredibly thoughtful plan, one that will help to further mitigate the health and environmental impacts on the west side of Long Beach and ultimately improve quality of life for all of our residents within the city. And so this evening, we encourage the council to receive and file the plan and to concurrently define a road map for implementing that plan down the road.
Speaker 11: Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Brian.
Speaker 4: Good evening, Vice Mayor. Council members.
Speaker 1: City staff. Melanie. Hi. My name is Mona Eichner. And excuse.
Speaker 10: Me.
Speaker 4: I'm a sixth district rep. Sorry. My address is on file and I'm a member of the.
Speaker 1: I do live in the sixth district.
Speaker 4: I'm a founding member of the Wrigley. Wrigley is going green and the Wrigley Clean team, which.
Speaker 1: Actually makes the green tie kind of right up.
Speaker 4: The alley. And of all the things that I'm.
Speaker 1: Involved with in the city.
Speaker 4: Who wouldn't want I mean, as a Wrigley is going green member, why wouldn't I.
Speaker 0: Want to green.
Speaker 1: The Terminal Island Freeway?
Speaker 4: Why wouldn't I want more trees in the park on the west side, which we are so lacking over here? But I actually am also now the sixth district representative of the Pedestrian Safety Advisory Committee.
Speaker 1: And although I'm not speaking on behalf of the committee as.
Speaker 4: That member, I'm more interested in the pedestrian safety aspects of.
Speaker 2: The.
Speaker 1: Greening that.
Speaker 4: The tie. And I'd like to actually reiterate some of the points I made in my.
Speaker 1: Letter that I sent to you guys. And so.
Speaker 4: I just wanted to remind you that the Green bill would replace.
Speaker 8: When it replaces the to freeway would be.
Speaker 1: Directly would address as was shown on the map would directly about the Elizabeth Hudson Elementary School and read in Cabrillo High schools and also it's near Garfield Elementary School and.
Speaker 0: Stephen Middle School.
Speaker 1: Since the gentleman.
Speaker 4: Before me was.
Speaker 8: Representing the villages of.
Speaker 1: Cabrillo. The students that live there have to the the paths that they go to get to school is are so connected that they they can walk up to.
Speaker 10: A mile or a mile and a half to get to school.
Speaker 4: And with the addition of this greenbelt and walkways and bike paths, that distance can be shortened up to.
Speaker 1: Two thirds of that. And that would be pretty incredible.
Speaker 4: And some students are forced to walk on PCH.
Speaker 1: And as we all know, that's a truck route. It's not a good place to be walking. The mobility plan, the Long Beach Mobility Point Plan has the goal of reducing conflicts between free movement and active transportation. I'm sorry. And greening the tie will shift trucks away from the schools, while will.
Speaker 4: Hopefully the studies will prove that. But.
Speaker 1: It will reduce the need for students and pedestrians to be on PCH. And also traffic will be eliminated near some of the schools off of Santa Fe. And it's just going to be a good thing for schools. I'm sorry. I'm really nervous.
Speaker 4: So I'm pretty much finished. And I really do want you all to support the green tea as I support the green tea and leaves holding a sign that says Go green or go home. And that's how I feel too. Thanks. Good evening, Vice Mayor and council members. My name is Katie Rispoli. I'm the executive director of We Are the Next, a nonprofit organization based here in downtown Long Beach and serving the Los Angeles region. And I mean, if only it were so easy that we could vote tonight and a project like this and tomorrow start working to create this great green space. That would be fantastic. But that's not what we're asking for. I support this project, and what's being asked for this evening is to approve and file the Green Terminal Island Transition Plan. And that plan will put into process as all of these things that the opposition here tonight has been asking for , looking into traffic considerations, environmental considerations, long term impacts of this project and actually putting into place this permanent plan in order to make it happen. This is not a short term process. This is a seven year minimum process. Getting to a point where we're actually looking at breaking ground on a project like this. And that's not just seven years where we're waiting and working on this. That's seven years where there is consistent pollution on the Terminal Island Freeway. Seven years where that has memory is more than twice what it is in the county as a whole and seven years where residents in West Long Beach are not feeling invested in by the city. And if there's anything that we know for a fact, it's that when you feel invested in in your home and when you have a supportive environment, as you're growing up, you have faith that you're able to accomplish great things. And that's been proven over and over again for generations. And in West Long Beach, there is a struggle with that. A lot of the families that live in that neighborhood are living adjacent to an 18 foot wall that backs up to their homes, which already makes them feel as if they're living in a prison. And one in three Latino males born in this country today are expected to be incarcerated in their lifetime. Growing up with those odds and that environment and living in a community where your park poor and seeing your city not investing in your community has a long term impact on what sort of citizen or resident you end up being and how you contribute back to your city as an adult. So we're not asking for a plan tomorrow and watching these people grow up and and wake up tomorrow and having the space. We're asking for more than seven years. We're asking for ten years plus of investment from the city that tonight will be voted on to enact this plan and can be taken over a period of time for the next generation of West Long Beach to have grown up witnessing this investment in their community so that when the next generation gets to the point where they're voting residents in this community and they're participating in Long Beach, they feel as if they have been a part of the conversation. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you.
Speaker 7: Hello again. My name is Malina Ramirez and I live in a sixth district in I has been involved with Long Beach Alliance children with asthma since 1999. And I start being involved because my daughter has been living with asthma since she was like a six month.
Speaker 2: Old.
Speaker 7: In I would like to buy all those people to come to live to these areas. My kids were attending the Stephens Middle School. My older son were attending the Cabrillo High School in. I saw them howl on the way that they go. We don't have enough space. Not only, you know, for a respiratory problem, not only for asthma problems. We have a lot of problems because we don't have enough enough green space where we can do exercise, where we can run. We have many health problems and heart problems. Cancer problems, asthma problems, obesity. I don't know how many things. And sometimes I get a little nervous because my my English. But I want to tell you guys I will I am by you all of people who are.
Speaker 10: Saying, oh, don't.
Speaker 7: Put these on. Don't do that. I want to invite them to live in my area. Almost 60% of the people who live and thus areas are renting. We don't have enough space inside over our apartments. We need those green areas. We need to have a space where this kid can run, camp play. It still is that level of contamination. But if we have more wind spaces is going to help a little bit. But it's going to help in I, I want just make you guys think what is living in those areas grow your kids on those are you before come to talk that they want to change things or do things they need to think about how we feel. I can I can borrow you guys my shoes and and you can you can use my children lives in this area with my kids. Yes. As the pontymister battles in mirror look SCMP Bass had the label YOLO theme beat though and buy you guys to live in this area is what I can say. Thank you. Thank you. I don't know. I mean nobody said in the Russian Soyuz announcement in. Good evening.
Speaker 1: Yes, good evening. My name.
Speaker 7: Is Raskin.
Speaker 1: I am a community health worker with the Long Beach Alliance for Children with Asthma for 13 years. Um.
Speaker 7: Separately, Orson Welles, the blond beauty, stunned into a traditional salute to California.
Speaker 1: 11% of children in central and west Long Beach are diagnosed with asthma, according to the California Health Institute survey.
Speaker 7: If you still need one than coriander is my first mirando.
Speaker 1: I have seen many children who get an asthma attack as they're running, and it's very sad to watch them.
Speaker 7: I mean, I wonder they are not gonna smile and your basil then go, um. Don't really need those nano. Ketamine is easy way to impress. I don't know where this. Yeah. I think they're getting in. One to come into.
Speaker 1: I just have a grandson who was diagnosed with asthma last year, and I also have neighbors, one of which is one year of age, who just recently got diagnosed with asthma when his his parents realized as he was, he was starting to run outside and started noticing these changes. And the parents are still in shock that that the son can't run.
Speaker 7: He happened to be that Iceland bed massage. WALLACE But I could not even. Siva But I can control contamination.
Speaker 1: And so I support the green tie plan to provide more trees and a better defense for the community.
Speaker 7: Standards are one less is important but I don't mean it I mean there are a lot emissions stickers kissing green thumb. Yes but I don't initially. But in the end, this idea.
Speaker 1: And having many trees is really important to the air quality. These trees would also be able to capture the toxic emissions and this would begin to help this area where children Canvey.
Speaker 7: Island Female Franziska Beetle, the Canino is Toshiko Ambiental. Istanbul. They may not be that, but I get emotional, get emails. So in of touring you know they use immune to massive animals. Muscles. Ambien, Tylenol, ninos. I'd rather have to take it out on me is a God knows why. Now you are my son.
Speaker 1: And so when I say phrases that every breath is a toxic air that they're breathing, and that this environment gives them less time of life. And that's not what we want. We want them to have a better future and that they can have better health and that they can improve and work toward zero emissions for our future generations. Thank you.
Speaker 11: Good evening, Vice Mayor and members of the city council. Good to see you all. My name is Steve Gerhart. I'm the project coordinator for a collaborative called Walk Long Beach. Our offices are 425 East Fourth Street in the East Village. We're a collaboration of City Fabric, the YMCA of Greater Long Beach and the Preventative Health Folks at the Health Department and Collaborative, such as LeBoeuf, the Kaiser's heels on the California Endowment's Building Housing Communities. We've been working for the last few years to promote walking, pedestrian safety and walkable neighborhoods throughout Long Beach. One outcome of that effort I just wanted to let you know about is that in June, coming up this year, we're going to be hosting here in Long Beach, the California Walks, which is the statewide organization conference walking summit called Pedestrians Count. And we'll tell you more about that as it gets closer. It should be no surprise to you that we fully support the Green Tea Project as it creates a more walkable Long Beach. It's a strong concept, a first step, an early step, and this will change a underused freeway segment into an urban street. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity and we need to do the studies, which will only happen if you move the atom for tonight. It will create much needed linear, open space. And a lot of the things you've already heard about the staff in the consulting team have done a wonderful job putting together a concept and idea, and we would like to study it further. I did want to tell you about a couple of things. In October, I attended the National Walking Summit on behalf of Work Long Beach. There were over 500 advocates, including organizations such as the Kaiser Family Foundation, the Vision Zero Network, America Walks. And one of the highlights of that two day conference was a presentation by the U.S. surgeon general. Many people think of him as America's doctor, talking about a call to action that he proposed in September to promote, walking to and creating walkable communities as a national health imperative and a top priority of the federal government. This is a call to action about and it's a fundamental change in the way we view walking. One of the things that was raised in the conference, that it's a personal right to be able to walk comfortably and safely in our communities and neighborhoods. I There was a lot of interesting discussion about Chapter five. I won't go back into it. But one of the things I learned working for Mr. West and Burdick is it's fine and dandy to create a bold and beautiful plan. The plan is only as good as the implementation. So let's move forward. Let's do the studies and let's get this done. Thank you.
Speaker 4: Good evening, Vice Mayor and council members. My name is Sylvia Bettencourt. I'm the project manager with the Long Beach Alliance for Children with Asthma. Prior to this meeting, I had submitted a letter to you.
Speaker 1: A comment on behalf of.
Speaker 4: Myself and Dr. Elisa Nicholas.
Speaker 8: Who is the chief executive officer at the children's clinic, serving children with with family.
Speaker 1: So I want to read that letter to you today, in.
Speaker 8: Part as it reads that we, as the children's clinic and the Long Beach Alliance for Children with Asthma are in support of the Green Plan and see this as a community vision for replacing the.
Speaker 1: Terminal Island Freeway.
Speaker 8: This plan was developed through intensive resident and stakeholder engagement over the past year, many of which are our clients in central and west Long Beach. La Barca is a community coalition under the.
Speaker 4: Institutional umbrella of Miller Children's Hospital, which is a not for profit children's hospital under the corporate ownership.
Speaker 8: Of Long.
Speaker 4: Beach Memorial Medical Center. Our mission is to change the.
Speaker 1: Profile of asthma.
Speaker 8: In children in the most affected areas.
Speaker 4: Of Long Beach and surrounding.
Speaker 8: Communities. The Children's Clinic was founded in.
Speaker 4: 1939 by a group.
Speaker 8: Of local physicians and community leaders. It's an independent nonprofit, and its largest.
Speaker 1: Site is at.
Speaker 4: The Long Beach Memorial Medical Center, having 11 sites.
Speaker 8: In the city of Long Beach. Its newest clinics are located in the severely impacted West Long Beach area and include the century villages of Cabrillo Housing Development. Research shows that air pollution is likely part of the.
Speaker 1: Cause of asthma, demonstrating.
Speaker 8: That health impacts of air pollution for children and families living in Long Beach.
Speaker 4: And its surrounding.
Speaker 1: Communities are real. The Long Beach area is part of the Southern.
Speaker 4: California Air Basin, which, despite significant improvements, remains in violation of the National Ambient Air Quality Standard specified by the Clean Air.
Speaker 1: Act. Because of the universal impact that air.
Speaker 8: Pollution has.
Speaker 4: On children's health in Long Beach, LA Baca and TCC work hand in hand to prevent pollution from the largest sources in our region. The ports of L.A. and Long.
Speaker 8: Beach and the goods movement.
Speaker 1: System, the green tie has empowered residents and local stakeholders to craft a vision of their community where public infrastructure serves the public good.
Speaker 8: Relocating trucks and pollution they emit from the Terminal Island Freeway would significantly improve the living conditions of West Long Beach residents.
Speaker 4: As well as a learning environment.
Speaker 8: For over 5000 students attending the five campuses.
Speaker 4: That are adjacent to the freeway. La Barca and Taxi have engaged have been engaged with these communities surrounding the port complex and have seen firsthand the impacts on public health that freight transport have.
Speaker 1: On the community. This experience reveals that the opportunity.
Speaker 8: To remove such contiguous uses as truck corridors in schools and homes should be supported.
Speaker 4: We ask that City Council support this community effort by adopting the plan and directing staff to take next steps toward making this vision a reality. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you.
Speaker 11: Good evening, Vice Mayor. Council members. My name is Dan Hoffman. I'm the executive director for the Wilmington Chamber of Commerce. I learned the last time I should state upfront that we are opposed to this. I also wanted to mention that the last time I attended your meeting this was mentioned is just a small part of a much larger project to green the area. And I think we all agree that greening the area, making our environment better, having cleaner air, healthier air is a good thing. However, we have some real concerns about this particular project. One of them is the is the fact that of the transportation efficiency that we're not going to be able to move goods as efficiently. We learned not too long ago, not too many months ago, that when our cargo was backed up, it was we found customers that found other ways to move their cargo. And it wasn't through our ports of Long Beach or Los Angeles. Additionally, is.
Speaker 14: The impact that it would have.
Speaker 11: On our businesses that are in the area and we're talking about what was an estimated 6600 trucks per day is the number that I heard. That's a lot of trucks. And so the businesses that are directly there now are Tesoro, Valero, Tesoro and oh, gosh, California Sulfur of Vopak Harbor, Green Fast Lane Transportation. And it could be the future site of the big project, which is also needs to be taken into consideration. So I want to also let you know that in terms of the community and as I say, that the last time what it seems like we're doing is we're moving trucks from one area to make it better to another area. And so our community of Wilmington, me share a couple of facts that you can verify. Our property level in Wilmington is 28.6%, 28.6%, and that's according to the US Census Bureau. If you're familiar with the Cal enviro screen 2.0, Wilmington is the top 10% of impacted communities. I don't think and I still don't believe that it was ever your intention to move that. Pollution from one community. That's impacted to another community that's more impacted. And I thank you for your time and attention.
Speaker 0: Thank you.
Speaker 11: Good evening, Vice Mayor and members of the Council. My name is John Taylor, Effie. I want to, first off, thank Councilman Aranda for pushing us forward. I'm going to be frank with all of you. Five years ago or so was the initiation process by the community to move forward, to find resources and find an opportunity to put together something that would be acceptable to save lives in West Long Beach. This TII freeway was addressed as one of the major buffers that could be that resolution or that that remedy. Last year with Mr. Smith's team, we finally realized that this can actually happen. And as such, I want to be able to draw attention to the scale or rather the scope of the project itself, because it speaks to efficiency. Our ports operate under an efficiency opportunity. What will happen here is that closure of that TII freeway would utilize that clover on PCH and send the trucks over to be in S.F. . U.P. is proposing to open their doors into the Alameda corridor where that Alameda corridor was actually established to do this. So common sense tells you now that to do the right thing would be to save the lives of those schoolchildren that are impacted every day and those residents. And if Labor has it such that they can partnership with a good measure to involve and engage the community, provide a benefit to the community, our ports will continue to flourish because there would be that constructive partnership. So I ask you tonight, please. To accept, receive and file, and let's move forward to find resources. Let's make this thing happen so that we can truly be a city of Long Beach that is equal for all to live and enjoy. Thank you very much.
Speaker 0: Thank you.
Speaker 11: Madam Vice Mayor, members of the City Council. My name is Chris Wilson. I'm here on behalf of Assembly Member Mike Gibson. We are here to express our strong concerns with regard to green tea. While we appreciate the Fourth Y thinking of this idea, Assembly member Gibson CIL has several concerns. Mr. Gibson remains concerned about.
Speaker 14: The congestion.
Speaker 2: This will cause.
Speaker 11: Our community.
Speaker 2: Which we represent Wilmington and.
Speaker 11: In Carson in our district, the impact on our port gateways and the tremendous environmental impacts this.
Speaker 2: This would cause.
Speaker 11: Wilmington already suffers from one of the highest health disparities in the country. It is estimated that 11,000 trucks each currently utilized the Turtle Island Freeway on a daily basis. These trucks will be transferred to our streets in Wilmington, Carson and nearby communities. We are also concerned about the lack of outreach and input from neighborhood associations, community members and stakeholders in and nearby the 64th Assembly District. I can tell you that our office was not reached out to and was not on that list you saw before. We are respectfully.
Speaker 14: Requesting.
Speaker 11: To please consider the impacts decommissioning this really will cause. We also have the concern in question with regard to sequel. Thank you. Hi. Good evening. My name's John Schaefer. I'm to the pile drivers bridge, dock and Work Builders, which are based in Wilmington, but service the entire Southern California area. I just wanted to say basically three things. One, I did listen to your council meeting and it brought back memories of my mom who graduated from Saint Anthony, who was born in Germany and, you know, came as an immigrant who didn't know how to speak English. And she did pass away from asthma and living in San Pedro. But she before she did, she lived in Pico Union, where my brother married, immigrated four people that his wife with four children. And they have suffered from gang violence and drug addiction from a lot of things that came through there. And he's still living in the area that goes through there. So not only in my working as labor with business, I support a lot of the really positive actions that you're taken already today. I want people to not be separated from their families. I want good alleyways so people can have proper entrance to go through there. And you guys know that there are some things that comes quick and there are some things that have been waiting for years. For years, port development has been held up because they said they didn't consider all the parties that came through. You built a Desmond Bridge because you're going to have more ships, taller ships and more containers coming in. You're building that right now. You're building the bridge from Schuyler Highway, which is going directly to the Terminal Island Freeway, because, you know, you're going to have increased traffic because you're getting these bigger ships and you want things to go out there. And these plans took decades to get approved because there wasn't enough community input. So now you have a proposal that didn't talk to business, that didn't talk to government. It didn't talk to the port. At the port. That may affect outstanding hours, that may affect current projects. And you want to move forward because one group of your bar community wants to move forward. Ultimately, as government officials, you have to respect a certain amount of process. And it is apparent to me anyway that no prosthetic complete process hasn't occurred. I'm asking you just to do your job as referee among a bunch of different interests and tell people, look, if you're going to come for action, be prepared for a complete report. And so, again, I hope all the best. I want all the green, the community, they deserve it. They've gone through a lot. This just isn't ready at this time.
Speaker 0: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Hi. I'm Tonya Reyes, seventh District. I'm here to speak to you for the second time tonight. I have some free time. My husband's busy, so I'm able to come by. I just want to say that let's not get too excited or ahead of ourselves that this is a receiving file item. And I'm sure the Council will delineate exactly what that means and that give you a little history. In the past eight years, the last two councilmembers have always talked about changes to the tie. We have always talked about maybe closing one of the lanes and making it a one way freeway. We talked about closing it all altogether. We talked about a lot of things, but what we didn't have is a plan or a vision or community input, and we didn't have that input from other parties as well. But there was always the idea that the tie was inappropriately placed and whether underutilized or misused or whatever it needed to be changed for the sake of the community, nothing happened. You have a visioning and I wanted to thank the consultants that did the visioning. They really did a complete job. It took them 18 months, I believe. So that means it. And I also want to thank the port for paying for it, but it's going to take another 7 to 8 years for anything to happen. The port, meanwhile, will be growing. We hope. We want the port to grow. We want the port to be prosperous. During the visioning sessions in West Palm Beach, the two things, the two top two items is that the community wanted clean air and the second was jobs. We want the port to be successful. We want good union jobs. We want that play to be able to have local hire and to ensure that our community, the West, Long Beach people, a lot less limited residents take benefit of that local hire agreement. But I have to tell you that while I was on the council, I was also on the South Coast Air Quality Management District, and we struggled how to find mitigation for the negative effects of the port and port related business. And if you as a council don't figure out mitigation for what's going to happen in the next 7 to 8 years of what's happened now today, then they will make you find a mitigation. Someone's going to go to court and they will have you do some things that maybe you don't want to do and has it been vetted by the community? So I'm asking you today that, you know, you have to give something to the community that has taken all the negative effects of port and port related businesses and give them something. And I say give them some hope. At least let them know that you're talking about it, you're thinking about it. And whatever you decide today, you know, it's going to be a tough decision. But whatever you decide today, it's not it's not over. It's going to take a long time. I think a lot of the studying has just begun. A lot of the inclusion and the input from businesses has just begun. And I never thought I'd be quoting Bob Foster, but I remain of all people. Right. But when he when when someone said, well, think about Carson and Wilmington residents. Since when are our residents second class and have to take us are just are less valuable than other residents in this area and if we can't take care of Long Beach who can we take care of? So good luck. And whatever you do, you know the community is with you. But we hope that, you know, again, give them hope. Thanks.
Speaker 0: Thank you.
Speaker 2: And I want to say I'll be I'll be late for dinner.
Speaker 11: Good evening. My name is Scotty Galloway. I'm a licensed civil engineer and a lead accredited professional. I'm also a father of two kids under five years old. I want another. I've made a career out of sustainability and I want nothing more than more greenspace, more water retention, more water infiltration and. But those are side benefits of what the primary driver that I've heard here tonight and through other presentations regarding the tie is that it's air quality. And the air quality test that has occurred occurred in 2011. It's been four years. I've personally installed and managed the installation of 25 to ship power outlets at the Port of Long Beach. Not to mention the other green enhancements that the port has done. More green trucks. And I haven't that's not taken into full effect of what that benefits or those benefits are. Um, so if we can get the quantifiable effects of what the air quality is now in the area. And has there been an air current study? Because if you only move it a quarter mile or a half a mile to the east or to the west, is that the air currents could still carry the particulates back to the same area. So I don't I haven't heard any references to the air quality or the air current studies or where the source of all of it is. They're only addressing the part from PCH to Willow. And in closing, I take you back to where we began. We began the session today with people looking for parking permits and parking concessions. Thanks to term limits. You won't have to deal with it. But think about the your your successors that will have to deal with the residents that are voting for it and for the Green Park now when the trucks start driving through their neighborhood. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you.
Speaker 13: Honorable Vice Mayor City Council.
Speaker 11: My name is Brian Olszewski and the executive director of City Fabric. We're a nonprofit design studio based out of Long Beach, dedicated to improving our communities through public interest design, planning, policy development and civic engagement. Thank you for having the foresight to apply for the Caltrans Environmental Justice Grant to create this community vision to reshape the West Side by transforming the term Long Island Freeway, the city owned transit Terminal Island Freeway into a greenbelt and local infrastructure. While some have stated the commissioning would be the largest. Largest freeway removal in Southern California history. A more accurate description would be that it would be the first in Southern California history, but in reality would also be the smallest urban freeway removal in our nation's history. Based on the numbers vehicles it serves and the length of right of way considered for removal. Previous freeway removal projects included the Riverfront Freeway in Chattanooga, which carry twice as much vehicles. Portland carries even more Park Park East and Milwaukee carries 35,000. In San Francisco removed two freeways totaling 150,000 vehicles that serve their downtown financial district. That is their economic engine. That is the economic engine of the Bay Area. Instead. What we're also talking about is New York City is currently looking at removing the Sheridan Freeway, which served the Port Authority's Hunt Point, a port facility that carries three times as many vehicles as the Terminal Island Freeway. With the Terminal Island freeways paltry 11, about 11,000 vehicles a day. A more relevant comparison would be Broadway Redondo, which recently experienced pedestrian and oriented street enhancement fourth Street, which has wrecked on Retro Row, which has Parklets and SROs, Orange Avenue, North Long Beach, which was reconfigured in 2000 to remove travel lanes to create bike lanes. According to a 2012 traffic study commissioned by the Port of L.A. for another transportation project, every intersection along this alternative route of Alameda Street operates an E, A or B operations A level of service. There's very few intersections that we drive through regularly that have such a levels of performance. And Caltrans, I mean, sorry, and the Air Quality Management District and the ports of Long Beach and L.A. are actually collaborating on investing further in this corridor, through that through the zero emissions corridor, which hopefully our trucks will be able to take advantage of. We're looking at an opportunity to fundamentally change the health and well-being of residents of West Long Beach by defining this higher and greater use of the Terminal Island Freeway. Right of way, transforming this last mile of the Terminal Island Freeway into a local serving street. And public public open space is a bold step, not one to be taken lightly, but it's nothing to fear as it is the right direction for the community and the city. I hope you will join the overwhelming support within the community by approving this plan and taking the next forward, taking this plan to the next steps. Thank you very much.
Speaker 0: Thank you.
Speaker 4: Good evening, City Council. My name is Taylor Thomas. I'm a resident of the First District, former resident of the seventh District, a research and policy analyst with Expert Communities for Environmental Justice. I didn't come here planning to speak, but I was just moved. I saw all of the energy industry speaking and you're probably looking around and wondering like where all of the residents, right? This is a very important project, so why aren't they here? And I can tell you, as a resident, we already put in our time. We gave up our Saturday mornings over a very long process to give input on this project. I don't I didn't see any of those people who spoke in opposition to the project at any of those workshops, and they raised the issues about air quality. Our neighborhoods already have trucks going through them. The air quality is already bad. If that if they were really concerned about what our neighborhoods are going through, they would be cleaning up their trucks. They would be rerouting them to the Alameda corridor. But instead, they're here fighting a project that will bring green space to an area that is part poor, that suffers high rates of cancer and asthma. Our children missed school because they have asthma. Our parents miss work because they have to care for their children. It's insulting to the city development services, the staff, the consultants and all of the residents who have been a part of this process for several years to come here and oppose this project tonight. So I'm asking that you do not punish the residents. You don't punish punish the residents of West Long Beach because people did not take the time to participate in this very lengthy process. So I'm asking you to move forward with this item as is. Thank you.
Speaker 7: Good evening, counselor. Laura Cortez, Long.
Speaker 1: Beach Alliance for Children with Asthma. I also want to point out that we did have some community members that came by, also had to leave a little earlier. And I would also like to express my support for the Green Terminal.
Speaker 7: Island plan and.
Speaker 1: Hope that you can prioritize clean air and environment, since this is what the community felt was important during the workshops. We all know that Long Beach suffers many health impacts, including 15,000 children with asthma, according to the L.A. County survey, and that the West has less park space than East Long Beach and is disproportionately affected by particulate matter, as was stated in the earlier presentation. Greening the tie would have huge positive impacts on the West, as you already know, and you have already, it seems to have a recommendation to move forward with this. So we would just greatly appreciate that you continue working toward it and continue working with other organizations to do so. Thank you.
Speaker 12: Good evening, Vice Mayor. City Council. My name is Leigh Fukui. I'm a resident of sixth district. I'm a founding member of regular is going green. It's a tree planting organization, also a member of Wrigley Clean team. And I'm a member of the city's Tree Advisory Committee. I was kind of shocked at how many people came out in opposition to this. This is a park and it's a park that in a that's necessary in a badly neglected part of town. It's park poor. The residents are obviously suffering from high cases of asthma, cancer, etc.. This is all we all know this. So what is the problem? Why? Why is it that every time we have something like this that we have the unions come out? The truck drivers come out and say, no, no, no, that we want to keep everything the same. Keeping every everything the same isn't the answer. We need to move forward. We need to create more park space. And there's very limited areas to do that. This is a smart plan. It's a good plan. It's a necessary plan. We just had the forest wetlands open up and that's going to link up with the Mingus gap. That's going to link up with the River Link project, and that's going to connect to other parks that's necessary. That's what we have to do for Long Beach. That's what we have to do for our citizens. That's our responsibility. We can get there and we can get zero emissions, but we're going to have to sacrifice some things. It's going to be hard, but to say keep everything the way it is is not a solution. There's going to be sacrifices going to have to be made. The Clean Trucks program is working. The port is doing its best to make it a clean port. We're getting there. This is another as someone else said, this is another piece of the puzzle. It's necessary. We shouldn't be fighting over this. More parks are good. It's good for the environment. It's good for our city. It's good to attract more clean energy jobs and clean energy companies to here. How are we going to be attractive if we're if we keep looking the way we do? I mean, we already have this diesel death zone that we're trying to shed. We have a number of hurdles that we have to shed in this city to get and attract those businesses. Those new entrepreneurs, they're looking at other cities. Seattle. Portland. You're talking about losing port jobs. I'm sorry, but you know, that's competition. You are going to get competition from other ports that are opening up. But we have to see that and we have to encourage greener jobs to come here. That's the future. I'm sorry, but thank you. Please move this forward. Thank you very.
Speaker 0: Much. Thank you.
Speaker 2: Good name.
Speaker 6: Vice-Chair City Council. My name is Tony Rivera, former.
Speaker 2: Chair of the West Side. I just want to tell everybody thank you for the openness on this project. I staff and everybody else did a very good job. I went to some of the meetings. It was open to the public for everybody to assist. It was publicized very well. I got like three messages and 1.3 messages on the computer and all over the place. I know it was there.
Speaker 6: So one thing.
Speaker 2: I want to mention is this piece of the freeway and I'm on parole, by the way. I'm proud of the project. So one little piece on the freeway is only going to affect a few people. This is only traffic is only going to the rail rail. It has projects that is going to go through Alameda corridor. We spent over 280 millions on the line. I mean, a corridor. And they better use it.
Speaker 3: They better use it.
Speaker 2: In their road. Myself, I had trucks.
Speaker 6: I have a business on the way, so.
Speaker 2: I know that we might have a problem. Too much traffic on PCH. We might need to consider later on on up in Anaheim. But the traffic today, it took me from Long Beach Freeway to Santa Fe just to get to my business. It took me 20 minutes. So I don't want to hear the other people. The way they.
Speaker 6: Said it is going to create problems. Locsin has a legitimate concern, but I need to tell you, I'm one of the pioneers of the.
Speaker 2: Weeds in Alameda is one of the correct roads to go with over weeds. They have a really good sound road. It's just a matter of changing it. When the project goes through, it has to be changed so they can get the weeds through there. Right now, that's the only problem I see on the other ways I mention it to them, because they came in and they got they got a lot of business.
Speaker 6: On the side of the warehouses.
Speaker 2: But that doesn't justify to start the the project to benefit all these people that we've been suffering. I've been in almost 40 years and doing business or working with companies and it's time to work together. Union I'm sorry, but the.
Speaker 6: Union I love union and I love the longshoremen's. I got friends working there, but they need to get to work together to move more trucks at night.
Speaker 2: Quickly because I got people there waiting 5 hours on the port. There's a lot of contamination.
Speaker 6: And the contamination of these get done that the port.
Speaker 2: Is already clean. Let's cut that off. The rail is the problem. A locomotive that comes through there, the Union Pacific or anyone, there's not a black locomotives is contaminated like crazy more than the port or more than a lot of cars in combine. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you.
Speaker 6: Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council members give me this. Time to speak. As a veteran, disabled veteran from the Vietnam era. I enlisted twice, but I felt getting out of high school, I was in good shape. B Damn, what's going on? So a lot of people getting drafted back in that area and I joined. I believe that I can serve my country in the way I feel in my heart that I can do. My attitude is grabbing the bull by the horns. Take care of action. A lot of veterans are the same way we came home. Even up to now, every company and you probably hear about it gets a $5,000 tax write off if they hire a veteran. A lot of the veterans, especially now the younger post-9-11 veterans, come back from Iraq, Afghanistan. You know, it's part of war. They come back not another percent PTSD or they do the arm or leg. These companies hire veterans. Because they'd done their job. You know, now we got to help them do their jobs. And I'm proof of that. I work down here, but I because of my knees, I had to replace them. I'm like a 53 Chevy, you know, replace bar joints and stuff like that. But anyway, I don't have any grits and I don't have anything that's growing up in Wilmington. I'm healthy. Stage shape, meet the right food. And I think that's the problem with this small community. It's shocking. I feel embarrassed by you guys discussing. I heard somebody say there's 50,000 people in that residence. Only a fraction of them show up here. So who's really concerned about the greenbelt? The people who work for them or the people they get paid to do the survey. I mean, these people here, here, they got good information. But you guys live in Long Beach. Did they pay you good money? Okay. These people that live there, that Green Park. They get paid. I've been in a couple of villages and some of their. I got veterans right here and there. I help one to PTSD and I gave them Easter cards. The kids go and there's officers. I'm pretty sure you'll have your office up here. Do you have air purifiers? Why not research the schools and the residents? They're paying rent. They don't own the houses. They're paying rent. Whoever owns those properties, they should investigate. That's a good job for you guys to do. Follow up on that before you start going with this. Put veterans out of work and the truckers and make sure those houses are up to par with. If it's, you know, progress is going to go forward. You need to make sure those schools there have air, clean air, like you do in your offices up here. In the hospital air purifiers they suck all the the stuff to fly around in the dust, not just from the port, but from the house closing the people who own the property, they're not going to go. That costs too much money. And for the to help the vetters keep their jobs and keep fighting them when they come home. They didn't get the Vietnam Veterans parade. I have not seen one. But yet the people were making sure that the young veterans come back. And take care of the veterans so it don't happen like us and you. My name is Jonathan Cassata. I am a chaplain. Vietnam Veterans of America, average life member and also now a Native American betters. I want to thank you all. I hope you really think about it. Investigate with the community, the houses.
Speaker 0: And time is up.
Speaker 6: Thank you. I appreciate it. Apologize often. I'm a talker and I get frustrated. I talk and I thank you all. God bless you.
Speaker 0: Thank you.
Speaker 12: Good evening. Madam Vice Mayor and honorable members of council. I'm Richard Hines. I'm proud to be one of your five Harvard commissioners, and I know everyone's very tired. And I'll be very brief because I didn't write a long speech. I did want to come down and clarify that the port and the Board of Commissioners specifically have not taken a position on the green tie. My comments tonight are just my views and they don't represent the Board of Harbor Commissioners. I absolutely support, as my vote indicated, to help pay for a study and to support the West Long Beach Livability Plan. But the board, myself included, support our community. We're part of the community. I did want to mention, though, I mean, we've seen a lot of pro and con tonight, and I think we need to try and bring everyone together here. If we move forward with a study. It's going to be important that we look at replacement infrastructure. If you take out an overweight corridor that supports the movement of goods from our port, we're going to have to build new infrastructure. The good news is there is a project that would help tremendously. And Councilwoman Lena Gonzalez is the chair of the Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority, which I sit on the board with her. And there is a project that connects the Schuyler High Bridge directly to PCH in Alameda. The 47 flyover goes directly over Alameda Street, bypasses five stop signs and stoplights, creates snack grade separation for all the rail tracks. And. The reason why truck drivers don't use Alameda is it's not convenient. We need to make Alameda convenient as a true overweight corridor and have the ice ETF realign their gates to Alameda. And if there is a gig that will be built, that they be built on Alameda, their gates as well. You see, if we build this project, we wouldn't have the need to move 6000 trucks down the down the Thai freeway. Right now, this project is $330 million. And I come here asking for your help because it's going to it's a heavy lift. It's going to take the city and the port. And we're going to have to engage the city of L.A. to work together to get $330 million. We have a green light. It was sued by the. There was litigation by the NRDC. And it's been we've won every lawsuit at the state level, at the federal level. We went through the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and won. So I only ask that we if we're looking at a study that we look at this project as well, because this is this is a real solution. If we can get our S.R. 47 flyover, then I think that a lot of the people that spoke in opposition tonight, they may be okay, because I think we have a real solution here. Anyway, that's all I have for you. Thank you so much. I know it's been a long night and you guys have had a lot of public comment and I'm happy to answer any questions if you guys have anyone to discussion.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Thanks, Rich. We will take it behind the dias. Sir. You've already know. No. On different issues. They were different issues.
Speaker 6: Well.
Speaker 0: Sir, we cannot speak from we can't speak from the audience. Thank you. We've heard your testimony. I appreciate it.
Speaker 6: All right. I know where.
Speaker 0: And that's an unfortunate characterization. Thank you, sir. Please have a seat. Okay. I will take you behind the dias, Councilmember. Your Honor.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Vice Mayor. First of all, I want to thank everybody who spoke tonight on both sides of this matter. We're paying attention. We listened. We're going to discuss it. Obviously, there's there's a lot of emotion attached to it. It's not an easy decision where we sit here and try to decide which direction we want to take on a matter that's so important to not only transportation and goods movement, but also to the residents of those areas that are going to be affected by it. In regards to the clean air and the mobility, that that is much needed there. I want to emphasize again what I said earlier. It's it's a a project in concept. It can change. And I'm pretty sure that it will change as we move forward with this. If we do, in fact, move forward with this, it's not a project already in place. The recurring theme that I heard tonight from both sides is that it's incomplete. There's still a lot more things that need to be accomplished. I met with a contingency contingent of goods movement, people led by the Future Ports. Elizabeth Warren and I and I made a promise at that meeting. I said, if anything goes forward, we're going to engage them. We're going to go to the stakeholders. We're going to make sure that they are involved in that discussion and participate in that conversation, because apparently there's been somewhat of a lapse, if you want to call it that. But this is one part in a long, lengthy process that's taking place, and there's a lot of moving parts to this. You know, we can go from A to B or to C or D without going through those steps. And this is one step in that process. So I want to make sure that, you know, that I want to make sure you know that I did hear you. And there is information that's lacking here. We don't have a complete transportation study. We don't know what the effects of closing that one mile stretch of the to freeway will do to the goods movement. We need to know that if we're going to do anything at all. So what I would like to do is to amend the motion to move that the city of Long Beach work with the cities of Los Angeles and Carson and the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles to develop a plan for goods. Movement. Transportation. Without this segment of the to freeway and to fill any necessary gaps. I would like to move that. We continue more outreach with our stakeholders and provide a more detailed design and potential sources of capital and operational funding, including grants. And I would like to have a progress report on their movement within six months. So what I'm trying to do with this motion basically is say. Let's let's study it further. Let's move it along so that everybody who at the end of the day, we have all of the information that's needed. And we're not just stopping here tonight. If we do not go forward, we do not go forward. There's nothing there. And everybody's at a loss and nothing happens. And it's it's status quo. We can't have status quo. We need to help. We have to help people move their goods in an efficient way. I just heard about a solution right now with the CTA, which is which was a plan that was developed, what, ten, 15 years ago. So we need to move with that. We need to endorse that project by endorsing this. So I, I made the motion and I hope I can help to have the support of my council members. Thank you.
Speaker 0: I will. Thank you, Councilmember Urunga. So you've made a motion and it's been seconded by Councilwoman Gonzalez. Councilman, with those, would you like to address the motion?
Speaker 4: Yes, I, too, want to thank everybody for being here. Everybody had some great comments in relation to the West Side. I know both Councilmember Suranga and myself are very much invested in the West Side and I know both business owners and residents alike. I know how much we all have endured many issues along the West Side. I myself live on the western side of the city, not the west side, but the western side of the city. I'm very proud to represent part of that, both industry and residents. And I think this is a beautiful, beautiful plan. It certainly is. I think this is a very a plan that did incorporate a lot of community input. But I, I will have to agree with Councilmember Suranga that there are some missing pieces with that as well. And so not to say that this is not going to move forward, you know, that's not to say that at all. But I think there does need to be further discussion, further study so we can look at other pieces. I myself personally did not get a briefing until two weeks ago. And it's unfortunate. You know, I know that my my staff member went to one meeting, but it's unfortunate that I was not personally briefed on this. And I you know, I don't know where the missing link was on that, but I feel that there needs to be more. This is a it's a huge undertaking to have this put presented in front of us. And for us as council members to make a decision like this, I think there needs to be more information put in front of us, all of us. I do have a few questions related to the plan. I do share the actor, the Alameda Quarter Transportation Authority. I also chair the i 17 Project Committee. I'm also on SCAD. I understand that it went to SAG back in July. How does this marry with other governing board plans? I know that the S.R. 47, I don't think has been discussed, so it would be good to have that studied within the plan. But has this been presented to the I 710 Project Committee?
Speaker 0: That's a question. The city manager.
Speaker 6: Angela Reynolds. So answer that.
Speaker 0: I believe the answer is no.
Speaker 12: All right. So we've discussed.
Speaker 6: This with ACOG, but not specifically with the 710 Project Oversight Committee.
Speaker 4: Okay. And so it would be good to do that as well or to have some sort of, you know, relationship with the two. Because I think it's important that all of these plans are put together. I want to see the cohesion of all of these plans and make it a very mindful and fruitful plan. But to include the I seven term project committee, which now actually includes the River Link plan, which is very important as well, especially to the West Side. Also as our 47, as we discuss and then as far as logistics, I still haven't heard a specific solution. I know the traffic solutions perhaps that could be in the study, but there were there are 11,000 trucks going trucks and cars going down the RTI. So where exactly would be they be moved to?
Speaker 8: Well, Councilman Gonzales, I think I can take a crack at that. It's about 11,000 vehicles estimated now. About half of them are trucks. So that's more like 6000 trucks at the Cloverleaf at PCH. They can either go east or west at this present time, and they do so. That's a heavily traveled route. They go west, they go to the Alameda corridor. They go east. They go over to the 710. But we have that's just a bird's eye view. We have not done any environmental studies. And the categorical exemption that is going along with this project is that it's exempt from security because it's a feasibility study and it doesn't have any entitlements or funding or anything connected to it. So if we proceed to do more study and more outreach, then comes the secure piece, which is an air, complete air. And we probably would also look at the federal side, the NEPA, the the NEPA view as well. So those kinds of things won't come until we actually have a project description and we're moving forward. But they will come.
Speaker 4: Okay. And so I just want to. And then outreach to other cities. I'll emphasize that as well. Of course, Carson City of L.A. to include San Pedro and Wilmington, of course. Again, just reiterating the fact that, you know, many of us sit on regional boards and to sit on these regional boards with other colleagues of ours that are from other cities, it's important that we can speak to these issues, to speak to these projects very articulately, and that we can do so in a way that really works together with these cities, not just putting a plan in place and not having worked with them.
Speaker 8: Councilwoman Gonzales We completely understand, and that's really the first step, is all the logistics of getting everybody to the table. This was a high level concept with the community. That is what was funded through the Caltrans grant. We have it's even written in the implementation, all those other folks that we need to get together with.
Speaker 4: Okay. And then lastly, I know that, uh. So asthma, of course, is a huge issue. I know that the Port of Long Beach had, um. Were that was there any talk of reinstituting asthma programs from the Port of Long Beach? Because I know that, uh, we had not been doing that anymore. So how. How was that?
Speaker 8: I'm sorry. I'm having a hard time hearing you. Are you asking if we met with the Asthma Coalition or.
Speaker 4: Well, not the Asthma Coalition. I know the Port of Long Beach had been funding some asthma programs, and so it's no longer happening at this point. So I just wanted to see what the discussion was during these community meetings about reinstituting programs like that.
Speaker 12: Right.
Speaker 8: I think that the that asthma program is run out of the Health and Human Services Department and in the West, Livable West, Long Beach Plan. We note that as an overall project in that area that we would like to continue to seek funding for.
Speaker 6: And Councilmember, if I can add, we are very aware that the asthma program was funded by the community mitigation grants. That was part of that bucket of money that was distributed out as part of the impacts from some of the port projects. And so that is coming to an end that grant cycle. And we have been having discussions with the executive officer at the Port of Long Beach over how important that program is and seeing how that can get restarted and refunded.
Speaker 4: Do we know how much that cost? Uh.
Speaker 6: I don't have a bit on my head, but I'd be happy to get that to you.
Speaker 4: Great. Thank you. And I will support Councilmember Unger's motion on that. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilwoman Gonzales. Councilmember Richardson.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Vice Mayor. So in the last few hours of discussion, I've been trying to keep track so I can understand both sides of this issue. So it sounds like the folks who are pro this motion tonight want a receiver file. And the folks who are opposed to this want to receive a file. The folks who are in support of this want a traffic study. The people who are opposed to this want a traffic study. The people who are in support of this one year fully air and seek peer review. And people who are opposed to this want the same before air and seek review. But I have a letter from the city of Carson that, you know, asked for a detailed analysis to be done to evaluate the impacts of projects on, you know, of the project on traffic conditions, noise, air quality, vehicle, miles traveled, all these things that I know are considered in a traffic study and environmental review. I have a. This green tie plan that I took the last 2 hours to highlight. And I'm just going to review page 61 says the later study phases of the Green Sky project will have to examine environmental and regulatory environmental issues, risks, potential mitigations and much more detail than has been previously addressed thus far because of the urgency and significance of these issues. It's recommended that environmental study be conducted as soon as possible to help determine the project's feasibility. Ideally, this should commence as soon as the project is defined to a sufficient level of detail. So the capital and operating costs as well as a purpose in each statement can be provided. It also says additional state and local laws and industry standards to be considered include but are not limited to CPC state and federal laws. Full range of environmental impact assessments from noise to air water runoff. A traffic analysis so significant for study. Further study is needed to fully understand all of the traffic implications which are discussed in more detail below. Neighboring impacts, particularly on residents and disadvantaged communities such as those in West Long Beach, Wilmington and Carson. A significant issue for further implementation of the Green PSI project involves the impact that reduced lanes and speed may have on traffic in the subregion and in effective adjacent neighborhoods and major facilities. So. So I guess my first question is, when did this document get when was this document circulated the actual plan? When was this circulating? Or put put forward?
Speaker 8: Councilman Richardson. Yes, that was posted on our website about two weeks ago.
Speaker 12: Okay.
Speaker 3: And since that was put out or even before that, have we actually reached out to the city of Carson City, Los Angeles, at all, at any point?
Speaker 8: No, I don't believe we have.
Speaker 12: Okay.
Speaker 3: I would say. I see. I just think we sort folks got ahead of each other and. I see. I mean, when you just take a step back and look at it. Everything folks are asking for is here. And it's not anyone. One of these councils intention to circumvent any processes or to not speak to any of the stakeholder groups or any of the adjacent cities. But I do think because the cart got got ahead of the horse. I think Councilman Durango was right in saying that we should intentionally reach out to those adjacent communities. Now, since we receive, we should respond to this letter what what they're asking for. This letter says City of Carson didn't receive any information. So we respectfully request request to be included in all future discussions, deliberations. We deal with their council members on different boards. We deal with their city managers. We have a pretty good relationship with their staff. So I think it goes a long way to just pick up a phone and make a phone, pick up the phone and make a phone call. So that would be my first suggestion coming out of this. And I think that the motion on the table satisfies that. And are there any challenges or legal issues with us picking up the phone and making a call? Mr. City Manager.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 3: No. Okay.
Speaker 6: And Councilmember, if I can add, we agree with that point and we actually did speak with the Carson today. They called and asked for some backup on their on the project. And we explained what the next steps were. And the number one step, as you saw, would be to discuss if the plan moves forward to discuss with Carson and City of Los Angeles.
Speaker 12: Okay.
Speaker 3: So just to be clear, does any of the action tonight actually close the freeway or does it get us out of our square requirements whatsoever?
Speaker 8: Councilmember Richardson. No, it doesn't close the freeway.
Speaker 12: And.
Speaker 8: We certainly don't ever want to circumvent secure and the environmental process. And we fully intend to do that and meet with all the other stakeholders and get it all done prior to.
Speaker 12: Ever thinking.
Speaker 8: About closing the freeway. There's a lot of work still to be done. This, again, is a preliminary concept plan. We didn't reach out to a lot to other cities such as Carson, because it's just a concept plan coming out of the city.
Speaker 12: Of Long Beach.
Speaker 3: And I understand that. So my question now is about what's included in that next level of study. Tonight, we I heard about this flyover, and I can't say that I'm an expert on every freeway in that area. It's not my council district. It's not my job to be the expert in that area. But it sounded like there's a really cool project that the port is excited about. And and I know because of all of the history I know about skiing and the intention there is to remove or remove trucks and idling and all that stuff. And so will all of that be considered in the air or in the environmental study, the impacts to these other infrastructure projects?
Speaker 8: Absolutely. There's a section in the in an ER where you have to look at all the cumulative project impacts and that would be including skiing.
Speaker 3: Okay. Now the next question, does what level of design or what level in the process does this project have to have to actually achieve before you can actually go through the air process? Is there a threshold like 5% design or something like that?
Speaker 8: I would say 5 to 10%. But really when you start an environmental process, you have to have a fully vetted what they call a project description. So yeah, you would have to have at least 5%. 10 to 15 would probably be better so that you knew exactly what you were studying.
Speaker 3: Okay. And do we have that today?
Speaker 8: No, we don't.
Speaker 13: Okay.
Speaker 3: So there's no way we could have done that prior to now.
Speaker 8: No. Plus, this is a non funded I mean, the 250,000 from Caltrans was just to prepare what we prepared. There is no other funding associated with this project at this time.
Speaker 3: Okay. So so those are my questions. And it's pretty clear to me that, you know, the community is divided on this particular will. Stakeholders in the community are divided on this. And particularly because the process has evolved enough to even get to the point of negotiating a place where, you know, different stakeholders are happy or you have consensus on the issue. Luckily, have you know, most of the stakeholders have consensus. So you halfway there, you've got labor and business together. So now you've got to figure out the rest. I would say, you know, I could see how since this is so new in that, you know, that's that's that brings uncertainty. And I understand how that might be challenging for business or for port entries or how decommissioning a freeway or transitioning a freeway could be challenging or even scary. But that only underscores why we should study it even more, folks, to understand it. I don't I can't claim to understand it. And I think there is a deeper level of understanding that we need here, because I don't think anyone's going to argue that we need infrastructure. But I also wouldn't say that anybody's going to argue that we need environmental justice. So I just think we're a little bit premature in general to jump to. I support I have pros. I want to learn more. So I'm glad to hear that this action tonight does not stop us from having an absolutely full EIA seek review and traffic study. So that's those are my comments and I'll be in support.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilmember Richardson. Councilwoman Price.
Speaker 4: Thank you. Can I just get some clarification on the motion that's on the floor? From anyone.
Speaker 0: Sure.
Speaker 6: I could see vice vice mayor, members of the council. I was going to ask for clarification. I heard the amendment by Councilmember Urunga, but I believe if I understood it correctly, his motion is to receive and file the Green Terminal Island Transition Plan in accordance with the terms of the Department of Transportation grant and accept the categorical exemption, and then added to that directed staff to reach out to the additional affected community members and communities affected by this project.
Speaker 0: So if I may, Mr. Park, and that would be specifically these asking for the city of Long Beach to work with the cities of Los Angeles and Carson and the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles to develop a plan for goods movement that does not consider this segment of the freeway without this segment of the Terminal Island Freeway and filling us this very gaps. And I think the motion also went on to ask that we continue. Extended outreach with stakeholders and more. And provide more detailed design and potential sources of capital and operation funding, including grants. And then you'd like a report back in six months. On the progress.
Speaker 2: I think the. The key issue, I think, to the culture of looking at is, is the initial receiver filed a motion. My amendment was not to receive a file amendment was to to do this replace the receiver file with this.
Speaker 0: So if I may, Councilmember, I you.
Speaker 4: That's what I heard you say. But then I wasn't sure.
Speaker 0: So.
Speaker 6: Vice Mayor and council, if I may. I think the council, it's requested here that you receive the documents in compliance with the grant terms and conditions and accept the category exemption. I think by identifying that plan and accepting it, it's complying with the terms of the money that paid for it.
Speaker 0: So that's a step that we'd have to take. And and then you can add to it the portion of your motion.
Speaker 2: I think my concern basically is that I don't want to spread this. I have to go on a shelf. Right.
Speaker 0: And. Absolutely. I think that that's a concern that we may all share. And the receiving file terminology is actually quite awkward for the action that we're taking because it does sound like we're shelving it and that's not what it means. So thank you for that clarification.
Speaker 4: Councilwoman Pryce. Thank you. Yes, I appreciate that clarification. And, you know, like my colleagues who spoke before me this evening, I'm very grateful for all the comments and the perspectives that everyone brought to the table tonight. I think it's really, really helpful for all of us and the decisions that we're making. And I understand this is a long term project and the funding source hasn't been identified. And we're really talking about conceptual planning right now, and I get that. But sometimes when we talk about conceptual planning, people start to get a sense of hope about a project and they want that. And I get that. That's that's how it should be. So if we need to do any studies or have any sort of additional outreach, I think that needs to be clarified early so that everybody understands that we're going to go through that process if additional outreach is needed with the other cities or the other folks who have expressed concern and I share with Councilman Richardson, you know, it's not uncommon to hear from business or to hear from labor, but it is uncommon to hear from them together, expressing the same concern about something that is as important as goods movement. So I think it's definitely worth looking at and I just want to make sure that we're all clear that as this project moves forward, there's going to be an opportunity for all the stakeholders to be briefed and have the opportunity to have workshops and dialog. And I think that's the spirit of the motion. Councilman Urunga Is that the spirit of the motion? Okay, I think that's great because I think it's a beautiful design. By the way, the team that has designed this, it's it's a really a beautiful design and a beautiful design for an area that definitely needs it at this time . So I think I will be supporting this motion. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilman Andrews.
Speaker 12: Yes. Thank you. You're not to listen to all of this. I think it's very important that all of us understand that this is a long ways down the you know, the pipe. But the thing about it, just like Mrs. Ewing made the motion, that it gives us hope. And that's what I think is so important, because the fact, especially in a district like mine, that's all most of our entire structure is about hope. And this is shown is something that I think if we do get to that point where we will find the money for this, I think it will be something that we'll all enjoy. And I want to think. Thank Mr.. Yeah. Your anger and and our colleagues here and I hope that they will support this as written. Thank you very much.
Speaker 0: Can I go?
Speaker 1: Yes. I want to thank the councilman for expanding the input stage. I, I really see a value in looking at what a potential reduction of the type freeway's movement of freight could do in terms of additional bottlenecks, delays and the such that would cause additional idling and even more health hazards. And so I appreciate the hope that Commissioner Dynes brings us with a project that would pull the trucks out of the the freeway completely and do an on rail dockside rail option that could really improve the health and quality of everyone. And I know that even today I was in a meeting for several hours where a group of neighbors wanted us to make a change, that all it did was shift the issue from their area on to their neighbors. And we're looking for solutions that resolve things. So I'm really appreciative that stakeholders of neighbors, regional and industry partners will have a forum to have a discussion. I think that over the last several weeks I've talked a lot with the community about the process that council meetings have in which you have 3 minutes to make a point , but the person behind you might make a counterpoint that you then don't have an opportunity to address because the format of which council meetings are is to allow for public comment. But the dialog and discussions that can be had at a stakeholder forum I think are the most important component of our ability to come up with solutions . So with that, I'm going to be supportive of the motion and I am glad that we will be doing an air. I think that knowing and understanding the impacts on our neighbors is a really important component of our future, and I hope that we find a great way to move this additional freight. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilwoman Mongo. And I want to thank all the members of the community and stakeholders that came out to speak to this item. I know. Although we are not taking action to. Decommissioned the freeway in the very, very immediate future. It was important to each of you to have us understand where you're coming from. I wanted to touch on a couple of things that were raised by council members that I think are really salient points here. I know staff was duly taking notes on them. I would like to highlight a question that Councilwoman Gonzalez asked, and not because you did not hear it, but it is something that we value very deeply here. And that's a process we've heard about process for many members of the community. And and we do feel that a tremendous amount of outreach had taken place. And in outreach processes, it's difficult to ensure that everyone is included. But certainly we've heard from a lot of people today. And so these are these are the people definitely that we would include going forward in the continued outreach. As the amended motion asks for, but just our own process and my own understanding about our committee process. I've never served on the I 710 Freeway, but I do think Councilwoman Gonzales makes a very strong point that this is something that should be presented there. We have committee processes for that reason. And and there's a perspective there that regards this issue in the larger context of the 710 Freeway and Council. Former Councilwoman Turanga served on that committee and chaired that committee for some time, and I believe she would agree that this is something that should go there. So thank you, Councilwoman Gonzales, for raising that and and being honest and in letting us know that that had not taken place. So I think our internal process needs to improve as well. And the feasibility study is while it seems as though we are taking immediate steps to close this freeway and create the park space that we indicate we'd like to. It is really a first step in being able to qualify to ask that larger question and consider that larger question. And so for members of the public that felt that this meant that this was much farther down the road, I want to assure you, unfortunately for many of us that work in planning, this is the start of a very long process. And I think Ms.. Reynolds mentioned that earlier. And so community members that have been with us Saturday mornings and committed your days. Unfortunately, it's not over. It's much longer process than that. So I ask all of you interested on either side of the issue to maintain your stamina and follow this project through? This is something that Mr. Ulysses Jeff Sky had mentioned to me in 2006. And so while it might be new to some of us, it's not new to all of us. And I'd like to thank you, Brian, for your ardent and strident advocacy of this issue. It is something that you have worked on for quite some time, as you have many other projects. And as a member of the community who many of you have commented that you don't get paid for volunteer time. I will submit to you a lot of people don't get paid for their volunteer time. And Mr. Liszewski spent the better part of ten years advocating for this. And I live in the city. You live in the city? This is something that we can see through. It is not impossible to imagine where 11,000 trips a day can go, how they can be diverted. When a community inspires a will to improve its quality of life, they do think it's worth our attention and our time to take note and and allow ourselves to ask that question. So this council is not afraid to ask that question, even if it is a process that will take ten years from now. So, Brian, I thank you for that. I thank you for never taking your eye off the prize and holding us to it. Would that council members please cast your vote?
Speaker 1: Motion carries.
Speaker 0: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Item 25 Report from Financial Management. Recommendation to approve the Fiscal Year 2015 fourth Departmental and Fund Budget Appropriation Adjustments Citywide.
Recommendation to receive and file the Green Terminal Island Transition Plan in accordance with the terms of a California Department of Transportation grant and accept Categorical Exemption CE 15-168.  (District 7)