Speaker 0: Thank you very much. We're now moving to the budget hearing. Continuation, please.
Speaker 1: Budget Hearing Item nine report from Financial Management Recommendation to conduct a budget hearing to receive and discuss an overview of the proposed fiscal year 2022 Budget for the Department of Health and Human Services and Police CDI.
Speaker 0: Thank you. I'll turn this over to Mr. Modica. Now we're getting the presentation set up.
Speaker 4: Yes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and members of the council. This is our third budget presentation. And as we enter budget season, you're going to hear from two really important and big departments today. You're going to hear from Health and Human Services and you're going to hear from police. And the next week you're going to hear from, I believe, economic development fire and I believe civil service, or that might be the following week. But I wanted to make some entry comments about what you're going to hear tonight. So you're going to hear a lot of accomplishments, a lot of opportunities and challenges and a number of things that have happened. But I want to take us back about one year. Almost one year. Exactly. Tomorrow is the one year anniversary of the racial reconciliation plan. That was a monumental vote that we took as a as a body. And it was a culmination of a number of of outreach that we heard from a variety of different groups about the importance of looking at things a little differently. Here we are one year later and we heard a lot. For example, we heard we should have an alternative response program for homelessness and mental health. We just talked about the REACH program that's been implemented. We heard a lot about health equity. You're hear about us hiring a health equity manager and putting aside money towards health equity. We heard about alternate responses for incarceration of individuals and we you'll hear about our homeless court system and working with our prosecutor. We heard about the need for investing in youth. And you're going to hear about measure us funding in youth. We heard about mental alternative mental health response models, and that effort is underway and funded by the Recovery Act that this Council put funding towards. We heard about a reentry coordinator that was funded last year and is included. We heard for the need to invest in our health department. We have done 250 new positions in our health department that are supporting COVID response. We heard about the need for PD to interact in not just an enforcement setting, but interact with our community. And you'll hear about our PD Neighborhood Walk program. We heard about the need to look at things differently from a from a reform perspective, from a policy perspective. And you'll hear about the department's policy around Police Department's Office of Constitutional Policing, their collaboration with the Office of Equity. We also heard about the need for an early intervention program for PD, and that is being implemented through a program called IPRO. You'll hear about tonight. We also heard about diversity, mentoring and how important that was and diversity hiring in our police department. And there's new enhancements there. And then, of course, civilian position in positions in police department and looking at non sworn positions to do certain jobs. That is also included in our budget and that was implemented last year. I just wanted to kind of pull some of those major themes together. Those are things we heard from the Council on, things we specifically talked about a year ago, and a lot of progress has been made. And with that, I will turn it over to Kelly Collopy, our director of Health and Human Services.
Speaker 7: Good evening, honorable mayor and council members. You'll probably be tired of my voice by the end of this evening. Thank you for this opportunity to present the many Health Department FBI 21 accomplishments and FBI to you. Opportunities and challenges. The Health Department, the Health and Human Services Department launched a strategic plan earlier this year. Instead of providing a long list of the services we provide. I wanted to share these goals because all of our work aligns with moving these goals forward over the next five years. We seek to ensure people have the culturally competent health care and social supports they need to be healthy, that we have sufficient behavioral health services citywide to prevent and reduce mental illness, substance misuse and trauma that we prevent the spread of communicable diseases in Long Beach, and that people engage in healthy behaviors and have access to healthy food as well as safe and affordable opportunities for physical activity. We are also working to ensure permanent housing for people in Long Beach who are precariously housed or experiencing homelessness. That social and economic conditions are improved for people in Long Beach across their life spans. The preventable deaths and injuries are reduced, that communities are safe from violence, and that people live in safe environments and are prepared for emergencies. We know this is not possible without a department workforce that is strong, resilient and valued and a center of equity in trauma informed practices. If why 22 was even more busy than FBI 21, which is hard, is going to be even busier. And if I 21, which is hard to believe. The department puts forward important plans, technology and services while also distributing more than 10 million it CARES Act funding to support communities and responding to a massive COVID surge and vaccine implementation. And I think around us all, and the fact that we've been working through the largest public health crisis of our time and the pandemic, as well as the declaration of racism as a public health crisis. Through all of this, your Health and Human Services Department, in partnership with our sister departments and community members, have been required to take on many roles and accomplish so much. I'd like to focus first on the COVID response. We began this work with a team of ten people focused on public health, emergency management and communicable disease response. We hired and trained more than 250 employees in the response so far. That in itself was a huge lift. Reestablish nationally recognized testing and vaccine infrastructures, providing more than 4000 tests in one day during the height of the surge and 6000 vaccines in a day at the convention center. These efforts continue and expand and contract based on demand and COVID transmission to create the greatest access to vaccine. We launched the mobile vaccine teams, which have now done more than 450 community clinics. We just moved into an expanded permanent distribution site to ensure the city and region have access to PPE and medical countermeasures. Reestablish a beach research line and a COVID vaccine line. All in all, more than 30,000 calls have been answered and more than 60,000 emails. Environmental Health joined the Vendor Task Force and educated more than 22,000 businesses and responded to 600 complaints related to COVID and reestablished an internationally recognized vaccination program at the port were coming for incoming international cargo ships. This program is ongoing. In the past year, we have launched a number of initiatives and plans as well as a flavored tobacco ban. We launched an internal integrated system of care, which is a common intake and referral system to strengthen services for people engaging with the health department to ensure a single intake to any of our programs , as well as connections to other services. We also launched the Unite US platform as a basis for referrals from the resource line to the community. Relaunch the Department Strategic Plan and the Strategic Plan for youth and emerging adults. And with that launched the Office of Youth Development and strengthened our violence prevention efforts. We also launched the Long Beach Advancing Peace Initiative, which envisions the city of Long Beach, where everyone lives in safe communities, attend safe schools and are contributing neighbors or contributor connecting to their community. They're working to develop and strengthen a community safety collaborative, a community led steering committee and neighborhood mobilization focused on neighborhood capacity, collaboration and alignment of resources and services. They're holding for block by block neighborhood parties. And the first in Washington neighborhood had more than 200 people from organizations and the community. And then earlier this year, we passed the tobacco to flavor tobacco ban, which is a strong stand. And I'm very proud of the city for moving that forward. Through all of this, we maintain an expanded many services across our department, including but certainly not limited to HIV infested testing and treatment risk and black infant health. Older adult supports health, education and environmental health inspections and approximately 30 other programs. The COVID pandemic certainly made meeting the needs of homeless people experiencing homelessness more difficult. We just had a long conversation about homelessness, and so I wanted to just to share with you that that has been a big accomplishment for the city. We've continued to see MSD operations and outreach with more than 7000 visits. We've already discussed the housing authority vouchers and the news and the new sites. We were able to permanently house 637 people even within the pandemic. And then supported housing for 6900 households through the Housing Choice voucher program. We've committed innovative models for homelessness as well, including the REACH program that we've just recently discussed. We're also partnering with UCLA to offer a mobile opioid treatment and HIV testing, testing and treatment in Long Beach hotspots to address the intersection of homelessness and housing, insecurity, energy, business, drug use and HIV and FTD infection. This is a very, very cool opportunity, and we're looking forward to increasing opportunity and cruising different locations with this model. And then as earlier discussed, we've launched the homeless drug court at the NSA in partnership with the city prosecutor. The CARES Act funding brought an incredible opportunity to support our communities most impacted by COVID. The department personnel had to be nimble and creative to find the best way to use these resources for maximum benefit. Through the Health Department portion of the funding, we fed thousands of people through meals and food distribution. Supported families with young children through developmental and physical activity kits, labor and formula supplies and subsidized care. We launched a mental health awareness campaign where you can see the posters all throughout Long Beach, and we provided approximately $1,000,000 of services to both our Latino and black communities for health, education and outreach. Mental health care care packages. Food distribution, and early childhood supplies. And we were able to provide services for more than 21,000 older adults through the resource line through distribution, transportation and care kits. We also fund a peer navigation for ages ten through 24, which focused on mentorship, peer to peer learning and connection to mental health services. Direct services to 484 domestic violence survivors. We remediated 65 properties for hazards that exacerbate COVID and provided operational supports for 102 local non-business nonprofits. That was a very busy six months. Our focus for Fy22 continues to remain on pandemic response as we work to increase the number of people who are vaccinated and to ensure safety for our city, particularly in the face of the Delta variant induced surge currently taking place. We're also focusing on strengthening our department staffing and administrative capacity technology and building infrastructure. Increase in funding. Staffing and programing in the past year has put serious pressure on all of our systems and we are working to ensure we can continue to prepare and respond to Long Beach Recovery Act brings significant opportunity to engage with our community and to expand opportunities for youth development, violence prevention, basic needs, housing, food security, mental health, early childhood and older adult services as well as people experiencing homelessness. Measure us also becomes available this year, providing approximately $900,000 for youth, including a youth fund to support community organizations. Structural funding to support an older adult coordinator and some grant writing and data support. Much needed a department that survives primarily off of grants. The various new funding opportunities also allow us to strengthen our health equity work, to work closely with our communities, to build health and wellness. We are hiring a health equity manager as well as a number of coordinators to work specifically with communities most impacted by COVID. As well as launching a Multicultural Health Council to bring communities together, develop integrated collective approaches to health and wellness. We know that the COVID 19 pandemic had the greatest impacts on our Latino and black populations in terms of cases, hospitalizations and deaths, as well as economic impacts. We will invest in the Vida Quinta Black Health Equity Collaborative Partners, as well as services and services, as well as focus on communities living in census tracts with the highest cases and lowest vaccine uptake. This health equity focus was called out in the Racial Equity and Reconciliation Report. In addition, we continue to focus on our goals outlined in that report. We're opening the Health Equity Center on North Long Beach in the next month. We're investing in black health and Latino health equity. We're completing a strategic we've completed the strategic plan and are opening the Office of Youth Development. We are strengthening violence prevention and reentry efforts through a number of programs and launching the REACH program, a model for alternative mental health response as we further develop alternative response models outside of the homeless population. The challenge is focused primarily on funding and capacity at this time. You hear about significant resources coming to the Health Department for pandemic response and community support. It is truly amazing what it is allowing us to do. However, these funds are only 2 to 3 year opportunities. Ongoing Sustainable Corps public health funding has not yet been made available through city, state or federal channels. Our core public health services in Long Beach are currently grant funded. Funding for programs outside of the pandemic response remain underfunded as need increases. Health Department fund balance was depleted in the early days of COVID. It has not been backfilled by other funding and we are not sure how FEMA will reimburse and buy one. We continue to need a comprehensive public health infrastructure in Long Beach to focus on health promotion and disease prevention post-pandemic. The fragmented funding has made it difficult to sustain even highly effective programs past the initial grant funded, often pilot stages. The demands this year have been extraordinary and exponential. The capacity to respond to meet expectation has truly been challenging as well as the ability of our internal finance and h.r. Systems to manage the grants and to hire quickly and maintain staff to meet the needs. We also are concerned because the social and health needs in our community continue to grow in this ongoing pandemic and these needs and challenges. All of us in the city. The challenges I discuss, however, have brought incredible opportunities in the past year and continue into this year. The new funding provides unprecedented opportunity to engage with our communities in planning and services, strengthening relationships, services and outcomes. We have hired more than 250 people to support the COVID response, nearly doubling the size of the Health Department's staff. We've strengthened health equity, provided much needed service to the community, and so much more. They've all jumped in and become strong. Stands for Public Health in our city, a significantly increase homeless services funding, which will allow for new programs such as our mobile messages, increase outreach and case management and additional housing opportunities, including the modular housing and our resource and referral platforms will allow for a better understanding of service availability and strengthen our ability to connect people to services they need. And finally, the opportunities for mental health campaigns to address stigma. The REACH team and partnering with the county to support alternative mental health response brings a new level of focus on mental health and access to care in our city. It has been truly been an extraordinary year for public health in Long Beach and across our nation. I am so, so proud of our health department team and all they've accomplished and continue to accomplish as an organization and as partners. To all of you in our work together to continue to push and achieve every day, even as they have experienced long days, uncomfortable jobs, staffing challenges, fear, family losses and ongoing change. Thank you for your support and understanding as we meet each new challenge and create new opportunities. With that, I conclude my presentation and I'm open for questions.
Speaker 0: Thank you. We're actually gonna do that for presentation first for all the departments, and then we'll go to the council.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Police Department is on their way out. Would you like to do both presentations and questions? Okay, we will do that. Our police department will now present.
Speaker 6: Thank you, Mr. Modica and Ms.. Tatum. Good evening, Honorable Mayor and members of the City Council. Tonight, Assistant Chief Hébert and I will be providing our proposed FY 22 budget presentation. As you are aware, the last year and a half has been tumultuous, not just in Long Beach, but across our country. We have focused on supporting the health and safety of our communities from the menace of COVID 19. The city has done a tremendous job of providing an unprecedented level of economic and community support to those most impacted. The men and women of the Long Beach Police Department are committed to serving our community and have demonstrated this commitment despite the risk to their own personal safety and well-being. In addition to the pandemic, we've also experienced unprecedented polarization and animosity towards law enforcement personnel. It is not easy to be a police officer, but the last year and a half has been particularly trying for our officers. I am proud to say that the men and women of the Long Beach Police Department did not avoid their duty to our community during this once in a lifetime pandemic event. At great risk to their health. Our employees reported to work every day supporting the city wide response efforts, working with persons experiencing homelessness, which we've heard a lot about in the last hour or so, and mental illness and addressing spikes in violent crime. I cannot say enough about the dedication, resilience and adaptability of our employees. We have made advancements over the past several years towards becoming more transparent and data driven, and we will continue to pursue this goal with unwavering focus, integrity and fortitude . Our department is committed to increased engagement, a sensible review of our practices and culture to ensure our principles reflect those of our community and proactively re-envisioning processes that would benefit from change. These practices will ensure good policing that is professional, empathetic and constitutional. That is what our community wants and deserves. And we will provide it. Before I jump into the budget discussion, I want to take a moment to thank you, the mayor. You, the city council and our city manager for their prudent use of the Federal Safety Recovery Funds to provide for a pause from budget reductions in fy22 and for the measure of funding that continues to support our community. Although there are no major budget reductions in FY 22, the police department will not become complacent. We will address the many upstream factors that have created an environment ripe for increased crime and gun violence, specifically by prohibitive possessors. I'd now like to turn some of this presentation over to Assistant Chief Wally Ibish to go over our core services and accomplishments.
Speaker 8: Thank you, Chief.
Speaker 0: And thank you, honorable mayor and council members. The police department provides a variety of public safety services in our community. Our core services include responding to 911 emergencies and calls for service 24 hours a day and seven days a week, conducting criminal investigations and providing victim support. Working with local, state and federal partners on Homeland Security, which includes protecting major critical infrastructure throughout our city. Contracting in services with the Port Airport Metro Line and Long Beach Transit. In collaborating with multiple city departments and other partners to address violent crime. Support city efforts and assist with persons experiencing homelessness or mental illness through various alternative response models such as our met. Detail or quality of life teams and an integrated medical response. We also continue providing current services while the city and county explore alternative response models for persons experiencing homelessness and alternatives to incarceration. We spent count. We spent countless service hours focused on issues associated with homelessness. As mentioned, we also provide investigative services and resource information for victims of crime. Our detectives receive specialized training in trauma informed and victim centered investigations, enhancing their ability to serve as victim advocates. In addition, we work very closely with our nonprofit partners, and we're collaborating. And we're currently onboarding the trauma intervention program known as TIP, to provide support to emotionally traumatized community members after critical incidents. I'd also like to mention that none of this work would be possible without the support of our amazing professional staff. This next slide highlights some statistics that exemplify the great work of our employees. Our officers average over 1600 contacts per day, which includes responding to an average of 590 calls for service daily. While modifying our operations. In response to recent challenges, we still managed to keep our response time to priority one. Calls for service is one of the best in the nation. At less than 5 minutes. However, our priority two and three response times have increased. Like many major cities, Long Beach began 2021 with a significant increase in violent crime. In January of this year, firearm assaults increased 280% compared to January of 2020. Here you see the results of the hard work our employees have been doing. Although firearm assaults are up 53% citywide year to date, we are now seeing a downward trend in firearm assaults. July data shows a 33% reduction in shootings as compared to January of this year. Our offers. Our officers have worked tirelessly to impact the illegal possession of firearms and have already seized over 631 guns. 105. Those are known as ghost guns. Self-Assembled firearms often made by parts ordered online. We've made over 352 firearm related arrests. 209 of those have been for prohibited possessors. That's a 62% increase compared to the same time last year. As we continue into the second half of 2021, we're committed to working to prevent nationwide trends and violence from becoming normalized. Here's an example of some of our social media posts highlighting the neighborhood watch program and our coordinated response team. Two initiatives which have been designed to help us work with our community to impact violent crime. Both programs require community engagement and neighborhood awareness regarding our public safety efforts. EARNEST. Community engagement builds trust and legitimacy. This is fundamental to strengthening the connection between officers and the community we serve. In FY 21, we created the Office of Constitutional Policing, OCP. This office ensures the department meets community public safety concerns through a forward looking analysis of current policies, procedures and training. OCP works collaboratively with the Office of Equity on initiatives associated with building greater public trust and strengthening relationships through increased responsiveness, transparency and accountability. It's part of the department's ongoing commitment to community engagement. We created a community advisory committee to assist in policy review and creation. This committee provides input on department policies that impact community police interactions. Through OCP. We've also conducted training on the use of our early intervention program known as the Pro. All sworn supervisors are able to use pro to enhance the recognition of behavior patterns when employees have been involved in a higher than average number of key performance indicators . Supervisors are trained to conduct detailed reviews in mentoring sessions to modify behavior and improve performance. You'll also see here on this slide the many institutions we are partnering with to ensure we are in line with best practices and community expectations. These partnerships include the Center for Policing Equity, Harvard USC brand, Georgetown University and Long Beach State. In addition, ensuring we are delivering on our promise of constitutional policing. We need to safeguard the physical and psychological well-being of our employees. With the assistance of Counseling Team International. We are doing just that. We're working to expand counseling services to include a peer support program for both our sworn and professional staff. And we've applied for grant funding to help with this effort. At this point, I'd like to turn the presentation back over to Chief Lynagh to talk about our FY 22 focus. Thank you for your time.
Speaker 6: Thank you, Assistant Chief. Although there were few budgetary changes for FY 22, there are still important things taking place within the police department. I will highlight only a few and then move on to the work that we will be doing with the Long Beach Safety Recovery Fund allocation in FY 22. We will continue to focus on onboarding civilian positions. In addition, we will be enhancing proactive, connection based recruitment, retention and advancement efforts by setting aside funds for a diversity, recruitment, mentorship and partnership program. With the help of our partners in the Civil Service Department, we hope to recruit for and hold to 50 person police academies in FY 22. Ideally, we would start the first academy sometime in the fall. Furthermore, we will continue our focus on technology in FY 22 with more efficient systems like a new records management system. E citations and recruitment and scheduling technology. In addition to programs funded through our operating budget, I am grateful for the additional investments in public safety and violence prevention, which is being provided through the Long Beach Safety Recovery Plan. These funds will provide for both upstream and downstream violence prevention and crime reduction activities. Here you will see some initiatives that will continue to impact violent crime and strengthen, strengthen relationships in our community throughout Fy22, including a new training program to support accountability. As a police chief, I am ever vigilant and aware of the challenges not only facing our department, but other police departments across our nation. Higher crime rates than we have seen in many years. Lower staffing due to prior budget reductions and higher attrition and recruitment challenges equate to fewer resources to respond to and investigate crime and homeless challenges. In addition, changes in the criminal justice system have led some habitual offenders not being held accountable for violent crimes or serious felony property crimes. To address these challenges, we are reprioritizing and taking positions from other areas of our department in attempt to reconcile the demand and community expectations with our current resources. Our department experienced high attrition of sworn personnel in FY 21 and will experience numerous retirements and separations this year as well. There is a lot of speculation as to the cause of the recent increases in the level of attrition. There are no simple answers. It's a tough job that is heavily scrutinized and criticized. The continuous disparagement of the police negatively impacts our ability to hire a workforce that accurately, accurately represents the demographics of our city. Unfunded legislative mandates pose additional challenges for law enforcement. I'm not opposed to making changes in our department to enhance transparency, accountability and trust. But there should be funding behind it. Most of our department budget is dedicated to sworn staffing who respond to the needs of our community, leaving limited staffing for administrative support, transparency and other accountability functions . Even with all these challenges, I still believe that being a police officer is the greatest job in the world. I wouldn't trade a day of it, and I know that a career with the Long Beach Police Department will be just as rewarding for new officers. As it has been for me. Despite the many challenges we face today, our department is hopeful for new opportunities in FY 22. We are a nimble department that has been able to pivot and handle all the challenges thrown at us since FY 20, and I believe we will continue to do so in FY 22. Our proposed budget and the allocation from the Long Beach Safety Recovery Plan will allow us to continue to reduce crime while engaging our community through various programs. We will also continue to work with. Community organizations and youth at a level we have not had an opportunity to do so since the Great Recession. We look forward to developing new strategies that promote connections between patrol officers and the community that they serve. Again, I would like to thank the mayor and City Council for the measure. A funding to build a new training facility. We hope to break ground in FY 22. Lastly, we commit to the continuous hiring of diverse recruit classes and placing special emphasis on candidates who align with the values of our community. In closing, I want to thank the men and women of the Long Beach Police Department who I am proud to serve alongside every day because of their service and dedication. I am confident that we will build on our existing strengths and knowledge while continuing to learn and improve. We will continue to analyze data to identify root causes of crime and focus on community policing, sincere engagement, and community and officer wellness. Our dedication to fair, just and equitable policing will allow us to continue making advancements towards realizing our vision of a safe city for all by achieving our mission of public safety. Through partnerships. And with that, I thank you. I know we're going to answer questions between the health department and police department, but just we talk about diversity and we talk about all our efforts of diversity. And if you look at this table here in front of you, I'm the first Hispanic chief in the history of the police department. I have one of the highest ranking Muslim American police executives in the entire country of the United States and the assistant chief and sitting next to him as bureau chief. Julissa Jose Murray, who is our basically our our bureau manager, our finance chief. Look at our faces. When we talk about diversity. We're not just talking about it. We are diversity. We are the people who are making decisions for this police department. And that's counter to a narrative that's out there that we don't do that. So with that, we'll turn it over to all of you. And I look forward to all your questions.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Chief. I appreciate both presentations. Unless there's any objection, we're going to do public comment first. There's a significant amount of public comment. So we want to get through the public comment and then I'll turn it over to the Council for further comment. So, Madam Clerk.
Speaker 1: Can I have the first five speaker approach to the podium? Starting with Karen Resi. Maurice Coleman. Giovanna Ferrero. Maggi Collins and Audrina Redman. Please line up.
Speaker 2: Thank you for those detailed presentations, but listening to the presentations. Karen Reside I'm representing Long Beach, Gray Panthers. We do education and advocacy on older adult issues and we're part of the People's Budget Coalition. I have an 8420 2% of the population. That's ridiculous. This is what we're being given. Does our city really care about seniors? That's why we're asking for $2 million. Cynthia, how has done a phenomenal job in getting a group of us going on older adult issues. She has to have funding to update the plan for seniors. We don't really have a plan. It was done ten years ago. Does that include the baby boomers? I mean, are we really going to continue to ignore older adults? We took most of the death burdens during the pandemic. We're actually still under stay at home orders. There's a lot of us missing tonight because too many were afraid to go out because of the Delta variant. There's a lot of things moving in a positive direction. We just want to be included in the positive movement. I don't think that's too much to ask. We pay most of the taxes. We have most of the wealth in the city. And it's like we're not being paid attention to in the budget and for the police department. You're too expensive and you don't really do anything for older people. So it's time that we look at different ways and you need to address older adult needs and issues. I think.
Speaker 4: Hello. My name is Magic Collins. I'm part of B World Collaborative in Long Beach. And for me, I don't get the whole campaign on. We're nice guys. I understand. I see your humanity. No, we don't have to do the campaign. And for what we've gone through, the community has done nothing but show their strength as they've created food, drive the Fed to the public.
Speaker 6: They fought the house, the homeless.
Speaker 4: We don't have the campaign. We're we're kind. We know we're human beings. That's why we're here. Everybody here right now, we're not. We're here to fight for something that's real.
Speaker 6: We don't have the campaign that things are working in the streets.
Speaker 4: If we empower the leaders, they will tell the truth. They will tell everybody that it's working.
Speaker 6: We don't have to campaign on that.
Speaker 4: Disproportionately African-Americans are the most the homeless. The impact of violence. Violence has already been normalized. Sometimes addiction, spousal abuse, mental illness, trauma, watching. Loved ones paths. Foster care system. Food. Apartheid. Compounded medical issues. Militarized police force. The African-American community. This is a mental health emergency.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Your time is up.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Giovanna.
Speaker 2: Hi. Thank you all for being here. And I just want to make sure that one thing is discussed in these presentations. I understand you're giving us information. You're giving us statistical information. You're giving us the hope that you, you know, want to relay. You're not discussing racism. You're not discussing classism. This is the core. I don't know why that's not being talked about. I understand you need to give us information. Thank you for that. I'm not saying y'all aren't doing anything. It's not enough when it comes to this. It's just not you. You look at that budget. 1%, 1%. The smallest piece of the pie should be the biggest piece of the pie. It's not enough. You got people out here. These are your constituents. We don't we know what we're talking about because we have experiences with with you on this side, in your uniforms. And those experiences are very real. The accountability and lack of diversity. And Chief Luna. I can't get over the comment. The day of the protests and what happened in downtown. This poor man has his young girl on his shoulders. This black man. And your comment in quote is he should have been arrested for child endangerment.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Your time is up. We have Magic Collins. Adrina Redman. Pamela Fields. Tesla coal. Kenny Allan. Please line up at the pole. Maggie Collins. Adrienne Redman. Pamela Fields. Classical.
Speaker 2: Remember him?
Speaker 9: Chip Luna. My name is Pamela Fields. I'm the mother of Dante Jordan, who was killed by Long Beach Police Department on November 10th. 2013. This budget is ridiculous. What about mental health? What about putting their money into the communities? You guys don't live in our community. You don't see what? Go on. You go on back home where you live. Words are plush and everything, and you come on in our communities to rob, kill and destroy mostly. So where is the money going to go to? Why did you guys get a big chunk of the money? What about the aftermath? And you cannot charge here. Nobody offered me any counseling.
Speaker 2: Nothing.
Speaker 9: Nobody even told me my son was dead for a long time and it wasn't no police officer that taught me how to find out in the streets. And you guys ought to be ashamed of yourself. You shoot first, a line later.
Speaker 1: Please approach the podium.
Speaker 2: Hi. My name is Tessa. I'm a resident of District three. I'm here to express my support, along with all my friends here for the priorities outlined in the people's budget. I recognize that we have seen some marginal shifts in budget priorities, some of them hard won, but they are wildly insufficient. For the realities we're facing. I mean, we just heard so much today. Amount housing, reentry programs, health programs, and so much more. They could all use this funding. It's heartbreaking to hear our own health department leaders tell us that there isn't enough funding over and over again for these programs. And Longreach PD sits here with almost half the city budget. And we heard some great ideas mentioned here tonight. But. Our budget doesn't reflect what we need. Having the police continue to play roles way outside their job description and training is not part of the solution. It's part of the problem. If you want to prevent crime and you want to bring our city into a successful future, you need to embrace the priorities in the people's budget and support health and support care, not cops. Thank you. Thank.
Speaker 4: Good evening, Mr. Mayor, and city council members. My name is Kenny Allen. I live in the second district of Long Beach, and I'm here to echo the voice of the community in asking that you adopt the people's budget demands specifically to reduce the police department budget by 65 million and reinvest that in our community. The city manager prefaced this budget hearing by listing what he thinks are examples of the city listening and responding to community concerns. Clearly, you've misheard us. We have not been asking for better police training, more police diversity or more constitutional methods of policing. Those things are not the problem. The problem is the dramatic and unprecedented expansion and intensity of policing in the last 40 years a fundamental shift of the role of police in society. The problem is the police themselves. Here is your second chance to listen. We're not asking for more equitable policing. We are asking for our money back 65 million. That is what we are asking for it. Do not miss. Hear us again. Thank you, a.
Speaker 2: We have your age.
Speaker 1: Ms.. Dell Lora age and yeah. Led, please line up. As a reminder, please keep your mask on while speaking at podium.
Speaker 2: Hi everyone. My name is Jamilah and I'm a community organizer with the Long Beach Immigrants Rights Coalition. I want to slow down for just a minute and consider the fact that we are listening to a presentation by the very same department who will benefit in funding by using the scare tactics of crime. Unfortunately, ultimately, police are violence workers. Their response to violence is more violence or threat of violence. This means police contact and police resources automatically means violence because cops out of their own violence to them already what's happening in the mix? So as Tamara, an opera says, instead of being violence prevention, cops are violence promoters. The evidence that police stop people from killing each other is weaker than many people previously thought. While the evidence of police killing people is strong, the statistics presented by the Long Beach Police Department today consider shoplifting out of necessity to be a crime . But what about the theft of funding from art communities that has been giving to policing? To me, that sounds like theft. We're asking for funding to be giving to community programs like the ones listed on the people's budgets demand. Defund the police by at least 25%. And give funding to the programs that meet our community needs.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Your time is up.
Speaker 10: Well, I want not just sorry. Pertaining to that immigrant lobby that as opposed to the limit of 20% and departamento policy are the technology over here, Nancy. You see when think policy in the service de nada program under the 13th and I don't know how many you funded Olivia de Miranda. Yes. Then we are fucked up or la pandemia. You could grow gas. You don't register the necessity. Don't know almost any grown up or your border patrol concealer is what is cool charming. Ethan Manning went down with Travel Company, The Immigrant Element. Okay, well, I want to start it. I mean.
Speaker 8: Hello. My name is Vanessa Ryder.
Speaker 10: Sleep quality in the immigrant.
Speaker 8: Amber from the Coalition of Immigrant Rights.
Speaker 10: Which is why I keep an unsolicited concealer.
Speaker 8: I'm here to request this council.
Speaker 10: As a pueblo.
Speaker 8: To accept the people's budget.
Speaker 10: In 2014 to Departamento de Policia.
Speaker 8: Asking for a reduction of a 25% from the police department.
Speaker 10: And 70% of this de nada.
Speaker 8: And 4.25% of the destined.
Speaker 10: This integral part of wholeness.
Speaker 8: For a global development for the.
Speaker 10: Youth, the money that.
Speaker 8: In our community.
Speaker 10: Even though the Olivia.
Speaker 8: And a relief budget or fund.
Speaker 10: Money that immigrant.
Speaker 8: For entire immigrant community.
Speaker 10: Based.
Speaker 8: In this city.
Speaker 10: Gets you the poorest. The Pandemia.
Speaker 8: Has been greatly affected by this pandemic.
Speaker 10: Then the management of the races.
Speaker 8: So thank you very much.
Speaker 10: For the money with that nice travel.
Speaker 8: For taking into account our voice.
Speaker 10: In this respect, this unit.
Speaker 8: And our.
Speaker 10: Requests. Yes.
Speaker 8: Thank you.
Speaker 2: I have a public comment on behalf of a community member who had to leave because there is no childcare here available. Can I read her comment?
Speaker 0: It was someone that's already signed up. Yes. So who is it for?
Speaker 2: It's for Laura Ibarra.
Speaker 0: Okay. That's not how I was called.
Speaker 2: When I started this mine on Breslauer. I read. Is their interpretation.
Speaker 8: I would have to know. My name is Laura. A writer.
Speaker 10: Is so partizan a policy.
Speaker 2: On the that I chose the immigrants in Long Beach.
Speaker 8: I am part of the Coalition for Immigrant Rights of Language.
Speaker 2: Yes, they are keeper. I said escuchar that.
Speaker 10: Either my daughter Consuelo Lacerda.
Speaker 8: And I'm here to be heard and to demand, asked the council.
Speaker 10: Get back here and press a Western policy.
Speaker 2: But it'll be simple policy to bring.
Speaker 8: Down the police budget on a 25% reduction.
Speaker 10: And press of Western policy. I guess they'll sign this as follows.
Speaker 2: Gideon The technology has got to get closer because as.
Speaker 10: Part of your Rachel Gloss immigrants in Manila.
Speaker 8: The police is already using part of the budget to acquire technology. That is really something that is breaking all immigrant rights of all immigrant rights in this city.
Speaker 10: And start comparatively for my circle of the hemp.
Speaker 2: They were heavily.
Speaker 10: Supported this was.
Speaker 2: One of those but I embrace and Brazil Sara is that.
Speaker 10: Technology and competition for my skin.
Speaker 2: Color for hemp is the eyes where they don't really sa is those one.
Speaker 10: Those.
Speaker 2: Are you that unexplored. I must guess that must be the.
Speaker 8: So instead of using this technology to exchange information with eyes, they should use this funding in order to help you with programs that help help the immigrants in this city.
Speaker 10: But I implore you on this central cellular pattern.
Speaker 2: With the fancy anos and wireless app, where when are you that.
Speaker 8: For example, the creation of help centers for help for our elder.
Speaker 2: Apropos there of there are you there's an extent this I think almost Ambien within a.
Speaker 10: Rally side of the business activity that is paramount benefits is a level of.
Speaker 2: Physical mental are.
Speaker 8: To help their delivery to access the resources that already exist to promote activity that will help them get a better health and a better physical condition.
Speaker 2: Are you the most prolific para for there are you are as.
Speaker 10: One travelers.
Speaker 2: And as this the impulse.
Speaker 10: The la pandemia in bottles in Manila travels they can withstand the internet.
Speaker 2: Crisis, but a culture and authenticity that.
Speaker 10: Is its bedrock dominant consideration.
Speaker 8: And to help the entire community in order for them to be able to access all these resources during the pandemic on the Internet. And thank you for listening to all our voices.
Speaker 1: And I have the next five police lineup. Carina. Evelyn Garcia. Iris Rodriguez. Elizabeth and Griselda Soto. Carina Evelin Garcia. Iris Rodriguez. Elizabeth and Griselda Soto. Carina.
Speaker 2: Hello. Hi. Members of the council. My name is Karina. I'm a community organizer with the Long Beach Immigrant Rights Coalition. Last year, the upright last year during the uprisings, many cities, including Long Beach, vowed to implement structural changes and deemed racism a public health crisis. Today, I call on you, Mayor Garcia, and all you council members and the city manager to allocate funds towards programs that actually help communities recover from the pandemic. Instead of funding the police department with millions of dollars, additionally, police funding will only increase violence in our communities and fill up our jails and prisons with people of color . Police don't stop violence no matter how big their budgets are. What the real question you should be asking is what are the root causes of these inequities, this inequality? And what can Long Beach do to help our community thrive? I urge you to please divest from police and invest in programs that establish rental housing divisions. Support youth recovery. Fully fund the right to counsel and language access.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 10: Allowing as much as they willing. Garcia.
Speaker 8: Good evening. My name is Evelyn Garcia.
Speaker 10: SOPA under the late Jose. Miranda's a long beach.
Speaker 8: I am part of the Coalition for Immigrant Rights of London.
Speaker 10: Yesteryear. Keep another man, Berkeley. Consider the Long Beach, Associated Press Questo Pueblo. I've assembled here La Policia.
Speaker 8: And I am here to urge the City Council here to support a reduction of the budget for the police.
Speaker 10: It can be improper. De la policia. They have emphatic no, no. Yes, but their fear ain't me. That money that immigrant.
Speaker 8: And also to reduce the budget for the police to stop using technology that is oppressing and harassing our immigrant community. In the city of Long Beach.
Speaker 10: Jacket by Rami Seguro in Como El Camino Por La Scala Sabian look la policia Mr. He Lando.
Speaker 8: For me, it's very unsafe and uncomfortable walking around Long Beach knowing that the police is keeping an eye on me.
Speaker 10: B The technology has come on the direction of Simian, but I feel the Tories have automatically the placards and they are truth.
Speaker 8: And I ask for the stoppage of the use of technology for facial recognition and also for a license plate reading technology.
Speaker 10: The symbol samosa la policia. Yeah, Podemos had nothing illegal. Fiancee the afectados por la pandemia.
Speaker 8: So defund the police and let's help the tenants that have been affected by the pandemic.
Speaker 10: You can stand up under the service and look for other Dinerral people. So they'll call it not within forever.
Speaker 8: And they are about to be in. Evicted due to the lack of money and because of COVID, they couldn't work it.
Speaker 10: Ambien appointments are different. This program as part of our business for our youth.
Speaker 8: And also let's work on more programs, different programs that will support our youth and better programs for them for their future.
Speaker 10: Muchas gracias. Por La Melo. The Academy commented your yes parochial comment and Quinta.
Speaker 8: So thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to offer my comment and for taking me into account jacket.
Speaker 10: But I'm me. As for some, I'm in the important proposal. You are La Comunidad in the coming documentary and.
Speaker 8: For me this is very important in order to support the documented community. Thank you very much. That's.
Speaker 10: We witness not just women on breast. It is also part of the ritual immigrants.
Speaker 8: My name is Iris and I am part of the Coalition for Immigrants Rights.
Speaker 10: If they keep it up ed concealer alone. Which ketamine? Gwen demi commentary? Yes. The samples are la policia.
Speaker 8: I am here to ask the City Council of Long Beach to define their beliefs and to listen to my comments.
Speaker 10: But okay. Say percentile, whether through southern fondos para programas, let alone peace.
Speaker 8: And for the funding to be able to be used for different programs inside the budget in the City of London.
Speaker 10: Let's be though, there have been artisanal letters, album articles of placards. Israel and Brazil sell an authentic story that grandma Spanish come here.
Speaker 8: I ask you to stop using the license plate readers instead of creating more safety, that creates more panic among the community members.
Speaker 10: Jackass Escovedo Color Policy Compartilhar infamously organized. Let's implement the end is Daniel.
Speaker 8: Since we know that the police have been sharing that information with eyes during this year.
Speaker 10: But experience appropriate me was no to an accident. They were estado.
Speaker 8: According to my own experience, a neighbor had an accident and he was arrested.
Speaker 10: Focusing on another Space Azteca supporter. Mostrando Informazioni Mas ona fotografia incorrect to commemorate inexplicably.
Speaker 8: So I knocked on his door showing information and the wrong picture. How can you how can you explain that to me.
Speaker 10: Is but I suck at them being ghetto because the Terminator satellite technology and the reconciliation of a cell it was but a mirror system.
Speaker 8: And that is also why I ask you to stop using facial recognition technology, because that is basically racist.
Speaker 10: Let's be, though, because it is key to look at this policy in thought. Elwin Burton and not as programmers, Cormac says solid humor. Yvonne Doyle Assistance. Financiera para los inmigrantes.
Speaker 8: And I ask you to defund the police on 25% to bring resources for a judicial system, for legal assistance, language assistance and other services in the city.
Speaker 10: Then to Mano, let's talk about this, which is an amalgam. Primitivo and Starkey Egan recommend that you get both an excellent A.J.
Speaker 8: I first of all, thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to speak to you and I wish you all have a very good evening. Thank you very much.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 10: We are not just attorneys. My number is Elizabeth Gonzalez.
Speaker 8: Good evening, everyone. My name is Lisa marie Gonzalez.
Speaker 10: So residents of the Long Beach Street don't know.
Speaker 8: I am a resident, the neighbor from Long Beach and I belong to.
Speaker 10: My partner, local chocolate immigrant.
Speaker 8: I'm also a member of the Coalition for Immigrant Rights.
Speaker 10: A Starkey Papel concealer. The Long Beach Gazette puesto the Pueblo Idem us programa recursos, a la Comunidad immigrant.
Speaker 8: I am here to ask the City Council of Long Beach to accept the people's budget and to offer more resources and programs to the immigrant community.
Speaker 10: It assembles their la policia.
Speaker 8: And to defund the police.
Speaker 10: Yeah. Boyle Corporacion de la Renta.
Speaker 8: And to support the recovery of our youth.
Speaker 10: To reconsider L.A.. I see that as a lack of money that.
Speaker 8: Should reconsider the needs of the community.
Speaker 10: They are, for your part. But in Berthier and Programas.
Speaker 8: And to support investment in programs.
Speaker 10: Programs. And as we take a separate cask on technology and other.
Speaker 8: Programs in their public libraries with Advanced Technology.
Speaker 10: Center, the tutorials centers, community areas.
Speaker 8: Tutoring centers, community centers.
Speaker 10: Centers, they argue that therapy is allowed maintain.
Speaker 8: Mental health and therapy center.
Speaker 10: Central the rehabilitation, their drug addiction, the alcohol.
Speaker 8: Rehabilitation centers for drug addiction and alcoholism.
Speaker 10: But then they're you know, then they're like you don't see an important I stated migratoria.
Speaker 8: For everyone to obtain help regardless of their immigration status.
Speaker 10: Are you going to get ambito ez bueno e they gram provigil mccardell you're dependent on.
Speaker 8: And helping the youth is good at any level because on them realize our future.
Speaker 10: Get aimlessly in, start social and seahorse.
Speaker 8: We want social well-being of our children.
Speaker 10: Getting an opportunity other that's already visited added as L.A..
Speaker 8: We want them to have the opportunity to survive and thrive.
Speaker 10: Cannot send money to rehab those near criminal those delinquent this.
Speaker 8: Not to be monitored and harassed as criminals.
Speaker 10: Crazy vanilla boy la confianza de la policia 41.
Speaker 8: For them to receive receive the trust and support from the police equally.
Speaker 10: It can not discriminate pachuco lor or supporter or person response agnico.
Speaker 8: And not to be discriminated based on their ethnic initially or race.
Speaker 10: Queremos. When Apple's yahoos start seeing technology as observers get their Confianza can know that the more.
Speaker 8: We want to serve beliefs without complicated and sophisticated technology that gives us fear and mistrust.
Speaker 10: Confianza is a tamarin quint amico Mysterio Aguilar this Cueto. Why not? Not just hoping.
Speaker 8: That my comment is going to be taken into account. Thank you very much.
Speaker 10: Walla Walla Walla as much as they resell that easily see them. They barter under the riches in Miranda Salem's killer.
Speaker 8: What do you mean? I am Griselda and I am a resident and also a member of the Coalition for Immigrant Rights in Long Beach.
Speaker 10: Mr. Yaki presenter parody mandala concealer the longest.
Speaker 8: I am here to ask the City Council.
Speaker 10: I said. I thought they were all in the same boat. The La Policia.
Speaker 8: To accept the budget, the people's budget and defund the police.
Speaker 10: And stay in control. The man the that I mean.
Speaker 8: I am against the technology for facial recognition.
Speaker 10: That I mean they certainly dress automatic or the placards get certain money then we grant the amnesty and.
Speaker 8: Also to stop using the license plate readers that affect mostly our youth and our community.
Speaker 10: And still keep our abogado busy.
Speaker 8: I am here to advocate also for the Division of Housing for Rent.
Speaker 10: Jackie Autoimmunity for Tara Yao and Mark Vanessa Pandemia.
Speaker 8: Since I am also I been affected by that and I am also a victim of the pandemic.
Speaker 10: And some of the enormous reservoir of poverty, that of the rent that.
Speaker 8: We are losing our houses, our homes, because we cannot pay the rent.
Speaker 10: And this is it may be acceptable para money that.
Speaker 8: We need acceptable housing for our own communities.
Speaker 10: Guerrasio Fortescue Chairman, you broke a dominant Kwanza.
Speaker 8: And thanks for listening to me and for taking this into account. I hope.
Speaker 10: You have put your money there.
Speaker 8: And I hope you can support our community.
Speaker 10: Honorably.
Speaker 8: That is the most.
Speaker 10: Gracious, incredulous. Wendy Garcia.
Speaker 8: Thank you and God bless you all.
Speaker 1: And I have the next five police lineup. Lupita V. Jose Galarza. Danielle Renee. YOLO. Victor Sanchez. Camila Homes. Lupita. Jose. Danielle. Victor and Camila. Please approach the podium.
Speaker 10: Hmm. When I notice Menominee a little bit on eBay. So potentially community identity to the immigrant is the Long Beach.
Speaker 8: Hello. Good evening. My name is Lupita Rivera and I am a member of the Council for Immigrant Rights of Long Beach.
Speaker 10: And stocky, but a petite girl considered the long accepted Western in Pueblo. Inadmissible remarks come when the recognizing me into fashion or let automatically pluck us in three orders.
Speaker 8: I am here to request this honorable council of Language to accept the people's budget and also to stop using facial recognition software and also license plate recognition software. Among other things.
Speaker 10: Is the technology embedded in strip privacy that in resistant, informative and worthless community assembly levels.
Speaker 8: This kind of technology is an invasion of privacy. It is racist and it doesn't protect our communities.
Speaker 10: This embolden and Annapolis here is informed. Those have already amassed majorities.
Speaker 8: Defund the police and use these funding to for programs. Adult programs.
Speaker 10: Commercial for Mayotte missing the Arab immigrant study into the services but an assortment from Florida.
Speaker 8: And because I am an older adult, I feel vulnerable and many like me feel the same way. So we need more programs in this community.
Speaker 10: Can I just put Cochairman Espinoza itemized in Quantum me was he said to me, L.A. he borrowed pianos to come with which are the rascals went a notch.
Speaker 8: And thank you for listening me and listening to me and for allowing me to speak up. And I hope we move forward with these ideas. And thank you very much. I am a very good evening.
Speaker 0: Honorable Mayor, members of the city council. It's good to see you again. Victor Sanchez, the project director of the Language Coalition for Good Jobs in a Healthy Community. I just wanted to say, unfortunately, we had a few members of workers actually that were here who had to leave home early because they work very early. And I regret that this item was moved so late because of that.
Speaker 4: And there are a lot of members whose names have been called and have not been able.
Speaker 6: To give testimony that I.
Speaker 0: Wish they would have. So I just wanted to acknowledge that before I give my remarks, I will say that, you know, our coalition has had about 1200 conversations in the last three months with all renters in Long Beach. And two things really stood out. 98% of them believe that more is needed on behalf of the city with regards to rent relief and resources to fight illegal eviction notices that continue to make in front of in front of them. 97% of those respondents believe that there should be greater investment in social programs and direct relief for marginalized communities. Rather than increasing the budget.
Speaker 6: For the LAPD.
Speaker 0: In this pandemic has only worsened the pressure these families are facing. And so we're asking that you reallocate money from the LAPD to address the root causes.
Speaker 4: That a lot of these families are having to deal with during this.
Speaker 0: Time. And specifically, the housing needs that are mentioned in the people's budget, the community land trust investment, the full funding of the Right to counsel program, and the creation of a housing department specifically that can liaise.
Speaker 4: With landlords and tenants.
Speaker 0: So again, I ask that you adopt the people's budget.
Speaker 4: Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: Danielle. Real little. Camilla Holmes. Magnolia. Pre. Pre. Ada. Jane. Alfonso. Mary. Joan.
Speaker 2: Good evening. My name is Camilla, and I have been a resident of Long Beach since 93 and a sixth District resident for about 20 years. The following is my assessment of some of some of the community needs and what I think should be prioritized in the budget over the Long Beach.
Speaker 9: Over Long Beach Police Department.
Speaker 2: Based on my own observations. Well, I do see. That there is that there is not enough housing services, mental health services and health services. And this has been.
Speaker 9: Mirrored in the previous presentations today.
Speaker 2: From downtown to north Long Beach, you can see a steady landscape that evidences an unreasonable or unreasonably large.
Speaker 9: Population of houseless people.
Speaker 2: Tents line the river and increasingly our streets. People are walking around often clearly in some sort of mental distress. We need resources for them. We need the health department to be fully funded. We need resources for our children. I was happy to see that Parks and Rec set up some mobile recreation programs some months ago. We need more of that. We need more resources for our libraries. The libraries play such a vital role in the city, especially in lower income neighborhoods. In normal times, they provide tutoring or just a place to go internet for those who don't have it job resources, other educational resources. And the list goes on and on. The library should not have to do private fundraising to run their stellar, beneficial programs. One police department.
Speaker 9: Must have had most of the city budget. There.
Speaker 1: Your time is up. Next picture.
Speaker 2: Please. I'm Jane Alfonso, and I'm chair of the Justice and Peace Committee at the South Coast Interfaith Council. And I represent hundreds of faith leaders in both the Interfaith Council and Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice. And I'm asking.
Speaker 3: You to pass the.
Speaker 2: People's budget. Faith communities share the values.
Speaker 3: Of justice.
Speaker 2: Including economic justice.
Speaker 3: And peace.
Speaker 2: Love of neighbor and care of neighbor, and privileging the most vulnerable. Imagine a budget that prioritized people and not police and prioritized the most marginalized. You've seen that we need to invest in housing and health. Seniors and youth, not police. A budget is a moral document. It's a spiritual document. Long Beach can invest in equity and care, not fear and scarcity. The people's budget reflects the structural changes and economic justice that reallocate assets to black lives. Undocumented, other people of color and all march and marginalized communities. Mayor Eric Garcia suggested that Long Beach could be a model for housing policy. Why not pass a model budget? Faith Leaders. We will continue to pray for you as you deliberate on passing a people's budget. Thank you. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm.
Speaker 10: I'm not sure what you mean either. And so I keep an eye on the school channel and the silhouette of the black woman with other equal numbers.
Speaker 8: I am deliberate, and I am here for to tell you about the needs in the Long Beach community.
Speaker 0: Yeah, personally.
Speaker 10: I did not bring the necessity recourses, but I look at in massive capacity my muscle data. Well, on the carousel seahorse, they would only be just close around him.
Speaker 8: One thing that we need first is a safe place for our single parents to be able to drop their children while they are going to work.
Speaker 10: You can see an accessible asparagus.
Speaker 8: For them for those spaces to be affordable.
Speaker 10: It Zambian necessity. Amala you must tell you that perilous persona, the letters that are going on out them, I say what goes on. They just put on a stern pseudonym in the case of familiar travel or personas give you and soldiers.
Speaker 8: And also we need help for places for the elderly to feel safe while their children are working.
Speaker 10: Getting entry and thus accessible is precarious. But look, look, use commodious boy, then begin.
Speaker 8: To have affordable rent in order for them to be able to live anywhere they really can leave.
Speaker 10: But again, not all. And they're going to go there be.
Speaker 8: Because not everyone can get access to government help.
Speaker 10: It does mean precarious, turbulent animosity with others. But alas, foreigners in the news notwithstanding luxuries like Leandro Paredes will see another August.
Speaker 8: And also to have more activities for children and the youth to keep them away from the street, from doing graffiti and getting into trouble.
Speaker 10: With soil area. So an unfortunate surprise.
Speaker 8: That the future of this country.
Speaker 10: Ever ultimate Syria movie. When Musk Inarritu called Marcel persona la la policia capable, they are confronting Neos in not the Netherlands meu guan are you not Americans in Gaza and start to say what does get banal? You got other inaugurals, but I love persona comprar lima and all the other organs.
Speaker 8: And also to train the police department to teach them so we can trust them and not have fear. Every time there is an emergency, we should be able to trust them and not have fear that they are going to come with violence and shoot people even people with mental issues.
Speaker 10: There in the do Carlos Spaghetti Newcastle welcome to actor article so Scousers who can do the mask on a problem.
Speaker 8: So they want to be better trained in order to learn and know what to do in those cases when they face that kind of situation.
Speaker 10: But I can say I'm patella solution in moment that I problem.
Speaker 8: For them to be part of the solution and not to increase. The problem.
Speaker 10: Is that people punto a mysterious burial of the men in children as yes.
Speaker 8: That is my point of view and I hope you are taking into account. Thank you very much.
Speaker 2: You know since.
Speaker 4: The nursing.
Speaker 1: Good evening, Mayor Garcia and council members.
Speaker 2: Good to see you all.
Speaker 1: My name is Mary you. I am a pastor and a faith rooted organizer.
Speaker 2: With Clergy and Laity.
Speaker 1: United for Economic Justice, also known as CLU. And today I represent hundreds of faith leaders connected through Crewe.
Speaker 2: To ask our City Council and Mayor to adopt the people's budget to ensure safety and health for our community in Long Beach. We want our city to be safe and free from violence. Then we need to stop using violence to end violence.
Speaker 1: Because we cannot.
Speaker 2: Expect to stop the fire by using more fire. And so we need more resources of.
Speaker 1: Care if we want a healthy.
Speaker 2: City. And I know that all of you want that for our community. And I love Long Beach because our community here is strong and compassionate. We take care of one another and you see that through this pandemic year. So if our city gives more resources to our community by divesting funding from the police department, our community can protect and take care of one another. Well. So this is a sustainable way to ensure public safety and public health. In particular, we need more investment to address the housing crisis in Long Beach as we talk about this tonight. Just a 2% cut in the police budget could fully fund a ten and right to council program that could provide legal defense and protection for 1700 families, which would prevent homelessness. So this is a great opportunity for our city council to take bold leadership and to lead with the values of care and equity.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Margarita Valenzuela City. Gabby.
Speaker 2: Vicky.
Speaker 1: Tanisha. NAB. Christianson.
Speaker 2: Good evening, Mayor and council members, city manager and city staff.
Speaker 1: My name is.
Speaker 10: Margarita.
Speaker 2: Valenzuela and I'm an organizer with the Long Beach Coalition for Good Jobs and Healthy Community. We are calling on Mayor Garcia and all nine city council members and the city manager to adopt the people's budget for fiscal year 2022 and structurally reform the city budget process to enable earlier and deeper participation for marginalized communities who are most impacted by budget decisions. We believe Black Lives Matter and all our communities cannot wait any longer. We demand support, legal representation for immigrants by boosting funding to be through the Long Beach.
Speaker 10: Justice Fund.
Speaker 1: To provide.
Speaker 2: Free, universal legal representation to immigrant residents facing deportation. I have personally spoken to community who continue to struggle to find the resources they need to stay in Long Beach. Expanding the justice fund will only help more families who are struggling because of the pandemic. We ask you to support the demands of the people's budget. Thank you.
Speaker 9: First off, I want to thank you, Mayor Garcia, and council members, for your time. My name is City Men and I am part of the Long Beach Immigrant Rights Coalition. I'm here to express to the Lonely City Council members why it's important to defund the police and adopt the people's budget. Does the police department really need more money? No. I heard one of the reason to build a more diverse police force, and that is not in keeping our communities healthy. To keep our community healthy, we need to invest in it. We need to invest in the community. We need to defund the police for no less than 25% and give it to programs that will keep the community healthy. Adopt the people's budget, which is needed. There are other programs like housing assistance, providing legal counsel and providing funds for immigrant communities. I am impacted immigrant and I'm letting you know right now that the community needs the fund, not the police. So let us defund the police department and use it for the people budget. Use it to reinvest in the communities, the marginalized communities, the communities of color. Thank you for listening. And I hope and pray that you would take steps to support our community. Thank you.
Speaker 2: Good evening. My name is.
Speaker 1: Gordon Anders, and I'm the executive.
Speaker 2: Director for the Long Beach Immigrants Coalition, a member organization of the People's Budget, Long Beach. First, I want to thank the Council for Investing in the Justice Fund, allocating additional money from the American Rescue Plan to make this program better. The immigrant community in Long Beach deserve this. However, I also want to express my frustration and disappointment in seeing the proposed increase in funding for the police department. This now means we're spending over $700,000 a year a day in policing again, 700,000 a day in policing. Rather than focusing on the root causes of increased violence and economic crisis, skyrocketing gun sales and an increased pressure on communities already pushed to the brink of survival. The systems, the symptoms being used to justify pouring more money and more resources into policing, policing instead of community based safety strategies. Cops do not keep us safe, nor do they stop violence. The best way to reduce violence and increase safety is to increase access to health care, housing, mental health care, education, sustainable and living wages and community care, connection and programs. It's time to recognize that decades of pouring more money, resources and legitimacy into policing and effort to increase safety have failed because policing is functioning as it is intended to do, which is to contain control and criminalize black and brown communities right near them. Thank you. Hello. My name is Vicky and I am the rapid response coordinator for the Long Beach Immigrant Rights Coalition. I'm here today alongside my community, to demand that the city council defund the proposed police budget by at least 25% and invest those funds back into the people's budget. 25% of the police budget is $65 million. Imagine what this money can do for a community. Imagine this money invested into affordable housing as the rapid response coordinator. I wish I had the opportunity to coordinate and fund a fund made up of private donations. Not federal, not state and not city, but private donations. Do you want to know what the biggest need from those applicants were? Rent. I ask how in the middle of a pandemic did the city offer so little rent relief to our communities? Who needed it most? Again, imagine the support the city can provide to families if we defund the police and reallocate those funds to community. I also heard today that there is a concern about communities that are about community members that are chronically homeless. I want to ask how many council members members have actually talked to members of our community that are unhoused? If you had, you'd understand that it's not just about getting a roof over someone's head or placing someone in a hotel room as Project Homekey does. If you've ever spoken to an unhoused community member, you know that they're just trying to survive the day. So we need to invest in programs like mental health care, detox food and direct cash assistance. Again. Least by at least 20.
Speaker 1: Station. NAB Christianson. Alia. Ramirez. Jessie. Alka. Abraham Zavala and Juan and Vanessa, please line up. Elliot. Jesse Abraham. And I'm Vanessa.
Speaker 2: Hello. Good evening. My name's Vanessa, and I am part of the Long Beach Immigrant Rights Coalition to damn.
Speaker 10: Demanding that the Long Beach.
Speaker 2: City Council defund the police and adopt the people's budget. The police department does not need any more money. Instead, we should be investing in the community. Investing in the community hubs, decreased crime, investing in the police department creates fear in our community. They use technology that targets minority communities, although the police department says that they do not share information with Immigration Customs Enforcement.
Speaker 10: We know that the.
Speaker 2: Contractors carry license plate readers and facial recognition that is shared with them. I asked that police. I ask why the police need such a huge chunk of.
Speaker 10: Funding for tools that have been proven.
Speaker 2: To be racist, abusive, invasive and efficient. Long Beach is a wonderful city that prides itself on being friendly and diverse, and let's invest more into our communities to create a safe and welcome welcoming place for everyone by investing in education, childcare, and affordable housing by defunding the police. Thank you.
Speaker 8: Good evening.
Speaker 4: My name is Abrams, Apollo organizer with Long Beach. Residents Empowered. We're part of the people's budget as well, the People's Budget Coalition. Just to talk a little bit more about what we're asking, why we're asking the reallocation of funds to already overly funded department, to put that into a lot of the things that we need in the communities. So just to give a picture, right, when we say to meet the gap of what it's being proposed already for the rental housing division. Right. To meet those gaps. It would it would be the not invest in 1111 more cops on the street right to think about one we would take to meet the gap for right to council the right for tenants to have someone to defend them in eviction court and things like that. Not investing in 33 more police officers would help you meet that gap to fully fund the right to council program. And lastly, the idea of lack of ownership, right ownership in our communities, community land trusts, the ability to create permanently affordable housing while allowing low income residents to build generational wealth as homeowners not investing in 27 parks and investing fully right in TLT, that's the amount we're talking for. So it's possible, it's possible to reimagine how we allocate wealth, money into our communities. And on those three points, I want to just speak on that as as myself. I always like to make comment on behalf of Jesse whenever possible. Should I do that now or. Yes, Bear, should I just tell callers in here? But I want to say something on his behalf as well.
Speaker 0: Okay. I'm going to go ahead and do it. Typically, the council of people have to be here, but I'm going to do it to just please.
Speaker 4: Be sure it'll be two people off the list, Jesse and Eli. So Eli is a street vendor. He also wanted to be here tonight to talk about the idea of law enforcement. Right. Recently, street vendors have been given misdemeanors. And as you all might know, SB 946 has been in politics. A state law expressly prohibits the criminalization of street vendors, yet the health department and the Long Beach Police Department have threatened street vendors with with misdemeanors. So he wanted to talk about that, his ability to feel fear, to go out and strip and knowing that that would cost him the ability to pay rent. Which leads back to the idea of we're talking about now, right, the idea of rental defense and all these things. So I just want to illustrate, there are so many things that when we talk about reallocation of money, right. Giving folks opportunity to have a legal counsel could make such a huge impact. So he wanted to come here today and also talk about that and general comment and also for this piece. So thank you.
Speaker 1: We have eaten. Elsa Tom James was on. Kevin, Georgia. Tina True and Marlene Alvarado.
Speaker 4: Good evening to everyone in attendance. My name is Irene and I'm a community member here to support the people's budget. Heavily policing our communities does not prevent crime. Healing and care prevents crime. And as a city, we have to invest in the betterment of our community, not fund more policing to lock up our community members. We must move forward today to make sure that we create stronger, productive and safer communities. And this begins by funding the request of the people and not law enforcement. My first interaction with law enforcement occurred when I was eight years old. My pregnant mother and I, alongside my family, were removed from our home at gunpoint. My second and third interaction occurred when I was ten and then 11 years old. And just like the first one, me and my family were removed from our homes at gunpoint, all on a mistaken identity and all before the age of 12. For the last 17 years of my life to present day to day, I have been on some kind of police supervision. And it's absurd to see that we'd rather fund law enforcement than to actually allocate some of the money to our underserved communities to things like housing, mental health and social workers. It is also disappointing that as a teenager I had more contact with police officers than I did with youth centers and resources. And this will be the norm when we continue to allocate majority of our funding to policing. I urge you today to adopt the people's budget and I asked the lines of law enforcement and the police departments to really serve. But I mean, really serve and protect.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Good evening, honorable mayor and council members. You are being distributed. The people's budget that has been referred to so many times tonight. My name is Ailsa Chang, seventh district resident member of the People's Budget Coalition. So we know that 83% of DPD budget goes towards compensating the the city's more than 850 cops. We know that according to our analysis of transparent California data, the average total compensation for an LBE PD officers about 250 $215,000 a year. So knowing all this, let's do some simple math. Removing just 33 cops would fully fund the tenant right to council program. Removing just 27 cops would fully fund the establishment of a community land trust for permanently affordable housing. Removing just 20 cops would fully fund youth recovery, especially for transitional aged and disengaged youth. Removing just 15 cops would fully fund the city's language access policy. Removing just 11 cops would fully fund a rental housing division. Removing just ten cops would fully fund the Health and Aging Center in the Health Department. Removing cops would allow for the exponential expansion of the Health Department's reach team we all heard about earlier tonight. Council members like Long Beach needs care, not cops. Let's divest from harm. Invest in healing. Defund LAPD by at least 25%. And adopt the people's budget. Thank you. Hi. My name is Running Alvarado. I'm with District One. I'm here to support the people's budget. I know you guys have tried to do a lot of stuff in social programing. I saw what you told us about, but you're always crying about your. I said there's not enough money. I really do think and believe and know that we need to divest the money from the police in order to reinvest in our communities. It will really increase better. It will really increase the access and help that people need. And once again, when the majority of our our police, our money goes to police departments, like 42%. Let's look at it. It is basically a police state. We are paying more money to the police and it really is a police state when you're not putting enough money into social programs and education and all that. So please fund the people's budget. Thank you very much.
Speaker 4: Hi. I'm Kevin Yeager, District one resident here to support.
Speaker 6: The people's budget.
Speaker 4: Like others have said, cops don't stop crime. Repeated analysis fails to find any connection between the number of police officers and crime rates because cops are violence. Workers showing up after harm has already been done to punish and incarcerate. Instead, we can respond to violence without police terror by funding the community led alternative emergency response teams called for in the Race and Reconciliation Report. We can fund public safety by addressing root causes of violence, funding, affordable housing, education, jobs programs, health care, youth programs actually addressing poverty. And that 26.2 or twice 262 million figure doesn't even include money. Our city pays out in lawsuits over lbe PD uses of excessive force and shootings every single year 32 million since 2014. There's not enough.
Speaker 6: Time to touch on all the ways LAPD avoids accountability from Tiger text, turning off body cams, implementing drone.
Speaker 4: And facial recognition surveillance technology without any policy governing its use. Sharing license plate data with ICE, destroying records, shooting at protesters and journalists.
Speaker 6: Alvi plays stranglehold over city politics on and on.
Speaker 4: Defund LAPD start with 25%.
Speaker 9: Good evening, Mayor. Members of the city council. My name is James Watson pronounced I'm his and I'm a resident of the third district. And speaking on behalf tonight of Long Beach Forward, I was talking with a neighbor of mine the other day about how people respond to a pandemic primarily in three different ways avoidance, denying that it exists at all. Scapegoating, often blaming people who are different than us or fixing it. Accepting a pandemic for what it is. And actually getting to solutions. So I'm proud to be part of the Long Beach community that is fixing it, not just the people behind me, but all of us who are doing our part to get people vaccinated and talk about community led solutions. The Council has also accepted this for what it is the Recovery Act, hero pay, tenant protections, all of that. So to be honest, I'm lost hearing and wondering and hearing these presentations why a year and a half into the global pandemic? And we still haven't structurally invested in our highly regarded city run health department that is actively fixing our public health crisis and increasing funds to the police department that refuse to even acknowledge the severity of a global pandemic and actually get vaccinated. So if we're in a public health crisis, we must have a public health response. And as it currently stands, the biggest threat to public health in Long Beach apparently is public safety. So this is why I'm proud to be part of the fixers, like so many of the community who are behind me here tonight, advocating for bold solutions like the people's budget and asking you to divest from the police department and invest in departments and programs that actually keep people safe, can empower people out of poverty and into opportunity. So please support the people's budget. Thank you.
Speaker 2: Is China transgender?
Speaker 1: Tina True. That concludes the public comments.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Madam Cook, and thank you to all the members of the public. We're going to go ahead now and turn to the Lombard City Council. This is a hearing. So this is a continuation of the of the budget hearing. There is a motion in the second to continue the budget hearing, as we do at these meetings. I want to start off with Councilman Brosnan.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Mayor. I'm going to pass right now Councilman Mongo.
Speaker 2: Thank you. I want to thank the community for showing up tonight and sharing your ideas, bringing in additional materials. I know I've met with some individuals and received many of your emails. We appreciate the input and there's a lot of work still to be done in Long Beach. And I think you should celebrate many of the successes and continue to provide the pressure because there is more work to do. So thank you for taking the time to bring thoughtful comments. I know the council meetings can be long and we appreciate you sharing with us. There's a lot of important things that try to get done at this dyas and. Your input and support is appreciated to our police department. It's been a it's been a long year and a lot of changes and a lot of growth. And we appreciate the work that you continue to do. We know that there is a difficult. Road ahead in terms of resources and needs. I think that there are tools that have been discussed by this council that really provide a different methodology for supporting. The community and our officers. And I know that this council has talked a lot about our body worn camera program, but we've also talked a lot about our Arabs division and other divisions that really support safety differently and more effectively. And so I look forward to hearing how those partnerships and transitions impact and support our police. I think that it is important to note that. A lot of our violent crime happens in our most disadvantaged communities. And working through the creative programs that and Day House has partnered with in terms of the the police officers walking in , getting to know the community. I've seen. And I heard amazing things. And I look forward to seeing how the new programs that you've brought forward with the additional funding will develop. But we also have to train the next generation of police officers to be in alignment, to replace and really change the culture. And to do that means funding an academy and ensuring that our officers are not overtired and making big mistakes and saying the wrong thing in the community because they're exhausted. And in a position to do something that's not good for them or the community. And so I look forward to hearing our solution for how we make sure that we're not leaving our officers in a position where they're working. Double overtime shifts because that the person that I am when I work would exert a large amount of overtime is not the person that this community can partnership effectively. So I'll just continue to say that we need to find that funding needs to be available. And I don't I don't see any way around that. That's for our health department. Thank you for an exemplary presentation. You guys continue to do a lot with very, very little. I appreciate the work that you've done and expanding a lot of our grant programs, and I really look forward to a day where we do a better job partnering with the major foundations for more consistent ongoing support. I know that. Taxes can't pay for everything. And we've gotten creative with some different funds that are available and made those investments. But we need more money. And I think that we need to work together to find where those can be and if there's a department that goes after grants, effectively. Yours has been a lead. And then. Theresa, I know you're out in the field, in the community area, and the work that you're doing is phenomenal and you should be recognized. You've really changed the face of how we interact with the community, and I want you to be appreciated and I want you to know how much your heart we hear and how we really we try to meet with as many community members as we can. We know you meet with more. And I think you do an excellent job of bringing forward and consolidating those ideas into solutions in a meaningful way. Thank you for all that you've done. You've been an amazing, amazing leader through this year, and I look forward to seeing what you do next as long as it's here in Long Beach.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilman Allen.
Speaker 3: Yes, thank you, Mayor, and thank you, chief and Assistant Chief, for your presentation. And I just want to say thank you to all the speakers and the faith leaders that came out. I know many of you personally, and I know we have a lot of work to do. And there's a there's a lot of programs that are important that we need to continue to work on. I'm to the police department. I just want to thank you and the officers or all the work that you have done in the past year. I know it's been tough. You know, for those of you don't know, I was a police officer here for many years and I was seriously injured in the line of duty. I have rides and pins and other people's bones in my back. And I can imagine being a police officer today in this environment. I felt the pain of having a coworker. Friend murdered in the line of duty. I felt the pain of having a classmate and a friend kill himself. This is a tough this is a tough job mentally, physically and spiritually. Definitely don't have to tell me how tough the job is because I know. I am really concerned about the mental health of officers. The sheer. And I sure hope that we are doing everything that we can do to address that. One of the things that you talked about, Chief, that I was. You know, I know that we need to continue to expand. Our visibility and our presence. We've got work to do in the community. We need sincere engagement. Getting back. We need diversity. One of the things that I like to say is I was raised you know, I was born here and I went to Poly Am from the community. And being a police officer here really helped. And I think it's important when we look at diversity and local hire because we have to mend a lot of bridges and and relationships and and and we just have to continue to be to focus on, you know, transparency and accountability. One of the things that we have seen is, you know, the crime rate has continued to increase in our neighborhoods. And we see that in the data. I know that your coordinator response teams have done an excellent job with the gun violence, and I've definitely seen seen a increased presence, you know, and in our district. I don't think that it's a good idea for us to live with any fewer officers. It's just putting more strain on the officers that are currently out there. So I, I know that Councilwoman Margo did talk about recruitment for for 2020. So I definitely would like to hear more about that. And I do want to speak when I have a minute and a half left about the councilman.
Speaker 0: There was a had a couple suggestions from a couple of members because it's a budget hearing and there's two departments to extend the time for council members for questions or comments. And so instead of queuing up, if you want to extend your time, feel free to do so. Just we'll try to stay as close to post 5 minutes as possible. Will extend it.
Speaker 3: Okay. And I'll I'll be I'll be brief. One of the things that I you know, I am a huge advocate for the for the helicopter. And. You know, as a as a policewoman out there, there was nothing better than hearing the blades up above knowing that they were coming. I worked a one person Unit one Adam six for a lot of my career and and I can tell you the the police helicopter is really important for de-escalation. There were times even when police pursuits we could call those off, which is, you know, safer for the community having that that resource. I definitely didn't. I think putting a civilian up in a helicopter, replacing a police officer is absolutely crazy to me. It's like it's like asking Uber or Lyft driver to drive you around. You know, it just it doesn't make any sense to me. And so I just want you to really consider that, you know, an officer has somewhere and you can correct me, but, you know, 3000 hours of training, they understand tactics. You understand police procedures. They can give really good direction to officers on the ground. And I think that's really important.
Speaker 0: Excuse me. And so it's actually time that we've extended the time. We're fine, thank you. Great, councilman.
Speaker 3: And so I think that that is it's it's just, you know, the good direction on down the ground is really important. And so I just want to leave you with I think experience matters. And I'm just not a fan of considering any civilian to do that job. So I'm going to go back to a question that I had on. Can we talk a little bit about what's the estimate for recruitment in 22?
Speaker 6: Mayor and members of the city council. We're working with the Civil Service Department. I think most of you are aware that civil service is the department that takes the lead in doing recruitment and promotional testing for all the city departments, not just the police department. We currently have a list of interested police recruits and we're working with them on looking at that list. We are pushing for a new list to come out. What we find is every time we go out and recruit, as time goes on, we evolve. The community demands more. As you've heard tonight and and honestly, as we look at putting together a new list, even the list of demands that we're asking for, for our new police recruits change and which I think makes a better police officer that serves this entire community. So those are the things we're working out with civil service right now. We're putting a lot of demand on civil service, as other departments are. And that's why I'm pushing we are pushing for a class sometime in the fall, maybe early winter. So it is on the top of our priority list. But having officers that match the values of our community, all of you and the diversity that we all seek is a very top priority when we're looking for police officers for the city of Long Beach.
Speaker 3: Okay. All right. Thank you again, Chief, for all that you do.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilwoman Vice Mayor Richardson.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And first, I think that was a good call. This is dense, dense stuff. It's, you know, two departments. I'm going to try to get this all in in 5 minutes, no more than seven. But this is an instance of. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, following that for flexibility to Councilwoman Allen. So first I had to step out earlier, but I heard the introduction. And to step out and call the kids and tell them. Night. But I heard it on TV. Mr. Murdoch, I think the way that you help frame this, I think is important. You said we heard from the community last year that is enshrined in a document, the reconciliation initiative. And here's the progress that we've made on many of these priorities that were not priorities prior to hearing it from the community. The REACH, innovation, this strategy, the community came out early and said, Hey, we want to see something similar to cahoots. It doesn't have to be cahoots. Make it your own Long Beach model. That's in its budget today. The Office of Youth Development was called out in the reconciliation plan. That is an action that is funded through reconciliation hours that is here today. The youth fund made possible by Measure USA that is here today. The violence prevention were incredibly important to many members of this council, a great plan that did not have funding. It is here today in this budget. It's in the recovery budget. And it was in last year's budget. The Health Equity Center called out in the in the reconciliation plan. It is here. It's funding early intervention strategies. A big theme. It's here. Alternative response models. It's here. Lots of discussion on diversity. I tend to agree. I think one of the best things we can do is make sure that our police officers and all of our city employees come from our local community. That takes investment, that takes focus to place that as a priority in our academies. And the best way you can build relationships with the communities, making sure that our new recruits that are coming in are from our local community. That's important. That's key. All of that is in that in this budget, all while managing 250 additional staff on COVID in our health department. I remember I was joking a bit earlier. I remember when the Health Department had to ask to do a budget presentation that council had to request it. Tonight, the budget for tonight's budget presentation, the health department is giving a presentation alongside the police department. That is an incredible change. And I've watched every budget process since 2010 without any request. And this is I'm seeing a dramatic, dramatic shift here from asking to hear about it to receiving this information in a in a healthy report on what's happening. I'll tell you, I read the people's budget every year and I try to attend. You know, the people stay in the city and hear the words every year. And we make strides to hit every category in many, many categories every year. And and we try to do that this year. We look at it, we meet with the community. I think the major difference and and I think it's it's clear a major difference isn't that that the categories lifted up aren't are ignored because they are reflected. And we talk about what the levels are. But, you know, there is a justice fund, there is, you know, strategies around language access, there's a youth fund. These are things that have been priorities for many, many years. I think the difference is the request in a budget this year is $65 million. And. It makes it very difficult to achieve the scale of the investment that people are looking at. And I think we have to be honest about what long term investment looks like for the sake of actually being able to deliver a budget that's reflective of of, you know, our diverse interests within our city. And so $65 million is dramatically higher than any other people's budget request in the past. And I think that is needed to be said, I think, in terms of our health department. And thank you. I see everybody is up here. A great presentation, a lot there. A few things I want to give some input on. First, thank you for including the conversation on Measure US. We're excited that that's here. That's a significant enhancement. I'm glad to see some focus on older adults in the health department. That's been a priority the council for many years, but we have not had funding to implement that and it was great to see that there. Secondly, you know, there's a lot of conversation with the youth in the community. They've been advocating a youth fund for many, many years, and I'm a big proponent of this from the very beginning. But what I see in the youth fund is about 26% of that funding going out to the community, about 74% of that. He retained, you know, being retained by city staff. And I think we have to invert that. I think we want to see, you know, 20% retain 20, 20, 25% retained, but the great majority going out to community based organizations to use serving organizations and allow them allow the youth the way in through a process. And we'll continue talking with youth, but we really want to see that are youth. Finally, we can stand up, put out to the community and actually support, you know, youth serving organizations. You know, let's say starting elementary school is doing their play and they need a micro grant to buy programs. We should be able to provide that. Let's say it's something like the Jordan High School Math Collaborative, a great program that struggles for funding every year. That's proven. Those are the types of things we'd like to see. Let's say it's youth sports. Let's say it's Pop Warner. Let's say it's midnight basketball. Youth organizations will tell you what it is that they need, and we need to invert that. The youth funds should be going out to the community, not being retained by city staff. And I feel and I'm sure more recommendations come out, but I really feel strongly about that. A good solid, you know, around the million dollars for youth is a great start for our youth fund. With, with, with. In terms of the police presentation, first, thank you for highlighting the response time issue. When I talk to my residents, a lot of times I hear as it relates to city services from street sweeping to trash collection. And I want the same level of service that other people are receiving in every part of town. And we've seen historically our response times in North Long Beach have been slower than other parts of town, particularly with fire, when we didn't have rescue 12. Now, I think we've maintained our overall response time. Can you speak to the response times? The PD, you know, Category one response times in North Long Beach, is that an average across town or is there a slower response time in North Miami? It's a real question that I receive from our residents that I would love to hear you address.
Speaker 6: Good evening, Vice Mayor. Thank you for the question. And I'm looking up on my form here. My stats reflect this. And this is from July of 2021, because our numbers are about two or three weeks behind always. So for July, for priority one calls in North Division, I show 5.1 minutes for priority one calls. Was that your specific question just for.
Speaker 4: And how does that compare to the three whatever? It's 5.1 in north real power. Well, the citywide average.
Speaker 6: East division, as an example, is 5.2. So it's a little bit higher. And you have to account for geography because the area is a little bit bigger, bigger, and it takes just a little bit more time to get there. So for example, in South Division, which is the smallest division but busiest in regards to calls for service, their priority one time is down to 3.9 and that's an average. These are all on the way.
Speaker 4: So North East may have a slower response time than maybe in the middle of the city.
Speaker 6: Yes, sir.
Speaker 4: Okay. That's good. That's good to understand. When I talk about this with our residents, proximity is important. Thank you so much. Just a couple of things I would say I love the discussion about making sure we're doing recruitment in our local community. I know we're talking about academies coming up. Can you speak just briefly about what efforts or what support you need to make sure that this upcoming class of recruits has a healthy amount of people from our local Long Beach community?
Speaker 6: Again, an excellent question. It takes every single person in this room between not only members of the city, employee, family, all of you as policymakers, our audiences, even the people who have very different opinions of the police. If if we go into a room and we're talking negatively about the police all the time, people of color, people we want from this city are going to say, why do you want to join them? And yes, the police department has the number one responsibility to make sure that we attract the right people for the right reasons. But I think all of us collectively as a community have to say, you know what, we want the best police department. We want a diverse police department. Let's try and work on our kids. And for us in the police department, we tell everyone, every police officer recruiting is everybody's job. Every time you talk to somebody, it's like an athlete, right? You're looking through the fence at somebody playing football. Somebody says, I want to be just like that. Same thing happened to me as a five year old. You know, not everybody like the police, but I wanted to serve our community and here I am.
Speaker 4: Well, we'll pick up that converse, that one final thing, because I want to wrap this. I want to wrap this up. We'll pick up that conversation line. The follow the the final thing I just want to say is that what I hear the common thread from public comment from my neighbors, from our city team, we want a healthy city. I hope the city has health department capacity. Not many cities have a health department. We do. I hope the city also means that we have a healthy police department. That means that means making sure that they're from our local communities. It means make sure that mental health is in a good place. There's a functioning relationship between community and public servants, from police to fire to health workers. And a healthy city means that we need to really make sure that we acknowledge we're all one city team in that city team. We need to be concerned about the mental health of our team members. We need to have one mission to deploy services. And so I want to take a moment to just, you know, thank our health care workers for this past year. I want to thank our police rank and file police officers for their work, because we're all one part of this effort to have a healthy city and a safe city. We all have a place, a role here. So let's keep working together for a healthy city. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Councilman, sir.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Mayor. So I just want to start off by thanking all of those who came to make public comment and, you know, just sharing your thoughts. I also want to share that this is this has been one of the toughest years of all of our lives. And I do agree with many of those comments saying that we do need healing. And I heard a member from Long Beach Immigrant Rights Coalition that we need to build trust. And I think that the other part is accountability as well. That I heard thread it through as far as and, you know, actions that are taken and what is the result of that to ensure that wrongs are right. And so and that we really need to work towards equity healing and renewing and restoring. Right. And investments needs to be made. I'm going to make some more comments before I ask my question for our police with our chief and then and with Kelly as well. But I really want to go back to building trust. I think that we need to continue to have the communication we do between all of us to ensure that we're able to address the hurt and the pain that's resulted in various ways from the past years. And the dialog does need to continue, and I hope we can do more of that in person. While the budget has brought us together in this way, I hope that it's not only the budget that brings us together in these conversations and that also accountability is really important and that we hope that we're taking the steps to showing you in the way that we're doing alternative response through reach, also in that we're going through a process to redesigning our Citizen Police Complaint Commission and that, you know, significant investment do need to be made into our community and a health department. And I believe that that is really what Gabby from Long Beach Immigrant Rights Coalition said earlier, that we have to invest in community base. I'm sorry. In my notes here, safety strategies. And I want to hear later on from the department, you know, how much money has been invested so far and how much is going into the community. But I really do think that, you know, this isn't going to be the only dialog we have and that we should continue to do so in different forms and more in person. The other thing I want to share that investments are being made is around, as the vice mayor shared earlier, around Office of Youth Development, also violence prevention funds as also distributed into our communities and Kami based organization. I also want to thank the Mayor for the guaranteed income pilot program that's going to be launching in the fall, that millions of dollars are going to the 90813, where it has the highest number of people living in poverty, particularly single parents. Right. So I do understand that we still need to go through this process in how do we continue to right the wrongs. But that also we don't also, you know, not see all of this investment being made. So my question kind of circles back to Chief Luna again. You know what? What is the police department doing to to build trust and ensure there is accountability in the actions of the police department? And then my question for Kelly, too, is how much how much money has been invested in the police department in this past year and how much of that is going into our community based organization? So first question is for a police department. Chief Luna, you know, what is the department? I think you shared some of it, but I think lifting it back again. What is the department doing to build trust in the community? Ensure there's accountability. And for Miss Canopy, how much has been invested from the recovery funds and how much of that is going directly into the community based organizations?
Speaker 6: A Council member sorrow in regard to the police department and trust. Simple answer. Actually, it's about relationships. It's about partnerships. Every day that our officers are out there and it's 24 seven. Every contact they make is built on trying to garner that trust because it doesn't work. And I believe based on surveys that we take, we're not a perfect department, but the majority of this community does trust us. There are incidences, of course, that have an impact on it. And then we have to come out and be as honest as we possibly can within the law and say, this is what happened. If it's a there's a problem, we're going to fix it. As far as accountability. If you look at every government agency, whether it's in this city or abroad, I don't know what other department holds themselves more accountable than your police department. The mechanisms that we have, whether it's internal internal affairs, every time we get involved in a use of force or an officer involved shooting the the critiques that take place internally, the level of, for example, just looking at stats coming in here, we're getting an average of 180 praise a month. Which, you know, in a way that's a good thing. And there are some people who are abusing the system. But for the most part, putting out information for us, our policies out on the Internet. And there's a whole list of things that we're doing today that we weren't doing, say, five years ago, and just trying to put out more information about who we are and what we do every day and really get to know our people on an everyday basis that we're no different than anyone else who's out there.
Speaker 2: You, Chief. Ms.. Kalb my question again are do you have the question? I just want to make sure I know you're sorting through it.
Speaker 7: So I think there there have been multiple funding streams in the past year. And so I think that, you know, the the first funding stream is around the racial equity and reconciliation funding, which came to the health department about 1.5 million of that approximately this year. I want to say about 400,000, just over 400 or $500,000 will be in the community by the end of by the end of this year, partially because we are you know, we have some delays in hiring and there's more resource available for the community. Generally, we're planning on $300,000 of that approximately going into the community each year. We also have the CARES Act funding, which we were able to do. If we look at all of the health equity and food security and early child and all those different pieces was approximately $10 million that went out in the past year. And then we are planning through the Recovery Act funding for about 1.5 million for youth development of violence prevention. And if we look at overall youth, it's 3.2 million going out, but there's approximately just over $3 million going out for around health equity from insurance and investments within the movie The Quinta and the Black Health Equity Collaborative and others. So there's there's different pots of money and that are all short term. They're all there are they're all 2 to 3 years old. The CARES Act was six months, but the Recovery Act is 2 to 3 years to be able to engage and invest in our communities.
Speaker 2: Thank you. And, you know, just last thing I want to add is that, you know, a lot of many of the items that are in the people's budget is, you know, we have been having those discussion and I want to make sure we do work, continue to work at ensuring we fund these different requests more and more . But some of these are new that we've just funded, like the Camille Land Trust and that, you know, if it's not coming, there are alternate alternative ways to find funding for that through state, you know, ensuring that and then also language access and digital inclusion as well. There's a commitment to continue to have dialog, but we also have a deficit coming up. So I think that there's I think there is an understanding this is important and that we're committed and we have, you know, started the process in funding. And I think that it does it, you know, that there is a commitment to continue to do so. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next up, I have Councilman Austin.
Speaker 4: Thank you. I'm ready now. And thank you for indulging me. I was was paying attention to the public comment and and just kind of forgot that it was my turn to go. But I do appreciate all of the comment this evening and the presentation from staff on two very important departments. Pivotal department on critical departments for our city. I'm. And I want to appreciate my colleagues for for for pointing out, particularly in the people's budget, the fact that we as a council, as a city, have been taking into account all that we've heard over the last couple of years in terms of moving this city in and being more. More equitable and intentional. With what? Our service. I think. My biggest challenge and I'll just be be straightforward with our health department, with so much resources coming into the city. And I think every city is dealing with this as well, ramping up and having a capacity to be able to deliver the service that we want to deliver is going to be a real challenge not only for the city, but also for the community based organizations that we're going to be. Asking you to partner with us. Right. And I'd like to see a lot more energy being put into planning on how to deliver and deliver well for the city of Long Beach. Bottom line, all parties involved. I did have some some very specific questions regarding the budget. And so I'm going to get into that a little bit. And first, I want to talk to Ms.. Collopy and the.
Speaker 9: Health Department budget.
Speaker 4: Specifically related to. The administrative budget. In the executive office. Sorry about that. I'm in 520. There was 75 full time position, 75.6. That was adjusted in 21 and then in 20. There's a budget of 65 positions. But the the actual. The actual world budget is much different. Can you can you explain the variation? I think I'm on my way. May have the wrong one here.
Speaker 7: Give me. I come from? Are you. Are you looking at the difference between our f y 20 proposed?
Speaker 4: Sorry. I'm sorry. The Homeless Services Bureau.
Speaker 2: Oh, okay. So I was.
Speaker 7: Like, I.
Speaker 2: Executive Officer. Okay. Right. Right.
Speaker 4: Oh, so that there was a huge variation. It looks like we got probably an influx in 21 probably from. Take care that I guess.
Speaker 2: Uh huh.
Speaker 4: Um. But the budget positions from 20. From employee 22. Employee 22 or ten less. So the question is, do we that we lose positions or we're the positions that we're budget in and apply 20 not field.
Speaker 7: We certainly went through and during our fy20, we certainly went through a phase where we were we were having we had unfilled positions in FY 20. Um, although once it. In Fy20 we had unfilled positions. And so there and then in this area 21, we have significant increases in the number of positions through all of the grants and opportunities. So we've been hiring, you know, like a special project officer, the mental health services, the public health nurses and many more.
Speaker 4: Okay. I may want to dig in a little bit later on on that, just to understand then how we're funding positions and whether or not the positions are filled. I'm going to be really paying attention to that. And Councilmember, if I may, we do have our budget staff here. We record questions and then we can get at some of those back in writing. So if we don't have it tonight, just ask it and we'll make sure we get that to you. Thank you. And I'm not wearing my glasses because they're following up on me here. And then on to Councilmember Blackmon Richardson's point regarding the youth fund. I think he makes some great points about, you know, moving those funds into the community. And but I want to make sure that we are supporting community services and and organizations that are delivering in our city. Right. Programs that we know are working that that that have the capacity to deliver. We're not taking a chance on anyone. And I'm specifically call out, you know, the YMCA, the Boys and Girls Club. Um, I think he mentioned the math collaborative and I'm sure each and every council member can think of youth led organizations and youth organizations in their districts that are that are delivering and making a difference. I wanted to just get that in there. I think for El PD, complacency is not an option in any way and we have to continue to be innovative and engaging in the community. And I want to just. Thank you, Chief, for for your flexibility. I want to thank the department because you guys have been through quite a bit over the last year. Crime is is is I mean, if we this is a council that prides itself on making their data informed decisions. The data is not headed in the right direction right now. And what a lot of what I've heard this evening, it just would not, in my opinion, be smart or responsible for this council to entertain cutting our public safety budget at this point. So I want to be very clear that I'm paying attention. I'm looking at data, but I'm also hearing from constituents all over the district and all over the city. That might not be the best decision right now for for this council to move forward with it. So with that, we have made some decisions over the last year that have been impactful. I guess my question is to the city manager, to the chief, where are we at with our helicopter operations? As it currently stands today.
Speaker 6: Council member, Austin, thank you for the question. We have helicopter service up. It is vital to providing the best service that we can to our community. The force for our force multiplier it creates and the confidence it gives the officers on the ground. Not to mention to the vice mayor's point earlier about response time, that helicopter could be anywhere in the city within minutes over an incident directing units in and that is extremely helpful due to the reductions that the police department had last year. We did cut 51 police officer positions and part of those reductions was in that helicopter unit. So the staffing there was reduced. We did have to reduce a shift so there's less coverage in the city, unfortunately. We currently have two sworn police pilots that are in that unit and we have two tactical flight officers that are also in that unit. But we're looking at the budgets. Several of the council members have showed a lot of interest in and making modifications to that. So we are working with financial management in the city manager's office, looking at all of our options to potentially bring that service. I don't know if would be back to where it was, that would be optimal, but at least put it in a place where it's we're maximizing it as a community because it is an amazing tool.
Speaker 4: I think I'm looking for what's manageable. To maximizing. Not necessarily. I want to know what's manageable was immediate.
Speaker 6: When when we had six individuals in the unit. That was it wasn't 24 seven coverage. And optimally we'd like to have that thing in the air, 24 seven that provides the best service to the community. We can afford to do that. I understand that it puts all of you in a very difficult position. We're trying to maintain what we have now, which is most of that's unbudgeted. We're pulling from different places because as a police chief, I have to make decisions of where this department could be most effective with the resources that we have. So right now, having the two police pilots and the two tactical flight officers is basic, because beyond that, I'm really hurting us. If I take that out of the air.
Speaker 4: If I can add we did make a change last year. The original proposal was to go from six officers to two civilians and we started getting into the meet and confer. We did not change any service models until we've gone through meeting Converse and we're still at our old service model. But we determined that that was not a feasible approach. So we ended up adding that two police officers and PD cut other funding out of their fleet in order to to do that. And so that's all outlined kind of in the memo. So we're back to four officers I'm sorry, two officers, two civilians. And what's under debate right now is, do we keep the two civilians? Do we convert those two officers? Does the council want to go beyond that? It's probably about 120,000 to convert the officers or civilians to officers and go to four total sworn. If we're adding back two more positions, that's probably in the $580,000 range as an addition. I have a few questions as the mayor. You know, Mark, so I heard you talk about the recruiting class and and the academy and and making changes and new recruits are going to be asked to be different types of officers. Has the has the job description for for for the police department and for new police officers changed at all in the last year?
Speaker 6: Absolutely. Yes. And and it's because we listen we listen to our community. We listen to each and every one of you as what our expectations are of a police officer. The world evolves. We have to pay attention to what's happening not only in Long Beach, but across this country. We listen, we're evolving and we're going in the right direction.
Speaker 4: And to that point, there are can you explain that the BEREC, the Recruitment and Advancement Committee, and who is that comprised of and recruitment advancement will will will help interview potential new officers in the academy. Is that correct?
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilmember. So there's a couple of things there. The, um, the recruitment group, working group takes a look at they work with civil service. So it's two part because civil service is part of the recruitment initiative. But the recruitment working group looks at its internal to the department, but it looks at ways to improve the diversity within our organization, how to reach areas that traditionally and historically we haven't been able to reach and increase recruiting that way. So there's a couple of things that will take some time to move forward. We're operating off of a current list with civil service, so we'll try to select the best candidates possible off of that list with today's criteria that that the chief was just talking about. So the recruitment group will be looking at diversity, mentoring, leadership internally and externally.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much. And my final question and thank you for indulging me related to your budget. I do see a. An ad or an upgrade from a lieutenant position to a commander to serve as chief of staff could explain how and what we're doing there.
Speaker 0: Thanks, Councilmember. The the upgrade for that position was we were operating off of an old program where we tried to change the staffing model within the chief's office to a lieutenant as chief of staff and realized that that was not a feasible option based on the scope of the duties and the requirement for that particular position. So we used some cost savings to create, um, a, to bring back a commander.
Speaker 4: Position as the chief.
Speaker 0: Of staff move it from. We were using an Internal Affairs Commander to cover both Internal Affairs and the Chief of Staff responsibilities in the interim. And so we have now our Chief of staff back at a commander position.
Speaker 4: Thank you for that explanation.
Speaker 6: And I just wanted to add and it goes back to Councilwoman Sorrels question about accountability. Accountability. The demand for accountability has never been higher. And some of these upgraded positions were putting people in positions and at rinks where we can. Absolutely there's more oversight, more accountability, more transparency. And these positions help us to increase that.
Speaker 4: And looking forward to having more conversation. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilwoman Pryce.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and thank you to both departments for your presentations this evening. I thought they were very informative, and I think the conversation that we've had and are continuing to have is is going to help inform some good decisions. I think we can all agree as a council and I think the majority of constituents, that it's important for us to have balance when we're talking about public safety. There's a whole aspect to preemptive efforts to help shape public safety and opportunity and access and those kinds of decisions, especially for our youth. But we also have a reactive need for public safety that's also essential and important. And I think everybody everybody would agree with that. In terms of preemptive, you know, I want to commend our health department for really leading and a lot of the new initiatives that we have initiated over the past year to three the last 1 to 3 years. In terms of our youth, we've we've initiated a lot of violence prevention initiatives, which I think are great and programs I would like to see moving forward some more youth mental health initiatives. As someone whose son's best friend committed suicide three weeks ago in purple states, who was suffering from mental health issues that were exasperated by the. Isolation experience during COVID. I think we need to be having more conversations about mental health. And I also think we need to be having more youth opportunities to have conversations about substance abuse every single day. In the line of work that I'm in, I see people get involved with substance abuse in a way that that they don't think it's going to affect their life or grab a hold of their life. And it does. And sometimes it does so very quickly, depending on what it is they're using. And the prevalence of fat now that we're seeing being used today recreationally and the fentanyl that we're seeing being mixed with other drugs is is is. Absolutely. Unbelievable. When we were talking with all these conversations about homelessness and transient activity, the the opioid use and the fentanyl use that we're starting to see locally and regionally is it's very concerning. So I would love to see some preemptive programs that address mental health and substance abuse as part of our, you know, initiatives for reallocating money. I think those I absolutely agree with a lot of the public comment. We need to pour money, more money into mental health, substance abuse and treatment, preventative. But I also think on the other side that we need to also be prepared with some of the reactive public safety necessities, like when people call the police, they do expect the police to arrive within a reasonable period of time. Every single one of our residents wants that. And I'll tell you today. I had no intention of doing this. I had a full day of meetings, but I spent from 9 a.m. to 12:00 today with a victim who is the DOCA applicant, and I helped her apply for a U visa this morning and I walked her down to court and I helped her apply for a civil restraining order because she is the victim of domestic violence. And her frustration is that when she calls the police, don't do anything. The police don't come. This is not in the city of Long Beach. But the point is those people deserve public safety protections as well. They are residents of our city. And when they when they are victims of crime and they call, they have no one else to call when they feel like they're going to be attacked or assaulted. And when they call 911, they should expect that the police are going to arrive in a reasonable period of time. And for me, you know, it's it's one thing for us to make assumptions about response times throughout the city. But what I'd like to know is who's doing better response times than Long Beach and what can Long Beach as a city together, not district by district, but together. How could we get better response times for the whole city? For me. I'll tell you, most of my residents are paying prices for their homes that are equivalent to the city that's 1.8 miles away, SEAL Beach. There, their housing prices are very similar. They want response times like SEAL Beach. That's who they're comparing themselves to. I know that's not realistic. The cities are different. The demographics are different. But I think whether it's north, east, southwest, it doesn't matter. Every district, every division wants better response times, because although we don't want this to happen, I think everybody, even the folks that want to route money away from the police department also want to be able to look at people in the face and say when you feel like you're in danger and you feel you're about to get attacked and you have nowhere to go and you have nowhere to turn, you should be able to call the police and they're going to come and help you. That's that's the number one defense. To have losing their lives or being injured. And so I think that's really important. And I think we just we need to have that balance. And for me, that idea, when I hear people say, let's route money away from the police department, what I hear is we need to invest more in mental health and youth programing and helping people have opportunities and access so that they don't get on that criminal justice pipeline. And I think that's really important. We need to do everything we can to root as many resources as we can to that. I'm 100% on board, but not as a punitive sanction to the police department, because from everything I know, our police department doesn't deserve as a whole as an entity to be punished, especially for the actions that were done elsewhere. We'll address things case by case in our city. And of course, where there are lessons to be learned, liability to be had, and accountability for police officers that that don't do the right thing. That has to happen on a case by case basis. But on an overall broad street scheme, we shouldn't be punishing any department as an entire department because our residents are going to be the ones that suffer. So for me, I want to make sure that we have that balance. And I'm going to support everything we can do to support both the parameter of. Preventative measures as well as the reactionary measures. I think that's important. I am a huge. Proponent of. Sworn police officers flying helicopters, because I can tell you, you do not want a civilian coming into court and testifying on a trial that involved a police helicopter pursuit. You just don't that that's as a prosecutor, that's the worst kind of witness in the world you want. Like Councilwoman Allen said, it's like the Uber driver coming in. Maybe that's the trend and that's where the world is going. And maybe I'm a little old fashioned, but I believe that you should have police officers driving police vehicles and police officers flying police air support. That's just my belief. And I think it's really important for us to think about how important that value, that asset is. You know, we don't see a lot of crimes that are single handedly solved by air support, but certainly air support is providing assistance to officers that are on the ground. And their testimony, depending on the case, it is maybe essential for for any prosecution. And so I want to make sure that we're we're conscious about that. And and I understand that basically the the low level cost of the program to maintain it is in the mid hundreds. If the money was there, if we could find it, I would support it at full recovery. That's that's how important I think that particular item is. I also think traffic safety is very important. There is a lot of data out there that shows that enforcement, proactive enforcement is effective in reducing traffic fatalities. And we simply don't have enough proactive enforcement. I want to recognize Commander Ellis in the East Division. Who realize this traffic safety is a major issue and it is doing the best that he can with one time resources to fill those needs. But our traffic bureau for a city of our size is not where it needs to be. That's just my personal opinion, because I think a traffic fatality is just as tragic for the family members of the deceased as a shooting, as they've still lost their loved one and they've still lost their loved one as a result of a collision that could perhaps have been avoided if someone had been deterred by having been stopped and educated earlier. And I just I don't think we have the resources to do that as much as we need to. We need to be issuing more traffic tickets so that people have the opportunity to go to classes and learn about the importance and what can happen if they're drinking and driving and someone dies. That's very important. Those are lessons that I think people learn, unfortunately, by coming into contact with officers in a traffic enforcement setting. So I support more traffic enforcement, and I wish there was a way that we could find more money for it in this budget. With that, I just I want to thank everybody for the work that you're all doing. It's really important work. And just because we want to support. You know, active patrols and good response time does not mean nor should anyone ever conclude that we don't want to and aren't fully committed to supporting all the other front end mitigation methods that are available to help our youth and help them give a chance. Get a chance. So thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilwoman Vice Mayor Richardson.
Speaker 4: Thanks, Mr. Mayor. Just one thing I heard one of the drilling on. A little bit more. Chief, did you say that you have your funding, these four positions, the two sworn pilots and the two support officers, without it being budget? You're doing it because you see that it's needed. That what I heard.
Speaker 6: Yes, sir. That's exactly what you heard. I have no budgeted I have two budgeted civilian pilots in the air support unit currently, but I am taking from other places in the police department and I'm filling it with four police officers right now because I believe it's that important.
Speaker 4: Okay. Mr. City Manager, you mentioned a bit earlier that the recommendation last year on the two civilians, operationally that's not working. Yeah. So the chief's talking about operationally right now how he's filling it with bodies. I'm talking more about budget. So we cut from 6 to 2 and then as we went through the meeting confer, it was clear you have to have the helicopter observers and so we needed to add back those two positions. Police department basically recommended cutting in their fleet budget to add two police officers. I did that as a current year enhancement and I let the council know in a memo and then that's in the budget in front of you now. So now we're back to four our two civilians, two police officer positions and some of the concepts are talking about is do you upgrade those other two civilians to have four police officers or do you then restored back to six, which that would be the $580,000 increase to go back up to six? I think the four sworn here's what I would say. I've heard a lot, you know, a lot. I heard that raised a lot today. So if the if a budget oversight committee or staff makes it makes them whole by by having the two sworn officers and two sworn observers operationally, I think the case has been made. And so if we can figure out a way to make that make that work as if it adds operationally what we think it does in order to be effective in the community, that's something I can support. And then the second thing I would just say, so I, you know, I would love to see from a process standpoint how that comes back. The second thing I would say is, you know, a lot of a lot of conversation about all the things that we should do as a city. But I think we have to get to the basic desire of someone who lives in your city and is dependent on our services. If you and we've heard this a lot as it relates to response times. People just want to know because I do get complaints in every department and a lot of it is because some of my neighborhoods are very, very far away. Hey, we didn't get a street sweep in this week. It didn't, you know, they didn't show up again or attracting you picked up or my response times and we dealt with this with fire was 3 minutes later because we were so far away how far north we are. And I think some of this is on all the extremes of the city, the Far East, the far north. I think we need to be able to, you know, make a commitment if some areas of town at 3 minutes and some are five. That's not good enough, I think. And I say that's something we have to address now, but we have to be able to make a reasonable commitment to no matter where you are in the city, your trash will be picked up. Your response time is is is fair. It's not a 2/2 difference or disparity across the city. We have to be thinking about that. And I know that's not something that can be addressed in one budget, but that is something that we should be making a commitment to, to everybody who is in a city, no matter if you live in the middle or on the outside. That's just a comment of mine. Thank you. And back on the helicopter, we'll make sure an hour or two before we give you the actual numbers, what it would take to get back to four, which I agree is a very reasonable approach. And then what it would take to get back to six, you have both those numbers.
Speaker 0: Thank you. I'm gonna make some remarks as well. And then I think we will be moving on to the rest of the agenda, which is of a full agenda. Let me just just begin by thanking again the budget staff, and I know the BBC and Councilman Orson is the bosses working through its meetings as well to get us through the budget process. I want to just let me start with the health department and then move on to the police department. Just I want to just to say to thank the entire health department for really, first and foremost, this a very difficult year and doing an amazing job with the resources that it has. I'm grateful that at every level of government, the county level, the state level, the federal level, we have received a significant resources to grow our health department, I think, by maybe 200 bodies. And so I'm hearing a lot about supporting our health department tonight. And we are. The health department has never been larger as far as I remember it, and it's robust and it's doing a lot of great work. And that's going to continue. And I think that we want to make sure that the health department continues to have the resources it needs to protect us from future pandemics, but also to take care of the community recovery programs right now that are so important and working with our community organizations to do that work. So just think of the entire team, particularly Dr. Davis and the entire infectious disease unit that's doing wonderful with the vaccines and everything else. So a huge thank you. And part of the recovery is also working on making sure that when I heard a lot tonight and from council members is that obviously for for true community safety you have to have also the preventative work. It has to happen consistently and thoroughly and that's something the health department is very involved in. So I just want to thank you for that to just the chief and to the leadership that's here. Part of recovery and we've talked about this a lot is also the safety recovery, and it's ensuring that we continue to make sure our community is safe. I've said it many times at Long Beach today. By every. Any way you look at the data is safer than it was 20 and 30 and 40 years ago. Doesn't mean we don't have challenges. It doesn't mean that. That guns have not become a source of. Of increase in shootings. And if there isn't a gun epidemic. Because there is and we still have incredibly tragic incidents in inner city that happen. But we are and have and have continued to ensure. I believe that the police department I look at what 21st century policing actually really means and how we change and improve moving forward. And I think you guys have and continue to do that. I want to thank you, Chief, and your entire team. It has been a very, very hard year for everyone, for all of you. I mean, I told you this, of course, privately. But I think it's important also that we look at where the resources are today and what the community is looking for. And I agree with some of the comments here. At the end of the day, folks want to know when they call 911 that some are going to be there to help them and if they're going to be there when they need them. And that's something that the service that we provide every single day. And I also know and one of the reasons why I'm proud of where we are headed in many in many ways is we're also recognizing as a city and quite frankly, as a country, that there are some 91 calls that could be handled by other folks as well. And police. Police officers today are expected to be police officers and social workers and medical workers and do a variety of things. And I think we and I want to make sure that we provide you the support to focus on policing and the important work that has to happen in our community. I agree with some of the comments we have to ensure. I appreciate the police department has never been more diverse. Under your leadership. It's more diverse today than it's ever has been. When I when I attend the and I attend every single graduation that your department has, and I look at these young officers, what I see back are folks that want to serve their community and that look like our city and that more and more we have women serving and more people of color and folks that want to want to give back. And I think that's something that. We'll continue to grow with within our city. And I also see. Particularly with the younger officers, a real call to to to service. And and I believe that the training and the investments we're going to make in projects like the training facility and the are going to be are really important investments that that this council is going to make. Finally, let me just say, on the helicopter issue, which has been brought up repeatedly, I also support what's been said. It is important, I think, for police officers to fly police helicopters and particularly those that are sworn and that have that experience. And so I think we've asked I know that the BBC, I think looking at this issue and hopefully will incorporate it as we move forward in the next few weeks to make sure that that piece of the budget gets adjusted. And I look forward to working with the other members that are interested in making that change. And and let me just say in conclusion that. What to me, what's important moving forward is that we're focused on a complete recovery. And that is not just the health piece, that's not just the economic piece, but also the people in this community deserve also to feel safe. And I'm hearing from folks is they also want to make sure that there are enough police to take care of their needs, that police are there at an adequate amount of time. And so the response time piece is really important and which I know that we're working on to ensure that we are modeling a true community police department. And all of those things I think are really important. So thank you all for the presentation. I appreciate hearing from both the health department and the police department and Alicia's any objection. We have a motion in a second to receive and file the report until the next meeting. And so please cast your votes on that.
Recommendation to conduct a Budget Hearing to receive and discuss an overview of the Proposed Fiscal Year 2022 Budget for the departments of Health and Human Services, and Police.  (Citywide)