Speaker 1: Report from Parks, Recreation and Marine. Recommendation to adopt a resolution authorizing the city manager to submit a grant application to the Los Angeles County Regional Park and Open Space District in the amount of $623,600 for the implementation of Phase two of the de Forest Wetlands Project.
Speaker 0: Not summarized.
Speaker 3: Yes, well, I certainly rise in support of this this item, and for us, going after this much needed grant to help complete the phase two portion or actually get the project started for the Force Wetlands Project, this this area is going to be a a urban oasis in North Long Beach along the bike path. And and it's going to be a beautiful area for natural habitat and serene just just recreation. We are looking very much forward to this and I hope I'm wishing are our Parks, Recreation and Marine Department all the luck. And in getting this grant from the county of Los Angeles. Most of the forest with wetlands actually sits in a district. And so where my constituents are very, very excited about the the opportunity of creating yet another new greenspace and park in our city.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilor Richardson.
Speaker 6: Thanks, Mr. Mayor. So just a couple of things. And I started the conversation a little earlier with the Public Works director and parks director about this item and just want to clarify a few things. So initially, we cobbled together resources for many, many years to make this project happen. And then we went out to bid and the bid came back $1,000,000 too much to make the project to go ahead and initiate the project. So the direction was to go back, scale back the project a bit and to go back to bids so we have enough money to actually finish the project. The item today lists that we have $7 million on hand, made up of 1.5 million from California Coastal Conservancy, 3.5 million from L.A. and San Gabriel Rivers and Mountains Conservancy and 2 million from L.A. County, Regional Park and Open Space District. But the January 24th item from 2012 said that we had $7,717,593 toward the project, which is a lot closer to the 8 million where the bid came in, which if we received this other funding, we'd be there, wouldn't have to phase the project. So the difference is the amount of funds is just different. So I was hoping for an explanation. The new so what originally was dedicated was California Resources Agency. It had two and a half million. It's not listed in this item. L.A. Regional Open Space District had two and a half million. And on this one, it's 2 million. So that's that's half a million less. A few years later, that's listed here, L.A. and San Gabriel Rivers Mountains Conservancy is a million. Whereas it was 3,000,500. Listen, this item. And then 217,000. California Coastal Conservancy, previous grant and then 1.5 million from the same organization, California State Coastal Conservancy. I know that a lot of times we have to repackage things to make them balanced. I understand that. But $700,000 is too large of a number to not ask out in public what happened to those resources. Secondly, when we went out to bid on this and we said we wanted to phase it into two phases so that we can move forward in a in a in a in a timely manner. The hope was that it wouldn't expand the cost to $10 million. The original bid was 8.5 million. With this council item list that the project, the total cost will be $10 million. Now, I know if we phase it, obviously there will be more costs over time. That's why the project is more expensive now. But would it make sense to not phase it and do one project scale the project back while we have $8 million here, scale it back and move forward on it now. So this is just a list of questions that I was hoping that we can have resolved today.
Speaker 0: Certainly, Councilman, I can answer that. The there is a discrepancy of $700,000 that was in the Public Works Capital Projects Fund that was used for design and construction documents. So the availability of that money is no longer there. And I would say this project is being scaled back so that we can get something done. I think it's an exciting project and we will get something done. And what's going to get done is 34 acres of wetlands habitat, the creation of trails, wayfinding signs, interpretive signs and landscaping. So what gets left out of this in terms of another phase which allows us to to pursue grant funding for the remainder of it is things like planting of the south basin, which is like $1,000,000 native enhancement plantings, that's probably another 380,000. So there's some major items that can happen with the current money. There's not eight millions not available or 7.7 is not available because of design and project costs and soft costs and a permitting and that sort of thing. Really the amount of money available is about 6.2 million. So we've got to bring scale the project back to 6.2 million. We think we can give you something really nice for 6.2 million and then build the other pieces in through the grant funding. And this is one piece of that grant funding which allows the wetlands to be accessible.
Speaker 6: Great. So just to reiterate, so now that we're taking this two phased approach, about 6.2 million will be the first phase. And then the other 3 million, three, $3 million that we have to fine will go to phase two. Can you just highlight again that? So my understanding phase one is primarily the nature center, which is the the entrance at the Forest Park in the ninth District and some of the, you know, beginning work. But really the south portion is the extra, the south portion additional planting and some of the nature trails. The second phase and my understanding.
Speaker 0: So the south portion is accessible to people. Right now, there's some invasive vegetation that really does need to come out and put native vegetation in as part of the project. And there's also the the levy native perennial grass plantings that we need to do at a later date. So those are kind of the major items. There's like two or $3 million worth of that sort of project. And that can also be done with the help of the California Conservation Corps. So you're getting right now with this is, again, wetlands, the creation of trails, wayfinding signs, interpretive signs, landscaping. And this actually connects to the the biggest wet wetlands that the county provided. So it is a great project and I wish we could do the entire thing. Unfortunately, the plants were done several years ago and there are escalation costs.
Speaker 4: So the way to.
Speaker 0: Do it is to get this first phase done. And I think we can find funds for a little bit easier with this first phase done.
Speaker 6: Thanks. So just one final question. So we'll be out to bid and finish with the we'll be ready to break ground when on phase one.
Speaker 0: My understanding is Public Works is ready to bid this.
Speaker 6: In two weeks. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Any public comment on the item? CNN. Please cast your votes.
Speaker 1: Motion carried unanimously.
Speaker 0: 18.
Recommendation to adopt resolution authorizing City Manager to submit a grant application to the Los Angeles County Regional Park and Open Space District, in the amount of $623,600, for the implementation of Phase 2 of the DeForest Wetlands project.  (Districts 8,9)