Speaker 0: We have one one big item before us. So you can come back if you'd like for for that item. And with that, let me turn this over now back to the regular agenda. And we're going to begin with item 25. Now we have and staff has a presentation on that.
Speaker 1: Item 25 is communications from City Manager recommend a recommendation to receive and file presentations on the potential extensions of the existing measure transactions and use tax citywide.
Speaker 0: Thank you. We're going to go ahead and start with the presentation. So Mr. West and Mr. Motor.
Speaker 4: Mr. Mayor, council members, this presentation is going to be given by the Assistant City Manager, Tom Modica. Tom.
Speaker 11: Thank you, Mr. West. So, Mary Council, we have a fairly lengthy presentation we'd like to walk you through to talk about something pretty critical that staff is recommending that you consider tonight, and that is the extension of Measure A, we'd like to kind of go through what measure has been used for, talk about some of the challenges that we foresee over the next 30 years that we really believe Measure should be a part of and kind of walk you through kind of our recommendation to you. And so on the screen, we'll get started. There we go. So just to remember, what is Measure A and how it came to be. July seven, 2016, we brought a measure to the voters to basically do a 1% sales tax for ten years, dropping down to half a percent after after six years. And Long Beach voters approved that by 60% of the voters it needed, 50 plus one to pass. It was a ten year sales tax that the council said by resolution was going to be for public safety and for infrastructure. As I mentioned, it was one 8% for six years, then declined half a percent for four years and expired in 2027. As part of that measure, we established a five member citizen's advisory committee to really review the use of the funds by the city. They meet about 3 to 4 times a year. They take action to determine is the spending that the city's doing consistent with the resolution and the promise made by this Council of Voters. And they've approved that every single year. The number that it is generating is about $60 million a year at 1% and then about 31 million a year when it hits half a percent. And so we'll talk a little bit about. The new challenges that we're facing related to community health services tonight. We still have infrastructure challenges. Measure A has been a huge success and we'll talk about some of those successes. But we really do have long term funding solutions that we need to identify over the next 30 years for our infrastructure. We've also dedicated about half of the tax towards funding operations, and 2027 really isn't that far away where we have to make some decisions about whether those positions are at risk for elimination or whether they're going to continue. And Missouri really has been an enormous success. We've added public safety officers. We've maintained public safety personnel that otherwise would have been reduced. And we funded an unprecedented investment in our city's infrastructure. So let's take a look at some of the projects and services funded by measuring. One thing we did is we enhanced our public safety. We added 41 new public safety positions. We did Paramedic Rescue 12 and Fire Station eight restored to service. We used to have four police divisions and in the recession, we went down to three. And with Missouri, we're able to bring that back to four police divisions with the addition of South Patrol. And that's now at the same operational level as the other patrol divisions. We now have dedicated staff at our police academy, which allows us to to hire additional police officers. And we are supporting fire departments, heart team and our quality of life units. Those are two key units from the public safety side that are out in the field dealing with homelessness every single day. Important as well is that we've maintained 108 public safety positions. These are positions that otherwise would have been reduced and not available had we not had Measure eight to to help protect them. We've provided additional police and fire academies and we've renovated. We're planning for the future renovation of their training facilities. We've also been able to invest in new technology for public safety, including operational radios and body worn cameras. Looking at some of the infrastructure. And we'll dove a little deeper here in a second. But it's been about $88 million so far from FOIA 17 to FOIA 19 in measuring funds. And that is the largest investment we've seen in a long time. We've done $42 million. The vast majority has gone into streets and sidewalks and alleys. About $27 million into our parks and recreation facilities, about $15 million into our other public facilities and $3.5 million in stormwater projects. You'll all recognize this map. When we went out to voters, we showed them a map and said, these are all the projects that are going to get done. They're are based on need. They're pushed throughout the entire city. And we have kept true to that promise. So these dollars, these projects are all getting done with the current measure that the voters had voted on. And we we're getting nothing but accolades for the projects that are happening out in the community. So let's look a couple of those in detail. We have one of the first projects we did with Measure eight in the first year is we identified every street that could have a protectant sealant put on it to help with the preventative maintenance. Maintenance. We call that slurry seal. And we slurry sealed every eligible street in the city. 232 lane miles. We identified the worst of the worst alleys. Those are the alleys that were dirt. And those will all be paved with measure. We've done three miles so far. We had a new park space, brand new park space in the red car greenbelt. And as the vice mayor mentioned earlier today, we broke ground on Houghton Park Community Center, and that's under construction. We built five of the best playgrounds that we have in the entire city with major a signature playgrounds that are really, truly amazing. And we have another four in the works. We repaired a number of roofs. And, you know, you know, those aren't always the most exciting things, but those are things we have not been able to fund just with basic dollars until there's a crisis in emergency. So we're able to proactively replace roofs, which saves the community a lot of money and lots of service. We've improved stormwater protection, we've done park improvements. We've also funded 102 lane miles of complete street projects, which include everything from curbs to ramps and sidewalks. We've repaired and upgraded 30 public facilities and we've done parking lot improvements and all of these projects are all on the web. We have an interactive GIS map where you can click on, see the project and see the status and how much money it was funded for. So I'd like to talk a little bit about our funding needs and what our challenges are coming up in front of us. And they really fall into three categories. Excuse me. The first is community health. So we do have some new challenges in community health. First and foremost, it's community hospital. So Community Hospital stopped accepting basic life support patients in spring 2018. That was completely unexpected and closed completely in July 3rd, 2018. That happened after Missouri was adopted. That was something that was presented to us in 2017 and happened shortly thereafter. 27,200 emergency service visits occurred at Community Hospital in 2016 and since its closure. Ambulance transport times have increased by 10%, which is a significant number. The City Council has been very familiar and involved in creating a strategy and a solution to reopen community hospital. We've identified a great private partner who is interested in that, and under the proposed deal that we're in, that we're working on finalizing our cost share would be about $25 million over the next 15 years. It's a city facility. We need to put put our share into the seismic improvements while the private operator shares in those improvements and also puts in the money for the operating. So this council has made the initial decision to move forward with that, which we fully support, but it came without any revenue. So we do not have a solution on how to pay for that $25 million. And without additional solutions, we're likely facing other service reductions to make that a priority. The next category is infrastructure. When we came out with Measure eight, we estimated a backlog of about $2.3 billion. That really was an estimate at the time. We know that number is going to change as we both improve and also get additional data through our studies. And measure has been a huge help. It invested immediately $88 million over the last three years. But that is a small number. When you're looking at funding infrastructure, you're looking at funding it over the long haul. So what we've done with some of the infrastructure money is we created four plans really to assess and prioritize our investment. So this council has real data to understand what the need is and how we can best prioritize. We funded a pavement management plan which showed that we have about $510 million in street needs. We funded the city's first alley assessment plan and found out that it's about 98 million. There are sidewalk management plan has been completed with 631 million. And we're underway with a facilities investment plan. We have 200 facilities. We've done 17 so far, and that need is about 38 million. So if you extrapolate in rough numbers, it could exceed 500 million. And we'll know in the next two or three years as we finish that plan what that actual number is. And so what's important here is the sooner you can invest in your infrastructure, the cheaper it's going to be. If you wait until it's completely dilapidated, the cost just as much more is much higher. The third major area is public safety, where public safety remains our top priority. 70% of the dollars the council allocates goes to public safety and personnel costs. Really? We do public safety with people, with police officers, with firefighters. And those personnel costs grow every single year regardless of salary increases. The cost of having a force from all it takes to have a police force and a fire force grows every year. And so measure has been enormously helpful with both adding and enhancing, but also maintaining what we have and keeping those officers on the force. And so to date, right now, when you add the additions, plus all the officers we've been able to keep, officers and firefighters, it's 150 positions are funded by Measure A. So I want to talk a little bit about the public support for this. Just one thing we hear a lot is that Long Beach is the highest city with the highest sales tax. You'll hear that from time to time. It's not the case. I wanted to show you this data here. While we were in earlier, adopter, since we went, 16 additional cities in our area in California have increased or proposed to increase their local sales tax. There's one city, Santa Fe Springs, that got special legislation to be at 10.5. And you can see the list of all the cities at 10.25 and the cities right behind us at ten.
Speaker 0: Mr. MODICA Just to clarify that, but that list is not a that list is of the cities that are kind of in this in Southern California.
Speaker 11: This is primarily Southern California. There may be one or two in Northern California. As a rule, we looked most of the cities with this sales tax tend to be in Southern California rather than northern California.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 11: So before bring in the staff recommendation to you, we wanted to go out and do some polling to understand kind of how people perceive measure and also was there a public support to extend it. This is something a lot of cities do. There's a firm called FEM three, which are the premier firm out there that does this type of work. They've done 135 other California cities, and they also have done have done work for the county of Los Angeles and the Long Beach Unified School District. So we interviewed in April 600 Long Beach voters. We did interviews in English and Spanish. So I want to walk through some of the summary of what they found. One of the key questions you ask is, do you think that there's need for additional funding in Long Beach for quality services? And that number in Long Beach is very high. It's 70% to show that there is a great need or some need. And so that's a very strong number. We asked what the top three areas were for a measure of priorities. The top one was fixing potholes and repairing streets at 83%. The next was retaining all the new additions that we've been able to put in at 78% for public safety and revitalizing neighborhood parks at 76% and maintaining officers and others are right behind that. And when you do polling, you tend to ask the same question three times so that you can get an accurate gauge of of a number of different factors. So you asked the first time, just without a lot of information, here's what measure is would you support extending it? And in Long Beach, that number was 68%, which is an incredibly high number. When you talk to talk to the experts that do this. You then provide some messages about, you know, what is long? What is this measure? What could it be used for? You provide some of the positive messages to see what that does to the number. And in Long Beach, it went up to 74%. And then you provide some of the other arguments that you'll hear from an opposition campaign just to understand what that would do. And that actually brought it down only to 71%. So actually higher than where you were on the initial vote. So those are incredibly strong numbers. You don't often see that, you know, from what we understand in in many cities. So do you want to talk a little bit about why we would need this money and what our current financial situation is as well? So over the years and the last probably seven or eight years, there's been three major events that have helped us from a financial perspective. And the first one is the termination of redevelopment agencies. So while we lost a lot on the redevelopment side, that was a big significant improvement in the general fund side of our ledger. We also got a lot of cost savings from pension reform alone, which was one of the first cities to do pension reform. And what that did is had all of our city employees paying a much higher percentage into the pension system than they were before, and that's ongoing every single year. And the third was money for measures to both enhance services and maintain services. So when you add up those three, you actually end up with $55 million in support from those three major actions and $30 million a year from in infrastructure and one time uses. So without that, we would have been looking at some pretty drastic reductions. However, all three of those are fully allocated and they're all used to support current operations. But our cost, just like every other city in a high cost state, continued to rise. So looking at our what are the projections look like? I do want to say that, you know, the further out you get, the harder it is to project. So these numbers can and will change. That's why they're also expressed in a in a potential range based on a number of assumptions. But when you see the budget in about a month, you're going to see a very good budget, the FY 20 budget. It's essentially balanced, not a lot of service enhancements, as we had mentioned over the years. But it's going to be a good, strong budget in Fy21 there are some challenges in Fy22 and then measure would be an option for the council to look at and make some decisions in about $15 million in FY 23. And then not sure on this chart is right now in 27, you wouldn't have any more measure of money under the staff's proposal. You would with voters approve. You would have an additional $60 million that we aren't currently receiving. So there's some complexity about the ballot measure, and I want to walk through that a little bit. So state law currently puts a cap on sales tax at 10.25 for all state and local taxes, including city and county tax. And so any extension of Missouri really needs to take that cap into account. And so we recommend that you do that in concert with some of the other tax measures that are out there, which includes Measure H, which is the homelessness tax that the county has put on, which also has a sunset provision. So we're recommending you keep basically the rate at where it is today, 1%. From a practical standpoint, the voters would not see any difference. It would be 1%, but it would go for until 2023 at 1%, then drop down 2.75% for a measure rather than go back up to 1% at 2027. And I'll show you that graphically in a second. There is some importance as to the staff's recommendation on the timing of the ballot measure and why we're recommending that you put this on the March 2020 ballot rather than November. And, you know, the typical state law shows that you should be asked that you put these in front of voters when you have your your general election, which for us would be November 2020. But there's a provision for doing that earlier. And so one is we are hearing that there are some other entities that are interested in taxing and doing sales tax. First and foremost would be assumed. And there's a potential for L.A. County as well. And we're all competing for that same amount. So if they get to the ballot first and voters approve that, the tax that the voters would pay would be the same amount but actually wouldn't stay local. It would go to a different entity. So we really think that you should consider putting this on March 2020 and, you know, that amount would still be 10.25%, but it would just go to a different entity rather than Long Beach. So this is how it's represented graphically. This is what this staff would recommend is once you get to F 22, that's what Measure eight currently authorized, you can see it's 10.25%. We would go down 2.75% and the county would take that extra point 25. Again, from from a consumer perspective, they would continue to pay what they're paying today. 10.25 that that's what they're paying now. And then we would go about four years, five years on the calendar year rather than fiscal year. And then it goes back up to 1% in FY 28 and beyond. So in order to put it on the March 2020 ballot, you do have to do what's called a fiscal emergency declaration that's required under the state constitution, Prop 218. And so, you know, we would recommend that you do that for the reasons that we mentioned in the report community, hospital infrastructure and public safety. So in summary, we really believe Measure would be a major positive fiscal impact to the city. It would be $15 million a year that you'd be able as a council to make some financial decisions with after fy22. Then after that, there would be $45 million a year available in 2027, which we aren't currently programed for and would put us in a much stronger fiscal position. And so next steps, if you would like to move forward with this, you would direct the city attorney tonight to prepare an ordinance. There'd be a second chance to consider this. And essentially we would come back to you in July with that ordinance and the resolution declaring an emergency, and then it would really be up to the voters. So it's important that, you know, you don't make that decision. Staff don't make that decision. It's really up to the voters whether or not to extend a measure. And so our recommendation is in front of you. And with that, thank you for your time and we are available to answer questions.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Mr. Modica. And we're going to have if anyone's here for public comment, now's the time. Please come forward. And then after that, we will go to I'll make some comments and go to the council. Please come forward. I'm going to close the speakers list. So if you're not in line because this will be closed. So I have four speakers and after that the speakers list will be closed.
Speaker 4: Please come forward. All four speakers. Gwen Stefani, Orson Welles second district with regards to measure a as of crime rate is falling citywide it seems that seems to say that fewer armed police officers would be necessary. So an adjustment composed with that would probably would be a good idea. However, additional funds for the fire department are necessary as they are the primary response of agency for both the increasing homeless epidemic and general paramedic emergencies. Additionally, locally funded social and health workers would also be a nice addition to all necessary funds. Other than that should be going towards a critical reopening of the mental health floor community hospital. The loss of this has been a huge problem for the for the city and with regards to the projects that have originally that have already been funded. I think Public Works really deserves a heavy hand from the city. It's been a very, you know, overall easy transition. The disruptions to public service to the public, especially in the second District, have been minimal. The recent contract, you know, some supposed controversy over the road dying and on the Broadway has been overblown. As somebody who lives in the second District and is a father of a cyclist who's starting out in the second district, the measure funding has created a protected bike lane, which has frankly slowed down traffic and created a safer neighborhood. More additions like this in terms of making a pedestrian and cycling friendly city would be extremely welcome with an additional $50 million. Thank you for your time. Thank you.
Speaker 0: And our next speaker, please.
Speaker 4: Mayor and city council members. My name is Paul Mize. I'm a board member of the Long Beach Firefighters Local 372. Rex Pritchard apologizes for not being here tonight. However, he's out of town with his family. Long Beach firefighters fully supports and asks you to vote yes on this agenda item. We need to extend measure to maintain vital public safety services, improve emergency response times, and continue our investments in infrastructure. Extending Measure A will maintain our current tax rate to ensure Long Beach maintains the 150 public safety officers personnel funded by measure pay and including 37 new public safety workers, police officers, firefighters and paramedics hired since measure has been approved. Long Beach will be able to make safety repairs required to reopen Long Beach Community Hospital. Community hospital is a vital part of the 911 system. And reopening this hospital will be a tremendous positive impact. And save lives. If we don't act now to make Measure eight permanent, we will lose our ability to invest directly in Long Beach. Instead, we will pay the same tax rate we are paying now. However, the money will go to other agencies and not Long Beach. Extending measure ensures that we will continue to invest in our community. Missouri has been a huge success and has made improvements in every single council district while I'm standing here supporting me, making Missouri become permanent. As a member of the Local 372 Board of Directors, I'm also standing here as a resident of Long Beach asking you to support the agenda items. I lived in Long Beach for 18 years and I've seen on a daily basis, you know, while I'm driving around in my personal car, responding to emergency calls and the fire engine. That measure. Investing in our communities has been very noticeable. We need to continue invest in ourselves in years to come. Please vote yes. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you very much. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 8: Hello, counsel. I'm Joel Weinstein. I wish Measure A could do the job, but it inherently cannot. Even management admits that with measures in place now, the city is getting ever further behind on infrastructure. It's no surprise, given a consistent commitment to Oscar Wilde's style of budgeting. Give me the luxuries of life. The necessities will take care of themselves. You know. Most of you politicians in your top management unabashedly and relentlessly work to exploit our ignorance and naive trust to get us to pay ever more in extra taxes like Measure A and M for the very same services that elsewhere require no new taxes , do not have the benefit of oil revenues, title and revenues, enterprise revenues. In each case, the pitch is that the new revenues will be dedicated carefully and exclusively to the services. A true but deceptive claim because revenues from the new tax can be legally dedicated. But council can divert and in case after case has diverted to other purposes the funds from the old sources that used to go to the services. Measure H in 2007 was going to give us a better fire. Protection. Result, you actually reduced engines and fire stations. Houses have almost burned down because there were not. And they remain. Absent. Engines and stations. And then there's those 200 police officers. Yeah, yeah. 200 less police mean a less safe. Long Beach was the. What was the pitch? And apparently that's what you want because you have not budgeted for anything like 200 new and worse to promote these little tax bites, these little more details. City Hall, you and your management have engaged in deceitful and arguably illegal pseudo rationales and campaign practices, including pretending that this building is about to fall down from seismic problems. And yet you made here you have put no employees out of here for three years and more. You send out costly and supposedly useful information fliers to some rather than all duly registered voters. You omitted from mailers and online information readily provided instructions on how to conveniently access the actual legal text. And you totally misrepresented in promoting Measure B-BBEE. You totally concealed that there would be a repeal of existing term limit provisions in the charter. So what? The needed new step is not a new tax, but a new council professionally as a decision analyst and math and stat analyst. My recommendation is, and as a citizen, I demand that all of you resign. We need a new council.
Speaker 0: Thank you very much. And our last speaker, please.
Speaker 4: Good evening, counsel Jim Foster, president of the Long Beach Police Officers Association. Honestly, it would take me the rest of the night to try to explain all of the good things that came out of Measure eight for our city. I'll try to limit that just to some of the really specific ones. Clearly, the maintaining and addition of staff as presented by Mr. Modica has been unbelievably helpful for us to be able to accomplish our mission. Some of the very specific things in here in this measure allowed us to get a full time training staff at the academy. And when you look at the attrition rate that we have had over the last several years, we're on the verge of, I think somewhere in the area of 15 to 20% of our officers have now been trained by the staff. That measure allowed to be there full time. In addition to that, we have a training facility at the academy that is falling apart. It is 20 years we've been in some temporary trailers. And I guess in the terms of life, everything is potentially temporary. But these trailers are falling apart. They're getting dangerous. And we've been good partners for many years with the citizens of working with what we had. But we're to a point now where we know we're going to have significant attrition over the next few years. We can become a regional training facility, and we have to do this on behalf of the safety of our of our team members that go through there and really for the benefit of the city to allow us to continue to retain and attract new candidates to be in our police department. In addition, one of the things that the taxpayers aren't always aware of is even after this measure was initially passed by such a large margin, the state, the federal government come down with new mandates that require the police department to get on board with new events like our radio system is no longer supported. We needed new radios. We couldn't function as a police department without them. That came from Measure eight body cameras, which is something that voters want and demand. This is a function that we need to provide. Coming from Missouri, I can go on and on, but I want to add one more part about the importance of community hospital . That hospital for decades has served not only my family but the residents of this city. It's where we kept our sexual assault response team, where we did some of our higher level things with the community. The most sensitive things were there. It's where we treat a lot of our prisoners that are in custody coming from nearly half of the city. And clearly the mental health facility there is of immeasurable help to the public safety mission that not only firehouse, but we have also the taxpayers are getting their money's worth out of measure eight and then some. And so I would encourage all of you, as you look at the long laundry list of things that have done, the mission is not yet accomplished. This money is going to good use. And all of us on the police front, we urge your support in this measure. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thanks so much. That concludes public comment. Let me make some I'm going to make some comment and then we'll go to the council for comments as well. So I just want to I just want to just first of all, just take a quick step back and kind of walk through kind of what got us here and then make some general comments as well. And I think, staff, you've done a great a great presentation and a a very thorough job. I know that the finance team and a lot of your team was in front of us together. And I just want to thank you for for doing that. And so I just a few things have happened. I think there's there's two things that have kind of happened around the same time. The first is one that the council's already been discussing, and that's been the issue around community hospital. And I want to just point out that I think the council certainly had asked staff maybe a few months ago to look at solutions and how we would permanently fund community hospital. I know that that began some initial work from at the staff level. And part of that is in front of us today. And I think it's important to note that this measure extension is well, that is a piece of it. There's certainly a much broader focus, which is really about infrastructure and public safety. And that's kind of what I'm going to focus most of my comments on. But I do want to thank you. I know that when we asked you to bring back some information on community hospital about about a long term source, this was obviously a response to that. And the other probably more a larger piece of this has been, I think, what most of us have been reading sometimes on the front page of the Press Telegram and in other publications about other agencies, HMD being the largest of which have been discussing bringing forward an additional measure in front of voters, which would keep our tax rate the same, but certainly divert resources that are currently going in a major way into other agencies, which would be a loss for our community. I think that's for many folks. The bigger issue for for me, it's it's it's simple. And I think I strongly believe that we should extend measure aid to maintain our vital public safety services, our emergency response times, and to continue investments in infrastructure. I want to start by saying that we have through the current through the current measure that was voted on, we have maintained about 150 public safety personnel. That is actually pretty significant. This has been through our everything from restoring a paramedic units, as you heard, to our our engine bill. Onshore to the police work that's happening across the city as well. But the larger investment and the one that I think people have felt most immediately has been around infrastructure, the fact that we have already spent and fix $88 million worth of infrastructure is enormous. And we are this really is an era that we will look back on and be able to remember as a time when we really fixed our city when it came to infrastructure that is significant and it's something that I'm really proud of. I want to thank our public works team who have really had to re, you know, re-energize and rethink of the way they approach streets because there is now so much more work for them to do and be on our streets. It's been programed within our parks. When you look at our park playgrounds, when you look at it, fixing up many of our restrooms or our roofs or our libraries, there have been significant investment. And so we have made these investments to our parks, athletic fields, playgrounds, and they have really been really great to see. And I want to thank the voters and community for supporting that. I also want to just just make a note when when we went out in 2016, we were talking about a $2.3 billion backlog of infrastructure. And that was, of course, an estimate. And the fact that we have brought that and continue to move that number down with the investment, I think is significant. And we should really this new this new extension could allow us not just to put together a five year plan, which we currently have in front of us, but a plan that could really last ten, 20 , 30 years and it could really rebuild our community. Let me I will also note that the part that staff mentioned, which I think is really critical, is this idea of what other taxing agencies are doing. When Long Beach first chose to vote to move its tax structure to 10.25. We were actually an early adopter. There were a few cities that had done that. Now there are many cities that have done that. And today I can tell you that we will not be the only city doing this in 2020. In fact, there are cities up and down the state of California that for the very reason that I that we're discussing tonight are actually choosing to go up to fill their cap because they are aware that the economy, the county of Los Angeles and others, and then they I think they do great work. But everyone is looking at doing additional measures in the November ballot, and particularly a vacuum in pretty public about theirs. And so now the Long Beach voters will not be paying any more tax if measure is extended. But if these other measures pass, they will still be paying the same tax, but the money will be going to other agencies versus fixing our streets and roads and supporting our paramedic units and public safety. And so I think those are some critical questions. I think it's it's obviously important to note that over 60%, about 60% of the voters approved measure the first time that that was a huge, resounding show of support. I think I am proud that this council has done a fantastic job of ensuring that what we told the voters the money would be spent on is where the money was spent. And to me, making a promise about where those dollars would be spent and then fulfilling those is really important. And it's about that is it to me about also about public trust. The money has been spent on fire, police service and infrastructure. And that's where we where we put it. What we're asking, I think staff recommendation is also to include the community hospital piece, which is something I strongly support as part of what we're doing moving forward. And so I know I've said already I fully support this and I want to thank our Art, the city team for their work on being able to to get these projects done. And so with that, let me turn this over to the council and begin with Councilmember Richardson.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I think that was articulated very well. I want to thank staff for these 31 pages of this staff report. I love the way that it was organized in the fact that we looked at our history, we looked at the landscape around us, and we really drilled down on this this methodology of the tax. I think that makes sense. You know, Mr. Mayor mentioned the rate in which measure was adopted the first time at 60%. But I think I want to just lift up the opinion survey. I'm grateful that was published, showing that even after positive and negative arguments, the support for this extension was over 70% of of the sample of voters in the survey survey. And I think that was that's a very compelling point. So thank you for including that in this presentation. Broadly looking back on Measure eight the first time around, you know, the reality is our infrastructure was in a very different place in Long Beach. And I and I remember, you know, making the case for the Highland Park Community Center. You know, I personally took a number of council members there so they can see that the issue is not it's not fake. It's real. You know, the roof was collapsed and I grabbed, you know, Harry Salts gave her from the Gazette and brought him there and grabbed a piece of the wall and showed it how that how it crumbled in our hands. And and that's been the reality for many of our facilities. And the truth is, it's been an unfair it's been really unfair to have to make choices between rusted playgrounds and roofs that are collapsing. And that's been the reality for a long time. And since we've adopted Measure A, I think that that proposition has changed for for our citizens. They can finally, finally see a community center, which was a project that was simply too big because of our revenue constraints, to see that it's under construction and see that this community center will open this year really is a testament to the faith of the voters placed in Measure A the first time. So I'm a big fan there. I think secondly. You know, it's been it was seven years that we went without rescue 12. It was seven years. And those and what that meant for us in North Long Beach was that we dealt with 3 minutes, slower response time than everywhere else in the city because of that paramedic rescue. And it wasn't every six months or year we were back at council, you know, pleading to the public in Cleveland, the council that this was a real situation here. And we learned firsthand that as it relates to first responders and public safety, it's really a sum of all of its parts. And so the addition of of engine eight and the restoration of Rescue 12 brought our response times down by three entire minutes in North Long Beach. And that is the same concern I have about about community hospital. If we don't come together and make, you know, and band together and make sure that we keep our safety net in place is going to impact all of us across the whole city. So I strongly support taking this action, if not simply to make sure that we maintain the the commitment we've made to our public about public safety and our emergency response. I want to lift up page 27 where it talks about and I know this has been underscored, but, you know, this is this has come to me I know some of the press has been has it had an opportunity to really kind of flesh out this case? But I think this is a really smart case that I want to lift up once again. I think the fact that the city is looking to do this in March and to March of 2020 and and fully optimize that cap means again that whether we do this or not, the effective tax rate and please confirm this for me once again. Mr. MODICA The effective tax rate to citizens won't still, you know, won't drop below below 10.25% if these other measures go go through. So they're still going to pay the same tax rate. Is that right, Mr. Modica?
Speaker 11: So if under our proposal, if we basically extended everyone, it would continue at 10.25%. We wouldn't receive the full 1%. County would get point to 5%. We would get 2.75%. If that. Or is there a different question?
Speaker 4: Yeah, in.
Speaker 2: Answer. If we didn't move forward in the assumed measure and these others move forward, there is a reality that the 10.25 effective tax rate would still remain for our taxpayers, but we wouldn't capture that additional money.
Speaker 11: I see. So let's let's say the council does not put this in front of voters, then there would be about 0.75% still available and that would be available for AQ, M, D or county or somebody else to pay. Then you would have voters paying the 10.5% and that would not go to Long Beach. You'd go to a different agency.
Speaker 2: And for that reason, I think it's also smart to say we should give the voters an opportunity to vote and say, Do I want that effective additional point, 75% of my taxes to go to a different agency? Or do we want to keep it local where we know our city council members and we know our mayor and we know you know, we know we use our parks and our streets and we know what streets need to be fixed. And I think that is a vote that needs to go in front of the residents. So that said, thank you. Thank you for putting together such a well thought out presentation. And and this earns my support tonight.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilmember Vice Mayor Andrews.
Speaker 10: Yes, thank you, Mayor. I also think that you really articulated exactly what we should be doing, and I support this extension on average for March 2020. You know, Measure eight has provided the city the ability to do a lot of good things in Long Beach, everything from roads, sidewalks and more public safety to repair our library and playgrounds. In my district, it has funded improve libraries, new playgrounds, MLK, Veteran's Park, as well as new improvements at Market MacArthur Park. And I don't know how many miles of street is paved in my district, but it seems like every week a new street repaired or repaved. We need to continue our efforts on public safety, continue to repair road sidewalks and alleys, and for the reopening of the hospital. I believe that we've given the choice to our residents. They will support our efforts to make Long Beach a much safer place for us to live. And thank you very much, Mayor.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Vice Mayor. Councilwoman Price.
Speaker 6: Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and thank you to staff far too, Mr. Modica, for the presentation. I agree that we have had a lot of really great restorations as a result of measure moneys and for me the most important thing is going to be to make sure that we continue to maintain the resources that we have. Of course, it would be great to add to them as well. I think we absolutely need more police officers, more fire resources, as one of the speakers mentioned, more technology to ensure that we are operating both our police and fire department with the most up to date and comprehensive community policing, community firefighting, all the different technologies and practices that have been developed to build transparency, bring about efficiency, and result in a more streamlined public safety team for the city. So I absolutely think we need more. I will tell you, in my district, as hesitant as folks are to celebrate new taxes, one thing that I think every resident in my district would agree on is that we need more public safety resources. That is a huge, huge priority in my district, has continued to be the number one priority for our district. And with the increase of homeless populations, our police and fire department are being tasked to handle issues that frankly are not their issues to handle, but they are viewed as the source and the solution for a lot of the problems that residents are seeing. And so they are being asked to do more with very limited resources. So I do think that that maintaining those resources at a minimum is what our goal needs to be. And we've done very, very steady and consistent restorations in the time that I have been on council, and I want to ensure that that work is not reversed and undone and that we continue to maintain those assets for the city at the current levels, if not add to them. I will say one argument that I think speaks to me and it didn't I didn't really appreciate it or understand it as much as I do now after watching the presentation, because I think it really hit home for me is the fact that there is a statewide sales tax cap. And that and I said this the last time we were having the discussions about measure to begin with, a lot of people said we're going to be the highest tax city in the area. And I said to people, you're talking about a point in time, which is now if you look at 3 to 5 years down the road, you will find that many cities are going to be struggling with how to deal with some of the challenges that we're all facing, whether as a result of pension costs or whether as a result of dealing with homelessness. And my predictions were absolutely true. Day after day, we read articles about cities grappling with how they're going to pay for some of these challenges that they're facing. And tax increases, sales tax increases are have been proposed and will continue to be proposed over the next 3 to 5 years. So I don't think having a conversation about what's going to happen, you know, where we're going to be in ten years and speculating that we're going to be as high as well. Actually, we're very much in line with a lot of cities around us. But but assuming that we're going to be higher than the cities around us in the length of time that we're looking at for this sales tax increase, is is really an irresponsible speculation to make, because it is not the trend that we are seeing in nearby cities as as many cities and counties are grappling with how to deal with this issue. I've been very, very concerned and very proud of this board. And, of course, our advisory committee. Bless you. That views the expenditures for Measure A to ensure that the commitment that we made to the residents on what we would spend Measure A for is limited to those areas. I've been very concerned about that. And I, I will you know, I'll be I'll be the first to say it. I was not completely confident that there wouldn't be an attempt to spend money beyond those areas that we had committed to as a council. But thus far, we've been very measured and very much in line with the intent of this body when that tax measure was passed, I hope that that will continue. And when we're talking about community health, there is nothing more pressing in terms of. Community health, at least to the east side of Long Beach right now than the reopening of community hospital. So that is a major priority for for me and I know many of my colleagues in ensuring that we have the funding in place to make sure that the community hospital opening is facilitated with the city's assistance is very important to me and some of my colleagues. So bless you. Bless you. So I look forward to continuing to have these discussions. Obviously, the details of the action that we take, how we word the resolution and what the legislative intent of this body is when we move forward with the next steps of this process will be very critical to me in terms of how I vote. But for now, spending money on our police, our fire, our infrastructure and community hospital are all priorities that I believe are. Definitely priorities that are citywide, priorities that we need to make sure that we fund not just today but for many, many years, decades to come. So thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilman Austin.
Speaker 8: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So I'll just try to be brief and say that I think this is. I think Steph's presentation was excellent. I think it's certainly worth moving forward with and exploring, extending, I believe Measure A puts our city in a position to control our destiny infrastructure, public safety, public health, our priorities of this city. Because the residents have communicated to us as a body city council year after year. I've been on the council for seven years. Those have been priority issues and I think Measure A addresses all of them. Homelessness, as we know, is an ongoing challenge for us. So we'll need to continue to plan for on how to address that issue with resources and from a public safety standpoint. Today, we have funded a hard team with fire fighters who are full time engaging homeless. Citizens, also quality of life officers. So I think but externally measure a man hands our ability to engage this very serious issue of facing us all. From a. Resident standpoint, I've seen so much improvement in my community as a result of measuring the parks works, but the infrastructure, the street repairs. But I know that the need is still, still pretty vast throughout our city. I get communicated with regularly from residents who are asking for their streets to be fixed, and I know that that's a priority. It's one of my priorities. And so I want to make sure that we have the resources to continue to be able to do that and to deliver, not just today, but also in the years to come. Speaking to one of the residents who came before us. I think the way Missouri was also laid out there was and has been some public confidence because people have seen the results of Missouri. But also, there has been civilian oversight over the process in terms of how the expenditures and who's in are being spent. So it's not just the city council. Obviously, we're watching it. Our Budget Oversight Committee is on on it. But we have a civilian oversight commission that that is very engaged in in the day to day details of how Missouri is being expanded. And so I think that that I know that will be in place moving forward, I'm certain. And then I think this afternoon I wouldn't. I think infrastructure is important, but new infrastructure is also important. And the values of the city is also can be can be moved through this this extension. And I would just say we can can also improve our economic development. It all works together. We have improved economic development through the use of infrastructure funds. And so I'm interested in seeing how we can do that to improve the vitality and continue the renaissance, particularly in the north part of our city, but citywide as well. So I'll be voting in support of this moving forward. I'm looking forward to having some engaging conversations with our residents over the course of the next few weeks and months ahead.
Speaker 4: Thanks.
Speaker 0: I think it comes from Boston Councilman Pierce.
Speaker 7: Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Tom Modica and the team for the great presentation. I think it's really helpful to have a full picture of how our constituents are feeling and not maybe just listening to The View. And so you really answered a lot of questions that I had. I, I was not here when Measure was passed the first time, but it was has been great to serve. While we have measuring not only Broadway or alleyways or street repairs as we bring forward I know Public Works is getting ready to bring forward our Vision Zero plan, which is really committed to by 2026 having zero traffic fatalities in the city of Long Beach. And we can't do that if we don't have infrastructure repairs on our main streets, whether it's Seventh Street, whether it's Broadway. And so I'm thinking of Measure eight, not only as an infrastructure plan, not only as a public safety with adding police officers and fire, but really as a life saving measure that we really need to have for our city to make sure that we're thriving. So I'm not going to take up a lot of time, but I think for me in the second district, what's important is we have conversations around adding police officers on bikes. To me, that means not just giving bikes to police officers that we already have, but making sure that we're increasing our officers so that we can have those bikes in those key areas where cars can't get to making sure that we're thinking about fire in our downtown. We've increased density as a result of the downtown plan, and we do not yet have a plan to increase our fire safety in our downtown and then considering our Vision zero and how we are making sure that our streets are safe. So I wholeheartedly support this. I will look forward to supporting this and having a thoughtful conversations with our constituents as we move forward. So thank you for bringing it forward.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Councilmember Ringa.
Speaker 9: Thank you. I agree with all the comments that have come forward from my council colleagues. I remember back in the fall, ten, 15 years ago when the city was in a in a tremendously difficult situation. We were trying to make our budget balanced. We're trying to maintain services. And we had a difficult time about it when major aid was proposed and passed by the citizens in the electorate. It was a game changer for the city of Long Beach. Now we were able to replenish our public safety personnel to return some services that we had lost or that over the course of the budget cuts over the years. And to go back into that era where we were having to struggle to balance our budget is unacceptable. And I think that it would be a tragedy for us not to continue to to have imagery as part of our built in infrastructure. We've I constantly get bombarded in my office with requests for trimming trees, which fixes sidewalks for restoring services. And I could say that thanks to Marjorie, we have been able to do that and will continue to do that into the future. So I'm fully supportive of this item here and I would be voting for it.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilmember Supernanny.
Speaker 4: Thank you. I'm in full support here. I don't want to be repetitive. All the. Critical points have been made. I've been a long time supporter of community hospital, but I think both the Police Officers Association and the Firefighters Association articulated just what this hospital means to the public safety network. And that's really what this measure supports, in my view, is that as a system of public safety, that the hospital is just a critical component, too. So thank you. And I stand in support.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilmember. Councilwoman Mongo.
Speaker 5: Yes. I want to echo the comments of many of my colleagues related to that of public safety and community hospital. They are both critical to the successes that we've been able to see in our city. If you don't feel safe, there's nothing more important. And you cannot live and thrive in a community where you don't feel safe. And so those restorations were necessary. And I'm very thankful for the great work that our public safety teams are doing. I think it's also good that we spend a little bit of time on the infrastructure side. Over the last three years. District five residents have endured the dust of construction, and they've done that because of Measure A, we've paved and slurry to over a hundred streets and repaired many of our critical facilities, including something I consistently hear from residents to be of the utmost importance. Park Bathrooms. This council made the fiscally prudent decision to repair what we could and to fix our street. Yes, many of them need it. I hear colleagues mentioning park bathrooms on both sides. But those streets and those park bathrooms are daily needs of our community. You have to drive on those streets to get to and from your home into your workplace. And when you're in the park, you need the facilities to be able to take your kids and or yourself to the restroom. Today, District five has more than $31 million of very poor streets, and that's after we've paved in slurry to 100 of those streets. We made some fiscally prudent decisions to not let streets fall into disrepair, but to be able to dig out of $31 million in very poor streets. It takes something longer than a five year plan or a ten year plan. We really need to be able to to plan out longer. So we've also done work to dozens of our bathrooms, but the list is ever longer and there are too many bathrooms that are just unacceptable. And so I think it's important for residents to have the opportunity to decide if Measure A has demonstrated the return on investment that they had hoped for, and if they trust this council and the Citizen Oversight Committee to maintain a focus on the priorities that they set out. I hope that the discussion around what we will spend that money on will remain focused on the much needed repair of our very poor streets and our worst park bathrooms. The city of Long Beach still has over $200 million of streets that are in very poor condition. 200 million. And repair that along with our our worst park bathrooms. I think we need to come up with a plan that every year we pave a certain number of our worst streets and we repair or completely refurbish our worst park bathrooms. Residents deserve a plan that says your street will be repaired in and then I should be able to tell them the year that their street is planned for repair. The idea that some day will come is just not enough. So as a taxpayer, I want to see my taxes spent in this community. And so for that reason, I'm supporting giving the residents the choice to maintain the tax at this level and keep it local, instead of maintain the tax at this level and see it go off to another agency or for the state. So for that, I'm supporting this item tonight.
Speaker 0: Thank you very much, Councilwoman. And let me just also just say the last thing I think. I'm not sure we made clear in the presentation. I want to be clear because it's been asked. This council has approved about 140, $150 million infrastructure plan as part of the measure, a, the Missouri ballot measure that passed in 2016. Everything that has been proposed by this council under the first plan is all being funded under the Measure eight plan. So anything beyond that, it's extended, of course, will be new projects and new streets and new investment. So I think want to make that clear as well. I think we've been asked that a few times, but I want to thank everyone for their thoughtful comments and and certainly for giving the voters an opportunity to consider extending something that's really transforming our community every single day. And so with that, members, please cast your votes.
Speaker 1: Motion carries.
Speaker 0: Great. Thank you very much. We'll be moving on to the rest of the agenda. Next is the consent actually of hearing number one.
Recommendation to receive and file a presentation on the potential extension of the existing Measure A Transactions and Use Tax; request the City Attorney to prepare an Ordinance for placement on the March 2020 ballot, calling for a permanent extension of the current Transactions and Use Tax for general City purposes, at a rate of 1 percent for years 2020 to 2022, 0.75 percent for years 2023 to 2027, and at a rate of 1 percent thereafter applying to the sale, storage, use, or other consumption of all tangible personal property within the City; and, request City Attorney to prepare any and all documents in support thereof.  (Citywide)