Speaker 0: So, Mr. West.
Speaker 4: Mayor, council members, we appreciate being here tonight. So what we're going to start with is three more budget presentations. It's the third budget hearing that we've had to talk about departments. So we are want to talk about you're going to hear from library first, then you'll hear from Health and Human Services. Then you're going to hear from disaster preparedness and emergency communication. So again, you see our Continuum of care sign. We want to make sure that that's clear, that we consider specifically library and Health and Human Services as a vital part of the continuum of care, helping the fire department, the police department and disaster recovery department to work on public safety. So it's all integrated and they work very, very well together. There's no silos here. And again, we do want to stress the public safety continuum. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to our librarian, Glenda Willie Williams, who will start the presentations. Glenda.
Speaker 5: Thank you, Mr. West. Good evening to Arnold, Maria Garcia and members of City Council. Thank you for this opportunity to present to you the proposed FY 18 budget for the Library Services Department.
Speaker 0: WILLIAMS Can we actually move her mic down? It's going to make sure that everyone in the audience can. Thank you so much.
Speaker 5: Okay. I better. Thank you. Sorry. We are proud to partner with our families city departments as part of the public safety continuum. And what is the library departments role to achieve safety for our community? According to our police department, there are three sides to public safety prevention, intervention and suppression. Our role is prevention. Many studies have shown that there is a correlation between literacy and crime. 85% of youth in juvenile hall cannot read above the third grade level. That's 85%. Here's another stat. It is estimated that every two out of three children that cannot read by the fourth grade will either go to jail or be on welfare. And this is not the dream that we have for any of our children. The good news is, is that there is a correlation between literacy, the availability of books in the home, and reading aloud to children, children with access to books perform better in school and have improved math scores. It is true kids who read succeed. The statistics for adults are also sobering. Studies show that 60% of inmates are illiterate. That's 60%. Once inmates have served their time and are released, 70% will return to prison if they do not become literate. So you see, statistics show that a small investment in literacy through library resources can yield a huge results and help keep our city safe. Here we go. Looks like we flexed our core services. The Long Beach Public Library is committed to meeting the learning and information needs of our culturally diverse and dynamic population. We take pride in providing public service. We offer a wide selection of resources and materials representing all points of view. We support learning for a lifetime intellectual curiosity and free and equal access to information for babies and children, to adults and seniors. We utilize specialized technology to provide information and educational resources for our residents, including individuals and families with special needs. And we have the main library and 11 neighborhood libraries conveniently located throughout the city to serve our community. 2017 has been a busy and exciting year for the Long Beach Public Library of our many accomplishments. The library was awarded the 2017 National Medal by the Institute for Museum and Library Services, which is the highest honor for a museum or library given annually to outstanding institutions, making exceptional contributions to their communities and demonstrating extraordinary and innovative public service approaches. The community's use of the new Michelle Obama Neighborhood Library in its first year of operation has been remarkable. Visits increased 70%. Materials checked out increased 55%. Attendance and classes and events increased 90%. And public computer use increased 71%. I might also add that the Michelle Obama Library was also awarded two noteworthy building construction awards by the American Public Works Association and the Construction Management Association of America. We are proud of our notable library statistics. About half of our population is a library card carrying member that has access to use 7 million resources and asked almost 300,000 questions, while 1.2 million people physically walk through our doors this year. Many residents take advantage of our 13th Branch library, the virtual branch to download materials or use our Go Lipo Mobile app to perform searches and access their accounts. Our virtual branch provides 24 seven anytime, anywhere access. Our community contributions are largely successful because of our collaboration with our community partners, including the Long Beach Unified School District, the Long Beach Community Action Partnership Site, Long Beach. We are the next Microsoft YMCA, early childhood education, Preschool Without Walls and the WICK program at St Mary's Hospital, just to name a few. Additionally, several stem that science, technology, engineering, math workshops and workshops and events were hosted are free. Maker Camp lasted four weeks in three locations during the summer and encouraged tinkering, thoughtful design and entered the year in shape for our youth. A daylong Polynesian culture event was hosted with grant funding and has continued on a monthly basis at the Michelle Obama Library. As part of our Ongoing Cultural Conversations program, which celebrates our city's diversity and partnership with the Departments of Parks, Recreation and Marine, the launch of the library program was at two locations this year. Our popular annual Summer Reading Club attracted more than 6000 children, teens and adults. The second year of the career online high school program is underway. We have about 60 students enrolled. Ten students have met all requirements. And we're looking forward to honoring our first graduation class in a ceremony this fall. We have three new series of development workshops at the Michelle Obama Libraries by the city's My Brother's Keeper Local Action Plan, and we were happy to support a daylong Youth Spark event in partnership with Microsoft and the city's innovation team for Washington and Hamilton. Middle School Students Interested In Computer Coding. The Long Beach Public Library has partnered with three local universities to host interns, enrolled in a master of library science graduate programs. And our mobile library services are on a roll. We launched the highly successful mobile studio program through the grant funds given to the Long Beach Public Library Foundation, along with our Speed Reader Library Bike. We are now able to provide library services at our schools, community centers and events throughout our city. Technology is extremely important. Improvements in this area include the next phase of the network equipment upgrade in the libraries to realize faster Internet speed. Upgrading our wireless access points to handle increased demand. Upgrading assistive software and hardware and the Information Center for People with Disabilities and Michelle Obama Library and completing the upgrade of the telephone notification and renewal systems available soon in English and Spanish. The proposed F 18 library total budget is approximately 14.2 million, 96% of which is from the general fund and includes approximately 126 full time equivalents or 175 employees for 12 locations. Grant dollars are provided mainly by the Long Beach Public Library, which funds all of our family learning centers. The studio at Main Library and the Michelle Obama Library, our new mobile studio and other initiatives. We would not be able to provide this critical services without their assistance. The proposed FIA 18 budget for the library is relatively flat with little changed. It is proposed to continue open hours on Sundays at four neighborhood libraries Bayshore, BURNETT, Michelle Obama and El Dorado. Since the hours were added, we've noticed a significant increase in library attendance at these locations. Lastly, measure a library projects in fiscal year 18 include facility improvements at several libraries, including age, fact hearing loops and other building improvements . Some challenges for the Long Beach Public Library is facing includes keeping up with service demands, part time and non-career employee turnover and aging facilities. While it's exciting to share that most of all of our library events and workshops are at maximum capacity, unfortunately, staff find themselves turning away people from participating in our free workshops and events because we simply cannot accommodate the demand. We would also like to participate in more community events, including all of the wonderful back to school nights at the Long Beach schools. But we just don't have the resources. Part time and non-career employee turnover is also a growing concern for us, averagely averaging approximately 28% annually for the past six years . Lastly, most library facilities are more than 50 years old, so keeping up with facility maintenance has become increasingly difficult. Roof leaks that occur when it rains or increase are an increasing concern for our libraries. The leaks penetrate the buildings and result in mold, damaged walls and damaged books that must be thrown away. On a more positive note, there are some great opportunities nearby at the Long Beach Public Libraries continuing to plan for the new main library anticipated to open in the summer of 2019. With that, the library will also continue to continue building a 21st century library system, including launching our new El BPL dot org website that's currently in development. Investigating a point of sale system allowing patrons to pay library fees and fines online and in person with credit cards, continue to measure library infrastructure improvements and implement the new 2017 2020 2020 Strategic Plan, which focuses on serving the needs of our community, supporting youth to development and prudent communication, and positioning the library as a public education institution to ensure library patrons and staff staff safety. Additional library specific safety and emergency training classes will be provided. Lastly, we will continue to provide innovative library classes, events and workshops for our community because we are not satisfied with the status quo. It is a pleasure to work with the women and men at the Long Beach Public Library to improve the quality of life of our residents. Their dedication, passion and support allow us to assist our community in meeting their personal and educational goals. Also, thank you, Mayor Garcia and the City Council for your direction and leadership to allow us to serve our community. This concludes the library a fy18 budget presentation. I am available for questions if you have any.
Speaker 0: Thank you very much. And we're going to do all the questions after all the presentations. And so we'll move on now to our next presentation, which is going to be from Health and Human Services.
Speaker 6: Good evening, honorable mayor, vice mayor and City Council Members. Thank you for this opportunity to present the budget for the Department of Health and Human Services. First, I'd like to recognize my team members who are here in the audience. They're spread throughout who make it all and all that. I'm going to share with you possible their bright, committed and caring team and they are so passionate about their work. I appreciate them fully and know that the Health Department would not be where it is today without them. I also get to come to work every day and see young babies and children in our fourth year because they're coming in for their birth certificates and work and seeing those children every day and having our meetings interrupted by children's laughter helps ground us in our work and keeps us moving every day. The Department of Health and Human Services continues to be part of the public safety continuum. We do this through a broad array of early prevention programs, as well as our homeless services programs. These programs include nurse family partnerships, black health, public health, nursing, fatherhood, family preservation, early childhood education, healthy active, Long Beach Work led prevention and abatement , child health and disability prevention programs, violence prevention, and many more. We know that working closely with our families early in a child's life to build strong parenting skills and relationships, educating and supporting for healthy babies and children. Ensuring children are safe in their homes and in their communities as well as connecting to reading and educational opportunities helps prevent crime, violence and homelessness in the future. It is a long term prevention strategy. When children do well in early life and are successful in school and employment, they are far less likely to commit crimes or become homeless as adults. As you consider definitions of public safety, please remember that prevention strategies are essential for the success of Long Beach. Research estimates that for every dollar spent on prevention, there is a future cost saving of $7. In addition, there's a $16 return on investment for every dollar spent in early childhood through Measure A and Measure M. There may be opportunities to support the broader definition of public safety to include these important prevention strategies. These are core services for our city when it comes to public safety. Until these investments are made, costs will continue to grow and we will continue to act instead of prevent. The Health and Human Services Department provides over 30 programs in nine sites around the city. Together, these services focus on building and supporting healthy communities, families and individuals from prenatal to old age. Many people connect us primarily with homeless services. That's most of our phone calls and restaurant inspections. But we do so much more. The Health Department is one of the most diverse departments in our city. Programs range from bioterrorism surveillance to providing housing and assisting homeless nutrition education to STD and HIV surveillance and treatment. Testing samples in a lab to family planning restaurant and water inspections to violence prevention. My Brother's Keeper to vector control and so much more. We promote healthy living. We increase safety in neighborhoods, homes and businesses. We provide housing and homeless services. We work closely with our federal, state and local partners to prepare for public health emergencies. We increase access to health care and community supports. We prevent, treat, investigate and control communicable diseases. In addition, we staff five commissions Health and Human Services, the Human Services Advisory Commission, Housing Authority Commission, Human Relations Commission and the New Veterans Commission. We have a first list of accomplishments this year. We provided over 350,000 public health visits, all free or at low cost. To do this, we brought in over $87 million of funding from outside of our city. For every city dollar spent, our department leveraged $295 in services from outside funding. Last year, we ensured safe environments through food inspections, food safety inspections, water testing, communicable disease investigations, lab test vector control, and public health emergency management efforts. We also developed medical marijuana, dispensary inspection and licensing protocols. We are a national model to counter bioterrorism and response to health emerging issues such as the Zika virus. Our partners include the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, State and County Emergency Organizations, and our fire police departments, emergency operations. We engage in support of the city's livability initiatives by leading the Street Pedestrian Safety Plan, participating in the Bicycle Master Plan, and bringing in additional funding from Otis and Skog to implement bike and pedestrian safety courses . We acted. We effectively aligned safe Long Beach and equity efforts in the Health Department and Urban, the Office of Equity to implement an equity framework for the City of Long Beach. The Office of Equity has, as My Brother's Keeper, the Language Access Program and the Human Rights Commission. To date, the office has led a team of 12 city departments and council offices, and the Governing Alliance for Race and Equity implemented citywide implicit bias training for city leaders and staff, and are now training over 690 sworn police officers. Hosted the My Brother's Keeper Regional Summit where over 200 people attended to share practices and plans for future work for boys and men of color, providing interpretation services for nearly 100 requests and translated 200 documents. It is also partnering with our Economic Development Department to support the economic inclusion strategy of the economic blueprint. Safe. Long Beach continues to lead the violence prevention plan focused on safe communities, schools and families. Through these efforts, the team has hosted eight community police academies, engaging 103 Community 183 community members and four community police dialogs. It has also provided informed training to representatives of over 80 organizations, training over 1300 people. We co-sponsored Agent Reimagine, Ruskin, Cal State, Long Beach and our Parks, Recreation and Marine, bringing together partnerships from throughout Long Beach to learn more about and share ideas for supporting older adults in our city. We've also made significant contributions to the Long Beach economy through our programs. Overall, we reinvested $73 million back into our community through with food vouchers in local grocery stores, rent payments to apartment owners, and another 3.6 million to local community based organizations as subcontracts. We also hosted three conferences this this year, bringing in hundreds of overnight visitors. I'd also like to highlight accomplishments specific to our homeless efforts. We led the biannual count this year and found a 21% reduction in persons experiencing homelessness and 26% reduction in the chronically homeless population. This is a time when surrounding jurisdictions have seen increases. We've done this through an incredible, coordinated partnership with our city and county. This year, we housed 483 people, including 131 veterans, and provided nearly 15,000 languages to services, provided 55 million in rental assistance to more than 6000 families and over 700 vouchers for veterans. We also developed landlord incentive kits, another financial incentive for apartment owners. We hosted a homeless homeless summit with over 100 attendees representing community partners across the city and the region. This led to an agreed upon definition of success for homelessness in our city and cross-agency work groups focused on creating a public education campaign, hospital discharge planning, short term housing solutions, and a faith based summit. We can't talk about homeless services successes without focusing on how we get the work done and with the resources. Overall, we were able to secure $8.2 million in outside funding sources, as well as negotiate 2.6 million of measure each month for the city, for the continuum of care, and for the housing authority. And we were able to extend $500,000 for veterans or homeless veterans initiative. Our budget is just over $123 million. 2% of this comes from the general fund. This increase from 1% last year due to the move from violence prevention and equity into the department and the medical marijuana programing. It is a half percent of the city's overall budget. We bring in 23% of our budget through grants. We rate 12% through health fees, permits and realignment. 62% comes from the Housing Authority through HUD and 1% from Cooper. Notable changes in our budget this year is $125,000 structural for homeless services. This has been one time in the past. It is now structural and ongoing. It will help support outreach efforts across the city. We are also seeking $110,000 one time to initiate the Office of Aging. This position will provide this coordination is absolutely essential to begin the office and will be leveraged to access grant funding to support ongoing efforts for older adults in our city. We also received $150,000 one time for cleanups of unsanctioned medical marijuana facilities. In addition, we'll be accepting additional grants for tobacco education. We've been at about 150,000. We're now going to be at a million. So it's an $850,000 increase in support in tobacco education coming from the state. We're receiving increases for public health, emergency management and Zika response, as well as $300,000. New money from the Office of Traffic Safety and Skog for Bike and Pedestrian Safety and 239,000 from the Office of Traffic Safety for a drug impaired driving campaign. All right. Team budget includes realignment of several grant funded positions to reflect operational and service needs and the elimination of several vacant positions to reflect funding availability. Our challenge is focused on trends and public health that need to be addressed, such as increasing STD and HIV rates in the city. We've had over 100% increase in syphilis and gonorrhea in the past two years, and we are the second highest in the state of California. We must focused on this work. We are also heavily focused on mosquitoes that carry Zika, West Nile virus and other harmful diseases. So far, we've had no local transmission of Zika. We want to make sure it stays that way. Criminal justice reforms without sufficient resources to address impacts continue to impact our city. And as always, challenges for a primarily grant funded organization focused on sustainable funding. Funding for our Office of Equity, some safe Long Beach programs and others will end this year and we are seeking additional resources. In addition, our increasing overhead costs and pay increases are not covered by grants, and we're forced to reduce service levels to cover these costs. We run approximately 110 grants and sub grants every year and respond to 100 program and fiscal audits annually. The lack of sufficient administrative resources actually limits our ability moving forward to build a grant base. Writing, managing and monitoring grants is labor intensive. In addition, funding priorities at the federal level have been changing, and local funding is becoming more competitive. Grants can be part of a funding strategy, but it can't be the only strategy. Our department has many antiquated and disparate data systems, which makes coordinating services and utilizing technology for efficiencies nearly impossible. In addition, our facilities have seen no improvements in many years and are struggling. We have about $2 million in need. Facility improvement costs are also not covered by grants. We do not have a peer or communications person for our health department and we have many requests from you all and from others about getting information out in public education campaigns. And those are currently done by a mishmash of staff doing their best as an added as an added service. Our challenges for homeless services. As with the overall department, we have little administrative staff and a lot of new requests for programing and service. We have limited housing stock in our city and insufficient behavioral health resources to impact the ability to assist individuals who are homeless. And there's a lack of funding for a 24 hour and we can services at the MSI. This is something that is often discussed by this council as well as those in the community. Our opportunities really stem from strong partnerships we have within our city and across our region. These partnerships have made it possible to provide homeless services, engage in livability efforts, open a behavioral health, urgent crisis, center criminal justice diversion efforts focused on mental health and substance use, and to move forward on older adult planning and so much more. We will be receiving funding in the safe language this year to lead trauma informed efforts across the city. Building on our work of the past year, we continue to seek opportunities for improved data and reporting to inform our work. The implementation of administrative Regulation 832 is very important to these efforts, as are the efforts of the innovation team and the data driven justice initiative. Organizationally, we've realigned our department programing and filled all of our management positions. We've updated our strategic plan. We've redesigned our grants process for increased efficiencies. And we all received $650,000 a measure eight funds for building improvements this year. We will also be receiving funding from the state under a new effort to provide dental education. This will start in January. The local partner and funder interest in older adults is a real opportunity for older adults in the city as we seek to open the Office of Aging. And finally, we are participating in a national All Children Thrive effort where we seek to improve the lives of and health of all children in the city. This includes developing indicators for the city that highlight opportunities for success of our children, which would be led by our equity office. Currently, our city has not had a strong focus on our youngest children. Yet there is a focus and interest and most important to ensure children start early childhood education in school, ready to learn and engage . As the department, we are providing services to our youngest and most vulnerable children through programs discussed earlier. There is much we can do together to more fully support children across our city. You'll be hearing much more about this moving forward, and I'll be asking for your support to help host community meetings on this topic. For homeless services. We have had one of the most effective, coordinated efforts in the country, and our partnerships are expanding. We have a strong, inter-departmental team, including health, police, fire parks and public works. This team meets officially at least every month and talks almost daily. We are partnering with the Dolby to develop a public education campaign which will include an airport coin drop. We are engaging a few fellow to focus on data supportive programing and financing strategies and we're planning for a year round shelter. These, in addition to the 2.6 million from L.A. County, will help us continue to strengthen our citywide approach. Thank you for your time this evening. We look forward to working closely with you and our communities to continue to build and support a healthy, safe and vibrant language. I am available for questions.
Speaker 0: Thank you very much for that report. I will move on to the next presentation, which will be disaster preparedness and emergency communications. And then we'll be going to the city council for questions. Thank you.
Speaker 7: Thank you, Mayor. Vice Mayor. Members of the City Council. It is my pleasure to present the FBI 18 proposed budget for the Department of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Communications. This department plays a critical role in the public safety continuum. As we present this budget, we are reminded that this past winter was one of the wettest winters in recent Long Beach history. We received over three inches of rain over a 24 hour period. And as was stated last week by the Public Works director, those rains overwhelmed our stormwater infrastructure. The 911 dispatchers handled over 5000 calls for police, fire, flooding and tree removal services. During that time, the storms required the activation of the emergency operations center over several days and the collective efforts of all city departments to manage storm impacts. Damages from the storms to city facilities and property exceeded $3 million, including the loss of over 155 trees in our parks and parkways. Damages to 36 vehicles and at least 13 structures, both public and private, were damaged. Storm damages also required the evacuation and subsequent major rehabilitation of the Parks, Recreation and Marine Department headquarters building. Those losses were all submitted to FEMA for reimbursement, and we are finalizing our work with FEMA to determine our reimbursable amount. Our goal for the city is to be self-sufficient for at least five days in the event of a disaster. That is, to have five days of supply of water, food and basic first aid items on hand. Disaster preparedness begins with the personal preparedness of our residents, businesses, our employees and community partners, including our school district hospitals, Long Beach, City College and Long Beach State University. We live in a complicated world in terms of disaster preparedness, and we want our residents to be prepared. Through the department's core goals. We touched the lives of our residents in many important ways. We prepare for and provide disaster preparedness, training for all hazards to our staff, residents and community partner organizations. We ensure that citywide emergency preparedness plans are up to date and consistent with county and federal planning documents. This past year, we managed $14 million in Homeland Security grants to pay for citywide disaster preparedness training and to and to purchase required equipment. We provide our residents with public safety dispatchers who are well-trained, skilled and customer service oriented. And, of course, the department is responsible for notifying the public in the event of an emergency or major disaster. And we encourage all residents to sign up for alert Long Beach to receive emergency notification messages. And therefore 17, the department accomplished many of its goals, including the 911 dispatchers handled over 800,000 calls for service last year, resulting in dispatching over 300,000 personnel and equipment. The average call answering time was within the industry standard of 10 seconds. Staff facilitated the completion of continuity of operation plans with all city departments to ensure the timely resumption of city operations and services in the event of a major emergency or a disaster. FEMA approved the city's natural hazardous mitigation plan to identify and provide mitigation measures for our most probable manmade and natural disasters. Without this approval, the city would not have been eligible for damage reimbursement of funds. And in March, staff conducted the city's first annual Tsunami Walk and Resource Fair to educate residents on how best to survive tsunami. We had over 50 participants for this first time event and we thank council members, Price and Ringer for your support. Continuing with accomplishments, the department completed an active shooter training workshop with all three departments. Our community planning, our community partner organizations and staff were elected officials to better prepare them to survive a terrorist or active shooter incident. Those workshops were well received and the Department will receive recognition for this work at an annual meeting of emergency managers in November. Social media is a powerful tool for communicating with the public, and this past year we created the department's social media presence with posts to over 53,000 Facebook users, 439 tweets to around 250,000 people and over 3000 Instagram lights. Additionally, through our community outreach efforts, we made contact with over 15,000 members of the public to provide them with a variety of disaster preparedness, information and material. And as was stated earlier, the department coordinated with other city departments to collect, review and submit a $3 million damage reimbursement claim to FEMA related to the 2017 winter storms. We accomplished all of this with minimal impact to the general fund. The total budget for the department is approximately $13 million with 89 employees. 81% of the of the budget is divided is divert. It is devoted to 911 call taking and dispatching. The remaining budget is devoted to disaster preparedness, facility maintenance, administration and Homeland Security Grant Management. Notable changes for FY 18 include through the passage of Measure A, the department will upgrade the ios's heating and air conditioning and an electrical system using $800,000 in funding. $37 million Homeland Security Grant. We're in the process of implementing a new state of the art public safety radio dispatch system. Most city departments, including police, fire, port and airport, rely on this equipment for day to day and emergency response radio communications. The department was also awarded a one $1 million in state funds to upgrade the existing 911 telephone system in anticipation of next generation 911 services and other future technologies. Therefore, a team budget also creates a new consolidated job classification and organizational structure for 911 dispatchers who have successfully completed the cross-training program. Three Phased Approach. We are cross-training the police and fire dispatchers at the telephone position to eliminate the need to transfer records for police, fire and emergency medical services. New and cross-trained dispatchers will be placed in the new job classifications and will receive appropriate compensations once they acquire the additional skill sets. And as we transition to f y 18, we see many challenges and opportunities for the department. We have accomplished many of the milestones towards the consolidation of the dispatch center, including a written email U with police and fire department, an agreement with the city's Emergency Medical Services Program to review and approve consolidated car taking protocols. We currently have 20% of our dispatchers in various phases of completion of the program. However, the cross training program is challenged by the need to sustain the heavy service demands of the center and the need to continuously recruit and train new dispatchers as we are experiencing a wave of retirements. Nonetheless, we are seeing a reduction of overtime by utilizing cross-trained dispatchers to fill vacant shifts. And in the event of a major emergency or a disaster, we have additional staff at the ready opportunities and therefore I intend include the initiation of a hands on pilot disaster preparedness training program and financially disadvantaged neighborhoods to help those residents develop preparedness plans that are specific to their needs in the in the in the event of a major emergency or disaster and to increase their ability to survive. Those pilot those pilot preparedness programs will also include identifying neighborhood hub sites or resiliency hubs, where a five day supply of emergency, nonperishable food and water and first aid supplies can be stored for use by residents in impacted neighborhoods. The department will also coordinate a citywide process to replace all public safety radios, both handheld devices and the radios that are mounted in their vehicles. This is necessary. This is necessitated by Motorola's announcement that they will no longer support the radios currently use widely throughout the region. And we are very excited about this last item. Late this year, we will implement a program that provides an option for residents to send emergency text messages to 911 dispatchers to request police and fire emergency medical services. Text 2911 will provide equal access to emergency services for residents who are hearing or speech impaired and for those in situations where it is dangerous to dial 911. We are working on community outreach and Educational Material campaign. Call if you can. Text if you can't. In conjunction with other South Bay cities and Los Angeles City and County Fire and police departments to implement this new program in late December. In closing, I would like to encourage all residents to attend the rally Long Beach Community Preparedness and Expo on Saturday, September 16th, on the campus of California State University, Long Beach. This expo will feature information booths, emergency preparedness demonstrations and a display of the emergency response vehicles. And the expo will also provide basic first aid and survival information. With that, that concludes my presentation, and I will stand with my colleagues to answer questions. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you very much. I appreciate all the presentations and all the staffs and all the departments and all. Everyone works very hard. And so I want to thank, of course, the entire team at library services, at Health and Human Services, as well as disaster preparedness. Let's give them a round of applause and thank them for all of their hard work. So I'm going to turn this over now to do some council questions and comments. I'm going to ask obviously the council so we don't have the vacuum machine. If you if you want to get added to the queue, just have someone pass a message or just raise your hand. They'll add you to the queue of names I have. So start with. I have Councilman Mango.
Speaker 1: Wonderful. Thank you to the department heads and their staff who made an excellent presentation. It's great to see the great accomplishments that you guys have each accomplished. I have a couple of quick questions and I'd like to start with Health Services. I appreciate the great work that you're doing and the partnerships with Long Beach State Scan, one of our fifth District businesses and others around seniors. When when you move forward with partnerships like this, how are those decisions made? Do you have a procedure similar to what the council has established for Parks Rec and Marine this year, or is it on a case by case basis?
Speaker 6: Currently, we are meeting regularly with it with Cal State, Long Beach, with Scan, with Parks, Recreation, Marine and with the Health Department in the beginning, in the conversations as well. The Council passed and approved the older adult plan. And so what we've been doing is really working from there. And so as these partnerships within that is the Office of Aging. And so there has been a strong conversation and support around that concept. So as we've been talking with our different partners and our different funders, that is the focus of the way that we plan to move forward. I know there's been some questions about wires and the triple-A agency on aging out of the county. And why does the city need to be looking at this? The city the city is the focus where the coordination can be located. Currently, the area agency on aging does not provide any coordination within the city of Long Beach. And in fact, when we looked at our data last year, we found that they provided 1900 individual services. So that means connecting with 1900 people, many of those duplicated over six months. We have 43,000 older adults over the age of 65. So almost all the services they provide, they have nonprofit providers who are located outside of the city, who come in maybe for a day, provide a little bit of service, and they also provide the meals. All of the rest of the work and the coordination and the demand for senior services would be the focus of this Office of Aging and the ability to move this forward.
Speaker 1: What would it take for us to separate from the County Office of Aging and actually establish our own allocation from the government, from feds would be.
Speaker 6: Very difficult to do. It is a county I mean, it area agencies on either county, L.A. City was able to do that. But they're a city of 4 million, which is larger than most counties in the country.
Speaker 1: Is there any opportunity to do a similar to Silico has done within the workforce investment world to partner up with neighboring cities to be able to draw down those funds? Because I, I think from looking at the data and attending some of your meetings and talking through the partnerships, we're not the only ones having these kinds of low accountability number, low numbers of service based on the region.
Speaker 6: I mean, it's certainly something that we can talk about and we can approach, but the cities around us are quite small. Right. And so when you think about we are the second largest city in the county and what we are seeking to do as a city with our growing older adult population right now it's at about 9.3% . It's expected to grow to nearly 20% of the city and also become more and more diverse. When we rely only on county resource that is not coordinated locally, we will not be able to provide a level of need or we will not be able to meet the need. In addition, we have a number of partners within our city, including St Mary's, Archstone and others who want to help fund. But they're saying you need to have someone to coordinate this stuff, right? We're not funding the whole office. The city needs to have a coordinator and we will provide the rest of the resources to help support actual programing and other work.
Speaker 1: So if we are able to afford to to approve and get the votes to put together the $100,000 of general fund money necessary to fund this position, when next year comes and we have a projected deficit, where do we think that we'll be able to fund it from?
Speaker 6: There are there's at least one funder who has said if you get this started and really show that Long Beach is committed to our older adult population and its services, that it would partner with us to move forward and continue to fund this work.
Speaker 1: Wonderful. And do we have that in writing or could we get it in writing before the approval of the budget?
Speaker 6: Probably not. It is a grant process that we would have to go through through boards and things. Is that is not something that they would be able to just write in a letter right now.
Speaker 1: Well, should they be in the crowd tonight? Perhaps that would be something that we would appreciate. Thank you for that. Thank you. Also, I know that you have the housing authority under your scope. And I met with a neighbor, a neighbor slash housing inspector recently. And they talked about as an inspector that a lot of the work that they do is actually being duplicated by development services through the new rental inspection program that it's significantly similar and that a landlord might need while is inspected by section eight every two years and then subsequently potentially also inspected by development services and that the core list of things is significantly similar, while there's a slight variance. Is there any opportunity between now and, let's say, the next budget cycle for 2019 to talk about where those things overlap and what opportunities there are for efficiencies?
Speaker 6: We've been having that conversation for the last six months, maybe longer. And in fact, what we have done is we are coordinating with development services. So if we are out, we if we inspect every time there is a new renter. So if there is a new renter, you know, more than once a year, we will inspect that unit upon every new renter. It's and then. But if it's the same renter, then it's every two years. Right. And so there are a number of things we focus on. Specific thing is internal to the building development services. Focus is also on a lot of other issues on the outside of the building and require that they be addressed. Those are things that are not part of what we do. What we have done is to say if we are going out to inspect, we will have a list of the inspections for development services that are planned. And we will show up together to make sure that we have a coordinated inspection opportunity to make sure that the apartment owner and the person who is living there will not have to go through two different inspectors and two different processes.
Speaker 1: Well, through where it possible, if there was a supplemental list of, let's say, ten items that are coming from Section eight and an additional five items coming from development services, it would be ideal if that one inspector was able to bifurcate their time and potentially receive a transfer of funds from development services to Health and Human Services for the amount of time that that staff member uses on non approved housing authority items. Just something to think about that was brought up by one of the staff that we kind of talk through in the community. So thank you for what you've already been coordinating. I know there are lots of restrictions as the housing authority money comes from D.C. and there's a lot of ties to it. So whatever you're able to do. We appreciate. Thank you. Thank you. Disaster preparedness. I was looking through the budget this year and I know that you're managing a lot of uses cap in other major grants . Have we applied for any private funding from Grantors? I know that you specifically mentioned the cert training in the impoverished communities. I know that there are types of grants out there for that. Do we have that capacity to apply for those? Have we started that process or do we plan to?
Speaker 7: We have. We have we have been successful working with Long Beach City EMT as well as the county as well. And we have a $300,000 grant that we have applied for and the region applied for, and we were successful with that. And we're going to use those grant funds to go out in some of those financially impacted neighborhoods to provide more hands on assistance with with developing neighborhood plans, as well as what I mentioned, establishing some neighborhood hubs or resiliency hubs where we're the agency, the city or the department will be able to provide some of those five days of supply that's necessary. So we have been successful with that. We also announced a couple of weeks ago another $1 million award as well, where we actually partnered in this case with Santa Ana and Anaheim, and we were very successful in that.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you for your work on that. I know it's important work, and I know that the community members, which I came out and met at the recent training, were very empowered. And I think that that's really enlightening. I know I also attended a bilingual one and my Spanish is rusty, but I appreciated engaging with not only our staff that were doing the training in Spanish, but also with the community who felt that it was really important that in a time of need they were able to make that that opportunity for them available. Thank you. And lastly, our library services. I have seen the wonderful reception that having the El Dorado Library open on Sundays has had in our community. I appreciate our library staff and the great and hard work that they're doing in anticipation of next year's deficit. Has there been any dialog on what we can do to assure that every day of the week there's a library open in a region where a person lives that's accessible. But keeping in mind that we will likely not have the 268,001 time to fund that. What is our plan on that side?
Speaker 5: Councilwoman mANGELS, are you asking for continuing services on Sunday hours without funding? Is that the question?
Speaker 1: Some kind of not necessarily just Sunday hours, but more of a do we have a long term strategy to say there's three regions of the city and in every region of the city at a time, on every day of the week, something will be open. Even if the library is open, let's say Saturday, Sunday perhaps are closed Monday, Tuesday, or how are we planning to develop around that to ensure the needs of the community are met?
Speaker 5: All right. Now we are a five day operation Tuesday through Saturday for all 12 locations. And that's done because we want to make sure we have enough staff in case of illnesses, vacations, training, things like that. We need to be able to back, back, fill those positions. So that's what we all kind of in the same schedule. But we can look at something from a regional approach to answer your question and get back to you on about that.
Speaker 1: That would be great. I know library science is a hard to fill position and the amount of education and experience it takes to become a librarian is extensive. I know that throughout the country there are recruitment efforts to bring people into library science, and it is a noble profession. So best of luck with your recruitment and I appreciate the hard work and the many Sunday hours that so many have had to do over time to keep our libraries open. But as we move forward, a regional long term strategy, I think, is where we need to focus. And so whatever help that you can do to ensure that the great work, as you mentioned, the technology is so important, over 4000 individuals accessing our libraries a day and that libraries are more than just storage for books. It's it's really a place of learning. So thank you.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. We're going to move on now to Councilwoman Pryce, who is still a conference councilwoman.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So question for library services. Do we have hearing loops in any of our current facilities? And if not, what plans do we have to get them installed?
Speaker 5: Council on Women price right now we have a hearing loop at the Michelle Obama library and with continued measure funds, we are planning to have them at another location at the library and also at the Mark Twain Library. And and they remain like, I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry. Did you say Bay Shore?
Speaker 5: Bay Shore. Yes. And then also at the new main library, as you were going to say, that's in the plans.
Speaker 3: Okay. That's what I wanted to make sure. Okay. That's excellent. I think the more we can increase access little by little better. So thank you for that. I wanted to congratulate you on the the report, the presentation. I'm following it along here on my laptop. And as you were doing the presentation and I just could not be more proud of the direction we're headed with our library services. And and also I know that deficit years are coming. I think that the Sunday library hours have been such a tremendous resource, an asset for our residents who work at traditional work week. So providing for weekend access in whatever way. And if we have to be creative, we should be creative. But you know, I think even though we have deficit years coming, I don't necessarily want to conclude that that will be something that will be cut next year. I'm very hopeful that we'll be able to continue it because it's I mean, we just get so many positive comments from residents who enjoy the library hours and could not otherwise do it on the weekends. So thank you very much for that. Thank you. I have a question for the health department for Kelly. Kelly, the 239,000 that we received from the Office of Traffic Safety. I'm assuming that the majority of that money is going to go into education on marijuana impaired driving, since we're now going to be having marijuana dispensaries operating in the city. Is that correct?
Speaker 6: That is correct.
Speaker 3: Okay. And what are our plans in terms of developing outreach? I mean, I know you and your team have been involved with with keeping up to date with my work in regards to education and outreach through the Orange County DA's office and our statewide efforts. And, of course, you'll have access to all of those videos and PSA. But are we doing any print advertising and education with our local dispensaries, or are they partners with us on this front?
Speaker 6: Yes, they've been involved in our conversations throughout the summer as we've been planning for this funding, and they have been open and willing to to put posters up within their within their dispensaries and their work. We are currently working with Cal State, Long Beach. They're working on sort of a design studio to start to think about innovative ways to continue to message the education campaign. The funding itself will arrive sometime in October, and at that point, we will start those efforts.
Speaker 3: Okay. That's that sounds fantastic. And I think it's really, really important for any messaging that we do on marijuana, that the marijuana industry be at the table so that we don't make the same mistakes that Colorado made towards toward that end, we did have a public service announcement, screening and reveal last week with the California office the traffic safety at the district attorney's office. We did have two representatives there, one from the Long Beach Cannabis Collective Association, which was really good. And then we have statewide representatives as well who have agreed to do some PSA. So I think anything we can do to try to partner with the marijuana industry to just show PSA things and hand out literature in the actual stores would go a long way. And $239,000 is actually a really huge budget to do outreach with for such a specific issue. So I'm really hopeful that we can use that partnership to make the most efficient money.
Speaker 6: Thank you.
Speaker 3: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I have nothing further.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilwoman. I have a speakers list here of councilmembers. So let me move on now to Councilmember Urunga.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Mayor. Actually, I have very little to say about these presentations this afternoon other than to commend staff for the wonderful work they're doing and continue to do for the city of Long Beach. But in terms of library services, I just have one question. We have and this is probably for future consideration. No, not not this budget, but perhaps for a future budget. I understand that the the sun the hours of operation you have presently described as Bayshore, Burnette, Michelle Obama and El Dorado being that by 2019 or so, we're going to have the Civic Center complex completed. And there's also a proposal to have in there a university component in there as well. So are you looking at opening the downtown main library on Sundays as well, given that university, you have students going there, living there. Would would you be considering opening the main library for Sundays as well?
Speaker 5: If we have if we have the funding, I'd love to have the main library open on Sundays.
Speaker 2: Well, I think we should make the funding available because we were talking about university students who are going to have and need access to to the library, and especially if it's going to be the the high tech state of the art library that we want to that we are proposing to have. I think it's something that we should look at seriously. So just throwing it out there for your consideration.
Speaker 5: Thank you. Okay.
Speaker 2: In regards to the Department of Health and Human Services, you're doing a good job. It's 98% of your budget is is grant funded. Only 2% is general fund. So I think you need to continue working hard. I know every year, year in and year out, you're looking at at looking at various types of grants to continue to put your funding. But the one thing that the dozen that are really attached to you, but more like our general fund is are you included at their language access as part of your proposal, as part of your department? And I want to emphasize again that I think language access should be a citywide effort in a general fund that is institutionalized within the city. So I want to re-emphasize that again, as I did last week.
Speaker 6: So that the language access program, it is funded through the general fund 0.75 FTE. So we have a part time person who runs that as well as one time funding that has happened over the last couple of years, over $80,000 for interpretation and and translation services. So they are city wide. They're for everybody. They just have to be housed currently in the Office of.
Speaker 2: Equity while we could we could get that institutionalized within a department that doesn't rely mostly on one time funds and grants. I think that would be the most appropriate way of knowing that. Thank you. Thank you. And in regards to emergency services, a good job out there. Again, you've been you've you're the founding director of that department. Then you're doing a good job. And in response to emergencies that we have within the city, and you're looking at always new ways of being able to prepare the city in case of a disaster. So I want to commend you on that. That's all I have to say.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilmember. Next step is Vice Mayor Richardson.
Speaker 8: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I want to just start by thanking staff for the presentation and thanking all the staff that attended our District nine budget meeting last night was very well attended. So thanks to staff and to the residents for for attending, I've met with all of these staff members and I've had my budget meeting. So I don't have very many questions. I have some comments and some things that I want to highlight, but I want to keep it short so I won't be asking a lot of questions. My questions have been answered. I want to thank the council for, you know, reminding us that there are looming deficits. So now is the time to focus on your accomplishments and demonstrate the success that you're making. And and particularly with these three departments in our city, we focus on quality of life a lot. And and I just want to note that not every city has these three departments. If you look at our surrounding city, not surrounding cities, not many cities have their own library department. Right. They contract, they have county libraries. They don't have their own library system in the city, just around us. Our health department is unique for one of three cities in the state with its own health department. And I couldn't tell you what other cities in our in Southern California have a disaster preparedness department. And what that says to me is we are city who does value the quality of life of our residents. And that's why we we you know, we make sure that it's built in our budget, you know, built into our charter, built into our structure, that we place a focus on some of these things. So so I want to just I have a few comments to make, starting with library services. And you don't have to, Linda. You don't you don't have to stand up. Just comments. I saw a statistic, 1.2 million visits across our system. And since the opening of the Michelle Obama library and we're approaching a year since it's been open, I've seen the excitement. If anybody tells you that libraries of the past, they're not they're not watching our library system. Our library system is demonstrating. They serve a focus as a center for community, center for family. You can go there and apply for a job, use the computers, bump into one another. And the Michelle Obama library sort of serves as, you know, I keep borrowing this term, but it serves as our public living room for the Atlantic corridor. So keep up the good work and you certainly have my support moving forward on the Health Department. I have to tell you this a little bit of context. Last year we had a conversation about that 1% that the 1% of general fund support that you receive and. But we made the case, a number of the council members made the case that you get much more bang for your buck for every dollar you place in the health department, because we're focused on preventative issues. We're leveraging almost every dollar against grant funds. It is fiscally prudent and smart to invest in prevention. We took steps to realign violence prevention, and this is not a new program. These are things that we've focused on as a city for a while now. We took steps to be more efficient and realign violence prevention and language access into a new Office of Equity in the Office of Equity. Based on, you have almost two slides of accomplishments. I think you are showing you are demonstrating the folks what you know, what we're able to accomplish. If we're to think if we were to think from a different standpoint, place an equity lens or prevention lens on the decisions that we make. Sometimes it's not the most immediate choice that policymakers make, but I think it's an important one, one that I'm going to continue encourage the city council to defend as we move forward. I see that you've secured over $87 million in non city funding sources. That's amazing. I have I've had the opportunity to serve as our housing authority chair of this last year. And I can tell you that we're being innovative and creative in figuring out the best ways to make sure people get into housing and are able to utilize those vouchers. So I want to just say congratulations to you and Allison and your team for working working with the apartment association, landlords, renters, to make sure that we're leveraging these grant resources in the best ways possible. Other accomplishments are the the Veteran Affairs Commission think is great that we were able to the city council asked us to take a look at establishing a new commission. That commission is up and off the ground. You've got a number of commissioners very active, and we look forward to seeing more of the fruits of the fruits of that work. I think it's impressive to see that since establishing this Office of Equity, we've already begun to implement implicit bias training with city leaders and city staff. And I had the chance to go visit one of these trainings, and I saw that top leaders in our city having conversations that I you know, I wouldn't have assumed city leaders would have. And it was conversations about things like profiling and and implicit bias. And when I approach a problem, what lens, what privilege do I bring to that lens and how can I consider others as we make decisions? And I think that's just the responsible thing to do that we have to place, given how diverse our city is, diverse our city council is. We have to often place ourselves in other people's shoes. So congratulations on that. I look forward to watching that. I looked at your budget here. I'm looking for that. Back to this. There's 2%. As we move forward, we will have to make sure that we're defending and we are making sure that we are justifying the dollars that we spent. We we have to keep a close eye on that. But we have to make sure that as we move forward, we do learn lessons from the past. And, you know, and we are proportional in how we make our budget adjustments move forward proportionally. We are we should maintain that proportionality because it protects departments like libraries and parks and health department, because something like $100,000 cut may mean something small in a larger department, but it can eliminate entire program in the health department. So as we move forward in these years to come, you know, we talk about, you know, the cuts that are coming. We should make sure that we begin to familiarize ourselves with this concept of proportional share, because we got to make sure we're not eliminating, decimating great work because we're going to have a few a few tough years ahead. And then finally, with disaster preparedness, Mr. Harrison, thank you for for bringing the departments where we are. We will we had a conversation today, and we've been talking the last few weeks will be having a special meeting, a Fed Pledge Committee meeting on September 20th at City Hall Chambers to discuss disaster preparedness, a homeland security in partnership with both our police and fire chief, as well as our disaster preparedness department. There's a lot of great things that our city is doing that we like to share and talk about. So I encourage you to join us at City Hall Chambers again, September. September was that September 20th. So we look forward to that. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. That concludes my comments.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Vice Mayor. Next up, we have Councilmember Gonzales.
Speaker 9: Yes, thank you. I'd like to thank each of the departments as well. I know with very nimble resources, you all are doing such a great job. And so I would like to thank you on behalf of my district. So first, I'll start with Glenda. I will also reiterate as well the Monday or Sunday main library hours. Would you say are the main library, is that the most utilized library or. I mean, we have a. Very big library. It's going to be state of the art in the next couple of years. But how many visitors are we receiving there at that library?
Speaker 5: At the main library, correct? Yes, I'd say between. 2 to 3000. Visitors. You know what? Let me make sure I'm accurate. That number. Let me get back to you on that.
Speaker 9: Okay. Sorry to put you on the spot. That was.
Speaker 5: No problem.
Speaker 9: Fantastic. So I would like to know. I don't know. Last year, we had discussed a cost for Monday library hours. Do you know what that cost would be for this next cycle? If not, well, we'll get that information back. But I'd like to know just the cost of what that would be. Absolutely. To get that back up and running, just to prepare us for 2019 as we're going in. It'd be great to have additional hours at a downtown library and then the mobile studio program. Fantastic. I love that you're reaching out. Of course, we do that really well into the community. Our communication with the library is fantastic. Having worked at Microsoft, being a part of the youth spark I think is such a creative way to reach out to our communities, especially with Hamilton and Washington, which need it the most in our city. And then lastly, I think that is it. That's all the questions I had for you. But I would like to just thank you again for all the work you do. Thank you.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 9: I'll go on to Health and Human Services. With Kelly. Hi, Kelly. I have a few things. Of course, homelessness is the major topic of the century, and we are doing an incredible job here. And I know that we are. And I've often talked to you about how we can visualize that and how we can disseminate more information to the public to make everyone aware of how much how many resources we're putting on the issue of homelessness. And so I think if we are able to, you know, I think my office is creating an internal infographic, but I know I've talked about West, about this kind of a citywide infographic of what we're doing in the in the city. To be able to disseminate that to our residents would be great.
Speaker 6: We're currently designing an infographic as well as working on a public education campaign in a partnership with downtown Long Beach Associates. So what you're you know, we'll be rolling that out. In addition, we'll be putting we're working on an education opportunity at the airport. If you walk into the Denver airport, what you see is a coin drop. So instead of emptying your your pockets of coins into the thing that goes through the security, you empty it into the coin drop with an education campaign. So it provides a funding opportunity as well as an educational opportunity as people go through security.
Speaker 9: That is great. And I think that's just another touchpoint for our residents and tourists as well. Thank you. I'm glad that you also incorporated in your plan. Substance abuse. I've talked about that in the past. You know, this opioid epidemic and no one really has there. We don't know what's happening. We just know it's just crazy all over the nation. And so I'm glad that you've included that in this.
Speaker 6: And I would like to share.
Speaker 5: So the.
Speaker 6: Way the state.
Speaker 5: Is funding substance.
Speaker 6: Use services changed as of July one. So L.A. County is currently rolling that out where it will be covered by Medic Medi-Cal. So it's called the Drug Medi-Cal benefit. So there will be increased opportunity. I met with the director of Substance Abuse Services today at the county on my way here, and we will be working together and partnering to determine how we get more information out about services as well as increasing opportunities for service within the city.
Speaker 9: Awesome. That is that is fantastic. Thank you for that information. And then the year round shelter. I'm sorry, what was the timeline for of what are we thinking? That's a good question.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: We're not sure.
Speaker 5: So we are currently looking.
Speaker 6: For a facility. When a facility becomes available, then we'll be looking to purchase that and and do the improvements and begin that service. But it's hard to tell you right now what that timeline will be.
Speaker 9: Okay, thank you. And then my last question was related to the STD, HIV rates, which we know are increasing significantly. I didn't see anything allocated to this year's proposal. However, are we changing kind of our model internally to to tackle that? How are we looking at that?
Speaker 6: We are working on a much stronger coordination with L.A. County funding from the CDC for this work comes directly into L.A. County. And so we are working with them about how they will pass through funding or look at different appropriate opportunities to fund us because we are their largest city and we are facing and we are facing these increases. In addition, we just completed our partnership with the Pasadena Design School. We had the presentation last week and they put together a very interesting educational campaign and posters and other things like that. So we were working to identify internal resource to be able to actually print, disseminate and start to engage with those with those resources . And I can share those with you some.
Speaker 9: Great. Thank you very much. And I would just like to thank your team as well for all the work that they do. I've called them into many meetings in downtown and I just want to thank you all very, very much. So I think that. Thank you, Kelly. And then lastly, Reginald. Reggie. So as you're walking up here, I'd like to just thank you for the active shooter training for our staff's fantastic. I think we unfortunately, in this day and age, it's what we need to do. I'd also like to see our my myself and our city council colleagues included in that training. I hate to be a little selfish right now, but unfortunately, I think if anyone may do something, who knows? You know, I hate to put it out there, but it may be something that obviously we would like to do as well , just given the unfortunate circumstances of what we've seen nationwide. And then secondly, the neighborhood hub sites. I love that we are implementing that. Now, what would that look like in, you know, I think of Edison power outage and not being able to reach certain demographics. How would that look like exactly?
Speaker 7: You know, that's exactly the the incident that this thinking came from, related to what's happened during the power outage. And we realize that we have some financially impacted neighborhoods, that we really need to do more hands on work in terms of helping them. First of all, to. Develop their disaster preparedness plans. Programs like Map Your Neighborhood Better, understanding what resources you have in your neighborhood or in your high rise buildings as well. As we looked at the downtown area, who are the retired electricians, the plumbers, teachers, those kinds of folks that have skills that you're going to need during a disaster. And then we always emphasize having five days of supplies of food, water, emergency medical equipment, our supplies. And we realize that in some of our financially impacted neighborhoods, that's not possible to have those five days of supply. So we're looking at major nonprofits that might be able to provide such a service. We're looking at nonprofit organizations are also looking at churches in the neighborhoods, neighborhoods as well that might be able to provide storage area so that we could provide those supplies.
Speaker 9: Wonderful. Thank you for that. And I'm glad if any silver lining came from that. I'm glad we're looking that and looking at ahead. And the communication with your department has been absolutely phenomenal. I have to say thank you for with the rain and everything going on, you on every social media outlet. And that's fantastic for our residents. And so I want to thank you for that. And then lastly, I would just say the just kind of a sidebar, but our evacuation plan, even internally with employees who may have disabilities, I have a person in my office who uses a wheelchair and just thinking of a plan for our city employees to be able to know what to do when an emergency may strike. So just.
Speaker 7: That's critical. That's critical both for the employees who have long term disabilities, as well as those who have temporary as well. And it's really important that employees understand that about their about their coworkers, what their situation in the event of a major disaster emergency. And you have to evacuate. So we try to work with our floor wardens and all of our others in the department so that they have an understanding of that and that they keep track of those individuals as well as visitors as well to city hall that are going to need assistance. Evac evacuating.
Speaker 9: That's great. Well, thank you very much for your work, Reggie. I appreciate it. Thank you all.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next up is Councilmember Pearce.
Speaker 10: Okay. Can you hear me okay? Why don't we go ahead and we'll start with libraries, Glenda. And actually, I'll just say, you know, I think this budget and the conversations that we're having across all of the departments carries on from the conversation we had in last year's budget, which is what our city council priorities and how are we doing as a city as a whole. And that, again, conversation around equity in the lens of equity that says we can we can lift all boats together, that we can all thrive, and that we really need to make sure that we're looking at things like education and literacy as something that can impact our crime rates. Right. And that we're investing dollars there as much as we're investing dollars in other areas. And so I think that's a key priority for us. And I, I wanted to clarify, remember last year we did talk about funding the Sunday and Monday and the follow up on my colleague here. I thought that we had a plan in place to fund either Sunday or Monday at the downtown library. But perhaps my recollection is is wrong.
Speaker 5: We provided those numbers to you, to the city council, but we were not able to fund those additional days at the main library. It was cost prohibitive.
Speaker 10: Okay. So I'll I want to thank my colleagues, Urania and and Gonzales, for bringing up the hours at the downtown library. I know that it's difficult to access right now. We've got some challenges with the parking lot. If there are other opportunities to make sure that our Alamitos branch, which is nearby or the next nearest branch, is available on Sunday hours. I hope that you guys can provide us some more of the numbers of what it would take to increase that and also provide us some numbers with what it would take to take the mobile unit out more frequently, you know, or knowing that it's difficult to stop an entire library, but possibly we could have the mobile out on Sundays at the park or something like that. If there's an option to kind of think outside the box while our downtown library is under construction, where we're still able to access that, I think would be really creative. So I think we're on the right track with our libraries and see everything that's going on at the Michelle Obama library. And it's really exciting and I know that a lot of that is due to your guys vision and working closely with the council offices. So I look forward to working with you closer in the future as well. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. I'm more of a comment. I guess you don't need to really stand out, but thank you. Okay. Kelly, one of my favorite departments, echo again, our vice mayor's comments. It is really exciting to have a health department in this city. And I think Kelly, your commitment and. Your passion and your ability to take on so much. Everything is important from HIV to the pedestrian pathways. It really shines through your passion for the work, and you work really hard outside of the city to leverage dollars. And so thank you for doing it on shoestring city budget. And I heard exactly an echo from last year. I heard an exact echo, I think, word for word from last year, which is we do great. We have over 100 grants. And coming from the nonprofit world. I don't know, you know, how many folks have worked with grants and how hard it is to manage those grants. It's not only applying for them in the words that they want, but it's following through with with the work to say, here we did the work. And so, again, I think that you've done a great job with trying to figure out funding for the Office of Aging, which, you know, I received letters from SCAN and residents asking for that money to stay. And so I think as our conversations go on, just echoing that, that's really important of a couple of questions for you outside of just praising all of your awesome work for let me see. So you mentioned earlier that the 110 K would go towards a full time staff person for the Office of Aging.
Speaker 6: Correct. It would be a full time coordinator position.
Speaker 10: Okay. And they would be coordinating which activities. Exactly.
Speaker 6: So they would be bringing together all of the current activities that were doing and coordinating between the Health Department and Department of Parks and Recreation in terms of those services. In addition, as we are working with funders who are funding other program opportunities, those those services would be coming into that office and then be coordinated among the rest of them. We are seeking to do a referral, an app around referrals and the ability to truly connect to people. So people will know all the services within the city as well as a stronger ability to refer. And in my dream world, it actually is a closed loop referral system which says, you know what, not only did we refer you, we made sure that you got connected and we're moving forward. So all of those kinds of services, in addition, we are we will have a Fuzed follow this year funded by scan. It will start in the beginning of October. That person will be helping to design some of that work under in coordination with the new program coordinator.
Speaker 10: Great. And then also coming from the nonprofit world hour ago that grantees don't you know give a letter and say if this then that down the road that they need to see us doing the work and see us prioritize it. And it's a conversation that I hear about almost every single week. And so I think that I'll urge my colleagues to continue to support funding for the Office of Aging. Absolutely. So my colleague also mentioned HIV rates, if you could highlight for us the rates and then talk about why we think we fell short from the 5000 clinic visits in the past year.
Speaker 6: We fell. Sure. From the 5000.
Speaker 5: Credits, right.
Speaker 10: Yeah. I have in my notes that we did not meet the clinic visits that we wanted to meet as a city for our HIV numbers. It's okay. We way we can talk after the meeting is fine.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 6: I haven't. Yeah. I think that a lot of our work is done outside now in mobile in mobile areas. So there's clinical visits that come specifically to the clinic attached to a specific service. A lot of our other work is outreach and engagement. The other piece that's really essential is partner services. So we do the disease investigations. So when I when something is reported to us, we go out and start to connect and find partners in an effort to make sure that they're being treated and are not currently passing on as well. And so a lot of that continues to happen. So there's sort of a mix of services along the way. And so some maybe count as a clinical visit versus other kinds of visits and conversations. But we are doing much more work out in the communities with our mobile van in terms of outreach and testing.
Speaker 10: Can you remind me what is the HIV rate in Long Beach?
Speaker 5: I don't have that with me. Okay.
Speaker 10: I'm asking you all kinds of fun questions today. Can you highlight. Go ahead.
Speaker 6: Yes, I can say that the rates for persistence and gonorrhea have gone up over 100%. And so, yeah, over the last two years. And so what we're seeing is part of that is better reporting because we've been seeing so we don't know how much of it is reporting and then how much of it is the difference. We are seeing an increased use of social connection connecting apps and the social connecting apps are allowing for people to meet and be together much more easily. And, you know, back when everybody died, you know, there was an expectation that you would die if you were see if you had AIDS. That's not the expectation anymore. You know, people live long and healthy lives after they've been through it as long as they maintain their medication. So the fear is gone because most things can be treated. So we're really working on trying to focus back on the prevention aspects of it and people taking and people making better choices in their use.
Speaker 10: So when we're talking about the surveillance program and the education program and some of those dollars, I'm sure that you guys are, but I hope that we're thinking creatively about how to outreach to people that might be using those apps or reaching out to those apps so that they're doing an education component. Because an increase of over 100%, probably some of that is catching it early. But that's a huge you know, when I can't remember the HIV number, but it is extremely high for Long Beach to be one of the highest in in the state. And so as much as we can really do to tackle that and make it an issue that people in our community are aware of, it might not be the funnest thing for everybody to talk about, but it is one of the most, I think, important.
Speaker 6: We are putting together a stronger partnership with the county. We've been meeting with them, looking at different opportunities to move forward in a in a more coordinated messaging campaign and also in our outreach. And we are also looking at many more options with our partners. We have a number of partners who are providing outreach and education to specific populations. And how do we start to coordinate that more effectively to make sure that we do better work?
Speaker 10: Great. Thank you. And then my last question is around the early childhood plan that's mentioned in the budget. Can you talk just a little bit about about that? Because I mentioned dental care and I know that we've had some conversations with the children's clinic and trying to make sure that we increase that. So what's the plan on that?
Speaker 6: Well, so there's two different conversations there. There's the dental services and then in the early childhood. So first of all, the dental services, there was a there is funding available to the state where they're funding all public health departments to do increased education around dental. So it's not dental treatment, but as education how you maintain better dental practice. The for the early childhood we have the years the council funded a half time early childhood education liaison coordinator who works very closely with the Early Childhood Commission as well as local providers to start to identify more opportunities to provide education and other things . In addition, we are funding a full time person through workforce investment who is helping to find additional capacity. So as people are taking new education courses, new job skills courses, those kinds of things, if they don't have child care, then to create an opportunity where they will have child care and that person is focusing on that. Also part of that grant is a new plan focused on the early child. And so we'll be working with our partners and a consultant to design that plan.
Speaker 10: Great. Thank you so very much for going through all my questions and again for all the work and just want to urge my colleagues to as much funding as we can make sure that you guys receive so that it's not on a shoestring with all the work that you do.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 10: And then for disaster preparedness, you don't need to get up. Raji. It's okay. Fantastic work. We're going to work on some downtown education programs for. Our dense communities to make sure that we're doing the education that they are aware of what to do during a disaster and the texts. 911i cannot tell you how important that is and how wonderful I think it is that we're doing that in our city. So many people find themselves in a domestic abuse situation or any other situation where picking up the phone to your ear is not an option. And so this is long overdue and really anything that my office can do to help take that information out. We'd love to be a partner in that. And so thank you guys very much. Appreciate it.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next up, we have council member supernova.
Speaker 11: Thank you. My first question is for health. And Kelly, I can't see you. There you go. Just a quick question. I think I missed it with all the commissions you support. Did you mention the homeless services advisory?
Speaker 6: I did.
Speaker 11: Yes. Okay. Sorry. Just then, from page 21. On your notable changes, you don't need notes. Okay.
Speaker 6: Page 21. Okay.
Speaker 11: You got 125,000 for homeless services from the general fund. Sure. An office of major aging. $110,000. I think it's important to point out those are drastically different percentages of the entire budget for both those programs.
Speaker 6: Yes.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 6: So, I mean, for for homeless services, the 125,000 structural comes as part of about $1,000,000 that the city funds for homeless services overall. The for the office of aging we currently through the parks recreation and Marine through their services through the senior centers that they receive, they provide funding for that area in terms of the health department . There is no outside funding currently for aging services. The funding that we provide, we fund through public health nursing, through outside funding to provide one person to help.
Speaker 2: Support that.
Speaker 11: Connection. That's a great explanation. And my point would be, just to follow up on what the vice mayor was saying. When we look at cutting numbers, you have to be very careful in this area because if you cut these numbers equally, it's totally different in terms of percentages of the programs they support. That is correct. Okay. I think I it. Thanks. Thank you. No questions for library. You're off the hook. But I always like to mention that I have the great fortune of having two libraries in the fourth district, neither of which has sun hours. So keep that in the back of your mind for disaster preparedness. I read you, Harrison. You look very comfortable, but I think I have a question here that might require response. You had mentioned it's not in in the stack here, but we have a citywide replacement of handheld mobile radios. And I thought I heard you say that we're going away from Motorola. We're going to buy brand X. Is that what you said?
Speaker 7: No. You know, most of our infrastructure, not only in Long Beach, but within the entire region, is it's based on a motorola platform. So we would very much be looking forward to a continuing relationship with Motorola, this inexpensive acquisition over the course of the next year or so. And so we're trying to be creative in terms of finding funding that will support the acquisition of both handheld and mobile mounted radios.
Speaker 11: Okay. So I my question is, is that a locked in deal? Would you be willing to listen to proposals to to go with Brand X from a vendor that may or may not be located in the Fort Council district?
Speaker 7: Absolutely. Okay.
Speaker 11: All right. Thank you. I think that's it.
Speaker 0: Thank you very much. Next step is Councilmember Andrews.
Speaker 11: Yes, thank you. I'm here. And most of all, I'd really like to hear the audience give their views about our budget here. But since you're going to have to wait until I finish, I just have a few things that I'd like to say about our first about the health department and the librarian and read you and your department. I really want to say, Kelly, you. I just want to let you know you. Because I'm over there at you have a park, you know, a facility with my park there. And it's just wonderful to watch those individuals from the work program come in and see them being served. You know, you that individual that everybody should take time to, you know, really take notice, too, because remember, your health is everything. And this young lady here, she's a picture of health because the fact that she's everywhere. And I just want to let you know that that's why I go with you all the time, was I want to state I want to say, well, you know, the librarian we have to in my district, in our. Thank you so much. Everything you guys do, you do it. You know, you raise money. This we don't give you guys any money. You guys have to raise money. When we start giving you money, no telling what you guys are start doing. And, Reggie, we're so safe. I don't know what we're going to do if you give us any safer. We got to put this on TV. You're doing a great job. You guys keep up the good work. That is it. I'd like to hear from the audience now. And you guys enjoy yourselves because we're going to get out of your own time tonight.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilmember. Councilmember Austin.
Speaker 8: Thank you. And I'll be brief as well. I just want to commend all three departments.
Speaker 7: For excellent.
Speaker 8: Presentations. You are all three departments. Health services, libraries, as well as a disaster preparedness have really demonstrated your worth and value to the city of Long Beach. I did have and I as a budget oversight committee member. I'm combing through the budget. And if there's certain things that jump out at me. I have a question for our health department. Again, I'm going to echo the colleagues my colleagues comments. A lot of great work happening in the health department on transformational work happening in our department. And that doesn't happen. You know, with without without resources. I do notice that over the the from NY 17 for 18 is a an uptick in positions in the department and of ten positions. Is that correct? Yes. Okay. And I, I don't necessarily need to have the detail by detail today, but sometime in the next couple of weeks, I would love to just understand how those department, those positions where they're going to go and and to what services they're going to go to. I think it's very, very important that we we start dialing in on ond on particularly new FTE is understanding that we're all looking at it next year as well.
Speaker 6: Right. Those are those years. Some are the move from violence prevention and equity, from development services. Others are grant funded. There are no general fund. New FTE is in that number.
Speaker 8: And that is music to our ears and grant for the positions. So no impact to the general fund or little impact? Great. Thank you. And I'm happy to take public comment. You are, Mr. Miller.
Speaker 0: Great. Thank you. Let me go ahead and I have a couple brief questions, comments, and we're going to go to two public comment on the budget, on the on these departments. Let me let me go ahead and ask I do real quick note more of a comment to this colleague at Health. I want to make sure I know there was there was a discussion around a study rates in the city. And I was reading an article that I believe it's not just a Long Beach. Long Beach. The issue here is, is it serious? I was reading it. There's an article that California is experiencing something like a 20 year high when it comes to study rates, which is obviously there is something happening statewide. And I'm also I understand it was the Orange County number of the L.A. County number. And statewide we are seeing a shift. Is this happening just in California or just a national shift?
Speaker 6: It's a national conversation. I sit on the big cities health coalition, which is the top 30 urban public health jurisdictions in the country. And all of the large cities are experiencing experiencing increases are tend to be a little more dramatic in the increase. But everybody is concerned, everybody is seeing increases and all of us are working together to identify different opportunities for how we can address them.
Speaker 0: I just think it's important to know that that it's really we're having a national really a national increase in particularly in the state of California, I know is experiencing more than other states is. Okay. I just want to make sure that that's clear as well. So I appreciate the regional and approach to this. We can't just this isn't just a city approach. It's we've got to talk to all of our partners across the country. So thank you for that. I also just wanted to just mention to to library services and I'll just make a there's been some comments about the Sunday library hours as well. And I would just echo what some of the some of the counselors said that I think that having libraries open on Sundays is so important. That's why we continue that in the budget. And I think regardless of whether we have budget constraints next year or the year after or whether the budget improves, we need to continue sun library hours. And and so I think I just want to this my position has been, you know, we added sun library hours a couple of years ago. And I think even if we end up in a more difficult budget deficit this year or five years from now or or whenever, I hope that as long as this council is active, that we're going to continue sun library hours, and that should be a priority of us. And in fact, we should be expanding sun library hours across the city. And so I just want to thank you and your team of what I think are the best librarians anywhere, which is are our Long Beach librarians and staff. You guys are amazing and just thank you for just being so great and being so inclusive of our families and our kids all across the city. So thank you for the work you do.
Speaker 5: Thank you, ma'am.
Speaker 0: And then I wanted to also maybe this is a question to Mr. West, and I question it. It kind of ties into this this week's budget, because we're doing Health and Human Services. And I had this question ask. So as you're aware, we're doing a pretty extensive looking audit over at Animal Care Services, which we're all very supportive of and which is great. One of the conversations that has come out from some of the community members actually directly ties into Health and Human Services. I was wondering if you could. Let remind me and maybe the council. It used to be that Animal Care Services was actually under the health department and that moved, I know, a few years ago over to Parks and Recreation. Can you just review with us why that change happened and how you feel about that change?
Speaker 4: I'm very excited about the change. I think Parks Recreation Marine is doing a fantastic job with animal care. At that time, we had a different. Administration at the health department. KELLY College pupils in here, many of the bureau managers that worked at Health weren't here. And it just didn't appear that animal care aligned with our health department at that time. You might recall, too, we had some very, very serious and serious issues with our animal care facility at that time, which led us to bring in a brand new animal care director. That was John Keisler at the time. And then we facilitated moving it to Parks and Rec a little bit later.
Speaker 0: I appreciate that. And then some of the questions that we've received on this recently especially have just been around. Obviously, there are connections when you when you're viewing things through a health lens and through health advocacy, sometimes it's different. And so I just want to make sure that folks know as far as when that was presented, this was this was about four or five years ago.
Speaker 4: I think this was about nine years ago. And specifically, the health department is always associated with our animal care facility, especially with our vets and our bat techs and how we treat animals. And so definitely the the health department is actively involved in that. But on a day to day basis, dealing with the animal care services out in the field, operating the administration, working with the L.A. SPCA, that's working much better, we feel, through Parks, Recreation and Marine that having it housed in the health department.
Speaker 0: But it's it's something that you contend that we look at you feel you feel good about where it's at currently.
Speaker 4: Absolutely.
Speaker 0: Okay. All right. Thank you for that. I want to go ahead and turn this over to public comment on the budget. So please, if you have anything, please step forward to the mic. Feel free to line up on the mic. And again, this isn't public comment for the council meeting or any items at the council agenda, but for these departments, please and we will then go from there. So thank you. How are you doing?
Speaker 8: Good. Good evening. My name is John McGinnis. I live downtown and I'm here actually representing the board of directors of the Public Library Foundation. And it would come as no surprise to you that we are strongly in support of your recommendation to continue funding Sunday hours for reasons that are obvious and have already been detailed by many of you. So I want to thank you for your positive comments, and especially you, Mayor Garcia, for your reassuring words that whatever the future budget is, you will try to make a priority of funding for Sunday hours. Now, I'd like to speak or in my other hat as a member of the Board of Education, because it's in that role that I see the need most of all for the Sunday hours. This city has made itself through your leadership. Mayor Garcia, a member of the College Promise and you have been a leader in increasing internships and early childhood education. I would love to see the city as part of its role in the College Promise. Make the public libraries a third integral leg of that that partnership 60 70% of our students. And when I say our students, I mean your students and the school districts, because they're all our kids, live on free and reduced meals in our district, which means their families have trouble putting a meal on their table. They don't have the luxury of buying books, subscribing to a magazine or purchasing high speed internet. Furthermore, many of them live in big families where they don't have a place to study at home. So Sunday Hours provides those students a place where they can go and study at the very least, and also have resources to the that are there electronic and print. In addition to which there are a lot of partnerships going on in which the schools and the public libraries are helping kids with tutoring and all the rest. I would love to see you make it a priority that this funding be folded into ongoing funding and that you have a multiyear program to roll out Sunday hours to all of our schools. The district, the school district is making has always made school libraries a priority, even in the worst years. When I had a vote as my first year on the board to lay off a thousand teachers, we preserved our library programs and we currently have one of the best library programs of any of the 1000 school districts in the state. So I'd very much appreciate you supporting Sunday hours for all of our branches so that our kids can, as the college promise, promises, graduate from high school, go to college, get good careers and have happy lives. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. And for those who don't know, this is our on our school board member John McGinnis, but also a librarian and and a longtime leader in library sciences across the country in the state of California. So thank you, John, for for your words. Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 1: All right. Good evening, honorable mayor and City Council. My name is Christine Pettit and I am speaking tonight on behalf of the Board of Health and Human Services for the City of Long Beach. I want to share publicly with you tonight some of the content from a letter that I sent to you on behalf of the board last week. Members of the board have been educating ourselves on the city budget and where the Health Department fits within that. And we want to encourage you to include more general fund support for the Health Department than is currently being proposed. We are happy to see that there is some funding coming to the department in the general fund, but there are areas of great need and you heard from our director what the Health Department is able to do when it is given resources. Additional funding is needed to. Sure that Long Beach is a safe and healthy community and is able to address the emerging public health issues that we talked about tonight. This really is a quality of life issue for residents of our city, as well as those who visit our city. I won't repeat Kelly's list of programs and accomplishments, but I was pretty impressed even as a board member. And it is hard to find one area of the city that the Department of Health and Human Services doesn't touch. It's really hard, as you will. You heard that we have about 110 grants to manage to write, to report on. It's really hard to do this strategizing around some of the city's most challenging issues and also be asked to take on more work with with very little support. Really piecing together all of these grants. And the letter that I sent on behalf of the board addresses many of the issues with relying so heavily on grant funding and some of which were touched on tonight. But in particular, we need funds for planning, analysis and coordination, and we need funds to ensure that the investments that we're actually we're able to leverage additional dollars and bring them into the city. I think by not investing in the city, we're actually leaving money on the table that can come back into the city and that goes back into our economy. We already heard that, you know, for every dollar of grant funding, the department's able to bring in $295. And a lot of that goes back into our local economy. There's a lot of things that were requested. And in the grand scheme of the budget, they're pretty small. Some of them range are $35,000 for language access, for example, or for just showing more support for the Office of Equity or this larger kind of support for that coordination. And so we really just urge you to take a look at it and see, you know, what is where are we putting our money in the city and demonstrating our commitment to the health of our residents. And also your recognition that health is really core and integral to our city's core services. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you so much. And just to clarify, Madam Cook, I know I have a timer, but there's a timer. Appear to this way as well. There's not. Okay. So I will. Okay. Thank you. I wasn't sure if you could see a timer there. Next speaker, Mr. Goodhue.
Speaker 2: Very good. You. As I've mentioned before, libraries are in my blood, as it were. My mother was a library. She went to the same place Eleanor Richardson did. About 30 years before Syracuse. Also, like as I mentioned, I think before my grade, I had a great uncle that designed the main library down in Long Beach for Los Angeles. And speaking of Eleanor Richardson, I think it was about eight or nine months, maybe a year before she retired, that I came to her with an idea which coincidentally announced to either of us, I know notes to me. And she was did not know what I was thinking. My thinking was to put on the second floor, make a second floor on the Bay Shore library and turn that into a revenue producing coffee shop. You know, the world is full of idiots to pay a dollar, $2, $3 for coffee. And the city engineers had just left two days before and signed off on that plan in chief and relative to the ability of the second floor two to handle that, and that's something I think I think we should do in terms of the safety issue. Well, one of the things that I think we should I learned about maybe something people were aware or were aware of this and so forth in terms of the disasters. Southern California Edison, indeed much of California, but particularly Southern the Southern California Edison area is particularly prone. As first to other cities around the country because they routinely have to replace their equipment as a result of tornados. Storms, floods are the the electrical infrastructure of Southern California Edison and its and its fellow travelers hasn't been touched for 30 to 50 years. And unless there's an absolute disaster and that's something that we're we are going to have to work with and try to figure out. It's not going to be cheap. And the last thing I would suggest. Is whoever made the requisite arrangements for this meeting never be involved with any planning for disasters, period. And that that is nothing holding that it's a fine facility, but the arrangements, it's not conducive to having the type of meeting we have here now. We've got since 2:00 in the afternoon, ten officers out there who have nothing to do. I mean, no place to sit. That's incompetent. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 8: Good evening, honorable mayor. City Councilman and City Staff Rich Gardner, proud member of District Four. I'm very impressed with all the presentations tonight from the different branches, but I'd like to speak a little bit on the Department of Health. I'm kind of new in the area, and I'm learning that Long Beach has their own Department of Health. And I just got to say, I'm Kelly. Wow. Only 1% of the general fund to run this state is just awesome. And it's run by a grant funding. And I'm basically would like to just speak on the the Office of Aging and implore you on the dais, I had a brief moment to Google search how we're aging in America. And by the year 2050, the people that will reach 85 and above is going to expand by 350%. That's that's a big percentage. And I can look at the dias and know that by 2050, at least four of you are going to be 85 or older. So, you know, they all say it's all about radio station WITF, FM, what's in it for me? So if that that helps you guys vote on this $110,000, which basically is a drop in the bucket. You know, we talk about infrastructure in America and Long Beach needs this kind of infrastructure. Also, if you want to go into another aspect of aging, when that population becomes 90 years or older, 47% of them are going to have some form of dementia. So that makes it even more challenging when you look at the issues of mobility for the elderly, transportation, meals and cooking. So basically, I just want to try to champion this hundred and $10,000. And if you're looking for someone to do the job, I'll do it for 75,000. Okay. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you very much. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 1: Good evening in Cantrell. And. I was encouraged when council member Andrews said he wanted to hear the public speak. I'm wondering what happened to him. It seems like every one of you is in favor of having more library hours either on Sundays Mondays. I think it's important also.
Speaker 5: That we have.
Speaker 1: A library somewhere in the district open every day. However, aren't you the ones that will decide how much money the library budget is going to have? I heard Glenda.
Speaker 5: Williams say that her budget was.
Speaker 1: Flat this.
Speaker 5: Year. So I'm assuming that if.
Speaker 1: You want these extra hours, you're the ones that are going to have to come up with the money. One of my questions is, can the airport money be spent for extra hours?
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Whether there's restrictions on the money we get from the airport for the extended hours that they fly over our homes. And it seems like you're looking at trying to get more money for those fines. So maybe if you do do that, that could go for extended hours. Just a suggestion. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you very much. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 5: Hi. My name is Pam. I live in the ninth District and I'm also a volunteer and board member for the Fix Long Beach. We have been in existence since 2013 and.
Speaker 2: Have fixed close to.
Speaker 5: 6000 animals. We are not a rescue. We don't have a foster program yet. We still incurred tens of thousands of dollars dollars a year unrelated to spay and neuter. Right now, we have at the vet a seven and nine year old pregnant Chihuahua who we are in partnership with Emily and let love to get that dog into a.
Speaker 11: Foster home.
Speaker 5: So she does not give birth in our shelter. The cost of one of our mobile units per month is a minimum of $5,000. Sometimes we pay as high as $7,000, depending on the vaccinations that we've provided or the hernia operations that we fixed when we we've completed these operations. If you take into account the vet bills on top of that, since 2013, we have probably provided close to a half a million dollars to Long Beach and animal related services. We we we talk in terms of having a stray problem or of an animal overpopulation problem, but that infers that the animals are responsible for this. It's not their problem that we've done this to them as human beings, and it's up to us as human beings to fix it. Last week I sat and I listened to the various departments talk about their budgets. One of the things that was talked about was more money for the the street clean team or the $300,000 for a new dump truck. You can't put lipstick on a pig. You go out there and pick up trash that next day, that same trash is going to be out there. The only difference is that trash is not causing the death and destruction of an animal that we created a problem with. I implore you to increase the budget for the shelter. They need a foster program. They need more full time employees in their outreach and adoption programs. They need a behaviorist that they can properly assess these animals so they don't die needlessly. We all know a caged animal is stressed, and if that isn't taken into consideration because of fear, then they haven't done their job. I would also I also find it interesting because of Kelly in talking to her partnership with SCAN, I've actually received three phone calls this month from SCAN employees looking for outreach, for grooming that care flea infestations. We can't be the only ones out here doing this this way. We need to be able to refer these people to our city shelter. We we cannot keep incurring these costs. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you very much for the work you do. Thank you. I have a question. Mr. West is can you remind me also that I know that the budget for animal care doesn't remind me what the there's a position related to to vet technician. Can you remind me?
Speaker 4: Yes, I believe we're adding two positions. One is related of attack. Yes.
Speaker 0: In the book. And also the other just also the follow up to that is it's I know that the audit itself is coming out, I think, in within the next month or two for the city auditor's office. And I know there's going to be a variety of recommendations, obviously, including probably some that have funding ties to those is it's it's still possible, from what I understand by the council that if there are auto recommendations that the council wants to implement or recommendations that we would be able to do possibly a mid-year adjustment or look at funds when that audit comes out. Is that correct?
Speaker 4: Absolutely. In fact, I think one of the positions that Marie is out in is based on early findings in the audit. But absolutely, you could do that.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 9: Hi, Mr. Mayor and vice mayor and city council members. Nice to see you all. My name is Emily. Gosh, I'm the founder of Live, Love, Pet Care and Animal Rescue. I'm a Long Beach animal advocate and I am a constituent of the eighth District. I'm here, as many of you know, to talk about the lack of funding for Long Beach Animal Care Services. I'm asking you to consider releasing more general funds for that facility and for their programs. I am very glad to hear that the audit can be reassessed once that's fully released for more funding, because that was one question that I had. I feel very strongly that the animal welfare in our city impacts the aforementioned presentations about health and human services, disaster preparedness, and even the library. You know, those are all opportunities that we have as citizens to educate our community about the issues that are happening at the Long Beach Animal Care Services. And I'm sure with disaster preparedness, there's, you know, some understanding and consideration for companion animals as well in that. So, you know, it's intrinsic and intrinsic part of our society and our community and our great city here in Long Beach. From my experience in my work with the shelter, they're fantastic team, but they are severely understaffed and underfunded. They're consistently going over their medical care budget. And, you know, as Pam was stating, we also from Live Life get calls from everyday average citizens that say we can't find any help at the shelter. They referred us to you. I have staff members at the Long Beach Animal Care Services referring citizens to me for assistance where they should be able to provide that with Long Beach Animal Care. A great example of that is the dog that we just caught in the riverbed that I've been living in the Nature Center for five months. That Long Beach Animal Care did not have animal control officers that could go out there and spend the time necessary to catch this animal that was living in the open. Thankfully not a threat to the community because it was a very friendly but just living in the open and homeless encampments. And our team went out and got him and have paid for all of his medical care. I think it's very important that this issue continues to be raised and that it's, you know, weighed heavily by your by your team and the city officials about where our funding and where our priorities are as a city. So thank you for your time and listening to me. I promise you, you will continue to see me. I've emailed all of your offices to meet with you in person and I look forward to speaking to you further about this. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you very much. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 9: Good evening, mayor, vice mayor and Council. My name is Carina Christiana, and I like to say I'm a native of eighth district and a resident of the district for the last 17 years. I'm here obviously because of my relation to the rescues in our community and the Long Beach animal shelter. I spoke last week about my involvement as a volunteer, but just to. I'm really enjoying these meetings, by the way. So thank you, Emily, for keep inviting me to these. First of all, on the early education, I know this is so off topic, but I've been a consultant for first five LA for the last three years. I'm no longer consulting now. I have another position, but Long Beach is one of the 14 communities designated for first five early education. So I'm going encourage everybody here today to get out their phones and like the best start. Long Beach, this is tobacco tax money. And they have a monthly and weekly meetings on parent empowerment resources for children. I mean, it's such a large scale. I was from here to Palmdale, I promise you, working for the last three years. And they would have hundreds of people show up to be a part of First Viva La. And Long Beach was always really a tiny 20 to 30 group people. And I'm like, Wait a minute, that's not my city. We show up. So just in looking at that, because I heard that today and then I also heard about the economy. And I have to say thank you for talking about the companionship animals provide and and what fixed Long Beach does. But when people adopt a dog from the shelter or from one of our rescues, I think about the economy that comes back into our Long Beach. I'm sorry, dogs were closed. Now they go to training. They're training through all the city. I have met so many wonderful Long Beach State graduates that are now professional dog trainers, pet sitters, you name it. I mean, this is really a wonderful bubble for us in our economy. So besides being animal loving people and I had to have my education hat on because that's my background. There's so much involved. And I love hearing what you just said, Mayor Foster. I mean, you say, oh, this is when I'm here too long. I may say, well, he's he's he's doing some great leadership here to help out West. Look into that. I applaud you for that because that's really what I'm used to from my council and my mayor. And I'll be honest with you, I really want to thank you for doing that today because I'm going to look forward to some really great changes here. And I know you can do it real quickly. If we have a moment, can everyone with Long Beach animal advocate stand up? Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you very much. Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 8: David Zinke, 50 year resident, seventh District. I've rescued over 25 animals. I've had five Rottweilers that I've rescued. They don't scare me. I love them anyway. And I know you.
Speaker 7: Do, too.
Speaker 8: Last week I attended a innovation team meeting at Long Beach City College, and I'm here to tell you it was a complete waste of resources and time. It's 2 hours. I will never get back. I couldn't believe it. I was in told about it, ostensibly to discuss. And they wanted people who had arrest experience which I have a little. But that was not discussed approached in any way. I think the resources will be much better spent on bodycams. We never have the money for the things we really need. And I'd like to see this city, Chief Luna in particular institute a volunteer program. Any officer that wants to volunteer for one gets one. Why not? He's not afraid. There's an awful lot of fear in this police department of wearing body cams. And it's been going on for years. Furthermore. This city supports noble cause corruption. And by the way, that program, I call that fluff and fraud to make our city council in the city look good, but not to really do anything. It was a nothing meeting. Somebody mentioned police reforms, but there was no elaboration. We certainly need some. I provided some of you with copies of my story for installments in The Beachcomber published. My experience with the Long Beach Police Department and its Corrupt Drug Investigation Section ten men, guns drawn came to serve a warrant. No police cars? No. No badges, no IDs, no nothing. That's an intimidation tactic. I'm a former employee of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and a military policeman by training. And I know when something's wrong. And there was a lot wrong in what was done here. Few. You have read it, I hope. Those that have received it, including you, Mr. Mayor, and my councilman, Mr. Tharanga, and also Mr. Austin. I hope you read this so you can know what these men are doing in the field. You know, you can spend every dollar you have in the general fund on P.R..
Speaker 0: Thank you, sir.
Speaker 8: But if you keep grinding out the garbage, it's going out as service sometimes.
Speaker 0: Thank you, sir. Time is again.
Speaker 8: Then you're never going to change it. Thank you, sir. These meetings are worthless.
Speaker 0: Thank you, sir. Time is up. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 8: Thank you, Mayor. Your time will be up.
Speaker 0: Thank you, sir. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 1: Hi. My name is Wendy Williams.
Speaker 9: I'm a resident of Long Beach. I don't have anything planned, but I just. I volunteered Long Beach Animal Shelter. And I have a ten year old son over here who had to join me today so I could be here. I just want you to add to the importance of the animals in their lives, and that is should be the bare minimum of our city and our state to, um, to not terminate their lives.
Speaker 1: Due to the fact that.
Speaker 9: There's not enough money or enough space. Um, I'd like it to be considered for the foster program and the kitten nursery myself being there and the shelter, I guess having their hands tied and seeing these animals. I mean.
Speaker 1: I've offered to foster.
Speaker 9: And, um.
Speaker 1: Because of the liability.
Speaker 9: They'll turn me down, you know, because there is no foster program, so there's no safety net for the shelter if something were to happen to the kittens. Anyways, I just wanted to be heard.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you so much for volunteering. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 1: Hello. My name is Beverley Lifer. I'm a resident of District two. I am not affiliated with any of the animal rescue groups or the Long Beach Animal Association, but I do support them. I want to first tell you about my experience this past Sunday when I went to the Animal Care Services Shelter, City Shelter and asked about adopting the oldest cat that was available. I want to I'm looking into adopting a cat that is the least adoptable if it will fit in with my family of my other cats. And I waited until there was no one at the registration. The reception desk went up and asked, Can you please tell me where the oldest cat you have available is located and its name? I was told to go look at the cages, to go look at the signs on the cages. I said, Well, couldn't you tell me you must have a database or a listing of your animals that you have here? I was told they take in 50 animals a day. What do I expect? How can they keep track of them? This is a taxpayers. Agency I pay. It's a city agency. Where's the accountability? They should know what animals are there at their shelter. With my persistence in telling this young woman that she did go into the computer and handed me a list of four animals with their ages. I then asked her about these animals and I wanted to look at them. She told me, I need to go over to SPCA. L.A. couldn't even tell me information about the intake of these animals or would not. I went to SPCA, L.A. and asked about information on this one. The oldest cat who was 16. What did they do? They were very helpful. They called Ecorse to find out the information and background of this cat. What a waste of time and energy and effort. I'm sorry. I'm a little nervous. Don't usually get up and speak. There are things that the shelter is doing, but it's not enough. I heard last week at a District One Community Budget meeting that AC has plans on using the money that they get next year in Fy18 to build another cat cottage. What use is building cat cottages when all you plan to do is push them off onto other agencies or organizations? Non-for-profit organizations such as the Live Laugh Pet Care, such as SPCA. Why build more cottages or kennels when you're not even going to use them or kill them? I wanted and I'll leave this with you all because I can't get into it. But Sacramento, I have their numbers from there.
Speaker 0: AC Thank you, ma'am. Time is up. But you can we can take that and we'll pass it out to everybody. Okay. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 2: My name is Roman. I'm from District five. I'd like to compliment everybody here for all the hard work that they do. I'd like to also thank all of the speakers. They did a great job. I had the pleasure of speaking with Glenda over here, and I would like to give some support to library services. They're a great job. And in Councilwoman Mongo also for extending the hours in the mayor for for reiterating his support for that as well. I think that I would like to see here on the east side some kind of a system where we can have at least one 3D printer, something like 3000 bucks. And I think that'd be kind of cool. I'd also like to lend my support to the animal care services that I think they need a little bit more money. It's pretty obvious, and maybe try to work out some more coordinating coordination issues that was brought up in the last speaker. That's about it. And I think the security guy was doing great. And I also would like to give a great compliment to, I think, Kelly from Human Care Services. She's doing a great, great job. And that's all I have to say. Keep up the good work.
Speaker 0: Thank you so much. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 1: Good evening there in council. My name is Jennifer Beaver and I've been a resident of Long Beach for 27 years. I've been to the animal shelter many times. It was only in the last two years that I began to follow the Long Beach Animal Shelter and some of the rescue groups on social media. And having done so, I can tell you that it's sort of a blessing and a curse. In many ways. It's a blessing. I see how hard the shelter staff works in taking care of many animals and finding homes for some that many would consider unadoptable. I've seen how hard these rescue groups work. They take on way too much. They spend way too much money. And they. They do some amazing things. I'm not going to echo what many eloquent people have said tonight and last week about creative ways to help the shelter. Creative ways that the city can work with the rescue groups to find ways to make the shelter better, to stop killing animals that could go to good homes, to stop killing animals and cages are available. But I did want to mention, and I congratulate you on this, everyone seems to be united in their desire for library hours on Sunday and Monday. And I support you in this. I am a card carrying member of the Long Beach Library. I go there almost every week. You have a fantastic program and I know that sound bites, such as support for Monday and Sunday library hours played very well in an election year. May I also suggest that you also support the animals at the Long Beach shelter? This is also a very good campaign gambit and I can assure you that if you come out in favor of the Long Beach animals, you will have lots of support from us. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 5: Hello. Good evening, Mayor. Council of the council. People on the council. My name is Karen Wyatt Coleman. I spoke here last month and was very emotional. But today I come bearing another heavy heart and one of the things that I'm here to speak on and I said, I'll do it my last. I've been working in nonprofits for the last 32, 33 years. I've been working with a nonprofit agency, Help Line Youth Counseling for the last 22 years as the community service director. Like I said, September the 29th will be my last day working with the nonprofit. And the reason one of the reasons why is my frustration with trying to work within the cities. And I do commend the health department. But I've worked out of the Central Facility Center for the last 22 years with youth and families. They've been referred to us by the county probation and family community members. I'm a part of the My Sister's Keepers program, My Brother's Keeper program. I've been around the table at all these agencies that are coming around the table. But one of my concerns with what's going on in this country right now, with the statues and all the stuff being torn down and those type of thing, when I walk, when I drive up to King Park and I see Martin Luther King's statue there, I'm thinking it's about community. I'm thinking those doors are going to be open as long as that community center needs them open to make sure things are happening and things are ready. For a community center to close at 530 is outrageous. And I understand that there's no money or whatever they're talking about. They don't need this and nobody do. But we have to set our priorities straight. We're losing kids every day. You got Parks and Rec closing at 6:00, opening at three just for the summertime, is up at one. But back after September, it'll open at three and close at six. The Central Facility Center opens at six just for child care in the morning. I mean, it's open. The center opens at six, but it closes at 530. What time do you think you need those centers open? What time do you think those community members need to be able to go in and have places where they can go check on computers and stuff like that? I really outrage and I come in and I said I was going to make it a point to get to these meetings before my last day of working with the agency and bring young girls so that they can see that that this does this isn't working for us right now. I don't know what this you know, what you guys do when you get behind those closed doors. But the bureaucracy is so outrageous that for you to just look at that center and allow it to close at 530. And then now when I first started working there 22 years ago, it was free to nonprofits. Now we have to pay to be in those centers, not only pay to be in them, but have them close at 530. And we're working with youth. Once again, thank you, family and you. I really needed to say that, but I just wanted to do that on my last day. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you, ma'am, very much. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: My name is Veronica Eagan. I'm a lifetime resident at Long Beach.
Speaker 5: Raised my kids here. Couple of things. First of all, just the parking recs.
Speaker 1: My kids go to Mark Twain, they get out at 230.
Speaker 5: The park opens up for their after school program at three. 30 minutes. The kids are out there by themselves. There's nobody there.
Speaker 1: Not safe. I'm here because I currently have a dog that we found that is hurt and we couldn't take.
Speaker 5: Her to Long Beach Shelter because she wouldn't get treatment. They would have just killed her.
Speaker 1: Why aren't we putting the money into educating our kids? We have the DARE program. Why aren't we out there telling our kids? Why isn't an AC going.
Speaker 5: To the schools and telling.
Speaker 1: Them how important it is to spay and neuter? How important these pets are?
Speaker 5: Lifetime. They're not throwaway.
Speaker 1: Why are we not educating? It's going to.
Speaker 5: Continue if we don't stop it.
Speaker 1: Now and give them the money for the vet care for education. It's obvious it's not working on what they got. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next speaker, please. And it looks like this will be our final speaker. So it looks like the OC, Mr. Jeans.
Speaker 1: Diana La Jeans Advocates for disability rights. I have two issues that I want to speak to. First of all, I wanted first of all, I wanted to actually ask. I've asked this question a couple of times. I wanted to know how much speaking a budget that this out of district meeting costs over and above a meeting that would be at city hall. Can somebody answer that for me here? I don't understand why I can't get that answer.
Speaker 0: Yeah. I mean, this I mean, I, I'm not aware. I think our staff would have to explore how much a offsite meeting cost versus a regular meeting at City Hall.
Speaker 1: Okay, so where do I go? Because I asked the city manager. He told me, city clerk? The city clerk says, no, she doesn't have the answer. So, you know, I'm getting this back and forth, right?
Speaker 0: I mean, this is the first time I've heard you say this to me, so.
Speaker 1: Well, no, not to you. Yeah, I did it in the budget meeting. Okay. Sorry. Mean that's not your fault.
Speaker 0: Yeah, I think. I think that's a question. We can certainly get the answer to you. I'm sure we've done that look in the past what the difference, of course, is. So, Mr. West, we'll get that out.
Speaker 4: Sure. We just don't know tonight.
Speaker 11: Okay.
Speaker 1: All right. So I can get that answer from the city manager's office. Is that correct? And I think you have my number, Mr. West. If you would have someone call me, I'd appreciate it. Okay, now I'm beginning to speak. First of all, I did want to apologize. I did speak to the budget meeting about a variety of items on the city employees. I did not mention library services. I, I use the library services a lot. I do not have internet at home, etc. They have art. Fabulous. They really do a good job. Their employees are very service oriented. So I do want to congratulate them. I did listen to the Human Health and Human Services presentation. I do not use their services, but I was very impressed with the presentation. And my concern is in that particular arena is why are we we do we have the Health and Human Services that is is concerned about health and human services. Then we have the parks that are poisoning our animals and our children with their roundup. Now, this is something I brought up. I know you weren't all here to hear that, but basically Roundup is a poison should not be used in the parks. We have been bringing that up to the Parks Commission. We have been bringing that up to the parks. That is not being dealt with. We it doesn't make sense to have this wonderful health and human services and then have the parks poisoning our our pets and our children. So I would really like to see that issue resolved. Okay.
Speaker 0: And then in terms of intelligence.
Speaker 1: I, I started late because we were.
Speaker 0: It's all it's all in the 3 minutes, but time is up.
Speaker 1: Well, I have one more issue to discuss.
Speaker 5: I know.
Speaker 1: But that was that was just a question. I was one of.
Speaker 0: The messages I have. It's 3 minutes for speaker. I have to be fair to everybody. So.
Speaker 1: Okay. Well, I'll bring it up at a different and a different item.
Speaker 0: Thank you very.
Speaker 1: Much. You're welcome.
Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you. So that concludes public comment on the budget hearing. So if there's unless there's any objection, we will move the remainder of the budget hearing to the next meeting where it will continue. Like all or like all of them see no objection to that. And and then with that, we're going to go ahead and take a one minute, one or two minute recess, and then we will start the city council meeting. The budget hearing is now concluded. Thank you all for coming. Members. Madam Clerk, if you can, please. If I can have everyone out in the audience. Please. If you're chatting to step outside. She. Thank you very much.
Speaker 9: GONZALEZ Councilmember Pearce and Councilwoman Price.
Speaker 1: Councilmember super down.
Speaker 8: Here.
Speaker 1: Councilwoman Mongo. Councilman Andrews. Councilmember Urunga. Councilman Austin. Vice Mayor Richardson.
Speaker 9: Mayor Garcia.
Speaker 0: I'm here. Thank you. Consent. Please take a second. Madam Clerk.
Recommendation to conduct a Budget Hearing to receive and discuss an Overview of the Proposed Fiscal Year 2018 Budget for the following: Library Services, Health and Human Services Department and Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Communications Department.