Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Let's give them a round of applause. Okay. And we have I know we we still have one more hearing. And then the first item on the agenda is the hotel item. So the second hearing, if we can, please have the clerk read the hearing.
Speaker 8: Report from Economic Development Recommendation to receive supporting documentation under the record. Conclude the public hearing to consider the reestablishment of the Uptown Property and Business Improvement District. Direct the City Clerk to tabulate the ballots and report the results of the tabulation to the Mayor and City Council. And if a majority of ballots received are in favor of the establishment of the U.P. bid, adopt a resolution to reestablish the U.P. bid for a term of ten years District eight and nine.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Mr. Modica. We don't need a growth rate for this.
Speaker 7: We do need it.
Speaker 1: We do need enough. So can we. Madam Clerk, we do the math.
Speaker 8: So anybody who will be a witness, please stand and raise your right hand. Do you, in each of you, solemnly state that the testimony you may give in the cause now and pending before this body shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Mr. Modica.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. We will have a staff presentation from Eric Romero, our project manager for Economic Development. Good evening. The members of the City Council, property owners of record located in the Uptown Pivot area who will pay more than 50% of the proposed assessment, have submitted petitions to the city for the reestablishment of the Uptown Pivot . The Uptown Pivot Management District Plan details the boundaries of the Uptown Pivot. The method of assessment for each parcel and the improvements and activities for which assessment funds will be used. The assessment methodology will generate approximately 177 $356 in revenue for the Uptown Peabody during its first year. If reestablished, the Uptown period will exist for a ten year period between January 2019 and December 2028, and the City Council will annually review and consider approving the renewal of the levy. Budgets and reports submitted by the Association managing the Uptown Pivot as approved by City Council Action on June 12, 2018. A notice of assessment and an assessment ballot were mailed to property owners who are proposed to be assessed. Ballots are weighted by assessment amounts. At the conclusion of this public hearing, the city will tabulate the votes and will return to the City Council later during the August seven, 2018 meeting to announce the results. If there is not a majority protest from property owners, the City Council may adopt resolution reestablishing the uptown period. If the uptown pivot is reestablished, the Uptown Property and Community Association will continue to manage the Uptown Pivot and shall serve as a owners association. That concludes my staff report.
Speaker 1: Thank you. We're going to go ahead and do public comment on this hearing. Is there any public comment on the hearing? Please come forward. I'm wondering, Miss Webber, should I have the ballots be delivered first to the clerk, or should we do the here?
Speaker 7: The ballots can be delivered to you up to the close of the public hearing.
Speaker 6: Okay.
Speaker 7: Whenever it's.
Speaker 1: Convenient. Okay. So as we begin the public comment before the ballots can please be delivered to the clerk. That would be great. Please continue.
Speaker 0: Good evening. My name is Larry DeJesus and I, along with Mr. Bruce Stewart on the property at 1000 and 1030 Artesia.
Speaker 2: During the past five years, we've paid about $10,000 in property taxes. Five years ago.
Speaker 0: 73% of the property owners voted against the establishment of the period that it was passed because the city and school district properties represent more than 85% of the yes vote. What I didn't know at the time.
Speaker 2: Was that those owners.
Speaker 0: East of Orange, 600 feet away, got to opt out. I was not given the opportunity.
Speaker 2: To opt out. Last December.
Speaker 0: Laura dowd completed an audit. She found that the city did not pay its bid tax for 2016. $58,000 was not paid.
Speaker 2: What the management.
Speaker 0: Of our people was doing. I don't know the reestablishment of the pyramid. This time will take.
Speaker 2: $22,000.
Speaker 0: From us. One of our buildings needs.
Speaker 2: A new roof.
Speaker 0: That 22,000 could pay for the roof. I think the city needs to reexamine the composition of the building. I think the city should think about let us opt out. That is my request. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 3: Honorable mayor. City council members. Thank you. That's appropriate. I just briefly wanted to state that I am greatly honored to have been working with Councilmember Rex Richardson and Ally Austin in the formation of this business improvement district. And before I came to work for the city, I'm now retired. This is way past my bedtime. Just so you know, I was a stockbroker and my mentor said to me, and this is a note for any potential investors in Uptown. He said, Jimmy, what you want to do, you want to be on the beach with your oars in the sand waiting for the tide to come in because things are happening uptown. And I tell you, it's going to be well, like Rick said back then, renaissance things are really happening and it's going to be a great place to live, work and play. So I'm pretty proud of this. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Next speaker.
Speaker 2: Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor. City council members, members of the community, my fellow colleagues and friends, thank you for this opportunity to speak on behalf of the Uptown Business Improvement District. My name is Portia Darvish, and I'm a real estate owner in the city of Long Beach with properties in the Bixby Knolls and North Long Beach submarkets. I'm also a board member of the Uptown Business Improvement District, a commercial real estate broker by trade, and an involved community member by choice. Prior to being a board member of the Business Improvement District, I thought this organization, Soul Charter, was to organize weekly happy hours and chili cook offs, although other bids in other cities may do that. Certainly this is not the agenda for North Long Beach, led by our executive director, Tasha Hunter. The North Long Beach bid works effortlessly to solve real life problems for members of our community. Spend a day with Tasha Hunter at her office in the heart of North Long Beach, and you'll feel an ounce of the sheer weight she carries on her shoulders daily. Her days are filled, taking calls from real life citizens that rely on the bid and her leadership to keep them afloat. Like the El Salvadorian bakery owner that has no idea how to obtain a permit for their business. They come to Tasha because they know she'll take the time to drive them to the city, help them fill out the necessary applications in Spanish to get their permits. Or like the local merchant that calls Tasha before they call the police department to deal with a crime being committed near their store. Knowing she'll know what to do, spend a day with her and you'll hear her voice speaking to several private nonprofit companies she employs to keep North Long Beach clean. Picking up thousands of pounds of trash along the Atlantic and Artesia corridors on a weekly basis. Or hear her meeting with the private security company, reporting the weekly crime report and discussing ways they can collectively keep crime down within the city. And yes, spend a day with her. And you hear her promoting the local retailers and restaurants and the occasional chili cook off in our community. I can go on and on about the different ways she makes a difference in the lives of the local property owners, merchants and residents of North Long Beach. She is, in essence, a friendly face to go to go to when there's no one else to go to. So in other words, Tasha Hunter and the Business Improvement District, for lack of a better analogy, is somewhat a city within the city. We are the Planning Department, the Economic Development Police Department, Waste Management and and Waste Management at the local level. Although our first priority are the members of our district, we strive to make sure members of our community are abiding by city ordinances and following the rules of this Council puts forth. With that said, the Business Improvement District is the meeting place in which Tasha and the rest of the board members discuss and execute this noble agenda . That is our responsibility. The board is a forum where property owners, residents, business owners, city representatives, law enforcement, council members, private businesses, developers, and anyone else that wants a voice in our community can send a message. Each board member spends time out of their day, week and month helping to build without compensation, I should add, because we all believe in the cause. Allow me to convey to you.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. It's correct the time.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 3: Tom Carpenter with Frontier Real Estate Investments. Good evening, Honorable Mayor City Council. I wish I could just echo what Pasha just said and give him my time. He was on a good roll there, but I just wanted to say we're developing the property at Atlantic and Artesia, our Uptown Commons project. We're making a sizable financial investment into our project. And ultimately, you know, we feel the area and that's because we believe in what's going on in the area spearheaded by Councilmember Richardson. And like like Porsha was saying, this bid does so many different positive things for the area. What Portia is able to accomplish out of her office in the district is is a huge win for the entire area. So as somebody who is making a sizable investment looks at this from a very long term view, we're all for the bid. We're really excited. We're appreciative to everybody who has put in time to make this happen. And thank you to Tosha for all she does. And thank you for your consideration of this. I think it's a total win for the area and we're excited about it. Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Next speaker.
Speaker 3: Good evening, everyone. My name is Mike. I'm a ninth district resident for 15 years now. A year ago, I had no idea what a bid was, didn't know what a business improvement district did. But in traveling the you know, the district up and down Atlantic Avenue for as long as I have, I noticed things changing and I was curious. And so I found out and knocked on his door one time in her office and got to know her and had the unique couple of unique experiences of actually like canvasing the streets with her and visiting her, her business owners, inviting them out to I think it was a roundtable breakfast meeting of some sort. But we had it was very encouraging to see the response. She got just the warm welcome she got from all the people that we went to see. It was like an old relative had entered the building. So it was I just knew that she was, you know, a friend to them to to all of us. And the work that's being done was well appreciated. So this month, I take.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much, Mike. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 5: Good evening, Mayor. Vice Mayor, City Council, city staff. I'm Tasha Hunter. And I didn't expect to get emotional.
Speaker 3: But I get.
Speaker 6: Emotional.
Speaker 5: This right here and I always go off book when I come here. So thank you all for all the work. This is not just the work that I've done. This is the work of community members, of the property owners that are willing to talk and listen. The business owners, all of which I walk that bed every single last day to get to know my business owners. This is something that I had a great job before at Lumby City College, and when this opportunity to came, came up, I knew it was for me the flexibility and the engagement to put all my talents to work. I just want to say that Councilman Austin, when I first moved to Long Beach, I'm not always.
Speaker 3: I have not.
Speaker 5: Always lived in Long Beach, but when I first came to Long Beach, getting my first leadership opportunity, working with Long Beach camp and from there and has introduced me to a lot of things from there I'm very appreciative. But this is about our property owners and I just have to say that I'm so thankful to all the property owners that.
Speaker 3: Have invested in North Long.
Speaker 5: Beach a long time ago. I get those calls from people that have owned.
Speaker 3: Property.
Speaker 5: For, you know, the early twenties and for all of the property owners, a couple of which have spoken today that see the potential, see the culture, see the possibilities, the potential, see the vision of where our city is going and choose to.
Speaker 3: Invest in North.
Speaker 5: Beach and appreciative.
Speaker 3: And I'm hoping that all the hard.
Speaker 5: Work and dedication. We'll show in today's results of these tablet the tabulation of ballots. Like I said, I went off book. I've been in this job for two years, five months, six days and 7.
Speaker 6: Hours feels like although.
Speaker 5: I was out there for the implementation or the building of the bid. But there are a lot of.
Speaker 6: People that help put this.
Speaker 5: Together. Councilman Richardson, who helped spearhead the project and Councilman Austin who calls it.
Speaker 3: They call this their baby. Well, and I've often said.
Speaker 5: I've taken that baby, I've adopted that baby, and I love that baby just the same way the two of you did when you created an engine first. Thank you, Jim.
Speaker 3: First for all the hard.
Speaker 5: Work that you did at the city. Did he leave the all the hard work that you did at the city and continue on to come on board as a consultant for us? I have 40 seconds left. Oh, my goodness gracious. At the time. Go. So thank you, counsel. And to Stephen Neal, my board members who have been very dedicated. I have to say a special thank you to COBA Council of Business Associates. They bless you. That is not about you. Can I have four more seconds for blessing? There was not a binder about.
Speaker 3: What the bid processes are, but through.
Speaker 5: The through the work of our.
Speaker 3: City auditor like Lord Dowd.
Speaker 5: There's going to be a big binder. My big binder for the policies and procedure.
Speaker 3: Were minor.
Speaker 6: Often.
Speaker 3: From our Midtown.
Speaker 5: Business Improvement District, Blair Cohn from our Bixby, Craig, coach, and all the other people that have come together answered my question for every single department in the city that have answer my question. So thank you all. Thank you.
Speaker 3: And let's say a prayer.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you very much for the comments, everyone that came forward. We're going to go ahead and close public comments and the hearing. And then the matter is paused. I know for ballots to be tabulated. And how long will that take? About an hour after we come back to this issue at Apple. We'll come back to this after the next item as we tabulate. And so we will hold this item and hold it to you. Mr. Weber, do we just hold this hearing or do we need to continue to close the hearing?
Speaker 7: Or you can close the hearing and the the madam matter will stay recessed until we return with the tabulation of the ballots. And at that time, it will be appropriate to adopt the resolution or not, depending on the results and counting.
Speaker 1: RICHARDSON And Councilman Austin, do you want to make your comments now or after the ballots?
Speaker 2: I think they've said enough. We can do it after we see the results.
Speaker 1: Okay, great. So then we'll go ahead and conclude the hearing and keep it keep it open until we come back with the results of the balloting. So thank you to everyone that came and spoke. That concludes the hearings and the presentations for the evening.
Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record, conclude the public hearing to consider the re-establishment of the Uptown Property and Business Improvement District (UPBID); direct the City Clerk to tabulate the ballots and report the results of the tabulation to the Mayor and City Council during the August 7, 2018 meeting; and, if a majority of ballots received are in favor of the establishment of the UPBID, adopt resolution to re-establish the UPBID for a term of ten years, effective January 1, 2019 through December 31, 2028.  (Districts 8,9)