Speaker 3: Now we're moving on to item number 17. And I'm going to turn this over to Councilmember Al Austin, who will be making making a motion on behalf of the Civil Service Commission.
Speaker 8: Yes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. As chair of the Civil Service Commission, we reviewed candidates for charter commission this afternoon that are civil service personnel, a civil service committee meeting and made a recommendation. We are making recommendations to the full city council to appoint the following individuals to the following commissions. Civil Service Commission. We have read the reappointment to a of Charles Hicks Jr and Carolyn Smith Watts. We have the Citizen Police Complaint Commission. We are recommending the appointments of Alma Campos, the sixth District resident, to serve the term of 2014 to 2016. Dr. Crystal Howard.
Speaker 9: Johnson, a District nine resident, to served the remainder of a.
Speaker 8: Vacant 2014 2016 term and Pete zoologist district for resident to serve the remainder of the 2013 2015 term. And then on the Planning Commission, we have three recommendations. Andy Perez in seventh District resident where he will serve the remainder of a vacant 2011 2015 term. Ms.. Jane Templin, a second District resident, to serve the remainder of a vacant 2013 2017 term, and Eric Verdugo will produce Kho Vega, a sixth District resident, to serve the remainder of a vacant 2011 2015 Senate term. With that, I would make the motion to accept the committee's recommendation.
Speaker 3: There's been a motion and a second. Any public comment on the item? Please come forward.
Speaker 5: Gloria Angel. I live in the eighth district. I own Platt Street. And the main reason I'm speaking out is involved in North in redevelopment in the project areas for about 16 years. And before our involvement and the project areas, we had no representation from some of the areas of the city on the Planning Commission. And because of that there are many very adverse decisions that were made that impacted our part of town and, and the central and the West Side. And often there were city council votes taken that were completely insensitive to the issues of our part of town. And eventually we were able to get representation on the Planning Commission because we do have issues that are separate and to continue to allow adverse uses, land uses in parts of town that have no representation was really an egregious issue. And that, more than anything to me is the biggest problem, not with these these appointments necessarily, but with the change and removal of some of the individuals that are currently serving on the planning commission. That now leaves a gap and does not allow for representation in these areas. It really means a lot to me because our quality of life is at stake, and if we don't have the correct representation, then we are. Then other areas of town basically dictate what will go into the parts of town that are not necessarily represented, and it's extremely important that they are. So we're removing at least two individuals from uptown now, and that was our representation. I don't know the individuals that are going to be on the Planning Commission. I'm a little bit concerned about the backgrounds, particularly the gentleman that works for the railroads. And I understand that the railroad issue will not be before the Planning Commission, but there are probably if something were to move forward, there would be a lot of ancillary decisions that would have to be made relative to maybe utilities or access or whatever it may be. And I'm very concerned about the quality of life for individuals in those areas that don't necessarily speak up, don't necessarily know the language, are uncomfortable speaking before a government body. And so I want to make sure that whoever gets appointed is sensitive to the individuals in different parts of the town. So thank you very much.
Speaker 3: Thank you. Make speaker, please.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and.
Speaker 6: Members of the City Council and staff. Gary Shelton is my name. The address is 240 Chestnut Avenue.
Speaker 0: And I was here this afternoon at the committee.
Speaker 6: Meeting that moved this item forward to you this evening.
Speaker 0: And frankly, have had sort of maybe an epiphany. I don't know if that's what you can call it, but I wanted to mention publicly that the articles in the press revealed maybe a week or ten days ago or so that there was the appearance of some.
Speaker 6: Conflict of interest with the appointments to the Planning Commission.
Speaker 0: And and I didn't know quite where to come down on that myself. I it's troublesome any time that sort of issue is brought up. And as a former commissioner myself, you certainly do.
Speaker 6: Always remain mindful of how you might have even the appearance of a conflict of interest. In fact, the training, which I've taken both personally in front of Heather Marwood and also on her wonderful video upstairs.
Speaker 0: Is enlightening on these issues. Now, I my one of my remarks earlier was that a person would have to be tone deaf to not understand the importance of the background as presented in the biographies of the.
Speaker 6: Planning Commission appointees.
Speaker 0: Related to actually current history here.
Speaker 6: In Long Beach, knowing.
Speaker 0: About this gig, rail yard project, other rail yard.
Speaker 6: Advances that are going on in the city, including the Union Pacific Railroad and its coal trains.
Speaker 0: Neighborhood health and the environment. Those are all important issues. And when we when in the in the biographies that we.
Speaker 6: Have of the commissioners that are being appointed, we had.
Speaker 0: A port of Los Angeles.
Speaker 6: And Union Pacific Railroad Advisor. We had a person representing the union. That was Jane, I believe, on the railroad I'm sorry.
Speaker 0: And also Chamber of Commerce people. And we know that the lawsuit.
Speaker 6: That's been moving forward, which you folks know more about than we do, you've had some behind closed or some close to our meetings on that of the against the city of Los Angeles related to this gig project, which has been joined by the Long Beach Unified School District and others.
Speaker 0: Is is we don't know where.
Speaker 6: That's going. It's a very confusing lawsuit as far as the way it looks from out here looking in.
Speaker 0: And the the the bios look like they might tend one side or the other on.
Speaker 6: That, maybe not even in favor of the community.
Speaker 0: Well.
Speaker 6: I got to hear from these commissioners earlier personally.
Speaker 0: And what I saw was an opening of the process. Maybe I'm still not happy with everything that I've heard, but the mere fact that there's only three.
Speaker 6: Appointees now instead of.
Speaker 0: Four, that Legal is looking at one of these applications much more closely for that.
Speaker 6: Conflict of interest to see if it exists or not. We may see that.
Speaker 0: Applicant come back later, I don't know. But the fact that there's been what I see as a wholesale taking.
Speaker 6: The time is up, I'm very appreciative of that. So thank you.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much. Next speaker, please.
Speaker 0: Yes. My name is John Cross and.
Speaker 8: My address number, thank you is on file.
Speaker 0: I'm going to read some to you. The job of the planning commission and understand the needs of the city or the areas that could be affected with changes in zoning or approving projects, but understanding the needs and not moving out agenda going in and not have an agenda going in. Decisions are made to improve the quality of life for the residents of Long Beach. Now, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 8: In the late 1990s, we went to war with Union Pacific Railroad over the Edison property north of Supply Little, which runs right by neighborhood schools. Union Pacific Railroad wanted to park probably a couple thousand trucks in and out of there a day as a parking lot. We fought and we fought and we took it before the planning commission and the Planning Commission zoned out property as Greenbelt Nursery stables. It cannot be used for light industry or anything. And what worries me right now when I'm looking out right now, the proposal by BNSF Railroad needs to extend north of Willow and now to put a new bridge and use a thousand feet, 2000 foot rail spurs right by homes and schools. And that's got to be on the Edison property and that's got to be reason to light industry. That is a Long Beach property comes under our zoning commission. The three appointees today, Andy Perez, works for being our Union Pacific Railroad, not BNSF. And Mr. Templin works for the IBEW and they IBEW, IBEW and she is and her union is strong supporters of the project. BNSF Skate project. And I have no problem. I think every union job we can get is great. But the problem is the location. And they're supporting the project 100%. And the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce has been very strong supporters of that. And I've heard you've even got financiers. I can't approve that. But they've got some financing and support from BNSF Railroad. I cannot prove that. And that's just out there. And that's what scares us on the West Side. I'm speaking from the west side of Long Beach, and there's other communities that contacted you, and we're worried about it , these appointments. And I'm going to ask the city manager, I'm a city attorney right now if Mr. Perez's company would benefit from this Union Pacific or the union would benefit just by Jobs and Chamber of Commerce, get support from the BNSF Railroad when that be a conflict of interest if they had to vote on changing the zoning laws.
Speaker 3: Mr. Cross is the only person that can ask questions on this, which would be it would be me. And so please continue.
Speaker 8: Yeah. So would it be a conflict of interest? And somebody said, Well, we can always appeal it to the city attorney if you vote to change the zoning. But zoning is change. BNSF is definitely going to get in there because they'll be able to get their 2000 foot spurs that they need, bringing trains together at, you know , day and night behind residents and schools. And so we said we're going to give it to the city council. We don't have too much confidence in city council after hundreds of people came down here to protest. Thank you, Mr. Cross. The whole deal. And you guys voted 9 to 1 against the public. You're voted. You're elected.
Speaker 3: To. Thank you, Mr. Cross. Okay. Thank you very much. Again, let me just say, for any commission, any time there's a conflict of interest on any commission, for any commissioner, the city attorney will absolutely advise the commission staff, as well as the commissioner, that that commissioner will not be able to vote on a topic if there is a conflict of interest. And so that's the case for for all of our commissions. And so there is a motion on the floor again that's been made. Members, please go and cast your votes.
Speaker 6: Motion carries and I vote yes.
Speaker 3: Thank you. Congratulations. Give them a round of applause as well. And we're going have one more vote. And then I'm going to ask all the commissioners not to go anywhere, because I'm going to ask the council to join up and we'll give you a big picture. Okay. Just up here on the up here. So when it comes to legal.
Speaker 1: Obligation of state that I have an obvious conflict of interest with this, I'm so so I'm going to excuse myself from the room. Yes.
Speaker 4: To watch on TV legal.
Speaker 3: And if we can if anyone can, please make a motion on the appointment of Nina Richardson. So move. Okay. There's been a motion and a second. Any public comment on the appointment? CNN members, please go ahead and cast your votes.
Speaker 6: Motion carries eight votes here.
Speaker 3: Congratulations to Miss Richardson. And I'm going to ask if the council will maybe come and come to the front if I get the photographer, if I can get Councilman Richardson, we're going to take a quick photo with with all the commissioners.
Speaker 4: So yeah. Choose for. Perhaps. Just so you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's not. He's never.
Speaker 4: I've never. Yeah, well, yeah, let's. Let's just. You're going to make space for. And what will appear on Facebook. She? Are you ready? You got? And he should have been more.
Speaker 3: Now, everyone with a go. Long Beach.
Speaker 4: You got it. Make you make it up.
Speaker 11: And I think. Okay.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I want to be doing.
Speaker 6: Andy sent us one. Send us one of your photographs.
Speaker 4: Hi. Let's get in my district. I'll just come and look your. Right. Okay.
Speaker 11: I really appreciate. Know.
Speaker 4: I don't have good economic property given everything that we have to face or not. I think yeah, I think we've got a good team. You do it here.
Speaker 11: Okay. Yes. I recall the first.
Speaker 4: I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the thing is, the radio now have the worst of the worst of the worst. You got to watch. Yeah. Got. But. 830.
Speaker 6: I just woke up and I.
Speaker 4: It's axiomatic. Right. That's when you think, okay.
Speaker 3: Well, okay, we're we're going to try to get started. I know there's a lot of celebrations. We're going to try to get get back started.
Speaker 4: All right, guys. Hey. Well. Well, actually, you know, I mean, what would you like to do with. He had three. That's it.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's what he laid it out for you. Right.
Speaker 4: And I wouldn't have like. Somebody is going to have to do this in movies.
Speaker 2: Is only eight. That's always going to come down to that.
Speaker 4: You know, I don't know. Well, if you don't love me, don't say nothing. So that's the one I was going to tell you. That's a good example of something that really they're interested in.
Speaker 3: Great. We're going to go ahead and get the meeting back.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: We're going to go ahead and get back to the meeting. Congrats. Congratulations again to to everyone. So now we are moving on to item item 25, which will be rather quick from what I understand, and then we're moving on to the pool. So, Mr. Clarke, item 25.
Speaker 6: Thank you, Mayor. I'm 25. It's communication from the city manager and financial management with the recommendation to execute all documents necessary to implement a 15 year sales tax incentive agreement with Hunan Toyota of Long Beach.
Recommendation to, subject to review and consideration by the Personnel and Civil Service Committee in accordance with Long Beach Municipal Code Section 2.03.065, confirm Charter Commission appointments pursuant to Section 509 of the City Charter and Section 2.03.065 of the Long Beach Municipal Code; or in the alternative, if for some reason the Personnel and Civil Service Committee does not meet prior to or on October 21, 2014, waive the requirement for consideration and recommendation by the Personnel and Civil Service Committee in accordance with Section 2.03.065D, and confirm Charter Commission appointments pursuant to Section 509 of the City Charter and Section 2.03.065 of the Long Beach Municipal Code.