Speaker 0: Thank you. We're going to be moving on to the regular agenda. Now, one councilmember has to leave a little bit early tonight. There's been a request to move one of the items up. So we'll be carrying item number 13 and then going into public comment.
Speaker 1: Item 13 Communication from Vice Mayor Richardson, Councilwoman Gonzalez, Councilwoman Mongo, Councilman Andrew's recommendation to request city manager to evaluate new and ongoing revenue sources and make the necessary preparations to restore Paramedic Rescue 12 in January 2017. Further request City Manager to evaluate and report back to the City Council the feasibility of a short term and long term plan for additional public safety restorations within 90 days.
Speaker 4: Thank you. So as this is my item and I made the motion, I'll go ahead and speak first. Mayor Garcia had to step out. So first, I want to thank my COSIGNERS for signing on Councilwoman Gonzalez, Mongeau and Andrews, as well as all the council members who have expressed an interest over the years in placing a greater focus on public safety. I also want to thank the residents and the leaders who are out here tonight for coming out this evening and joining us the week of Thanksgiving. This is important and I'm great. I'm glad to see this turnout. Our public safety personnel serves more than more than 500,000 people. 5 million, 5 million visitors a year protects 55 square miles of our city, the busiest, busiest port in the West Coast and the airport. In fact, the fire department, emergency responders, some of the busiest per capita in California. Rescue 12 was eliminated in FBI 2011 budget during do due to the great great recession. That's almost seven years ago. And since since it's being eliminated, calls for service have increased by 16 and a half percent, according the fire department's presentation to the city. The increase in call volumes with elimination of resources has created the worst response times in our department's history. We are we are currently only meeting national average response times 44% of the time. Beginning in 2010, the Long Beach Fire Department had to continually restructure its its deployment strategy due to budget cuts. And since then, the number of calls have continued to grow. Response times have increased. Safety of our residents is being compromised. For example, the average of all emergency response times in 2005 was 5 minutes and 29 seconds, with 72.8% of calls. Meeting Response Standards. Ten years later, in 2015, the average of all emergency response times was 6 minutes and 16 seconds, with only 46.1% of the calls meeting standards. And that's just unacceptable. So for too long, we've been forced to cut rather than invest. And even as the local economy has improved, we were unable to bring back critical services that we need to maintain a vibrant world class city. This year, local leaders asked residents to step up and make investments in our city and county through adopting a number of new revenue sources. And because they all passed, our general fund will see benefits from new revenue opportunities. And now's the time to invest in quality public services that our residents need and deserve. We've already started to bring back some of those services we've lost due to the Great Recession, and past budget cuts will soon see those police departments south division restored with new police officers. We're seeing we've seen the fire department's Belmont Shore Station restored with Engine eight. These investments are all important because they help us work toward a safe and long, safer Long Beach. The way to improve response times, to add resources and people to respond to 911 calls for service. Remember, Rescue 12 is a benefit to the entire city, not just north Long Beach. Restoring Rescue 12 will help reduce response times throughout the city by helping other rescues in their respective areas, rather than have to wait for units to become available from across town. But now's the time to do even more. We need to push for a full restoration of public safety services and new strategy, direct to direct services to the areas of greatest need. It's time to restore Paramedic Rescue 12 by adding a ninth paramedic in the system. We can be better assured that when there's an emergency, help will be on its way faster. Additionally, evaluating the responsibility of the feasibility of long a short term plan for further restorations will ensure a path to a safer Long Beach. The public's trust is in us, and I'm committed to doing all I can to work toward a safer, more equitable city. And so I strongly encourage my colleagues to approve this motion, which does two things. It calls on the city manager to specifically take steps to to reduce, restore rescue 12 at the beginning of the year, based on the prior list set forth by our fire chief. And it allows us to further explore of public safety restorations with our police department to establish some sort of a plan to implement them. We, we, we when we want to see some balance here, we know that needs are not just in the fire department, but also in the police department. So as we, you know, further implement the fire chiefs priority list, we want to talk with and engage with our police chief about his priority list and see additional additional restorations on the PD side as well in the fleet in the future. I want to I want to recognize that Restoring Rescue 12 also puts us on a path to further restorations in the fire department. There is if we stick to the fire chiefs restoration once 12 is out of the way, you have a path to engine 17, which I know is very important to Councilmember Darrell Super now and some of the folks in central and east Long Beach but tonight is about 12 and our paramedic services that that have not yet been restored. So my question for city staff. Mr. City Manager, how would you respond to this request tonight?
Speaker 2: Mayor. Council members will be coming back with a report that provides the financial information to the city council can make decisions to begin those restorations, whether it's fire restorations and or police restoration. So we'll have a financial plan that the city council will then make decisions on how it's going to be funded and what it's going to cost.
Speaker 4: Thank you. And so that concludes my remarks. And that's my motion. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilwoman Gonzalez.
Speaker 3: Yes, I think in light of many of the funding sources that we will see come down to us as we receive more information on what those projections will look like, I am supportive of this item because that was the rescue. 12 was the next immediate item on the priority list. And I think it is only fair that we respond to that and make sure that we're not only responding to rescue 12, but I assume, like Councilmember Rex Richardson said, that we will have an overall discussion on public safety and what those priorities will look like with both police and fire and even with our Marine and harbor area as well. I think that's very important. And so I wholeheartedly support this item. I think what we've done in South Division and in eight in Belmont Shore has been incredible. I look forward to seeing more and thank you both for being here as well.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilmember Superman.
Speaker 4: Thank you. I would like to ask for a friendly amendment. And that would be to add engine 17 to the language here. So Rescue 12 and Engine 17 are considered simultaneously. I've spoken at council on a couple of occasions expressing the need for Engine 17, how critical it is. So I'll take a little different approach tonight. If we look at the project management, management model of cost schedule quality. I think the cost has been well established that it's 2.2 million to restore Engine 17. Measure A gives this $48 million a year. So you think if you divide that in third place, fire and public works, that's 16 million. So that's 2.2 million out of that 16 million for for fire. So if we add up, let's say all of the if we take that restoration of engine eight, the second fire academy at 1.3, four, 4 million. Rescue 12 and Engine 17, I get a grand total that is only 43 and a half percent of that 16 million. I believe that is feasible cost wise if we go to schedule. I believe Chief Tory told us the last time he spoke here that he can restore this engine company immediately and schedule. When you talk about fire is it's unique in a couple of ways. It's one of the few resources that can be restored immediately. And secondly, you never know when that need is going to be. We're entering the winter season and just ironically, I believe, the duplex that burnt down across the street from Station 17 that took place in January. If we want to talk about the third item and that is quality, I've spoken of that before here and that is I think I talked about how the calling areas, the areas of the city, 17 calls on a but several other engine companies and I think it affects five different council districts. So I'll just talk about 17 specifically. They cover the four or five freeway from Lakewood Boulevard to approximately Bellflower Boulevard, and that works in tandem with Engine 22. So if there's a fire or crash on the freeway, Engine 17 would approach from Lakewood Boulevard heading south, and 22 Wood would head north from Palo Verde. And the reason that's critical to have these two engine companies work in tandem is when you get a report of a crash on the freeway, sometimes they don't know what side of the freeway it's on. And so they can kind of approach from both directions. Also, if you think of I haven't talked before about the number of structures in Engine 17 area, some actually multiple, multiple story buildings. The Holiday Inn at Lakewood and Willow comes to mind. Community Hospital near the traffic circle is in Seventeen's area. I talked about council districts five and three. I think Park Estates probably has the largest number of wood shingle roofs per capita than any other neighborhood in the city. So for those reasons, I'm asking my colleagues to support a friendly amendment or extra Vice Mayor Richardson and approve us moving forward with Rescue 12 and Engine 17. Thank you. Thank you. And I'll I'll I'll certainly take it in advisement. Here's what I would here's what I would say I admire and I know how important that engine is. And so we just restored an engine in East Long Beach, engine eight. The paramedics, we haven't yet. The fire chief is, you know, run data back in the day. And then we asked them to rerun the data a year ago after the elimination R&D about his priorities. And they came back the exact same priority list as they were back in 2011. So it came back that the priority list was Rescue 12, then Engine 17, and then I believe it was 1 to 1 and they can speak to that. But tonight is really not about like we didn't dogpile engine eight and say we need everything else at that time. We supported it everything in the order. And I'm I'm willing to add to my motion to ask staff to evaluate the feasibility of of of engine 17 or provide some sort of a timeline for 17. But this motion and I don't want to diminish that this is really about paramedic services and communities waited seven years so that that would be my response and I hope I hope that a suture request.
Speaker 0: Councilwoman Price.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and thank you to my colleagues who brought this item. This is definitely a priority and one that I support wholeheartedly. And I know that we as a council, all of us want to see police and fire services restored, and we've been working on this for some time. So I really appreciate Councilman Richardson bringing this forward. I'm also very supportive of Councilman super nice, friendly and would hope that you would consider bringing accepting it. I can't speak for him, but it sounds to me like he's basically trying to say, can we can we find a path for both, is what I think he's trying to say rather than one over the other. But we actually have an item on the public safety agenda that was filed in, I believe it was in October. Our meeting got canceled because of one of the members not being able to be there. But we do have an item that's on file and it is asking it's similar. It's asking for the city staff to take a look at measure a revenue sources and look at our public safety priorities so that we as a council can talk about whether or not we want to reallocate the priorities that we have set under Measure A and this is a discussion that we had at the budget cycle, and I believe it's very consistent with the logic that Councilman Supernova just articulated a few minutes ago, and that is we have $48 million that we can reasonably anticipate receiving as a revenue source related to Measure A, and perhaps we need to reevaluate still within the guidelines of public safety and infrastructure where we're going to be allocating that money. We are facing some challenges in the city, as Councilman Rich or Vice Mayor Richardson has mentioned, that are new and different. And every day we are challenged with more public safety challenges that our police and fire departments are not equipped to handle in the manner that they should. We're not meeting the standards, and and that's certainly something that we want to improve upon. So I support this this motion completely, especially with the friendly. I do expect that will provide a report to the full council after we have our public safety meeting. And we're already planning on preparing a written report for my council colleagues so that we can hopefully have a broader discussion as a as a body in terms of measure a money and how we may want to allocate that money within the different public safety and or infrastructure categories. So thank you again for bringing this. And the more resources that we can allocate to public safety, I think the better off we'll be as a city. So thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilwoman Mongo.
Speaker 5: Thank you. I'm a big supporter of ensuring that our neighbors have the most safe and most safe environment. I appreciate that. Councilmember Richardson and I worked strongly on this back before the budget, and there does have to be a path one at a time. I think we are all on board. That 17 is next. And I hope that within the context of the report, at least we could get a timeline on what that might look like. If that's a possibility, I think that that's a strong indicator to the community that will help us make those decisions for the next rounds of measure funding that we have coming down the pipe. So with that, I appreciate and we'll support the motion.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Councilmember Everingham.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Mayor. I to support this motion. I think that we have a plan. When we passed Measure eight, we said that we're going to be looking at all of our public safety deployments and where we need and and restoration while the other stations and the units that we were missing or had taken away because of our culture and the economy. So I'm very supportive of this measure. And I think that if we are to be successful and we are to be within our budget, we need to stick to the plan that we set it initially and let's stick to it. So I will be supporting the original motion.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilmember Supernova.
Speaker 4: You know, I talked about stats and whatnot just a minute ago, and I'd like to go to the intangibles. I think by definition, that's not quantifiable. That's usually not the area I quote. But I'd just like to make one other point about Station 17 and the lack of an engine company in that house. To say that it's next to the training center is kind of an understatement. It's it's on the same prop property, basically. And this is what all of our recruits see as a working station in our city. And you think of that recruit class that we're paying, you're spending $110 million on. If there are 20 recruits there, that's $67,000 per recruit. I would like those recruits to be really enthused about working in the city of Long Beach to see that this city supports a fire station with a fire engine in it. I would like to see that we spend that money and they don't go to another agency after they've received the training here. And I think it's just a critical piece, as I said, morale, whatnot. Those are the intangibles. But I think this is the display. This fire station is a display for every one of our recruits to see working next to the training center. And that's just another reason why I think we need Engine 17 in place there. I if if my friendly is not going to be accepted, I'll go a different course. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. I'm going to go to Councilman Pearce. I'll make a few comments and make it a public comment and we'll go back to council. Councilman Pearce.
Speaker 8: Thank you. I think it's great that we're, you know, have this item in front of us that we're looking at restoration again. I think during the budget process, we talked about having this come back in January and doing everything we could do to restore fire. I think that there are a lot of questions that I still have. So forgive me for going through a little bit of a process. So I have that the priority list is 17 one, two, one. Is that correct? I know our police chief is in here about 12, 17, 12, 17, one, two, one. And it's my understanding that those, as Daryl said, could be turned on immediately. Should we take a vote to restore all of those today? We could restore those.
Speaker 2: I'll turn that over to our deputy chiefs. We have Deputy Chief Chris Roe and Jim Rex McCool. Many are members of the council. My name is Jim Erickson, assistant chief of operations.
Speaker 7: As far as turning them on tomorrow, that would be a possibility. Yes, we can absolutely do that.
Speaker 8: Do we have the staff to if we turn them on, say, tomorrow or January 1st to staff all of those?
Speaker 7: The way we do our constant staffing, we would we would use overtime for that and until the recruit class graduated. But as far as staffing them, we would staff them. Yes, ma'am.
Speaker 8: Okay. And my concern is representing a majority of downtown, as we just supported a you know, one of the tallest buildings that we're going to have in downtown. Is that the response times that council, that vice mayor mentioned, 46% meeting standards. That's to the door. That's not to the 35th floor. That's not all the way up. And so how are we making sure that we're covering our downtown constituents and also we're leaving our firefighters and paramedics to impact the areas and get out to their folks as quickly as possible. So it's I'm supportive of restoring 12 because we said that we were going to do that and we said we were going to do that during the budget cycle. My expectation is that when we talk about that second part, which is staff coming back in 90 days about what it would mean that we're having a conversation about all the email money, all the funds that are coming in and really being able to act quickly to restore to restore as fast as possible, and that our fire would be able to do that. When it comes to restoring PD, I know that there are restorations that need to be made citywide, and particularly on the West Side and North Side, but also wanting to have that conversation be something that is rooted in an equity lens, that it's not just about more PD on the ground, but it's about supporting things like data and some of the projects that they're doing in New York. And how are we policing in a way that's consistent with our values as a city? So if we bring that back, I just don't want it to be a report about what does restoration look like? That was there before, but I would want to have a fuller discussion about it. So I don't know. Vice Mayor, if you have any comments on that, I just. Okay.
Speaker 0: Vice Mayor Richardson.
Speaker 4: Sure. I just want to be able to respond more directly to Councilmember Supernormal. So so I don't think I was maybe I wasn't clear before. I didn't think that it was necessary to do an accept or a rejection of the motion. I express support that. I think the motion says go ahead and, you know, explore, evaluate further restorations. I'm not saying we depart from the Chiefs priority list. That priority list calls for Engine 17 directly after Rescue 12. So I'm committed to that fully. And I have no problems or reservations with asking staff, Hey, if they find the ability to do more than rescue 12, great. I'm not saying limited. Well, I'm going to wait till councilmember spinoff is. So what? I just want to be clear. I'm not saying if staff comes back and says we can restore engine 817 101. Go for it, by all means. But the fire chiefs priority list for going on seven years, which is where you spent about a year ago, has come back and said the priority list is the priority list. And that has not changed. And I support that completely. But I think thank all the council members for their comments tonight.
Speaker 0: I'm going to make a couple comments, make a public comment, and then I'll go back to the to the actually, if the other two councilmembers want to jump back in. I think that's fine as well, obviously. Just just a couple of things. I think first is I do want to just start off by thanking, obviously, Vice Mayor Richardson, that you've been advocating for this for a very long time. And so I appreciate that in the community we've seen out here multiple times on this very issue. So thank you. A couple of things I think are important. Just in just to note, it is always been certainly my intention and I think the council's intention to be able to make more restorations on public safety side beyond the first two that were made in the first year. The budget that was passed part of of Measure A was obviously focused on a large public works program, which is beginning, which we're very excited about, but also making public safety restorations. And we've made the first two. We're very excited about those two. In addition to that, I think having this discussion around 12 is the next part of the restoration, as is the discussion that Councilman Supernova's bringing up when it comes to 17 as well as other public safety needs. So what I also am hoping for is a couple of things, I think. One, I think it's I think it's very appropriate. It's clear from the chief that rescue 12 is the next the next priority of a restoration. But it's also clear that 17 is the next priority of the chief after after that rescue. And so it is obviously important for us to begin that process of looking at 12, but also right following up behind 12 is 17. And so staff should also begin that preparation of looking at those numbers and seeing what the cost is and and how would it be able to do that or not do that? But I think we need to have that discussion. And so I am supportive of the process to begin looking at 17, I think, Councilman Shoop, when I think that's appropriate. But I also obviously I know that 12 is the next priority and I think that's got to be dealt with first. In addition to that, I think we need to here in these, you know, then when staff comes back, I think that is going to be an appropriate time to have a council discussion about what are the next priorities of both the fire department and the police department long term? What does all the revenue that's coming in mean for the city? And also what does the revenue mean when it comes to Measure eight? I just want to remind everyone, measure is not a permanent tax. So any restoration that is not public public infrastructure, we have to figure out how to pay long term because what we are not going to do and what I will not support is making a bunch of restorations and then cutting those and cutting all of those apparatus across the city. So I think the the approach that the council is taking is very smart, which is easing into the restorations while the economy is growing, while incredible projects are being developed and built across the city. So that from a fiscal point of view, we're being both we're both listening to the community and doing the right thing, which is making restorations. And by the way, once we restore Rescue 12, we're going to continue to restore more public safety, hopefully restorations. And I think that's a conversation this council supports and wants to have. But I just also caution is that we have to be able to figure out and have a plan on how to pay for these long term, which and we're talking about these next five years and then the ten years. And so that is, I think, needs to be part of this, a greater, larger discussion when we have it in a couple of months or whenever you bring it back. Mr. West. I think what everyone said here has absolute merit. I think Councilwoman Price has been very clear about her interests here, and I appreciate that. And we should discuss those. We should be discussing 17, should be discussing all the needs, but also talk about what what do we really have in terms of dollars? When will those dollars disappear and at what rate is the economy moving to be able to cover some of these expenses long term? So I just wanted to make those comments. I am supportive of moving forward on 12. So that's the next restoration, but also to begin to look at 17 because that clearly should be the restoration that we that we focus on beyond beyond 12. And so I hope that's where we end the motion ends up, is that we can find some sort of compromise to do that. Let me go back to the to the council, and then I'm going to go to public comment. Councilmember Soprano.
Speaker 4: Okay. I'd just like to clarify something here. There seems to be some language that I'm somehow deviating from the chief's recommendation. I am not. I am in lockstep with what the chief has recommended. All I'm saying is that we came out with the restoration of Engine eight and a fire academy. Those are two items. So I'm saying, okay, now the chief is recommending in order rescue 12 and engine 17. Who says we have to stop it? Why not? Item we did two items before. So let's get both of these items restored tonight. That's my point. I'm not deviating from anyone's list, but I didn't hear the chief say, Oh, you can only restore these one at a time. That's my rule. That did not happen. So I'm saying let's restore both tonight. If we're going to come back with a report, the dollars are here. It's in black and white right now. I don't know what the report is going to tell us later that we don't know tonight. So I would like to move forward with this item. I would like the friendly accepted that we're going to add engine 17 to the rescue 12 restoration. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. And to clarify, Vice Mayor, I don't think you're asking for any restorations tonight, is that correct? Okay. Just want to make sure that clarify that as well. Okay. Let's go to the public and then we'll. Okay, let's go to the public. And then after we'll come back to the council. So if you have a comment, please come forward and 3 minutes, state your name.
Speaker 5: Good evening, Councilman and Mayor. My name is Eileen, and I live on Saint Francis in the ninth district. And I come before you to voice his support for Rescue 12. We have a number of seniors living alone in my neighborhood, and I know there's in other areas as well. But it's we have been without a rescue 12 or a rescue truck for quite a number a number of years now. And we have had to rely on other districts for that kind of service. And it's very important. Some of my neighbors have had to wait for quite a while before some have shown up, except maybe for the engine to show up. In fact, yesterday I was out doing some of business and as I came home was approaching the street where I turned to go home. Here had been a head on collision right at the street where I was going to have to turn. The only vehicle there to support the accident was a police car. No paramedics. Nobody else was there. And as I came around the corner and it was the car was sitting right there, it was obvious that somebody had hit the windshield. And I would have liked to have had somebody there to to help. And so. It wasn't until I got home, which is several blocks away, that I finally heard the fire department start to come. Because we have we live I live close to a hospital. So I hear those kind of sirens a lot. So I recognized what it was. So I want to encourage you to support this consideration and for listening to me. And thank you, Vice Mayor Richardson and Councilmember Gonzalez and Mungo and Andrews for going along with him. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Counsel. I'm sorry. I'm actually next for the speaker. I apologize for that. Yes, sir.
Speaker 7: Good evening, Mayor and council members. I'm getting over a call right now, so if I sound kind of funny, it's because of that. I'm in favor of the I'm Phillips. I'm here and I've been a resident of Nord Long Beach for about 50 years and I'm also on the board of the Uptown Business District. I'm in favor of this. And North Long Beach has has a significant amount of industrial properties in their area and which is the equivalent of high rise. But I think the industrial has stands more of a chance of of injuries than than something of that wood type wood. The. 90805 zip code. Is roughly the size of Bellflower or Paramount or Lakewood. And all of these cities have rescue units that they have or they have contracted with someone to provide the service for them. When Fire Station 12 was was built, it was designed to be an emergency response center for the area. And I would assume that being an emergency response unit, that they would have a paramedic there. On a more personal note, I am personally in favor of it because both me and my neighbors have used the service in the past, and I've had a daughter that when she was having a babysitter over there, had a had convulsions . And we found out later that the paramedics came there and brought her back. Also, my wife walking the dog fell and broke her hip and she was couldn't get up. And by the time I got it and got the word and got there, the paramedics were there and helping her and they were putting her on a board and taking her to the hospital. So I appreciate the help that they provided. And I would think it's your duty to return this service to to to North Palm Beach. It's a great city. And I think North Lawn, which deserves it. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next speaker.
Speaker 4: Please.
Speaker 5: Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Vice Mayor, city council members and staff. My name is Margaret Dudley and I live in the ninth district and I'm here to support the restoration. The full restoration of paramedics, rescue 12 in my district is long overdue. It's been on you guys agenda since 2010, I believe. And I fully support Chief Tory's priority and having this paramedic restored. And as my my neighbors in my community in the ninth District, we were very concerned about not having this paramedic in our district. But as you said, Supernormal, we live in the city, the whole of Long Beach, and that's going to be a priority.
Speaker 2: To have.
Speaker 5: Rescue 17 fire in 17 there. So I just urge the city manager and to go ahead when these funds come in for measure in May that you you restore you fully restore and fund rescue paramedic rescue 12. And I thank you for hearing me and I hope that you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving and a safe holiday . And to my citizens, my residents of North Long Beach. Thank you all for hearing me. And please restore paramedic rescue 12. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you so much. Hello.
Speaker 5: Good afternoon. Afternoon. Glad to see you again. See the honorable mayor and Vice Mayor Rex Richardson to all of the city council representatives. I'm here. My name is Linda Wilson, and I'm a resident in the ninth district in North Long Beach. And I live in the College Square Neighborhood Association area, and I've lived there for over 20 years. I do also I am also one of the community, I guess, activists or community representatives in my area. And while I empathize and feel for what Councilmember Boehner is saying about 17, I just want to remind everyone that our priority here tonight is 12. We've waited a very long time for 12. We've talked about it for years. We've agonized over it for years. We've waited and we've waited and waited for a rescue that was taken away from us. And so this is just a restore of something that was taken away. And that's what we're looking forward to. We appreciate the fact that you're preparing this fiscally sound plan, responsible plan and planning on money that you know you're going to get. And then priorities down the line, addresses additional funds that may come in. But we need stability. We need the assurances we need to bank on money and revenue that is actually planned for allocate it and that we expect mightily to present itself. And so tonight. We're really pleading with you, restore 12. Let me just share a quick story with you. If you could imagine closing your eyes for 3 minutes. Or 5 minutes would even be longer. And I say those time frames because my husband. One night did not respond to me. And I called for paramedics. And I waited and I tried to call him and tell him, don't leave me. I shook him. I tried to breathe for him. I remembered I needed to unlock the door. And so I ran to the front and unlocked the door. Then I needed and came back to him waiting. It hurt. No sirens. I prepared. I said, okay, well, I need some clothes on. So this was in the middle of the night waiting? Nothing. Nothing. It took a very long time. It took 5 minutes. That was an agonizing 5 minutes for paramedics to come. And had we had 12, it would not have taken that long. So tonight, I just want to leave that with you as you consider and as the city manager actually takes a look at the money and all of you give your considerations. 12 We need. Thank you. Go Long Beach.
Speaker 2: Go Long Beach and go uptown.
Speaker 0: That's why I love you. Next. Bigger us. Go uptown. That's right.
Speaker 5: And good evening again. My name's Greenspan, homeowner in the ninth district. And as most of you know, the ninth District is the most populated this district in the city. We don't have access to medical centers, urgent care center. So this rescue 12 would act as a go between. And it actually is a no brainer. I mean, we have new development coming. We have new interests in the north district, which is always on the short end of the stick. Some of these other areas you have Long Beach Memorial St Mary's and we can go on and on. But you know, at the Long Beach we rely on the rescue. Well, not only the service, but because the new station has actually increased our home values, which. Causes us to pay more taxes, to generate, you know, the service. So it's a no brainer to restore the service in an area that is so.
Speaker 2: Populated with.
Speaker 5: Young people under 18 years old. And again, thank you, Mayor Rex Richardson, for your due diligence and have a good night.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Last for the comment.
Speaker 2: Very good. You, Clark, is the address. I obviously support the restoration of all the fire department equipment and resources and particularly with the council. And so, again, I said that there's no reason why we can't do it all. I would, though, once again to point out. That we would not be having this discussion. Had you not? Put the city on the road to bankruptcy by the new city hall. And you had that job. You still had that opportunity, as I outlined earlier, to recapture that some of that money by replacing by building the city hall down on Ocean Boulevard. I fully support also the art and the concept which you talked about, where it's not limited to the fire department says, but restoring the integrity of the police paradigm. And particularly restoring what has been dismantled by the disease, the mindset that now prevails, i.e., destroying, dismantling the neighborhood watch program. I don't know if you're aware of this or not. But if you're one of your neighbors called. And didn't reference. It's the house that had been broken into. There were a home invasion. Was yours? And they were raping or assaulting your family members. The response out of the the disease policy from our. Dispatchers are. Well, that's not your residence. We have to have the owner call period. That is the standing de facto de jury policy of the city of Long Beach. That is disease and demented thinking. We don't need to spend dollar one to change that. We just need to fire the people that put that in place, period. Somebody. Earlier this evening pointed out a glance, another classic example of that. They had reported that a neighbor's wall had been severely damaged. Somebody had driven into it. Teetering on falling over to a public area. The response out of the disease dispatch center. You're not the owner. You have to have the owner call. You don't need to reconvene the Council of Trent to change that. But I think what we're going to have to do is change. A number of people within the police department. Hopefully we'll be able to retain Chief Luna, who's been ill served, as I said, and I'm going to address that a little later that evening.
Speaker 0: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 0: Kate, we're going to go ahead now and go back to the council for a vote. Vice Mayor Richardson.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I just want to thank the speakers who came down. You made really compelling points. And it hadn't even occurred to me that we opened our new fire station in 2013, and it hasn't had a rescue once since. It's been since I've been there. We had the R&D situation, but that was a full rescue. We haven't had a rescue since that structure is open. So that's. So thank you for acknowledging that and for recognize that moment and and for all of you coming down and speaking. And I want to just I want to I want to get the city manager or the city attorney just to restate the motion for me so I can be clear, so we can be clear on what it does include. Okay. Well I'll I'll restated. It's the motion as is the motion as written. I want to accommodate I want to make sure that we do acknowledge and accommodate what Councilman Supernova is saying about, you know, making sure that if we have the ability evaluate, if we have the ability to restore 17 as well as one on one , then put us in a position to do that immediately. So not. So this isn't saying if we, you know, come back with just one plan for 12. Yes. We're not deviating from the chief's plan. But if we have the ability to do further restorations, put us in a position for the council to do so. So does that. Councilman Hooper not is that satisfy your sentiment, Councilmember Pearce? That satisfy your sentiment? Okay. So that said, I want to go ahead and call for a vote and urge my colleagues to support this. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Okay. There's a motion on the floor. Please cast your votes.
Speaker 1: Motion carries.
Speaker 0: Great. Thank you all very much. We're going to go ahead and now go on to public comment. I'm going to let let me name the first few speakers. First up, the first three, please lineup Larry Goodhue, Zo Nicholson and Steve Updike.
Recommendation to request City Manager to evaluate new and ongoing revenue sources, and make the necessary preparations to restore Paramedic Rescue 12 in January 2017, according to the Fire Chief's restoration priority list;

Further request City Manager to evaluate and report back to the City Council the feasibility of a short term and long term plan for additional public safety restorations within 90 days.