Speaker 0: Right. Thank you. We are now moving on to the next item, which is going to be item number 18.
Speaker 1: Report from City Manager Recommendation to review a report on the CARES Act funding and potential uses citywide.
Speaker 0: Great. I'm going to make a couple opening comments and then we're going to turn to the staff presentation. Is the staff presentation ready to go?
Speaker 5: Yes. It's on the screen.
Speaker 0: Okay. Great. So I just want to I'm just going to go ahead and add obviously, this is a significant opportunity for the city, over $40 million for us for COVID response. And I want to just just thank the staff for their just really great work. And I know I've thanked them before, but in particular, the entire city management team, Diana, to our office and certainly Dr. Curley and the at the city manager's office of Government Affairs have been a great team in putting this together. I think the city should be also proud that Long Beach, we led the response for these additional funds at the state level. They were not included, of course, in the at the federal level, in the initial buckets of money. But we led a coalition made up of Long Beach, the city of Oakland, Bakersfield, Anaheim, Santa Ana, Riverside and Stockton are seven cities. I went to the governor and said, look, we, of course, put into the major care act funding, but we deserve also direct funding because of our size. And these are cities in California between 300 and 500,000. And so we worked with the governor's office and we work with other legislators and members as well. And I want to take the time to thank them. We would not also be here if it wasn't for the support of Speaker Rendon, who helped us navigate this process with the pro-tem Toni Atkins and Holly Mitchell, who is the budget chair in the Senate who was very helpful. And our local delegation and I particularly want to thank all of the members of the local delegation, but in particular, I want to thank Assemblymember Patrick O'Donnell and State Senator Lena Gonzalez, who were just complete partners on this from day one and an advocate in Sacramento, along with our other representatives like Senator Umber, like Assemblymember Gibson, that have been also involved in the work. And I just want to thank all of them for their support. There's an enormous amount of of support for the city that's going to take care of funding what we're already doing, but also really funding things in the future, which we're going to hear about here in just a minute. So with that, I'm going to turn this over to Mr. Modica. Good presentation.
Speaker 5: Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. And I do want to start by saying how much I personally think the mayor for leading on this. This was a difficult conversation to go in and have that discussion with the governor and the state and everyone else about making sure that their funding city responses and had we just had 20,000 more people or 20, 30,000 more people, we would have gotten a direct allocation. But we really had to fight for this money. And the mayor led the charge. So thank you very much. So today I want to just give an overview of the money and kind of the general plan and kind of the next step. So we're going to talk about what this money is. We're going to talk about the recommended uses, which are the city's costs in response to the pandemic, including public health, how we're going to support community and residents and how we're going to do business in economic resiliency support and then get to the recommended action. And so, as the mayor mentioned, the CARES Act was established by the Federal Government, which appropriated 150 billion to states and certain local governments. But the cut off to get direct money was that 500,000. And so we did not receive our direct allocation. We went to the state and the state put in 450 million for all cities that did not receive a direct allocation. And Long Beach got the highest amount of any city in that allocation. And so when that budget was approved on June 30th, we got $40.3 million in CARES Act funding and immediately put together a plan to bring to you two weeks later to have you approve the general framework. There is an incredibly tight deadline on this money per the state. It's supposed to be obligated by September 1st and spent by October 30th, which honestly is not realistic. You know, spending $40 million in that short time frame. But we believe we just need to show the state and we'll be asking for exemptions to show that we have a plan and we are spending the money. The federal government requires that all cares act money be done by the end of December, which is a very tall order. And so what this money will help us with is first, we do have a very large budget shortfall in FY 20 that we've talked about. And a lot of that is due to spending money on our response as a local public health jurisdiction. We have a huge role in protecting public health, and so this money is going to help with those costs in Fy20 and Fy21 specifically related to the response. I want to be clear that cares ACT money cannot be used just to offset offset our revenue shortfalls. So this is really about funding COVID tight costs. And so our goals were try to use the most strategic use of these funds to, one, minimize our shortfall caused by caused by the pandemic, to utilize the funds in a way to support these critically needed activities that aren't supported by other funding sources, and then work with all of our available grants and minimize our net costs and help our community. And so that plan, we went to all the departments and asked them to meet these goals and then we identified a list of activities and functions and we had to match them all to the federal guidance. So there are rules on what we can spend it under. We also looking at our city costs in response to the pandemic, how to support community and residents and how to support businesses. And we also are letting you know that today you're approving a general framework. It may be, as we spend this money, that we run into bumps where we may have to move from one allocation to another in order to actually spend this amount of money. So we will be asking you for some flexibility and we'll keep you in the loop if things change. We also took a lot of informal input. So we've been listening ever since March to what the council says with a lot of the needs are departments have been basically telling us through our emergency structure, what is that they're hearing out on the ground? We hear a lot of input from community and business and residents during our responses. We've had lots of public comments at the various council meetings and city meetings, including also a reconciliation. And then also the council did ask us to look at all funding related to COVID and the COVID response through an equity lens. And as we put together these program criteria, we're going to be using that equity lens. So I want to cover the three big buckets. The first one is covering the city's costs. We have about $19.1 million that we've identified out of this bucket that could help offset existing costs or costs through the end of December. We then have our section called Community Support, which is about $14.4 million. And this is going to be in areas such as homeless, sheltering, housing, condition improvements, basic needs, case managers to help out with the basic needs that we have and the basic needs program that the Council brought to us. About $3 million for food insecurity and helping our at risk and senior populations. A specific program dedicated to black education and health education at $1,000,000. Looking at supporting our older adults by 500,000. Mental health and domestic violence investments. Investments in our public health case. Management support in funding early childhood and child care. Nonprofit Relief. We have a lot of struggling nonprofits out there who are doing great work who just need a little bit of help to get through this. We've got Youth Leadership and Ambassador Program really engaging our youth and helping us with our COVID response, funding for youth programing, digital inclusion. We know with so many things going online, there's a need for funding for that and of course supporting our arts community. Business support. We would do the balance $6.7 million towards business, and that would fall in a couple of different areas small business and nonprofit, PPE, distribution, where we can actually buy and use our purchasing power to buy and distribute PPE to businesses. We could create transition and recovery grants to businesses in the amount of $3.6 million. We want to fund our our bids directly and let them do their great work and have them support the businesses and be a force multiplier for us. And businesses are going to have needs like queuing systems, contactless payment systems. They need call centers. We want to fund an economic inclusion coordinator. We also want to be doing education to our businesses, support them through open streets, and also be looking at economic equity. We also have other funding. So this is not the only funding dedicated to this effort. We have, for example, $13 million coming from the county to help fund our county response or I'm sorry, a public health response. We have another $13 million coming from the federal government to fund homelessness, as well as $1.8 million also coming from a different bucket of money to fund homelessness. And we have already $3.6 million coming from CDBG that the council has put towards the tenant assistance program. And we expect some additional moneys from that pot of money that can go towards tenant assistance as well. And so what you're approving tonight is really a bucket of money in the various categories. And then our job as your city staff will be to develop the program guidelines on how to distribute that very, very quickly to go through the federal procurement process. And so what we're looking for tonight is approval of those of of the general plan. And then if you have any comments and thoughts on what you're hearing in the community as we tailor those approaches on how best to distribute this money through federal procurement. And so that's the recommended action. I do want to make one correction, a technical correction. The appropriation needs to read for an economic development instead of 5,250,000. It needs to read 5,500,000 and increase appropriations by that amount. And with that, I turn it back to the Council and ready to answer questions.
Speaker 0: I want to just to add, you know, you had mentioned the county, so we should probably add. I want to just also thank Supervisor Hahn on that county money you mentioned. She was really instrumental in getting that work and that support. So I want to thank her and her team and supervisor Barker as well, who was great. And just a couple other just council support, the state led committee that is made up of course, of Councilmember Richardson, Councilmember Orson and and councilman during. I just want to thank them and also Councilmember Mongo who I know has made the motion with also helpful on the county side. So it's been a team effort and we continue to go out and try to get more resources and we'll continue to do that. And so with that, I let me start I have a motion and a second. The motion by Councilmember Mango seconded Councilmember Richardson. Councilman Mongo.
Speaker 2: Hello. Thank you. I'd like to thank all of our elected leaders, especially all those that were mentioned by the mayor. I want to thank the city staff. This is a very comprehensive list, and I think there's a lot of great things in here. I'd love to expand some of the categories a little bit just to make sure that we're not too narrow in our scope. I guess my question to the city staff is who will be doing the structuring of these programs to ensure that we set aside large quantities of money that it is distributed to several applicants, not just a few. I mean, we have over 10,000 businesses in Long Beach that are Long Beach business license holders. But then we have another I'm sorry, 20,000 that are large business license holders, 10,000 which are brick and mortar in the city. And then, according to the IRS, another 20,000 that don't even require Long Beach business licenses. When we talk about some of these funding areas, what is your thought process on? How to determine who qualifies for how much.
Speaker 5: Yes. So we have some general thoughts we want to hear from the council as well. We have not put together all the program criteria. I have John Keisler here as well as Kelly, who are going to be kind of be leading the two separate sections. And Linda is here as well, and she's going to be helping kind of overall. And so we did some quick math on on the buckets you're talking about. If we were to give every business a little bit of money, it'd probably be about $200 per business. So we want to make it large. So a lot of people can apply, but at some point we're going to run out of money. So we want to make it so that people it's a significant amount, a meaningful amount, but we are recognizing that we don't have unlimited funds. So we have given some thought about trying to make this something that every business can apply for, but also making sure that we're getting it to some of the businesses that don't have any other resources, businesses that would traditionally not even know about these funds and and try to make sure that we don't have it all taken by the businesses that really know our systems very, very well. So there'll be some of that for for for some of those. But we're trying to intentionally also reach those who don't normally hear from the city of Long Beach.
Speaker 2: Right. And there's a couple of methodologies I've talked about with different business owners. Some feel that their gross receipts are indicative of their size. Other the others believe that the employees are indicative of their size. Business licenses in the city of Long Beach do have the number of employees on them, so that might be something that guides us. I'm really open to listening to more of what my colleagues have to say, and then hopefully I'm rounding it out here at the end. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you, councilmember. The second with by Councilmember Richardson.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just that just a few comments here first. This is an incredibly comprehensive list. Congratulations. And thank you to staff for just paying attention to the moment, as well as making sure that the interests of the Council, a lot of the things the Capitals are discussed is as is reflected here. A few things, a few points. I want to I want to want to highlight. First, I know that we discussed creating a repayment plan on some of the back rent. And I know that that's a separate part of resources. I can you, Mr. City Manager, can you explain what additional resources we're receiving that can be targeted at helping people make up for the back rent?
Speaker 5: Yes. Linda Tatum. We'll handle that.
Speaker 2: Councilman Richardson, I think you are aware that when we took the rental assistance program subsequent to that, when there was a consideration for additional funding to make up the gap for those who were going to be a potential risk of eviction, we were looking for a way to supplement or to to make those the federal dollars go further by providing a match. So in short, the program, the rental assistance program is already funded per the one the 5.3 million. But we've anticipated getting a second a potential second round of CARES Act funding through the CDBG CEV. So that's a potential funding source. However, that funding source is, if it comes through the city, it will come through the state. So we don't have an idea of the amount or the timing of that funding. But there's also a third round of potential CDBG VA funding, which likewise we don't have an idea of the timing of that, but we anticipate to get somewhere between two and $4 million on that. So those are the potential additional funding pots we're looking at and that could be used for matching and or other housing assistance efforts or business assistance efforts.
Speaker 3: Great. Thank you. So I'd love to just stay updated on where that is. And it's an important program is a lot of concern about what happens when folks are at the end of the moratorium period and the repayment period when folks have a balloon payment. We want to do what we can to help avoid that. Okay. So just a few more pieces. I love that we've we've specifically called out a number of different products here from lack of equity, basic needs. These are really important resources. There's there was a letter today from Black Lives Matter, Long Beach that read some raise some good questions. And I and I think I want to go ahead and just highlight one of them. And it talks about our equity lines that we applied to this. And and what it really calls for is for us to take a place in equity lines on each individual sort of space here to make sure that, as you know, as each one of these funds roll out, we're thinking about equity and we're thinking about how to make sure that they are targeted in a way that addresses barriers and gets to the communities that are that are impacted by COVID 19. And so I'll give an example. When we did our economic relief package, a part of that was we deployed, I think, $800,000 micro loans to small businesses in about three weeks. The money was gone and a lot of the hard to reach businesses. They never had a real opportunity to understand the program. And by the time they understood the program, these are communities that I mean, these are businesses that traditionally haven't engaged with the city very well. And do you know whatever barriers exist? And they were they missed the boat. I want to make sure that as we look at these different funds, that we do have a plan to address barriers and equity so that we get to some of the hardest some of the, you know, the businesses that are impacted the most about profits that are impacted the most, and the ones that do that do outreach into black communities, Latino communities. I want to make sure that that happens. So is is there a plan to come back with further explanation on how we're going to go ahead and address the equity issues and just how the programs will work on? Is there a plan to come back with a report on that or two from four?
Speaker 5: Yes. So in any normal environment, we would have all that in this council letter. We'd put it all together. We'd spend a month or two understanding all the needs and putting it all out and bring and giving you all that detail, given the speed we needed to go right. To just are we headed in the right direction and get that direction tonight? And then we would put together the rest of those program criteria. We could do that in a memo and outline the general approach. We do want to hear tonight from council if this is the right direction that we're going in. We were thinking very similar. We're looking at potentially some of the maps that we have with the data that shows either COVID impacted communities or show impacted, you know, you know, all of our CVG areas and others that have income criteria on them. So there are a number of different data sources that we are considering to make sure that this money does get utilized citywide, but also with a specific focus on communities that have higher needs.
Speaker 3: I think that makes sense. I think when the memo comes back, the more you can point to like specific impacts of COVID and data to justify how we allocate the resources, I think that makes sense. A couple of issues I'm going to I'm going to raise. So I had a good meeting with some of the local Long Beach restaurants who have some very specific needs. Obviously, we know that the restaurant industry, you know, we're projecting at potentially 50% of these restaurants not making it through this this this challenge, this COVID 19 pandemic and the economic circumstances surrounding it. And I think that we should certainly, you know, economic development should sit down with them and make sure we fully understand before you roll out the economic development grants, like how to make sure these small mom and pop restaurants are getting what they need. I've seen when, you know, sometimes grant programs come out and they don't necessarily meet what they actually need. So I want to make sure that that's informed and we do have a conversation with them and lead them and understand how we can target these resources to make a big impact on our local, local, small restaurants. So. So that's one piece that I want to I want to touch base on. Can we make that happen? Some.
Speaker 5: We'd certainly welcome input. Yes.
Speaker 3: Okay. Next, I know that there's about 19, 19 million bucks going to backfill the Kobe. The city's deficit is released. The Kobe response and I think that's huge. I'm I'm proud say I'm glad to see that the state stepped in to help us with that I want to make sure I want to raise up the issue of fire. I know that right now with a health care emergency, some of the paramedics and they're doing things they haven't done before in there and there are impacts there. How is how is this 19 million or additional funds? How are we? How are we making sure that that is addressing some of the needs in the fire department?
Speaker 5: Yes. So when we did the COVID response, we basically told departments to spend what they need to spend to save lives. So that was fire department, health department and police department and Parks and Rec, anybody. And so we didn't give them a budget. We didn't say, here's your COVID budget. We just said spend and track your costs. And so every department did that at the same time. We also asked them to save money in anything non-covid related. So what these funds can do is they basically will help to offset those costs to keep departments from going way over budget. It becomes a general fund we don't allocated out to, you know, this is your piece and this is your piece. We essentially will use this citywide to fill and backfill the money that we've already spent in the current fiscal year. And it will help us prevent having to do additional reductions in the current fiscal year. Next fiscal year, of course, we we have to make structural reductions well understood.
Speaker 3: So what I'll say what I'll say here, the last thing I'll say is that I think so. There are a number of really important things. And we're going to obviously going to watch it, make sure that these things happen, understand the parameters that you have to get done before the end of the fiscal year, perhaps by the end of the year. I think as it relates to things like the basic needs, I think there are some low hanging fruit things. I just want to say it's consistent to the council item. We look forward to look at ways to just create a front door food access, and I see that there's case managers and things like that here, so I'm really excited and eager to see that happen. I think the mayor announced a basic income pilot and you know, I don't know many details of that, but the concept is the same help address the basic needs of people. And if there's a way to make sure the way we communicate it and align it makes sense, where there's a simple front door, you need assistance with food and shelter. You can call the city. We can help you. I think I want to make sure that we we know we don't miss that. I think as it relates to, you know, we did an item that was myself and Councilman Mongo and we did the item about the business transition. And I see there's resources here about that to support the transition as it relates to queuing systems and contact contactless payment systems. I think we have to take that very, very seriously because, you know, our barbershops have had to close again and we're going to have to figure out how to how to manage how business is going to survive in this open and closed situation until there are treatments or a light at the end of the tunnel on COVID 19. So I really want to see investments into tools like like, you know, queuing systems so you don't have to wait in line at your barbershop or at the nail salon where you those things are there. So we're modernizing as this happens. And so I like a lot of these investments I'm going to make. I'm proud to see this in alignment with what we need. I also want to just chime in and just also thank the mayor for all of his work and city staff also. You know, just thank the region made it a top priority to address the 300 to 500000 cities as well, because this impacted Long Beach, a number of cities. So I do want to just say, you know, we're not alone. We work, we operate as a as a group within a region. And this is a big win, a big win across the region. Thanks a lot. And those are my comments.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Vice Mayor Andrews.
Speaker 4: Yes, thank you. You know, first of all, I'd like to thank the manager team for their leadership during these times for ensuring that we receive our fair share of the dollars. You know, we know that we need the need is great in various areas and that funding only goes so far. You know, for me, some of my priorities are, you know, making sure that these dollars are used in a way that displays equity, racial sensitivity, focusing on communities that need the most assistance. Under the Black Educational Program. I look forward to a sincere attempt to work with the stakeholders and organizations that are doing the work in our community. I know in the past organizations like Tranquility, Counseling and Hotlines and others have been kind of overlooked. And I also hope that we can bring back Black Lives Matter into the conversation, because I know Don is always looking for a way to steer the group into a positive and productive conversation. And of course, I am looking forward to engaging with the Minister of Life and see the job as well. And for that, I just want to thank you guys very much.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Vice Mayor. Councilwoman Price.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I want to start the discussion by thanking the mayor for his advocacy and leadership on this. I know that we would not be here today, but for discussing this item, but for the mayor's leadership and advocacy. So I want to thank you for that, Mr. Mayor. I do have a couple of specific points that I want to call out on this item. The first one is that I know that we have a lot of unofficial bids throughout the city. These are business corridors that are working together collaboratively to advertise the corridor, to bring shoppers and diners to the corridor. But they're not officially a bid yet. Maybe they're working towards a bid, but they're not a bid yet. I'd like to see some of that 5.5 million that's going to economic development go specifically to business corridors that might apply for some corridor improvements or corridor assistance. Corridor incentives, even though they're not part of an official bid. Is that something. Mr.. MODICA That could that could happen as a result of tonight's item?
Speaker 5: Yes. If the council would like to see that, we would likely suggest rather than coming out of the bids section since that is really for business improvement district that that be looked at as part of the 3.6 million. Some of those businesses could group as a bundle and and kind of pool some of their resources at for a corridor and we can look at that if there's interest.
Speaker 2: Is that something that needs to come in the form of a friendly.
Speaker 5: It certainly could.
Speaker 2: Okay. Well, Councilwoman Mango, would you accept that friendly? I would be very interested in the friendly. I do have additional questions for Mr. Modica. How many businesses in our city are in bids?
Speaker 5: Let John Geisler try to answer that.
Speaker 6: Yeah, absolutely, Councilmember. So so we have we don't have an exact total. Today it changes with their membership lists. But we we estimate it's approximately 5000 at any given time across nine different bids and ten total in the area.
Speaker 2: Okay. So that makes sense to me then from a proportion standpoint and I would accept differently. Great. Thank you for that. The other question that I had, Mr. Modica, is can this money be utilized for overtime services? I know that we have, at least from our public safety departments, a lot of overtime and probably many other departments as well. That has been utilized for COVID response and will continue to need to be utilized for COVID response.
Speaker 5: Yes, it can fund COVID directly related response, whether straight time or overtime, I believe.
Speaker 2: Okay, great. Because I think this is really an opportunity for us to. This is a this is a use it or lose it type of. Assistance that the city is getting. And so if we're able to really utilize it to the best of our ability and to the max that we can, then I think we can free up hopefully some of the budget for for other uses and other city needs. So I know that you are looking at that. Mr. MODICA but I just wanted to make sure that I clarified that. I know that Councilwoman Pierce and I have had a lot of discussions with some of our community members regarding a park that has become increasingly concerning between our two districts, Bixby Park and that one of the things that we've had a lot of concerns about in that area is a lot of gathering, very little social distancing, a lot of oversight at that park has been done traditionally in the past by police department. And I really do think that there are lower cost ways to monitor that park and make sure that we're getting outreach and services and also complying with some of our COVID concerns regarding lowering the spread. So one of the things I wanted to ask is whether it's possible for us to try a pilot program at this park , Bixby Park, specifically. There may be other parks that are in need of it where we have a park ranger at the park through the end of when this money can be spent to see whether or not we can help utilize that resource instead of a police officer, which would be a much lower cost to help us with ensuring that we have social distancing with the various gatherings and the markets and things that take place there, as well as just oversight in general of the activities in that park. Is that something that could be utilized with these funds?
Speaker 5: So it would likely be an eligible expense, specifically if it's related to COVID. Of all of our hotspots, Bixby Park is certainly up there as one of our and one of our most challenging in terms of people congregating and not following the rules. So I'd have to talk to the chief of police about operationally, you know, how he could make that work and whether the park ranger is is the best resource. We have had some of those initial conversations. So I don't think you need to add a line item today that could be part of the city response. But if the council is supportive of that, we'd be happy to look at it and see what we can do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just think it's a much lower cost and we've talked a lot about looking at things that our police officers are doing traditionally and thinking about other best uses or best resources for those services. And I think this is one of those categories where it's a lower cost alternative that provides some some oversight. It also is a hotspot in terms of a lot of our demonstrations and just general gatherings. Even though we're not supposed to have other types of gatherings, they're still happening. And I know we do get a lot of calls there. And having the police go out and give warnings is quite costly. So if you're if you're willing to do that, I know Councilwoman Pierce would also support that. So with that. Oh, and then the other thing, I just wanted to express my support for the arts of supporting the arts organizations and the arts endeavors. I know that they're suffering tremendously at this time because of the gathering prohibition on the live performance prohibition. So I think that anything we can do to assist them would be very, very valuable. And I look forward to seeing how these funds are spent to alleviate some of the pains that businesses, residents and communities have suffered. So thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilmember. Next up is Councilman Pierce.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Mayor, and thank you. STAFF Really thank you. Mayor And all the mayor. STAFF For all the work you guys did to get us to this point, I think you've done a fantastic job. I work backwards from my notes since Councilmember Pryce just spoke. I echo the comments about the park ranger at Bixby Park. I think it's much more cost effective or expect it to be more cost effective to have a park ranger there majority of the time versus having, you know, 2 to 8 police come and go throughout the day. And I know that we've tried to get bike officers there in the past and that never really panned out. And I think in the moment that we're in, recognizing the benefit of a park ranger would be wonderful. So whatever we can do to to get a pilot program going with whatever funds you might be able to find , I wholeheartedly support that in. Sooner rather than later, I would say. I know our police officers are also stretched right now while also on the on the comment around the small business support and using some funds for the bids. I totally support that. I do also recognize that we have a lot of businesses that feel like they're operating really on their own or not operating, but trying to get information and resources. And it's been a real challenge, particularly for those on Broadway and those on forth and between Alameda and Cherry. I definitely want to make sure that we're identifying some funds for that. So support that. And the other area that I want to pick out is the item. Let me pull it back up. Stacey had it up and then I closed my out like, oh, Stacey's gonna give me once again. It's okay. I got it. So on on the list, there's an item for early childhood education. Care for those impacted it says to assist ECD providers. With this process. I think the way that this was originally written was in a way that would allow for all providers and youth serving organizations to provide services, low cost or funding to families. And I'm wondering I know I brought it up in our briefing today. Is there a line item in here outside of the youth programing for the 22 summer park sites that allows for low cost child care above five years old?
Speaker 5: Yes. I'm going to have Kelly Colby talk a little bit about how you would take care of child care and our youth. I'd also like her to expand on our park ambassador program and youth ambassador program as we are going to be bringing on people who can walk through our public spaces and really help with some of the challenges we're seeing in parks, which could, in addition to the idea of a park ranger, could could help with some compliance issues. So, Kelly.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 7: Yeah, good evening, council members. So we have two line items. One is early childhood focus on early childhood education and the next is youth programing. And so we intend to sit down and look at those two parts of funding to determine how we best provide in-home child care to two youth who may be school age. So we will be working closely with workforce and others to determine how we best do that. As the early childhood effort was primarily for the 0 to 5 and then the youth programing was supporting some of the older youth. But there is some opportunity there to to make sure that we're partnering across those systems to ensure that there's greater access for youth of all ages. Um. Do you have any other questions on that one? And then I'll follow up on the ambassador program.
Speaker 2: I'm not questions. Your thoughts? I've talked to Senator Gonzales a little bit and a couple other folks. I mean. As a single mom of an eight year old. It is a really trying time. I mean, you guys hear me on all of our Zoom calls and I'm dealing with pickle jars and paint and everything else. It's just really hard. And if we're going to be in this situation for a long, a longer term length of time, I think that we have to really be creative. And I think what we've done with our Parks program this summer has been fantastic, even though we didn't queue up in time to get into one of them . I would love to see a partnership and I don't know if this is within this funding, but it's a good time to bring it up. A partnership with our schools, our city staff, all the parks team, but also our colleges. I know that one of the challenges is is being able to find space during this time. And when we get back into the new school year, I think our park program or it's one adult for ten kids is great and maybe we could use our college spaces to identify classrooms since they're not going to be in session . But I just really hope that we can be creative about how we do this. And I know that you've done a lot of work with your early childhood report that came out, I think, in 2018. And so I even as an opportunity to help support co-ops, that this might be a good time to kind of begin some of that work. So I just we need a lot of help in that area and it's really going to impact working families as we move forward. So go ahead with the park ambassador piece.
Speaker 7: Okay. Just to reflect on what you were saying, so we are in conversation with the school district and and we can also engage in conversations with the universities in terms of allocating additional spaces. So the 22 program, the 22 parks programs that are available this summer, sort of maxed out the locations. And so we already have been in conversation with the school district to identify the potential of utilizing some of their locations, at least for the rest of the summer. And now that they're not coming back or announced until at least October, that provides some additional opportunities. So we are looking at that already and a bit in conversation, um, in terms of the, in terms of the ambassador program. So we already have it's somewhere between 18 and 20 youth between the ages of 18 and 24 who have been trained through the, through workforce development to be parks ambassadors and supervised through parks to do education and outreach in parks, to support people following the orders and ensuring, you know, a safer place as possible. So those are already trained and I think they begin their work within. So I think within the next week or two to begin to utilize that so that that will be in place. They will also be in Bixby. We are looking at the height, at the parks with the highest utilization and so you will be seeing them out there fairly soon. The ambassador program is also being utilized to support contact tracing and other efforts through different training programs at workforce development. These are all for youth ages 18 to 24.
Speaker 2: And are those stipend or paid positions they.
Speaker 7: Are paid, yeah. So the funding that you see under the ambassador line, so workforce development pays for the first 200 hours of their time. And then the remainder of the funding that you see in the ambassador line helps support payment for those ambassadors until the end of the year until the funding runs out.
Speaker 2: That's great. I would say that this is one of those areas. Whenever we talk about the potential of our community members getting together to have a black worker center or organization like that, and I know I've had many conversations the last two weeks with. We would want to try to make sure that they are pulling they're getting their community members from the community that they're going to be working in. And we know that Bixby has a diverse community, and I would want to make sure that we try to line up those ambassadors as much as possible to reflect the communities that they're in. So that's my $0.02 there. Okay. Thank you on that. So small businesses, youth. I want to also echo the comments made by Councilmember Richardson and Councilmember De Andrews or Vice Mayor de Andrews around the Black Lives Matter concerns. I also read the letter today and definitely agree that when we talk about equity toolkit, you know, when I agenda item at the beginning of COVID and the BLM work it, I know that we've been super small so we haven't had it come back yet, but it would be really helpful to have more than just a one line that says this is had an equity lens to it. I know the Health Department has a toolkit and that there's a potentially, you know, one or two page kind of checklist that we could go through that can be tied to some of these items as we move forward. So I just want to encourage us to be able to do that. I know it requires extra work. This is a moment of trust building as we change our practices. And I think it will go a really long way for us to have confidence that these allocations are being used in a way that the community is asking for them to be. So with that, I thank you both very much.
Speaker 0: You got some of your anger.
Speaker 4: Hello? Can you hear me? My computer almost fell. First of all, I want to congratulate and thank the mayor for all the work that he's done in getting these funds. Long Beach has been timely, obviously, with the now the resurgence of the pandemic here in California and and the new stay at home order that we have from the governor really makes this a crucial time in that period for us to get this released in a very timely. I want to also congratulate our Councilmember Rex Richardson, on his work with SAG and and working with them and and the other jurisdictions that make up the region where we're trying to work together to ensure that we get to make our communities work together and get this pandemic over with. I also want to address the fact that, you know, we are we aren't alone. We have a lot of people around the region that are that are very much concerned with what's taking place. And I'm sure that we will be able to get out of this in a very positive way. I want to acknowledge that and their efforts in putting this together so quickly. I mean, I would say we got the money one day in the next week or so. There is a there's a plan here, which is this we need some tweaking perhaps. And we're talking about that. Now, my councilmembers colleagues have addressed some of those that I certainly agree with many of them. I was especially pleased with Councilmember Pearce bringing up the Pacific Gateway and the work that they do and and how we could tap into those funds as well. And that core of people who would be able to assist us. Concerns that I have are more along. And it was mentioned about the the youth programing and what we have in mind with that. And we're also talking about because of the new stay at home order, people are going to be home more often. And when schools are looking at staying closed for the rest of the year through January, that's going to put some stress and stress on families in a lot of different ways as well, not only with terms of food, but also childcare and and jobs. So I'm also hoping that we can support the Pacific Gateway program in one way or another to be able to provide some assistance in getting some jobs out. We had the contact tracing program up there. We also have Census 2020 that we can still use a lot of help. The numbers are as formidable as I would like to see them in terms of what's going on out there with people registering and getting their names and all through the census. So there's a lot of work that we need to do. Looking at this at these funds through an equity lens is certainly a very positive thing to look at, to have and let that work. We're looking at that as part of our discussion that we have here. So I'm very pleased in general with the direction that we're taking with this. I know it's a short timeframe and turn around and just one question in terms of our discussion today, are we going to be getting a a an update or a report on where we're at with this in the day? And we're also having the team and I think we're almost done with the framework discussions out there. I think that's going to be coming forward. And I guess we could tie all that in together to create a plan that will take us through the end of the year.
Speaker 5: Yes. We will be giving additional information on as the programs get developed and we can give status updates on where we are with funding distribution.
Speaker 4: I appreciate that very much more. That's American. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Next up is councilman's in Dallas.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Mayor. Thank you again to staff. Thank you very much for all the work that you've done. And and a big, huge thank you to you, Mayor, as well. I know that that there's been a lot of work put into this and I'm really happy to be supporting this item tonight. I also would just like to really quickly voice my support for for these funds going towards scaling up our rental assistance program. And so many of my residents are struggling, and I think that providing security for renters is one of the best ways to be able to use these funds. I would also like to voice my support for assisting assistance for our hospitality hospitality industry. As you know, a lot of our our residents are employed through the hospitality system and are one of the ones that have been affected greatly. So I think that these funds would be greatly used in those forms. But I also think and which is probably one of the biggest concerns of mine, is to provide these funds for assistance to help people get jobs. So I'm really happy that my colleagues have brought up Pacific Gateway because I know that they're coming up with really innovative ideas to be able to support our community in finding jobs. And so that's going to be really essential, especially in going forward when a lot of people continue to lose their jobs. So thank you again for all your hard work on this item, and I'm wholeheartedly supporting this. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Council member Austin.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I want to just, first of all, thank my colleagues for all of their comments. I don't disagree with much of what has been already articulated here. I want to thank you and your team for your excellent advocacy with Sacramento. Understanding that our city was really facing a a serious fiscal dilemma. This cares act windfall. Well will certainly make a difference to help us recoup our cost for emergency responses, but also will go a long way to help a lot of people in our city. A lot of needy families, a lot of youth. There's money here for seniors and elderly adults. There's an issue there's a line item here that that I'm especially interested in, and that is mental health and domestic violence. You know, last year, a half a million dollars. Can somebody explain exactly what the thought is in terms of who will receive those, those those resources and the and whether or not those resources are accountable to the city or to to the state or to the federal government.
Speaker 7: That's a number. So the the the funding around the mental health and for and for domestic violence is a focus on increasing access education and access around mental health services within the city. As you know, the Department of Mental Health in the county is the primary funder and provider of mental health services within the city of Long Beach, and they subcontract out for those services that then support the city. Our goal with those funds is to increase the knowledge and access of those services to people who are experiencing mental health conditions related to COVID or that have been exacerbated by COVID. So part of that is also helping connect people to different providers and other pieces. So that's one piece of the mental health service. And then the remaining part around the domestic violence would be to fund providers of domestic violence services with additional resources to support people who are experiencing domestic violence. As there's been a lot of discussion about how people are staying home more that they may be in violent situations but are having a more difficult time being able to request service or to engage. And what are the ways that we can better support access to domestic violence services? So that's the funding at this time.
Speaker 4: So we know, for example, the women's shelter of Long Beach where they fall into that category. Would they fall into the homeless shelter?
Speaker 7: They would it would fall under I think they could fall under either of them or both, just depending on what it is that they are seeking. So that would be something that we would have to look at.
Speaker 4: All right. Well, we know that they're doing good work and our and our community would love to see them considered. I guess the question also I have for for for you, Kelly or Tom, is how will these these funds actually. Be. Allocate it, or how will we decide who or what organizations and what agencies receive these funds? It will be a hodgepodge of different for each line item. Or is there a process for for this overall? Yeah.
Speaker 5: So I'll start and I'll have Kelly join in. So we do have to follow some federal procurement guidelines. We obviously need to go very, very quickly. And so we're looking for ways that we can make this a very easy process. You know, in some for businesses will be able to set up kiosks and take applications and do it that way. If we're looking to deliver actual services, we're going to have to create kind of a scope of work and then have people bid on that and submit their application. So, you know, we we are looking and working with our procurement partners in finance to try to make this as easy as possible so that it's not a prolonged process and get their money out the door quickly. So, Kelly, anything you want to add?
Speaker 7: I think also what we wanted to ensure that the council members had an opportunity to review and engage in this conversation prior to final design of any programs just to ensure that we that we were capturing any additional feedback. So from this space, we will be going back starting tomorrow to do the design. And so what are the criteria and then how are we funding through those programs? So that will be forthcoming and you'll be hearing more about that. We're also seeking to do a coordinated effort across all the programs, just in terms of the ability to get the money out the door and in order, you know, the most the most efficient way to organizations that really need it across the city and who have been impacted by COVID.
Speaker 5: And one thing we know that you're going to get the requests and say, how do I access these dollars? So if you could just help us by collecting those and we want to build an email list. And when we're ready to put this money out, we want to make sure everyone who who has been asking about it gets included so that they have a chance to to apply it.
Speaker 4: Certainly. Thank you for that clarification. And I would just say that I think what we have before us is pretty, pretty broad. It covers a lot and will help a lot of people. I am very, very concerned about childcare for for working families, many of the essential workers who are not necessarily health care providers with some or all, but there are a lot of folks out there who, who, who without school been in session coming up in September or having some sort of modified school year for children. It's going to be even that's going to be a major hurdle for for a lot of working families. And so I think we've said, you know, looking at what we approved this evening, we should make sure that we have some flexibility and allow some flexibility to address those type of challenges as we as we and assess our our needs moving forward. I don't think that this is a this is a guideline. I think that we will be approving tonight. But I'd like to see some flexibility and maybe I should ask those. And will our vote this evening provide that flexibility for this for staff or for the council to want to come back in and and adjust if necessary
Speaker 5: ? So that is the recommendation that we are asking for. And the way we would do that is if we saw a category that really needed to be changed, we would ask the ability for us to come up with a different plan. We would put that out in writing to you and kind of move forward. Unless there was objection and the council wanted to formally come bring it back and vote. So that would be our plan is to keep everyone informed of changing circumstances and have that flexibility to make sure the money gets spent.
Speaker 4: Okay. Well, I think we should of and I'm. Really interested. I know other council members are queued up and this is a conversation, but that had a line item on that. That area where we want to have early childhood support, we should look at and look at that very closely and possibly consider or consider even increasing that . I'm curious to know how we came up with these numbers. I know this is this is all you know. Quick response and everything about local government for the last few months has been quick response. I can can you give us some insight on on what was what was the methodology even to come up with the the line items and assess need for the budget here in front of us?
Speaker 5: Yes. So Kelly actually led a group at our emergency operation center, put a group together of kind of subject matter experts in all the departments and talked about what is it that we're going to need over the next six months in terms of supporting people through this COVID response? So that covered business and residents and and health outcomes and a number of different areas. And then we had the kind of like a budget process. The departments put together their ideas and thoughts and kind of a wish list. And, and then our team gets together and tries to, to make it all fit. So in some of these it was, this is how much we can afford, and then we'll craft programs that we can create to it. So again, we also want to make sure that we're meeting your needs. We listened a lot to what the council has to say as you talk about digital divide, as you talk about mental health and substance abuse and and those types of things. So it's a little bit of art and a little bit of science.
Speaker 4: Well, we know we have a very talented team and our health department, our senior management team staff, and these conversations have to be had with the city council. Those are my comments for now. I do like the direction this is going in. Overall, I have concerns. I would like to see potentially more resources and I see potentially a need for more resources and mental health and domestic violence and potentially early childhood support. Beyond that, I do think most of the needs, as I've been listening to my community and and listening to the public, I think their every just about everything is considered here. And I really am supportive of. The business improvement districts, the loan and grant programs to those those areas. As you know, we have two business districts in the eighth District. We also have unofficial business districts. And so I do support the thought behind allocating resources and getting those those areas that aren't necessarily official business districts resources as well. And so those are my comments. Thank you all and appreciate all the great work that has gone into getting us here. This is this is a unusual situation where we are now tasked with spending our resources in the middle of the year and prior to our our budget process, which will probably give us less encouraging numbers to work with. We know we're going to be faced with a challenge in the upcoming fiscal year. So let's. Let's let's help our community and allocate resources while we can. Thank you.
Speaker 0: You let me go to Councilmember Supernanny.
Speaker 3: Thank you. I'd also like to thank the and everyone. I guess what strikes me the most is what our starting point was. It was a lot less than the 40 or 53 million. So to see where we are today is absolutely staggering. So kudos to those who put in work to get the funding. Also like to thank Councilwoman Pryce and also Mongo for accepting the friendly. Um, it's. We have two bids in the fourth district, but we also have huge areas that are not part of a bid, specifically the greater traffic circle area and also the Los Altos Shopping Center. So I think we really have to help those folks, too. On the point of the restaurants where it was stated that. Half of the restaurants you go under if they don't receive assistance and the term mom and pop restaurants was used. I just like to add to that that the major brands, while the franchise owner may be a major corporation, many times the franchisee is a small business person, so they deserve some attention to. And when I think of the restaurants, I just think of, well, I'll just say the service sector in general is a huge job creating machine in our city and in many cities. And I think we have to look at it in terms of that, that the businesses may be located in a particular area of the city or some council district, but those working in those jobs are all over our city. And really that's what we're doing and we're helping those folks. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. I may go back to Councilmember Richardson.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just three more things. So. So, first, I love the comments on early childhood education, childcare. And that's important. Just having two children that are actively enrolled in it, I can tell you they're having a tough time with learning how to make data. And so let's not lose track of there are a lot of like we don't have universal pre-K, so we have public and private childcare centers who are struggling to figure out all of our rules. What does it look like? How do they keep all those things? And so a part of this is making sure that we we figure out how to talk with them and communicate with them and make sure that when you if you go back, you know, go back in the fall or of childcare happens, a lot of these groups, these childcare facilities not connected to lobbies, unified, they're more connected to our local health department than they are. I was make sure that we we place that lens on that. That's for the sake of the kids. Second thing I would say is I there's been a lot of good discussion on the human factors. I want to just remind remind the council that last week we talked about leveraging this as well as some of the coronavirus relief funds to target in a way that helps address it helps interrupt the violence that's happening in our communities. If it hadn't come up on this call. So I just want to make sure that that that staff hears that, that we need to make sure that we are, you know, consistent with the commitment we made last week to violence interruption. I know that that's going to happen, but I think it's important to the public that they hear us say that today. So target the work that we have to do around some of the coronavirus relief and youth ambassadors to violence interruption work. I also think it's a good idea to talk about just some flexibility on how those dollars are are spent. I think I think you're right. The bids are a point in time on who's organized. But a lot of activity is, you know, groups who have trying to get organized or maybe they'll be a business district next year if it were not for the COVID pandemic. But these ears are just as important. So I definitely want make sure we have some flexibility. I also want to say that all bids are not created equal. You know, our our business district in uptown has a quorum and on on a year in their meetings. So just just make sure we're flexible that, you know, we want the we want the funding to go to those areas. But that means that we need to kind of work with them to get it done because they may not have the capacity to be flexible in that way. Make sure that we just understand that there are more than one way, more than one way to support the business improvement district. So in those so those are my final comments. In general, I think we should make sure that we're going to have to go back and get additional funding. That's just the reality. This this issue is not over. We're going to have to go advocate for the Federal Heroes Act. We're going to have to advocate for state and federal stimulus. Those conversations begin now. We're going to have a big state, large bed, large, our mayor, Greg and all the others to get right back to the table and talk about what's next. Thanks a lot.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Let me go ahead now. I think that concludes the council comment. Let me go ahead and go to public comment and then Councilman Mongo, I think, wants to close this out. Is there a public comment on this?
Speaker 4: Yes, we have two speakers. The first speakers, Kelly Lucero.
Speaker 3: Your time starts now.
Speaker 2: Hello. Yes, thank you, Mr. President of the London Symphony and Mayor Garcia, city council members and city staff. As a 35 year resident of this great city, I just wanted to thank you for your extraordinary leadership during this time. As you can imagine, the city's arts organizations are devastated by the pandemic. Our artists and musicians have been out of work.
Speaker 4: Since.
Speaker 2: March, and our staff are enduring severe pay cuts and massive layoffs, knowing we will be the industry to most likely open last. We are in desperate need of your help by including the arts organizations. In the proposed test funding, you are once again demonstrating your ongoing commitment to keeping arts alive.
Speaker 4: For the people.
Speaker 2: Just wanted to thank you all so much for your vision and your investment.
Speaker 4: And for your vote to support this proposal.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Mr. Sara. Next Speaker.
Speaker 4: Next speakers. Mike Merchants in your time starts now. Good evening, Mayor and Council Members on behalf of over 1000 full service restaurants and thousands of employees in our city, I want to thank you for at least having the conversation about the impact of the pandemic. COVID and everything else goes along with keeping a restaurant opening or opening a restaurant. And I also want to specifically thank Councilmember Richardson and Councilmember Supernova for their very kind comments. I wanted to ask the council, as the city manager mentioned, that the funding has to be spent at the CARES Act funding before the end of the calendar year to look at and possibly try to identify other funds within the CARES Act or some of the other programs to help out these restaurants. The restaurants are a true family of owners who have built their restaurants and devoted their lives to the thousands of employees who depend upon those owners keeping the restaurants open. They depend upon that because that's how they pay their rent and everything else. This is huge. It needs some very hard thinking by all of you to figure out how to offset the costs, the payroll costs, the loss of food and beverages gone bad. Restaurants need your help. I appreciate your thoughts that you may have as we move forward together. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilman Mongo.
Speaker 2: Thank you. I appreciate all the council comments and many of my questions have been answered, but I still do have a few remaining questions on the homeless sheltering in $2 million. It states that they're not currently FEMA eligible on some of our shelters or any of our shelters eligible. And why were these not FEMA eligible?
Speaker 5: Theresa Chandler will answer that question.
Speaker 2: Hi. So that the FEMA eligible were for the non congregate shelters. So our shelter that we put up at Silverado was considered congregate because everybody was in the same space. So the eligible is under the non congregate shelters. That's the difference. That qualified. Did we know that we set up the shelter? We were yes, we were aware of that, but we thought that some of the funding was going to cover the congregate sheltering. So.
Speaker 5: And we also use some of the state money to fund some of the congregate sheltering as well. We had state of homeless money for that too.
Speaker 2: What's the total amount spent on the congregate shelters? I'm sorry. I can get back to you on the number. I think it was about 2.5 million. But I can get back to you on that the full amount. I just felt like the number wasn't as proportionate to our winter shelter numbers. And so I thought I would kind of dove in and find out why is it so much more expensive? Or is this projecting through several more months ahead?
Speaker 7: And the sites at Silverado and others are temporary. And they also were something that were done, particularly utilizing staff, volunteers, others who were able to pull together to ensure that this is in place. The Winter Shelter contract is a contract with LAHSA. The funding is based. The funding is. The funding comes from them and they are the ones to negotiate that. So I believe that they paid $30 per bed night, including all meals and and others, I think is the appropriate is how much they pay per person per bed night.
Speaker 2: And when we started the project Roomkey and started to have significant reductions in sheltering needs, did we close these up as soon as possible or are we still operating at lower capacities because the.
Speaker 7: The congregate shelters? Mm hmm. Yeah. So we those were not operating at full capacity. So we had we had opened two we had opened the one at Silverado first. We then opened the one at King Park because those were not full. We reduced. And the King Park, they were then aligned partly into Project ROOMKEY, as well as into the Silverado shelter and the Winter Shelter. Given the current status of that and they were Project Roomkey continues. Also, additional shelters across the city have opened and so there has. When COVID hit, most of those shelters start taking new, new people. And so we needed those additional shelters to support. Those are now starting to open with new abilities to, you know, they've taken on all the practices required to be able to open safe shelters under these COVID times, which has allowed us to close the Silverado shelter and to operate the winter shelter through the contract with Lahsa Project Roomkey. And then also the the other local shelters.
Speaker 2: I'm understanding from community feedback that there are two encampments that are not being addressed by other neighboring agencies. Are we able to, under any of this funding, do outreach into those encampments and ensure that people are being housed and or encouraged to safe distance?
Speaker 7: Councilmember. We have continued to do outreach throughout the city, reaching out to, you know, coach people on safe distances as well as, you know, providing kits and things to help us with sanitization and others. We continue to offer services and to work with people to to access shelter when the winter when the year round shelter comes online , you know, toward the end of August and September, then we'll be able to have, you know, additional 125 bed capacity to support across the different system. But we do continue to outreach and work with our partners to engage in those encampments, to assist them into housing when they're interested.
Speaker 2: Great. Mental health and domestic violence. It says it includes an education campaign. What percentage of the 500,000 is an education campaign? What do we believe that would look like?
Speaker 7: And believe that it's I think it's approximately $100,000 run education campaign, which be working a lot around social media, around different billboards and busses and everything we can to be able to to be able to educate folks as well as working within community community partners who are connected across the different community members, different neighborhoods and others, to be able to really reach out and get the word out through through sort of nontraditional partners to ensure that everyone is aware of and has access to the services that they need.
Speaker 2: Great. The cooling systems and contactless payment systems, I'm really supportive of this. But I'm curious, do we have any idea in the selecting of how much money we're putting towards this, what a system like that costs?
Speaker 6: Council member. So so we have some ideas about different types of subscription based software that is either available online via the cloud and also many POS systems now will actually provide the hardware in exchange for service fees and other things. So there's a there's a number of different business models out there. We're going to be working with probably some some digital navigators out there who are implementing these systems to find out what the options are. And then, of course, working with the different sections or sectors of, of, of business types that use different types of platforms for their specific needs. So as an example, also in that council recommendation that was passed as part of the responsible reopening package, there were questions about queuing systems, reservation and registration systems, point of sale. So there's a there's a large range of different types of solutions that we'll be looking at. And we believe that a lot of the recommendations about solutions will actually come out of the businesses themselves that apply for these grants. So in our estimation, there's going to be a range of about 500 to $1000 is going to be the sweet spot for many of these systems. But I'm sure we're going to find some that are that cost less and some that cost more depending on what what support they need.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of them come with ongoing costs that the business would be burdening. And so I guess my recommendation overall would be that when the businesses apply for any of the grant funds from. Line 16 through the end, I would like to see a single application, a single application that has a very short section on the top that kind of gives us perspective on their business and then really goes into check marks and the amount by each grant category because as a small business you might have PPE distribution, you might have the queuing system. I mean, all of these. Individually. They can't be looked at one at a time. They really need to be looked at globally and then really appraised as a whole on prioritization of the businesses based on both an equity lens. And as I met with the restaurant owners yesterday and I've met with them several times over the last six weeks, and we kind of talk about, as Councilmember Richardson said and they said this to me yesterday, it's expected that 50% of these businesses aren't going to survive. And so we want to make sure that we are making the investments in the organizations that will survive and then working to ensure that the businesses that are most closely helping us recover by jobs. So an example is that the city, I think I heard estimates between 21 and 22,000 jobs in foodservice. If 50% of our food service business at, well, restaurants went under, which would be less than 50% of the food service businesses, because there's categories within that. We were talking about significant jobs. And so you want to make sure that. We also are taking into consideration if you have a business that employs 75 people and a business that employs five people, that there's some proportionality in our allocations in there bringing back our workforce because what we really need to recover is jobs. And then in any case, a lot of this can be reimbursement. A lot of these businesses have already outlaid the cash. And so I would hope that when the application comes out, they say, okay, I'm asking for $1,000. So far I've spent $4,000 and here's why and what that looks like. And so that they those that have already made those investments are the ones really able to access that funding first, because they're also the ones that have been reopening and getting closed. And I want to address the discussion around childcare. I've done a lot of work with workforce Workforce. The Work Source Center on Workforce Development and one of the areas that's been hit hard was our childcare workers. So childcare workers that used to work at congregate childcare facilities are now available to the community to be hired, keep good standards in their personal life, and then be available to go into your home and others. I've really done a lot of promotion and a lot of the mommy groups that I'm in, and the price point is just not acceptable for the current financial status of the families. And so what I would like to see is on the item that Councilmember Austin and Pearce were discussing. Which is early childhood support. I'd like to expand that to say early childhood support and child care. Work force. Program subsidy. So that it's closer to the price point that is really market rate. So I don't know what it is right now. I can make up some number. If the market rate is currently a and work source is charging B, then maybe we find out what that variances and add another 10% and then offer that program through that rate for individuals who are trying to go back to work or have been reentering the workforce or whatever we do. But I would really like to see that. Councilmember Richardson, do you think that that's something that you'd agree to?
Speaker 3: Yeah. Sounds good to me.
Speaker 2: Right. And then within the categories and business support, I'd like to see some flexibility. I'd like to add some verbiage, quite honestly, to any of the categories, but I'll add it in the 3.6 million to also say that some of our businesses have very, very different needs. They had a workforce, a work environment that really had social distancing and other things and or they've really been able to meet some of the other categories. They might already have a queuing system. They might already have some of these other things. And where they're really struggling is that they will never be able to get past that rent payment. So I'd also like to see, similar to my agenda item last week, I recognize that you probably had already finished this list on a rent, a back rent. So march through, let's say June 30th. Rent. It payback matching. So if your rent was deferred for three months, months, and you are able to start a payback program that we would provide matching funds, and I'm not necessarily saying 1 to 1, I'm going to leave that to the staff to come up with what makes sense. I also recognize that some of these places have rent that's two 3000 a month and others have rent that's 25,000 a month. And we're not going to be able to get very far if we're giving money in those bigger categories. However, those categories might be easier for businesses to fill out, and with all the day to day things that they're really encountering, to be able to just say, I'm behind on my rent $75,000, but I'm not going under. I'm going to take this on and I'm asking for three, five, nine. Whatever we decide as a city, the city staff decide is the appropriate amount of a maximum amount for recovery and resilience based on their employee numbers. Then I would like to see that we would come up with some kind of aid in that category and as we draw down additional care funds, as assistant city manager Tatum stated, I'd like to see this expanded because I feel like the number one thing I'm hearing from businesses is they'll never be able to get over that balloon payment. And so I want to find a way that we can get there so that we can maintain those jobs in our city. Because without them small businesses, which the national number, they say 80% of jobs are really housed in small businesses, we won't be able to recover without those jobs. So that would be my comments. Councilmember Richardson, are you open to that amendment?
Speaker 3: I think I don't think it is requires an amendment. What we just gave direction for on those resources is for staff to have the flexibility to design it the way we designed. I think I feel like if some of these small business loans or grants want to use it for rent, I problem with that. But what I don't see.
Speaker 2: In my staff briefing I'm sorry, and myself and my staff briefing rent was not specifically mentioned on here.
Speaker 3: So yeah, no, I think it could be included as a broader set of things. I just love to see what's that.
Speaker 5: And councilmember, if I can jump in here. So I think Councilmember Mongeau is just trying to make sure if somebody has, you know, if rent is their biggest need and there's a there's they apply for one of these grants that they can use it for that. So we're supportive of making it just a larger bucket of COVID related costs and we don't need to get into specifics. Will pay for this, but not for that. We'll try to be as flexible. And if they've lost income and they're behind on their rent and they want to use it for that, where another business might want to use it for barricades to set up in their parking lot. We want to be very flexible. If that's not the intent. If you want to create a different rent program, then we would need to to move things around from the buckets of money that we have here or address that when the CDBG money comes in.
Speaker 0: Let me just say, this is the mayor. I'm going to go back to the council. But guys, it's one I'm sure we're moving along. We have a very long agenda we've been in for a very long time. So let me go back to Councilman Mongo and then those.
Speaker 2: Are my only comments, sir. That was the end. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilmember Pearce.
Speaker 2: Thank you. I just wanted to. There was one item that I left off of my list. I support everything that's been said, and I think it would be great to have a lot of money that businesses could decide to use for back rent. So I support that as well. On the rental assistance, we we didn't bring it up because staff had told us that this was it would come back with a C to BG funds. I just wanted to lift it up and the issues that some of the tenants have had with the application process, I know that there's a letter that staff has around some of these issues, and I hope that as these items come back to us, that those issues can be addressed. And I think some of them were like being able to make changes to the application, making sure that people could get the application in. I know we have some seniors that have had some challenges, so I will save us the time and not go through the whole list. But I hope that we can address those when these items come back.
Speaker 0: Thank you. With that was a roll call vote.
Speaker 1: District one. District two.
Speaker 2: I. Three. I.
Speaker 1: District four.
Speaker 4: I.
Speaker 1: District five.
Speaker 2: I.
Speaker 1: District six.
Speaker 4: I.
Speaker 1: District seven.
Speaker 4: I.
Speaker 1: District eight.
Speaker 4: All right. District nine. All right.
Speaker 1: Motion carries.
Recommendation to review a report on Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) funding and potential uses and provide input and policy direction; and 

Approve State CARES Act related budget appropriation adjustments for Fiscal Year 2020 across various departments and funds in accordance with existing City Council policy.  (Citywide)