and we're live okay good evening
everyone and
welcome to the first city council
meeting of 2021
hope everyone's holidays were good
healthy safe
and uh let's get the show on the road
second okay good evening and welcome to
a regular meeting of the council of the
city of long beach held tuesday january
5th
2021 at 7 p.m we have a roll call
council member to lurie
president councilmember mandel president
councilmember trusted
president vice president mcinnis
president
president bendo present let the record
indicate the presence of city manager
donald gayden and deputy corporation
council richard barrios we'll have a
salute to the flag
i believe uh councilman delorey has a
flag hiding behind him so why don't you
lead us
okay president okay
hands on your heart i pledge allegiance
to the flag of the united states of
america
and to the republic for which it stands
one nation under god indivisible with
liberty and justice for
all please be seated
okay thank you all right
i guess we'll start with the city
manager's report
good evening everyone and thank you very
much
the first person that is speaking under
the city manager's report will be
attorney john gross
all right you muted john there you go
you're unmuted now
uh the city manager asked me to give a
brief report
on the um status of discussions between
uh the city uh which i've been
representing the city in
and the martin luther king
inc the organization that
has had possession of the martin luther
king center for some time
some weeks ago we assisted in the
preparation of a report that was
i believe published widely in the
community
outlining the status of the negotiations
and certainly recognizing the
efforts that the martial king
center inc has made over the years and
its contributions to the community
in terms of programming and services to
the community
the reason for the negotiations focuses
primarily on the fact that
since the mid 90s
there has been no lease agreement
between
the uh city council or the city
and the organization for possession of
the martin luther king
center the initial lease which had been
expanded extended
expired in the mid 90s the
city council being
the fiduciary responsible for
maintenance of
of the building and its operations
has a responsibility we we certainly
advised that there be an appropriate
lease arrangement
between it and the martin luther king
center
inc we have engaged in ongoing
negotiations
with the center
organization we've met on two prior
occasions
and have presented to the um
martin luther king center inc uh a
lengthy
uh term sheet outlining uh the
provisions of a lease that we
uh are proposing uh we are
actually meeting tomorrow morning to
continue that uh
that discussion the aim
of these discussions is very simple one
is to establish a lease
that will provide for utilization of a
portion of the premises
by the martin luther king center inc and
also permit them to
participate in the efforts of the city
to expand
services to the community and actually
be
permitted to utilize not only the martin
luther king center
inc upon application but also
to two other sites within the city for
community services
the the the second aim
is as certainly the city council is
aware
you've appointed a director of community
uh relations who
is in charge of formulation of programs
uh throughout the city and certainly in
uh city-owned
facilities so the second aim is to
have the martin luther king center inc
participate uh in the efforts of
the city in scoping out appropriate
services that it will
[Music]
establish and and to participate to the
extent of being endorsed by the city
uh when it makes application for
particular programs so those are the
only two
reasons i they will certainly uh comment
that there's been and i've seen i've
been
informed and seen some social media
commentary that
it's the intent of the city council to
obtain control of the facility to make
it into condominiums that's
certainly legally a very impossible task
it's
it's it's public property and secondly
that is
absolutely not the city's intent the
intent
is to strike an appropriate
uh police agreement with the center have
them continue to participate
continue to provide programs and to
expand their involvement in city
sponsored uh
activities um that essentially
as i met mentioned earlier tomorrow
morning we have yet another negotiating
session
uh and we are hopeful uh that we can um
bring this matter to closure by the
negotiations of an appropriate lease
instrument
well that's my report mr bendo okay
thank you very much john
um any of the council members have any
questions
okay sorry uh mr gross this is
elizabeth truston yes i just want to
make sure
just emphasize again that this is all
about police
well as a public agency
and certainly one section with just a
scenario
if something should happen to a resident
or a visitor when they're in a city
building
and they get hurt who are they going to
come after
they're going to come after the city yes
certainly the city would be i would
presume that you know competent council
would
uh uh bring suit against the city and
probably the organization as well
the critical piece however is to clarify
in the lease agreement
that appropriate insurance
is obtained by
any organization that uses a portion of
the facility
remember we the intent would be to
permit utilization
of the building by organizations other
than martin luther king
to provide community uh martin luther
king inc to provide community services
i don't mean that in the sense of
displacing them but no as i indicated
they would also be permitted to
utilize other facilities and it's
appropriate and important
for protection of the city's interests
as well as the interests of martin
luther king
inc that apportionment of
the responsibility to provide insurance
for
injuries and property damage that might
occur from utilization of the premises
by
uh the citizenry be set forth in the
lease agreement that is not an unusual
provision in a in fact it's pretty
standard in commercial leases
i just want to emphasize that this is
standard practice and we're not
that's it well it's even beyond standard
practice in the sense that
as public officials you owe the city
a duty of a fiduciary duty to do
to handle city city property
in an appropriate manner and the absence
of a lease
since the mid 90s over 20 years
um it does not exactly meet the
definition of an appropriate um
appropriate arrangement with the users
of that facility this is simply to bring
this into
a conformance with appropriate um
law and you know mr gross this is uh
councilwoman mcginnis i just wanted to
thank
city manager gayden uh rich barrios
and mr gross for making sure that i do
my job
as a fiduciary for this city so again
this is really important that we have
the right paperwork in order
and that i do my job for all the
residents so thank you
um mr gross if you would could you just
give an update
on the status of the covid site safety
reopening plan
for the center and where that is in the
mix
uh in terms of negotiations and um
the lease negotiations as well yes
any user of the premises and we're not
talking about exclusive utilization but
any uh by a particular organization
would have to
for any activity that they would um
be involved in or sponsor would have to
meet
appropriate cdc and new york state
department of health
coveted 19 precautions
okay i just want to monique can you
unmute monique day it's been said that
mlk inc has provided the city with
the necessary
covet plans now it is my understanding
that the covet plan that was given to us
allows them to be in the center
administratively
but it's the programs like as we do in
the city for every program we have
we have to have a separate site safety
plan
for that particular program um
john and monique have we received
anything outside of the administrative
uh program kobits um i did receive
something last week that we are
thoroughly going through
there were two touch points that i had
communicated with mlk
administrative and board members that
their previous safety plan
talked about arrival for youth all at
the same time
and there's been numerous guidances out
there that recommends having a staggered
arrival so that you can control
arrival of the youth in contract chasing
if anybody
if anyone's exposed um and for them not
to come in at the same time i
recommended different egresses
that they can come through knowing the
building and the facilities that there
are various ways that the children can
come in so they're not all entering in
the front um another recommendation was
not to have about 30 programs at the
same time
uh due to covert and what's going on in
pandemic there is no one that's actually
uh operating in full capacity so i
advise to
communicate the list of services and
maybe identify a priority of needs
and offer services that they think are
priority to not offer 39 programs and
they agreed
um and the next one is to think about
the type of programs to reduce
any type of contact sports with the
guidance uh tried to
sway away from using contact sports
which transfer bodily fluids
so there was some like sports that were
being done so
we talked about eliminating uh some of
those and the new revised plan
uh it was broken down and we are just
currently reviewing it i did receive it
last week and confirmed
it was during the holiday time um and i
we're going to
thoroughly go through it and the goal
was after this meeting
tomorrow to continue to meet with the
mlk board and executive team
to like to really just review it so that
uh those of
those children families being served in
a building are not
exposed or at risk of being exposed to
covet
um so so monique this is karen it sounds
that like we're on the same page in the
fact that
the organization has given you the
requirements that they believe
uh satisfies everything that they're
supposed to do however
the city has a responsibility to review
the document
to make sure that it is in compliance
and that's the stage
with with we are at is that correct
that is correct thank you
were there any additional questions for
mr gross
can i uh miss gayden also during the
meeting it was just said that
um remote services can be provided at
the time
just until the safety plan has been
approved and thoroughly reviewed
that uh you know administratively they
can operate out of the building
and that we could think about or they
could i'm sorry
creating some type of remote learning
services until then
okay has do you are you aware of any
remote services that they have
come um suggested at this time
um i haven't had a chance to thoroughly
look through the safety plan it wasn't
identified in the body of the email so i
i won't comment on that but i don't
think there is and i haven't seen any
communications about starting it um okay
so okay
i just want to say thank you monique you
have reached out to them several times
you and their executive director
and a few of their board members have
met um
and so i just want um the council to
know
that we're trying to move ahead as a as
a collaborative
not one against the other but as a
collaborative um i look forward to
hearing
what happens tomorrow on the call um if
there's no more questions for
um john gross i thank you very much and
now monique powell is going to talk
about
all the programs that the city is doing
great so it's a great segue um i am
excited that
we are moving forward with creating a
logic framework model
using a theory of change to provide
programs and services that is accessible
to
all communities in the city of long
beach so we are shifting towards some
type of data-driven decision-making
when providing the resources to the
residents and to all communities as a
whole
and that is using our primary data of
who's who
in the city of long beach in addition to
census data and other data points
but just being able to say that we use
data to identify their needs and
interests so that programs and services
citywide are aligned according to that
so a lot of reorganizing we have
reopened
the youth and family services department
uh with that being said we've created a
hub a location where anybody from the
community
in the communities of long beach can go
to call because of covid
um go online and seek what resources are
available
to them and it's based on this theory of
of of change or framework
a logic framework model so we have hired
a youth and families coordinator
this is somebody that would be by the
phone we will have office hours
virtual hours as well uh where intakes
will happen
uh we hired a youth uh from
the from the long beach north park
community as a street team to help us to
advertise it but now we have a set staff
there
that will provide some type of community
mapping resource mapping for anybody
that comes to the door that is in need
any youth or family member
so uh that i'm very excited to say that
the office is on the second floor of the
magnolia community center
it is currently being remodeled um and
we will
move forward with that so you'll hear
more definitely about that so in
addition to that
under this youth and families department
one
area is senior services so we have
identified what are senior services as a
hold in the city of long beach
we have assigned a staff member who was
previously
lined under the magnolia school who is
now going to be
the program senior program specialist
uh so she is assigned to assist us with
all the senior programming
um she is like the point of contact uh
when it comes to the seniors he will
answer the seniors hotline
help me coordinate any programs any
events and be there
speaking of programs we have our first
program that is launching it's called a
grab-and-go
long beach masked up golden edition
i thought everyone would like that
golden meaning senior edition
and what that means is that we are going
to provide ppe equipment
to all the seniors that is our gold in
the city of long beach
we're going to do that as a grab and go
in various locations
we're going to do it as deliveries where
our city manager and police commissioner
will do some surprise deliveries
and even drop off to some of the
residents of seniors
in certain areas if they're not able to
take advantage of the grab-and-go and
the delivery
we are collaborating with some community
organizations
we are seeking additional help we spoke
out we spoke to helen
from the long beach latino civic
association new life christ into
pastor moses um we spoke to miss jackie
odom
and i am calling and reaching out to
other community organizations as well
we spoke to the sisterhood over there at
the temple
and i seek the help and advisement of
our senior advisory board in doing so
now in handing out these items we are
seeking some good data we are asking
seniors to fill out a
needs assessment interest survey so we
are getting their demographics of where
they are where they live
updating our files and also asking them
what are your needs
and simple needs are either
transportation seeing family and friends
personal care so all this is actually on
our website live so you can see a copy
of the assessment
and then we're asking what are they
interested in recreation
technology and are they interested in
virtual
zoom are they interested in coming in or
any of their other needs so we're
excited to kick this off because
it's like a double dip of handed out ppe
covet
uh our response to covet in the
community and
also moving forward with this framework
model
um any questions about the grab and go
the flyer has been translated in english
and in spanish and it's actually on our
website on social media
um and that's that so another program
that we're doing with the seniors
is the history of long beach and mlk
so with that we are handed out to
seniors postcards where they can
give us a description of oh i'm sorry
where they can send a message to youth
depicting their memories of long beach
and
mlk uh so special seniors get to
inform the youth and the community about
what their memories were because
some of them have been around during
that time that's what makes them so
golden
and history is very important in the
city of long beach
and that is our senior program
so far any questions about that hi
monique this is liz
i just want to pivot back on the needs
assessment service
portion do you is i haven't seen the
form
but is there a uh
a box or a line that they can
um add their name to the city of long
beach fire
departments
they have a list for persons that with
disabilities or
with certain medical circumstances that
should in need arise
when the fd comes upon their apartment
or their home
i think i think liz froze i think liz
froze but to answer that
the box is not on there but now that we
have a program manager we will make sure
that we
get that vital information i'll double
back with the fire department just to
get the content
of that and we will definitely reach out
now that we have a
database um and get that collection that
uh information moving forward
thank you good okay
monique i just want to thank you um for
your enthusiasm and your passion
uh you're you've got me very excited to
see the programs that are going to be
rolled out
but i also want to give you credit for
um something that i feel that the city
you know everyone could always improve
on and the fact is that you're taking a
disciplined
documented approach for programs
that is data driven so that we can learn
what works
and that we can learn what doesn't work
and what can be improved on
and so that we can share this
information amongst the organizations
within the community
to make sure that that the resources are
getting to the right people at the right
time
so i'm very excited to see the work
coming out of your department in the
future
thank you thank you karen for
understanding my vision without me
having to
say it with only the limited time that i
have but that was exactly my point
um i will move i will move on to the
early childhood part of
family and youth services i spent some
time reorganizing
our sandbox and our am and pm programs
with the external forces that we have
that we can't control as far as covid
um and working with the school districts
and families um so the first thing we're
concentrating on is
creating a robust program for those who
are still enrolled and for the families
that stayed with us during these tough
times
um so we are changing our schedule for
the am pm programs
with adding a breakfast and snack uh
adding
those youth development activities we're
adding yoga
into it we're adding stem programming
we're adding technology thursday fun
friday
in arts and crafts on wednesday so these
are for the kids that are at our
co-located school with lido beach um
that we have
and also at our west end but we started
to look into outcome
what we would call competitors because
everybody needs child care and then this
tough time is
how do you retain the enrollment another
decision was to take our sandbox program
and meet the needs of the parents by
offering uh
monday through friday instead of monday
i think was monday
wednesday or friday so i instead of
offering three days we are also giving
parents
five days options uh to have our child
care and the premise on that is that the
building was available staff was there
so we need to utilize every corner so
that we can maximize
revenue coming in and providing what's
actually needed for the community
we're able to stay under market rate uh
because we now align that program with
our public service
on the community development and the
department so later on and not right now
because i can't promise right now
we will start to see some of the costs
being absorbed as our
public services uh providing this youth
care and offering workshops to families
so i am in the talks of bringing wic
back nurturing moms program
uh breastfeeding lactating classes and
any program that helps families from
birth to five
in that building so we're looking into
upgrading the building to make sure it's
safe i spoke to tommy c
and his staff and thank you for that but
we are now rebranding our youth programs
we're going
contact less with our software so that
anybody can log in
as far as families to see an update on
their child remotely
and if we have to remove to remote
learning services we already have the
platform
so you will definitely see that the next
one is our youth programs which is our
older
school-aged child programs that will be
operating currently
um out of the magnolia community center
on the second floor
i won't take too much of the time you
will see an update on that
the next is the greatest thing and i'm
enthused and sorry for my teacher rapid
fire voice but i know we don't have a
lot of
time is that we now have added a added
feature when we talk about accessible to
all
so we have added a transportation
stop and thanks to the team and
transportation in brandon where
there is going there is a bus stop now
that is in front of
that is on riverside boulevard adjacent
to the mlk building
we use that transportation stop numerous
times for the summer camp
where we're providing access from
riverside to magnolia boulevard
so this stop happens at 7 30 in the
morning and we'll
we'll learn why 7 30 in the morning
later on but most importantly at 3
30 p.m where our youth can travel
from riverside boulevard at 3 30 uh in a
city sponsor bus for free
to magnolia boulevard to attend any of
our youth programs
covet style right now the return trip is
at six o'clock they could meet in front
of the magnolia building and return
back to riverside by 6 30. so we are
launching that program and we are
excited
um any comments about that
um monique you did mention um
that we were gonna be at the long beach
housing
long beach housing for the grab-and-go
correct
yes there are various locations we will
be we're talking to mike cruz and his
team
uh the senior housing um so we those are
called our drop
off locations where we're dropping off
right now we're promoting
what uh we can control which is our uh
grab-and-go
in our community centers and then we'll
be outreaching to those in the community
so they could be our drop-off sites um
and then in addition to the delivery
that we'll be having
all right thank you any additional
questions
well since we're on child care we have
joe lupo who's going to talk about jcc
who's going to be at the magnolia center
hello everyone can you hear me yes we
can joe
all right first off we need to thank you
following monique is tough man she has
that really contagious energy it's uh
it's hard to keep up with her
but um with respect to jcc uh they
advise us that they're almost done with
all the preparations at magnolia
and they anticipate the center being
open in a couple of weeks
um currently they're just waiting for
the office of children and family
services to uh
finalize and complete the licensing
process um
at this point they already have a few
children enrolled but that's not really
their focus currently they're you know
obviously you know they're still setting
up and you know they need their license
so they want to
finalize everything and then they're
going to focus more on enrollment
um actually they're planning a full
media blast within the next couple weeks
to promote and
promote the program and to advise the
community of all the services they offer
um and with respect to that media blast
they will be sharing the information
with the city so then we can review it
and then also post it on our website
um it's really it with respect to uh you
know
everyone who i spoke to spoke with at
the jccc
you know they tell us that they're
really excited to work with the city in
this project
um they're really looking forward to
opening and seems like a really great
thing
so joe just to be clear because uh you
didn't specifically say this but this is
for
a daycare center correct um mr bender i
apologize
you know what uh i'm so ingrained in
this that i just assume that everybody
has uh
as much exposure to it as i do i'm sorry
that's no that's fine
um yeah so at the magnolia center um the
uh jason ski
the freedom jewish community center is
going to be running a
day cap um you know for children uh
i believe it's uh 10 or 11 months old so
about six
um and yeah yeah we have a fully
executed contract with them
they're uh you know they do a lot of
great stuff
okay that's good to hear any questions
so this is an example of where we have
leased the building
to the jcc and we're in the building
it's a city-owned building
and we're collaborating and bringing
bringing necessary programs
to benefit the community as a whole um
on that that takes care of all the child
care i believe dave frazier
wants to talk uh about
a couple of things that we have gotten
foils on or a bunch of questions
well i just have basically one uh one
item that we've added to the website
uh we've gotten a lot of questions about
the transcripts for the meetings
um we produce right now for each meeting
we produce
um minutes and proceedings and the
videos
we have a lot of items that we do
produce for each meeting
one of the things people have been
asking for is the transcripts from the
meetings
and uh up to this point it's been um
we've been
telling people to get it off off of the
youtube platform
and it's not been very um a very easy
thing to do
so what we've done is we've added a um
let me see if i could share this um on
here
give me one second folks okay what we've
done
is we've added on to the um
city council page we've added a section
called uh council meeting youtube
transcripts
and all what we've done we've downloaded
the transcripts
from each um each of the meetings into a
separate file
um and also there's a convenient link
back to our youtube channel if you want
to refer back to the video as well
um to the corresponding meeting um all
these are or just
it's it's a verbatim um computer
generated
um transcript of the meeting
um so that way if you're if you're
unsure of something that was said
or some topic that was on there it's
it's a reference tool that you can
that that you can use to uh
to to view information about the meeting
that's it thank you are there any
questions
um the last speaker i have is mr john
mcnally to talk
give covet updates
always happy to leave you all on a high
note um
i think first before i get into covid uh
councilman delorey
had reached out earlier and just wanted
a quick update on the status of where
we're at with parking meters for the
central business district so
uh i think we will have a little bit
more of a detailed update at the next
meeting because we have
an internal staff meeting with a number
of different departments
next tuesday and what we're doing there
is really just
going over with the fine-tooth comb
really vetting the numbers and the
assumptions that
our parking consultant has provided us
with to make sure that this is viable
and that we're
we're grounded in reality before we move
forward with something as significant as
this
um so we'll have a little bit more of an
update on that but it is moving we've
kept it going along we've had a number
of conversations with the consultant
and internally on a staff level um so we
we are keeping this kicking along and
moving along
uh in terms of covid
glad we had really positive stuff with
um monique
and mr lubo because it's about to get
somebody less positive
so for the week ending january 3rd so
this past sunday in the preceding seven
days we had 235 confirmed cases in long
beach
which brings us to exactly 2100
confirmed cases
in the city since the beginning of the
pandemic
the 235 cases over the preceding seven
days
equals out to 33.5 cases per day
and is also equivalent to one case per
thousand people per day
uh that's the data that we have on the
granular level
data came out yesterday on the
region-wide so long island nassau and
suffolk county
the positivity rate for all the tests in
nassau and suffolk combined was
9.6
and the other real key metric that the
governor is using
in determining what regulations he might
put on a specific area
is the percent of available icu beds
over a seven day rolling period
uh and on long island we're still at 22
which is really where we've been for the
past couple of weeks uh
so that's the good news um we've not hit
a critical mass but
we're also now just two and a half weeks
out from christmas
and just a few days out from new year's
so
i think what most of the experts are
looking at of you know
behavior drives this uh did everybody
avoid gatherings during the holiday
season and the proof will be in the
pudding over the next couple of days
you know you figure 10 to 14 days out
from
uh new year's you will see positive
cases
and then another two to four weeks after
that is when hospitalization typically
occurs so
um you know all the numbers i just went
through are
pretty much unprecedented precedented
since the spring we haven't
done numbers even remotely near this so
they're obviously a level of concern
um but in order to really keep our
schools operating
make sure that we're not inundating our
our hospitals which is going to be one
of the key drivers of if businesses can
stay open and
we can have some level of sense of
normalcy or what has become normal
um so again we would urge everybody to
really
avoid gatherings wear your masks
maintain social distance
wash your hands frequently um and really
just don't
go anywhere unless you need to the
vaccines out there uh
we've had some of our emts already
receive it it's been the first in our
city
and developing plans for the city
workforce we know we have a couple of
physicians in town
um that are looking to become
distribution centers for it so
there is a light at the end of the
tunnel we just need to have a little bit
more patience
you know and stick to it a little bit
longer and along those lines
um we had a meeting with one of the
organizers of the polar bear plunge
last week and it was universally agreed
amongst
all that were present that there's no
way to really do a plunge like that
where you have tens of thousands of
people
all shoulder to shoulder on the beach um
so
what they're coming out with is you know
splash at home
um or some sort of reiteration of it but
we can't have large-scale gatherings
of people jumping into the ocean um all
on one day at one time
so we're ordering you know asking people
to get creative continue to support
make a wish foundation they've got their
fundraising page up and running already
individuals can still do theirs but
whether you want to do an ice bucket
challenge whether you want to take a
cold shower or a cold bath with ice
cubes whether you want to
run around in a sprinkler on a 20 degree
january day
up to you there's different ways to look
at and do this um
and again we'll look forward to uh you
know miss out on this one time this year
we've missed out on a lot of one things
this year
but we'll get back to normal as uh as
this found
vaccine gets in people's arms and uh we
start to come out of this pandemic
so that's my report any questions
um thank you very much were you gonna
say something mike i just want to thank
john
mcnally for uh remembering that and um
i just don't know um
well you gotta mention the parking
that's it i just wanna thank you for
remembering that john
although you may not think it might it's
on our radar it's on our to-do list and
we're we're following up on it on a
regular basis we just don't report on it
uh until we have something actually to
report on until we work things out
i just have two items um monique spoke
about moving someone from mc
from youth from magnolia to youth and
family services and so i want everybody
to know that's item number 11
on on the agenda where it's where we're
moving salaries of twenty one thousand
three thirty six eighty four
from the magnolia down to i mean from
yeah from magnolia to youth and family
services
um so that's what item number eleven is
i also
um want to let everybody know that i am
hopefully wrapping up the remaining of
the commissions and boards
um interviews so within the next couple
of weeks
we should be fully on board with
everything
there are a couple boards that you all
have to vote on and they will be ready
for you all to take a look
next week and then be on the agenda at
the next meeting
uh the last thing i have is we've
updated the rfp
process typically what happens is that
rfp is uh has a deadline the rfp comes
into the city at that particular
deadline time
the staff itself opens up the rfps and
then make a listing
um i have been preaching transparency
and so from this point on starting this
this week every rfp that is opened up in
the city will be broadcast on youtube
and anybody that wants to watch will be
able to see
at that time when we collect and we have
all of the bids in
or all of the proposals in it will be
announced that this
these are the companies that we have
received proposals from
so that no one ever has to question
whether we let somebody in
later um it's all about being
transparent
and on that if you have no questions
that ends the city manager's report for
this meeting
all right thank you very much awful lot
of stuff going on
so uh good to see things moving ahead
um so with that dave i guess we could
move on to our uh
to agenda and i guess the public hearing
first item's a public hearing for an
ordinance to amend the code of
ordinances of the city of long beach
regarding the environmental advisory
board
all right don is someone speaking on
this i think this one's pretty
straightforward we're just expanding the
number of people on the environmental
advisory board
yes this happened to be one of the
boards that we had a lot of people
we have more people than the number that
are very interested in being on the
advisory board
and after talking to several people
we're going to have a joint meeting
with environmental planning and zoning
all together to make sure that all of
the committees and boards are on the
same page
so we needed to extend the number
increase the number i'm sorry of people
on the environmental board
okay so we're going from seven to nine
correct right
okay any
questions from the council members i
just have a general comment
that i want to thank all those people uh
that expressed interest submitted
information
i looked at some of their their
their background and i'm very impressed
with the
talent in the the abilities
that this environmental advisory board
of which i have to admit i don't know
much about
and you know the environment um
is what i hear and what people try to
tell me what i should be doing um
but i'm looking forward to them becoming
very active in an advisory role to both
the city manager and the city council i
just want
if there is any members on zoom tonight
i just want to thank them
that's it yeah clearly we have some
some smart people in this city that we
can tap into
and uh and the only person you need to
be listening to is your wife
so um
all right any other questions from the
council members
all right dave uh let's open it up for
the public no hands at this time
okay well uh with no hands then i guess
we'll close the
hearing and move on to the agenda we're
going to move on to the agenda item one
is approval of minutes for prior
meetings october 20th 2020 and november
4th
2020. do i have a motion to approve
i make a tape second
i second morning councilmember delorey
yes that's remember mandel yes council
member trusted
yes vice president mcginnis yes
president bendo
yes okay item
two is an ordinance to amend the code of
ordinances of the city of long beach
regarding environmental advisory board a
hearing has been held on this item
already
item three is a resolution authorizing
adoption of the new
retention and disposition schedule for
the new york for new york local
government records
all right now who's is that you dave or
donna i guess we're just making
ourselves because
that with the state yes so what what
happened um
this year is the uh new york state
archives which
is the organization that that controls
the um retention schedule
um did a complete overhaul of the
retention schedules
uh previous to this there were several
different schedules there was one for
municipal one for county
um you know different there was all
sorts of different schedules
they consolidated them all into one
schedule and made a few updates
as a result um we have to adopt we just
have to um
adopt this resolution showing that we're
going to follow this schedule
um as opposed to the old schedule which
is the uh
which was the mu1 this is now the um
called the uh lgs one
uh very similar to the old schedule um
um but with with a few updates and um
a lot more stuff that uh
for counties and for other things that
weren't in our schedule before
okay um any questions from the council
members
all right seeing none we got any from
the public
no hands at this time okay then let's
move on to item four
and four's resolution authorizing the
city manager to appoint a police
commissioner
and you want me to speak on that
uh i i think it's pretty straight
forward it's just that the uh i mean the
the
resolution outlines it pretty well that
the the charter provides that the city
manager
is the police commissioner but the city
manager
can say no we need a separate police
commissioner but they need the city
council's approval to do
that so we're approving that
and so the appointment becomes
i guess official or allows you to make
the appointment official
okay um thank you um i have ron walsh
but i'll have him speak after you
vote on it okay
um so hold on ron all right so
uh any uh any questions from the council
members
uh right seeing none any from the public
roy lester hang on okay
go ahead roy you thought i wasn't there
john huh
oh no i i had no doubt okay um
when was the uh the uh police commission
search committee formed i don't remember
that it says it was formed six months
ago
you know what roy this is donna it was a
while back i'll have to look because it
took us a while
i'll have to look at the exact dates i
can
i just i went to entire last year's uh
um you know agendas i
i never saw it it wasn't on the agenda
roy we put together
uh we put together a
when we went out to look um we got names
for this
for the um for the committee
and i'm not sure i have to look at when
we started the interview process but it
was a long interview process
yeah no i i know that but
the first interviews were in early
august yes
okay because you said that it was uh
community representatives
i don't ever remember you asking for
community representatives
we received our community
representatives roy but yes there were
community representatives there were law
representatives
there was representatives across the
board so i mean was that something that
people
volunteered for was it something you
just chose
uh it was chosen from a list of names
that we were given from
um organizations that we reached out to
to cross
to go across the board so we know that
some people probably would be upset that
they weren't asked but there was a very
good search committee
and i'm not there's no question that
there wasn't a good search committee
i'm just questioning that you know
people who might have wanted to be
involved
never even knew about it from what i see
that's
you know it just is a a kind of odd way
of
of getting the community involved in a
search committee
um and it was the search committee that
did the recommendation
correct that is correct okay and
is there a listing of that uh committee
um yes there is a listing of the
committee once the it's voted on we'll
put out the listing of the committee
oh okay which will be tonight and you
know i i mean i wish
ron a lot of luck i think he's very
qualified
i'm just you know this is in no way a
reflection on him
it is just the way it's being done that
i question
the other thing too is you say that the
section 20 of the charter of the city of
long beach provides that that the city
manager of the city be the mayor of the
city
i when we
when this new group came in one of the
first things they were going to do
was change the charter and change the
charter
so that it took out references of the
mayor
i and i mean we haven't had a mayor for
how many years now
40 50 years
and yet we still have it
okay so roy i'll answer that question
you know i've only been here really
working since the beginning of march um
the idea was that we would start working
on the charter
and then we had covet we had beach
season
we had sharks we had hurricanes
we had a lot of things going on in the
last few months that has prevented us
from working on the charter however
just last week we started working on the
charter as a whole
because there are a lot of things in the
charter that
needs to be fixed so don't don't worry
um it's now being addressed um and it
will take us a few months to get through
the entire charter but we are starting
to work on it
uh yeah i know i know it was done before
you came you know it was going through
completely
we are looking at anything that was done
prior to me getting here
and just to make sure that we're getting
everything in line with you
with the code all right well as long as
those sharks don't come back
all right thank you thanks okay thanks
roy
all right anyone else dave that's all we
have right now
okay let's move on to item five item
five is a resolution confirming the
reappointment of a civil service
commission member and the appointment of
two new members to the civil service
commission for the city of long beach
um that is me um i did interviews for
the civil service commission
um we had two i believe um
everybody had expired and they had um
rolled over
until the uh until we finished the
uh applications and the interviews and
so what i'm bringing before you
is the one um
one person to to remain
and then bringing on two new people
um and that would be miss solemn
miss solomon patricia o'donnell and
mark moses would make up the civil
service
okay state law for a civil service
commission requires that
uh no more than two members
can be from the same political party we
have verified that uh
correct yes you have one republican two
democrats okay
good and the reason there's not two
republicans i don't want to be
anybody to think that i just i went
ahead and just put two democrats because
i'm very
anti-political we only had one
republican applauded
okay that said they were republican
okay any questions from the council
members um
john i just have one question and who
between
themselves would become the i guess is
there a chairman
they vote between themselves yes
thank you donna you're welcome
okay any other questions
all right dave any questions from the
public no hands raised
okay let's move on to item six and six
is a resolution authorizing budget
amendment to the capital fund budget
all right i think i'm gonna assume i
don't know if john's on but we talked
about this quite a bit at the last
meeting this is on and we're just want
to make sure that
everybody understands why the difference
um we have talked about it several times
but mr
mr fabrizio sorry about that joe um
we'll just give you another update on
why
um it's an additional 13 million dollars
stage is yours joe
joke ahead you're muted
okay yeah joe we're not hearing you so
uh
i'm not sure which end it's coming from
no he's he's unable to talk here
okay joe see if your phone is muted
and we requested he pulled back in
yes
okay well why he's doing that so if i'm
i'm going from memory but this was the
increase in the north shore bulkhead and
stormwater protection project that
this was the increase because of
additional work that the
engineers determined and the uh
and fema approved the additional so it's
not costing the city any additional
money but we have to obviously
approve the uh the increased revenues
and the increased appropriation
yeah we want to make sure that the
budget reflects the increase
right right
yeah it's just an adjustment to the
budget john but yes right
okay if he comes on we can go to the
next if you come back
okay i think we covered right i mean any
of the council members got any questions
all right uh i get i guess i'll see if
i'm on i'm on the phone with joe right
now
uh if we want to move on to the next
item why don't we move on and then we
can come back all right that's fine
okay joe hold on a second um
so i'll call item seven as a resolution
authorizing budget amendments
to the general and sewer fund budgets
for the 2020 2021 fiscal year
and that would be inna
hello hi good evening
how is everyone doing happy new year
and um
okay so um
the first of the resolutions that
have to do with the transfer actually
it's a
budget amendment
um so we are moving and you will see
through the next couple of resolutions
as well
for operational needs of the city
we have to move staff from one
department to another
i believe it was always done um
in the past often not sure
if um it was accompanied by the budget
transfers
or not but um this year
especially reacting to corvid and the
needs of certain departments
where needs are increased certain
department needs are decreased
uh staff is being moved so to make sure
that
um we are accountable and using budget
as a control mechanism for our spending
as a true control mechanism for our
spending we
make sure that we ask our city council
to approve uh budget transfers
to fund um this
positions in the departments where they
um are more needed and where they um
will be working so um
in connection with um this um
item number seven uh we are asking
for uh we're asking for eight
thousand nine hundred and sixty four
thousand
sixty four dollars uh to be
moved from the regular salary lines in
the sewer department uh
to the inter fund transfer
and in the that's in the sewer fund and
in the general fund
we will recognize that same amount as
the inter fund revenue
and increase the regular salaries
that is um
that is the amount that will be needed
to
um to fund um
the salary of the what a native mechanic
helper um that person worked as a
part-time
mechanic and uh will be um will be
transitioning to the full-time position
and um
um that that's about that
okay got any questions from the council
members
um uh you know this is mike delore is it
an allocation
from um this person's time
that now is being um
some of it allocated to the sewer
fund no
no it's uh a person went from part-time
to full-time
the person won from part-time to
full-time in the central garage
and there were access funds for my what
i believe
is a retirement and a sewer department
in a salary line
okay thank you
all right any other questions from the
council
all right dave any from the public yes
we have roy lester but before we do that
uh
joe fabrizio are you on yeah i think i'm
on now
okay yeah all right so stand by for one
second we'll finish this item
yeah in a second okay hey roy i'm going
to mute you
hold on a second go ahead roy okay
um so you know when you said staff being
moved this was not actual staff being
moved it was just money being taken from
the sewer department to the
and moved over to the garage correct so
i was actually uh referencing
uh we have four different resolutions i
think
for that pertain to the um
movement of budgets from the salary
lines
to um between the department and
it's uh um yeah it's either movement of
staff from part-time to full-time
positions
or movement between the departments yes
or between funds
so in this particular case i'm just
talking about resolution number seven
it was not a movement of staff it was
just uh
a a promotion so to speak from part-time
to full-time
and you took the money from the sewer
yes
yeah okay so my question is
what is part time i mean it it does it
go up to
39 at my um hours a week or
in this particular case because i look
at it if someone was doing
you know 15 hours a week 15 is usually
part-time and now they're full-time and
they
they the difference is only 9 000
that seems very low pay
can you can you just straighten that out
for me
sure so um that person was actually
making in mid-20s historically
for like an average for the last couple
of years
um his um hourly wage was 18
an hour and his salary as an automated
mechanic helper
grade nine step one will be forty five
thousand nine hundred
and twenty eight dollars so the
difference between
25 and 45 um
divided by two because we're only doing
it for half of the year
it's um about nine thousand dollars
okay well all right that's what i didn't
understand it but
it's only for half a year yeah okay
yes only for it only this is done only
for the rema reminder of the
fiscal 2021. and then the following year
he'll be budgeted within the
uh garage budget that is correct
okay then then it makes sense to me all
right thank you
sure hey anyone else dave
nope that's all okay why don't we cycle
back to item
six okay yeah we have joe on the line
now
all right i apologize good evening
everyone i apologize for the technical
difficulty we had
of as far currently the 2019-2020
capital budget included 20 million 60
000 327 for the north shore
critical infrastructure project um
the project cost actually however
actually came in at 33 million
560 000 395.
so um we actually requested that
additional funding the difference
between the 33 million and the 20
million
we requested that fema provide that
additional funding which we got
notification
it was all approved which is fantastic
um so basically what this
resolution is doing is just adding the
13 500
068 to the original 20 million 60 327
to come up with the actual final total
that the project's going to be which is
33 million
by 63.95
okay thanks joe um any
questions come up from the council
members
see none dave any from the public
nope none from the public okay thank you
joe and let's move on to item eight
item number eight is the resolution
authorizing transfer of funds for the
2020 2021 fiscal year
okay uh is this going to be iana or you
donna
it's ina okay oh
i'm still in muted right yes okay
so um eight part-time employees from the
sanitation
department uh were promoted to full-time
positions the full-time annual salary
was thirty nine thousand
four hundred and thirty nine dollars um
half of that for the half of the year
in 2021 is nineteen thousand seven
hundred and nineteen dollars
and uh that adds up to 157
7756 uh
which we asked to be moved from the
temporary salary line to
the regular salary line in the same
department in the sanitation department
okay any questions or comments from the
council
um no
yes i have a comment okay
this is karen i just wanted to extend my
sincere
congratulations to the sanitation
department leadership
and the eight-time part-time of eight
part-time employees that have recently
become
and union members with health benefits
i'm beyond thrilled that the sanitation
department leadership
worked with city manager gaydon and city
comptroller
ina resnick to make this happen
so even though i had absolutely nothing
to do with it
i am i am just so proud that we were
able to
transfer these eight to eight smartpak
employees to full-time employees
without increasing the overall budget
this year
and i'm wishing you all the very best so
thank you
yeah and just i guess to give people a
little a little background
on this on this issue um
a past practice that the city did
which quite frankly was a little
disgraceful
was the people the the the city would
employ
part-time employees and
but would employ them for part-time for
years i mean
years and years um
and they would work excessive hours with
no benefits
and quite frankly as we found out
a lot of them were making less than
minimum wage
and uh quite frankly that wasn't
acceptable
to us and um these are not people that
sit in nice air-conditioned offices
these are some
hard-working people that uh picking up
our garbage
in the wind and the rain and the snow
and the heat
and the cold um people like clean the
bathrooms
on the boardwalk and things like that
and quite frankly
um the city almost created a permanent
underclass
with these people by making them work
uh like i said some some excessive hours
for at times less than minimum wage and
that's just
that's just completely unacceptable so
we're we're
taking measures to fix that and
this is part of that where we're making
some of these now employees we're taking
them off a part-time status and
and putting them on on full-time status
so they get the fair treatment that
uh that they deserve and as the as the
budget allows
uh next fiscal year we're gonna we're
gonna do more of that
um but uh we have to make sure
our our employees are are treated fairly
because
uh they're the ones who uh um
keep our city uh keep our city running
so uh just uh i think that background's
important to have because
you know there's this um
dark shadow that i think that that's
been uh
over the uh some of the workforce um
and and never should have been and it
was allowed to go on for a long time and
and
we're we're we're gonna we're gonna fix
that
so and that's what this is doing it's
starting to do
so sorry about that little diatribe but
i think people need to
need to know that and understand that um
so any other comments or questions from
the council
good job john you said it you said it
straight i'll give you some credit
all right thank you i'm sorry i didn't
mean to steal any give
the limelight but you did it you said it
right i just think
i think people need to understand what
was going on um
so uh uh dave any uh comments from the
public
no hands are raised okay uh let's move
on to item nine
item nine is also a resolution
authorizing transfer of funds for the
2020 21
2021 fiscal year
okay that you again ena
um actually i think that greg's god if
he's in a call he'll be
better equipped to talk about it
that is greg scott okay can you hear me
yes we can that's great okay happy new
years everybody
happy new year yes um what this transfer
is is we've been working on and planning
to phase out
the city public receptacles and this is
part of that plan
um we have 131 city public receptacles
and 40 of them are on in the west end on
beech street
we have 66 on park avenue
and we have 30 on the other three
boulevards long beach road
and edward boulevard and national
i mean this is the first phase of that
project to
get the 40 cans replaced in the west end
and as you know
all of these cans were damaged by sandy
the bottoms are rotted out
and they're in poor condition so this is
um
what we have to do and aesthetically
it's gonna make our town look a lot
better
great uh any questions from the council
mike great thank you very much and uh
well i i'm gonna anticipate a question
is
this was output out for bid or was it
under the bid amount
uh no it was put out for bid and there
was three bidders
and warsaw or tile had the best
price for us so that's who we're gonna
go with thank you greg
you're welcome mike okay any other
questions
all right see hearing none dave any from
the public
no hands raised okay let's move on to
item
10. item 10 is also a resolution of
authorizing transfer funds for the 2020
2021 fiscal year that's greg
uh yes can you hear me yes still can
hear you
we have our sign shop they were they
were presently located down at maple
on park at the old uh police auxiliary
building
they are now located and housed in
street maintenance
uh which is a much better facility with
running water which they didn't have
down there
and bathrooms um so we transferred
the staff here to the highway department
and the funds
but we will still be working with the
police department and all their needs
okay
good you got more greg are you done no i
just want to
thank all the city council don and
everybody for their efforts with
sanitation
that's a big win-win for everybody
yeah it is appreciate it greg
all right uh any questions from the
council on this
all right seeing none dave any from the
public
we have two first is roy lester okay
dad right can i meet you okay um i just
have a question we just went through the
whole thing with sanitation and how
nice it is to get them off the part-time
status which i've been complaining about
for years
until full-time and am i
correct that now we're putting another
one on part-time status
are you talking about the resolution
number 10 roy yes
this is moving the um the sign shop
staff from police
to send to street maintenance no to
sanitation it says
it says street maintenance street
maintenance it's just moving the staff
they're being charged to street
maintenance instead of the
police department it says the effects of
the resolution sanitation so i think
yeah i'm sorry oh
oh i see what he's saying yeah there's a
type of
maintenance that's we need to correct
that when you look oh okay that's
yeah i can understand right all right
well you have to correct it before you
vote on it correct absolutely yeah we'll
have to make an amendment
okay all right thank you
um okay uh before we get the next
speaker dave should we just make that
amendment motion now do that real quick
hang on one second i'm just pulling this
up
uh so that's in the whereas clause
correct
where uh yeah right okay so
i'll make a motion to change uh
sanitation department
to street maintenance department second
that motion president vendo okay
vote on the motion council member
delorey yes thank you mr lester for
pointing it out
council member mandel yes councilmember
truston
yes vice president mcginnis yes
president bendo
yes okay and we do have one other hand
raised
okay so that's uh joey nahim hold on one
second
go ahead sir good evening
uh council members and uh everybody how
are you
hey joey hey how are you i am
just in relation to the sign um staff
transfer
i had um requested that some signs had
been um
updated once um the state
changed the smoking law because um
entering beach property uh
now like some of the rules are that
smoking has enforced
um and some of the signs had had not
been updated and i was in contact with
mike
tagney and it still hasn't been um
updated so i was just
wondering if this would affect that um
request that i had made over uh
two years ago um no it wouldn't this is
donald the city manager nor would you if
you would call my office tomorrow
so i can understand which um questions
you had or
do the signs you were referring to we'll
look we'll look out i will look into it
personally
okay i'll call in the morning thanks all
right thank you everybody good night
okay have a good night joe
all right anyone else dave dull all
right let's move on to item
12. okay
well item 11. i'm sorry i yeah i i
put two pages in my book they're all
titled the same so they're all going to
run together
yeah uh item 11 is also a resolution of
authorizing transfer funds for the 2020
2021 fiscal year
all right in again or uh
this is the one we talked about and i
mentioned it earlier
yeah monique mentioned this earlier that
we're moving someone from uh
uh magnolia to youth and family right
so i don't i don't know if we need to
rehash that
since we did it earlier uh we got any
questions from the council
all right any from the public dave hands
okay now we can move to item 12. and
item 12 is a resolution authorizing
publication of a notice of public
hearing of an application wave or street
parking requirements for premise
1052 west beach street street floor long
beach
uh this item is for publication only
hearing will be held january 19th at 7
pm
now we're going to circle back to the
voting
item 2 is an ordinance to amend the code
of ordinances of the city of long beach
regarding environmental advisory board
would you just move the adoption of this
item i will
second i will
or whomever voting council member
delivery yes
councilmember mandel yes councilmember
trusted
yes vice president mcginnis president
bendo
yes item three is a resolution
authorizing adoption
of the new retention and disposition
schedule for the new york local
government records
we'll introduce move the adoption of
this item i will
second i will
voting councilman delorey yes
councilmember mandel
yes councilmember truston yes vice
president mcginnis
yes president bendo yes
item four is a resolution authorizing
the city manager to point a police
commissioner
would you just move the adoption of this
item
oh sorry karen karen got it
first i'll take a second okay
okay uh voting counseling with deleri
yes
uh council member mandel yes
councilmember
truston yes vice president mcginnis yes
president pendo yes item five is a
resolution confirming the reappointment
of a civil service commission member
and the appointment of two new members
to the civil service commission for the
city of long beach
would you just move the adoption of this
item i will
second i will
voting council member delorey yes
councilmember mandel
yes council member trusted okay vice
president mcginnis
yes president bendo yes
item six is a resolution there's a
resolution authorizing budget amendment
to the capital fund budget
don't you just move the adoption of this
item i will
second i will voting councilman delorey
yes that's remember mandel yes council
member trusting
yes vice president mcginnis yes
president bando
yes item seven is a resolution
authorizing budget amendments to the
general and sewer fund budgets for the
2020-2021 fiscal year
would you just move the adoption of this
item well
second i want president
yes councilmember mandel yes
councilmember trusted
yes vice president mcginnis yes
president bendo
yes item eight is a resolution
authorizing transfer of funds for the
2020-2021 fiscal year
i'll introduce some of the adoption of
this item
i will second i
will congratulate liz
voting council member delorey yes
councilmember mandel yes councilmember
yes vice president mcginnis yes
president pendo yes item nine is also a
resolution authorizing transfer of funds
for the 2020 2021 fiscal year
which just removed the adoption of this
item i will
second i will
vote in council member delivery
yes councilmember mandel yes
councilmember treston
yes vice president mcginnis yes
president bendo
yes item 10 is the resolution of
authorizing transfer funds for the
2020-2021 fiscal year
wouldn't you just remember the adoption
of this item as amended
i will second
i will voting councilmember delury
yes councilmember mandel yes
councilmember tristan
yes vice president mcginnis yes
president bendo
yes item 11 is a resolution or
a resolution of authorizing transfer
funds for the 2020 20
21 fiscal year who introduced remove the
adoption of this item
i will second
i will voting council member delorey
yes councilmember mandel yes
councilmember treston
yes vice president mcginnis
uh president bender yes and item 12 is a
resolution authorizing publication of a
notice of public hearing of an
application wave or street parking
requirements
for premise 1052 west beach street
street floor
introduced remove the adoption of this
item i will
second i will
voting council member delorey yes
councilmember mandel yes councilmember
truston
vice president mcginnis yes president
bendo
yes we'll make a motion to close the
meeting prior to doing that did we want
to give uh
chief walsh an opportunity to speak up
yes yes
we did he's been waiting patiently
hello sue hello commissioner
hello everybody how are you good thank
you
good uh it's good to be here and i just
have a few words
that i wanted to say uh to the council
and uh
anybody who's watching yeah first i
wanted to basically say that uh
well i wanted to thank the you know city
manager gayden
the council and all the members and all
the panels who participated
mutated in the selection and the
selection committee for their trust and
confidence in me
i i greatly appreciate that i'm very
excited to
be here and since being informed that i
was the city's choice i've
attended several community meetings i've
also been spending time
with the city administration as well as
the police department itself and i've
been working together with uh
acting commissioner richard palmer and
the entire department everyone's been
absolutely terrific there's a lot to
learn about the city here there are many
operational practices that are very
unique
to uh the city that uh we're in the
process right now
starting to evaluate to see if we can be
more productive
and if and efficient that's already
begun uh acting commissioner de palma
has been doing a fantastic job and he
and i have been uh really working
uh in formulating a lot of different
policies and procedures
uh to help the department of the city be
more responsive to the public
and also to save money at the same
time additionally we're also still
working on the governor's executive
order
uh 203 for uh police reform
uh with the goal that uh that actual
document will come to the city council
uh sometime in february for the council
to uh to vote upon and then uh
to seek public feedback uh we've also
begun the process of looking to update
uh
the department's website uh the actual
the actual information on there is very
outdated but the platform is on is
outdated also
and uh several members of the department
have been working
with myself uh and and uh commissioner
uh the palmer to find the most course
efficient way
to actually bring that back into the
21st century so that
uh i have a vision that that will
actually be uh
the place where members of the community
can actually go and get the information
that they're looking for about the
police department
what activities we're involved in what
arrests we've made things like that so
sort of a one-stop shop it's gonna take
a little time to put that together too
but
you know i have to say that uh since
getting involved down here the city and
uh
and and the department it's been
terrific
uh everybody's been working very
collaborative uh with me
and uh i really feel like i'm gonna be
able to hit the ground running it's
very exciting i'm really really looking
forward to the uh to the future so uh
i just wanted to give that that briefly
i wanted to say thank you to each and
every one of you the council members
and uh thank you for the confidence and
i look forward to getting started on uh
when i get sworn in
great and welcome aboard and look
forward to seeing some great stuff
thank you all right now we could uh
move on dave we'll make a motion to
close the meeting
[Music]
second
[Music]
yes thank you councilmember mandel
yes councilmember trusted yes
vice president mcginnis yes president
bendo
yes okay all right folks um
the way this works is use the raise your
hand function if you wish to speak
for good and welfare okay
uh i think everybody knows the uh the
drill on this but
uh three minutes uh
and uh please uh keep it civil
so uh who's up first dave
roy lester okay go ahead right
okay um dave i appreciate you putting
the
uh youtube transcripts on the website
but
to be honest and i think you can look at
them they're virtually
worthless you can't really they change
every couple of seconds you don't know
who's speaking
you there's no way to actually look at
them and
have a continuation of thought a regular
transcript
basically you know it does have time
stamps but it has time stamps
you know whatever you request but you
can request it to change
to have a time stamp every time a new
person
um speaks and that way people can
actually follow it through a transcript
um what i did was i had that same thing
transcribed
by a company i did there in england
they're relatively cheap for that
transcription
and uh a lot of the words are different
but it also you can follow it because
it's an entire paragraph
not just one line at a time i don't know
if anybody else has looked at these
transcripts that you put up but they're
close to impossible to follow is there
any reason we can't do that
i mean they turned it over in one day
and relatively speaking it was cheap
i mean much cheaper than having somebody
do it
um roy this is donna we will go back and
we'll look into it
i'm gonna send you a copy too don and
you'll see
what an incredible difference it is this
is from the
meaning of the 15th okay
thank you you're welcome and the other
thing is um
on the the i.t budget last
week uh you know two weeks ago um
how can i you say you have 280
000 of it maintenance contracts
how many computers do we have
now bro you know i don't know that exact
number right well you gave you
you know we have 175 email addresses
right but that doesn't every computer
may not have an email address i'll get
that for you roy
okay because it just i i didn't know we
had those
that many contracts yeah we have quite a
few contracts because they're for
software and other things but
we'll get you a listing a matter of fact
we talked about that today
to get an idea on the next budget um all
of the contracts by name and amount
yeah that is something that you will see
in the near future
and that's for the public as well
probably by
uh april you will be there will be a
transparency
link on the website and all contracts
will be on the website and we can do the
same with the phones because
i you know if i don't i don't think we
have voice over internet which we should
it's a much cheaper way of going
but i i understand you pay 140 000 for
phones
which to me seems like a lot of money
for phones
um but if that could be included too
donna
i just the only reason i'm saying that
is i remember in the school district
where we had
a contract with dell and we had a
separate contract for maintenance of the
exact
same computers and nobody picked it up
for years and i picked it up and i
just couldn't believe that we had these
double contracts that's why when i found
out we were
spending 280 000 just on it contracts it
it just kind of
you know certainly i understand what
you're saying roy and i appreciate it
i mean you you do give us good ideas um
and things to look at and so we are
looking at all of the contracts right
now so
you you know roy we will get back to you
and we've talked to you last week and
this week so
you know i will or ina will get back to
you oh i know you will
thank you so much that's your three
minutes
that's all i needed thanks all right
uh any more hands dave yes next is hold
on one second
kathleen o'leary okay hi kathleen
go ahead kathleen hey you got a picture
this time you didn't have one last time
uh we're not hearing you kathleen i
don't know if your
phone is muted perhaps
kathleen check check if you're muted
because we we have you unmuted here
nope not having any luck um uh
maybe try going out and coming back in
and we'll
put her back on the top of the list when
she yep okay so
it's back to uh joey naham
and it joey again welcome back
hi good to be back i i also want to say
hi to
city manager donna gate and i forgot to
say hi earlier
um i wanted to ask quickly is um
thanks is is commissioner miranda
um on by any chance is
commissioner miranda what on the phone
yeah no he's not
okay i um when i had uh spoken to
uh him last at the meeting um he asked
me to write an
email and i i had requesting the army
corps
um engineers contact for the the groin
remediation project
and i was just following up because i i
didn't hear back so
i'll get them next time okay also we can
we can discuss that tomorrow so i can
make sure you get an answer
oh great uh thank you okay have a good
night
i'll talk to him all right have a good
night joe you too john bye
all right uh did we get kathleen back
hold on uh let me try this again
kathleen
she's muted right now yeah
yeah i've been requesting but she's not
yeah i'm doing the same thing and i'm
getting no response
kathleen you have to unmute
no no response okay uh all right
is there someone else and we can come
back to kathleen
uh judy vining okay hi judy
just unmute yourself judy
did it i think yep there you go okay
um really just a couple of things happy
new year everybody
um i want to welcome our new police
commissioner commissioner walsh
as you well know long beach aware has a
long history of
partnering with and paying police over
time
um so um we're looking forward to
working
with him as well and i heard him say
he's
been attending some community meetings
so i'd like to
extend an invitation to him to our next
coalition meeting which is on
zoom of course uh january 25th
um at 7 pm no pizza for now
um and other than that
um i just want to remind everybody that
we still need to take a look at
our social host ordinance it really just
requires a tweak
but we did not include marijuana in it
and
um
the way the governor's proposal is going
in terms of
his budget um it's in there whether
it'll pass or not we don't know but it
certainly
has always been a struggle every year so
i think we need to be in front of it
instead of
behind it that's it
okay uh we could put that uh
to talk about maybe at our next working
meeting so we could have a
not limited to three minutes we could
have a longer discussion about it
um john in all honesty it's
what it is is is a quick fix i mean it's
just
adding what we somehow all of us and
when i say all of us i mean
when we changed the social hosting up
the fines
we had the police commissioner we had
myself we had the corporation council
we had everybody who had an interest in
it
a meeting and we all missed it we just
didn't realize we didn't do it so
okay do you have uh um
that was before i'm sorry our meeting is
january 27th
it's wednesday okay um all right we'll
we'll
we'll talk offline then we'll see maybe
we don't need to then if it's that
simple a fix
um we'll uh uh i'll we'll talk to donna
and uh see
yeah okay it really is oh you know i
mean i'm happy to come and talk anytime
you want me to but
this is a quick fix okay all right
sounds good
okay anything else nope
all right have a good night you too
all right and i see kathleen is still on
uh anymore
any luck nope she will not unmute
okay kathleen o'leary are you able to
unmute i hope she's okay
all right is there anyone else that's
that that's all we have
okay uh
all right i mean uh i guess oh wait she
just unmuted
am i here am i on yeah there you go oh
there we go finally i forgot to plug the
microphone in so
oh okay high tech solution that'll do it
okay i want to wish everyone a very
happy and healthy new year
um i wanted to speak about two parking
items and
one recycling item first of all
i have been suggesting metered parking
in the three business districts since
2011
so i'm very glad to see that this
administration
has finally addressed it and hopefully
will install the meters the other thing
i wanted to
say which i thought was very good i read
in the paper that
we stopped paying rent for three parking
lots
and saved a hundred and fifty thousand
dollars
i thought that was a really smart way to
save money
and um you know it'll be what it is
people will have to go a little farther
i guess
um the last thing i wanted to say about
recycling was
um when recycling just first started a
long time ago
um in my neighborhood we had people
coming on to your property
and going through your garbage cans at
night and it was
you know not right so what i and some of
my neighbors started doing these are
people looking for bottles
um to refund so what we started doing
was
taking out the bottles of whether they
be plastic
or glass and putting them in a separate
bag
which are picked up by these people
before recycling gets here
and um you know since now we're paying a
fortune
for each ton of recycling i think it
would reduce
that cost and also with the economy
the way it is there are more and more of
these people
collecting the bottles to supplement
their income
um i see senior citizens doing at night
i see mothers doing it at night
so it might be an indirect way to help
people in addition to
um the food banks that's my idea
good good idea because it saves us money
too on the disposal costs
yeah um yeah donna maybe we could
discuss that with the sanitation folks
uh
figuring out how maybe to do that yes i
wrote it down thank you kathleen
you're welcome thank you okay anything
else
okay well have a good night and uh that
was it dave
that's it okay well thanks for joining
us
uh everyone uh hopefully uh
2021 will go uh
a little less chaotic than 2020 was and
uh
everyone have a good night and we'll see
you at the next one take care
have a good night happy new year alright
everybody
happy new year