TITLE
Recommendation to request City Manager and City Attorney to review the drafted Neighborhood Transformation Partnership Agreement and report back within 45 days on the feasibility of participating in the program.
DISCUSSION
Roles being requested by the City of Long Beach:
1. Designate a Councilmember that serves West Long Beach as co-chair of the Leadership Team.
2. Direct appropriate administrative and other personnel to compile and share data about the City services provided in the designated community, including entering into any requisite legal agreements to allow and facilitate the sharing of such data among the Partners.
3. Dedicate available existing resources to the extent possible and join with Partners to seek additional public and private resources as needed and agreed to by all Partners.
4. Assign City personnel to serve on the Integrated Services Team(s), including at least law enforcement (to foster community policing), recreation, and any workforce preparation and/or training services, to help drive the 5 Big Outcomes: Education, Employment, Crime, Poverty and Health.
5. Ensure that consolidated family plans for each household are developed and implemented and that impacts are monitored and assessed to generate aggregated data.
6. Cooperate in ongoing monitoring of progress in the completion of consolidated family plans and assessment of impacts, tracking of collective overall results in the community and ensuring a public report is published at least annually.
BACKGROUND:
The City of Long Beach is a leading city in both technological advancements and innovation, being named a "top ten digital city seven years in a row." However, certain sectors within our community continue to remain affected by the digital divide. Roughly 25-percent of the City facing some sort of digital divide, and in January 2018, the Long Beach City Council, led by Councilwoman Lena Gonzalez, took actions to close that gap by working on a digital inclusion plan, including offering incentives to internet service providers to expand and promote programs for low-income households, repurpose used city computers and even expand free public Wi-Fi and digital literacy programs.
The California Emerging Technology Fund is a statewide non-profit organization that has a mission to close the Digital Divide in California. Its focus is on the digital divide challenge and addressing it in a collaborative and holistic manner. The California Emerging Technology Fund, along with the YMCA of Greater Los Angeles has reached out to local agencies in hopes of obtaining multi-agency collaboration through a Neighborhood Transformation Partnership Agreement in the neighborhood surrounding Stephens Middle School in West Long Beach.
This Neighborhood Transformation Partnership agreement would seek to require collaboration among State, County, City and School governments to coordinate actions that must be people focused, place-based and linked to the regional economy. The purpose of the Partnership Agreement would be to set forth the commitments of all of the partners individually and collectively to work together to improve the lives and futures of the residents in West Long Beach. The agreement would include the California Emerging Technology Fund, Long Beach Unified School District, Office of California State Assembly member Patrick O'Donnell, County of Los Angeles, City of Long Beach and the YMCA of Greater Los Angeles. This partnership could serve to further enhance the ongoing digital inclusion efforts by the Long Beach City Council.
FISCAL IMPACT
Staff time and resources to participate in the Neighborhood Partnership Program.
SUGGESTED ACTION
Approve recommendation.
Respectfully Submitted,
ROBERTO URANGA
COUNCILMEMBER, SEVENTH DISTRICT
LENA GONZALEZ
COUNCILWOMAN, FIRST DISTRICT