Trade, Travel, and Tourism Committee - 10/25/2022 @ 3:30 PM
and moment councilman we are starting the webinar in three two one and I believe we are live great thank you Dennis uh welcome to today's trade travel and Tourism Committee today is uh Tuesday October 25th thank you all for joining us I'm uh chairman Bush gaino I'd like to kick off today's committee meeting with roll call please here Lee present three members and a core Mr chair thank you Mr clerk with that list uh turn to the public comment portion of today's uh T3 committee meeting uh Mr city clerk please read the call and instructions and I'll have uh the deputy City attorney Mr Hong read the rules members of the public who would like to offer public comment on the items listed on the agenda should call 1-669-254-5252 and these meeting ID number 161863-2891 and then press pound press pound again when prompted for participant ID once admitted into the meeting press star 9 to request the speak foreign members of the public calling in when it is your turn to speak please state which of the agenda items you would like to speak on you have one minute per item to speak two minutes total for multiple agenda items and one minute for general public comment we will tell you when your time is up when speaking on the agenda items you must be on topic if you're making a general public comment you must address topics in the jurisdiction of this committee if you're not speaking on topic or if you cannot tell whether you're speaking on topic you will get one brief warning from me or the chairman and if you do not immediately get back on topic or against stray off topic the channel will cut you off when you will forfeit the rest of your speaking time finally for members of the public calling in to speak as soon as you hear someone address you you are live in the committee meeting if you're also listening to the meeting on your computer channel 35 or other device please turn down the volume on those devices immediately to avoid an echo thank you thank you so much with that members if I could turn to your attention to actually let's take public comment uh Dennis go to kick it off thank you Mr chair first caller phone number ending in 6878 present member Robin here and council member please press star six to unmute go ahead caller please state your name in the items you'd like to speak on good afternoon my name is Kathleen Rawson I'm the president and CEO of the Hollywood partnership it's my first time addressing you so I'm very happy to be here today thanks for joining us item one um go ahead you have one minute okay thank you thank you my name is Kathleen Rawson I am the president's CEO of the Hollywood partnership very happy to be with you this afternoon speaking quickly on item one which is the agreement between the city and Ike Smart City I want to let you know that we are very supportive of Ike and the product that they provide to come to communities all over the country in my previous 25 years in Santa Monica I did substantial research on this product and know that it is a very Sound Investment for communities in which it operates they provide a wide array of community benefits Beyond typical map cases and advertising and I strongly support your uh your La tourism visitor kiosk program in LA and we urge you to advance the contract thank you so much thank you color uh next call our phone number ending in 5372 -5372 press star six to unmute go ahead caller please state your name in the items you'd like to speak on uh after our public comments so color ending in five three seven two please press star six to unmute hello go ahead color you're on please State the items you'd like to speak on item number one uh Harlan Allen go ahead you have one minute oh yeah I lived in Los Angeles um for decades and I don't drive a car so and I love walking and I hate using the cell phone so a bit of a wonk and I know that our city tour is a master plan asked for programs to enhance the tourist experience while also improve on the quality of life for angelinos so the way I see it is through these kiosks the city will be sort of modernizing in a way tourists and pedestrians can connect with tools like this so I do love the Ikes as they say I also love traveling myself so um especially different countries so we have a lot of things coming up and and if you don't speak the language these would be absolutely wonderful and it's a relief knowing that they're going to be available um we do have some Global events coming up in Los Angeles and in this decade so I do realize that they're a great addition to our city and anytime we can put some level of identity or or uh you know Los Angeles has almost nothing for in in the in this manner and so we we can take a look at you know some of those and um find out some of the thank you call your time is expired next caller phone number ending in zero eight four zero zero eight four zero please press star six to a mute um yeah so go ahead color then please state your name in the items you'd like to speak on hey my name is Chad number one um I just want to say that as a resident of Fernando San Fernando Valley me and my daughter you know we travel a lot we do a lot of stuff and I think that the ice will be good um you know a good asset to the city of Los Angeles and surrounding areas just like other all the other participants who commented before I think it is a very valuable thing to have and so I just hope that this goes through and not only just but you know local community and tourists but also for local artists and things like that who can benefit from business from these Ike so but that's all I want to say so I hope that this goes through thank you and one of the largest employers in the Los Angeles region that they have these thank you caller uh next caller phone number ending in one three two six please press star six to unmute go ahead color please state your name and the items would like to speak on hi my name is Jennifer and I would like to speak on item go ahead you have one minute thanks uh I'm a long time Angelino and I work in the restaurant industry uh currently in downtown L.A and I'm in strong support of the ike kiosk um it's my understanding they can help direct folks to nearby restaurants and services which I think is really helpful especially you know since the pandemic uh when businesses slowed down you know um I've spent time in New York City in San Francisco and I've seen these kiosks and I've interacting with them I've seen how they can support people walking on foot which is really great for the environment and for the it's just the experience of you know people walking around the city and checking out things and the ability for them to help people connect with nearby restaurants and interesting things to do and see you know as a way to enjoy the city in a more convenient and streamlined way it's like you go looking for them at least not yet but when you come into one walking around outside they can be really helpful and I've used them in other cities and particularly as a tourist I've found that to be really helpful helping me locate nearby places and things to do they're also really helpful if your phone dies and you're trying to get somewhere so I also love thank you color your time is expired next caller phone number ending in 9102 please press star 6 to unmute phone number ending in 9102 please press star 6 to unmute members have any questions about these items additional questions okay we're saying that okay we're going to move on to our oh sorry I think they just came in 9102 last call phone number ending in 9102 press star mute go ahead color please State the name and the items you'd like to speak on yeah um the kiosk and my name is Jennifer Wood and um I don't know if anyone mentioned this I'm sorry what uh go ahead you have one minute oh this is good for good for emergencies last minute things buyers anything where they're telling people where to go um because things might be in a chaotic state or where there's a dangerous something going on and where to avoid it uh for people that cannot read or go to malls movies uh handicapped people of course calling hotels figure out where the nearest parking lot is or car rental uh it's like a concierge um push buttons for uh questions that you would have and then tourists that helped what was mentioned um oh gosh uh bus schedule plays music um just I think emergencies would be an incredible thing because people just kind of like gear in the headlights when stuff happens um so that's about it I think I think it's an incredible thing for everyone and um thank you caller next caller phone number ending in eight two six four eight two six four press star six to unmute go ahead and color please take your name hello can you hear me this is Javier molera yes go ahead Javier great hello I'm here to speak on item number one my name is Javier and I've lived in La for about 33 and a half years almost 34. uh I'm an actor I also got rid of my car a long time ago like several years ago I loved using public transportation on both a rail train and uh Subway and the buses uh the obvious benefit of these hikes are the way finding benefits I don't want to repeat but thanks to people have already said uh you know if you've lost your phone or if it's dead this is like finding great you know huge computer at the corner that can help you navigate to the city um and the through businesses around local restaurants Etc another benefit is the connectivity between the tourists and residents and local events and businesses uh I see people coming to the theaters you know to make an evening out of it they also try to go to a restaurant before the show grab a drink afterwards or a bite and often they rarely know where to go even when they have a car so um they often look lost uh laser big city so um I also like the way that the LA tourism kiosk program um from what I've read has committed to working with local artists to Showcase their work and create content that each ice might offer this is a win-win situation for residents in the city uh uh there's nothing wrong with this and uh it's a great way towards our future thank you great thank you caller uh next color phone number ending in three seven eight four three seven eight four please press star six to unmute go ahead caller please state your name and the items you'd like to speak on all right Andrew great remember one minute general public comment go ahead you can begin all right so I just I'm not sure who's all here I just had to rush over from the different committee meeting you know it seems like it's kind of bad that this meeting meets this committee meets at the exact same time as the economic development jobs committee like maybe the best way to listen to the people would be to um have a um have the companies be at a different time um maybe um once skills video and Kevin De Leon resign and an actual legitimate council president is elected maybe that new council president can look into that um anyway no resignations no meetings this committee should not even be needing right now while you're feeling Kevin Durant or storm uh Council um so there are all kinds of stuff that could be taken up but how do we know they're going to be taken up in good faith the proposals are going to be good faith well they're still in the council so no resist Nations no meeting I yield the rest of my time thank you caller uh we have four more callers who are listening to the meeting but do not have hands raised if you would like to speak pre please press star knit nine to raise your hands so that we know you would like to speak once again there's four colors okay we got one more uh color ending in seven nine five eight seven nine five eight press star six to unmute go ahead color please state your name the items you'd like to speak on yes hi it's uh David Jerome with the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce I'm calling in about the um the tourism kiosk and I just want to let you know that we're very strong supporters of this uh we particularly like the idea the ike Smart City bid to partner with LA tourism and um partly obviously the reason we care about it so much is the millions of tourists we have in Hollywood especially along the Walk of Fame we'd really like to make sure that um there's good signage and dynamic signage to help support the systems the work that we're doing here and um just wanted to let you know uh how much we want to bolster this one and I think it would be a big have to help the tourism here in La so thank you thank you Mr chair there are no more callers in the queue with their hands raised thank you so much Dennis I see two hands raised as we look at the same cue uh Mr chair they have already spoken they've spoken okay thank you so much Dennis all right members um with that thank you to all the callers who called in appreciate your testimony uh members like to turn your attention to the agenda let's first close public comment uh without objection that'll be the order like to recommend that we move items to three four five six on consent unless any member would like to hold any of those items on the desk thank you hearing none let's now take roll call on the consent agenda items two through six bus gaino yes bonnen yes Lee yes three item uh three eyes and items two through six have been approved thank you Andrew with that let's now turn to item one item ones now before us Mr clerff you can read item one into the record please item one City attorney report and motion busquinolio Farrell relative to utilizing the competitive request for proposals process conducted by the city of Houston Texas and requesting an agreement with Ike's Smart City LLC for the installation and maintenance of interactive kiosks in the city of Los Angeles thank you so much um we have a few presenters who are here uh Ted Jordan with the city attorneys Public Works uh we also have the chief tourism officer for City tourism Department uh don Liu thank you Don for joining us members of the streets La team I also have a VP of development of like Smart City Gibran for joining us Clayton Colette from the development director also believe is on the call with Ike Smart City now numbers this is one of those items that you know in the course of your days in City Hall the years of dealing with bureaucracy makes you just go mad um let me take you back to 2015 when the LA tourism and Convention board launched an initiative to put together and and develop interactive kiosks where visitors and residents can can learn information about the neighborhoods surrounding them key spots to visit restaurants as one caller alluded to um then in 2016 La tourism put out an RFI an Ike smart city was selected by La tours and to develop the program a year later 2017 Ike and La tourism signed a letter of intent Loi um September 21st 2022 the city tourism commission directed the city tourism Department executive director to proceed with exploring an agreement with like Smart City um piggybacking on an existing RFP with the city of Houston process five years count them five years have transpired since La tourism and Ike signed the letter of intent fact um earlier this year the draft contract was submitted by Ike back in May to ctd for the City attorney to review in that five-year period launched in 15 cities and has executed contract for four more yet for some reason the agreement between the city of La and Ike is not ready secret determination is not ready mou between the convention tourism department and streets La not ready uh this is why I introduced the motion in front of you directing the City attorney ctd street services to prepare all necessary agreements within a 30-day period last Thursday the City attorney responded with a letter stating in quote it's unlikely that a contract and SQL documents can be made available for Council approval within the timeline requested by the motion now we pride ourselves in the city of La the city attorney's office is the largest law firm in the city 525 lawyers so I completely disagree with that assessment five years is plenty of time to prepare a contract for Council consideration I mean while we're seeing seeing all other cities um launch Ike um in in helping these cities with bringing in tourism tourism dollars dollars for the city in itself so to the City attorney who's here um the the the report identifies several actions that must occur uh before the Contracting method can be selected SQL must be completed CAO must review the contract and the council must approve the contract so how can the CAO or accounts and a contract hasn't been written and a Contracting method hasn't even been selected uh that's my first question and my second question is how do SQL outcomes impact when a Contracting method is being utilized as the City attorney um hi everyone I'm Kimberly miara from the city attorney's office thanks for joining us no problem Ted Jordan is actually not on the call um I will be representing the office on this matter today thank you um yes so while the matter has taken five years to get to where we are um that is uh outside of our offices um doing SQL documents were presented by Ike um a few weeks ago they have been given to Boe um the law requires that Sequoia B and reviewed and approved before a contract can be entered into and approved so that's where we are be I'm informed that Boe is preparing to start their review now an independent city um review must take place um that will be done through the city Department of planning and Boe we will our office will work collaboratively to um once that's in we will work collaboratively to advise on what the secret determination will be um we do have a draft template of a contract uh utilizing the charter sections that allow the city to piggyback off the competitive process of another city however um sequa May um affect that um in that it may require it may determine that uh programming changes will take us out we'll take cause substantial changes to the piggyback contract um the contract essentially if we're going to piggyback off of a nether City's um process the contract substantially has to be the same so that's one consideration the second consideration is um as of last Thursday the city has been um uh stewed regarding its process for the stat program um while I can't go into it in open sessions sorry which program just for the listening audience um yes the street Furniture advertising program um that um may may not but may affect um our determination on um how a contract with um Ike via a piggyback might go um so there are a couple of considerations um the report that we filed was not an attempt to muddy the waters with um a lot of heavy bureaucracy but simply advise the council that um with the time with 30 days notice and the coordination of many offices um it may may not be doable within 30 days I believe we have Representatives today from street services that can speak a little bit more than I can regarding the secret process sequa is a very highly specialized area of the law it's not my specialty but I believe we do have others from the city that might be able to elaborate on that also um it's been brought to our attention in the last few weeks that the proposed program with Ike May interfere with the stat program that's already been approved um and I think that that's still being analyzed and again I think BSS can talk a little bit more about can thanks Kimberly so let me take you back to back in May when Ike and ctd they began working on terms now I couldn't this contract have already been negotiated if the City attorney started working with ctd and I when when they began discussing the contract back back in May yes back in may like The Missing Link there back in May it was actually our office that put together the uh draft contract so we have been actively working on this um I presented us with the contract with Ike we reviewed it um it actually is a as a standalone contract um it is a good contract um it it might be a good fit for the city of Los Angeles we put together a draft contract to um look to see how that project what what a contract would look like and to start negotiating that however sequa um is the elephant in the room that has to be completed before a contract can even be written and negotiated so the so we have been working with Ike um um but see we have to finish with stika and again since May other things have been brought to our attention including um our office has received written notification of somebody already of another contract potential or a vendor um who would uh likely contest that so we need to there are other factors that have happened since May that we need to um work our way through but we will continue to work our way through that while sequence is being done and my understanding is you SQL analysis that's been done by Ike from a consultant who is on on an on-call approved on-call consultant through the department of planning correct that's what I understand yes so they're ready to rock and roll um but yet the sequel analysis does come with the contract correct so the secret just because Ike has prepared and submitted SQL documents um even if they were consulted and prepared by um a company that is on the city's vendor approved list the city still is required to do its own independent review and then going back to the responsibility of that independent review ctd Boe I mean the City attorney report says that this is what makes you go crazy around here okay City attorney report says that the VOE could do the SQL analysis but in the last paragraph of the report it states that Boe has already been asked to conduct the SQL review yes can you please clarify who directed seek what else is we conducted so so generally it is the Boe Department in conjunction with the city planning department and do we know how much of that work's been done already I'm sorry I do not I cannot speak to that yeah so anyone from Boe here uh um services from the city tourism Department thank you um I am also unfortunately not an expert on sequa and uh following a discussion that we had with cities attorney's office on this topic they advise us to reach out to boe's group that performs these sorts of analysis so we have uh started the discussion on it however we have not proceeded past the kind of planning days of discussions regarding how we can get this analysis done okay I just don't want to waste more time asking questions I'd prefer to you guys uh get this done with the next 30 days the more time more questions we asked and less time we're going to have uh Mr Lee your hands up thank you Mr chair I mean my understanding is can we approve this today and then have SQL concurrently done uh with it and just move this forward I mean this this has been going through the process for for how long and this is why the city of Los Angeles the second largest city in the United States of America why we still you know are sorely behind in being considered a smart City behind so many other smaller cities because we don't move forward with projects this is an approved vendor it's an approved piggyback from a different city I don't know I don't I don't see what the issue is I think I think this is something that's going to be valuable uh especially with everything everything coming up in the city and uh I think we should move forward if if I made this the piggyback has not been approved um as I mentioned we have several considerations that we need to consider that have been brought not only been brought to our attention since May but the piggybacking itself was never approved while we do think that the Houston contract in and of itself is as a standalone is a good um contract for Houston and might be a good fit for La we have not finished that and also the um both the public resources code and the Secret guidelines prevent um anything the project approval or a contract approval until sequa has been approved and that has not been done yet so so right now we are um continuing to move this forward um and explore um the possibility of piggybacking taking into consideration things that we've learned since May um things that we've learned since just last week um so we are continuing with that analysis We are continuing to proceed um but nothing the neither the project nor an actual there is no there is no contract to be approved at this time this has been going through a process how long did you say uh the next 30 days before we no no no how long has this been uh 2015 this artist all right I would just like to say that it has not been with our s since 2015. it was in our office this year right back in back in May I think it's fair to I think it's fair to point out that while ctd and La tourism have been working on the concept of digital kiosks since 2015. it was known to all the parties that the city had an exclusive contract with a company for furniture in the street right of way that didn't expire until 2022 and so um while while the committee has pointed out that we have been working on this on a long time the City attorney has only received documents like you said since since May so we it it's not fair to to say that we've been working on this specific procurement process for five years we've been working on the concept of acquiring digital kiosks in the city for quite some time but we were prohibited to proceed because of exclusive contracts that the city already had with another company it wasn't until this year that we started working in Earnest about how the procurement process would work and as you've seen a lot of issues have come up as much as we'd like to make it as quick as possible and piggybacking seems to be a good way to do it quickly um we do have to follow the rules that are before us um and and we have been doing that in Earnest for the for the the last year at least and the piggyback idea came from uh ctd commission I mean recent ctd commission correct no the idea was presented to us by Ike and as far as a piggyback contract though yes that came to light at a recent commission meeting correct don't no they voted on that yes thanks John um Mike uh uh thank you um Joe and I disagree all the time in Council we usually agree in this committee I'm going to be breaking that practice today um uh I I've got some concerns about this particularly after reading the city attorneys a letter from the other day and and hearing some of the comments here today um I mean I'm not a big fan of of digital advertising to begin with and and you know I had to swallow hard to to do the the street Furniture contract we did recently but um as important as this way finding signage is uh I'm concerned about the piggybacking process and I understand people are frustrated with the pace of things but as we just heard from for Mr Lou this has not been a five-year press this this has been essentially a five month process uh after uh the the exclusive with the uh Dakota ended apparently uh so five months is is not a considerable period of time I'm actually concerned about a couple things there there's a lot of details here I'm not hearing um that that that that may come up uh uh later in in a process but I'd like to hear from I'd like to hear from different bidders on what kind of stuff they would do where they would be looking to install it how often they would be installing it with the community process would be how they intend to deal with the California Coastal commission and so I'd like to see there be more than than one bidder um I think that would be the the way to go um so it's pretty clear there's going to be two votes in in favor of the motion today but if so uh I'll do a um a Minority Report asking for the the Departments to report back in 30 days with the proposed process for competitive procurement and environmental review process thanks thanks Mike Johnny good to your hands still up go ahead yeah but I was just wondering at the ctd commission meeting didn't someone say that this was a legally acceptable and acknowledged that staff had been working on the piggyback contract I mean wasn't didn't someone from the city attorney's office make that statement uh that was me and um what I had said was that we were working on a contract which was true um to as I stated previously to outline what the project would be and to see if there were um any substantial terms that we would have to change it was done as a um exercise a negotiating tool to sit down to see um if piggybacking would work I did state in that meeting that the process to one of the board members questions the process of piggybacking is legally possible we had a charter section that allows for it um and that this contract the Houston meaning the Houston contract itself was a good contract but we um were advised the action taken by the um commissionette day was for staff to explore the possibility of piggybacking I did not say that any decisions had been made I explained what the piggybacking process was and that it was um legal and that there was a potential here but since um that meeting we have um learned that um it may be in the city's best interest to go out for a competitive bid um given the um circumstances that have Arisen also um we I was very we have been very clear that sequa had to be done before a contract could be um a final contract could be um drafted and um approved sorry Michelle I'm just looking through my notes no go ahead John I don't know proceed okay Mike is that hand up to high five me onto this item uh sorry I don't know sorry I said Dream on I was like oh okay if it was the uh you're coming in and out I don't know if it I don't know if it was you're coming in and out if that was correct what you said we normally do agree Mr Trinity Mr chair if I I would also like Mr Luke I would like to address um some of the points that Mr bonden brought up about um competitive bid um you know for what it's worth uh initially when this was uh conceptualized by La tourism they did do an RFI and only received um uh interest from one company uh that being Ike and or its predecessor company um in the in the years since there has been no other interests expressed by any other companies willing to do the the model the business model that made it free to the city of La so zero capital expenditure for the city this is a unique uh opportunity and I still think it is a good opportunity because it will cost the city zero to install these uh kiosks and it gives the city an opportunity to share in the revenue which is substantial um so that that is one Nuance of the business model that has prevented others I think from uh bidding on this particular project and and the way we wanted to do it as far as community outreach I do have to credit Ike for their plan we have uh insisted that they work with Council offices on determining the locations of these kiosks which could be up to 20 in each Council in each Council district and they would work closely with the business community and residents to make sure that they're inappropriate location locations thank you Mr Muhammad you want to add anything while you're here and joined us and appreciate your interest in deploying uh these interactive kiosks and wayfinding um throughout the the city of La um council members we remain very eager to um to deploy the interactive kiosks throughout the city and contribute to achieving the purposes of the tourism master plan and we're deeply committed to the city of Los Angeles I look forward to advancing this contract and doing our part to support the advancement of this contract in any way possible we make ourselves fully available to planning Boe ctd City attorney's office or whoever would need to meet with us to have further um uh to discuss any element of our contract um thank you for your consideration thank you thanks to Bob for joining us okay see no other hands or high fives up I will um recommend approval of this motion um understanding Mr Bonin wants to put forth on The Minority Report I'll turn that over to Mr clerk just to uh first let's vote on the item yes sir boost guy you know I bonnen nope Lee I two eyes one no and the motion is approved thank you uh and to note Mr bonnen's Minority Report for the record he can just share that with the listening audience yes uh councilmember bonan's Minority Report will also be issued to the full city council noting um his noting the opposition of uh this motion thank you Mr Clerk with that what's I believe the desk is clear anything else before us the desk is clear thank you thank you all for joining us um we are now adjourned have a great rest of the day and in the words of Tom labanche go forth and serve the people of Los Angeles bye thank you
2022-11-02 05:06
