Assembly Select Committee on Select Committee on Downtown Recovery

It you're gonna have. All right, we are going to get started when we can. Miguel? Yeah. Oh, right here would be good for him. Do I gavel down?

All right, we are going to get started now if I don't have a gavel, but we will call this a Select Committee to order. I want to thank everyone who is here who has joined us this morning. Good morning in Buenos Dias.

We are grateful for your time and for your work and your willingness to be a part of this critical and urgent conversation about our downtowns. My name is Matt Haney. I am the chair of the Select Committee on Downtown Recovery. I am also the Assembly Member that represents downtown San Francisco.

I represent most of the city and County of San Francisco, including our financial district, which has many of the same challenges that are facing downtown Los Angeles and our downtowns across the state. This particular hearing, we will be focusing on investing in our downtown's essential workforce.

This Committee was created to understand each downtown's unique challenges and strengths so that the Legislature can create and support policies that will directly help our struggling urban communities. The effects of the Covid-19 pandemic have been resounding for our downtowns, even after many aspects of everyday life have returned to normal.

What this Committee has learned is that one of the most notable issues impacting our downtowns are the prevalence of vacant office buildings. With the transition to remote work and in turn, the prevalence of emptier office buildings, our downtowns are seeing skyrocketing office vacancy rates.

At the end of last year, downtown La saw an office vacancy rate of 26%. At the same time, in my home City of San Francisco, we have an office vacancy rate of over 35% and over 30,000 service industry jobs have been lost since the onset of the pandemic.

Despite this alarming statistic, when we talk about the State of downtowns and the recovery, these conversations often tend to focus on bringing office workers back downtown to boost foot level traffic. Foot traffic levels. But there's a glaringly obvious group of people missing, often from these conversations.

Workers who come downtown every day, the workers who never had the option or ability to not return to the office. These workers have built their careers and life around keeping our buildings and our cities operational and thriving.

This workforce is the core of our downtown operations and recovery success because compared to 30% in person rates for white collar industry workers, nearly 80% of service workers come in every single day.

Before we can dive further into how we can reimagine our downtowns, we must discuss how the changes to work and the changes to our downtowns are impacting the essential workers who dedicate their time to maintaining the physical landscape, the cultural and economic success of our central cities.

And there is no better place to have that conversation than here in downtown Los Angeles. This hearing will convene workers and experts and business leaders who are on the front lines of keeping downtowns clean, safe and vibrant. It will also include perspectives from downtown business owners and commercial real estate owners about the State of our downtown.

I also want to take a moment and acknowledge the fact that the success of California's downtowns is a reality because of the people who make it possible, the people who come in every single day and ensure that our workplaces are clean and healthy and safe, who protect all of the activity that happens in our downtowns.

Whether you're a tourist, whether you're an office worker. Nothing here is possible without the people who make our downtowns thrive.

And when we think about what we need to do to bring back our downtowns post pandemic, the changes that need to happen, the support that the state needs to provide, we have to put at the center of that the people who ensure our downtowns are successful and thriving to begin with, who have always been there, making our downtowns place, that build tremendous revenue for our cities and our state.

Billions of dollars come as a result of the work that people here in downtown Los Angeles do. And so we have a lot of work to do to support our downtowns, including downtown Los Angeles.

We have to make sure that we fill back up these office buildings, that we convert some of them to housing, that we fill up our vacant retail, that we support our small businesses and restaurants.

But in all of that, let's make sure that we do it in a way that uplifts the people who do that work and that we put them at the center of the recovery. Sometimes we talk about pre pandemic and post pandemic. This isn't about going back to the way things were before the pandemic.

There was a lot about that reality that was not fair to many people.

People who were commuting hours and hours to get to work without access to affordable housing, without access to jobs, that allow them to provide for their families, without access to retirement and pensions and sick days and vacation days, all of the things that every person in our city who contributes in our state, who contributes to our success and our vitality deserves.

So when we think about what we need to do to bring our downtowns back and uplift our downtowns so that they can fulfill their potential fully in the world that we now live in.

We have to think about how we do that in a way that uplifts the people who are the bedrock foundation of the success of our downtowns and bring them back even stronger, in a more fair and equitable way than before. So we have an incredible group of folks.

I want to thank SEIU California, who was so critical to in partnering with us on this, and we're going to be able to hear from a number of leaders.

I want to thank my colleagues who are here, who represent the Los Angeles area, Assembly Member Santiago, who I believe were in his district right now, and Assemblymember Bryan, who are here, who are Los Angeles representatives, and I want to give them an opportunity to say a few words before we start this hearing. Mister Bryan?

Well, thank you, chair Haney. I think this is an important conversation from the Bay to Los Angeles. We have to understand what's happened in our downtown city centers, both pre-pandemic and post-pandemic. It's downtown where culture is created and thrives.

And that only happens when we have thriving businesses and a diversity of industries that are excited to locate downtown. But equally as important as those thriving businesses are the workers who generate the kind of safeguards that allow for a downtown to be thriving.

We have way too many people who work downtown in Los Angeles, who clean up downtown in Los Angeles, who protect downtown Los Angeles, who can afford to live downtown in Los Angeles. And that's part of what we've got to talk about when we're talking about our downtown recovery.

I saw a recent study just a couple of years ago that showed that there were more vacant units here downtown than there were people sleeping on the streets. They just can't afford to live in them. Right?

There's a lot of work we've got to do to make sure that we're building a city center that allows for it to be showcased not just across the state, but across the nation and across the world. And as we prepare for these Olympics here in 2028, I think this conversation is especially timely.

We have to do this work now. We have to make those investments now. And one of those key investments is in the workers. The workers who have always been seen, who have always been essential, who have always been heroes, and haven't always been treated that way.

So thank you for bridging this conversation and bringing it home for all of us. I'm grateful to join you today.

Thank you, Mister Haney. I want to start by thanking everybody who came here today. Both of my colleagues I know it takes a commitment to actually sit here through a hearing for some time.

And so I want to thank you folks for doing it, Mister Haney, for really coming down and doing this on a day where you could be back home in your district. So I thank you for that. For those who don't know where Mister Haney comes from, he comes from San Francisco.

It's a little bit of a trip for him and to set up a Committee structure so that we could be heard here in Los Angeles. One of the very first requests that we made of this Committee. I want to thank everybody who's here from my own backyard.

Central City Association, USW, SEIU, ICU night here, folks here, and probably a bunch of other folks that I missed. So if I missed you, I apologize. And as I see folks, then we will recognize them. A couple things I want to say about downtowns.

I've had the pleasure and the honor of representing a downtown area for a number of years in the Legislature and had also worked in this district before. So almost gives us about two decades of experience in downtowns. And when you take a look at downtowns, there's an opportunity for economic stimulus across the city.

And that's, I think appropriate to say about downtowns all up and down the state. So there's an opportunity to uplift entire cities when you take a look at downtown regions and they're all going through similar things.

But I think it's also important to understand that after COVID, we've seen a similar thing happen in downtowns across California, where downtowns were vibrant centers of communities. After COVID, we saw them empty out and we haven't been able to bring back all that was there.

And so I think a hearing like this helps us to bring partners that are in the economic portion of it, like a Central City Association. But also those communities who have worked in downtowns, who have also been devastated by what's happened after COVID, which is our worker, our workforce.

And I think it's important that as we begin to build downtown Los Angeles, downtowns across the State of California, they may look different. We don't know what the future exactly holds, but that when we're talking about it, we can keep in mind at center how we solve problems that California has been plagued by.

One is housing, two is economic development. All that happens with tourism and the foot traffic. And as we prepare for the Olympics, specifically here in Los Angeles, but also that leave a workforce behind.

Because what we saw a workforce struggle in the past and I was participating in this today, as we build centers of California, we want to make sure that workforces are not left behind, that they're paid in appropriate ways so they can actually shop in the places or near places where they work, that they can actually afford to pay rent.

So these are all conversations that we're eager to have. But I think if we have to recognize one thing is that as we're building now centers of California, that has to be uniquely done differently than the vision that we may have had before COVID had happened. So I'm really excited about this opportunity and look forward to conversation.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Assembly Member Santiago. And he's been a close partner on this effort, and we're really grateful to be having our first hearing outside of the Capitol here in Los Angeles in your district. And I want to thank you and your staff for your partnership on this effort.

A few things before I introduce the first panel, a few housekeeping notes. We have three panels today. Witnesses of each panel will come up together and provide their testimony by order of introduction. After each witness has testified, the Members of the Committee may ask that panel questions or take the opportunity to make any remarks.

At the end of the hearing, there will be an opportunity for public comment for individuals in the hearing room. Public comment will be limited to 30 seconds per person.

We are not accepting public comment over the phone today, but you can submit written testimony to the Committee at assemblymember.haneyassembly.ca.gov, and this email is also on our website.

With that, I want to welcome up the first panel who will be speaking on the State of downtown Los Angeles and helping to provide an overview. Both of these folks and their organizations have been incredibly central as partners on this hearing and also on working together for solutions to support the people who work and live here.

Please join me in welcoming the President of California SEIU State Council, David Huerta, and the CEO of the Central City Association of Los Angeles, Nella Macoskar.

My comments today are both to understand the history of struggle, the history of the struggle it has been to make these service sector jobs in the commercial real estate industry good jobs, and the value of these jobs to communities of color, in particular, Latino immigrant and black working black community.

On June 15, 1990 janitors, mainly immigrants from Central America and Mexico, took to the streets of this city demanding an end to exploitation and the right to organize and form a union. The dream of justice of immigrants was met with ruthless opposition. Law enforcement used batons and brutality in an attempt to quench the justice for janitors movement.

The violent reaction from the wealthy and the police failed. Our local is now 50,000 workers strong across the State of California. And we have organized janitors, security officers, airport workers and event workers across the state.

Through the collective struggle of the union, we have improved standards in the janitorial industry to end wage theft, to ensure that irresponsible contractors are held accountable and dismantled. The pervasive, inhuman practice of sexual assault and assault against janitors.

Through the voices of immigrant women in Yavasta, in the security industry, we'll launch the Black Worker Justice Campaign, the foundation of organizing security offices in our state, raising economic standards for security office throughout the state, and at the same time calling out discrimination and working with the security industry to preserve jobs for black workers.

We are proud of the work we have done to ensure that workers in Low paid industries, mainly black and brown folks, are afforded the dignity and respect they deserve. I also want to draw the distinction between Low wage workers and Low wage jobs. We believe that no workers should be labeled a Low wage worker.

Workers may work in a low wage job, but when we take into account the industry and the wealth of the industry, then it's really the industry that is paying the Low wages and not because these workers are Low wage workers.

That is why it is important to understand the relationship between our union and the commercial real estate industry. It has taken us over 30 years to organize these jobs into better jobs, jobs that include livable wages, healthcare, secured retirement. And we have done this both in the best of times and the worst of times.

We experienced the dismantling of the union by the commercial real estate industry in the eighties, the rebuilding of the union in the nineties, the strike of 2000, the rapid cost of healthcare in the two thousands and the great Recession and now the post pandemic economy, we know that downtowns are struggling and that particularly commercial real estate has been slow to bounce back in this late pandemic era.

We are also concerned. Our members who clean, disinfect and guard downtown properties are the essential workers of this industry. We are equally vested in seeing a recovery of downtowns from the borderlands to the bay to Sacramento. However, recovery cannot happen without involving property service workers.

This Committee must know that during a much more severe crisis than the one faith, this Committee must know that during a much more severe crisis than the one facing us currently in downtowns across the state, we partnered with contractors building owners in the State of California to keep janitorial and security services operational.

Our Members were essential to keeping downtown disinfected and safe. By finding creative ways of working together, we were able to vaccinate essential workers and provide incentives to building owners and building owners and employers who partnered with workers and their unions to keep security officers and janitors employed. Our Members put their lives in alignment for this industry.

Many fell ill to Covid. Some are still dealing with the detrimental effects of long Covid and other dear friends and loved ones didn't make it.

As this Committee discusses creative ideas on how to support downtown recovery, we must hold true to a Pacific principle that during a crisis, we must hold onto our shared values of respecting the worth and dignity of workers.

Now is not the time to turn the clock back to the days when janitors and security officers were exploited, our rights trampled upon, and our dreams of justice repressed. Excessive workload is spreading across the janitorial industry, breaking down the bodies of mainly immigrant women, many of them near or past retirement age.

Security officers have to deal with sometimes dangerous conditions when dealing with unsheltered folks who have mental health episodes or under the influence of drugs. Now is not the time for the industry leaders to turn their back on our shared responsibility to contribute equally to our tax obligations and not to erode local and state governments.

If we are going to prompt the recovery of downtown, let's keep working to establish standards for the industry to recover and safeguard public health and public safety. These are not mutually exclusive goals. They must be part and parcel of downtown revitalization.

However, we see a serious threat to our goal of revitalizing downtowns in the form of a valid initiative that is on the ballot in November, which would strip state local governments from the ability to maintain public services at a level needed for full recovery.

Successful downtowns require maintenance and investment, but this initiative will deprive local governments overnight of billions of dollars annually by returning, overturning over 250 local revenue measures that voters passed to fund critical local needs ranging from fire prevention in response to affordable housing development and homelessness prevention, not to mention billions of dollars cut state government much of what would go to local governments.

Even worse, in the long run, it will throttle citizens ability to charge fees for services and it blocks efforts to make up for this lost revenue. It is in the single greatest, it is the single greatest debt that we see on the horizon. The full recovery of downtown centers that our Members clean and make secure.

Nearly 30 years ago, the sweat, blood and tears of janitors were spilled on the streets of Los Angeles and the cry of justice for janitors was born. Through that struggle, we saw also Stanford security and we saw airports were United Airport workers united that made now make the 50,000 Members strong USW today.

So today let's recommit to work in partnership with all stakeholders, including workers, to build downtowns that we can all be proud of. Thank you.

Thank you Mister Huerta, Miss McOsker.

My name is Nella McOsker. I'm President and CEO of Central City Association, also known as CCA. And CCA advocates for a vibrant downtown Los Angeles. We represent over 300 Members across various sectors.

First and foremost, I want to thank Committee chair Matt Haney and other Assembly Members Santiago and Bryant for providing this opportunity for us to share perspective and experience in downtown.

I'm honored to share the stage also with David quickly, I'd like to share a bit of a snapshot of downtown Los Angeles, as this is what CCA looks at and focuses on throughout our work. So DTLA has upward of 95,000 residents with apartment occupancy at about 90%. In 2022, downtown welcomed more than 17 million visitors.

So when you take these figures into consideration, it's natural that you think of downtown as a source of many types of jobs to support those visitors and residents. Jobs in tourism, service, food and beverage, retail, to name a few. This is in addition to more traditional office jobs that are typically seen in a city center.

We have over 40 million office space and the office space or office vacancy rate currently is under 30%. While these numbers appear large, and they are, they pale in comparison to pre pandemic times. It's no secret that our downtown, like others across the state and country, are lingering, are experiencing lingering economic impacts brought on by the pandemic.

So I'm grateful for this Committee's focused attention on this issue. So downtown's foot traffic, downtown LA's foot traffic levels are improving to some degree. One study from Philadelphia's center city district used cell phone tracking data to determine that downtown LA was at 80% of foot traffic when you compared Q 2, 2019 to then later Q2, 2023.

But we still have a long way to go. Foot traffic is really important to look at because it gets at the heart of really two main issues. One is what it means for businesses in downtowns that rely on a steady stream of customers, and then also what it means from a public safety perspective.

And that applies to both reality and perception of safety. As you consider the former, I want folks to think about, and I'm sure they have, as they've sort of made their way even to this office. Right, this space in downtown, you probably encountered many shuttered storefronts.

We see a lot of them along spring, Maine, this particular corridor of downtown. According to the quarterly report by Colliers International, the national retail vacancy rate is 4.0%. And when you look at Los Angeles, it's 5.2.

And you zoom into downtown, it's 7.2, according to numbers from DTL alliance, who I know is here and looks at this stuff very carefully in the downtown corridor.

These are storefronts that were once thriving businesses, which many of us consider as we look to sort of the peak of downtown LA's renaissance in 2019 now represent complete untapped potential for jobs, for economic growth, for the whole ecosystem that helps support this vibrant part of the city.

There is a harsh reality, too, which I know will be discussed further today for the businesses that have managed to stay open.

I hear regularly from, from members of CCA who represent or own these businesses, that they are on razor thin margins, that they want to do anything possible to keep their employees paid, and that they endure a tremendous amount of stress knowing that a bad quarter or a bad month or even sometimes a bad week, right.

Will put them under. So the State of existing business in downtown is safe to say, is very fragile. So I want to move to that second point, right. That is when you have sort of Low foot traffic and struggling businesses and shuttered storefronts, it's not only bad for the economy, but it's bad for public safety.

At CCA, we firmly believe that active public spaces are safe public spaces. Many of us feel, as we walk the streets of downtown, that when there's not many others around, it can, it can create a feeling of greater vulnerability. And so it's absolutely the case that there's safety in numbers.

This applies to sort of all spaces across our city center. And the problem is challenging because it becomes cyclical, right. The less people feel safe in downtown, the less likely they are to come. And the less people come, the more that increases that feeling. We find ourselves in this moment at a tipping point.

We need to find ways to encourage more foot traffic from visitors, residents and workers alike. And what has made downtown such a vibrant part of our city is that it really is a place of convening.

I appreciated opening remarks about, really the people are what make downtown successful, and that is workers from all different sectors who we are thoughtful of in the context of this conversation. All walks of life joining together, often in the city Center for celebration and sometimes strife, right? That is where we convene.

And so encouraging that sort of complex and sort of beautiful dynamic, right. Is key to restoring the health of our local business community, to strengthening the safety of our public spaces, and increasing the vitality of downtown. I really thank this Committee again for your attention to these issues, and we stand ready to help tackle them immediately.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Mister Huerta and Miss McOsker, for really setting the conversation for us about the current realities and the challenges that we face, and also the ways that everyone who works here, who lives here, who visits here, we are interconnected. We will rise and fall together.

There is no downtown without businesses that can open here and thrive here, without buildings that are full of tenants, where people are coming here and walking around. And there's no downtown without the people who make sure that this place is operational, that it's safe, safe, that it's clean.

The security officers, the janitors, the hotel workers, I know there are folks from unite here, the service workers, that are really the bedrock of what happens here. And so the connection between the commercial real estate and the workers that you spoke of, Mister Huerta, is something that I want to ask you a question about.

And then I'll open it up to my colleagues. And it's really a two part question.

One is as we think about how we bring people back into our office buildings so that they fill up and we don't have those level of vacancy rates, and the things that we need to do as a city, as a state, to provide the support to do that, how do we make sure that when we do that, that we do that in a way that lifts up everybody who is a part of those buildings and those businesses?

How do we have a recovery that is inclusive of all of the people who you fight with and alongside? And are there examples of that that you're seeing of businesses and real estate folks that you're working with who understand that interconnection, because that's really what we're trying to figure out here.

We want to fill those buildings back up. We want to get these business thriving again. We also want to support the people at the same time. And so can you give us any insight into how to do that? Well, sure.

So thank you for that question. I think I will be honest. When this first started, when we came out of the pandemic, the post pandemic, I would say there was a sense of panic in myself and amongst our membership as to what's going to happen. People saw folks not coming back to the buildings. People were concerned.

We just came off a contract right now. We were preparing for a contract, and there was a lot of concern. And, you know, there was an aha moment for me about, I would say about 10-12 months ago when I was in a meeting with leaders, and one of our Members was Carmijia.

You know, he in front of everybody after I gave a doom and gloom type of report to folks saying, this is what we're stepping into. We're stepping into 30% incremental vacancies, we're stepping into the loss of value in buildings, etcetera. And his response to me, so what's our plan? His response was, let's not panic. What's our plan?

And that kind of forced me to take a step back and think about, I have to have an answer to this. There has to be something more than just doom, right? And that's when we started really looking at this from a different perspective and thinking about what is the possibility versus the moment we're in.

And I think you, you know, when I look at this moment right now, being able to sit here with you, being able to sit here with the Central City Association, with other organizations, both community and in business, this is an opportunity for us to be able to have a holistic approach to the problem, to really identify how we approach this, not just from profit and losses from the business perspective, but also the sustainability of government good jobs, and what this industry means to the jobs that have been developed and have been organized.

Right? And so I think of this, you know, my former President always to say is that, you know, in every crisis there's an opportunity. And I think it's a matter of us being able to look at the crisis and find the opportunity to create something different and something different better.

And, you know, I'm not going to say I have the answers right now, but when I look at this city right now, and I look at downtown, I look at other parts of downtown, I look at this potential, not at where it's at.

And I see the ability for us to be able to transition downtowns into green energies. Right.

I see the opportunity for us to look at housing and see how we put more working people, especially those who service industries as big as the commercial real estate industry and as valuable as a commercial real estate industry to the State of California to put them in good housing.

I see the ability to be able to collaboration between associations, pension investments, workers, city government, state government, to create a new and better model of what our city centers can look like.

And so that workers who are on the cusp of making decisions if they're going to come back or not, if they wish to come back or not, that they're motivated to want to come back because they see something that's not the place where they're just coming to punch the clock, but it's a destination to come to work to.

And I think we need to create city centers that are destinations and places people want to come back to.

But it's going to take a lot of work, but it's going to take a stakeholder table that voices that I represent are at that same table, along with property owners, investors, city associations, city leadership, county leadership, state leadership, to really start looking at what are those policies and what are the things that is going to ensure a future for all of us.

And so I think those are the things that I've come away with.

I would say during our bargaining, we had, we met, we worked in partnership with a lot of key owners, one of them who's here today, Hudson, and want to appreciate the time that they took to listen to us, to take our calls and others who, if not with them, if it weren't for them coming together, it would have been a zero sum negotiations, as, as opposed to a zero plus, a plus negotiations.

And so I think that's the type of, right now we're in that moment. I think that's what it's going to take.

Not a zero sum, but a zero plus. That's where we want to be at with everything that we want to see get done. Colleagues. Yep.

Mister Bryan, I mean, Miss McOsker, you said something that was incredibly profound, and I enjoyed hearing it, which is kind of the vibrancy of walkability and community spaces and gathering spaces downtown.

My fiance Mara and I came down here in the middle of the pandemic, and we thought it'd be cool to bring cameras and take pictures of this wasteland that is a desolate downtown Los Angeles. And while those are cool to have in the archives, that's not the reality that we should still, still be living in.

And so one, I'm curious what your thoughts are on what we could do to help encourage that growth in resurgence and foot traffic. But also I think that point about public safety is incredibly important. Safer downtowns are downtowns that have more people. It's not just a perception, and I appreciate that framing, but it is also a reality.

And we know that, too. And it's also deeply concerning that when we have this deep decline in foot traffic, we then have investments in alternative public safety structures instead of investing in the kinds of things that would draw people to these spaces. Right. And so you're right, it's cyclical, and it completely trades off one another.

And so I'm curious what you think we could do to bring back the kind of foot traffic, the excitability, not just for angelenos, but for folks from San Francisco who want to fly down and visit or folks from around the country who would like to come, come downtown to Los Angeles.

I'm just curious what your thoughts are on how we could better bring back that resurgence.

Thank you for that question. I'll answer it in a couple of ways. One is because I know that the mission and goal of this Select Committee is to sort of look at best practices across the state, across other downtowns. And I know there's been a tremendous amount of work in actually sections of San Francisco. Right.

And others that have looked at sort of what those public space activation programs could be to a lot of success. And sometimes it's looking at just a couple of streets or one park. Right. That has a great potential and really doubling down in those investments.

What we see and know to be true is that an employee who might have choice in whether or not they go into the office, which is an important distinction, does so because there's something cool happening that day, right.

Much more so because there's a, you know, great show or sort of collection of food trucks or whatever the experience might be. Or they're, you know, LA is so lucky to have a tremendous amount of cultural, sports and entertainment assets, right, in its very sort of fabric.

And so if you're going to catch a laker game later, right. You come into the office that day. And so that really, really is key to think about those, those public space activations. A lot of CCM Members are. I want to uplift, like doing that work right now.

But I think there could be a more thoughtful and coordinated strategy in thinking about what spaces are best in downtown LA to do that work.

And I want to once again sort of acknowledge something Mister Huarte said, that like people, people who are coming into downtown every day are at the front lines of some of those tougher experiences and encounters that we know are happening. People experiencing mental health crises. You know, there's a question of equity too, right?

And who is having to handle some of those tough conversations or situations at the street level of an office and active, you know, exciting public spaces are a way that sort of mitigates that while we still work on a really coordinated effort to provide that person the support they need.

The one other thing that I think you raised also in the open is massive events like Olympics, World cup. Right?

We have this moment to leverage big events which will be a targeted sort of time period, but our opportunity to usher federal, state, local resources towards whatever that reimagined infrastructure structure is that then can sustain over time those kinds of programming and public space activations.

I struggled with how to approach it, right? And on one hand we all agree that folks ought to have a decent wage, a livable wage. And living in a garage and having two jobs and sleeping in a car is not a way to exist.

Went through it myself with my parents when they arrived here from Mexico and we lived in a garage and eventually we made it when we got sectioned housing and we did the same sort of work.

And I've shared very publicly in many ways, but you know, Mister Huerta and I have talked, my dad was a member of the union and that's how we were able to pay, at least for what we had at the time. So we want good union jobs, good paying jobs. We want to see an industry that thrives.

And if folks are on razor margin profits, it's not going to work. I mean, we can have this argument all day long. We have it in the capital, we have it on the streets, and everybody assumes big building, big corporation, lots of money. I want more wage, but if there's nothing there, there's nothing there.

I mean, let's be very, very honest about a conversation. So now that we're moving, I always wonder like where are the points that, where are the points that meet between a workforce and downtowns? And that is that if they thrive, if they're healthy economically, then they should be paying a fair wage.

But then identifying those pieces in detail to allow for that investment to come. All trying to figure out this partnership, right? Because I'm not going to support a thriving economy if it doesn't provide fair wages. I'm always going to do that. And I know that everybody's heart here is in the right place. Right.

So then what are those things? I mean, because at a very high level, we can continue to have these conversations and we have, and they're important. But then when you get to a real conversation about, okay, what are the three things? And I'm just making this up, right?

Because this is what I always say in every conversation, right? Like, what are the three things specifically that I can do, even if they're aspirational to get this done, and we're not going to get Cra again. So that's off the table. You know, no one's here said it, right?

But I know usually when we get into those conversations, everybody say, well, that's not going to ever happen because it just hasn't historically. So I can't aim at pie in the sky, but I can aim at like detailed one, maybe one thing, maybe three things. And that's what I really struggle for in order to pinpoint.

And we're having this conversation, if I may share a private conversation that Mister Haney and I were having yesterday, revolving around the struggle in Sacramento to get people into a downtown, right? Do you get a workforce back in a downtown? Do you allow for the elimination of remote working?

Or do you reimagine maybe how it looks a little bit differently? And if that's the case, what are the three things that you do? So I want to challenge, you know, I can challenge myself and think about three things as well, as controversial as they may be. Right?

But just for this, for the sake of having a real detailed conversation, you go first, I go second. I know three things that you would say, you know, in 30 seconds that may help. I mean, that's really the way things get done, right? You throw something at the wall and then you try to figure it out, right?

That was my long winded Latino way of saying, hey, man, what's up?

Yeah, right. Look, I think one is.

Writing these down, by the way.

Well, right or wrong answer, right, the. Circumstances we find ourselves right now, you know, our city centers are not going to revitalize unless we have we figure out how we navigate outside of this crisis, away from this crisis, how do we change what we do, right? And I said this, right?

And I think it first by not being in silos with one another. We cannot operate in silos. Right? I mean, right now, I just think too often we see, you know, shots over the bow coming from, you know, organization, ourselves, others. And you see shots going over the bow from business back over.

And we're shooting over the bow at each other as if somehow we don't have, we don't understand how we have to coexist. And we all have a shared interest, right? So I always like to look at the intersection of the interests of workers I represent and also the interest of the buildings and the companies they work for.

And where is that intersection? How do we find what's the best outcomes? And so I think right now we have to get out of silos.

I think there is power in government, there is power in city, county, state government to be able to pull interests together and start a conversation on what is the 2, 3, 4, 5 year plan in order to really come out of this in a way that is not just surviving, but actually thriving.

And I think also, I would say right now, it's important that we understand we are in a crisis. It's important to understand that, because you have to kind of understand where you're starting from and what are the elements that you're in to be able to then figure out how you respond to it.

And so I think those are two things. And I would just say the third thing I think for me is we have to know that what was our culture of work prior to the pandemic is not going to. Is we're not going back to it. It's no going back to that culture of work.

What people understand, you know, I think the assumption that people are going to go back to pre pandemic conditions of chaining themselves to their desk, just not a reality.

I think most workers, whether you have privilege or not, and I say privileged by those who are able to work from home versus those who don't have privilege, who have to punch the clock and come to work, which are all the workers you see right now in the audience, that we all understand that things have changed, but things have to change for all of us.

And it can't just be one group benefits at the cost of another.

There has to be some sense of understanding how the economy, this economy thrives not just because of the CEO of Apple or the CEO of Google or the CEO of any of the commercial real estate, but it thrives because of the security officers and janitors who actually make that product thrive.

And so how do we see, how do we reimagine, I think that's the key right here. I would say, how do we reimagine that relationship and the sense of space that we all come together at. And so I know I'm speaking probably in very big, you know, very like, non descriptive or non.

But I think that's where it starts. If we don't start that conversation, then I think what ends up happening is everybody's going to be left to their own demise to figure this thing out. And that's when I think it starts breaking down and we talk past each other as opposed to working with each other.

Not brand new ideas, sort of summarizing what we've already discussed. Downtown is a safe and clean place to be. The rest will work itself out, but people will, like this, will always be a section of the city that visitors, residents and workers come because that's the very nature, that's the sort of magic of a CBD.

The second thing is back to what we were saying about activations and huge opportunities to do that, either through private or public and investment, either around events or in continued ways. And the third one, which has already been addressed, I know, is sort of not the focus of this particular hearing, but housing. Right.

Just those are, there's massive potential in downtown Los Angeles. It is the greatest place to build with its access to transit, with its more flexible codes, right. Around density, with a kind of thriving market as it. As it stands, continuing conversations about making sure there's housing available at all income levels. Right.

But sort of the massive potential of housing for downtown to become ever more a true neighborhood. And then you talk about how all those things that are good for residents are good for workers and visitors. I think those are the three.

I've got another question. I mean, also, this is, this really is phenomenal. And you've got me thinking about these activations in a serious way because we put so much public money into kind of activating the public awareness around the pandemic. Right.

Both in terms of moving money into grassroots, community based organizations to be credible messengers to literal billboards, to just other ways. And we shouldn't just do that kind of work during a crisis. There's a lot of public interest in putting resources to bringing people together. And so that's definitely something you've got me thinking about.

How do we encourage this kind of collaboration? Because this is also exciting to see, right. The idea that we know that thriving businesses that have healthy bottom lines, that are not one week of bad transactions away from closing, are the kind of businesses that can pay thriving wages. Right.

But we often get pitted against each other shooting bows, you know, shooting shots across the bows. And we're all watching them, trying to decide who shot first, and whether there's a role for the public interest in this kind of dispute. How do we bring this greater collaboration together?

Because I think that's going to be needed to build up our city centers, that's going to be needed to build our downtowns. And I'm excited that you are not bothered, just panelists today, but seem to be in greater collaboration than I've seen before.

I will meet with Mister Huerta any time, any day. And honestly, the impetus of this hearing has also helped.

I know there's been many conversations and good work between him and some of CCA's Members, but you can sort of, you believe that we will be doing this work together through this Committee process and beyond, because it is so important to have shared goals around this, you know, kind of version of an activation concept and many others.

So, yeah, I would echo that. I mean, I think, you know, there's so many conversations, you know, the contract we just negotiated, it's probably one of the best contracts we've had in a moment of crisis industrial, in the commercial crisis.

And that was by design and by pressure, pressure from our members saying we, you know, in order for us to survive with the cost of housing, the cost of inflation, you know, what it means to live in Los Angeles. We need better wages.

But it was also the conversation, as we pushed that publicly, it was also the conversations that I was able to have with many property owners who understood that the value that our members provide and contribute through their work into these industries. Right.

But I think, you know, we have to take those conversations out of just a transaction and create a conversation on how do we transform. And we have to be intentional about how we make that happen.

I think too many times we, we operate from opposing interests, but when we sit down and talk, we kind of figure out that there's a mutual interest. Right? And I know it's hard to understand that, and I'm probably breaking all the laws of a union organizer here saying that.

But I also believe that when I sit down and have a human conversation with people and with people who have, they have the decision makers, they understand that the service security officers and janitors provide is essential to their product when confronted with that question. And I think a lot of times, you know, so I just think that's.

And I would just put it back on our leadership. I look to you as leaders as well, right? It was like, how do we use your leadership with that intention of saying, okay, as a leader, what can I do to create the space or the environment to be able to have these conversations.

I know I've talked to the Governor. I've talked to our city mayors. I've talked to our county supervisors about this needs. We need to have a more collective stakeholder conversation that puts us into a space to really look at it from the interest not just of business, but from our interests as well.

And so I think, you know, that's what I would say.

Thank you both for not only your comments today and your participation, but for your leadership, for your courage to even break out of some of those silos and to work with folks in this moment, because there is no way to meet the moment that we're in and the opportunity that we have and the crisis that we're facing separately and in a way that fights each other because that is only going to take us further down and not up.

I think one of the things that, about what is happening in our downtowns that should give us tremendous urgency to what we're facing is that there really is a snowball effect.

Both of you spoke about this in some way that when businesses close, when there's empty retail, when there's vacancies, less people want to come downtown, less people want to come into work, less people want to visit. And then that makes things worse and worse and worse.

And so every day that goes by where we're not starting to build back and reimagine in a way that brings people here and supports the people who, who are here, it gets that much harder in the future.

And I do think that one of the things that you spoke about is the need to ensure that downtown is safe and clean and that's going to take investments.

And so these kind of efforts that you spoke about that make it impossible for cities in the state to provide for those investments, whether it's in law enforcement or housing or the sort of services that we need to support a thriving downtown, that's going to make it a lot harder for all of us.

And so I really think in terms of working together, those kind of things are not helpful. And as we make transitions, this is the last thing.

When we talk about if you have a commercial office building and you turn into housing, which is something that I've been working on a lot, when you have changes that are happening downtown, let's not leave the people behind when we do that. Let's find a way to bring them along and also lift them up.

And so I think when we think about not only the responsibility of our leaders in that who are business leaders and others. But our policy changes that need to take place, we have a displaced janitors act that really deals with contractor changes, often within commercial real estate.

Our policies don't necessarily reflect, reflect the reality of the type of reimagination that's going to happen in our city and a way that we make it a win win for everyone, because we do need to support our commercial real estate and businesses and hotels and all of that, because they're also struggling.

And we want them to have a healthy bottom line, but we want the people who make up those businesses and make them successful to also be healthy and thrive as well. Thank you both, just the beginning of our work together and really appreciate you both being here today and your leadership.

Thank you.

All right, I want to move on to our second panel, who will provide the Committee with testimony on the State of essential workers in downtown Los Angeles.

I want to welcome the Director of Research and policy at the Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance, Brady Collins, Warren Reed, who is a security officer with Allied Universal, and Maria Estrada, a janitor with ABM. Please join us up here in the front. All right, welcome to the three of you. Thank you so much for being here.

We are going to start with Mister Collins.

Thanks for having me. Members of the Committee again, I'm with KIWA. I would like to tell you a little bit about our organization, and then I can go into talking about the restaurant industry, which I think is what we really want to contribute to this conversation. So KIWA has been part of the labor movement since 1992.

We're rooted in Koreatown, but we organize across the City of Los Angeles, primarily in the restaurant and retail industries. And we know the restaurant industry really well. Koreatown has about 700 restaurants in less than 2 sq. Mi, employing 10,000 workers, and downtown is very similar.

KIWA is also proud to have helped workers unionize at the first Korean restaurant in the country, just down the street here, Genwo BBQ. Go check it out and eat there. And for us, you know, during the pandemic, of course, there was a new title for restaurant workers, essential workers. We've always known that they are essential.

They feed us. But I think what we saw during the pandemic was that this workforce had to make the impossible choice of do I go to work and risk becoming infected, or do I not go to work and not be able to pay rent?

And so I think we've got to think about restaurant workers and restaurant businesses together. And so what we did last year was do a study on the restaurant industry with the UCLA Labor Center. And so I'll just quickly talk about that.

And I want to uplift a couple of the stories of workers that we highlight in the report. And I'll just say, you know, I've, before being at KIWA, spent almost a decade myself in the restaurant industry. I've probably had every position in a restaurant other than a chef, though I'm a pretty good cook, I can say.

And so, you know, what we see in the restaurant industry, despite a lot of the progress that we've made with our labor allies to address wage theft, it still happens. And what we're seeing more and more is tip stealing as a kind of unique form of wage step that's harder to detect. We also see retaliation against workers.

And on top of that, restaurant workers are more likely to be uninsured, not have health insurance. They're more likely to live in overcrowded housing, which both together can tell you about what the pandemic was like for them.

And we also see a wage ceiling, meaning that whether workers have worked for two decades or two months in the restaurant where they're working, they are still paid the bare minimum wage.

And so for us, we wanted to highlight in this report some policy recommendations, which I can talk about, but also lift up some of the workers stories and restaurant owner stories.

And so one worker, Jose Michael, who is a Member of KIWA, he works at two restaurants, he works seven days a week, and he lives with his brother and three other roommates in a one bedroom. Right. They all work in the restaurant industry.

They're all buddies, but they have to live under those circumstances in order to, to remain housed.

Another worker, Sunny Choi, who works at a noodle restaurant nearby, has worked for that restaurant for over a decade, has never seen a raise, has never had a paid vacation day, has to commute an hour to get to work because they can't afford to live in the City of Los Angeles.

So I think what we would like to see in thinking about downtowns, why do people come downtown? Perhaps more than anything, it's to eat and have fun. So we've got to think about the role that the restaurant industry plays in downtown revival.

I think if I can take you up, Assembly Member Santiago on what are three things that we can do? I can list maybe five or six that we were thinking about. You know, I think we've got to understand that the restaurant industry, you know, in LA, perhaps more than anything, we have this question.

It's always a question that I ask everybody, because after being in policy for so long, like, not you, but people come in and, you know, aim at pie in the sky, and you're like, okay, what does that really mean in real English in 30 seconds, you know, and it's like, very few people can actually say it.

So I challenge everybody. Okay, since you brought me up, alright, name the three things, but that are real tangible that can get done, because how many times do you guys walked in meetings in policy and everybody throws all these big words, all this thing, and you're like, I don't know what they're talking about, man.

Tell me three things in roll English of what is tangible. Now you're gonna be asking for six things. No, No 3, 3. That's fine.

I'll do my best. You know, I think that we've got to repeal Costa Keen. We've got to be able to control rent increases for commercial tenants, especially in an industry where margins are razor thin.

We're really excited about SB 1103 from Senator Menjivar, which is going to make leases much more transparent for commercial tenants and translate them for immigrant entrepreneurs who may not speak English. We think that outdoor dining needs to be much easier for restaurants to apply for. I'm sure folks know about the Al fresco dining program here in LA.

It is a very burdensome application process. I was talking to a restaurant owner just the other day. She said she's got 10 minutes a day free because she's running around like crazy to keep her restaurant open. Doesn't have time to navigate.

Is it DOT or is it street services or is it Office of public works that I need to speak to in order to get a permit? So I think we've got to think about how we make it easier for alfresco dining or programs like that.

I think we've also got to understand that working conditions is a homelessness prevention strategy. Right. When we think about the homelessness crisis, we've got to build more affordable housing. Absolutely. We've also got to understand that having a good wage and enforcing the wage is going to prevent homelessness.

So I think we've got to connect those dots as well. So I think that was four. I could maybe think of more if I have some more time.

So I missed one. I got outdoor Costa Keen and SB 1103. Okay. I live both in the two commercial. And I put outdoor dining and wages. Okay.

Okay. And then I just, I'll say lastly, I don't think this is pie in the sky, but I think in LA we often think of, you know, the restaurant workers. Oh, they're, they're struggling actors and this is just their job on the side. Right.

Restaurant jobs are career jobs for a lot of people and so we've got to make them good jobs.

Thank you. Thank you Mister Collins, Mister Reed.

Chair and Committee Members. Thank you for having us. I am grateful for the opportunity to testify before you today. My name is Warren Reed and I've dedicated most of my career to ensure the safety of security officers. I'm a security officer and proud Member of SEIU.

I have spent my professional career as a security officer for the past 10 years. We now have a collective bargaining agreement and I have successfully defended our right to organize. Our union is stronger than ever and continues to grow across the state, improving the lives of our members and our families.

During COVID-19 crisis, security officers were among the first to report to work, often without adequate personal protective equipment, putting their lives at risk to ensure the safety of buildings and the public. Many of our colleagues fell ill as a result. I think at one time we had 11 officers out at one time.

That made it very, very difficult to operate these buildings where short staff over time was technically they can't force you. But you understand what I'm saying was pretty much you felt obligated because at that time your job was not promised.

So when they ask you to work overtime because we have so many officers that are out, you could say no legally. But we know how things happen. You start saying no too much, things start to happen. You never know. We were told on a weekly basis, we don't know what the future is going to look like.

We don't know if management is going to come in and they're going to cut post. So you had to make sure that you were going to have a job the next day.

Over the past decade, I have witnessed the changing landscape of downtown Los Angeles, with issues such as mental illness, drug use and despair affecting many who call the downtown streets home. As security officers, our job is to protect property.

However, when individuals facing these challenges approach the properties we guard, we are expected to make contact and engage with them. We serve as first responders. Yet unlike traditional first responders, we lack essential tools such as batons, pepper spray and adequate training to handle individuals under the influence of drugs or experiencing mental health crisis.

This has resulted in many security officers being attacked and seriously injured. While I am fortunate to have received training in the Marine Corps equipping me with the ability to use my energy and presence to prevent property damage, many of my fellow security officers do not have the same background.

Every day I go to work with the worry and stress of potentially being injured. We as security officers face this concern on a daily basis. It is undeniable that downtown Los Angeles needs to recover and security officers will play a crucial role in ensuring the safety, both the public and property.

However, we need better jobs and we need better tools, improved training, and most importantly, we need to be treated with respect and dignity. I hope to never see the day when a candlelight vigilante held in front of our buildings, lamenting the death of a security officer, questioning what could have been done to prevent it.

Security officers are prepared to contribute to the solution and have been a constant presence through challenges and triumphs. I urge you to ensure that we do something in downtown Los Angeles to keep everyone healthy and safe. Now, I spoke a little bit about safety equipment.

The same individuals that the Police Department in our business improvement district deal with, we deal with as security officers in these buildings. We don't have body armor, we don't have the pepper spray, we don't have batons.

These are things that we need to keep us safe and we brought this to the attention to our company's management, but they have neglected to even have us sit down with us and a meeting with us about it. It just makes sense.

We don't live in the world that we did years ago, where security and high rise buildings were more customer service. We still do that. That is one of the backbones of what we do.

But at the same time, the element around downtown security, security has changed, and we have people that are being attacked and hurt on a regular basis. What I fear is we're going to end up waiting until a security officer loses his or her job. And then we're going to have the news media reporting.

And imagine sitting at home in your living room with your families and you're watching the news and it comes on, and you see these news vans with a satellite disk on top.

You see the candles outside of the buildings, and you see community leaders coming before us in a podium with a few microphones in front of them saying, enough is enough. What are we going to do to stop it? Then you have the families there. They're grieving, and that's a reality that's right around the corner.

I don't want us to wait for that to happen, that someone has to lose their life. I catch the subway to work every day. I've seen people shooting up with drugs, using needles. I'm seeing a small difference with the subway system, but that was only after people lost their lives.

People were killed down in the subway and attacked. Why do we have to wait for someone to lose their life? And family members have to bury their loved ones before we act? We have the ability to do better, and I think that we can.

It's just a matter of coming together and actually carrying, caring about these security officers. And I think that's one of the biggest problems. It's the lack of actually caring. Where I work is the gas company tower right next to Persian Square. We've had employees attacked with Starbucks because Starbucks has a hands off policy.

They come in, they steal, they do what they want. We've had employees where hot coffee was thrown on them and they have to leave and go to the hospital.

We have this on a regular basis where at my building, we were asked to approach people that are homeless, mentally ill, 06:00 in the morning, because all night they've been sleep. And a lot of these individuals, they have mental problems.

So when you go to wake them up, you don't know what you're going to have to deal with when you're waking them up. And this is every single morning because management wants them removed before tenants start coming into work. So oftentimes we've had security officers chased, attacked, chased with weapons. This is a huge problem.

But the threat is not just a problem under the security umbrella. We lost one of our union brothers, our brother Tomas, who was a janitor, who was attacked and killed. He wasn't working security. He was a janitor. This is a problem. So this is not just a problem based on depends on what occupation you have.

This is just a problem across the board, and it needs to be addressed. We had negotiations for our contract, and we sat down with the owners and executives with these security companies. And in our contract, what we put forth was to address safety concerns. Body armor, baton, pepper spray. We didn't get it. They pushed back.

They gave all these excuses. We don't know what. What the future is going to look like. The clients might not want it. Basically, it showed me that they were not concerned. They did not care about the safety of the individuals that get up every single day and go to work for them. They debated us for six months.

We got down to the last hour before we agreed, fighting over $0.15. Literally, that was an hour. But wage, that's a whole other conversation. But regarding safety, they didn't want to have this implemented. So we ended up having a contract and it wasn't addressed.

But what they promised us was that we would have a separate meeting and we would sit down with you guys to discuss safety protection on the job. It hasn't happened. That was in the end of 2022. 2022. We still haven't had that meeting. So for me, it's not just my opinion.

I'm looking at their behavior, and the behavior tells me they don't care about us. That's not really up for debate. We've brought this to their attention. It's not just an opinion out of the air. The powers that be do not care about the security officers that get up every single day, go to work, being attacked.

Lives are on the line, and they see what's happening. They hear about it, they see it in our reports, the incident reports. They know what's going on, but they don't care. And that's a big issue, and that's something that we're going to have to find a way to address. To change the mindset. Probably won't happen.

We might need Legislature because you can't change the heart. There's no way you can change an adult to care about another individual when they practice this type of behavior. So trying to convince someone that's not gonna work because they already know.

So there needs to be Legislature because it's not gonna happen with changing their hearts and their minds. These are grown adults. They don't care. They probably never will. But those individuals, the way you have to go at them is legit. There needs to be something or law to make people behave and treat people with dignity and respect.

And until that happens, we're going to still have these problems. Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you so much, Mister Reid, Miss Estrada.

President Haney, Members of the Assembly, my name is Maria Estrada. I'm a proud woman, immigrant woman. I'm proud to be a janitor. I'm proud to be a Member of the union SEIU USW. I've been a janitor for more than 20 years. I came to this country in 1989 looking, like many other immigrants, a better life.

My sister was a janitor and a union leader. In the year 2000, my sister participated in a movement to achieve better wages in the cleaning industry. My family and I supported her. It was a difficult strike, but they achieved their objective.

Two years later, in 2002, I began to work in the cleaning industry, doing the cleaning services at ABC studios for channel Seven.

I know the industry very well. I know the downtown area by heart. I live in downtown LA and I also work here.

In 2014, I was assigned to clean the Union Station blocks away from this room. There I saw the Los Angeles that nobody wants to see. I saw extreme poverty. I remember seeing whole, entire families go into Union Station to use the public bathrooms, to bathe, and to send their. Kids to school at 03:00 a.m.

I saw how the government abandoned people that were in major need. I had to clean up feces, vomit, blood, fleas, and lice. I was never trained to clean human feces. I never received the equipment necessary to protect myself. I was never given training on what to do in emergency situations. And believe me, there were emergency situations.

My brothers and sisters, janitors, have been victims of violence at union stations on several occasions.

At Union Station I worked up until the beginning of the pandemic when several janitors, many of us, lost our jobs. And although it was a very difficult and dangerous job to Clean Union Station, I learned something that I'm never going to forget.

I learned that the people that live on the streets, in spite of the danger that we face with them, they're not bad people. I met doctors that ended up on the streets due to depression. I met people that urgently needed emotional support.

I saw families living in poverty and veterans that fought at the Iraq War that were abandoned. I learned to treat my Angelino neighbors with dignity and respect. Today I work at US Bank Tower. The janitors have nicknamed this building the kick.

There I have received training on what chemicals to use to avoid damaging the environment and our health. And we have received training on what to do in cases of emergency and some training on how to do our job in a safer way.

The job is hard and one day I would like to invite you to come and see how we bust our butts. At US Bank Tower, the tenants, the workers and the janitors. We work in a clean environment and a safe and a pleasant environment.

Perhaps other buildings can do the same and then more people will return to their offices in downtown.

I want downtown to thrive. Here is where I work. This is my community, this is my home, and this is where I have given my children a better life.

But in order for downtowns to thrive, company owners and building owners have to see us as part of the solution, not as disposable. Janitors have always been here to clean and that is the first step to having safety and there should never be any decisions that be made without us. The janitors work on those buildings.

I want to thank all three of you for being here and for your work and your leadership. I think you put perfectly into words with your experiences and your stories about how much you and your colleagues and the people that you represent contribute to our downtowns every day.

How there have been new challenges that our workers downtown are experiencing, whether that's health and safety, homelessness, mental illness, drug use.

And that in order for us to face a future together downtown, where everybody can be safe and everybody can thrive and contribute, we have to make sure that we are supporting the people who are here doing the work every day.

And I think we did hear some bad examples of that, where our security officers are being put out and expected to deal with situations where they are not provided with the equipment, not provided with the training, and are put in situations where they are in danger. And that is something that is unacceptable.

As we think about what we need to do as a state and a city. We have to confront that. We also heard about how there are some building owners who are supporting janitors in ensuring that they have the training and the support and the protection that they need.

And some of that was fought and won by the union. That doesn't always happen simply out of the goodness of folks heart. It sometimes is something that requires changes in laws and it requires representation that helps to ensure that and protect it for our workers. I really appreciate all three of you.

I know that Mister Collins was able to give his five things, too. So we're able to have that on our list. I do want to open it up if there are any questions. And then we'll need to move to the next panel to respect everyone's time as well.

Yeah, definitely. I mean, really, really, really quick. Brady, thank you. I worked in restaurants for six years. Most recently, I was slanging Pazukis at the Fox Hills mall at BJ's. I now represent that same area in the state Legislature. Your comments about commercial rent control? We have many folks who don't have leases at all.

There are certain, you know, certainly businesses in downtown and other parts of Los Angeles that are doing seven figures and grow sales on a month to month lease. Terrified that, you know, once the next transit line gets built up, Starbucks or something is coming in to displace them.

And so I think you've brought up some incredible points, Warren. We have let you down, you and your brothers and sisters on the job. We're asking you to pick up the failures of us, not building up the mental health and safety security infrastructure, and then put the weight on you without the supplies that you need.

Thank you for sharing that and putting that back on our focus. You shouldn't be doing this alone. And certainly with those of us who are here today, you are not alone. Senora Estrada, mucho gusto. Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing your story and your testimony and the way that you approach the work.

You do the job with so much dignity and so much respect and still can see that humanity in other people, even in times of emergency, in times of crisis, that's really powerful. That is the best of Los Angeles. That is the best of downtown. That is the best of our state.

So thank you for your service and for sharing that testimony with us today.

I'm just going to go say that the questions I would have asked, you've already answered. So I'm very appreciative of your time and I'll see you out on the streets.

Again, we want to thank all three of you for being here and for your leadership for us, this is exactly what we need to hear and to learn as we're thinking about solutions to the challenges that our downtown is facing. We have to address all of the issues that you brought up as well.

How do we make sure that people have affordable housing so that they don't have to live with 5-6 people in a one bedroom apartment?

People are commuting hours away in order to come down here and make sure that LA can be a place that people can come safely for the workers who are here and the unique challenges that they're facing, not only with vacancies and we talked about vacancies, but also the issues of safety and homelessness and addiction, you all are so much on the front lines of that.

And even as we think about how the state and the city can do a better job to take care of people, this is a reality that you're facing every day. And so we have to make those changes to support you now.

And you have our gratitude for your work, for everyone who is here whose stories are represented in the people up here. We see you. We appreciate you. We did this as our first hearing because any conversation about downtown has to center your experiences.

And as we work to bring our state back, our cities back, we have to make sure that your lives are ones that are safer, your jobs are ones that allow you to provide for your families, that we really create an economy that is more inclusive for everyone here who contributes so much to be able to thrive.

Thank you so much for your time today. And we'll continue to work together on all of these issues. And we really appreciate the three of you for being here. All right, I'm going to invite our last panel here today up and we appreciate everyone's patience.

I'm going to try to get us done as close as possible to 12. But we do want to bring up our last panel here. And we have the Executive Director of the Independent Hospitality Coalition, Eddie Navarete, and Senior Vice President at Hudson Pacific Properties, Chris Pearson. Welcome.

All right, I learn. Thank you, honorable Members here in the public. My name is Eddie Navarrette. I am a resident of downtown LA, also Executive Director at the Independent Hospitality Coalition and also board President of Artshare LA in the arts district.

My background is owner of FE Design and consulting, providing architecture and land use services for our retail small business community for over 20 years. We are a boutique development company that helps primarily hospitality businesses get their doors open. We have seen within those years the dynamics of the small business development within different neighborhoods throughout Los Angeles.

I can't say we have ever experienced something like we are experiencing today. During our last resurgence of downtown LA back in 2005, hospitality was open for business, starting in large part by our bars and nightclubs. Restaurants were soon to follow. We survived the recession. In fact, we boomed post recession. Most of Los Angeles did.

But downtown LA was going at its peak, of course, until March 2020, when everything changed unlike anything we had ever seen. Business just stopped. Hospitality couldn't just work from home. Rules changed, seemed daily on how we could operate.

Our health Department gave us new regulations like candy spiking terror into our customers and the little staff we could manage to keep around exposing the dysfunction of our health Department by giving these regulations, with no training to inspectors the same day as they were given to the public, the protest took the heart right out of us, with storefronts getting looted.

I mean, 2020 beat us into the ground as we stood by and watched our businesses get ravaged with no support. But then our community went into action, where the independent hospitality coalition was born. Other associations, like regarding her supporting women owned restaurants, also know us. Without you supporting our service workers, we were feeding hospital workers our elderly.

You started to see the resilience of our community rise from the ground. We were severely stomped into thank God for the PPP. Then later the restaurant resilience funds, which helped tremendously, but only for some. There was a ton of rent relief for residents, but not for our commercial storefronts.

We couldn't get our staff back to work because they just didn't have to. For some, a small portion of our property owners issued rent relief, but many more without the skin of the game gave nothing. Insurance covered nothing. One of the biggest lessons we teach now is how important having a good relationship with your landlord is.

Our unhoused had always been an issue in downtown LA, but here has always been a normalcy to it. But after 2020, this issue was exacerbated everywhere. Same with crime. We were seeing more broken storefronts and theft back than during the protests.

Sometimes storefronts would get smashed into for no reason just due to the mentally ill letting out some energy. All very devastating when you're already dealing with issues like lawsuit abuse. Double utilities, doubled insurance, if you can even get it.

One of our restaurants couldn't even get insurance because the building was too old without fire sprinklers and had too much crime around it. Lawsuit abuse has grown with serial suitors preying on commercial storefronts by being an inch off from handicap requirements.

We saw an increase of lawsuits for non Ada website compliance, labor suits slapped across the face as a whole industry of attorneys that have been unable to thrive in California, all with no regulation. Insurance companies with no regulation. Restaurants have the most regulation of any commercial storefront.

And yet we do so much to add to the vibrancy of a neighborhood, the safety of a neighborhood, the local economy of a neighborhood. Yet our value is overlooked. Back in the resurgence of downtown LA in 2008, ish LA departments got in the room with businesses and we worked together to make it easier to open a business.

Now the answer by departments is to come up with solutions. Without us. That just cost the city more money. There is no collaboration. Sewer fees are doubling in Los Angeles, making our outdoor dining program even more impossible.

Then with less city staff, opening a restaurant has never been more difficult than now, with departments refusing to remove process or red tape as an answer. We create not just jobs, but important jobs. First time in life jobs and second chance in life jobs.

There is no other place you can go without any skills or even being an immigrant to get employed than in a restaurant. We truly are the backbone of community. Yet we feel overlooked. We do not feel supported. There have been several successful housing initiatives, but nothing for small businesses. No adaptive reuse programs, no ADU, streamlined permitting.

People that come here from other states or even countries are totally blown away by how difficult it is to open a restaurant here. Restaurants are resilient. We are passionate. We'll go anywhere. Just don't make it so hard for us.

If we're going to get downtown LA back to where it was, we're going to need to make some changes. San Diego, I heard, has been doing remarkable things with the permitting by introducing self certification permits. New York City did it in 1995 and permit issuance was doubled there.

You don't have to go far to see the mass closures of independent restaurants these days. For a restaurant owner, it just adds to the discouragement. We are all just looking at our bank accounts, getting lower and lower until the time to close for business. Thank you guys for having me.

It's been an honor to be here amongst such honorable people. I appreciate your time in the conversation. Thank you.

Mister Pearson, good morning.

My name is Chris Pearson. I'm here representing Hudson Pacific properties. We're a publicly traded REIT that owns approximately 20 million square feet office from Vancouver to Los Angeles, but mostly in downtown areas up and down the West Coast. As we've struggled to rebound post Covid, we've seen the need and the desire to partner across the spectrum.

I think historically what you see from business owners today, particularly office owners, is we've been typically opposed to regulation, opposed to engagement for a variety of reasons. And I think the reality of where we sit as office owners, we believe that a health and just economy is necessary and required.

That means we have to respect and honor the workers that help keep our building safe, help keep our building clean, help keep our building operating. But a big piece of that is making sure we're able to actually keep our building running.

And with the occupancy struggles that we see, as you've heard, downtown occupancy is just hovering above 70%. But if I told you what real occupancy is, meaning butts and seats, we're probably closer to 60%. As I said, we own buildings throughout California. We own quite a few buildings in San Francisco.

One of those buildings is the Ferry building. I just use this as an example. The ferry building is the number one tourist destination in San Francisco. We've returned to our pre pandemic levels as it relates to tourism visitors on site. But our sales for our small businesses within the ferry building are still down 20%.

And that's wholly contributing and really contributed to the lack of office workers within the downtown area. I think downtown Los Angeles is experiencing something very similar, if not worse, because it's not the same type of tourist attraction that the Ferry building historically has been.

I think our ability to continue to invest in our workers and support their growth and an equitable economy is predicated on our ability to bring back office workers to our buildings. The top three things we care about when it comes to bringing back office workers are you guys have heard it, safety, cleanliness.

And we care about it to really attract our tenants back. But we also care about it because as you've heard from the workers, they have to live it day in and day out.

I get to go back to my office, it's not in downtown and hear about issues, but they have to deal with it and confront it day in, day out.

And I think the expectation for them to do that is unrealistic if we are not partnering both as owners, as government and as workers to really address the issues head on. I think you've heard from Nella and others that activation is something that we care really holistically about.

We have to give people a reason to come back to downtown before they decide to lease space, before they decide to lease restaurant space. But we have to give people a reason to come down.

I think government plays a big role in bridging that gap to whether it's farmers markets, summer concert series, movies in the park, whatever it may be, activating our public space to attract individuals back to downtown is a priority.

We do have large events coming, but it is those micro engagements and micro opportunities that I think are going to be more sustainable and have a larger impact. I think if you guys, when I worked downtown in city hall, we had downtown LA Art Walk, which was super successful for a number of years.

It's bringing events like that back and ensuring that we have the public resources to keep those events safe and engaging that will ensure that we're able to do our job. On the office side of bringing tenants back to downtown LA, those are the top two things.

I think that when it comes to the third thing you heard from Eddie, really the regulation side of ensuring we're removing any barriers on the time side to discourage people to come by. I mean, if someone's investing their money in our downtowns, we have to do whatever it is to incentivize them to do that.

And so the more barriers we can remove, the more barriers local officials can remove to expedite their permitting. For small businesses, in particular, those street level businesses, the better. And whether it's self certification, those are all things that allow for us to move quickly. And when you're spending money, that's kind of the most important thing.

The last piece that I will really hone in on. Hello. Assemblymember Fong, I think as we continue to sort of look to our future as building owners, we do look to, especially in downtown CBD's, we look to our government offices to refill as well.

I think having government employees go back to work is something that we are a big proponent of across our markets that we do business in, and they are as big a part of the office market as your private users.

I know that may be a bit controversial depending on the setting, but in our minds, it takes all of us to sacrifice a bit to get back to where we need to be. We want to continue to invest in our workers, which means we have to continue to invest in our buildings.

And to do that, we need to be able to be profitable. The last piece, kind of the final piece is with falling values as it related to our rents and our occupancy. We're seeing buildings, as many of you know, go into foreclosure.

What ends up happening when those buildings go into foreclosure is you end up getting a receiver who takes over those buildings, who typically is not local to the city, maybe not even local to the state.

And so you have individuals making decisions for these buildings, for our communities that have no tie here, and that impacts our workers, it impacts everybody's experience, it impacts our tenants.

And so for us to be successful, to hold onto our buildings, to have good owners who are continually to invest in local markets, we need to make sure that we're investing in our success, and we need to make sure that we're sharing in our success to continue that encouragement of collaboration. So thank you.

Thank you. We can give him a round of applause as well. You know, in. I appreciate it for you, Mister Naverrete, right? Correct. Okay. You know, we often sort of take for granted that the small businesses or restaurants are kind of, kind of figure it out on their own.

And we have all these conversations about the vacant office buildings and we have conversations about the workforce in those buildings. And I worked a lot, as you noted, on the adaptive reuse, on converting to housing.

And then the small businesses and the restaurants are sort of left out on their own, even though none of this can happen without them.

Folks talked about early a huge reason why people are going to come back into these office buildings or start to invest and bring their tenants back to the offices or come back as tourists or come stay here as hotels, is because of the restaurants and the nightlife. And yet it's very much not centered in the conversation.

I think to the extent that it should be, and I should say, I'll note that our next hearing is going to be in San Diego and we're going to be focusing on these exact issues. This is going to be the, in some ways, it's a preview of our next hearing.

One thing I just want to say to both of you, and it's kind of a connected question, there's a huge challenge that we have around regulations as it relates to predictability and simplicity.

You know, if you want to open a business and yet, you know, every other week things might change on what you're supposed to do or who you have to pay or who do you have to go to or what you're going to be asked to do that disincentivizes people from wanting to open businesses or coming back to downtown.

Are there things that you see that we can do on that front? And in particular, are there things that you think that the state can be doing to support that?

I know some of the things are city as well, but are things that we can do that you think from a state perspective to have more predictability so that when you make these investments, you don't feel like they're always potentially going to be pulled out from under you? Yes.

Thank you. That's a great question. AB 2550 is a great new bill by Assemblymember Gabriel, which is 13 building and health code updates to save California restaurants millions of dollars in unnecessary construction. That's just the start. We need to keep on doing this.

These are building codes, and our health codes do not reflect the progress of our industry. I think we really need to look at these codes again and see how we can make changes annually until we can get to the place that actually reflects the community that we want to build.

AB 2097 was a really great example that passed. I believe it went into effect in 2023, which prohibited local jurisdictions from requiring parking for businesses next to transportation areas. I think we need to do something like that.

When it comes to planning applications for simply having a restaurant, I don't believe that it's necessary to have as much red tape as we have if you're simply opening up a 50 seat restaurant.

I think that maybe we need to distinguish what a small business that we're trying to incentivized to have more of and what we consider a much larger business so that we don't get too in the weeds about what a larger corporate business may be and what an independent small business may be.

I thought all those conversations, I think are important to have, but I think those are just the beginning of some of the items that we have. I actually have a laundry list done just like Brady, but I'll leave it there.

Good, good, good. How would you want it?

Yes, I want to go back to Mister Navarrette, and I hope I pronounced that right. If I don't, I apologize. But here's two things. Kind of I heard right in the permitting and in the government space, which is opening and opening up a business and the sustainment of a business. Have you seen any successful models?

I always kind of ask people that. I remember one time sitting around, I asked folks who were developing, you know, about different sorts of models, and they pointed at Santa Ana at the time that did kind of simultaneous permitting as opposed to one by one by one. And they did what they suggested was like tableside permitting. Right.

They'd go up, it's not tableside permit, but you know, the analogy was that you put a table out and you did it all at once. Right. So in your kind of industry, what have you seen that are successful models outside of the hope of legislation? And I'm not saying that's not going to happen. Right.

But what I'm saying is are there been successful models that you have looked at? And I agree with you with the outdoor dining. I mean, I am at the state level and we were calling the county, we couldn't figure it out. Calling the city, couldn't figure it out.

At some point in time, we just told people we'll go ahead and do it. I mean, it was going to come out in years anyways, you know, but I mean, that's the reality of what happened in downtown during COVID Right. There was no regulate.

There was no, there were regulations set, but there was no way to achieve them because there was no one to talk to to get there. I get that. I understand that. But what successful models have you looked at in an Ide, in a real, if there was an ideal world, is.

There one, you know, or city or area you know?

The gentleman had mentioned how a very important thing I say often, which is can't force. You can force the hand, but you can't force the heart.

And I feel that if we're able to get the departments who are involved in creating the regulation and the red tape in the same with the people that are at the front lines of either building these things or that are being impacted by restaurant, has it been.

A successful model that you look at saying, if we had that, we had that

In 2008 in downtown LA during the last resurgence and it was very effective, but I think that San Diego is just doing a wonderful job by.

Could you tell me what that looks like just so that I understand better?

Well, so self certification permits has cut.

And by the way, sorry to jump ahead of the chair and ask that question. I should have asked the if I could, but because it's good natured, I like to ask that.

No, definitely. I think again, San Diego has done a wonderful job of cutting down their permit issuance, the time that it takes to get permits issued in half and qualifying permits to be issued the same day by self certification. I think it's a wonderful example. I think that's where we need to go.

You're saying it breaks it down by half.

By half of the time, yes. Streamlining permits for not only commercial, but also for housing.

Can you give me an idea of, like, right now it takes this long. What does half mean in terms of real time?

Well, right now, open up a restaurant, maybe it takes you about nine months if you hire someone like me to help you, usually it takes about a year. And then for construction, you're talking about another year. That's two years to build a restaurant.

So half is a year. And you consider that a success? Right.

Just to add, just to provide some context, what we're seeing in San Francisco right now is they've done a really good job of merging their departments to work quickly to reopen restaurants. So they're processing permits, like within two months. Like to get a permit open. I mean, and the big piece, just to put it in the context.

As opposed to what here?

As opposed to a year here. So, I mean, and just why downtown LA is so significant and kind of comparable is downtown has what we call a ton of like gen two space, meaning it was a restaurant at some point. It's just not an operating restaurant right now.

The ability to have gen two space and really export that permitting, if you can collaborate and bring together the right departments, it's predictable on what the issues are going to be.

And so the city can get ahead of it if they chose to, particularly for gen two space, which would cut that time in half, if not a third of the time.

But I mean, San Francisco, which in comparison to LA has as much red tape as anywhere else, has figured out how to make it go from what was a year there or longer to like two months.

What's, what specifically is it that they did? And then in that same question, I would ask, you know, we're not, it's not a city meeting here. Right. It's more of a state meeting. It's a state meeting here.

But like, in your experience, number one is what is it that they did, right, and what, what is it that they took out or kept in? And then when you're looking at permitting right now, what is, what are some of those things that you take a look at that makes sense?

And some of those things that you take a look at and say, I don't know why in the world they're doing that.

So Mister Naverrette probably can talk to the details more than I can because he's living it day in and day out. But what I will say is just from an overall policy making perspective, hearing from our elected leaders.

The need to expedite gets departments working in a way that I don't think they do today, whether that's from the state level or locally.

And two, I think whether it's self certification, which is a state issue that you guys can control, that is really important because we control our timeline of our consultants producing the documents that they, they can then self certify in some capacity.

And then two, I would look to him to provide you, really details on health and safety codes that can be relaxed and or eliminated depending on where they sit today in comparison to what's happening on the ground with our restaurants.

Just really quickly, I think every time that we bring a policy to a Department about a change, oftentimes they are not in the same room and they are giving it to them in a third hand capacity, and they are not allowed to collaborate with us.

So I feel like the only way for us to have this kind of way of streamlining permits with the departments having everything being done by one submittal, if you will, is we are going to have to collaborate with the departments.

We are going to have to have private engineers and public engineers in the same room, and we are going to have to hash out the details of public safety and what is not public safety and get rid of the nonsense so we can make it more about what they're really looking for, which is to preserve public safety.

And then when it comes to Health Department regulations, New York doesn't even have a plan check process. You just open up your restaurant and they come and they inspect to make sure that you're keeping your operations clean. And cleanliness, that's just an area of red tape that I just don't think we need to have anymore.

I think that's something we can completely do away with. The plan check process to submit plans to the Health Department is completely cumbersome. You have to be a professional kitchen designer or have some sort of like, health safety background.

And where are you going to find those people if you're a small business who just doesn't even barely speak the language? It's impossible. I feel like there needs to be some sort of, you know, fix when it comes to the plan check processes with the Health Department.

I want to ask one last question. I realize we're over time here, so I'm sure we could go a lot longer here. But I wanted to ask Mister Pearson, you know, somebody who is very familiar with the ownership and operation of these commercial real estate buildings.

And I think we're all acknowledging for sure that you all are trying to do well by the people who work for you and who you contract with.

I wonder if you could speak to maybe in some ways, in response to the experiences that we heard from Miss Estrada and Mister Reed about what are some of the best practices that you all are seeing, or that you think about in terms of how to make sure that the workforce that is connected to the buildings that you all own and operate, how to make sure that they have the support both for not only with wages, but also health and safety and well being.

And how are you all thinking about those challenges that were shared with us earlier?

I think it was shared that it is a matter of how you operate versus setting up a. There's not. I can't give you rules and regs we use. What I can say is we care. Right. We engage with our workers at a real level, and I think that's probably paramount.

We hold, we think our subcontractors, who then hire our workers who are on site, whether it's cleaning or securing our building, are a reflection of who we are. So whether it was during COVID and our buildings are empty, we kept everybody employed because they are a reflection of us.

And they're as much a part of the family as a Hudson employee that's getting that w two every year. So, I mean, I think it's just about perception and how we view the people who are in our buildings. They are an extension of me, they're an extension of our board, of our CEO.

And if we don't view it that way, then I do think you get that disconnect on not recognizing the humanity in what they do, and the importance of making sure your building is safe and clean.

And so we recognize the humanity in what they do, the importance of what they do, and the sacrifice by which they have to do it.

And I think that acknowledgement comes through our engagement with them to make sure that they're protected during, whether it's negotiating, as we just got through with our friends at SEIU or otherwise, it's just really taking into account what they mean to our building and the overall success of our business.

Thank you, know I appreciate that.

And I think there was sort of the sentiment that was brought up is, how do we create the right cultures where there is that care and understanding of the importance of every single person who is a part of a business or a building or an operation, and that they're not discarded or they're not put into situations that are unfair or dangerous.

I think one of the things that happens sometimes with some of the buildings and other things that happen downtown are, or that we have so many contractors and subcontractors that the actual people are sort of treated as kind of somebody else's responsibility and it's always not their fault to make sure that the actual human beings are adequately cared for and protected.

They just point fingers at each other. And so I really appreciate your perspective of saying that even if they're working for a contractor or subcontractor, that you feel it is their responsibility to make sure that they're taken care of and that they're safe.

I want to welcome my colleague, Assemblymember Fong as well, and give him an opportunity if you want to say anything, and then we'll move on to public comment. And thank you both so much for being here.

Thank you so much Assemblymember Haney, and to Assemblymember Santiago, and to everyone here for there's very important information hearing on the Select Committee on downtown recovery. Thank you to Mister Haney for your leadership and efforts around this. I know you've been doing hearings up and down the state.

For me, this is something that's near and dear to my heart. I worked with Mister Pearson way back in the day and we were looking at how we continue to support downtown and on a personal level. Thank you Mister Santiago for your leadership and efforts in downtown.

We serve together on the community colleges and the work and efforts around the buildings there, but also at city hall.

And I worked at six in spring at the community Development Department in 2001 to 2005, and to see that development, the Starbucks that came in at six in spring, to see the evolution of downtown and the challenges since the pandemic, we know that it's critical to revitalize our downtowns.

And then on the very northern edge of downtown is Chinatown. I went to elementary school, Cal State elementary school in Chinatown. So this ecosystem in the greater downtown area is so critical to our service workers to keeping downtown safe, healthy environment. And I'm so grateful to Mister Pearson, Mister Navarrette for their leadership and efforts.

We see each other, different things around the community and how we can continue to explore the vitality of downtown.

And when you look at level eight, that was just downtown LA and other places, there's a lot of opportunity for the recovery of downtown and anything that we can do as a state Legislature, I want to partner with my colleagues, and so I look forward to engaging in future conversations and really grateful to summer Haney for bringing us all here together.

Thank you so much.

Thank you Mister Fong, and thank you for your leadership and partnership. We want to thank both of you for your work.

And I know that we'll look forward to that long list of things that we can do to be helpful, because the point of this is not only to hear from you all, but to take everything that we've heard and to take action.

And so we'll also make sure to invite you to San Diego when we really dig into some of the issues that were raised here fully. And so thank you so much again for your time. Thank you. All right, well, that concludes the panel portion of our hearing.

I want to invite, if there is anybody who want to provide for public comment, we have a microphone right here, and we are going to ask that if you state your name, your organization, and please, just a brief statement on the issue, no more than 30 seconds.

So that we can make sure to get people out on time. But we really wanted to give that opportunity for people to give some comment as well. So please, you can come on up to the microphone.

Thank you so much. Thank you for the opportunity to speak, everyone. My name is Yardena Aaron. I'm the Executive Director of the Maintenance Cooperation Trust Fund. You may know us as MCTF. If I can get my team and our worker janitor leaders who are here today to raise your hands.

The work of the MCTF specializes in doing watchdog work in the non unionized sector of the janitorial industry. So why are we doing turnout here today to talk about downtown? Because for us, downtown serves as the standard, as the beacon of standards for our industry. We look to the policies, we look to the practices.

We look to the leadership of what's happening in janitorial contracting in our downtown centers to show and put the floor of how the industry should operate. We've been in existence for 25 years stopping wage theft, stopping insurance fraud, stopping rape on the night shift.

We know that most of our janitors, especially those who are working the night shift without union representation, are extra vulnerable to all of these atrocities that happen while they're working.

And so what we want to do is continue to partner with responsible contractors, contractors who are doing the right thing, who are not breaking the law with building owners, who are doing the right thing, making sure that they are selecting contractors who are not breaking the law, in order to continue to make sure that downtown recoveries does not build upon the backs of those who are not represented by collective bargaining agreements.

I want to give some others a chance to talk. I see the line is long, but one thing that I'll add is that in addition to the worker aspect that's been spoken about extensively here. But who are we? We're Latinx. We're BIPOC. We're LGBTQIA. We've heard about safety downtown, whether you be a worker or resident.

I myself grew up coming to downtown because there was a feeling of safety. You could be black and be in downtown. You could be a woman in a cis female body and be in downtown. You had people and relatives who worked in downtown, so you thought maybe when you got older, you could work in downtown.

So we know that gentrification had already taken off before the pandemic. So we're asking that we keep affordability in mind. Downtown had already begun to change prior to 2020.

So whether they be in terms of protecting responsible workforces, making sure that racism, sexism, and hate are not prevalent in the new downtown, that we take all of that in consideration, that the immigrant mothers who work in these buildings can also live in them and educate their children.

That the black people, especially black men, black women, can walk the streets and afford the restaurants and the services to make it a destination for all intergenerationally, for all ages. So with that, I'm going to conclude, and thank you for having us.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Very, very, very well said. And I want to thank you and all of the folks who are here from MCTF for your leadership and your partnership on this.

I hope that we can continue to work together, and this is exactly why we are here in downtown LA, because we believe in that vision that you shared, and it's not going to happen because of what we do.

It's going to happen because of what we do together and what you all are doing and fighting for every day. And I really want to appreciate all of you for that work. Yes, thank you. Muchas gracias.

Hard to follow that. Love her. Thank you to you all for hosting and organizing this event. My name is Anne Le. I'm with the Little Tokyo Service center. Happy to be a constituent of Assemblymember Santiago and an old college friend of Assemblymember Fang. So I work in Little Tokyo, and it's just a seven minute walk from here.

Little Tokyo Service center organizes around community economic development, support for small businesses, and anti gentrification policies. We are also a community development corporation, and we develop affordable housing in Low Tokyo and also across the city. During and post Covid, we've heard about the importance of essential workers, small businesses, and affordable housing.

But so far, we faced uphill battles to protect each of these that are deemed important. So income inequality has reached new heights, with service workers bearing the brunt. Because of the high cost of housing, small businesses are struggling to survive with rising cost of goods and rents and decreased foot traffic in downtown.

We are hearing a lot about that today. And affordable housing developers are facing obstacles to build and maintain development.

I don't know if you all saw, but there was an article in the LA Times editorial that came out very recently that affordable housing developers have been hit by the insurance crisis with one LA supportive housing developer experiencing a staggering 638% cost increase in just one year.

So they were paying 240,000 and now their Bill was 1.77 million. So all this while the homelessness crisis continues to grow. This is not going to help revive downtown. So we need investment in our hyper local economy. We need affordable housing so workers can afford to live in the neighborhoods in which they work.

We need commercial tenant protections for communities serving small businesses. I'm echoing Brady in his suggestion to repeal Costa King. We need regulation of the insurance industry so that all affordable housing developers are able to build and maintain their projects.

And we need an equity based revival of downtown that also protects and preserves the housing and small businesses in our ethnic enclaves. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, good afternoon. Hello. My name is Nayeli Gomez and I have worked as a server at the courtyard marriott downtown LA live for about 10 years. Unionized hotels like mine bring many benefits to the downtowns by drawing in visitors.

Unionized hotels also provide better paying jobs, allowing the workers like me who support the downtown to live closer to it. This model is under threat by unregulated short term rentals.

These rentals are often provide a substandard experience to tourists and take tourism money away from small businesses in the downtowns and workers to give it to corporate landlords and real estate speculators. To make matters worse, these rentals remove desperately needed housing near downtown areas, making it harder to build and sustain our downtown communities.

If we want to revitalize downtown, the problem of unregulated short term rentals should be addressed. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Juan Munoz and I'm a political coordinator with Unite Here, local 11, the hospitality workers union here in Southern California representing 32,000 Members. And so really, really want to thank you for this discussion.

And as you just heard from a Member, one of our leaders, the issue that we can uniquely talk about and that relates to our industry, short term rentals. Right. And so, you know, I really wanted to share that for our union.

If we're thinking about downtown recovery, one of the things that we need to take decisive action on are on unregulated corporate short term rentals. These are rentals that are owned or managed by commercial operators, often in a way that circumvents local regulations that the City of LA and many other communities have adopted, limiting the number of strs.

The lack of the challenges and the lack of effective enforcement of these local laws and existing regulations severely affect their downtowns. And so, beyond poaching, the more reliable and heavily regulated business of downtown hotels, sdrs make downtown cores and other desirable urban areas inaccessible to workers who help make them function and erode existing communities and housing stock.

Right. So if we're talking about building more and bringing more folks to live in downtowns, this is an underlying problem that we are already seeing. And so I just wanted to cite an October 2022 study from McGill University that talks in depth about this problem.

So commercial STRs have removed 2500 homes from the long term rental market in Los Angeles. STRs have raised rents an average of $810 per year for each rental unit in the city and are responsible for more than 5000 extra people experiencing homelessness each night in Los Angeles since 2015.

So I'll just wrap up by saying that corporate strs hollow out housing stock and it primarily benefits wealthy companies and many of them whom are out of state commercial operators and comes at the cost of making our cities, particularly our dense, economically sensitive downtowns, less affordable for workers and less socially cohesive. So thank you so much.

Thank you.

Hi, good afternoon. My name is Ivette Aragon. I am the District Director for Congressman Jimmy Gomez. I'm here to provide updates on what he's on. His work on revitalizing downtown LA. Rep. Gomez funded the first ever renters caucus in Congress to find innovative solutions to the housing crisis. In the next few weeks, Rep.

Gomez is introducing a Bill that's part of the Renters Caucus goal, the Revitalization Downtowns and Main Streets act. We're facing two massive and parallel problems here in Los Angeles and across the country.

Empty commercial space in downtown suburban and rural communities and a housing crisis that is forcing people to live on the streets or pay high rental costs. The legislation is an effort to address both of those problems with one solution.

A federal tax credit to facilitate the conversation and the conversion of older underutilized office and commercial buildings into residential housing. This policy will supercharge main streets by increasing housing supply and filling vacant real estate, making our cities and towns safer and more economically protected. Productive. Thank you.

Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Luis Sandoval. I'm the Executive Director with Building Skills Partnership. I'll be brief. I just want to highlight Maria Estrada, who commented about the training. That's actually one of our trainings where we're talking about sustainability. We're talking about infectious disease program.

For those that don't know building skills partnership, we're at the intersection of identifying the win win solutions through the HRTP model. If you don't know what HRTP, Hyrule training partnership through the State of California Workforce Development Board. So our model is really looking at the Switzerland. That's how we pride ourselves. Right.

We're looking at, you know, convening the untraditional allies, in this case building owners, responsible employers, contractors, as well as community allies, to identify win win solutions around workforce development.

We did that really beautifully during COVID where we addressed the need for public safety, but also consumer confidence around infectious disease and also making sure that we cleaned and disintegrated, infect buildings. We train over 2000 workers today. We have a lot of different programs to address the very needs that we're talking about today.

How do we make sure that we instill training but also make sure that these places are safe and clean and disinfected?

So I encourage you to come and visit, I really encourage you to see one of our classes that take place at the workplace, that we do it jointly, that we find common consensus about how to do and upskill this workforce while also making sure they address the needs of workers and the industry.

So this is something that we know how to do. We've been doing it for 15 years. I know that we've worked together already and, you know, several of you and, you know, Senator Santiago and Fong, you know, we've been working together on these issues.

So I really encourage you to come and take a look at our classes, take a look at this model and continue to invest in income and workers. You know, one of the pieces around the HRT model and the serv model is really leaves out a lot of immigrant workers who are incumbent workers.

So I really encourage you to pay attention, you know, to those areas, but also making sure that you invest in HRTP programs like BSP. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you for your work.

Good afternoon. My name is Lilith Carvajal. I work with MCTF. I've been a janitor for seven years. I think these meetings are very important because it supports for LA to be a place that thrives and a beautiful place.

I think, and it is my opinion that janitors need more working hours. We need to be loved so we can come and help the offices to open, so that we can come and work and clean those offices. But we need more hours so that we as janitors can pay our expenses.

I didn't prepare any questions and I'm a bit nervous, but I hope my concerns were transmitted about how they're working as a janitor and having a lot of expenses is not easy.

We also request for living for good wages and for our efforts to be appreciated. Thank you.

Thank you. Very welcome. Thank you.

Hello, my name is Nelli and I am also with McTF and I'm also nervous. I just wanted to say thank you so much for having this and for, you know, giving this opportunity to, you know, have these conversations that are important.

I know we talked a lot about, like, the economic and the financial side, but one of the things that really is in the back of my mind hearing all this is, you know, the safety and the mental health of all of these workers, you know, because every day that we walk into work, it's because of them.

They created a safe space for us to have mental health for 80 hours or 160 hours a month. So let's do our part and support them and creating a safe space for them. Thank you again so much for having this.

Thank you. Thank you. Very well done. All right, well, with that, I will close public comment. I want to thank everyone who joined us today and everyone who spoke. Those of you who were nervous, you had no reason to be. You all spoke incredibly well and added so much to our conversation.

And to be able to have this conversation here in downtown Los Angeles with the people who work in downtown Los Angeles every day, some of whom have been doing that for decades, is incredibly humbling for us as your elected officials, as we think about what we need to do to support these communities that are so important to so many people, whether because you work here, your family lives here, you come here to visit, you live near here, and you have your identity, your culture, your community here in downtown Los Angeles or downtown San Francisco, where I'm from, it is so critical that we work together to make sure that the future of our downtowns are a win win that they thrive.

So many people talked about win wins today. I also loved hearing about a downtown equitable revival.

I wrote that down not just recovery, but revival, and that we think about a future that is even more inclusive, more fair, where more people can thrive, where we better recognize and appreciate the contributions that everyone makes to our communities, especially here downtown. And I think that's what we're here to learn from.

And we did learn so much from you all who do that work every day, who fight for not only your own experiences, but for yourself, colleagues who could not be here with us. You brought their stories and their experiences into the room today.

I want to give the opportunity, if any of my colleagues want to say anything in close. And again, we're so appreciative of all of the organizations and groups who are here.

I know we also have a representative from Senator Smallwood-Cuevas office as well, who are here, and many other elected officials who send their regards and will be with us as we move forward on the next steps to fight for all of the things that you all raised with us today.

Oh, the speaker's office is also here with us today and represented. And this was also recorded and will be made available to all of the Members of the Committee who could not be here and all Members of the Legislature.

And so we'll make sure that everyone who could not join us has the opportunity to listen to the incredible testimony that we heard today. And this is only the beginning of our work together. Thank you so much. And this hearing is adjourned.