WRITTEN PUBLIC COMMENTS
READ INTO THE RECORD
From: Amber Alley
To: City Clerk
Subject: SAVE OUR TREES
Date: Tuesday, March 7, 2023 8:26:31 PM
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________________________________
> SAVE OUR TREES
>
> Maybe are just a couple trees outside in the sidewalk that were probably causing an issue, Although we never saw them and we always used to walk on Robertson Boulevard, but not anymore >
> By cutting down the trees you turned Robertson Boulevard into a ugly concrete wasteland >
> Shameful what you did
>
> I hope you at least you checked to make sure there were no birds nest or an animals living in the trees before you chopped them down.
From: Janine Milne
To: City Clerk
Subject: Public Comment City Council Meeting
Date: Tuesday, March 7, 2023 10:40:21 AM
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PLEASE READ AT TUESDAY 7PM MEETING
As a fellow Angeleno who does a lot of business in Beverly Hills, I respectfully ask the City Council to listen to their constituents and delay any decisions until a review can be completed by the City Council, Public Works and the citizen activist/environmental group RBSTF. The City of Los Angeles has lost so much of it’s tree canopy due to development, and and we are all interconnected. The loss of treee canopy has been devastating to wildlife, the battle against climate change and air quality. Mature trees should be saved by any reasonable measure, and I believe that this can and will be accomplished by everyone working together.
Please delay any action except to further look into saving these trees.
Best, Janine
Janine Milne
** Please don't forget to update your records **
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From: nazy yadkarim
To: City Clerk
Cc: Houman Yadkarim
Subject: Comment for D-3
Date: Tuesday, March 7, 2023 10:10:46 AM
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Kabob By Faraj Kosher Restaurant
Merchant: Houman Yadkarim
We listed our restaurant on DoorDash at the height of COVID to ensure we could keep serving customers as we waited out the worst of the pandemic. Now, we continue to utilize this service to access a broader customer base and give our customers the convenience of delivery.
I recently heard that the city council is going to place a cap on the amount of commissions third party delivery services can charge restaurants like mine. While I appreciate the City working to protect our small businesses, I’m afraid this policy is misguided and will have the opposite effect.
In other markets, when these price controls are implemented, the delivery companies are forced to make up for the sudden losses by implementing customer fees. These fees make ordering from a restaurant prohibitively expensive and in turn hurt our sales. Right now, all of the major platforms already offer a 15% option, which is less than the council’s proposed rate. Rather than risk hurting restaurants and customers at a critical time, I hope the City Council will explore alternative proposals to help our small businesses.
Sincerely
Kabob by Faraj Management
Beverly Hills City Council
455 North Rexford Drive
Beverly Hills, CA 90210
RE: Food Delivery
Dear Beverly Hills City Council,
On behalf of the Latino Restaurant Association (LRA), I write to express our opposition to the ordinance of the City of Beverly Hills to establish maximum fees on charges imposed by thirdparty food delivery services. The LRA supports and promotes restaurateurs, small businesses and the entire Latino restaurant community in Los Angeles and beyond. Amending this ordinance would permanently rewrite private contracts between delivery platforms and restaurants and unfairly favor one industry over another.
Countless Latino restaurants had to close their doors under the pressure of indoor dining restrictions and closures. Many of our members turned to delivery platforms to keep their businesses going, often for the first time. Delivery platforms give our members more flexibility and choice, and let us decide what services work best for our businesses.
Although this mandate was well-intentioned to help struggling small businesses, food delivery systems connect three different groups: drivers, restaurants, and consumers. Imposing price controls on one side of the market will upset the delicate balance and make economic recovery harder for small businesses. The price controls may lead to higher costs to the consumer and may also result in fewer orders which harm businesses in the long run.
In these unprecedented times, the City of Beverly Hills should not make any more unnecessary changes for businesses. Price controls would reduce options for customers and negatively impact businesses. Rather than implementing a permanent fee cap structure, the City should provide businesses with funding to keep help with their costs and ensure that their staff is employed.
We appreciate you taking the time to hear from us today. We strongly urge the Beverly Hills City Council to oppose mandating permanent price controls for third-party food delivery services.
Sincerely,
Lilly Rocha
CEO/Executive Director, Latino Restaurant Association
From: Andy Scherer
To: City Clerk
Subject: Public Comment for Item D-3
Date: Tuesday, March 7, 2023 10:49:31 AM
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I am disgusted by the Beverly Hills council to mess with the free market. Price controls make sense if the city offers something in exchange, for example a local monopoly like what has been done for cable or power companies. You could offer restaurant owners a competitive coop service, and set rates that your constituency might like, but then you'd actually have to make sure it works, and provide maintenance to keep it up to date. But if it's just grandstanding, why target delivery services? As an example, I'm sure local restaurant owners would be much happier if you capped health insurance premiums! Or lowered sewage rates.
Or perhaps you really want to ensure maximum cost efficiency for the city, and have low-cost robots replace people? Whatever the reason, this type of law only leads to unintended consequences, like the delivery companies adding a "Beverly Hills tax" to every order. Can you really not see that far ahead?
Do your jobs, keep the city safe, and leave free market innovators alone! Sheesh! Politicians, always messing with people! Leave us alone!
Andrew Scherer, occasional delivery driver
Re: Opposition to Food Delivery Price Controls
To Whom It May Concern:
We write to respectfully register our opposition to price controls on commissions for food delivery platforms. While well intended, we believe this is the wrong approach to assist struggling restaurants.
We are deeply concerned that price controls in this highly competitive market will hamstring its ability to continue helping keep restaurants open, their workers employed, communities safe, and offering accessible part-time work throughout the state.
We have seen the effect that flexible work opportunities such as those offered by food delivery services have had -- uplifting good, hardworking people. For low-income communities of color, low barrier-toentry earning opportunities are vehicles to help earn an education, support their families, save for a rainy day, and achieve a better quality of life.
In addition to providing flexible, good paying work that fits around their schedules, food delivery services are helping to keep businesses afloat during a time of extraordinary pressure on the restaurant industry. Stifling food delivery platforms during unprecedented demand for such services hurts our communities.
The negative impact of price control policies on businesses and consumers are made clear throughout history and in cities in California and across the country today – higher prices on consumers, reduced demand for delivery, fewer orders at restaurants, and more livelihoods unnecessarily lost. As was confirmed by the Progressive Policy Institute’s study, price controls result in higher prices, longer wait times and poorer services for customers, fewer orders, and less revenue for restaurants.
Interfering with prices in competitive markets may appear like a no-cost solution to the very real struggles the restaurant industry is experiencing. In practice, it takes little time to begin weakening the market on all sides, including an already reeling population of consumers, workers and restaurant owners. As costs of operation shift to consumers, especially low-income consumers where even a dollar or two increase can be cost prohibitive, demand inevitably falls.
This is not only a detriment to the food delivery platforms; it hurts workers, restaurants and consumers that rely on these services.
Arbitrary caps on the commission food delivery platforms may charge are misguided and shortsighted, poised to unintentionally add unnecessary strain on the entire restaurant industry and their workers, food delivery platforms and their workers, and Californians trying to make every dollar stretch. We must refocus our efforts and double down on ways to directly aid struggling restaurants and workers, not manipulating markets in a way that will actually hurt them.
Sincerely,
Pastor William Smart
Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Southern California