<div dir="ltr"><span id="RDS_article"><h1 id="articleTitle" class="">Advocates will press Long Beach City Council for language access policy</h1><div id="articleByline" class=""><a class="" href="mailto:eric.bradley@presstelegram.com?subject=Press-Telegram:">By Eric Bradley, Staff Writer</a></div>
<div id="articleDate" class="">Posted:
08/11/2013 10:25:12 PM PDT</div><div id="articleDate" class="">Updated:
08/11/2013 11:31:01 PM PDT</div><br><span></span><span></span><div id="articleBody" class=""><div class="" id="articleViewerGroup" style="border:0px none"><span class=""></span><span></span><span></span></div><span></span><p>
LONG
BEACH - A community coalition seeking better access to government for
non-English speakers will hold a 4 p.m. rally on Tuesday at City Hall
before the City Council considers a new language access policy.</p>
<p class="">Though Long Beach spends $900,000 annually on
translation and interpretation, there is no language plan in place to
deliver services to the more than 45 percent of city residents who speak
a language other than English at home.</p>
<p class="">Officials have worked for almost two years to develop a new policy, and a draft document was released last month.</p>
<p class="">Language access advocates criticized the plan, saying
it did not make meaningful changes for residents with limited English
proficiency.</p>
<p class="">Additionally, only Spanish speakers qualified for
enhanced accommodations because they were the only group of
limited-English proficient speakers that met the state standards used by
the city. That standard is 5 percent, or 21,480 Long Beach residents.</p>
<p class="">Susanne Browne, senior attorney at the Legal Aid
Foundation of Los Angeles, said the city has since amended the draft
policy to include Khmer even though the number of people that speak that
language in Long Beach who are limited in English don't meet the
threshold.</p>
<p class="">"Unfortunately, the policy does not include Tagalog and it still makes no real meaningful, enforceable </p><div style="width:336px" class=""><hr class=""><div class="">Advertisement</div><div class="" id="adPosBox" align="center">
</div><hr class=""></div>commitments, so there's still a lot of work to be done," Browne said.
<p class="">Long Beach was the most diverse in a USA Today study of the 65 largest U.S. cities.</p>
<p class="">According to U.S. census data, there are 62,814
Spanish speakers living in Long Beach with limited-English proficiency,
along with 8,607 Khmer speakers, 5,181 Tagalog speakers and thousands of
Thai, Vietnamese, Urdu and Gujarati speakers in the same category.</p>
<p class="">Many city forms and services are available in multiple
languages, and neighborhood resource centers have staff and equipment
that help with on-site translation.</p>
<p class="">For elections, the City Clerk's Office provides voting information in English, Spanish, Khmer, Tagalog, Vietnamese and Korean.</p>
<p class="">The city also maintains a database of about 3,000 multilingual employees, out of a total of about 6,000.</p>
<p class="">The amended proposed plan allocates an additional
$357,023 to language access to provide translation of written materials,
interpretation for meetings, recorded telephone messages and compliance
monitoring.</p>
<p class="">Council members may also choose from parts of a "best
efforts" recommendation report -- with $648,775 available -- that would
allow the city to hire bilingual employees in point-of-contact
positions, train staff members for translation and educate the public on
the city's language access policy.</p>
<p class="">Browne and a coalition including the Long Beach
Immigrant Rights Coalition, Housing Long Beach, Centro CHA and United
Cambodian Community are recommending a 5,000-resident threshold for the
language policy and want to see a plan returned for consideration in 60
to 90 days.</p>[...]<br><p class=""><a href="http://www.presstelegram.com/news/ci_23842371/advocates-will-press-long-beach-city-council-language">http://www.presstelegram.com/news/ci_23842371/advocates-will-press-long-beach-city-council-language</a><br>
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