Recommendation to request City Manager to report on street sweeping outreach program to impacted neighborhoods and impacts on first day of enforcement efforts; and direct City Manager on additional potential programs to waive, dismiss, or lower street sweeping citations during COVID-19 emergency as needed.
Thank you very much. Thanks again for the budget presentation. So let's go on to the rest of the regular agenda. We're going to do item 25. Communication for Mayor Garcia. Councilwoman Zendejas. Councilmember Pierce. Vice Mayor Andrews. Councilmember Urunga. Recommendation to request city manager to report on street sweeping outreach program to impacted neighborhoods and impacts on first day of enforcement efforts. Thank you, Madam Court. I'm just going to be brief. I mention this over to Mr. Murdoch in just a minute. Obviously, strict street sweeping enforcement resumed yesterday. And I think there was broad consensus with the council of why street sweeping is important for public health and safety, especially as it relates to clean water and clean, clean gutters and neighborhoods and neighborhood safety. So we I think everyone is in agreement. We also know, obviously, that there's huge financial hardship. It's happening across the city and there's a really strong communication communications program that was put in place to address these upcoming weeks where it's back in place. And so this is really a two part recommendation tonight. But the first I hope we get turn over to Mr. Modica would give us an update on how our enforcement efforts, what our communication strategy was like the last few weeks, and maybe an update on how Monday and yesterday's enforcement went. And then I'm going to have some suggestions about how we move forward. So, Mr. Modica. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. We'll have Craig Beck and Nico Marconi in. Give that update. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Members of the council. We did put together a brief little outline just to share with you on some of the efforts made relative to street sweeping and keeping our city clean. Dico has that and he's going to go through the information for this evening. A. Thank you, Craig. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and members of the council. We did resume issuing citations for street sweeping as of yesterday, Monday, May 18th. And just to give you some background, the city originally suspended, issuing street sweeping citations on March 17th. The city did encourage residents to move their vehicles, despite the fact that there were no citations. But as time went on, fewer vehicles were being moved and sweeping in. Many areas of the city had become ineffective as debris continued to accumulate. As a result, this city council agreed and directed staff on, I believe it was April 21st to resume issuing citations on May 18th and to provide two weeks of noticing prior to that by putting fliers on cars that would otherwise have been cited for a street sweeping violation. So beginning of May 4th, we began putting fliers on vehicles, warning them that beginning May 18th, we would be we would be issuing citations. Yesterday, about 925 sites were issued on Monday. Our average Monday is typically around 450 citations that are issued. So we issued about twice as many as we typically do. But if we go back to May 4th, where we we first started putting fliers out on May 4th, Monday, we fired 6000 vehicles and probably just a little bit over 6000 vehicles. And if you take a look at the 6000 vehicles reducing to 925 vehicles, two weeks later, it's about an 85% reduction in the number of vehicles that were on routes compared to May 4th. So with that and our other public education outreach efforts, which I will review in just a moment, I think the message did get out to the majority of the public. Any time we attempt we temporarily suspend citations for street sweeping. We typically see a spike when we first initially resume citations, despite how much outreach we do do. We also typically see a small bump during light rain days like we had yesterday, because some people assume that we are not going to sweep it. We only suspend sweeping if the rain makes the operation problematic. Yesterday we did have one route where we stopped sweeping partway through the time zone. It was the 10 to 12 a.m. total from 10 a.m. to 12 noon time zone. But by 1230, when we began the next time zone, that was dry enough to continue sweeping. To get an idea of the tonnage being collected, our inability to sweep properly during the suspended time period brought us to a low of 0.3 tons of debris collected on April 27th. Compared to when we did start sweeping the citations again yesterday, it jumped to 2.54 tons. So it was more than eight fold increase in the amount of debris that was collected. This compares to about one and a half to one and three quarter tons in a typical sweeping pre-COVID. So it still was a spike from what we would regularly get. And that's a reflection on the increased debris that was accumulating along the routes. It's important to note, too, that Monday is our fewest routes, fewest residential routes, so other days have much more significant tonnage that come with it. We did receive approximately 150 calls on Monday regarding street sweeping. Virtually all of those calls were questions, not complaints. We have about ten complaints on Monday about why are we issuing citations. The rest of the calls, about 50%. We're asking if we indeed were initiating the resumption of issuing sites and 50% were questions regarding are we still sleeping because of the rain? We did receive about seven or eight more complaints today and the city has provided a free parking program to help assist people that may be impacted for parking as a result of being home . We have 20 lots citywide that are available with over 4300 parking spaces. For those spaces, 1357 permits have been issued, leaving nearly 3000 permits still available to utilize those off street parking lots. I'd like to talk a little bit about our outreach efforts. We issued six press releases through our Joint Information Command Center, specifically about the street sweeping program. We have included information in six different editions of the Golden Beach newsletter. We have in five locations and our on our websites on the city's COVID page, the public works page, the city's press release page, among other pages, where we have identified the street sweeping, resuming service and parking enforcement resuming service with regard to street swimming, we ran paid advertisements online ads in the post, the grunion an opinion on starting May 15th to Saturday, May 23rd excuse me, our social media, Long Beach City social media. We had over 50 posts with 500 over 500,000 views between March 16th and May 17th regarding street sweeping public works, social media 21 posts with over 122,000 views. And Long Beach Recycles also had 13 posts with nearly 10,000 views. An interesting note to make is that the recent overall increase of posts tend to be supporting resuming street sweeping operation and with the information center has not seen a general increase of complaints leading up to enforcement. And that's that's a that's actually a. An example of how our our residents and businesses have, I believe, embraced and appreciated the efforts that we've made to provide some relief and are now helping us in providing the proper street sweeping service. All these are these efforts don't even include the council offices and the mayor's office for messaging your constituents. And we appreciate the support you provide in doing that. Also, as I said, we worked for two weeks distributing fliers on vehicles rather than issuing citations that would have been in violation of the street sweeping restrictions. We issued we issued over 80,000 fliers during that two week period. I'd like to also just add in before I conclude this, that the city does have some existing payment relief assistance programs. There is an indigent payment plan which was mandated by the state a while back, and that can be utilized for people who are of low income and need assistance. There's a non indigent payment plan that's available to anyone who requests that the city decided to implement themselves without being forced, without being required to do so by the by the state. And there's a one time towing and parking citation waiver for homelessness. If people can provide evidence of experiencing homelessness where they can have a one time waiver. That's my presentation. I'm here to answer some questions. Thank you very much. Appreciate that update. There are public works team. And I just want to just, you know, again, just say that I want to thank the entire public works team. I think you really heard the council. You went out and did an enormous amount of outreach. Obviously, the wiring work, the social media work. I know that we've been in touch consistently on on this work. And so I just want to thank all of you. We think you've done a good job. But so why are we here? And, Mr. Modica, I know you and I are having some discussions and you can maybe answer some of these questions that were kind of lead me to where I'd like us to go. And we're certainly I know some of the council members also would like us to end up. So. Mr. Modica, just to be clear, so be we. The amount of citations given out yesterday were double what we normally would on a monday, correct? That's correct. Okay. And I think what that reflects is two things, I think. One is I think I, along with many others, were worried that that would act, that that number would be a lot higher. Right. We didn't know how many folks, because here's the reality is we fired for two weeks. And still there are a lot of folks who still did not know about the change. Not everybody is on social media. Not everybody has access to these communication networks. And so a lot of people still didn't know about the change. And more importantly, there's a lot of folks that are greatly burdened by their financial hardship who a a ticket of this type would be very damaging to their own survival and their own ability to pay. There are other other fees. And so I'm in no way I think we need to st we we all understand that support that. But how do we provide some additional relief as we're easing into bringing back this enforcement? And that's really what this conversation is about. And so what where I'd like to see us have I know that currently. Mr. MODICA you've mentioned to me that the city does not have much flexibility when it comes to waiving parking citations. And I think many of us know that when when folks reach out and try to get citations waived or protested, it's a very small fraction of. Folks that are. Able to do that in the code. Is that right, Mr. Monica? Yes, that's correct. And so and it doesn't provide you with much flexibility in emergencies or times of kind of crisis. To make those adjustments. Is that right? So we do have some ability to do that. But what we are always very cognizant of is treating everybody fairly. So it is really something that we want to have kind of direction on if we're going to do that. How do we define who would would be eligible? So we really wouldn't want that to be on an individual basis. It's more of a programmatic. So that I think is the discussion tonight. Right. And so from a programmatic perspective, I think what we would like to see is to provide the city manager with the ability to waive for that for the next two weeks, the ability for the city manager to waive parking I'm sorry, street sweeping citations as it relate to anyone that would come forward with any sort of COVID 19 related financial hardship. And so it's for the next two weeks, as we're easing into it, tickets will continue to be given out. But if someone reaches out to the city to protest or because they didn't or because any of these relate to COVID 19, they didn't get the flier that didn't hear the information. We waive that first citation and the city manager would have the ability to waive those automatically. We obviously know a lot of folks will pay their citations and that's fine, but some won't be able to and some will reach out for help. And this is a way to assist them as we transition, and that will expire after next week. And so for this week and for the following week, we'll be able to waive that's that citation almost as an additional warning. So that would be the main the motion and I know I see councilman's in Dallas as I made that motion. If I can get a second on that motion and we'll go through the. The motions here. Can you see a second on the motion? So that's the motion as it stands. And then I'll have some additional comments once we get through the Council as well about some suggestions, effort from public works as well. So that's a motion on the floor. Matron, it's over to Councilman's and Dallas. There has been a representative of the First District that is a hugely impacted district when it comes to parking and also hugely impacted where with the inability to get direct communication or from city and from staff, I think that this is the only the fairest thing that we can do. I think that a lot of the residents in my district are going through very, very hard financial setbacks, as is everyone. Right. But like you said earlier, a ticket like this of this magnitude can really, really set them back. So having this this program in place, I think, will be very, very helpful not only to the residents in my district, but to the residents in the whole city. Thank you. Thank you. Councilwoman, I have the second, which is Councilmember Pearce. Councilwoman. Thank you, mayor. And thank you for your bringing forward. I know the last time we had this discussion, it was robust. Obviously, the second district is highly parking impacted. Also, we have a lot of residents in the second district that are the ones that are struggling with unemployment. And so I support the motion on the floor. I did just want to clarify because I've had lots of people ask and I asked Tom this question earlier. People have asked about reducing the parking fees. I think the parking fees like $70, if we reduce it by 50%, the council would have to vote again to increase it . Is that correct? We couldn't say for the next two weeks, reduce the parking fee and then automatically it would go back up to the normal rate. Is that correct? That's correct. You would have to actually have a hearing. We'd have to agenda is it for a specific hearing and actually reset the fee? Okay. I appreciate the the direction of this motion. And I think as the COVID situation continues, we have to continually reevaluate, you know, what's appropriate. I know the last time we talked about this, we talked a lot about the parking lots. I know that staff is extremely busy with a lot of priorities. Has there been any movement on reaching some of those parking lots and being able to say, let's take one of our parking stands, like one of the ones we removed off Fourth Street, give it to them so that they can charge parking in their parking lots , like the parking lot that we talked about. So Councilmember, I think to address the question, what you're asking about is a privately owned lot and the placement of a parking meter where that private entity could then charge parking rates. We do have the ability to move forward with that. However, what we're struggling with is having the privately owned property owners wanting the city to cover liability for public parking on their lots. And I understand that that's continue to be the conversation, I guess, and I don't want to spend too much time on it, but it is. What? And when you drive to downtown L.A. and all of those private lots are opened up for private companies to take people's money to park there. Who's paying the insurance there? They are because they're making money off of it. So we would do that in a heartbeat. You know, if they wanted to charge for the funding and cover their liability costs, that would be fine by us. Yes, that's what I'm what assuming the whole time is that we would assume that they would be making money, therefore they would pay for their liability. Not that it's just opening the door for anybody to come, but that if we found that ability to put in one of those parking meters, like what we have at fourth and cherry, that that might be a good solution because I appreciate that we have parking that's available, but I know some other council members and, you know, the the north side or other side of my district doesn't have those lots close to them. So I just don't. Any time we talk about parking, I'm going to bring up the private lots and say that my staff is here to help do outreach. If there's another way that we can have the conversation, I'd appreciate it. But and Craig, I think you and I have a briefing next week. We can talk a little bit more about it. I support the motion on the floor. I really appreciate the mayor for bringing this forward, and I look forward to seeing how the process goes. Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilmember Superman. Thank you. I spoke quite a bit on this on the 21st, and I have some unique conditions in the fourth District, so I apologize for being repetitive, but this is certainly not a one size fits all. As I mentioned in the previous meeting, zip code and I have no way to go for. It was dense zip code in the city and that's the western half of the forties. I'd like to commend Public Works for doing a great job of outreach. That's not the problem. The problem is there's no place for folks to move their cars to within a reasonable distance. I did point out also that of the the 2500 spaces found in Lodz, only six were located in the fourth District and that's at the Pruitt library. And those will go away when the libraries reopen. I'm. If it doesn't look like I'm going to have support on a on a on emotion. So I would like to bring out one. When someone doesn't pay a parking ticket in Long Beach and you can confirm this. Mr. MODICA After 76 days that gets turned over to the DMV. And then when that individual goes to register. The. Oh, those park. You take it so they can't register their car. Are you aware of that policy? So John GROSS will talk to us a little bit about that policy. You broke up a little bit. Council member but in in general, we have a timeframe. I'm not sure whether it's 76 days, it may be, but at some point we do turn it over to the DMV. We have, um, temporarily and DeKoe is, is sitting there. I believe we have temporarily suspended that process. We will. And we've done a number of things to help in the COVID crisis. We don't apply penalties on parking tickets in general, and we have backed off of the DMV process also. So we have done. And that has made a difference to our community, I think. Okay. So just a couple of points. And if I break up, please tell me. But on April 21st when we move this forward. I for one, but I think other council members were anticipated we'd be in a different place on May 15. A speculation that the safer at home order might be lifted that point since it hasn't. We have the same conditions that we did back then when we instituted the suspension. So it doesn't work. I guess what I would offer if we can officially suspend the policy of sending these citations to the DMV, because I think that's particularly onerous for a period of one year. I could support that. Now, is that is that made as a friendly amendment? Councilmember. I know that Customs and data says that as the motion. I have no issues with suspending. Would you be amenable to suspending them until the safer at home order is lifted? Well, the problem with that proposal is that would accumulate. And if someone gets, you know, behind in parking tickets, then they might have a 300 or $400 bill filled up. And then suddenly they can't register a car which might be subject to towing if that car is parked in a public public street at some point. I don't have I don't have an issue with that. I'm okay with that. I just I don't know the implications of what that means. The staff want to comment on that. Yes they can. In the short term. In responding to what we think City Council wanted, we have effectively suspended that operation. We have not determine when to turn it back on and that was something we would be coming to council with. But it no longer is in practical enforcement at the moment and and the financial implications to do it after the safer at home order is lifted or people get back more financially would probably be quite significant. My guess is it would probably be over a million, maybe more than $2 million a year in terms of that suspension . So it would be quite a significant impact that would have to be offset. So yes, it can be done. An alternative solution might be simply to ask the staff to come back to council when when they are thinking it is appropriate to begin that enforcement. Okay. Okay. So let me do this and I want to go to the other members and I actually like a lot of what Councilmember Sepinwall said. So let me see if I can incorporate some of that into the final motion, because I do have some some small edits to it. And Council Councilmember let me know at that time if that's something that's. Amenable to you. Okay. Vice managers. Yeah. First of all, we thank you for your leadership on this. And I think at this time, any relief we can come up with, as you know, is greatly appreciate. And so I'm happy to be on it. Okay. So why have you this councilmember pierces at you a second time or no? No. Okay. So let me go back to the motion. So let me this. What we have in front of us is and then I wanted to add add something to it. So what we have in front of us is essentially until June 1st, the city manager will have the ability to to waive the entire citations. That would be the entire citation would be waived for anyone that received a citation, that first kind of citation as just a warning opportunity. And then that way that there is flexibility. But any anyone that's coming forward with a COVID related hardship or financial hardship or just that didn't get the communication would have that in place. So that would be the motion in addition to that. So this was going to be part of the the original motion is I'd like this issue to be agenda ized again on the June 2nd agenda by staff, because I think that we need to at that point, review two weeks of data and see how we're doing. I know it's it's onerous, but I think this is a really, really big issue for for working families right now. And we're getting a lot of folks that are struggling on this issue and they're really having a hard time with the parking issue. And so I'd like this to be a generalized as it is the councilmember supervisor friendly. I want to you know, I understand there's some concern from staff there, but can can we at least for now, because we could suspend those can we suspend what the council member was referring to as far as sending those tickets to the DMV, at least through the safe at home? And then when we come back on June the second agenda, you can give us a broader report on that piece of this initiative. And maybe we at that point can have a discussion about extension or what the implications are, because I want to learn a little bit more. So at least at least we'll extend it through safer at home and then we can can revisit that in two weeks to see if there's additional extensions we want to make or adjustments. Mr. MODICA First, is that does that seem okay, manageable for staff? Yes, we'd like to request that. We either come back on the ninth or the 16th, the way the agenda process works to come back on the second. We need to have our report to you by Friday. So I think you're going to want us to make the regular agenda. So I think you're going to want us to look at what happens between now and the two weeks that you gave us to waive some fees. We then could come back with a report and put that on the agenda for either the ninth or the 16th. And we'd certainly not change anything related to DMV between now and that time and be able to report back on on what that process looks like. I appreciate that. I'm going to actually ask for the report to come back on the second. Mr. MODICA And only because this two week process that we're waiting to see actually ends on June 1st. And so I think it's important for us to kind of take a side like at least whatever we can put together, even if it's on the supplemental, whatever information we can by the second. I'd like to discuss it then and then Councilmember Super, if that sounds amenable to you, well, we'll move forward on, on your really good suggestion on waiving those making that a policy. And then we can talk on the second about maybe extending that. Yeah, that sounds great. I really like. But it's. Back to council. And quite frankly, I did not know it had been suspended by the command staff doing that. Absolutely. And Mayor, we want to just for clarity, we're talking about street sweeping citations, right. To this point, we have not talked about anything else. Is that confirmed at street sweeping tickets? Let's confirm because the rest of our continuing goings with street sweeping citations. Good. Thank you. Thank you. And that sounds good to me. This is Mary. Thank you. Counts. The woman with that will take the roll call the. District one. I. District two, i. District three. I district for. I. District five. District five. Can you hear me? I. I. I. Thank you. I. District six. District seven. II. District eight. II. District nine, Ocean Carries. Thank you. City Council. I think that's going to be a great relief for a lot of folks. Appreciate that. Let's move on to the rest of the agenda. Let's see. Next up is item 16, which is. Stars.