Recommendation to Consider Options on Coordination of the 4th of July Parade; Adoption of Resolution Approving a Workforce Change in the Recreation and Parks Department to Create a New Classification, Recreation Assistant; Add One Position, Recreation Assistant; and Amend the Alameda City Employees Association (ACEA) Salary Schedule to Add the Classification of Recreation Assistant, Effective January 8, 2020; and Adoption of Resolution Amending the General Fund Budget for Fiscal Year 2019-20 by $130,000 for Costs Associated with the 4th of July. (Recreation and Parks Department 280)
. The adoption resolution amending the General Fund budget for fiscal year 20 1920 by 130,000 to cover costs associated with the 4th of July. Okay. And who's whose item is this, by the way? Is it Mrs. Aldrich, or you want to you want to come up and do this? I was I was kind of thinking, since we're approving the recreation party budget. That's good evening. We were on the. A we we and we pulled B from the calendar. Sorry about that. So. Good evening. I'm Amy Wooldridge, director of Recreation and Parks. And it is defense. Sometimes at 730 we're just doing proclamation. So it's New Year Crest. So a nice new decade. We're we're on a roll. Thank you, Mayor. So I'm here to discuss the 4th of July parade. The Alameda 4th of July parade began in 1976, is touted as the longest parade on the West Coast. It goes from Park Street to Webster Street with an estimated 60,000 spectators and over 170 entries. It's by far our largest event on the island. Up until now, this event's been coordinated by volunteers, specifically from the nonprofit Parade Foundation. They have decided to earn a well to to take a well-earned retirement from this coordination. And I personally want to take this time to thank them for their many years of service and all they've done for this work. I see one of the the triumvirate, Jim Franz, is in the audience. I think we should give him a round of applause. So I want to mention that I'm going to get into the various points. Part of why I understand that the we've had volunteers running this this event. It's been a massive undertaking for them. And it's been difficult for them to find folks to a succession plan and other folks to come up behind them to volunteer. So I want to give you a little bit of context on that. Volunteerism across the United States has declined steadily over the last decade. I was recently looking at numbers. California is actually 47th in the nation on volunteerism. So get out and volunteer people. I feel that Alameda as a city is probably that. Data wasn't quite there and specifically on Alameda and so it's really an A and people are they volunteer their time but the average is 52 hours a year. Right. So people are generally volunteering a few hours a month. Generally, they're with their faith organizations, their schools and some and nonprofits. The smallest one of the smallest wages was for civic organizations. So just tell us the story of how it is really difficult in these times to find volunteers willing to volunteer 20 plus more as you get closer to the event hours a week. And part of it also is the Parade Foundation had increasing liability costs and concerns. And I want to ensure I've already had people come to me saying, hey, I want to volunteer. So we would continue. If LAPD takes over coordination of this event, we would continue to have a volunteer committee, and there definitely is still a role for that and places where people can work with us on that. And as being the largest event in Alameda and stretching across the entire. And there are significant safety concerns with this event. Event security, as unfortunately we all know, has become a more pressing issue in our society with very large scale and tragic incidences occurring at large community events. So it's something that we really need to be taking seriously. Unfortunately, the police chief couldn't be here tonight. He's out of town, but he's been extremely involved in these conversations. And even prior to the retirement of the Pride Foundation, I was working with the police chief and the city manager's office, and we were already already in conversations about the need to increase the level of security at this event. For example, in the past, volunteers have been utilized to assist at intersections to help offset costs. And in this we tried it again this last year, and it it it was extremely difficult to recruit and train volunteers. It was difficult to have consistency. Plus, it's not really putting volunteers in a fair position if an incident occurs or so they're not trained to that level as a as a paid security company would be. So per per Alameda Police Department, really, there's too many complications and concerns with using volunteers for security and for traffic positions. So we as part of this recommendation, we're recommending additional security of staffing due to these increased potential threats and liabilities as seen in other communities. It includes activating the Alameda Police Department special units for higher parade route security. It also includes increasing traffic security personnel. So the company that we are to use that we've been very happy with, it's nearly doubling the number of personnel that they would be bringing out there. So these measures, just the safety and traffic security measures total 109,000. Currently there is 50,000 budgeted in the general fund. So it's a net cost just for security of 59,000. So that's part of and to be clear, that is part of all of the recommendations you see before you tonight, already built into the budget, the city budget as well is the general fund budget is $60,000, half of which is for public works to put out barricades, to take the barricades back in, put out porta potties and do all of that work. And also for Alameda Police Department for their officers doing parade detail, the officers are also out there helping with setup and both public works and APD are involved in pre-event coordination. So before you tonight, you have three options. We've provided the three options to consider if the cities are taking responsibility over coordination of the parade event. So one is keeping the current route with with Alameda Recreation, Park Department staff coordination. You have a proposal before you of a recreation assistant position. It would be the lowest level position in our department in terms of coordination staff. It'd be super. The position would be supervised by the recreation manager and 25% of his time would be going toward this as well. I actually expect this first year because we're getting a late start, honestly, on coordination of this and it takes time to hire new person. A lot of it would be on the recreation manager and then we'd be phasing it in and training a new person with this first option. The total general fund budget for this, including security, including staffing, including other parade costs, part time staff for that day. All total costs is 179,500. And as you recall, 50,000 of that is already budgeted. So it's a new ask financially of about 130,000. The second option is also with the same staffing level of the recreation assistant and recreation manager, but with a potential revised route. So we put this out just as as a potential cost savings measure. We fully recognize the highest, I guess you could say, historic nature of of the route of this parade. And the but we wanted to provide options. So the revised route would go start at the same location, go down Park Street to end tunnel, make a right, go all the way down and tunnel to Webster and then finish on Webster, as it usually does. What that does is it removes Otis Drive and removes the well attended Grand Street. So again, we just wanted to put it out as an option, but what it does is it reduces the traffic personnel costs or outside security costs. So that is a total general fund budget of 158,000 with a net new cost of 108,000. The last option is keep the existing parade route, but contract out the event. Nation of it. We would aim for that to be very minimal oversight by LAPD, by the recreation manager. The I want to note that an event planner cost that I put $100,000 in here for an event planner. Cause that's a very rough estimate because we would have to do an RFP and go out and see and bring a contract back to you and see what that cost. So that's an educated placeholder of a cost. So the total general fund budget for that option would be 193,000 with the new general fund request of 143,000. So all just to clarify, all of these options include the increased security costs, which are strongly recommended by staff, including her police chief. All options include a parade coordination budget of 13,000, and that was based on the Parade Foundation's budget. There was actually there was actually a little bit higher. I reduced it down because there was some equipment and things like that that we have in house that we didn't feel we would need to pay for some minimal part time staff cost of 20 $500. It does assume continued revenue from donations from businesses. It also assumes an added revenue of adding a small registration fee for additional revenue. We budgeted it, but it's not a final number, but we budgeted it based on $25 for residents and nonprofits and $100 for businesses. With the thought process, that $100 isn't much for the amount of marketing that a business gets when they're taking a float down the entire length of the island. I also want to clarify that all of these assumed that we would be keeping the pre parade race that benefits Midway Shelter. So that is part of this total coordination effort. So that concludes my report. I'm open to any questions. Any questions? And do we have public speakers clarifying question just a few minutes. And I only ask this question because I was at I don't it was the last park and rec meeting or the one before where you outlined everything that was on your plate. Can this person will they be able to do more than the parade or with the parade to be basically a full time job? The parade, we expect, would be about 50% of their time. And it would it would ebb and wane based on the the time of year. Right. So as we start heading into April, it would probably May it would get pretty heavy on that person's load. But then once the parade's over, they could be shifted over, which actually be great because then it's summertime, which is super busy for us. So they could be shifted over and and the concept because it's the lowest level position would be that this person could it's almost like an entry level position into the recreation field and be learning and helping and assisting with a variety of ways in our department. So you'd be able to they'd be able to write a little help with all of the things that are on your plate. Just a little bit. I think they'd be more focused on the on the operation. Okay. And then the 15,000 that was 1920. I mean, I, I think didn't we also have something and in 18, 19. 18, 19, I don't recall the exact amount. It was less it was. It was like 35 and. Then but 50,000 is budgeted for this fiscal year and next fiscal. Year. And if I remember correctly, I mean, even though we didn't have budget for it, the police chief was spending money out of his like that wasn't in line item. So, you know, we have been spending this money. It's just this was the first year we decided to segregate it on the budget. So it didn't you know, it wasn't a hit to his budget. You're correct. So before that, he spent about 75,000 out of the police of unanticipated out of the police. Okay. So, I mean, that's that's been a few years. So I just want to make sure the people know that we have been supporting this. And, you know, the police have been very generous with his budget, but he may not always have overages. So, yeah. I think those are my questions. Thank you. Okay. I think clarifying questions. Vice Mayor. That's right. Thank you. I appreciate appreciated the budget. I just had a quick question. So historically, there's about $60,000 that it's just been, which I think includes the police in costs. That's not reflected in here as right. Because that that would have been covered by this 50,000 that we budgeted historically. No separate actually from the 50,000 also. So the 60,000 we considered essentially already baked into the budget in the in the budgets of police and fire. The 50,000 is in our Non-Departmental fund and and which is probably where this would live as well, which is under the general fund and is separate from that 60,000 already baked in . To these costs. The expense costs actually include an additional 60,000, which is already baked in because it's a part of departmental funds. Okay. And then kind of picking up on Councilmember Otis comment, so you explain the 50. Percent time for the assistant, which is the new position. But this other also has 25% time for a manager who I believe already exists. So this will actually be taking away from a higher up who currently is working. And we don't think that that's going to be a problem. It's going to it's it's going to be difficult. I mean, this is this is a huge undertaking. And I'm going to be honest and we're nervous about taking it on. But we recognize the the the the depth of how the community feels about this event. And it's an important event to continue. So so we will do our you know, we're going to do our best to manage it with our staffing. Great. And then lastly, this week or next week at the next Rec and Park Commission meeting, there is they are having another item about increasing park staff. And I'm just curious, we're here asking to increase park staff. How how did how do these two things? I haven't a chance to read the staff report. I'm sorry that I tried. No, no problem. So. So that's correct. This Thursday, the record. So let me back up. Last month and at the December Recreation and Parks Commission meeting, they reviewed the park and made a recommendation on the park priorities as as this body asked to occur. They and several speakers from Casa Sierra Club came forward and looked at the list. And we really delved into all the different projects and the speakers said, well, we want d paved park to happen and there's too much happening with the level of staffing and we want to see more the commission recommend more staffing. So part of the Commission's motion was for me to bring back a staffing plan on how to manage the projects. All of this would come before you obviously as as so it's just a recommendation. But they're considering my proposal was essentially a middle management position. That's a senior management analyst I think is the right level to do the project project coordination that that to Councilmember Otis point that's really it's really a higher level position that's needed to take these projects on. And the intention was that I would still manage the high profile and large projects like De Pave Park, but that this position could start taking over smaller things like a playground at Jackson Park or other annual playground maintenance and things, a kayak launch at Water Park, so things like that. So that is been a separate discussion from this recreation assistant, the recreation system position there, other 50% time. And that's actually a position that's been needed that I've been trying to figure out how to fund for for a number of years. Our we're very flat in our recreation department on our staffing. It's myself and I'm really primarily doing projects at this point and our recreation manager for each of our divisions Mastic, recreation services and parks . And then and then there's for recreation supervisor ones underneath them that do everything right. So there's no one's supporting them. So we're paying someone. It's really not an efficient way to work because we're paying someone at a high level to answer phone calls from parents saying, My kid's not going to be there today. And they're really doing this huge range of work that would fit more of a recreation assistant position. So so this is a way that I think we can bolster our services we're providing overall to the city as well as as incorporate the parade management. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Public speakers. Kerry Thompson. Good evening. I'm Kerry Thompson. I'm the president of the Army, the homeless network, which we do the 4th of July parade or race beforehand. And I just want to encourage you to stick with option A or C, not altering the route, because it does make a difference to the race as far as the distance and everything. And I encourage you to support one of those two options. Thank you very much. Thank you. And oh, just once we got that interested to, um. Okay. Um, if I could just comment. Thank you for the report. And the parade is certainly a beloved institution tradition in Alameda. When I looked at the the proposed parade route change and for the spirit of full disclosure I live on Grand Street, although my life would probably be simpler if I wasn't both in the parade and hosting a parade party that I had to get back to. But it's more complicated than you need to know about. But I do the cooking too. But anyway. But when I think of the parade route and Otis Drive, yeah, it is a more sparsely populated street for the parade, but along Otis Drive are all those assisted living facilities for seniors, including the assisted living facility that prepares the meals every day for Meals on Wheels. And every year on the 4th of July, they will the residents out on the sidewalks. And it is the sweetest thing to see them there. And, you know, and I think the caregivers who are out there and sometimes families also really enjoy that. So I can see that we would save maybe $21,000 from the most costly option of keeping it. And I just I don't know, that would make me sad if we would take that away from from those folks because they always look so pleased to see us and I kind of look forward to seeing them every year. It is true that the in so many ways the parade looks the way it always has, but it is more sophisticated and it does require more security for all the reasons our recreation parks director Amy Aldridge delineated. So we we do need to spend more money to make sure that that it's a safe event and our crowds are safe at the same time. I would never want to see us reveal too much about the kind of security we're providing. Has bad people pay attention to those sorts of things? But our police department is great and they know who to contract out with. So, you know, those are those are my thoughts. I think that whatever is the considered the most workable option and I guess I think I'm hearing misspoke. Or is it correct to say that your preference would be to see if you could contract the event coordinator coordinator position out rather than have it in house? Or are you neutral on that? I think we would have more control and consistency if we have a staff person actually, because event planners change, we might potentially, you know, we could do a three year contract, but but they could potentially change. And now you're doing it again back. To square. One. I think there would be more consistency if we were in-house. Okay. Thanks for that input. Okay, Counsel, your thoughts on my left? No. Okay, Tony. On my semi left, also my right, Councilmember Desai. Now be quiet on the left or whatever it. I'll leave you out. You know, the 4th of July parade is Alameda is once a year gift to the San Francisco Bay area. And I want to see us continue. The 4th of July parade is the city of alameda was once a year gift to the San Francisco Bay area. It's something that, you know, everyone looks forward to. It's always on the local television stations. So I think clearly we need to keep that going. I prefer option A, I think it's the cleanest. There are costs involved with option A, but the reality, though, is that there has always. In costs involved. It's just that now we are certainly recognizing those costs. So, so I prefer option eight. Um. Okay. Others Councilmember Odie. Thank you, Madam Mayor, and thank my colleagues for their comments and know I think my colleague here basically said it all. I mean, that's an Alameda institution since the bicentennial year. Right. And I know I look forward to it every year. And I also prefer option A because that stretch on Otis. You do get a chance to rest and not not walk. And I'll. Gear up for the for the end. I just want to give my appreciation to the volunteers that have been putting this together. I mean, I remember my first parade and, you know, coming around the corner and we were, you know, entry 130 or whatever it was. And there was Jim friends still moving people along. And you know, you're still volunteering at FAS. I have lots of cat pictures. People are sick of my cat pictures. Those words to. You and Barbara Price and Mark Sorenson. And, you know, it's not that there's not a willingness. It's just, you know, it's a thankless job. And, you know, people need to, you know, move on to other things. So I just want to give you a huge shout out. And I'm happy that we if we pick option, we'll will have a full time person. I'm not going to talk about the staffing because that's not in the agenda, but I eagerly await that agenda item. And I do want to again give an appreciation to our police chief, who has taken who has paid for a lot of this out of his budget, a lot of his budget surplus over the past few years since the Boston Marathon incident. So, I mean, it's we probably won't in the end see a net increase in in cash spent by the city. But I appreciate that, you know, we've been supportive and partnered, so I'm just excited. I'm glad that we're not losing the the foot race. I'd like to see a bike race added before the foot race because, you know, we don't close our streets but once a year. So that's something maybe to think about. But again, huge appreciation to Jim and Mark and Barbara and everybody on that committee who's done this work year in and year out. You know, it's tireless work. And I just want to say I appreciate it all. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Not quite. Sure. Thank you very much. I would also like to just share my thanks to everybody. I mean, the three who continue to be mentioned, but the many dozens and scores of other people who make this happen every year have made this happen every year. You know, I certainly want to preface my comments with that. I don't think that there's a world in which we're going to decide tonight that the parade is not happening. But I am a little nervous that depending on what decision we make tonight as the economy goes south, we could find ourselves in a place where we've found , you know, this could be one of the first places that gets cut in a budget and impact of impact future parades. I'm a it does it concerns me that we have a budget that's somewhere north of $250,000 of city money that is being spent on the parade. Under this budget, I know that, you know, somewhere around 75,000 has historically been spent. We tried to start trying to budget for this. And, you know, I guess I would I'd like to. Would it be interested in at least discussing tonight would be something where we whether it's option one or option three, I don't think there's there's enough savings to even consider option to where we find a way for the city to fund this for the next year or two, but that we actually start working with some of our community organizations the Elks, the Rotary, etc., to see if we can still find some community leadership that might take on the the actual organizing of the event, an understanding that there's going to be ongoing security costs to the city that we need to budget for. I don't know what that looks like and I'm fortunate. I don't think we have enough time to probably tonight or before the next parade to figure that out. But I think, you know, kind of adding adding on an annual expense of another hundred $25,000, given all the other things that we're also asking for money to be spent on. I just want to be a little mindful of that outside outside our overall budget discussions as an ongoing annual expense. And Councilmember Vella. I was going to make a really bad pun about raining on the parade, but that's good. You didn't get to it. So have a. Few more hours. So a few things. I think one of my colleagues, Councilmember Odie, said that, you know, it's a thankless job. I think that the key word there isn't actually thankless. I think the key word is job and. Typically when something is an undertaking big enough to call it a job, we compensate people for it so that we can depend on it and rely on it. And I think it's become much more complicated than it has been in past years because of the security element, because of the different things that go into it. There there are more considerations that staff are having to work with now, and it's for public safety. It's also for liability purposes and everything else. And so I do recognize that there's an increase in the workload as well as the overall cost. I do. And I would like to thank all of those who have volunteered for all of these years and will be continuing to volunteer in various capacities because it is a production and it's a huge production that lasts for many countless hours before the the first person lines up to actually be in the parade to the the vice mayors point. I would be interested in seeing if there's a way to have, you know, sponsorships or naming rights for the parade. I think in addition to looking at, you know, volunteer opportunities, I do know that some other parades get sponsorships. They have naming rights, things like that. If that's something that we could look at here, this is a pretty well-known parade. We do get a fairly large turnout. Um, if we're doing all this work, it'd be nice to see if we could build something like that into it. And I do want to recognize, I mean, the staff vacancy savings that the police department has has put into this to kind of hide the costs for the past few years is fairly significant. So it's not that there's a huge amount of money that's now all of a sudden being spent. We're just allocating it separately and not using staff vacancy savings. And I think all of us up here are very committed to making sure that the vacancy savings for our police department decrease over time by virtue of filling those positions. So I think that this is also prudent planning. I'm inclined to support option one with the caveat that we we look at kind of other ways of funding this, if at all possible. Thank you. And you know, I'm glad, Councilmember Vella, that you mentioned sponsorships and naming rights because that was something that staff raised with the committee last year in the planning phases. I think there's a lot of potential there, but it's just that by the time you come down to a couple months before the parade, it's too late to do that and. Person to coordinate. Exactly. And we have an economic development department that has, you know, good contacts with our business community. So I think those are all things that a staff can consider. So I heard at least a few of you. I heard Councilmember Velez specifically say she would support option number one, which is to keep the existing parade route at a full time recreation. Assistant for LAPD event coordination includes 25% of recreation manager's time for oversight and coordination. Do you want to make that as a motion, Councilmember Vela? Sure, I'm going to move that. We select option one, move forward with option one. Okay. So that was council ready. Okay. So now that's been moved and seconded the option. One option. All in favor I a okay. Was that five eyes. That's unanimous. Okay. Thanks, everyone. Okay. The OC Council. Are you okay? If we keep going without a break? You guys are going to be okay. Okay. Okay. I know, I know. That's true. It's only been in there when we were in closed session. Okay, so then we move on to item. Oh, goodness. I'm going to do that. Uh. For sure. It's the same I've had. Come on, guys, I've got a paper agenda. Who needs your city manager? Communications. Mr. Leavitt?