Recommendation to request City Manager to gather data on Illegal Dumping and draft an Illegal Dumping Action Plan to address the City's approach to resources, education, reporting and enforcement related to illegal dumping. The report should be drafted and returned to City Council within 120 days with subsequent updates on progress annually.
Councilmember Mongo. Bush and Kerry's. Okay, now item 19. Councilman Urunga item. Item 19 is communications from Councilman Miranda, Councilwoman Gonzalez, Councilman Andrews and Vice Mayor Richardson. Recommendation to request the city manager to gather data on illegal dumping and draft an illegal dumping action plan. Get married, guys. Well, go ahead and take it. Thank you. Elizabeth Tatum says it is a consistent and visible problem in the city of Long Beach. It contributes to blight in our community. It is also one of the most frequent calls we receive in our city council office. Decided to allow us to take a closer look at where items are being dumped citywide and develop a comprehensive approach to solving illegal dumping. We would like to study to explore current barriers to reducing illegal dumping. One of the biggest barriers is that we have no plan for our multi-unit dwellings as it relates to bulky item pickups . Our current policy as it relates to items dumped in alleys also needs updating. Currently, items don't do it and now they are the responsibility of the adjacent property. Owner and I are forced to call enforcement action. This is a policy that needs to be reexamined. And as we know that nine times out of ten the adjacent adjacent property owner has not played a role in the owners being behind their property and are now responsible for the disposal of it. I know that if we look at our goal on beach data, the calls for service we received through the illegal dumping hotline and the calls to city council offices, we can draft a comprehensive plan to proactively educate and reduce occurrences of illegal dumping in our city. I am glad that we are having this conversation and I know that we can make some improvements as it relates to illegal dumping. I want to thank my colleagues, Councilwoman Lena Gonzalez, Councilmember de Andrews and Vice Mayor Rex Richardson for sending in to the Senate with me. I also want to thank Craig Beck, Nicole Marconi in and the Public Works Environmental Services Bureau team for their work on this area as well. Thank you all to staff. Next up is Vice Mayor Richardson. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Councilmember Turanga, I'd say you're spot on. This is one of the largest, most significant reports that come into our office about dumping we got in our district. We've got two freeways that bisect our district and that, you know, makes us a little more susceptible to different items being dumped in the different pockets and the different alleyways that sort of end right at the freeway. So the more we can do to work with our neighborhood associations, to have a strategy that really targets these, you know, highly susceptible neighborhoods, I think that's that's the right direction. So you have my support for Councilmember, and I look forward to seeing what staff comes back with. Thanks. Yes. So, Councilmember Suranga, thank you. Thank you so much. I cannot thank you enough for bringing this forward because I will agree with you that, yes, this is like the number one thorn in our side as a council members. It's just really taking care of the little things, which is the illegal dumping. And as you can see, how horrible it could be in all areas of the city. I think that we do need to explore additional options, whether it's education, even looking at technology. I know we have go Long Beach, but how can we further support that through technology in getting these items picked up right away? So I look forward to that. And and again, thanks so much for bringing this forward and look forward to hearing more. Councilmember Pearce. Thank you. I do want to thank my colleagues for bringing this forward. Illegal dumping is a really big issue in my district. My team is out there every weekend and every single neighborhood cleanup. Our dedicated volunteers that there's always new stuff in the alleys. Last week alone in seven days, we had 31 cases of illegal dumping reported just directly to my field deputy. And so I think it's important that we're starting the conversation tonight. I know that Los Angeles also had a big challenge with illegal dumping and great good over there that works for Garcetti. I talked to me months ago about some of the work that they had done with changing the way that all their city staff addresses illegal dumping. And so I hope that in looking at a best practice, we are also looking at other cities and what has made the most sense and how they've done some of their work . So, again, thank you, everybody, for bringing this forward. Councilman Super. Now, thank you, Councilmember, for bringing it forward. And you know, it's a serious problem when Councilmember Durango wants to do a study. I would say, generally speaking, he does not like studies. So I think this reflects about how big an issue it is in reading over some of the materials and how these are just ideas , bullet points. But one of them I wanted to speak to is hiring of a waste enforcement officer or something like that. I want to take this moment to give a shout out to Frank Ramirez. I think he's one of the most meritless employees we have in the city. What strikes me is his institutional knowledge. Anytime I have an issue, I swear he knows the history of it, no matter where it is. And that's just my district. I can't imagine all the little nuances he knows about the entire district. So what I would like to recommend moving forward, if we can find a way to have Frank hold this position or somehow encourage him to hang hanging around a while because I think he could add so much value to this whole piece. So I'll get off my soapbox. But thank you. Yes. I forgot to request. I'd like to add a friendly amendment if we can have its states 120 days, I believe, for it to come back to council. Can we make sure it comes back to this body versus the two from four? That would be my friendly amendment. Would you accept? Thank you. Councilman. I would also like to add a friendly I would like to start off on. A positive note. I want to thank my colleagues for bringing this forward. I also want to. Thank the member of the city council who. I've actually seen pick. Up dumped items in his. Own vehicle. Councilmember member supercar just driving through the community, literally picking up vehicles and putting them in his trunk. And taking them away. He's a good member of the community. We're happy to have him as. Both a trash pickup and a council. Member. And now onto a more serious note. The Long Beach app needs to be fixed. It is unacceptable. Our IT department needs to get it together. I have been complaining about this app since I was elected three months ago. It's inaccurate the. Information. We are constantly putting. Community members to work for us to gather the. Data and the. Behind the scenes of it all and the guts of it all is broken. The we have too many vacancies. We have other priorities. All of those things are all it's been too long and we need it fixed. And so I would like the go along each component and the community engagement component of illegal dumping and pick up to be a part of the report back to this council with a serious deadline with ramifications and implications to staff members. Who don't follow through and meet deadlines related to this app and the dumping. Because we have such an amazing resource of community members who care so much. I have reported in the fourth District. Many dumping off of Cherry on that app and it's. Terrible. They're picked up. They're not picked up. They say they have been picked up. You go by, they haven't been picked up. And so having used. The app on multiple things, I don't actually think it's public works fault at all. I think the app, I literally am willing to set aside money in the budget this year if that is. Necessary to have some. College kids design an app that would be more effective. And obviously our city staff wouldn't have to build it and I'm sure that it would meet whatever measure requirements because these college kids can data and donuts over breakfast and do something which would be more remarkable than what we have today. And it's just been too long and I'm so sorry to be negative. But the time has come. Thank you. Councilman Mengers phoned me up, so I'm going to comment. I was going to not say anything because I haven't seen most of the things. I think the staff and I just I just publicly say a few things. The first is I want to thank everyone that brought this up. I want to start just by saying that, you know, obviously, sometimes you forget the amount of work that happens. And so a lot of folks don't know. I think our public works team, they probably pick up close to 50 or 60, 60 mattresses a day. Is it a day or is it a week? A day? A day. Okay. 50 to 60 mattresses a day, which is unbelievable to think that that's happening. But that's what's happening. So and so is our our our, our, our, our folks doing an incredible job working with the resources. And they're absolutely doing great. And so you guys are out there, they're picking stuff up, we're calling things, and I'm incredibly grateful. But it's also clear to me that we do not have enough resources when it comes to cleaning the city. I've already mentioned this to you and Mr. West in this year's budget. I want to see how we actually begin to take care of this issue, which it's not acceptable to have litter and trash and waste in people's alleys and in the neighborhood. It's just it's not okay. And we must do a better job at at this. I think as a community and as a city, I've always I've been saying to staff, we have to sweat the small stuff. And the small stuff are the basics of just keeping the city clean and neighborhoods clean for the community. And so I expect that the amazing job that we're already doing because it's it's damn good Craig and you and your team are picking up tons of waste every single day. These guys need more resources to go out there and and do more. And if, if, if we need to double the effort that's currently in place and we got to double and figure out how we how we get there. But we've got to do more than what we're doing now. I'll just add to the Columbia conversation, and you've obviously been sending some messages about that. When the when the app first launched in its first two or three years, it was working so well. And I'm not sure what happened over the last particularly two years or so, but the particularly on the reporting of dumped items and other issues, it's not working. It's broken on the back end. And and we're providing and confusing residents by the messages that we're sending. And so I'll just uplift a lot of what Councilwoman Mongo said. She's absolutely correct. All this needs to get fixed immediately and we need to put more resources into this area because we're working hard, but we need to do a lot better. And every one and all the department heads and all the managers in the work force, they need to take ownership of the city in the way it looks. And, you know, be interested to know how many of our own folks are actually reporting stuff outside of the people that are actually picking up the trash , because I think that that is to me, this is everyone's job. Whether you're the department, head of another department or whether you're manager of another area, everyone should be interested in ensuring the city is as beautiful and a good place to live and work. And so that it's, I think, a challenge for our team to figure out in this next budget cycle. Councilman Austin. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I want to thank the people, my members, from bringing this item forward. Obviously, this is one of serious concern. I want to just just kind of piggy back on some of the latter comments regarding the app. I think it works. It has worked pretty well. But I think we also need to be mindful that there is a you know, it's great to be able to push a button and expect a result, but understand that there's human resources behind those buttons that we push. I had a conversation with the Public Works director a little earlier, and I was kind of astonished at what some of the challenges that he is dealing with as a department in terms of having the personnel to actually do that work. And I think, you know, that that merits some of our attention as well to assist with making sure that we have adequate a number of personnel to actually perform the duties because it is very laborious work. Folks who do that work suffer back injuries and other sorts of repetitive motion injuries. They're dealing with heavy loads on a daily basis. We have to be mindful of that as well. And so one week it could be working great because that team is out there and it's fully staffed. And then the next week it may not be working as well because there may be staffing shortfalls and so on. I don't want to make excuses. I do concur with the mayor's comments that it's everybody's job and my staff. We have a motto. We don't drive past the graffiti, we don't drive past dumped items. We make sure to report them. And I think if everybody had that mindset, not only city staff, but but residents, we'd have a much better city. Absolutely. Thank you, Smith RICHARDSON. Well, thank, councilwoman. Go for kickin up the comments for a second round. I got a little inspired by your, uh, your comments. So I wanna say first, good job for whoever handles the public works Twitter. I get a lot of Twitter stuff and if we just, you know, tag public works team it's handle 100% of that 100% . One of the best in the entire city is is the public. With the words Twitter. Fantastic. Secondly, you know, because I have two freeways that run through my district, I have 24 on or off ramps in my district. And simply, it is hard to navigate for a resident who wants to clean up an off ramp or complain. They come to us, they go to different departments. They hear it's Caltrans. Their process isn't clear. I'm not saying that the city should maintain the on ramps, but if someone takes a picture of it, we should at least make sure that Caltrans gets a copy of whatever, whatever is submitted because they should hear what we're hearing about the on and off ramps. So many times we we, you know, direct them to a field deputy or someone with Caltrans. But we should streamline that process because to a resident, they don't know the difference between the right away. It's Long Beach to them and it reflects poorly on our city. So but thank you, Councilman Tarango, for bringing this up. I think we're we're going to get something good out of this. Thank you, Councilman Mongo. I just wanted to clarify and in my passion, I may have spoke a bit quickly, but I specifically did say, like public works is doing a great job. I think the big issue with the app is it will tell you it's picked up and you'll drive by and it's not picked up or it will tell you it's not picked up and you'll drive by it and it'll be like, We'll get back to you in a couple of days and it won't be. There was a television in front of someone's house for three weeks and I thought to myself, I am just going to put this on the back of my truck. And I thought, Where am I going to put it? I don't want to be in that little dumper dumping it into some other trash bin. So you're in this tough position. Of wanting to help but not knowing how. To do that. And so I hope that those statistics can come back to us on what is going on with the Long Beach, because I think that it's just too important. Thank you, Councilman Tauranga. Well, I guess I touched a nerve with this item here. Glad to hear all the suggestions in the comments and it's been an important topic for us in the seventh District. I also have two freeways in the river going through my district. So there's it's a big issue in my district and I'm glad to hear. Let me rephrase it. Now now I'm hearing that it's a big issue in yours as well. So, yes, it is another study, but I think it's going to be coming one with some great results. Thank you for for supporting this. Thank you. And I think it's important to note, of course, I think everyone appreciates the work that's happening already from staff and in management here. So any public comment on this kind of please come forward. Good evening. Again. So as I stated before, I work for the landlord AP Atlantic, which is right, 5150 Atlantic Avenue, which is in your district. Councilman Suber Now my initial question is, I didn't see you on this. Are you included in this or is the city entirely included in it? Okay. What address did you get? 5150 Atlantic Avenue. It's right next to the city of Long Beach. Which center? Oh, I thought this was your district. I apologize. So my main concern is I. The property. Where do I start? North via parcel, which is behind the Wick Center. There is severe dumping behind this, which comes at a great concern because when I walk behind the property, I find needles and bottles full of schizophrenic drugs. And you've got this in relation to dumping with mattresses, homeless people sleeping on the mattresses that are obviously using these drugs and needles. The street, to my knowledge, so serves no purpose to the community because it's directly behind the building. There would be no purpose for anyone to either exit or enter that street unless they were doing something that they shouldn't be. So my question to you is, should I be if I've been spending hundreds of dollars every month to take care of this junk? And I think cleaning it up, sweeping it up. And I really want to know if I should be filing for a prescriptive easement. And that's all I have to say, because, I mean, I'll clean it up. I'll put Gates on the side of it to help prevent the dumping, and I'll take care of it when it's dirty. So. That's it. Okay. I am sure. I'm sure that someone will will connect with you. We have already. Mr. West. Mr. Harrison, if you could talk to this gentleman. Yeah, great. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much. To me, the public comment. Okay. There's a motion of a second, actually, Councilmember Supernanny. Just a quick shout out to Craig Indico. Thank you for all your work. I agree with my colleagues. You guys do a phenomenal job. I just want to mention Frank in particular. So I hope you didn't feel slighted there. Also, just a follow up on the Caltrans issue. We met with Caltrans at the quarterly meeting a couple of weeks ago and they talked about the adopt a highway program and I ended up adopting a highway. So that's one other option that we can do, that council officers can get our own volunteers out there once they have training from Caltrans or you can hire a crew to do that. Thank you. Thank you. Kim. We have a motion on the floor and members, please cast your votes. I'm sure it'll be unanimous. Motion carries. Thank you. Okay. We're going on to the next item, please, which is with the 2021.