Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record, conclude the public hearing, adopt resolution authorizing City Manager to execute a contract with IPS Group Inc., of San Diego, CA for the purchase and installation of electronic parking meters on the same terms and conditions afforded to the City of Sacramento, California for an initial term of five (5) years, in an amount not to exceed $1,538,979 in year one, and in an annual amount estimated at $446,492, but in any case not to exceed $941,542, for  the succeeding four (4) years, with the option to renew for five (5) additional one-year periods, at the discretion of the City Manager;
Hearing item one is a report from the City Manager and Public Works recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record concluded the public hearing. Adobe resolution authorizing city manager to execute a contract with IP's group for the purchase and installation of electronic parking meter in an amount not to exceed 1.5 million 538,979 and Adobe resolution establishing parking meter rates as defined in the Long Beach Municipal Code. Citywide decrease appropriations in the City Activities Department by 800,000. Increase appropriations in the public works department by 1.148 thousand 134. Increase appropriations in the Belmont Shore Parking Meter Fund in the Public Works Department by 44,573, and increase appropriations in the Rainbow Harbor Fund in the Public Works Department by 153,891. And. Mayor, members of the city council on tonight's hearing. Number one item, it will require three separate. Motions and actions. We would after the presentation by staff, if the council so desires, we would need a separate motion and adoption of the resolution authorizing the city manager to execute the contract with IPC Group, and then a second motion to establish the parking rates amending the municipal code. And finally, a third action on the appropriation adjustments. Thank you. Thank you. With that, I'll turn this over to staff. Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. Members of the city council. We've got about a ten minute presentation to talk a little bit about the parking meter issue and all of the public outreach and the immense amount of study that we have performed this year looking at how we can improve our parking infrastructure. So we want to talk a little bit about our citywide approach. Talk a little bit about what this study found and what the results of that study was. Talk a little bit about community feedback and then go through some question and answer and be available to council to answer questions. So we really approached modernizing our our infrastructure for parking with a couple of goals in mind. One, we wanted to enhance the user experience. We have about 620 meters throughout the city, and we'd like it to be a uniform experience when you when you park in downtown or Belmont Shore or in the park. We wanted to really go through approach this with a comprehensive plan and reducing the cost of a fractured parking meter system. We really wanted to capitalize on data that can now be available as you upgrade to smart meters as they are so called. And we really wanted to do some extensive study both on the technical side and on the financial side to make sure that this is a sustainable model and that we can afford it on a go forward basis. And so we conducted a parking meter study earlier this year, and the results were finalized in August 2014. And we brought that out to the community to share the results of that study and really get some some public input. And so what we really looked at was how do you upgrade our meters or whether we should be doing single spaced meters or multi spaced meters? What are those new meter capabilities that we would recommend and then perform that financial analysis that we talked about? So we get asked the question sometimes, what about multi spaced parking meters? Why are single space preferred over multi space? If you remember, the city actually performed a pilot in the pike and in downtown using multi spaced parking meters. So those are currently in operation. We started this pilot a couple of years ago and what we found is people really do enjoy those multi space parking meters, but really they are more inclined to to function in a lot in a parking lot rather than on the street. We found that there's some confusion when they're on the street. They're not quite as intuitive, but they work very well in our parking lots. And so we're moving on a path to have multi space parking meters in all of our lots and single spaced parking meters for our and on street parking. So we get asked sometimes, where are the parking meters in the city? We actually have them in three areas in downtown. What you see here in red is what we call the downtown core, and that's currently at a dollar an hour. Then we have other areas of downtown which are shown in blue. We also have parking meters in the park and you'll see them down here. Those are currently at $2 an hour and that's those limited meters in the park. And then the third area that we have parking meters is in Belmont. Shaw and Belmont Shaw has all along of Second Street, we have about 50 cent an hour. We have 50 cent an hour on Second Street and then we have a number of lots that also are metered and those range from about $0.25 an hour on the north side. We actually have some that have a compounding rate. The more money you put in, the cheaper they are. And those actually average out at about $0.13 an hour. And then we have a lot down there in Belmont Shore as well. So what are some of the benefits of smart parking meters? Really, it is a new world for, you know, that we all live in we're all using credit cards a lot more. There's still people that love using change. There's people that love using their credit card. It is really a personal choice. The benefit of a smart meter is that it can do both. It accepts both credit cards and change. You know, these new meters are large backlit screens. They're very easy to view, very easy to use, very intuitive. You can display messages on them. You can tell people things like, you know, there is a special event coming up tomorrow or, you know, parking is free tomorrow if it's a city holiday. There's also a lot of technology that comes with it in terms of being able to have apps and information. For example, you can get mobile apps. We've seen them in other cities that help do drive by voice navigation. So it can tell you there are 40 parking spaces right now available on Belmont Shore. Drive down, take a left, take a right, and the parking space is right there on your right. And we often see people circling in downtown on Belmont Shore looking for parking. Apps like this can help direct people directly to a spot eliminating that need for circling. And then it provides a lot of data. For city staff and our stakeholders to come together and really empirically look at our ad, our parking situation at all of our parking assets, and how do we move things around to make things better ? Parking experience. So what we're looking at doing is doing a piggyback process to purchase EFPs parking meters. We talked about this a little bit at the council the other day, and we are recommending piggybacking here what the benefits of piggybacking here is. We are able to use the city of Sacramento's bid process to get the rate for 6000 single space parking meters for our 620 meters. So essentially, we're getting a a bulk discount and it's saving us about 12% if we were to bid this ourselves and to go out by ourselves. So we believe we're very comfortable in recommending the piggyback. It saves time in terms of implementation, saves time in terms of procurement and saves money as well. So talk a little bit about the financing. There are two aspects. We want to be able to fund the capital costs and the operation costs. The meters are there is a capital cost. It's about 750,000 for 600 meters. And then there's the sensors that go along with those that cost about 440,000. The real issue is the operating the operating expense is much higher for these types of meters because they provide a lot more benefit. There's a lot more that they can do. For example, the existing meter costs about 158 parameter, and the smart meters, we believe, will be up to 446 meter dollars per meter annually to maintain one of the big variable costs that we need to account for is the credit card usage cost. Every time you swipe your credit card, the city pays a transaction fee for that to the credit card company. And so you have to make some estimates on how many people are going to use credit cards. In the city of Santa monica, they estimated about 35% of people would use credit cards. And actually it was a very popular program. People love the meters in Santa monica. They started to use them and they used about 60% credit card transaction almost overnight. Santa monica had a $1.4 million expense they had not counted on. So we want to learn from their experience and plan appropriately. And we're conservatively planning that we'll be able to absorb up to a 70% usage of credit card rates or credit cards over the next several years. And so we know that you're going to we're going to have to find a way to pay for these if the city council does choose to move forward. Rate adjustments are what we are recommending. We've looked at the issues of credit card fees and the rate increase could cover that. We also are making some assumptions that the meters themselves will generate some revenue and that's a good thing. But we need to have a sufficient cushion in case those meters aren't you know, they don't meet our projections. And so we believe with the rate increase that we're proposing today will be able to cover both those eventualities and that the rate increase will keep the city what we call net revenue neutral. We're not looking to make a whole lot of money with these meters, but we're also not looking to lose any money, essentially be able to afford the cost of the new service. So we took this presentation that you heard on the road and went out to the community and heard a number of things. It was a pretty extensive outreach effort. We reached we did about 14 different meetings. We did an online community forum. We received about 70. So responses from that from Speak Up, Long Beach. We did email as well, and we also did a lot of social media. So we heard from a lot of people about parking meters. Just in your packet, you have the full information for what we heard and on the road. I wanted to sum up a couple of key issues. On meter rates, we definitely heard in Belmont. Sure. That there's a concern that an increase in meter rates will negatively impact residential parking. We're very sensitive to that. We we understand that area very, very well. And so, you know, we heard that very loud and clear in Belmont Shore and downtown. We heard some of the same issues about, you know, parking impacted areas. We also heard something in addition to that is the idea of trying to keep some parity between the downtown commercial area and the Belmont Shore commercial area in terms of a rate increase or everyone paying a certain amount in order to receive these meters and the sensors we heard some people love the sensor idea. Some people don't like the sensors. Some were worried that it will eliminate the remaining time to the next users. Others felt the sensors were incredibly powerful to provide that data that we're looking for. And in Belmont, sure, the parking commission actually looked at eliminating the sensors as a way to save money to prevent a rate increase. In terms of meter rates. We looked at a couple of different issues. We took a look at passing on our credit card fees to credit card users. That was a request to look at the so-called convenience fee. We also looked at whether you increased rates in the lots and increased rates for the on street meters and what different levels we could be doing that and especially in Belmont. Sure. We looked at reducing the proposed rate from 50 cent increase down to $0.25. We looked at whether we should increase rates in the lots on Second Street and whether or not we should do a change in enforcement hours. In terms of credit card transaction fees, we were asked, can you do a credit card transaction fee? And the answer is essentially it is legal in California to do so. However, our financial management department has talked to our credit card vendors and found that our contracts actually prohibit that. And we've talked to them personally. They do not allow us to pass on directly the credit card transaction fee. And so that is not something that will be recommending. In Belmont Shore, we were asked to really take a look at different alternatives about the meter rate increase in Belmont Shore parking. A business associate or a business improvement commission came up with some ideas. And so we looked at whether or not we could increase the lots and found that they would that we'd still be in a loss if we just increased the lots and not the meter rates. On the street we looked at enforcement hours, which would generate some money, but unfortunately that would really impact the residents down there because they use that for parking at night. And we looked at a smaller increase. Can you drop your rate from a 50 cent increase down to a 25 cent increase? And so in downtown, we looked at very similar things in Belmont. Sure, we did find that you can lower the rate from 50 cent increase to 25 cent and that can be affordable. Unfortunately, the same thing isn't available in downtown. Downtown has a different financing structure, different expenses. But one thing that we are looking to do in downtown is really make an investment in parking, is using some of the funds that are available from parking meter revenues above and beyond. For the first two years to invest in our downtown parking, we heard a lot of input about the need for additional parking, the parking garage improvements and safety and security and all those things. And so that is part of this staff recommendation to every two months as the money comes in that is above and beyond what we need. Put that aside for two years to be able to invest, and that's approximately $480,000 over the next two years. That is projected at this time. In terms of meeting rates, where are we compared to everybody else? We believe that we will still be very competitive. Actually, I'm going to skip to slide 23 to show where we're actually going to be is everybody raises rates when when looking at IPS meters or just about everybody. And even with our rate increase, we believe will be very competitive, will be at or below other beach cities will be between $0.75 and Belmont sure dollar to dollar 50 in downtown and $2 in the pike. And if you see down here, we'll see a number of cities that we're very competitive with. And so just wrapping up the recommendations, three things I want to highlight is one of the things we heard in the community is this idea of can we if we have to have a rate increase, can we maybe get some free time for short trips? And so we like that idea. We're actually recommending that you get 5 minutes free. So if you show up and you just want to run and get your dry cleaning run to a market, you can hit a button and you get 5 minutes free. And we think that's a very good thing to study for the first year in a one year pilot, I talked a little bit about the investment in parking. We're also looking at investing in mobile apps and investing in our website. And then one of the things we heard in Belmont, sure, is the issue of citations after 2 hours. And so we're looking to keep the same practice that we have today, not changing that, studying the data over six months and then making some decisions and coming back to the council on that. So for the next steps, if the city council elects to move forward, we basically will implement the following. An extensive public outreach and education campaign will let people come see the meters, touch the meters, get used to the meters, talk about how they work. We also want to relax enforcement during the initial implementation so that users have a chance to to, you know, get it right when they're using the meters. We'll also be looking to, you know, get a lot of information on that website, I think will be very helpful. And then we expect the rollout to be about 6 to 8 weeks after contract approval. Once we've got all these steps in place. So with that, we'll end the presentation. I just want to shortly thank a lot of people who have really spent a lot of time on this for the last six months. Too many to mention. But I do want to mention a couple our a Malloy and John GROSS, Mike Sickles, Leah Ericson, Dave Roseman, Geraldine Alejo and Karen Fu, who's sitting behind me who really did a lot of work out in the community. And then, of course, our business improvement districts, Bill Lorber and president in Belmont Shore and Craig Cogen for spending a lot of time to go out to the community, to engage the community and to work with us. And with that, we're available for questions. Thank you. I'm going to turn this over to the council and then hop, have a comment. So, Councilwoman Price. Thank you. I want to thank staff for their diligent efforts to get us information and access to data in regards to this proposal. I will say that I've been very involved in this proposal with my community in my district since the initial memorandum came out identifying this opportunity. And initially, as staff knows, I was opposed to the idea of any sort of rate increase. I have a couple of concerns. I will be moving. In fact, I'll move at this time to adopt staff's recommendation. And then I have some comments. There's actually there's now the city attorney. There's three actual motions that we made. Could could Councilman Price make all three? That that's correct. Okay. So you would make the three different motions? Vice President I would second those and then we could do one public comment period for for the items that correct. That's correct. Okay. So do you want to make the three different motions? I believe. She did by moving staff recommendation will take three actions. On staff that's on mission. Yes thank you. Thank you. I do want to have some additional comments, though, in regards to the item. So I want to talk a little bit about what my thought process was and hopefully in that process, answer a few questions for those who might be interested in this topic. Now, the initial staff recommendation on this for Belmont Shores specifically was a 50% increase, and that's that was the initial proposal. Mr. MODICA Is that right? Yes, that is correct. And the proposal that staff is now making, the recommendation that staff is now making would make the increase in Belmont Shore, the lowest in the city. Yes, we were actually as part of the community outreach, we look to see if we can reduce that rate. We definitely heard that that was an issue. So we are proposing rather than a dollar going up to a dollar, it would be only going up to $0.75 and using some of the fund balance that the parking commission has to make sure that they can cover those costs. And yes, it would be the lowest rate in the city would be $0.75 in Belmont. Sure. In terms of the discussions that took place, I want to thank staff for the outreach that you did throughout the city, specifically in the Belmont Shore area and the third district. I think, you know, it's safe to say that the dynamics in Belmont Shore are very different than many other communities in the city, specifically the proximity of residences to businesses. That's something that's very unique in the three areas where the new parking meters are being proposed. I would say that the proximity of homes to businesses and the availability of parking is is makes Belmont Shore this similarly situated than the other areas. So I think it makes sense that they have a different parking meter goal and wondering if that is what staff found to be the case in terms of the surveying that you did? Yes, we found them to be two very different areas. Don't you know, there in downtown you do have parking impacted areas, but they also have parking garages. They have some benefit of a parking garage in Belmont. Sure, they don't have a parking garage, but they have some lots that are very inexpensive. But it's also a very elongated strip. We're in downtown. It's more of a course, so they are very different areas. One of the things that staff did on this project and other projects that I think was really good and I think you should get a commendation for it, is using the Speak Up Long Beach survey tool. I've had a chance to read all of the survey responses in regards to the parking meter proposal. And the issue of disparity is one that I think was kind of echoed throughout the the comments from folks is that if there was going to be any sort of an increase, it needed to be an increase that everybody would that was getting this new convenience in terms of the meters was going to be experiencing. So I think that's an that's an issue. That's an important one that's come up. I am happy to know that the staff recommendation is now 25% increase in Belmont Shore as opposed to $0.50. And I want to think for a moment, Bill Lauber, who's here because he came up with several alternatives, many alternatives in order to try to find a way to make the rate increase, either zero or minimal. And it's my understanding that staff has considered all of those alternatives. And the recommendation that staff is making takes into account the convenience fee alternatives, increasing lot rates, changing the times, not having sensors. All of those were taken into consideration. Is that right? Absolutely. We did take a look at all of those. A lot of them are very good suggestions. I wish we could have piece them all together to add up to the total that it would have that we really were looking to. We came close but not quite there. But it we did look at all of those. And I want to thank Mr. LaBella as well. And now I had an opportunity to meet with some of the stakeholders in our community, including members of the Belmont Shore Resident Association Board. And I think one of the biggest concerns and and and they were very candid with me about their concerns. One of the things that's come up is sometimes people actually drive around the residential neighborhoods a little bit more because they don't have coins. And so they're looking for off street, off second Street parking so that they don't have to deal with the coin operated parking meters. And so I think the convenience of being able to use a credit card is something that most people who I've talked with have reached out to our office feel is a good thing. One, the issue that's come up for us in our community is the keys, the use of the keys, the parking keys. Can you elaborate a little bit on on the future of those keys? Yeah. So the key was implemented as a pretty innovative program down in Belmont Shore as a way to use the what I call the. Don't meet her, but allow you to not have coins, but to use a key to turn it into a little bit of a of a meter that allows a different form of payment. That exact system won't be transferable over into these new into the new meters. But we're very much interested in looking to see if we can replicate that if the business if the parking commission is interested in that, if the business association is interested in that, being able to provide a card that you can load up similar to the key and to also work on a transition so that people don't lose the money on their keys. So that's definitely something we're going to be looking at. Because that's an issue that's come up recently. It just seems that wherever I am on Belmont Shores, someone will walk up to me and tell me that they purchased a bunch of those keys of Christmas presents, or they still have money left on their keys and they want to make sure they don't lose money. And we're going to be able to ensure that that happens. Is that. Yes. That'll be part of our implementation plan. I don't know exactly today how that will work, but if we approve this, that will be factored into our implementation plan over the next several months. The other thing is these these smart meters, are they smart enough that when the technology changes and people are no longer using credit cards, they'll be able to sync up with smart phones? Absolutely. It has the ability today to do Apple Pay or Google Pay or Google Wallet or any of those things. We're actually choosing not to purchase and enable that because it is such a small market share right now. But if the market share grows and people are using that, it absolutely can be retrofitted at a pretty small cost. And it's a very easy adaptation. And we can and we can use that functionality in the future. I have a question that maybe the city attorney might be well suited to answer. Depending on what action we take tonight. Would it be possible for us at some point in the future to reevaluate the rate structure so that we use the data that we're collecting from the smart meters to determine whether or not there are different rate options available, such as the progressive pricing that some Kurt Schneider, who's a resident and a member of of our very active member of our community, suggested that a progressive pricing type option, where it's maybe $0.50 for the first hour, which is what it is now, but that you raise it higher than that for the second hour . Is that something that we could look into down the road and modify our payment structure? May or members of Council. Councilmember Price Absolutely. Under the second action you would take tonight in adopting the parking meter rates in the municipal code, you could come back at it at a later date and adjust just that rate, which would adjust the rates in any of the areas that the council decided to do. So, yes, you could do that. Okay. And that's I mean, I'm letting staff know at this point that that's something I'd really like to look into. And obviously, I'll talk to my council colleagues about that and see if that's something they're interested in. But if that were an option for our residents so that they're still having the same type of rate that they're used to for the first hour and pay more for additional time. And we can study and use the the data from the sensors to help us with that. I think that would be great. In terms of the sensors, one of the concerns that we've heard is that these sensors are going to encourage the city for revenue generation purposes to change its enforcement practices. Can you comment on that a little bit? Like, are we going to have, you know, people issuing citations waiting for the car to drive away and the sensor to indicate that it's, you know, waiting for the sensor to go off and indicate that someone's expired. So we absolutely looked at the citation and the impact of these meters on citation, and we actually believe that revenue is going to be approximately flat. It might go a little bit up, it might go down. It actually varies by year by year. For example, in a in a down year, in a down economy, we see our parking citation money drop as people are very, very careful about not getting citations. In other years it'll go back up. So in terms of the technology here, we don't expect a major change. It will help our officials to become a little bit more efficient while they're driving down that street. They'll be able to see who is, you know, not currently paying, but they can do that today anyway. We don't expect this to be that every time somebody is over by a minute that a parking citation person will show up , they're going to run their normal routes. From that perspective, things are going to be pretty much the same. In terms of using the data from the sensors to evaluate whether or not we need to modify our current parking ordinances in terms of to our max parking. Is that something that you foresee the sensors allowing us to be able to do? Absolutely. One thing that we heard in Belmont. Sure is the issue of the two hour limit and whether or not we would be changing our enforcement practices. And so what we want to do is leave things as they are today. So no change in enforcement practice. And then after six months, take a look. Maybe it's six months, maybe it's a year. But as we review that data, what are people parking? Are most people staying for 3 hours rather than 2 hours? And if that's the case, should we be coming back to the council with a recommendation to change the hours to 3 hours, or is 2 hours appropriate? And should we be should we be changing our enforcement practices to encourage more turnover? So the data will provide a lot of information and we won't be making changes until we look at that data and then come back to the council. And you would expect that to be maybe six months or a year. I think we're going to start at about six months to really delve into the data once we've got a certain amount of time behind us to see some patterning and then and then look at the data from there. So between six months in a year. Now, another thing that I think is very different in Belmont Shore is that we do have some some lots that are adjacent to the businesses, parallel to Second Street, and our residents use those lots for parking. So changing the hours where they're changing the parking meter hours in Belmont Shore would inconvenience the residents who use those lots because they like to park in those lots after work and leave their cars there till the morning. Is that something that you found in any other neighborhood other than Belmont? Sure. We definitely have some parking challenges in District two, in District one as well, where they use lots after hours in order to park. And so we're very sensitive to that. Again, part of this study is we didn't want to change any hours. We thought that was a little too much to to bring to the community is changing parking locations and hours and rates would just be a very confusing so this really focused on the rates and then we want to use the data to look about whether or not we should be changing ours. So no, our no, our changes are being recommended as part of this. Gentlemen. Are you all right? I am. I'm just taking one last look, and I think I'm done. Thank you. Councilman Gonzalez. Okay. Thank you. I want to thank you all again for your work in this. I know it's been a long time coming as well as our community that's here. I first want to preface this by saying I know it's been it's hard to think about an increase in rates, but about two weeks ago, I brought forth an agenda item that really looks at downtown parking holistically. I shared that with some of you. I shared, you know, obviously our council, we passed that agenda item. It will basically direct our city manager and staff to look at public and private lots as it relates to efficiency exploration of a smartphone application, which is already being done. Safety as it relates to any unusual high calls for service at particular locations and also maintenance. So cleanliness as well. A lot of the emails I had been receiving, a lot of the contact I had been getting from business owners and residents alike, addressed a lot of these concerns. It was it was cleanliness. It was, you know, our city place parking garages aren't looking good. There's high calls for service. There have been issues after hours for employees. And so I hope and I feel very confident that the city manager will come back with some information that will make us make some changes, if possible, to our downtown parking garages to be able to to look at that. Aside from that, with the parking meters. I just wanted to go over a couple of questions with you. Can you? I know you explained a little bit about almost a half a million dollars projected to come back to the downtown for infrastructure improvements. Is that and that's above and beyond what we would be making. Can you go into that a little bit further? Yes. Councilmember and as to your parking study, we actually find that to be very symbiotic with what is being proposed here. And so ours really looked at add on street meters, but we're we're very cognizant of that. This is a system. And so but what you're proposing actually is going to dovetail very nicely into this effort. And then this effort actually provides the funding source to be able to do some of the things that we would find in the parking study. And so the staff recommendation and this came out of discussions with Dubé and others in our park and our community input. This was not part of the original recommendation was to say let's invest for two years the the amount of revenue above and beyond that we're currently experiencing today from the city side, the downtown Long Beach associate is actually going to be repaying the city out of their portion that they receive for that for the one time capital costs. But the city will have some money and right now it's projected to be 480,000 over two years. It could be more, could be less depending on the assumptions. And we see that money being available to start doing some of the improvements to fund the parking study, if you will, and and make some real improvements in terms of signage and signage and safety and security and paint and lighting. Yes, ma'am. And then there were in comparison to Belmont Shore, we have a few different elements that make us a little bit different in the downtown. So we have the to our free parking and we're there. Was there anything else? I know we're getting 5 minutes for free on the on the front end. And were there any other elements that made downtown a little bit different than Belmont? Sure, because. I think those are the big ones. It's also the way that the finances are structured in downtown. We have an agreement to share 50% of the cost with of the net revenue with the DBA, which then reinvest that back into public realm and marketing. And so that's an expense. And we also have some general fund programs that count on that parking revenue. So it is a unique area compared to Belmont Shore. It's definitely different. And the parking garage, the to our free really is a fantastic resource that we're not really aware of any other major downtown anywhere in California that has 2 hours free parking in a parking structure in downtown. Great. Thank you. And I just want to say, you know, like I said, as hard as it is to increase rates, I think, you know, I'm certainly initially I wasn't supportive as this of this. I am supportive of it now. Just because we are getting a lot of these concerns, I feel will be taken care of with both the agenda item prior and then, you know, just looking at what we we are projected to to come about now with with potential revenue. Last thing I wanted to mention, I. Had it in. Here was the data. So I know we had talked about the data. And so I just want to reiterate, it is possible to come back after three months, six months to re evaluate the data and say, you know, if this isn't working, then we can go back down to the dollar or perhaps we need to change ours if need be. But that data is really going to be very imperative for us to be able to do that, correct? Absolutely. And we agree with that. The data really is important. And that's one of the reasons that we're recommending both in Belmont Shore and in downtown, that we have that data and those sensors so that we can make those changes. And I think there'll be a lot of good information that we currently don't have today to help us manage our parking resources. Okay. I just wanted to get that clear. Thank you very much. Thank you. Vice Admiral Lowenthal. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I, too, wanted to extend my gratitude to staff and the business community, both from Belmont Shore area as well as downtown. For all the work that went into this and I know that this did not start just recently, all of you, most of you were involved during the pilot phase as well, when we were looking at whether this technology is one that we are in that we're certainly able to do, and one that's right for Long Beach. So I especially wanted to thank the downtown Long Beach Associates as well as the Belmont Shore Area Business Improvement District for their participation. But my thanks to staff, I do want to share how very appreciative I am of the lengths you went through to ensure that you had the right information. I know you made trips to other cities and spent a lot of time there to investigate how they're doing it. You were on the street. You're talking with their traffic engineers and looking at their data, not just from an increase in revenue standpoint, but really the customer experience. And I can speak confidently that I saw your staff there in Santa monica spending all day talking with different department heads and staff members and also the business improvement district there on what the experience has been. So my sincere appreciation for all of the effort that went into that. Our interest in parking meters and the visitor experience goes back several. They go back several years and it was mentioned by Tom Mr. Modica during his presentation what our experience was with the pilot project. This I also wanted to convey. While it's obvious and it's stating the obvious, it certainly is very much in line with our innovation agenda. This city is moving. Toward. Being able to allow its residents, its customers, its visitors to navigate and negotiate with all of their activities in a way that makes sense to them, in a way that they conduct their lives today. And a lot of it is technology based. And so moving in this direction comports with not only the city's innovation agenda on behalf of its residents, but also the way people are moving in their own lives to conduct their lives. And the convenience of using credit cards, which was stated earlier, is very much a part of that experience, not to mention the potential impact on the revenue. And specifically speaking to Santa monica's experience, I know they conveyed what the revenue experiences and balanced with what the customer friendly experience was as well. And there's a cost to making these sorts of improvements and that therein lies the challenge and why we are coming forward with this proposal. I wanted to ask a couple of questions to Mr. Modica. One relates to the grace period. Do you recall what the other cities utilized if they had the grace period, what their grace period was correct? What I believe the Vice Mayor is referring to is when a car leaves and the sensor resets, the the amount down to zero. Do you set it down to zero? Do you set it down to 5 minutes? Do you send it to something else? Many cities reset it down to zero. There is no grace period. City of Santa monica actually found that they had a number of constituent complaints about resetting it down to zero. And so the compromise that they came up with was to reset it down to 5 minutes so that there is a five minute grace period. So if a car leaves, you have at least 5 minutes. We had originally proposed that that was what was in our study. And actually as we went out and met with the community, we came up with that other idea of providing everyone 5 minutes free because in that case, the first scenario, you only get 5 minutes of somebody had time left on the meter. So we're actually proposing something a little different in that everyone gets 5 minutes free. You just have to push the green button on the device and you get. Yeah, that's the. 5 minutes. And then that would be very much a part of the outreach. Correct? So. I wanted to ask. That five minute grace period in other cities that do it, they do it when the meter resets. Our proposal, your proposal to council is to do it by putting hitting the green button. If the idea is to allow residents or visitors to run a quick errand, I'm not quite sure that that 5 minutes captures that unless you're parking right in front of a business which I know in the downtown is never possible and certainly in Belmont. Sure, either. And so I'd like my colleagues to consider, especially my colleague in the third, perhaps a ten minute. Green button reset, whatever you call it, grace period. Have you evaluated the financial impact of a ten minute? So we're not doing 15 this price. So part of the reason we chose the five minute I think we absolutely agree with you is that 10 minutes is probably more reasonable for a short errand. We really don't know what the financial impact is going to be. We had to make some educated guesses, and what we're estimating in downtown is that the five minute free pilot would be actually about $85,000 a year just for the 5 minutes. It it's not quite linear, so it's not like you just add, you know, 85 plus 85 and that's your new amount. It might actually be more than that. So we would certainly be open to increasing it to 10 minutes. What we were proposing was to do it for 5 minutes for, you know, three months, six months, something like that, to get a feel for it and what that cost would be and see what the meter data tells us , how many people were actually only staying for 5 minutes and then expand it to ten? If you'd like to make a different recommendation, we can try. We just might have to then go down if it's too expensive. We were proposing rather start low and an increase. So let me ask you this. When when someone does the 5 minutes and you're looking for data to determine whether or not they're staying longer, how are they staying longer? Are they doing so by coming back and putting money in the meter through their credit card? How how is that expressed to us? So the sensor will be able to see when the car pulls up and when the car actually leaves. We'll also be able to get data from how many people push the five minute button. And so we'll be able to see exactly how many people are taking advantage of our 5 minutes. And then we'll be able to get a sense of currently what the trips are. How many are there? Four, five? How many there for ten? How many are there for 15? 20. That will give us a better estimation once we get the sensor data of that. Another option could be you're just throwing this out there is to put in the meters without any free pilot program for the first couple of months, get that data and then institute a appropriate number. You know, there's a number of different ways to do this. Just from the practicality. And I know this is probably far more detailed than we necessarily need for the first discussion of it. But from a practical standpoint, if I approached a meter, someone's left actually any meter given your proposal and I strike the green button, I have 5 minutes, but if I needed ten, am I adding the additional five while I stand there or am I coming back? You would add it right then, so it would be 5 minutes free and you could walk away. Or if you needed ten you would put in a nickel, a dime, whatever it is, or, you know, if you needed to swipe your card and you would then buy an additional five to get up to ten. Okay. And we can have, I suppose, the data conversation later. My, my challenge with looking at that data to determine does someone need 5 minutes for an errand or 10 minutes for an errand. I think it like you said, it's not linear and it's sort of a blended average that you will end up with. And so I'm not sure that that gives us the most accurate data. My recommendation for our counsel is for the first three months to do the 10 minutes, look at look at the data, and you come back to us with that data and we can make a determination. While it is much harder to take something away, I do think from making a change going to a technological change like this and and a fee change or parking meter rate change this might be. A nice amenity for for certainly the residents that have expressed concerns. What are your thoughts, Mr. Vodka? We'd certainly be willing to do that if that's what the council would like to do. We you know, we'd want to if the council makes that adoption or that motion tonight, the first thing we would do is kind of rerun some of the financial models just to make sure that it that based on the assumptions it'll fit . And if it does fit, then we'll move forward with that and do it for three months if it for some reason doesn't work in at all and the projections show it may put us in negative, then I think we would need to come back and and get some further directions before implementation. And that'll be my caveat to the friendly amendment is it'll be contingent on the staff's assessment of the 10 minutes versus the 5 minutes and if it still keeps us where we need to for the capital expenditures for this project. Councilmember Price Are you amenable to that? Yes. Vice Mayor So do you want to point out it would result in less revenue for the infrastructure improvements in downtown because that that money comes out of the same pot so we can do the 10 minutes. It may result in some reduced money. It won't, you know, just off the top of my head, it's not going to take all of the money. It will just be a reduced amount. So we're doing this for the first three months. And then you'll let us know what the cost implications are. We'll do. Just three months. Okay. Thank you. That's all my comments for now. And I would urge my I would urge my colleagues to support this item. Thank you. Councilman Mango. Assistant City Manager Modica. Could you elaborate a little bit on the inability to pass on the transaction fee to the consumer? Because for those of you who are about to pay your property taxes, which are due any day now, you can absorb the fee. If you choose to use a credit card. We pass that 3% on to the customer and they choose to take that. Additionally, if you pay by check, same with your animal licenses in L.A. County, you pay a certain fee, but if you choose to use it by credit card, we have an agreement with link to govt that passes that cost on to the consumer because. The theory is that the cost of maintaining the meters is equal for every resident and every consumer of the space or the dog license or the property. And therefore, why should one taxpayer pay less than another based on their type of transaction? Additionally, if we were able to pass that on to the consumer, because these meters are so smart, if it was a dollar and I paid by quarters, it would be a dollar. But if it was a dollar and I paid by a transaction fee, it would be like a dollar five $0.05. And since it would be a transaction fee, which is digital, hopefully that would not result in an additional coinage challenge. Thoughts? Anyone. So we spent a lot of time looking at this. I will try my first crack at the explanation. It is fairly complicated because you are absolutely correct. There are ways to do it and we actually do certain types of those types of payments as well. I certainly learned a lot about this. And if I if I say something incorrect, though, John, growth earlier will help me. We actually do have the same type of fee that you are talking about in the city and we do it for online bill pay. And essentially what you are paying is a convenience fee to use a online payment as a method of payment rather than passing the direct transaction fee from the credit cards on to the customer. So we had originally approached it from that approach as can we do the same thing with parking meters? And so we reached out directly to Visa and MasterCard and they were telling us what we do in terms of utility billing payments with the county does is a separate issue from passing the direct cost of the credit card transaction fee on to the customer in the manner that we were thinking of doing. There are other ways to do it. It becomes very convoluted and complicated. You can raise all rates and then discount for cash. You have to notify if they do a number of different things. But in that, if the intent is to keep the rates low and passing on just the fee, that would defeat the purpose, because otherwise you have to raise everybody's rates and then provide a a cheaper discount for cash. So if I if there's anything else to add, please jump in. So are you saying that if the rate was a dollar ten but there was a discount for cash, it would be a dollar in coin, but that the rate is a dollar ten per hour. That would be one way to approach it. Okay. And then to my colleagues, I am very interested in data. I think that there's a lot of value. I'm really excited about our open data and sharing a lot of what we have going on in the city with our residents. And I think that if we want to do a real assessment of the impact of the 5 minutes, I think that there's some value in starting with zero and then going to five. And then if you'd like to potentially go to ten, realizing the risks. And before you go to ten, you'd already have the data from zero and five. And that variance would potentially give you the output and the challenge of the cost implications to go into ten. And so my friendly amendment would be to do. Three months at zero. And then the three months at five. Vice President Lowenthal. Yeah. Mr. Mayor. Councilmember Mongo makes a very good point. I was just looking at the slide presentation again on some of the detail as well as some of the background information. And I do think it would be more responsible for us to start with. Five. I know you've asked for four zero, but start with five. Look at the data. I saw the look of concern on Mr. Marcus forehead, but he didn't articulate it. Sometimes you have to hear what's not being said and and our interest is not to start at a negative. And so I will ask I yes, we'll start with five at three months and then reevaluate. Next we have Councilman Price. I do have a question in regards to that. Mr. Modica, is Belmont Shore in a situation where we could financially accommodate the 10 minutes free because we are not similarly situated to the other areas in terms of our parking meter purpose. It's more of a turnover goal in Belmont. Sure. And so for us, you know, we might be able to since you've run the numbers in Belmont Shore so carefully, is that something that we could accommodate? Because my concern with the 5 minutes is there are very few businesses in Belmont Shore where you could go in and really utilize that 5 minutes in a meaningful way. So what we saw when we ran this and it's in the staff report is we looked at a number of estimates and we're expecting the 5 minutes free in downtown Belmont, sure. To cost about $25,000 in just roughly. Looking at it and give some numbers in year two, Belmont sure would have $132,000. But in year three, there would be 23 million, $23,000 in net excess. And so in that scenario, let's just say the 5 minutes free were to double. You would be okay in year two, but you would go negative in year three, you would go positive in year three four and then back a little bit below. That's not to say it can't work. But you know, there's also the fun balance that Belmont, your parking commission has that is different than in Belmont Shores. So if you wanted to allocate additional, you know, a fund balance to cover that for a certain period of time, that would be a financial that would be a financially responsible way to approach it as well. You know, I'd like to before talking on this item any further, I'd like to hear from the public in terms of public comments. I know there are some folks here who might have something to say about that, but would that be an option for us as maybe to do something different in terms of that, the free time that would be different in the shore as opposed to downtown? That's entirely a policy question in the council. There's nothing prohibitive from the technology side of things. As long as the finances and the fund balance were there, you would just have to allocate some of that fund balance to ensure that you wouldn't go negative during the time that you're that you're piloting this. Okay. Have no further questions. Thank you. I'm going to make some comments before we go to public comment. And then, Councilman Gonzales, do you have additional comments as well? Okay. Why don't you go ahead and then I'll close. And I wanted to take it a little bit further. I know, Tom, don't give me any bad looks, but I know we talked about this in the beginning with even a removal of the parking meters, the ones that were not making any money. Because I know historically, you know, living personally, living along pine, but also knowing that some meters just don't even generate any revenue at all. It's just it's pretty poor. I just want to make sure that we keep that in our and our on our radar. I know I had discussed that with you beforehand, but if there's something some data that comes back and says these aren't even efficient, even for maintenance purposes, I mean, that would be something we could look at as well, correct? Absolutely. That's going to be part of our review. The beauty of the sensors is they will tell us when people are parking there during hours and whether they're paying. They also will tell us when people are parking there and not even when they're not being enforced. So if we see meters that are losing money on it, we will will definitely look at removing those and maybe placing them somewhere else or just getting rid of them altogether. Okay, great. Thank you. Great. Thank you. We're going to go to the public here in just a minute. Just a couple of comments and then Mr. Modica, then a question for you. I want to make two sets of comments. The first is about the technology, and the second, it's about the rates, which has been part of the larger discussion. But the first thing I want to say is I really want us to just commend city staff, the group involvement or the parking commission deal, a hope to the DRC, all the residents who have been involved in this process. This is when you think about this, we're upgrading a major system in the city. This is creating a government that is more responsive to the 21st century. It's technology, it's data collection. This is exactly the type of investments that we need to be making and to ensure that we are a city with all the amenities of a big city and being are the two areas of the city that have parking meters. I think to go to smart meters, I've been lamenting not having smart meters for years. I've been using smart meters in every other downtown oceanfront in every other city. And we've been a little bit behind, but we've been doing also our research, our due diligence on the issue. And I want to thank all those groups. I want to thank Vice Mayor Lowenthal, who's been kind of leading the charge on this issue for for many years. And also just a few things. Also, Tom, on the rate issue one, I do I think it's great that downtown has the two out of three lots. I think that needs to continue. I also want to make sure that at the six month review, we review two things that you and I have discussed before when I was on the council. One is looking at areas, particularly in the northern part of downtown, where you have meters in neighborhoods that have developed to a place where they're no longer business districts. So example, you have streets on Pacific Avenue that have no businesses that have parking meters in front of residences. And at time there may have been business on that street, but as as have been developed into residential corridors, there's no longer the need for those meters. And so it's I think it's it's hard to have a street with all residential homes and parking meters. And so I think we need to evaluate at the six months and and I know that part of this is ensuring that we can pay for this. And so if if we get the data back, we need to evaluate which parking meters, like Councilman Gonzales said, are are obsolete. In addition to that, I want as part of the six month, I would like to request that we also look at what is what you can what we consider the downtown core versus the downtown. Because if you look at the map, the what we consider the downtown core, which is the red, if you can put slide number seven up on the screen real quick. If you look at this map, this is this has been a map that we've used for a while as far as what we consider the downtown core versus the downtown from a from a parking rate point of view. And it may be and I don't mean I don't know this to be the case, but we should look at it. It may be that portions of it's what currently are the downtown core should have a downtown rate because of the usage. And it may be that there may be a street or two that are considered the downtown that should be considered the downtown core because of usage there. There are there are areas of that are currently in the blue section of the downtown that have very high use. And there are some areas that are in the red that have very low use. So if at those six months, those two items can also be reviewed, I think that's an important piece piece of all this as well. Absolutely. We can look at both of those. And that's what that's really the benefit of the data. So, yes, we'll have a lot of data to look at and make some good decisions about what is appropriate and what the appropriate rate and locations are. And I know there's an I that's that's been a request. I know that some of the neighborhood groups have submitted in the past to the city. And so I just want us to revisit that as well. So with that, let's go ahead and open this up to to public comment. So please come forward and introduce yourselves for the record. Greetings, Mayor. Council members and members of staff. My name is Eric Ray and I live at 133 Promenade Walk in the second District on the incoming vice president of the Downtown Residential Council. And I'm a member of the historic Pine Avenue Business Association, which is HOPER encompasses many of the businesses on Pine Avenue from First Street, and many of the businesses are North Third Street. Well, I support the installation of smart meters due to the ease of use factor for the customer experience and being able to use credit cards. I think it's unfair that the entire downtown core will be on a full dollar 50. I believe the downtown core should be set at a dollar so that we're more competitive with Belmont. Sure. To be clear, the proposal states that Belmont Shore will be at $0.75. The downtown periphery will be it will be a dollar. And that includes the East Village and the downtown core will be at a dollar 50. If you look at the map, the downtown core includes some of the economically developing parts of downtown, such as Pine Avenue, north of Third Street, seventh Street, between Pine Avenue and Long Beach Boulevard and so forth. This includes many of the small businesses who took a risk in Long Beach and are more vulnerable due to the higher parking meter prices outside their businesses, which deters customers. 5 minutes free is a nice gesture, but will hardly buy time to buy a cup of coffee at Starbucks or let alone a sandwich across market. Well, I understand that there's a city place parking garage with two free hour parking. Many people feel it is an unsafe parking garage for a variety of reasons, which includes lack of security on the blue line and many calls for police in that section of downtown. I asked you to think about the Long Beach customer experience when making your decision. I asked you to put yourself in the shoes of a consumer who visits Pine Avenue, but is met with empty storefronts and expensive parking meters, which also have sensors that reset when a car pulls away. In addition, lots of data shows that cost of living has gone up for individuals and families, but wages haven't. The proposal before you does offer some good suggestions with revenue projections. However, part of the solution is to consider that not all parts of downtown are economically sustainable. Yet we need to compromise. Thank you. Thank you, Eric. Next speaker, please. Mr. Mayor. Members of the city council. I'm Joe Ganim. I'm president for another 30 days of the downtown residential council. And I'll be more than happy to give that position to Mike Dunphy. We had the pleasure of having Tom Mollica and Sharon at our forum, and they made a presentation. We had a packed house. I think most of the comments were very positive. I didn't hear anything and haven't heard anything in a negative sense about this idea at all. I have some personal comments, however, to make in a question to ask. First of all, I finally get to retire the little lime green coin purse that my wife bought me to put in my nice black macho jeep. Somehow it never fit and twins are a real nuisance. But on the other hand, the first three months that I bought, first two months that I was here, I had the pleasure of contributing to the city's coffers by the tune of about $90 for parking tickets. So I. The purse wasn't such a bad thing after all. The other thing is I heard about Apple Pay. However, I was listening carefully and perhaps I missed somewhere, Mr. Mayor, about the ability for the smart meter, if you will, to inform the person who's parked there when their time was about up, or in fact, whether or not they could use an app to not only pay for the meter, but at least re-up the meter if that was an availability through the application as opposed to, you know, you get to pay for it, but you don't know when for sure it's going to expire unless you've set a separate app to let you know when that's going to happen. So it would seem to me that that would be a real convenience. I know that if we're sitting down, enjoying ourselves, having dinner or something, and maybe the service has been a little late getting to us and we've got 10 minutes left, but we are not aware of that. The convenience of using the credit card then is obliterated by the fact that we get back and find out that we've been ticketed because we didn't know the meter ran out and we should have been able to do that. So I appreciate all this effort on technology. I think is is a great idea. My own thoughts about the rates is, quite frankly, I think most of us really concentrate more on being able to get a parking space and being able to pay for it efficiently. I don't know about others. Maybe I'm a little different, but I frankly, in most cases than the smart meters, but the maximum amount because I have no idea how long I'm going to be available. And so whether or not I'm saving a nickel, a dime a quarter or $0.50 a dollar, you know, I mean, at the end of the day, we're probably going to spend a great deal more money, whatever we're doing after we park than parking. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Mr. Mayor, City Council. My name is Michael Wylie. I live at 638 Pacific Avenue. I'm also the president of Sam Co Corporation. We own approximately a block in North Pine apartment buildings and about 50,000 square feet of commercial space. Tonight, I'm in regards to the parking in North Pine. The mayor mentioned North Pine. There's a lot of empty parking spots up there. In fact, about three or four years ago, I did a survey up there in which we audited the parking spots. And it looks like from our study, the area between 6/8 Pacific and locus generates about $50 per meter per year. And I think what the meter is, 425 bucks. So quite, quite a long payback on that. So anyway, that's all I wanted to say. Thank you all very much. Thanks. Thank you, Mike. Next picture, please. Dennis Dunne. This is sour grapes. I know. But if we had built a swimming pool, we'd have 128 free parking places and won't have to worry about $0.50 extra charges for the consumer. Marketplaces would be available. Well, the pool has been set in concrete and the wheels are in motion. So let's go from there. What is the problems with this new parking meters set up? I think there are seven problems. That. That signal disaster. First, business revenues would go down because people would not be going into the stores to get change. They are more apt to buy something in the store if they go for change rather than to have a credit card. Put it in the machine, check it. More credit cards. It's a jungle. Why more credit cards? We have enough credit cards now. People are in debt because of credit cards. How are you going to keep track of the cost? It's staggering the amount of burden you will put on the person. Third. More. There'd be more overpayments with credit cards than if you didn't have credit cards. Because it's like magic. You get a gift, a parking place, and there's no exchange from your wallet with money to the meter. It's just magic. You slip a card in the machine's mouth and it feed you a free parking place, it seems. But nothing's free. It's going to cost you a lot more money because of overspending, because they won't be aware of the expense so much. And. Fix the costs of maintenance machinery we're talking about. You have to you have to maintain it to its prime order. That's going to cost money. The maintenance of these machines that are so exotic, you give credit cards. Seventh. There will be a black market in credit cards. There's no real stoppage. Of of thievery and of a black market that would be initiated. There's no real guards with the credit card system. Those are the points I'd like to make, and I'll leave it up to your consideration. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, Mr. Mayor. Members of the City Council. My name is Craig Cogen with the downtown Long Beach Associates. I first want to thank staff for the incredible work that they've done in preparing this information. I don't know if it was the mayor or ourselves who really were in a race to get new technology in our downtown . We've been asking for it for a couple of years now, and we finally are able to look at really the benefits that this will provide. And I think it's important that although DARPA is supportive of a staff recommendation, that the technology and the rate adjustment does not equal unconditional support, that our support does come with those conditions that we have. We have requested and submitted to city staff and it's included in your packet. We have about 11 recommendations that we hope to be able to implement in a very systematic, strategic and chronological timeline. But again, it looks we look at the technology, we look at the convenience, look at the visitor friendliness, and it's sometimes the parking is the first and last impression that one gets in their business corridors. I think we have to be cognizant of that relative to data collection. I don't think this proposal would be worth the wait if it did not include the sensors without the data that that it will collect. We cannot go forward by making rational and smart decisions on how to utilize the parking that exists in our downtown or in Belmont Shore. And I want to thank the vice mayor and Councilmember Gonzales and their recommendation directing city manager to look at the off street parking issues in our downtown relative to the parking lots and city place parking. It does need better maintenance. It does need stronger security. It needs to be maintained on a regular basis. And we're looking forward to working with staff and certainly with city council on those issues and certainly be able to provide any of the support and support and and and offered the opportunity to create that opportunity when it comes to providing that service for the parking lot. So anyway, again, thank you. City staff did an incredible job in presenting that to us and look forward to the support here tonight. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hello. My my name is Celia McGill. I live in a I have a living you in me like 20 C 27 and living in and Pacific and twenties in 15 in the poor me maybe, but it is very good to see the those mirrored. But right now in this moment I'm in scary you know y because I live in over there in Pacific in 15. And in one building apartment on them is Pacific Theater like. And we can we have a something we have more space to partner the car. Now we are looking for around in the ground up there here. I'm going to I'm going to looking for one place where I'm going to leave my car. Why? Because I have more space and then maybe some some pencil than going to say Oprah specific. The lady parking space. Yes, but only two in 9 a.m.. Single and single woman with three, three busy, busy students, one in in lobbies, in university lobbies, and another 10 million, obviously. And they are they are very busy in item mobile to give them a right. Also. I also am very busy to enable in my community and different activities. And then for me without it for me is not working, maybe is very good for business, for places, for recreation areas, but no where to place away the cable building like I told you place too late tomorrow the sweeping will pass maybe to then going to sleep in my car if I if I am going to park my car and for my in my room, I am going to sleep in my car and wait until they are sweeping bus even though I am going to looking for around to to find one place where I leave my car then well, we need maybe we need those, those meeting in recreation areas where maybe in in something you you know, your city, you know what, what, where we need up. But maybe over the Pacific Pacific in 15. We don't need it. We need only one place where we can to borrow or car because nobody is too many cars. We can MySpace where we can to park or something. I see some person they pay $1 to summer a liquor stores to live Berkeley car over there. But they need to pay like a one day or three days before they call somebody because we can find one a space where we're going to leave the car away. Because if not, then what are we going to. We're going to find one ticket for last week. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next speaker, please. This is our we have a link. Lisa is next and she'll be our last speaker coming off the speaker's list. Go ahead. Yup. Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. Bill or beer bill? Much for parking commission. I'm the current chair. Start off by some big thank you's. Member Price did a great job looking at this and reviewing it and I really appreciate the effort you put into it. Staff did an amazing job too. I really appreciate all the work that Mr. Motoko did and the outreach that he did with the community in particular. I want to throw a shout out to Craig and his group. They really looked at it well. They made a number of suggestions that I know us and make sure would like to. So the debate did a great job on their task force. So thank you also. There were some comments earlier about the disparity or the difference between Belmont Shore and downtown in other areas. And I just like to focus on a couple of quick things. Now, Mature has always had a lower parking rate than downtown or any other area, and that's for many of the reasons that Member Price mentioned. But I think what wasn't mentioned is, is probably the most important reason, which is we don't have meters in Belmont. Sure. As a revenue source they they were never installed for the purpose of creating a new revenue source. They were originally installed to pay for a couple of parking lots. I remember my dad telling me that 20 years ago that when the parking lots were finished being paid for, they were going to take them out. Well, obviously that didn't happen, but we use them now to turn over parking. The purpose of the meters in Belmont Shores to help us make parking available to other people. Not not as a revenue source. Councilmember Mongeau made a couple comments about the merchant agreement and the convenience fee, and we strongly support that idea and I'm not sure for some of the same reasons that she was mentioning. I personally don't think it's fair to force the cash paying consumer, which is generally some of the older consumers. And I'm starting to get into that category to pay for the convenience of somebody that wants to use a credit card. You're basically disproportionately charging one group for the other group's convenience, and that's just not fair. I realize that, you know, it's the wave of the future, but I'd like to see you guys ask city staff to look at that merchant fee and see if they can, you know, make a change to that merchant fee in the future . So we could have a convenience fee. The data, as Craig was mentioning, is probably the single most important thing here, in least in my personal opinion. Without it, we can't look at, you know, rate structures. We can't look at the time, the amount of time we allow people to park. And since I'm not sure it is really about turn over, that data, I think will be tremendously useful for us. So we really, really while the commission didn't necessarily support the idea for a cost issue with the sensors. I am glad that you are looking at it and I hope you guys will pass this with sensors everywhere. Regarding the the five minute free period. Sorry, Bill. I'm sorry. Yeah, it's okay. One question. The fund balance. How will that work? Tom Bill, just so you know, you know, just the rules of the rules so the council can ask questions. But thank you so much. And maybe that might get asked by a council member. So thank. You. Hi, Lisa. Ramla, lifelong Long Beach resident, and I'm also a member of the Belmont Shore Parking Commission. And since Bill already did the thank yous, I'll pass on that part right now. I just want to comment on the five and ten minute idea that came forward. I understand that people are against the looping, which is the resetting of the meter. So I guess that's where maybe this came up. But I agree that 5 minutes really isn't enough to do an errand. And I feel like 95% of the people, probably 98%, won't know about the green button. They'll just go up and put money in or swipe their card. And if they do know, I think it'll cost so much confusion of, oh, 5 minutes. Okay, 5 minutes free. I'll pay for. 55. How do I do that? Or they won't know. Then I'll find out 3 minutes, three months later and say, How come no one told me? Because as much outreach that you did was which was wonderful time at all the meetings, everything we went to, I still would read so many letters in the Guardian Gazette. They had so much misinformation. I couldn't believe it. And I just think they were opening up a can of worms to do the five minute, ten minute mark. I know your offices don't want to get calls from angry residents about the looping and all that, but I just think you're opening a huge can of worms to do that. So that would be my thing was to pass on that. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. We've close the speakers list. We're going to go back to Councilwoman Pryce and the motion by Councilman Price and Lowenthal. Councilman Mr. Modica, how will the fund balance work? So Council member and Mr. Livia. The way that it'll work is you essentially have a pretty healthy fund balance right now in the park and it's city funds but it's it's dedicated for parking. Commissioner for the parking issues down in Belmont you're essentially our financial management department would just ensure that there is a healthy enough fund balance to cover any type of potential decrease the the 25 cent rate increase actually was was not an easy thing to do we had to make sure that there was going to be funds available because we're taking a little bit of a risk. So if if our assumptions are incorrect and the costs are higher than that, we're saying for at least one year have some cash available to cover that so that it's never negative then. And we just wouldn't allow the commission to spend that money on something else for that year period. Then we would reassess next year. We're hoping it's not necessary, but then next year you'd have to potentially do another 25 cent rate increase if our projections aren't what we expect them to be. But our projections are fairly conservative, correct? They were very conservative under the 50 cent. They are still somewhat conservative under the 25 cent. But again, the variability is is so hard to predict. If people start using the credit card a lot, the costs will go up. And it could be that we you know, they don't use it nearly as much and you have more more funds available. Regarding the convenience fee that Mr. Lorber was talking about, is it possible for staff to consider that option in the future? As we renegotiate those merchant agreements. We're happy to look at those agreements and talk to the banks about them. And so that can be something that we look at. My understanding is it is not a city of Long Beach issue with our in our contract. It is more of a global Visa and MasterCard. But we'll keep our eyes open if there's changes in the future. Again, you know, convenience fees can be charged in a number of different ways. You know, we did look at that to see if any other city has found out how to do them. And none do in California all 25 that we looked at don't of cities. But I believe one city in the nation does do a convenience type fee. And so we can we can continue to look at that. In terms of the 5 minutes free. If we were to opt out of that, would we get anything back like a ten cent rate increase as opposed to a 25 cent rate increase? I guess technically you could go back in and change the the the fee. I think a 65 cent fee for parking might be a little odd. It's a little nonstandard, but I suppose anything's possible. And at this point that 5 minutes is being recommended to ensure consistency throughout the city and also some show some goodwill. Correct. Even if people don't use it, if we opt out of it, at least according to staff's recommendation, we don't really get any benefit in terms of a reduced rate increase at this time. And could you restate that? Sure. If we opt out of that five minute option, there's no proposal on the table that would reduce the rate increase. No, not at this time. We were looking to do rate increases typically happen in round numbers just for that and the way that they calculated. So we were we would either we would do the 75 cent rate increase. So thank you. Or a 75 total rate, not a rate increase. Okay, great. So we're going to go to a vote now. And I just want to make sure that we understand the motion that's on the floor and the motion on the floor, which was by price. Lowenthal was to approve staff's recommendation. As presented with the at the five minute free. Correct. Okay. And that's inclusive of all three motions. And Mayor. We'd need a separate vote. We'd need a first vote would be on the resolution authorizing the city manager to execute the contract with IPC Group. That's that would be the first action by the council. If that motion passes, then we would go to the second item to adopt the resolution establishing the new parking rights. Right. So we have we have the first price. Lowenthal made the motion for the first for the first one. Members, please go and cast your vote. Motion carry eight zero. Thank you. Could we get a motion for the second one? So move. Second. Okay. There's been a motion and a second member. Please cast your votes.