Recommendation to adopt resolution approving repaving/resurfacing projects proposed to receive Road Maintenance and Rehabilitation Account funding totaling approximately $9,200,000 in the Fiscal Year 2022 Paving Program.  (Citywide)
So thank you very much. Please cast your votes. Motion carries 33, please. Report from Public Works recommendation to adopt a resolution approving repaving resurfacing projects proposed to receive road maintenance and rehabilitation account funding and the fiscal year 2022 paving program citywide. I have a motion in a second. There is no place for public comment on this. You have one here. We have any greenfield. Your public comment. Yes, Annie Greenfield. Annie Greenfeld your phone may be still muted. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Marquez. I just wanted to give a couple customers. Just wanted a brief dust up. Didn't want. This actually is. Eric Lopez. Mayor, members of the City Council. The item before you is essentially a requirement from SB one, our Road Repair and Accountability Act and its SB one requires that a list of all projects propose to receive funding that it be identified in a resolution that's approved by the City Council. And there are specific requirements that we are meeting through this agenda item that that's specific to this funding source. The bill also requires the use of a pavement management system and that guides the development of the project list. Something I wanted to clarify this list only represents about a quarter of all roadway projects that are going to be part of the capital improvement program. That's really important. It's just about a quarter is not a complete list and and wanted to make that clarification. The other. Clarification. I wanted to make is that all of these projects are part of the measure, a spending plan. So these are all commitments we've made in the last few years. And we're meeting those commitments. The supplemental, the measure, a funding and other funding sources as well. So that concludes the status report, and we're here to answer any questions. Thank you, Councilman Mongo. Thank you. I want to thank Eric for doing an exceptional job of working to improve the streets of the city of Long Beach tonight. I kind of want to just take a moment to ask a few questions that I help. I hope will bring some insights to the community. Many know that I've been a proponent of street repair since day one and that when elected, I remember one of my first my first meeting with the mayor. We went over the amount of street repair needed in every district in the city and the cost of that street repair . And the fifth District was by far the worst. And we've made a lot of progress, but we are nowhere near where we need to be. In a recent memo from the city manager's office, they discuss that we spend approximately $50 million a year maintaining streets at good, very good levels, and we're not really having the amount of money necessary to attack the poor and very poor streets that to really get a hold of it while this is a huge light towards climbing out of this tunnel. This is still only 25% of the total plan. But even when you see the total plan, we need an additional $211 million to pull our poor and very poor streets and alleys to a condition which I see as appropriate and deserving of our taxpayers and our neighbors. And so I just want that to be both a celebration and a reality check when when you have $211 million in need and that $211 million in need still grows, even when you're spending 50 million a year. We we have a long way to go and we need a plan. So what I would also ask is that in future reports, any street that has been paved or resurfaced or mitigated in the last ten years be itemized. Because when I read the memo the other day, unless I misunderstood, we're spending 50 million keeping the streets good. And I'd like to see how many streets are getting touched again before hundreds of streets and alleys in our city have ever been touched once since the status was in place. And I know the reasoning behind the strategy that we currently have, and I understand its cost effectiveness. And there are residents that have lived on poor streets for a very, very long time. And the current structure of our budget does not, for the foreseeable future, find a way unless an infrastructure bill falls from the feds, which would be if it could be dedicated to streets and sidewalks. I need 300 million for sidewalks and 300 million for streets, and I would be a celebratory person without something like that. I don't see a way where we can tell the residents on poor and very poor streets. Any date in my lifetime that they could perceive their street being fixed, and that is just not acceptable. So we have to come up with a solution. Grateful for the 9 million in front of us. It's 5% of what we need. Thank you. Katherine. Sara. Thank you, Mayor. So. I too am grateful that we have this 9 million and to just to see that we're going to be having road maintenance. But I, I think that I need a little bit of a few questions answered about how some of these streets were decided as far as how they ended up being on this list and what's the process on getting on a list to getting it into the repayment program? Yes. Council Member So we look at the measure spending plan. We made these commitments ask of specific streets that are going to be paved in each district. So throughout the last few years we've been going around and getting some of those segments done each year. Those are the the allocations of dollars as directed by the City Council is based on need on the amount of of need per district. And so we allocate dollars a by a percentage based on on that need. And so, you know, there are some districts that will have a different need then than other districts, though. So there is some differences. But that that approach was was requested by the City Council. C So when we look here, these are all measure a spending plan, identify streets, and the allocation is based on on the need percentage. Where does that percentage come from? The staff updates its pavement management plan every 2 to 3 years, and the need percentages are outlined in that plan. So we get it directly from our and our payment management system. Do we have the ability to view this pavement management plan so that we can better understand the process that was kind of taken to it sounded like from Councilmember Mongo statement their grade levels in how they're listed and how they're decided as far as how they're chosen based on, I guess what it's categorized as need. Yeah. So we, we actually have the last pavement management program posted on our website. I'll make sure I can send a link. A link so you have a direct access to it. We're looking as part of our update in our in our newspaper management plan, which will be done in the next couple of months. We're looking to make it more interactive. We're looking to layer it on a map where you can identify your street, see the rating, see the condition, and just make it a lot easier to understand what the recommendations are. And what would be wonderful to do that. Thank you. I want to make one clarification also and then I'm going to turn over actually, I think conference in Dallas was the second or did not go to the second of the motion. So if they go to your city councilwoman or no. Okay, I'll go to the councilman next. But just to clarify one one thing, and this might help clarify for Councilman Ciro and Andrew Councilman Allen as well the plan, I think Mr. Lopez that you're referring to is is not just the the measure, a five year plan that was adopted by the council, but also the CHP overlay that we did on top of that plan. Is that correct? Or you're just referring to the measuring streets? It's both correct. So it started with the measure, a map. And then as we build out that map we laid on, as we got new gas tax money, as we got new funding. So, yes, that is the five year commitment that we're talking. That this was just the measure, a plan we have, that we this council many years ago adopted the Missouri Street Plan, which was a five year plan of which we're nearing the end of or close to the end of. And then we also added through the budget process a variety of streets that met Mr. Lopez's criteria that he just explained from a variety of sources, including, you know, the SB one streets, the gas tax streets, all the streets in the chapbook. And it all got folded into one master, a five year plan map that is publicly available that anyone can see that the council adopted. And that's what we're going through right now. And so I think it would be great, obviously, for the Council at some point we should get a kind of refresher and I agree with Councilman Sato as to where we're at with that map because I know we've been discussing kind of the what's next, what's next post, this five year plan and how do the funding sources that we have in place impact that that map? So I wanted to make that clarification. But thank you for thank you for that. Next, we have customers in the house. Thank you, ma'am. I just want to say thank you very much to Councilwoman Mango. I stand with you when it comes to the needing the the poor and very poor street repairs done. I know we've had several conversations about this in the past. I know that my residents are eager to figure out, you know, when is their street going to be repaired. I remember when I was elected that I came to visit my my district, my industrial district in the West Side. And one of the streets was horrible. I mean, it's a horrible, horrible that I don't think I could even drive my wheelchair through there because it was so bad. And so I said, this is easy, right? And this is one of the most horrible streets here. We're going to fix this, you know, a.S.A.P. That still has not happened. And and now I understand why I understand the process. I understand that it is extremely expensive to actually fix those really, really bad streets. And I also understand that it's less expensive to fix the the good, you know, streets or port, you know, the ones that are not as horrible. But my question is that do we have a plan for that? Because I don't think that we can just say, oh, well, the street is just horrible and it's just going to have to remain horrible for like council members. Mongo says, for as long as we have life, you know, way past us. And so I I'd really like us to move forward to creating a plan that would address those poor, very poor, because they continue to to be damaged then not only that, but they continue to damage other vehicles that pass through there and stuff. And and it's just it makes it look like us as a council don't care about those streets or don't care about the, you know, where they are. I usually have weekly check ins with my residents, and one of the things that keeps coming up is why are we not fixing Seventh Street? You know, Seventh Street is a main, main street here in. And it goes into the city and out of the city. Right. And so so I think that that's one of the things that we really need to look into. Seventh Street, I don't know is that is that street anywhere in the in the plans to be fix. Seventh Street. Councilmember. I would even go back and check the exact plans, but I can let you know if it's on the current plan or not. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Lopez. And I think that, you know, I grieve sorry that we have to come up with a plan to be able to address those very poor and poor streets. Because we cannot we can't. It's it's really is unacceptable to continue like this. All right. I see the mayor stepped away. Councilman Austin. Thank you. And you know, I'll just say that we have several streets that are going to get paved and we should be celebrating that. And I did to have some some questions and try to understand the methodology and how we got here. But I'm going to take this as as a as a win for or at least a few streets in the district. And I can remember when SB one was being debated in Sacramento just a few years ago. I think four years ago it was actually passed. And we lauded this this funding sources as an opportunity. I did have a question for a city manager or public works director. Was there a shift in strategy at all in terms of how we were spending SB one money? Because the recall wasn't there was it wasn't it specified that SB one would go toward arterial streets. Not residential. Is that ever a strategy? I don't I don't think we recall that, particularly because there's there's a number of different types of gas tax. There's gas tax. There's then are prop or prop C, so there's different funding sources. Some can only be used on arterials, some cannot. When we got the extra SB one, we went back and looked at kind of the next level of streets and added those in. And so again, you're only seeing one little portion of gas taxes, another whole section of gas tax that's been used for streets as well. Okay. So what I'm hearing also from my colleagues and I share that is that, you know, we were contacted on a daily basis about streets throughout our districts, the need for repairs. And I think it would be a very. I think it would help us a lot if there was there's a little bit more transparency even for the public and how we were going about identifying which streets are next. I know that's not easy, but even explaining, doing some education about the pavement management plan and how streets are rated and and so when when when they see a street help getting paved to streets at least three stillbirths. It's not an affront to them. It's there's a there's a methodology and some science to it. I think that would help us as elected officials explain what's going on, because oftentimes you can you can have a neighborhood and you can do two streets and you look at that as a victory. But it really is not a victory when the rest of the neighbors are wondering why not us? So we need to be able to explain that so that our residents understand, you know, how and why we're reaching the decisions that we make other that I'm looking forward to seeing these streets done and leveraging our measure eight plans for for future opportunities as well. Yeah. And we certainly agree we'd love to be able to to bring more information. I do want us to go back a little bit in history. Four or five years ago, councilmembers were getting one street per district, a new that we were able to do. And when we brought on Measure eight, that's what allowed us to really start doing several and create an actual plan. Before that, we didn't even have a pavement management plan. We didn't have any data. We just kind of looked and saw where where were you hearing the most complaints and what one street would you like to fix ? So I do think we've come a long way. I am excited about getting our new pavement management plan and then starting to plan for that next, you know, five year, ten year bring you the options of what funding do we have and what is a need. We did think that the in we're really betting on some money from the federal government. We know is $1,000,000,000,000 plan in the works right now and we think we've got a lot of projects that would qualify. Thank you. Let me let me just add something else I think Councilmember Austin mentioned. I just think it's important because there's a lot of conversations about, you know, wanting to have a plan and needing to get certain streets done. These plans require funding. And I just want a little bit of a reality check as to where we're actually at as it relates to funding infrastructure. We are right now spending more on infrastructure than we probably have in the last 50 years. It's very clear about how much we're actually spending on infrastructure. We have more sources of street repair resources that are going into fixing streets than we certainly ever have had in the last few decades. And we were just pre measure a doing 1 to 2 streets for council district a year. So I'm very grateful that the voters, you know, for the first time in 40 years, stepped forward with and taxed themselves to invest in all the streets and again taxed themselves to invest in other statewide measures, including, you know, supporting bills like SB one. So I just want to make sure that we. Are realistic that right now, even with all of the spending that we're doing in infrastructure, it's not enough. It just is. We just got to be honest with with the public about just saying if we just keep saying, we're going to get through. I agree. And we worked really hard to make sure we're doing as many as we are today, which is still not enough to get streets to where they need to be without, you know, a bonding program that I know Councilman Mungo's talked about or without another revenue source or without a large influx of resources. There just isn't an opportunity for the city to do dramatically more than what the pace that we're currently doing. It's just not possible unless, of course, we shut down all of our libraries and firefighters and had no other departments in the city. So it is it is it is a big challenge. But because fixing a street is not is not inexpensive. And we're talking millions of dollars for First Street. So. I just want to make sure that we're taking a note that. When I look at this list, what I see is, oh, my God, we've never done so many streets before. So I'm grateful to the number of streets that we're now doing. So I just want to thank the team and how you've had to completely ramp up. Is it enough? Absolutely not. Are there plenty of streets that need repair, including the very poor ones? Absolutely. What I think would be helpful and I think Councilmember Austin is kind of alluding to this as well, is an opportunity in the near future to have a broader conversation about infrastructure. And we've kind of had that discussion a little bit on the dais about what does all of our infrastructure funds look like? Where I would like a public update as to where are we at with the five year plan that council adopted? How much of it it's done is it we 90% or 95%. And then what? And then showing the public and the council a kind of a what what is the what's the staff proposing for the next if it's not five years, three years or whatever. So we have an idea of what's coming down the pipeline with the resources we have in front of us, because we cannot set an unrealistic expectation that somehow things are going to be dramatically different in the next 3 to 5 years without a significant revenue. Not I'm not talking a little bit of revenue. Measure producing. $80 million a year approximately in sales tax. Correct me if I if that's incorrect. And so we have this body. Has increased through revenue measures. I want to say 100 to $125 million of revenue that we didn't have before. And so just want to make sure that we have that a little perspective. And so I think having a conversation at the dias about what the next few years around infrastructure looks like and what makes sense, I think is important for folks to know what's actually realistic also. But I'm very proud of this work and I think you and your team have done a phenomenal job with the amount of ST we're finally doing. So thank you for that. Vice Mayor Richardson. Again, Mr. Mayor, I think context is incredibly important. Thank you for allowing some of that context. I think, first of all, congratulations to the public works you guys have done and so much, so much work, infrastructure work over the past few years. And I know that it's hard to keep up with the demand of the public. I mean, folks know their council members. They know their city manager. You're going to get a phone call. Members of Congress, assembly members, they don't get a phone call about those things, even though they have more resources than we do. They don't get the phone call. You do. But I think it's important to note that a lot has changed in recent years. I remember I remember when, you know, our plant in North Long Beach, which streets was was anchored to redevelopment. Redevelopment. We were paving streets and building fire stations with redevelopment that ended in 2013. And that's almost a decade later. And immediately after there's been you know, there's been a measure a there's been SB one, all of these different things. I think it's you know, we we also changed our system. The payment management plan process is still fairly new. Prior to that, there was a divide by need and divide by nine. You know, it had its challenges. But you also were able to respond to neighborhood immediate need and say, prioritize this street. There was some you know, some good things about that managed plan has its good things as well. So that's fairly that's fairly new. And then I remember when Measure M put out for the first time, we were able to put out a map, go out, do community outreach. Show the residents what to expect over a three year period. I thought that was incredible to be able to say, we commit to this and we will deliver this. I thought that was great. I think the challenge here moving forward is going to be that there are different colors of the money. Tonight we heard about rules and conditions on SB one. There was no significant outreach to the public about conditions on SB one. SB one. When that happened, that was immediate. Like cities rejoice that we have another tool in addition to our local revenue measures, to go out and produce streets and improve streets. And I think in knowing and understanding that there will be an update to the management plan. There needs to be a conversation about, one having a conversation on expectations with the public. And secondly, what is the policy on how we actually use the pavement management plan? The pavement management plan just gives us an assessment on the condition of streets, but doesn't say, do we go after worst first? Do we go after streets to catch them before it's before it's too late? That is the conversation, in my opinion, that is overdue. And we need to get back to that policy conversation about how we do that in relationship to the different colors of money. If we're going to treat SB one differently than, say, Measure eight. I think we need to have a plan to talk about that. So I think moving forward, I certainly see that we need to do some engagement around the update of the pavement management plan that's already planning. I think it's time for that. I think we need to as a part of that factor in things like vulnerability within communities. I think we we want to factor in need. There's certainly need in all parts of town, east Long Beach, west Long Beach. I think that's a factor. But we need to think about like things like access or lack of access to public transit. Some colors of money are directly linked to public transit. But what about the service roads next to it? What's a more? So we need to pull up a scalpel and have a real conversation about the policy around it in a way that makes sense for everybody across the city and is understandable and is fair. And so that's the conversation I'm looking forward to having in the future again. Thank you so much, Eric. I think you and your team are doing incredible work, but that doesn't. But that means people are going to hold you accountable to the talent that you have to step up and rise to the occasion, given the challenges of public finance and infrastructure. Thank you so much. Thank you, Councilmember Ringo. I did great conversation. But, you know, the one thing that I'm concerned about is that, you know, first of all, I want to thank the residents of Long Beach for voting for Marjorie. I mean, that was just a life saver in regards to at least getting a plan to fix our streets and our infrastructure. And as the mayor said, yeah, it's never enough. But, you know, what we get is that you? I voted for Marjorie, and where I work my street, you know, it hasn't been fixed. So there's there's that mentality or mentality with that opinion that we get on a daily basis in my office. And you know, we look at can we want to we want to get the most bang for our buck with everything that we get. So we do go after the streets. That can be a quick fix. In the meantime, we defer the maintenance of the other streets that are that are really going down to a later point in time. And while there are other streets that are on the edge, they deteriorate and they get into deferred maintenance. So, I mean, what we have here basically is, is a never ending cycle of as we fix a street, another one goes down and it doesn't end. So we need to have a better plan, a better way of being able to fund the streets. And, you know, I would propose and I don't know, it's probably a budget issue, but, you know, setting aside a percentage of our of our infrastructure funds for those major deferred maintenance streets that really need the work because they're just falling too much. I mean, I think the councilmembers and then I brought up a clear a very clear point, point it. Her wheelchair can't cross the street. She should be able to cross the street in a wheelchair. And there are parts of town where she can't because of way deferred maintenance. You just don't have the money. So we need to set aside some funding so that she can be able to cross the street without a worry about a pothole or just a street that's just been alone, left alone for for so many years. Sorry if I'm getting a little excited about this, but I mean, it's something that I deal with on a daily basis for my constituents. My street hasn't been fixed. I asked for about ten years ago. I voted for Marjorie. I thought you were going to fix it. I don't have an answer. And although we defer to you, I think you try your best you can. But, you know, we only have a certain pot and we want to distribute it as best we can and try to get as many streams fixed. But in the meantime, like I say, you know, when we put the deferred maintenance on those other streets, others fall into it. So we need a better approach in how we distribute those funds. And I would like I say I recommend that, you know, this is like a bank. You know, you set aside for your savings for the rainy day so that when you can use it and you apply it to those streets that are. That are in a in a very bad shape. So, anyway, thank you. Thank you, Councilman. Sunday House. Thank you, Mary. Mayor. I just want to echo councilmember dundas comments. I get the calls every every day and in my office as well. But I also want to acknowledge the huge difference that a military has made and really thank the voters for passing this this great, great measure. I think that, like Councilmember Donna said, we would be in a much, much, much horrible position right now with those streets if it wasn't for this. And I really want to also thank city staff. I know, Eric, you have been amazing. And I know that you also feel like your hands are tied because you're trying to do as much as you can to help us, you know, get our streets fixed and stuff. And if you had a magic wand, they would be done, you know, overnight and stuff. But I think that, you know, together we can really come up with a plan to really address it and figure out how we can address the streets that really are like the worst, worst streets in our city. So I really want to thank you for all the jobs that the great job that you and your department has continued to do. Thank you, Councilman Mongo. Thank you. I really appreciate all the dialog at the dais today. I know that there's an upcoming policy discussion coming to the Infrastructure Committee, and I'm excited for that opportunity. We talk a lot about where this comes from and what does that mean and how do we set aside the money. And it's an overwhelming amount of money, and I hope we can go back to where we started this conversation. When I, I made the motion and we talked about the context, which is we need 200 to $400 million. You add in sidewalks, we need $500 million. And that's a lot of money and there's ways to get there. I brought forward a bond item that the mayor mentioned. I think we need to revisit it. I've spoken with bond experts recently and gotten some additional context. Buying bonds right now and getting them into the city is one of the best rates we've seen in our lifetime. And so the other thing we have to talk about is the cost of not repairing a street that falls from poor or sorry, from fair to very poor increases almost 100% and in some cases, more than 100% . And so when you talk about whether you're borrowing money at a 7% or a 3% versus the cost increases that happen if you do not repair the street, you're really talking about significant, significant increases. You're also getting a lot of savings in terms of pothole repair. But even if we want to talk about context and policy and all of these things and vulnerability and all of that's important. Even if the money fell from the sky tomorrow, it would still take us years to get through the work. Because as measure has been upon us and we've been fortunate to have SB one prop, a prop C measure, a general fund all contributing to our infrastructure plan. There are also only so many contractors to help us, and I know that. I want to give a lot of props to public works for ramping up their project management and their ability to get this many streets done is also phenomenal. And then I want to give a big thank you to our residents. One of the residents wrote an email during this Dyas conversation about that. Our streets never been touched in 37 years, and the street adjacent to her has been slurry sealed twice. And the other issue that comes about when you have a slurry sealed street is sometimes those slurry sealed streets will never get to the point of a full restructure. And many of them have significant drainage issues that back up into our neighborhoods. And because we continue to slurry seal, instead of letting some of them go where we know that that work could get done, and then focusing on the poor and very poor, we just we need to get there. And I'll say we have had this policy discussion several times. I'm excited to have it again with two additional members of the dais because we were featured on what our ten worst streets were, and we were honest and open and transparent about that with the public. And we continue to be and I think that's an important part of the conversation. So again, as I said when I opened, really excited to celebrate the $9 million, but it does come with a reality check on and I know I was talking to another councilmember hey, there's so many little projects that individually don't make a difference , but every time we approve a $2 million project, I wish that the agenda item said, Would you like to approve? The paving of Street A? Or do you want this program? Because I think we really need that kind of context. When people call our office to hold us accountable, to say, yeah, it's a great program and if it'll help more people than that, but other times it's an investment in the infrastructure that our taxpayers expect. So and our residents and our and quite frankly, our visitors. So I'm really passionate about this. It's been a heck of a night, a lot of passion items for me today, and I'm really thankful to get so many of them out there. And if anyone wants to talk streets with me any day, any time, any place, I'll be there and I'll bring them to the PMP. Thank you. Members, please cast your votes.