Recommendation to authorize City Manager, or designee, to modify and extend existing Refuse Transportation Agreements (Agreements) with private haulers currently operating in compliance with their Refuse Transportation Permit, for three years, with the option to renew for two additional one-year periods, at the discretion of the City Manager; and Authorize Director of Public Works to (1) develop and implement rules and regulations, as required, for the successful execution, implementation, and administration of the Agreements, and to ensure compliance with Federal, State, and local regulations; (2) limit the number of permits issued to the 16 existing permitted haulers; (3) collect all fees as authorized by the City Council; and, (4) establish consistent branding for all waste, recycling, organics collection containers/bins, and education and outreach material within the City of Long Beach. (Citywide)
It's what welcome to to the end of the meeting to our report director. And next. This next item is 42. Please report from Public Works recommendation to modify and extend existing refuge transportation agreements with private haulers currently operating in compliance with their refuse transportation permit citywide. Thank you. Can we have a short staff report? Craig Beck. Just real quickly, we'd. Like Diego Mosconi in to go over what we're proposing and how it aligns with previous council action on the five year notice. Thank you. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, and members of the City Council. In 2009, the City Council approved a nonexclusive franchise agreement system for our commercial waste collection and recycling collection. And we've been operating under that system since that time. Franchises were awarded to the haulers that were currently at that time operating legally and in compliance with their FCC transportation permits. The agreements that we entered into enhanced existing operating rules regarding refuse and recycling collection. Compliance with state laws required the use of alternative fuel vehicles, established fees that generate revenue for both the general fund and the refuse fund and required improved reporting requirements. Current haulers that are operating in Long Beach are some of the biggest ones in the world, such as Waste Management and Republic Services, as well as some smaller, privately owned companies like a Rent Ban or ATCO. In May of 2017. The. In May of 2017, the City Council directed staff to issue a five year notification to private refuse haulers operating in Long Beach, effectively advising them that the city may at its discretion change the way we manage commercial waste hauling in Long Beach. At the end of that five year period. Five year notice is a requirement by state law, but does not require that any specific action be taken. Currently, the solid waste industry is facing many challenges. There's great uncertainty in recycling markets. What was once considered recyclable is no longer, in many cases, recyclable. The state continues to pass legislation mandating cities to implement new diversion programs, most recent of which is organics collection, which must be implemented citywide by 2022. In order for us to effectively address solid waste. As a whole, we've begun the development of a zero waste plan. This plan will create a path for Long Beach to strive toward generating zero waste and comply with state laws such as organics collection. We've currently stages the beginning stages of that plan. We have commissioned a waste characterization study that we should have all the results for by the end of the year. That study basically just goes through our waste streams and determines what materials are there for us to target in order to continue developing this long term strategy for managing our waste. We recommend the City Council to enter into agreements with existing haulers for a three year period to align our current system with the five year notice. Staff also recommends to have two one year options off. The Zero Waste Plan identifies a preferred method of managing our waste. We will have time to implement a transition plan from our current system to a new system. Thank you. Thank you. There's one member. The public is Manuel Govea here? Please come forward. The new Mayor Garcia, and his team council members. We made it to item 42, so thank you. My name is Manuel Gouveia, a municipal relationship manager. For Republic Services. Just briefly, on behalf of Republic and our 300 plus employees here in the city of Long Beach, I thank you all for your consideration in approving this item this evening and the opportunity to continue serving as a solid waste and recycling partner to your great city. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Councilmember Pearce. Yes. I want to thank staff for their time on this. I have just two quick questions. It's a three year extension and so there'll be an RFP process starting one. That's why I'm here, Piers. Yeah, we're proposing that the council approve a three year extension at Lindsey's with the five year notice. It will provide us time to educate us on some of the state mandates that are coming forward and how that affect us from an operations perspective. So we anticipate within the two year time frame we would start the RFP process. So at the end of that three year term, we would be ready to come to council with our recommendations on how. We would move forward in our. Franchise waste hauling. Okay. Great. Thank you. And I know you and I have had several conversations today. I know City Attorney Parkins, we had a couple of conversations, so I don't want to make it too complicated. I just want to make sure that the RFP process, can we bring that back to this body so we can have a public conversation about what we would like to see in that RFP? Certainly. In fact, I think it would be helpful to not only talk about what we would want to include in the RFP, but just where we're at from our zero waste plan, where we're at from organics collection and kind of help do an update to council and where we see our current operations would be at that time and then where we would be going forward in the future and how our private haulers would integrate into our future plans. And so certainly support bringing an item back and talking about the RFP process. Great. And at that time, when you talk about that holistically, I'm assuming that you'll talk about the surf as well. That's right. Our waste energy facility that we have in our city is very unique to Long Beach and really helps us keep our rates down for all of our residents here, providing good renewable energy so that with. The clarity. On the financial viability of surf moving forward is a little murky at this point in time. So I think a couple more years would help us understand how that's going to fit into the waste picture moving forward. Great. Thanks. And just I'll be brief in a little bit of context. Obviously, trash is something that we talked about trash cans earlier today. Sometimes our neighborhoods say their trash wasn't picked up, their big cans weren't picked up. And so we want to make sure that as we move forward with a new process and that new RFP, that we really are going into an agreements with the best actors that are consistent, that abide by state laws, that abide by their contracts they have in other cities. And that we really are looking at the whole picture and how we get the best haulers with our new standards. And so I appreciate having that conversation come back and that satisfies what I was trying to reach today. So I appreciate the time at the end of the meeting to have this short conversation. Councilman Hooper. Now, I'm sorry, Councilman Ringo. Councilman Soprano. It's just a question of staff regarding what we're asking here. It's my understanding that the haulers are be being asked to invest in as part of this agreement. Would it make sense to go with a five year term? I'm not understanding the advantage of the three years plus one plus one would be a disadvantage of just going five years. Councilmember Suber not as directed by this council. There was direction given to staff to issue a five year notice to all of our franchise haulers, and we have done that. The extension before you tonight would take this current contract extension to that five year notice period. The reason were we're putting in two more options is if at that moment in time, if this council decides that they want to extend. For another year or. Consider other options, we felt it was important to have that flexibility built within the contract. But right now, the three year term that this council is considering would align with that five year notice if the council was was looking to extend beyond that time frame. I think the city attorney can answer this, but it's my interpretation that you would have to take an action to push off the five year notice longer than the term we have currently. Okay. Understood. So the two one year extensions gives us flexibility, I think is what you're saying. So that that wasn't clear. So I appreciate the explanation. Thank you, Councilmember. We've done public comment. Please cast your votes. Thank you. And I think we have anyone signed up for this ocean carries. We don't have a second public comment. Sign up. Okay. So that something that we could do for next time. But if there is one, please, now would be a good time. We don't I don't see any. So we will move on from that to new business and new business.