Recommendation to request City Manager to work with the Public Works and Development Services Departments, California Department of Transportation (CalTrans) and Los Angeles County, to prepare a report on the status of neighborhood clean-up programs and right-of-way maintenance as impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic; and Request City Manager to work with the City Health Officer and various Departments to present recommendations on how to safely restart the Long Beach Neighborhood Clean-Up Assistance Programs and other neighborhood improvement programs that have been discontinued due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Motion carries. Thank you very much. Item 22, you go ahead with the item, please. Communication from Council Member Richardson. Recommendation to request City Manager to work with Public Works Development Services Caltrans in Los Angeles County to prepare a report on the status of neighborhood cleanup programs and right of way maintenance as impacted by the COVID 19 pandemic. And request city manager to present recommendations on how to safely restart the Long Beach neighborhood cleanup assistance programs. I thank you. I know that we have made have a brief staff report on this. So I'm I mean, this is a powerful agenda item. Okay, so rexy. Okay, you go ahead and you comment. Thank you, guys. So. So the last few months obviously have been challenging for the city. We've we've had to face a crisis on multiple fronts here. And and over that time, we've seen some significant impacts to the maintenance of some of our our rights of ways, our freeway on and off ramps, our river, some of our streets . And prior to the pandemic, there were just a lot more hands to contribute to this. Community groups partner with Neighborhood Services Bureau and partnered with Public Service Public Works to facilitate regular cleanups. You saw regular Caltrans cleanups on the on and off ramps. You saw freeway coordination and flood control coordination. But since March, there's been there's been some challenges. We haven't been able to assemble under the health order around large dumpsters and get the community involved in cleaning up the neighborhood. We've seen in certain situations, Caltrans and L.A. County have either changed their schedules or stopped cleaning up some of these rights away altogether. There's also other issues we'll hear about from staff about just the impacts of our work or workforce or the impacts on our local sort of clean team. And and we want to support them and we want to figure out what we can get done. I have a few slides here. We'll go through them pretty quickly. Let's go to the next slide. This is the recommendation. It's already been read by the clerk. We want to look at what we can do across agencies, what we can look, what we can do internally, and how we can work with our health order to really address the barriers to our Neighborhood Clean Up Assistance Program and other programs that we've done. Let's go to the next one. Here's some examples of the things that we've seen. So this you know, this is this is a Caltrans property is not the city's property. Typically, we will be able to report this type of thing, work with neighborhoods, work with the different neighborhood associations, and get in there pretty, pretty easily. We'd help or Caltrans would help and get that done. And what we see now, it's very difficult to get a response from Caltrans and it's having an impact on our quality of life. What's the next? And here's another one. It's a fire hazard. There's an encampment back there. It's yet another Caltrans right away. Let's see another. This year. This was an encampment in a dump site that you can see directly off of Artesia Boulevard. That's the 91 freeway above it. So you can see this from from Artesia Boulevard. And it's over time, it's gone from under that underpass all the way to Artesia Boulevard. I showed this to our city manager. They got out there and cleaned it up in a matter of weeks. The trash all came back. This is another example of what we've seen. What else was it? I think we have two more. This is we had public work come out, help us do a neighborhood clean up. And we heard at some of the, you know, some of the concerns. And and we have, you know, occasionally we get we get assistance with these things. But again, it's it's overwhelming. Let's see the next command. So this is what we're looking to do here. It's a report on what we can do. Let's look at communications. Outreach does work with other jurisdictions. Let's work on the interagency plan. And we and I know that there's concerns from other council members. This is a good platform to put it on the table and let's hear from staff. So that's my presentation and I'd love to hear from staff now. Thank you. Council Member So yes, we can certainly come back with some more information as the item requests. We can give a brief oral report tonight on some of the challenges. This is something we've heard about from every single council office about the need for additional cleanups. We are seeing an increase of trash with COVID and we have had some challenges. I'll turn it to Eric and Nico to give some high level comments on some of the challenges and what we're doing about them. DPKO, Mokonyane or deputy director will give the report. Good evening, Mr. Mayor. Members of the Council, I want to first thank you for the opportunity for us to speak on this topic tonight. It is something that this pandemic has really impacted staff and our ability to provide service. And so I just want to go over a few things, a few statistics and a few explanations as to what is impacting the service and then talk about moving forward. First of all, we start with daily sanitization protocols. Staff spends more time each day to make sure that their vehicles sanitized, their equipment is sanitized. That's wiping everything down at the beginning and end of shift and between certain service provision, certain service provisions. We also, with our clean team, typically utilize community service workers to help supplement our deep cleaning and our cleanup of areas with people experiencing homelessness and whatnot. We typically have eight community service workers a day, but we have not been utilizing the community service program since the middle of March when the shelter at home order went into place. That means that we've lost 320 Labor Hours per week just from community service workers. We have on top of everything well, we'll talk about some increases, but on top of that, we've seen a 23% increase in sick leave usage. We encourage people who may feel they have symptoms to stay at home. We have had numerous occasions where we've had to have multiple staff quarantined during this process, too. We typically have 1 to 3 people a day calling in for childcare issues, and we have had no community cleanups since the middle of March. Typically last year with Brown, this time we had done about 54 community cleanups in the Clean Team alone. This year we stopped at 15 in the middle of March. And, you know, we have the upcoming challenges of furloughs and we have had a hiring freeze. But the city manager has lifted that freeze for those operations because he recognizes the challenges we're facing. So now I'd like to talk about the workload. So pre-COVID through February or March or middle of March versus since COVID, we have seen nearly a 13% spike in the amount of trash that is coming from residential and commercial collection. To put that in perspective, you're talking over 25,000 tons of trash in a year. To further put that in perspective, that translates to about five and a quarter routes per day, which our current staff is absorbing, all while having a higher increase in sick leave. This also results in about $1.5 million in additional disposal fees. So the impact to our residential refuse collection and commercial refuse collection is huge. And I point this out because the clean team supplements the the refugees collection group when we are too shorthanded to be able to collect everything. We have seen a 41% increase in special pickups. We used to average just under 2500 special bulky item collections a month. We are now averaging 3500 bulky item collections per month since the pandemic. We have seen an increase in illegally dumped item reports from nearly 2000 among nearly 2600 a month. Our refuge hotline has increased for calls and our hotline has increased from 9700 a month to over 13,000 a month, with a peak of 14,500 plus in both June and August. Our goal Long Beach requests have increased from 3300 a month to almost 4600 a month, with a peak of 5300 in August. There's also been a corresponding reduction in cleanups or encampments for people experiencing homelessness from about 86 per month down to 45 per month. And that's for a couple of different reasons. One being that part of the pandemic was to not displace people that were homeless too much. And secondly, those are the resources that are going to help support the other operations, the other parts of the operations. And as far as greedy abatement goes, we've gone from nearly 7000 per month to 7500 per month. So you can see that the the pandemic has created a situation where people are at home, they're redoing their homes , children that would normally be throwing their trash away at school or throwing their trash away at home. Adults that might be throwing their trash away at work or throwing their trash away at home. It's resulting in overflowing trash conditions, especially in multi-family areas. And we're trying to address all these issues. We're trying to right size accounts when we see overflowing places. But right sizing accounts means charging more for additional pickups, which some people are very resistant to at this time. The good news is, as I said, the city manager has allowed us to do some hiring. We currently have four people going through the refuge operator hiring process. We're conducting weekly interviews. We are engaging the Conservation Corps to help us pick up some slack in areas where we're struggling right now and we're already having discussions about how to properly restart neighborhood cleanups. That's where I'd like to end. If you have any questions, I'll be available. Yes. There. It's way to. One. Excuse me. I'm sorry. Ever since the day I. Say thank you. I swear if I didn't hear a second. So I would like to. Second, if that's needed on this presentation. I don't know if it's needed. And I just want to say thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Eric. Thank you to two public works. They they have been extremely, extremely burdened during this corona virus times, but they also have been so willing to work with us. And I know particularly that they get a lot of a lot a lot of phone calls from my office and requests and stuff. And I really I really appreciate the a reference that Councilmember Richardson made to the point that, you know, our crews go out there and pick it up and then like a day later or something, the trash is back there again. Of course, that that's going to take a little bit more thought on how to resolve that. But I know that you guys are working really hard in in trying to address this this issue. And I appreciate that. I know my staff really appreciates you guys being very open to helping us clean up in the neighborhood. And, you know, I'm also looking forward to reaching out to our L.A. County so that they can either give us permission to help clean up their area or come help us in cleaning up their areas. So, again, thank you, Councilmember Richardson, for bringing this forward. And I know that this doesn't only affect my my district and that it does affect citywide, but I feel like this has been a continuous issue in my district. So thank you. I'm here. Is to kill. Thank you, Vice Mayor, and thank you, Councilmember Richardson and cast member as in Dallas. I think we've all noticed an uptick in interest in our districts and whether it's in the alleyways or on the street. And it's been it's been frustrating, but recognizing, I think, the balance that Stark laid out is a tough balance. I have a couple of questions. First off, I know particularly in East Village, we had done a pilot program around lock bins. Probably every week I get three or four different people sending me images of the trash bins overflowing there. And I'm not sure if you have a status update on this, but I know that we have had a report back that said that the Lock Bin program was working and it was successful. But I don't recall if we ended up making that a mandate, an ordinance, and if we expanded it outside of East Village. But I think it would be a good time to revisit that. Do you have any updates on that program? Thank you, Councilmember. Yes, we did do a pilot program, as you said, and we saw some success with that. I think part of the problem currently is, as I said earlier, that because of the amount of waste that's being generated with everybody staying at home, that those service levels just aren't necessarily up to par. And we're so we are having investigators go out to each of these locations and monitor the service levels and then come back and make recommendations on do we increase do we increase the number of the frequency of collection at that location? Do we give it a larger container? And making recommendations. And then we have to make adjustments to the rate to those people accordingly. So when you see a lot in a lot of times when you see some overflowing stuff, you'll see the being open and bags just stacked a little higher than the edge. Sometimes with a lot bands, you'll see people just start stacking things on top of it around the bend as well. So it's a challenge, but I think the challenge would be best addressed by looking at the appropriate service levels and addressing them with regard to locking bins. We did not mandate locking bins, but we do have locking bins available now. There is a fee in the fee resolution for for multi-family or other accounts that do want to have a locking bin because servicing locking bins is a little bit more time consuming. So that's just a small fee that goes with it. Okay. And I would ask perhaps the next time we talk about trash, if we could understand how we're notifying people of the options for them to lock their bins. I know that there's a lot of people that don't know that we have that. So whether that's in a bill or something like that, just making sure that we're doing some public awareness around it. So I definitely appreciate that that report back. The other question I had is I know that we've changed our recycling and I know that that. And do you guys plan on doing a stock presentation down the road on some of the changes to our recycling program? We certainly can. I believe the city manager just recently issued a memo to advise the council on the changes and the changes are due to market conditions having changed over the years for what commodities are being purchased versus what commodities are no longer being purchased and put in the recycling stream. Now understand. Thank you. And the reason I brought it up here is because I, I know that I've talked to constituents that are just now putting everything in their trash bin instead of the recycle bin because they don't understand the differences. And so being able to articulate that for our constituents and maybe address some of the issues with the changes to how their bins are filling up would help. And we're planning to have a major press release and public information go out later this week with all those changes and what should go in the bin and what should go in the trash. Wonderful. Thank you. I know that we've got lots of items probably coming up over the next year or two on on trash and waste and recycling. So I appreciate that. As it pertains to the item in front of us with cleanups, I couldn't agree more. I think a lot of different neighborhoods are trying to figure out how to build capacity, whether that means that they're doing 2 hours, 2 hours at a time, or that different organizations are able to adopt different hours to go out and do cleanups, or that there's a pick up station. Like I would happily open up my district office for an entire day on a Saturday for people to come and pick up tools to go out and clean different streets. And so I think that our neighborhoods really need it. I know there are some people that that wouldn't mind getting out so long as their safety protocols in place. So I support that item. I appreciate the thought that went into it. It's x ray. They disagree, which is based. Fishing for. Thank you, Vice Mayor, and thanks to Councilman Richardson for bringing this item forward. Very timely, very much needed. I'd also like to comment for Mr. Marconi and Mr. Lopez. Our own public works department. Their standards are so much higher than other agencies. So I know they're trying challenging, but I just wanted to give you kudos for for the great job you're doing. We get daily calls, daily emails to our office involving us, Caltrans easements. We never like to pass the buck or our you know, it just we don't like the whole concept of the handoff. But Caltrans is a state agency and not under our jurisdiction. So if the purpose of this agenda item is to direct staff, I would say that that's a huge issue. If if staff could get connected with Caltrans, that would be wonderful. We did have quarterly meetings in the past. Those have been canceled since COVID. And when you see the abandoned encampments and all the trash on the four or five freeway easements, I'm just wondering if if this is a public health issue where the California Department of Public Health can get involved. Also, if Caltrans is not cleaning stuff, that it is a public health issue and it's their property. So I'd appreciate the staff could look at that and any other way that we can address this, because as I said, it's daily. We coordinate with the Fifth Council District because a four or five freeway, uh, divides our district, and I could mention L.A. County, but it's just, it's those issues are so small compared to the Caltrans issues. I just would like to live in a capstone right now. So thanks again for bringing that forward and our support to receive it finally. Yes, sir. We completely agree with you. We have been asking numerous times for Caltrans to do the cleanups, especially on the four or five. You're right. It's it's gotten completely, you know, bigger than we've ever seen it. I would also say L.A. County, we have had some success. So after several months of asking, they are now starting their cleanups again on our major rivers. And I think one is scheduled now for October. So we will start seeing progress there. We will keep after Caltrans and use whatever we can to try to get some attention to those, both the on ramps and off ramps, but also the four or five freeway itself. And if I may if I may add, first of all, thank you. Thank you for all the compliments we've received. But really, this is a reflection on our refuge team. These guys are out there doing all this additional work, addressing these issues. The days are getting longer for them, even though the days are getting shorter for everybody else as far as sunlight goes. But they're still sitting there out there and they're making up this difference that we're seeing created here. And that includes maintenance assistance, refuge operators, the refuge supervisory team, all of them but L.A.. I mean, Caltrans is kind of impacted similarly to how we are in that they used 50 or more community service workers a day and they're not using any at all right now. So they have some issues. So we've reached out to them and we're going to try and put some plans together. Thank you. This is five. Thank you, Vice Mayor. A couple of quick things. 1/1, big, big thank you to the rescue workers. I know I try to say it myself when I see them. They collect the trash this morning. I sometimes see them in the district at 530, 6:00 at night, still collecting trash, whether a trash truck's broken down or whatever has caused the delays. And we just really appreciate them. Second, I think that I talked to Mr. Modica about this specifically, but when trash bins are broken, it's taking 3 to 4 weeks to get replacement bins, which is very difficult for neighbors to go that long without trash bins in front of their house or recycle bin. So I know that we have a contract for that, if we can look into that. I know Mr. Modica said he will. Additionally, thanks to the management at public works and nephews for I'm really partnering with the neighborhoods. Some of the neighborhoods over here have found some opportunities to work together to clean out garages and the such and then coordinate getting all the items to the end of every street so that the rescue teams can swing by and pick up as much of it as possible. That's all been great, but I think that the challenge still comes with what I talked about with City Manager was when you call in for a pickup, it's a long time before you can get a pickup. So I would like to explore the idea of a same day pickup charge because a lot of people are more than happy to pay a fee. If we could fund a a vehicle just out of those kind of fees, then perhaps we can afford another rough use truck because there are lots of neighbors who are cleaning out garages, cleaning out other areas, and they don't have the knowledge of how to dispose of all this kind of stuff so quickly. So then it sits out on their curb. Then either they get reported by a neighbor and then they get a fine, which then they would have been willing to pay the fee in the first place. Or they. It sits there until it either gets rummaged by some people driving through your neighborhood who then target your neighborhood potentially in the future to rummage through your trash cans and other things. So we just need to figure out a way where trash gets put in the trash as quickly as possible in a way that supports our rescue workers and our community. So a big thank you to Chico and his team and all the hard work that they're doing. We cannot be more thankful for how hard they're all working on a daily basis. And then when it comes to Caltrans. What are legal opportunities in terms of I know that we've decided to just pay for clean up on their area sometimes, but if you don't clean up an area that belongs to you and you are the owner and you are responsible for blight, what can we do as a city to fine you? Councilmember. I'm not sure we have the answer to that. They are a state government. They're not a private property owner that would normally fall under code enforcement. The city attorney might be able to add a little bit more. That's correct. They would be exempt from certain government, local government regulations similar to the zoning code or planning and building permits. So to make a change, we would need like a statewide ballot initiative or a state legislative item that would empower community so we could work with our state senator and our state assembly members to say, come up with some legislation that would take a percentage of their budget to pay for the the services that we're providing on their behalf. That that could be an option. Yes. I hope that state ledge will consider that at their next meeting. We need a solution. This is just not acceptable. The off ramps are out of control. I was off the 91 in North Long Beach two days ago. Off the four or five. Off the Bellflower. I mean, it's it's bad. We need it cleaned up. And it is a public health issue. So thank you for any help that you guys can provide in that. Thank you. District seven. Thank you very spur. And I totally agree with everything that's been said, especially when it comes down to getting more cooperation from Caltrans and the county in terms of those cleanups. So it would be greatly appreciated if we could just just give a little more to get involved. Appreciate it. I'm also crisscrossed by two crisscrossed by two freeways, four or five and seven, ten. And as you drive over, you could see just the tons of trash that that piles up along this corridor. And then they also have the river as well. That would be all the help that we can get. Very much appreciate it. Thank you. And I want to make a shout out to our rescue workers. Thank you. Comes from Uganda. You know, this to me is a great idea and it's unfortunate it had to, you know, be agenda before this problem was taken so seriously. And I know I brought this issue up as well. You know what, Councilman Richardson, I would like to really, if you would be open to it. And I am hoping that you will be, you know, that like to add that to your motion to include a report back on. Oh yeah. But we have in place to collect illegal dumping items and the statue of each one of them. The status of each one of them. Excuse me. You know, we have a backlog. This is something that needs to be brought to our attention. You know, are you okay adding that to the report that came back to this council? Absolutely. Vice Mayor, it's time we get back to basics and get things cleaned up. Absolutely. Thank you so much. And before I yield my time, I just want to show you all a video. On a serious note and this is this in the sixth District, it's very brief and it concerns me, especially since this along our business corridor at 1511 is Halloween Street. So please roll the tape. You don't mind? Okay. But I think and this is what is should what should be totally unacceptable because the fact that these are neighbors coming out of their residence, I mean, business and putting it in the alley. You know, all we have to do, like we say, we have, you know, all these apps that you could be using and for them to put it in the ad and then they blame it on, you know, our community and everyone else, you know. So this is things that I think we really need to be brought to attention to. And I really want to thank you and your staff, but you guys are just working overload with this. But we have situations like this. It makes you work even harder. And I want to thank each and every one of you. And thank you, Mr. Councilman, which is simple and need to put that on, you know, the item that you had. Thank you very much, sir. Okay. Is there any public comment on this item? There is no public comment on this item. But so. District one is always a good place. Did I get a second on that? I believe Councilwoman Zendejas was a second on this item. Thank you very much. Would you believe that district one. Right. District two, I. District three. District four. I. District five. II. District six. All right. District seven. District eight. High District nine, high ocean carries. Thank you. Now we'll go to item 24, please. But you grew up with.