Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record, conclude the public hearing, and adopt resolution amending the Master Fee and Charges Schedule by adopting new fees relating to the shared micromobility program;
. So we'll be moving those two items to the top of the agenda and then going from there. So let me begin by doing hearing item number one. Report from Public Works recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record, conclude the public hearing and adopt a resolution amending the master fee and charges schedule relating to the Shared Microbial City program. Declare Ordinance Amending the Long Beach Municipal Code relating to Shared Micromobility. Read the first time and lead over the next regular meeting of the City Council for Final Reading and extend the current electric scooter pilot program citywide. Thank you, Mr. West. Mayor, council members, the public hearing the buzz word here is microbial city, but it's mostly about e-scooters. I'm going to turn it over to our public works director, Craig Beck, and the traffic engineer Eric Wickstrom. Thank you, Pat. Good evening, Mayor. Members, city council. Just wanted to remind you tonight's hearing is to adopt a micromobility ordinance and an associated fee schedule. So if we could have that clicker. Hold on 1/2. Okay. So we wanted to start by just giving a brief update of kind of a background on how we got here. If you recall, we issued a pilot program for E-Scooters in July of 2018. We've been monitoring and managing that pilot program ever since. We currently have five operators in the city and about a thousand scooters deployed in different zones across the city. We've had a call center that's been active throughout our pilot program that allowed us to track questions, concerns, comments about E-SCOOTERS. And the data has shown that it's it's been overall a successful program with about 60 rides per month. And at the time we made the presentation back in February, staff made a number of recommendations for implementation of a permanent program. And really what we are here this evening is to adopt those recommendations. So as a reminder, E-Scooters, there are some laws in effect and rules that govern our program here in the city, including riders, must be 18. You are not allowed to ride e-scooters on the sidewalk and you need to make sure that you're appropriately parking them when you're done and that they aren't in conflict with Ada in within our right of way. And even though the state law has changed in January of this year, not requiring helmets for the riders to say, the city still continues to encourage helmet use for riders safety. So what are we talking about for a permanent program? We are bringing back at council's direction. We are limiting the issuance of permits to only six vendors and initially that would be for 4000 total units. Those units would increase to 6000 after six months, assuming everybody are following the guidelines and safely operating the devices. Vendors will be required to provide anonymous data to the city. To our third party vendor. We want to be able to track where scooters are being used, how they're being deployed, making sure that they are appropriately following the requirements and the limits to to align with the permit that they're issued. It's also very important that vendors have the ability to geofence their devices. We believe that this is an important component, and we know now that we will be restricting rider access to certain areas. Parks are an example. Belmont Pier is an example. So there's going to be certain areas within the city that we want to restrict where scooters would go. Vendors must create an incentive for parking within the designated drop zone. So this is proven to be successful. During our pilot program is the placement of drop zones and placement of the scooter devices within those drop zones as they balance them every morning. But we wanted to take that a step further and follow something similar to what we do with our bike share program, and that is actually to incentivize the users to park in a hub. And if they do that, we'll leave it up to the vendors to create that incentive, whatever that may be. It could be a credit for a ride or however they want to do that. But we will be looking for that incentive to ensure compliance with this important component of our program. It's important that they come up with a fair that reduces costs to our low income community that we have in the city. We want riders of all incomes levels to have access to the SCOOTER program, and we'll be looking for the vendors to create that that rate structure. We want to provide support. We want the vendors to provide support for the deployment of their devices and their customers so they can't just drop them in the city and disappear. We want to make sure that they have a presence here and work with our staff to promote safe usage and also educate their riders on safe usage. Vendors must work with the city to provide data. As I mentioned, that's going to include a whole host of things, not only the heat maps of where they're going to be written, but we want to know about maintenance reports. We want to know that the writers are following program rules. We want to know if they have accidents. So if writers are injured, we want that to be in the data. We really want to get a full picture of the usage and what's working well and areas that we may need to focus on for improvement. Lastly, we want to make sure that they work with us for special events that may be moving scooters out of the way for special events. For example, filming in a given area. Or redeploying more units if we have a large event and need more access. We also want to make sure that they'll quickly respond to emergencies and remove their devices if we so desire. Part of the action tonight includes the adoption of new fees. And just as a reminder, when we brought this item forward in February, council requested staff to take a look at our fee structure and look for opportunities to reduce our fees. If you recall, at that time, we were proposing a $120 annual per unit fee and a $40 annual per unit fee in our disadvantaged communities. After we've spent some time reviewing how this would be implemented, we found challenges to add to the fee structure in our disadvantaged in our disadvantaged communities, meaning how would we know what scooters were within those areas and what scooters weren't? And so we're proposing this evening that we have a flat fee of $100 per unit annually, and that that would allow us to fund the necessary elements for this program, including what we would need for staffing to manage this program. Council also asked us to confirm what fees were being charged in other cities. I think that there was an indication at the time that maybe other cities were reducing those fees. We've checked with the cities in Southern California listed here, and the information we received back is that those fees have not changed since we presented in February . And as a reminder, those fees are in this table here. So to successfully implement this program, the fees are an important element. When we looked at the data that we received through the pilot program, we're estimating that the vendors earned about $1.6 million in revenue on about a thousand units that were deployed throughout the city. And we feel that it's important to include the fee elements so we can achieve some of the goals that council has tasked staff with, ensuring that that we're addressing scooters that are parked in inappropriate areas that were there to address concerns expressed by our community and also to do special enforcement. We want to work closely with Long Beach PD to say, for example, to do special enforcement, to address any riders that are using scooters on the sidewalk as as an example. So what are our next steps if council moves forward and adopts this ordinance this evening? Staff will work to implement the new permit application. All current vendors will have to reapply. They'll need to apply under the new permanent program guidelines and rules. They'll have to affirm that they're going to follow those rules. They will be assessed to ensure that they meet all of the program requirements and then issued a permanent permit. So we will also ask staff through the hiring of the the MICRO-MOBILITY coordinator will take on the responsibility of the drop zones. So under the pilot program, the vendors where we're placing the decals. The city wants to take that on to ensure that the decals are kept up and maintained. We're finding that some of the decals out in our communities are getting worn and we want to ensure that they are appropriately placed. A But B, we also plan on changing some of the information in our drop zone decals. For example, we're going to add information to remind scooter riders that they cannot ride on the sidewalks. So the decals would then say no riding on the sidewalk. So that would be an element of the program as as council directed. Once we get this up and running, we would come back to council with a report in six months. And if at that juncture, everyone seems to be in compliance with all the program rules and requirements, we would then move from an authorized number of 4000 units to 6000 units citywide. So that concludes our staff report, and we're available to answer any questions. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Beck. Let me turn this over to Councilman Richardson. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So and thank you, Mr. Beck, for the presentation. And we've been following the conversation around scooters for a long time, and we see them distributed and being utilized. And thank you for bringing this this this hearing tonight to adopt this resolution, this ordinance. So we raised up the conversation. And it's not new that we want to make sure with everything we do, we place a lens of equity, economic equity, environmental equity on how we deploy these technologies. And we've seen some examples here in Long Beach where with Bikeshare, for example, we said we will go out and ultimately get to other parts of town, North Long Beach, things like that. And, you know, for one reason or the other, a vendor or whatever it was, things happen and it doesn't. And it never the bikes never made it to North Long Beach. And we have an opportunity and I think we need to. The lesson I've learned from that is that we need to put these things in the policy on day one as we design and build the program. And so I wanted to talk through some different components here, and I'm interested in moving forward with a first reading tonight , but I will have some, some tweaks to the ordinance here. So one, you know, at the conversation at SCAD and you know, I'm involved at SCAD, we're we're we're noticing that these ordinances across the region are intentionally calling out equity. How are we calling our equity in this ordinance, in this program here today? Councilman Richardson? I think we're we're approaching that in two ways. One, as I mentioned, we would be seeking the vendors to create a rate structure to ensure that those of low income in our inner city have access to the scooters. The other is we would deploy across zones and the zones in the city would allow us to authorize X number of units in a zone. So we wouldn't simply, as an example, say vendor A gets a thousand units to deploy wherever they want to. Vendor A would get approval for a thousand units X number in zone one, x number in zone two, X number in zone three, etc. And by doing that, it allows us to align the distribution of our units across our city and across those. Sounds great and I think that's a good foundation and I may want to take it a bit further and just sort of call out some goals or some requirements here. Now, in paying attention to LA's Department of Transportation, they've required their providers to have insurance and liability. Do we have that? Is that a requirement or program that the providers have insurance and liability insurance? Yes, it. Is. Okay. Great. Is and I noticed you referenced that we want them to remain committed to the community. Is that going to be codified in the plan? I believe that's something that will be implemented by staff as part of their program that's so specifically addressed in the ordinance. Okay. So I guess if I could, I think the answer from my perspective would be that if we find that a vendor isn't committed to this program and the program rules, that we would withdraw their application and their permit and they would not be allowed to operate in the city. So I think by doing that, it does achieve a certain element of commitment to Long Beach and success in Long Beach. Certainly. And so the Los Angeles program has it requires the insurance and liability. It requires a community engagement plan. So they call out what their commitment is going to be, and then they measure. And based on that plan and then thirdly, an equity plan. I think we touched on most of that here. And so my hope is that we get an opportunity for them as sort of for us to look at what their plan is for ensuring that they have a rate structure and all those things. The other thing that I think is really interesting that I think we should apply here is that so in LA's program, they set a goal for disadvantaged communities and in 62% of their scooters in the city of L.A. are required to operate in these disadvantaged communities. So they called out 62%. They looked at how many disadvantaged communities that they had in L.A. and said, look, it should be proportional, right, to the disadvantaged communities. And so here in Long Beach and they use the cal enviro screen, they use the Calvin Great Enviro screen, 3.0. Now, what I'd like to see is, since we already have since we already have zones, I'd like to see a goal of 40%, a requirement of 40%, not 62, like L.A. would do 40 in zones that overlap with the coronavirus green rating, 70 or 80 and above. I think we'll give you some flexibility on how you programmatically design that. But I want to set a requirement here in this in this in this motion. So that will be in my motion, hoping for a reaction. Bart's response reaction? Are you asking for a second or are you asking for. It's not emotion yet. I want your feedback. So I think that that is something we could certainly implement. As I mentioned, when you start to look at the zones, we could easily align our zones within our disadvantaged communities and that would allow us to to both implement and then monitor the success of that implementation of a goal or a target for distribution across those communities . Thank you. And I think the way that the ordinance is structured, we should be able to put in a requirement without triggering in the first reading again. Is that correct? I think if you do it as part of the implementation plan by staff, I think that it wouldn't trigger it wouldn't trigger a new first reading. I think if we amend the ordinance, that's not currently something that's in it and it probably would trigger. In the first. Reading. So we can require it as a part of the program. So you can you can direct staff or request that staff implemented. Great. That's what I like to do. And then and then finally, in terms of I know that we initially proposed sort of a two step program in terms of fees where, you know, there were sort of two rates. And now the staff proposal is come up with one rate, $100, and then the programs come up with their all their other fee schedule. I would like to see. So when do we plan on coming to that? Coming back in the next six months. That's correct. Yes. Okay. I would like. I would like to see not just the low income discount, but those operators who are who are operating within those zones that we describe, those disadvantaged zones. I think they should get a discount for having operating in those zones, as well as an incentive to make sure that sort of there's no gaming of the system and that sort of we're incentivizing engagement in these areas that really have been left out of the mobility conversation. So that's something we can do. Mr.. Back in the next six months. Yeah. And I think, you know, the challenge that staff is is faced with currently is that we're not getting good data from the vendors. And so for us to implement a discounted rate structure for X-number of of scooters that align with our disadvantaged communities, we don't know how to verify in an audit that data. So I think the request would be, from at least as perspective, is that we move forward with the $100 rate that we get the data from the vendors as we're were requesting through the program. And assuming that that data is as extensive as we believe it will be, it would allow us then to kind of verify and have kind of a milestone where we would know how many units were within those areas that they are meeting, the targeted goal that's adopted tonight. And then we would come back in and share that with council and then at that time, maybe council could adopt a reduced rate program that would be staff recommendation. Thank you. So I think that satisfies what I need. I think the motion here, the conversation here, we have to intentionally call out the outcomes we want to see in the policies we put forward. And we've, you know, we've done the the hopes and dreams. We hope that the market drives things to go in certain areas. And it just you know, there's too many factors. The technology changes too fast. There's problems with vendors. We have to write into the policy on day one to make sure that, you know, this is, you know, something that's useful to people who actually need it as a transit solution. And in north lobbies, for example, you know, a lot of the technology is being deployed, is considered last mile, but we're well over a mile to connect to the blue line. You either have to head south to the Waterloo Station or you have to head west to the Compton station. So we're really thinking about not last mile, technology's last two mile or last two and a half mile. And so we have to make sure that we're inclusive of all our areas of town when we create these policies. And this is consistent with the movement that's happening all across the region, this conversation on on transit, transit, equity and mobility as as an equity as it relates to mobility. So that's my motion staff's recommendation with the 40% goal of with 40% requirement in disadvantaged communities as defined by cal enviro screen. And we'll leave some flexibility there on whether it's, you know, 60, 70, I think 70 or 80 is the range. And then secondly, that we we come back in the next six months after collecting some data with some sort of incentive fee program for those those operators. So that's my motion. Thank you. Thank you. Vice Mayor Andrew. Second that motion. I think we're gonna go back to Vice Mayor. Right. You said okay, considering. I'm actually I apologize. I was scrolled down there. So. Councilmember Pierce, then Councilmember Ringa. Thank you. I think I spoke a lot on this whenever it was in council. The last time I've read through everything, I've had many conversations. I think, is that a good place? I support the motion on the floor by Councilmember Richardson. I did want to just clarify and then ask one one question for the six vendors that could eventually include e-bikes. Is that correct? Yes, Councilwoman. That's correct. Okay, wonderful. And then I wanted to ask. Oh, sorry. It's hard to talk. Thanks. I wanted to clarify that on the decals that we're putting that the city will be implementing those. We had a conversation with your team and one of our neighborhood associations, District one around decals and trying to make sure that we are cohesive, that we don't have five different types of decals on our sidewalks, that there's not enough room for that, that it's ADA compliance. And I believe the conversation was taking a similar design, at least in the downtown area, where it's explicit that you can't ride bikes or scooters. Would that be included in this program outside of just the where they're the parking station? I think right now our recommendation is we're concerned about the proliferation of decals on our sidewalks. Mm hmm. And that we should do that in a cohesive way. And what we're what we believe we can do is accomplish some of the goals of the neighborhood communities, which is to remind riders, both bicycle riders and e-scooter riders, that they're not allowed to ride on our sidewalks. And we think we can do that within our drop zones. We're going to revise the one that we use during the pilot program and shrink the footprint a little bit, but add more information about not not riding on sidewalks. I think that hopefully answers your question. Yes. And I I guess I wanted to make sure that as we come back down the road, that we continue to have a conversation if we feel like those decals are enough, because we did have neighborhood associations that wanted to pay for them themselves and put them on. And so to keep from making sure that we don't have four different kinds out there. I would rather the city do it with the city logo on it and that you manage the entire program. So I just wanted to make sure that we talked about that publicly. And then the other component, I just want to echo Richardson's comments. I mean, I know that we've seen that some people are riding these up to seven miles, you know, distance. And so I again, for that reason, I support the motion that he's made and look forward to hearing the council comments. Thank you. Thank you so much, Councilman. Your income. Thank you. For clarification, this is this continues to be a pilot program. Where we with we actually putting it out to RFP for people to apply and get more of a permanent contract. With the adoption of the ordinance. You will be entering a phase where it's a permanent program. I think staff's recommendation tonight is to continue the the the pilot program until the ordinance becomes final. And then at that point, we're requiring those who have already been in the pilot program to reapply for the permanent. Correct. License or whatever. You know, right now you have of what bird line readership and spin and you. We have up to six. So that's five. Is there a61 available or is there one in the loop? Is there an RFP for one or what was the process? So to address that, we purposely are calling this a micromobility program because we we look at the guidelines that we're proposing here this evening would apply to a vendor that wanted to bring in e-bikes as an example. So our goal would be that we would have the ability to go up to to issue up to six permits citywide for both e-scooters and e-bikes not to exceed assuming everything works out after the six month period of time frame. 6000 units citywide between both E-Scooters and e-bikes. We're not saying that the the vendors that are currently operating in the pilot program will get a permanent permit. They're going to have to display that they can implement all of the requirements of the permanent program that they have geofencing as described that they're going to achieve the need for delivering data and that they're going to be responsible for managing their system within our city. So, again, we're not making any guarantees. We're going to take applications on a first come, first serve basis. We're going to evaluate them for compliance with our program and then issue the permits from there. I'm glad to hear that because in your report you did mention that there are some of these vendors who are having been I don't see that compliant but have not been providing some real good data to you for you to evaluate. So I'm concerned that these vendors who already have a track record of perhaps not being as open and cooperative with you and providing you data that they're going to be rewarded with a contract. So, I mean, I don't want to see that. I hope that during the review process that you will be very strict and very forceful in asking for compliance with all facets of the program that we have put in place and that we will get a very good program here in Long Beach. I basically agree with the comments of my my two previous colleagues in regards to the equity components and having the availability of more scooters in other parts of the city that are not traditional for these types of mobility transportation options. I'm talking about the West Palm Beach area in my side of town, and so I'm hoping that we can address those sometime in the very near future. And that's it for now. I'll continue. Thank you, Councilman Austin. Thank you. And I think a couple of my questions have already been answered. So I'm going to do what I can to be efficient with my time here. The. The the term. Abandoned Scooter can cause somebody to define what that actually means. I guess from staff's perspective, an abandoned scooter would be a scooter that maybe was tossed in the Colorado lagoon or was thrown on top of a building. Those are not just misplaced or parked poorly. Those were intentionally. We're using the term abandoned. You could say, um, I don't know, vandalized or something, but. But we're trying to ensure alignment that we're taking care of any wayward scooters out in our community. Okay. Well, it seems to me that that that that that particular term can be misinterpreted by by anybody. Right. It can mean something different to somebody else. And so it probably I would feel a lot more comfortable if we could kind of find that out and be clear specific on what that means. Because I you know, we get constituent calls and, you know, if a scooter's parked in front of somebody's home, you know, there's a neighbor who may may view that as an abandoned scooter versus being found in a Colorado lagoon. So just my comments on that. And in light of just some recent. Current affairs. Is there is the city indemnified for any. Criminal acts that may be. Use for scooter or a scooter may be used for. The city is not not currently the language in the ordinance does not currently address criminal acts. No. Yeah that kind of isn't a standard part of the of public right of way permits. So if somebody assaults somebody with a scooter. Right. Would the city be liable or not? Well, if it's if it's there's I mean, I guess it sort of depends on what area we're talking about. But if there's a criminal act, I would expect that the first thing that would happen would be that the police department would take care of whatever that is. And if there was a subsequent civil lawsuit that involved the city, it would have to get addressed from there. But since that's sort of a circumstance that's not terribly common in this kind of public right of way permit, that's not something that's addressed in the ordinance. That would probably be addressed kind of on a case by case basis as it arose. Unless people anticipate that this is something that will be happening more often. Well, I. Never thought that I would think it was. So some things happen at their unthinkable, but but then they happen. And so you have to think about that as well. And so I think I would love to see an indemnification clause if possible in this, and I'd be very interested in hearing from my colleagues as well about that. And then to Councilmember Richardson's original motion regarding the equity, I certainly support that. You know, we want to make sure that this mode of transportation and these modes of clean transportation are available to everybody in our community no matter what their income level is. And so if there's a way to add in, I think this this ordinance certainly addresses much of that. I did have a question regarding the 40% number and whether or not that is that goes far enough. And how did you arrive at that, that number? Councilmember Thank you. So in looking at the Cal enviro screen, the higher you go in the column virus, Green says, you know, the more pollution or more polluted the environment is in those areas, 70%, 70 or above on cal enviro screen essentially covers all of downtown west central Long Beach and north. 40% go there already doing that. I'm pretty confident they're already doing that by being in the in the downtown. The hope is that the way that staff designs the program of it is distributed across the six zones and prioritized, you know, that 40% is met by making sure that sort of the three or so zones that will overlap north central west those coronavirus green areas have some some goals called out in those areas. So that would be sort of required to operate sort of equitably across town. So that's the idea. So 40, it could potentially be higher, L.A. to 68. I think given this is a new concept, I didn't want to go too aggressive here. I think if they can meet 40 in the next six months and we see data, we can have a conversation about, you know, whether that number needs to be adjusted. I think 40% is. It just seemed like a fair number. So I applaud the effort. I guess it would probably help me if I had a coronavirus screen in front of me. That data in front of me. Okay, I don't need to see that. And it is that is that B and is that the only methodology that we can look at? Now, let's just Los L.A. do what he did. And it made sense. And it's the conversation at SCAD. So this is just sort of a measurement. There could be others, it could be poverty, it could be a number of different things. But CALLEN Virus screen the environment typically tracks along the same indicators as poverty in others. And actually Cal Virus screen actually is a little bit more fair because it says whether you're in poverty or not, if you have, you're dealing with a bunch of automated, you know, a bunch of pollution due to mobile sources, then you need these scooters too. So I think it's a little more sort of bizarre. So you're going to have to share that screen with me. I got you. And then they sent in a spirit of moving this this item. I certainly will support this. But I think we also have some time over the next six months, a year to recognize and tweak the program if necessary. So the ordinance. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman Pryce. Thank you. Excellent comments from my colleagues. And I support anything we can do to incentivize distribution of the scooters throughout the city. Because if I'm not mistaken, the deployment and activation of the scooters thus far has been mostly in council districts two and three. Is that right? Mr. Beck. Council member we have distribution across the city. There have been the majority of them tend to find themselves along the coast line. Correct. So one, two and three. So I think that the biggest concern for my district is, of course, the abandoned scooters. You know, they are resembling a type of litter. In terms of what the residents are experiencing. They're in the middle of sidewalks. So we've had residents trip over them. They end up in planters, roundabouts, traffic circles, Colorado Lagoon, all manner of places. So I think once they're utilized more actively in other districts, some of those impacts might be felt more prevalently by some of my colleagues. And they'll understand that the need for some of the the concerns that I have and the protections that I'm hoping we have in place. We did have a number, a call center number for residents to call and address violations. And my understanding is that that call center is no longer active. So if we roll out this new program, what what is the city going to do to help facilitate resident concerns? So. Councilmember That's correct. We had a POW with a third party vendor that was operating a call center for us and that PO has hit its limit. So we are looking at how we would re-implement that. We'll either do a a new PO for that vendor or B, take it in-house. And we're looking right now at what that would entail to bring the call center in-house and make that decision once we have that data. Okay, that's excellent. But definitely to answer your question, we absolutely believe having a call center is important to the success of this program. Excellent. Thank you. Is it possible for us to be able to add abandoned scooters or dump scooters to the Go Long Beach app as one of the options? I'll have to check. I believe it's on there. I could be wrong. It's well, we have dumped items which, by the way, I use for just about every category that I can't find. But if it's not on there, we can certainly add it. Yes. Okay. And thank you. And the reason for that is I know a lot of the scooter companies like Bird, for example, has a really great feature on their app where you can report dump scooters. But the problem is expecting the residents to have, you know, all six apps on their phone is a lot to ask. So if we could have a go along beach access, that would be fantastic. What I know we talked in the past about selecting vendors that have geofencing, technology available so that we can have some control over speed limits and of course, access points for the scooters. Is that still a priority for us and what's our status on that? Yeah. Not only is it a priority, it's an absolute requirement under the new program if if a vendor does not have the ability to limit or restrict scooter access in certain areas of the city as we designate, then they're not going to be issued a permit. Okay. Excellent. And are they the vendors required to carry insurance? I think Councilman Austin just asked about this, but just a little bit more directly. Is is there is the scooter company required to have insurance? Yes, absolutely. Okay. We have talked a lot about. Resources for enforcement and using the revenue collected from this program to put it right back into enforcement. Is that still our plan? And what does enforcement look like? Well, I think the first goal of staff is to hire a mobile MICRO-MOBILITY coordinator so we can ensure that all the things that we're talking about this evening are being implemented. The goal is that we would hopefully still have some revenue available to a to work with PD to do specialized enforcement. And what I mean by that is it would depend on the chief's direction on how he would deploy this, but maybe either officer overtime or a special unit that would go into certain areas and enforce things like riding the wrong way on the street and not obeying traffic laws, writing on the sidewalk, etc., and kind of do an enforcement zone to ensure we have compliance. And that's great. I would like to take that a step further and ask Councilman Richardson if I can add a friendly to his motion. And the friendly would be that for the first six months that this project is rolled out while we're. Working with the 4000 number. But before we go to the 6000 number that the chief of police work with his command staff to identify one day per month where directed enforcement is conducted on sidewalks or business corridors for scooter enforcement. And the reason I think that's important is because for a lot of our business corridors, this impacts the businesses being able to have clear sidewalks. And the chief of police can determine, based on the hotspots what areas are getting the most use and once a month direct a directed enforcement action in a community where there's a lot of use and so that we can have that data. So I like the idea of doing some enforcement. I would want to hear from staff specifically about the count. So. Yeah, so. So anyway, in the past we've always been careful not to direct very specifically, but in more in general to say work into your work and enforcement program in if you want to make it general and they can respond to it. I'm happy with accepting that, right? Sure. I mean, it would be the chief that would make that determination. But I just want to make sure. That, no. I'm not begging for directed enforcement every month. If I feel like there's a need that it's baked into this policy, that we have some resources that we're setting aside for that. Chief, would you like to just respond. And I'd like to jump in there a little bit. So we like that direction. Please let us know that, you know, in general, you'd like to do that. We'll work that. And I'll let the chief talk in a second. Work that into the program as possible. We will also be bringing back in the FY 20 budget an actual plan for the number of positions that we're going to be hiring. So if you saw in the staff report, we are not going to wait to the 20 budget to bring the first person on and who will bring on the staffing. We need to get this going because we need to be ready day one when this gets going. But then you'll see in the Fy20 budget what our what our enforcement plan will be and the various components. Great. Yeah, except it. Okay, so I think motion's been accepted. Councilman Richardson, you're not sure? Just one more thing. I forgot to. I forgot to mention to raise up. So, you know, I saw a presentation where Uber showed how they're preparing the Uber app to be able to show not just their vehicles, but the transit time on the bus, the transit time on the, you know, the blue line and on bikes and scooters all integrate in one platform. So when someone pulls up, let's say Uber or Lyft, you'll see, okay, it may take me 20 minutes in a car. It may take me 30 minutes on a scooter. It may take me this long. And what the what the prices are. And that's the future of like fully integrated multi modality. That's where things are heading. But we have to make sure that we're starting the conversation now with this ordinance to set some, you know, start thinking about as that technology comes online, how are the vendors we're working with today ready to participate? Should that technology be created? And even metros thinking about doing the same thing where you have one integrated app where everything else can kind of feed in and so have you. Are you familiar with this? Mr. BECK Yes, Councilmember. I think that that not only the app you're talking about, but Google is doing that as well as they start talking about drive time and different modes of travel. And I think one thing that I would add, while we're talking about transportation this evening, many of the companies that are engaged in this are really technology companies. And so they're striving for the latest technology. And and it's a competitive marketplace. So early adopters are going to tend to be more successful in tech as technology changes. Okay, great. So I know there's, you know, more questions and we'll have another bite at the apple on some of this when we talk about the phasing to 6000 bikes. But I want to make sure that we do have the opportunity should technology become available to require require this in the future. Thank you. Thank you so much, Councilmember Super. Thank you. I had a brief follow up on Councilman Price's issue about retrieving scooters via the Go Long Beach app. If that could be, I'm not sure how you would do this, but if it could be brand neutral, then someone who spots a scooter at the curb or on a front lawn in the middle of the night wouldn't have to go outside and identify the brand prior to reporting. It may not be doable, but it sure would be ideal if we had a system that way. The other hour I'd just like to ask staff. So my understanding is that the fee was reduced to the vendors. Did that go from one tow to 100? That's correct. At the stats recommendation and when we made the presentation back in February that we would charge $120 a unit per year and that we would charge $40 a unit per year in our disadvantaged communities. Okay. So so my question is, what for that reduction? If that was in negotiation, what did we get in return? If anything. Staff are recommending the $100 per unit annually, and it certainly counsels discretion to amend that and come up with a different amount. Okay. It. Was there anything? Can you give us any background on on why that was reduced? Because we're just looking at a different figure today than we looked at it February. Help you understand my position. Yeah, certainly. So when this item was presented to council in February, the staff was clearly directed with the adoption of the item to go back and review opportunities to come back with a lower fee. We looked at different opportunities and I want to remind the Council we're not negotiating a contract with these vendors. We're outlining a permit process which vendors can apply for. So this really isn't a negotiation we're going to detail. This is our program. If you want to operate in Long Beach, this is what you're going to have to comply with. And so trying to meet council's request, we're coming back with a recommendation of $100 annually. Okay. So there are not enhanced services or anything like that that that have a nexus here in the reduced fee is just what what staff has set as what would be ideal moving forward. But it's not contractual. It's a guideline at this point in my understanding that I do want to put words in your mouth. But is it fair? Well, I wouldn't say it's ideal or that it's a guideline. It will be the permit fee that we charge a permit to or a vendor that's issued a permit. So what council's adopting tonight would go into the fee ordinance and it would be a fee that is charged for anyone who operates under this program. Okay. I guess maybe I'm mystified how this is reduced from February to today's date and I'm just don't have a good feel for supporting something with with what we an agreed upon amount in February and now it's less so I remain mystified thank you. Thank you, Councilman Gonzalez. Yes. Thank you so much for the report. Just a couple questions clarifying here. The data sharing, when. Would be the soonest. We'd be able to see any data come back and what does that look like? Councilmember Our goal is that we would receive reports monthly. So the ordinance I think would go in effect 30 days after the second reading. So yeah, so sometime in, say, late June, the ordinance would be in effect. Our goal is that by that time we would have the applications out. We anticipate already having permits in hand that we would be reviewing or applications in hand that we would be reviewing and ready to issue those permits. So in general terms, we anticipate starting to receive reports in the August, September timeframe. And then we would build that data and come back to council six months after the ordinance goes into effect with a report. Great. And then the drop zones, there's 230 drop zones right now. I know it's mixed, you know, all over the city. Do we have a general did we get a map before? I'm trying to remember whether we had a map of where the drop zones were at. Yeah, I can provide a map to you. When we came in February, there was a report that detailed some of that, and it also included, I think there was a good page that showed a heat map, so where people were starting and concluding their ride and it really showed some of the more popular routes that people were using scooters on. 230 is what we have today. I don't anticipate that number or I do anticipate that number will significantly grow as we work to achieve all the goals that we've talked about tonight. Okay, great. So I guess we'll look forward to that. More information coming back in August or so. But it'd be good to have an idea of, you know, if anything is changing with the drop zones and where they're located. Exactly. And if I could add just for information for everybody, I think part of the goal here is that we need to work with the vendors. So if a vendor comes to the city and says, we were really interested in deploying on Corner X, that we would be flexible enough to work with them to determine that that is an appropriate location for a drop zone. So maybe they put a couple scooters out for a couple of weeks. They evaluate the success of that location. They come back to city and say, Yeah, this is successful location for us. We want this to become a drop zone. Then the city would go out there and formalize it and put down the decals. So it's it's changing and evolving. Great. Thank you. And then the last comment and I, I speak to a lot of the comments that my colleagues have made as well in terms of ensuring that we're cleaning up our sidewalks. And I know we're on top of all that, and especially the equity piece and making sure we can expand into areas that will absolutely use utilize these these scooters. But my last comment is for I have received a lot of comments, especially with people with different abilities. If there is a way for us to engage the Citizen Advisory Commission on Disabilities, just to put it on the agenda and maybe as we are, you know, working through the various drop zones and with the vendors just to ensure that they have some opportunity to weigh in on this would be very helpful, I think. So thank you very much for the report and I look forward to seeing what we can do here. Thank you. Any public comment on the hearing? We have one on the top. So let me do the one on the top. Go ahead, Mr. Rockwell. And then if you're going to speak, please come forward. I've had problems with the. Mr.. I actually I don't know where the mic is on up there. Yeah. Keep going, Mr. Rockwell. We can hear you, but it's okay. Got it. Some of the scooters have been left in various locations along this street between Magnolia and Pine Avenue, in front of my apartment and front of the building next door to mine at 439 West Fifth Street, also in front of 225 West Street, they've been left in front and blocking the access to get in to Rite Aid at Six and Pine and Walgreens at Saks and Long Beach Boulevard. They have blocked the way to get in to other businesses and get along the sidewalk in front of many businesses on Broadway as well as first while not first Street, third straight. And they have I have found them over my target on Bellflower and Stearns and blocking the access to get off the curb cut at the south end of that mall to cross the street Cross Stearns Avenue, going across to the mall on the south side where it serves as that has been a real pain in my psyche as far as these scooters are concerned. I've seen two people riding the same scooter at least five times within the last two weeks. I had one just of two people, two scooters coming directly at me. One night, about 10:00 at night, as I was going home from First Congregational Church and going up cedar between third and now between fourth and fifth Street on Cedar. And now scooters are coming directly at me. I had no way to go and I didn't know what I was going to do. And both of them helped me one on one side and one on the other side. Not bad enough to cause major damage, but it was very disconcerting and was scaring me half to death because you see these two lights coming down the sidewalk. You know, it's scary. And I feel that for those of us in wheelchairs, that's that's really bad and especially one. And one day I found six of the scooters. Left. And the middle of the curb cut back. Thank you, Mr. Rockwell. Thank you very much. We have I'm going to close the speakers list. So I have the one, two, three, four, five, six, seven folks in line and the speakers list is closed. So no one else, please. And go ahead. Larry. Good. You address on file. At first. An objective person looking at things for a city like a Long Beach, they'd say the very concept is divorced from intelligence. But of course, on that, they'd be wrong. They'd be wrong. Because that implies that at some point, at some point, it had a nexus to intelligence, which clearly it does not in a city. Such as Long Beach. And you just heard some very, very solid reasons why not. Insurance is not an issue. Obviously, they get insurance. But the person that's permanently disabled or seriously disabled for months or weeks. That's irrelevant. Simply irrelevant. There's absolutely no reason why with proper planning. People can not get it. It would stop them from going about their daily routine, whether it be on a bike, at a bus or train. This, though, is just. Absolutely. A financial catastrophe for the city. Period. You can insure just to a certain point that it will get to where it's beyond that is catastrophic. There's no reason why the people can't rely either on the Buster Brown Express to get them from a train or a bike. You've just heard all the other reasons why. But this is going to be a financial disaster for the city, if you imply if you implement this. Consider moving, encouraging people if you have to develop a plan for people, showing them, all right, if you're in this area, you can take this bus, stay there, take the train or take the bus to Brown Express. But this city does not have the money. To cover the liability that will fall upon this city. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Jared and Karen retired, a resident of District one. And Councilmember Richardson, thank you for reminding us that we need. To look forward to what. Our mobility issues are going to be in the future. They're changing very, very rapidly. We're talking about scooters next year. They'll be totally something different. And I have a lot of faith in Eric and his staff to be thoughtful about what kind of mobility issues we're going to require. In the future. You've talked a lot about the technicalities, but not about the people costs. As I was waiting to catch the bus last night over on Fourth in Orange by the senior center, I saw a young man with spy on the scooter. With his dog. It's very dark over there. And I heard a laugh that the dog wasn't laughing. Turned out he had his probably five year old daughter in front of him on the scooter. This is not the first time I've seen parents that are willing to jeopardize their children's lives. To give them a ride on the scooter. I've seen children as young as six driving these scooters. So I think whatever instruction that there needs to be to the community really needs to be emphasized that these are not for children or people under the age of 18. The medical staff that I work with. When I inquired, have Akin indicated that they're seeing more entries, face fractures from scooters because people are not wearing helmets, so they lay on face first. And it's not necessarily with car collisions. It's because the scooters still stop abruptly or they have dramatic drops or shifts in the speed level of the scooters. So people need to understand that these can be dangerous, they're not secure. So I would like to see in the ordinance that. Dogs are not. Allowed to be running alongside the scooters where they can't be seen or anywhere. And that there are the equity provisions include older adults and the disabled so that they have opportunities. I saw that the electric bikes. Have been dropped, were dropped a couple of weeks ago and they're in heavy use. And I'm always surprised about the number of older adults that I talked to that have tried the scooters and really, really like them, but they'd like the more stable platform once so that they can ride them to. And then in the studies they looked at, the lower income communities generally use the devices more prevalently because they're less likely to have cars. Thank you. Hi. Good evening. My name is Michael Parish, member of District seven. I really do support the idea of a micro-mobility for the city. However, I think regulating it to the degree that we expect it to be the regulation that we're expecting to levy on it isn't going to provide those affordability metrics necessary for these companies to be profitable. Just looking at the the earn value they had last year was 1.6 million. As mentioned, there was a thousand units in operation. It's only about 1600 dollars per year for each of these units to to to make. Then you start adding in the acquisition costs of approximately $350 per unit. And in my research, I found that most of these units only lasts for 30 days or less. So these companies are going to have to continually by and by and replace broken units. But then we're going to be placing a very hefty per unit burden on them to continue operations. There's got to be a point where they're going to decide that this isn't really feasible, remarkable for them. And the city is going to be left without a solution. I think the city really should consider reducing the fee per unit for these units until we can understand what the point of the fee is. I understand there's a coordinator coming, but last year we put in coming years are potentially going to raise $400,000 of just unit fees plus the continual licensing for each company to be allowed to operate in the city. And I don't think those fees are going to be. I don't think they're going to account for in what the value is that we're going to receive as a citizen. And then eventually the the companies are going to walk away from the city altogether. And then this affordable solution is not going to be available and people are going to have to go back to driving cars, taking the bus or other mechanisms like writing their own personal bike or own personal scooter. So I think we should really consider the the fee and maybe consider lowering it so that they can stay in business longer. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Eric Garcia Garcia in council. My name is Morgan Roth, and I'm Byrd's community relations manager here in Long Beach. First, I'd like to respond to yesterday's act of violence and say that the entire Bird family is deeply saddened by what occurred. Our thoughts and hearts are with Ms.. Fernandez's family, and we will work with law enforcement to help with the investigation process surrounding the horrific tragedy. Long Beach has proudly been home to a bird for the past nine months. We applaud the mayor, Mayor Garcia, city council staff and all those who worked on the Dockless pilot program for their efforts in bringing forth this ordinance, one that will further expand upon the successes of the pilot program, continue to increase ridership to public transit, and help move the city closer to its sustainability goals. With new shared parking spaces to mitigate sidewalk challenges and an increase in availability of e-scooters and expanded service to more Long Beach communities. We have no doubt that the next phase of this program will continue to positively impact Long Beach residents and visitors. We do have one suggestion for tonight's discussion. We request that council require that all operators physically demonstrate their technology around show speed and geofence before approving being approved to operate. We understand that this has been an important issue to the city and including this provision will ensure the most qualified operators will participate in the program. Bird has already eliminated thousands of car trips here in Long Beach and thus have helped the city reduce its traffic and emissions. Benefits to all who call on beach home. We look forward to the opportunity to continue to operate and serve Long Beach as a committed partner. I want to thank the mayor and council members. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. My name is and I can. Fair success. You know. The school is pretty fine. I don't know if you guys are in this new Broadway corridor. Thank you, Miss Pearce. Councilman Pearce. It's pretty nice. If the road's nice, it's pretty nice. I'm not going to lie. I took a scooter to get here. If you're going to fix one of these decals, I would suggest you fix the one outside because it's trashed. So maybe I'll be the first one, the shoes of, you know, the 230 around I've written now 333.8 miles on a e-scooter. You know, gas right now is $4 a gallon, so it's saving me some money. Thanks, guys. That being said, I think that six vendors might be too much. I think that's what the bird guy was hinting at. You know, the qualifying vendors, you know, maybe we could shorten it because truth be told, people on this anecdotal evidence , because they haven't given you guys the data yet. But, you know, truth be told, I think people are only using bird lime. And thankfully, now that they've gotten the the e-bikes now raised, they probably bumped up a little on the market share. But outside of that, I don't really understand, you know, to the point of Councilman Supernormal, what what's the point of making a drop in price? You know, this city has all the leverage. I highly doubt that any business is going to leave a city of over 470,000 people because the prices are too high. If anything, you know, they'll pay more. If we eliminate some of the vendors, which is probably what will happen if we, you know, have a proper negotiation there. That being said, the affordability. You know, I rode a scooter the other day. I went to one to Councilman Richardson's amazing community meetings at Ramona Park. And I rode a scooter from Ramona Park all the way down from Artesia, all the way down to Anaheim. And I didn't pass one scooter. I look at the map. I was using a lime to be to be frank. But I didn't see one scooter in that 7.6 mile journey that was available. That is a clear sign that they are not coming to up to the standards that are agreed upon in this pilot program in regards to the affordability map. You know, and I think I think 40% is too low. For example, you know, I got the weekends off. I rode a scooter from Vermont and sunset all the way down to South Central. I wrote it to 86th. And when I was in L.A., I rode from Vermont in sunset all the way down to 86. And Vermont. Once you hit south, south, central, south L.A., there are no scooters for over a ten mile radius. You can look at the map and it shows you. And it's amazing that even with that specs, which you said is a 62 or 68%, that they're failing. So clearly we need to make we need to be more stringent and, you know, we need to penalize them for not making this accessible to low income users. Thank you. Thank you very much. Speaker, please. Good evening, everybody. My name. Is Carlo. I am here on behalf of Lime as their community affairs manager. For the region. I would like to start off by. Thanking Council for. Allowing me to speak today. Lime is proud to be serving the Long Beach community by providing thousands of residents with affordable, sustainable modes of transportation. Since we began. Serving the city in. August of 2018, the scooters are proven to be a great new addition to the transportation network, as evidenced by the nearly 250,000 rides that have taken that have been taken on lime since then. Lime is constantly evaluating the effect of higher fees, as they could limit the ability of firms to provide our riders with the affordable and convenient rides that they desire. While we can appreciate the adjustment in the fees and the reduction to $100 per scooter per year, we're still a little concerned that this would add significant upfront costs to the operators. We respectfully encourage the city to once again consider a per trip fee that has been adopted in other cities such as Phenix and Portland. This allows the city to capture revenue from all rides and encourages equitable distribution of scooters across the city. If ridership. Numbers from recent months are. Taken into consideration, the per trip. Fee will in fact. Generate more money than what is currently being proposed. We would also like to point out some concerns with the legal language as it stands. We want to know how to best serve you. And therefore need to have some. Idea of what the city's expectations are. We want to operate up to the level which the city intends, but an ordinance that doesn't clearly outline these expectations will put us all at a disadvantage. To continue a healthy dialog into this permanent program. We're happy to provide staff. With additional comments if necessary. We remain proud of the impact in communities around the globe, and we really look forward to maintaining a meaningful partnership with the city of Long Beach. Again, I would like to thank Council. For your time and for. Allowing Lime to be a part of this decision making process. Thank you very much. Last comment, please. Good evening, council members Mayor Garcia and city staff. Appreciate the opportunity to come speak to you. I'm a resident of the third district. I live in Belmont Heights. And I wanted to say I do. I am for this program. I'd like to embrace the technology that's behind it. And I think that there are some big benefits for the city. But there's a couple of concerns that I have with regards to risk. And I don't believe it's as as risk that's throughout the entire city. But I do believe there are some areas in regions that you have identified. I just want to confirm that those particular areas are going to be geo fenced or for that matter, I, I don't use the word policed, but but I do think that there are some areas that need to be looked at and regarding management of risks. I'd like to reflect back in October, I think I made contact with a Councilwoman Pryce office. Mr. Cunningham did inform me of some of the requirements at that time of the pilot program was my understanding that there was a staff report prepared. It was dated October the second that specifically wanted to address scooters on the bike path and the bike path adjacent to the marina. Those are where I see my most, I should say. My impacts were most, most of the time where I am actually engaging in the scooters is on that bike path. And if it weren't for the few errant ones who seemed to go in packs. It might it might be a little more understandable. But any time I've seen two, three or four of them together, it's a race. It's it's not like a bike path where it's safe. With what was pointed out in the staff report, you have all the different types of users with roller blades, walkers, runners, the bike paths, six and a half feet wide in both directions. And I'm concerned when I see a scooter coming behind us. Bicyclists will usually say on your left or on your right and you're trying to inform me they want to pass. That's not the case with scooters. I'm not witness that any way. And I'm just hopeful if in the future there is more of a policing effort or more of a I say oversight of the scooter users that that that it becomes. More more observable in some of the areas where I traffic. I'm just curious can anybody tell me did this. The City Council. I believe this staff report was sent in October. Was this passed? Did the city attorney's office banned scooters on the bike path, or is there an effort to make sure that it's geo fenced? What is the status now? Can I ask that question? Thank you, sir. Public comments. We have noted that maybe we can get a response to that, or maybe if now is the time or we can do it separately. Mr.. Mr.. Beck. Yeah, certainly there currently there is a restriction for any e-scooters to be on the bike path. I think we addressed that when we made this presentation back in February. Part of our goal in Geofencing would be to address that until council if council were to adopt a change to that. But in the interim, we would have the companies geofence and restrict access to the bike path. Thank you. Thank you very much. Please, members, go and cast your vote on the motion. Motion carries. Thank you very much. Now we're going over to item number, hearing at a number to.