Recommendation to adopt a Minute Order declaring a moratorium, against the establishment, placement, construction, expansion, or issuance of any permits, for the placement of unattended donation/recycling collection boxes or bins on any public or private lot in the City; and request City Attorney, in cooperation with the Department of Development Services, to prepare an interim (moratorium) ordinance pursuant to Chapter 21.50 of the Long Beach Municipal Code for notice and placement on the City Council agenda for hearing at its third meeting following adoption of this Minute Order.
Motion passes. 23. Thank you. And next up, item 23, which I skipped, which is unfortunate because I think it's a great item. So let me go to have Kirk read item 23. Communication from Councilmember Super Now Councilwoman Price, Councilmember Durango recommendation to adopt a minute order declaring a moratorium against the establishment for the placement of unattended donations slash recycling collection boxes or bins on any public or private lot in the city. Thank you. And Councilmember Supernova. Thank you. This is largely a legal item. So I'm going to read four sentences to get the legal language correct. And the nice thing about this is we get to learn a new acronym tonight and that is an intended donation. Boxes are you beads. So I'll use that in my description here. During the past year, the city has received several inquiries from you bead vendors asserting that vendors have the absolute right to place your beads in various locations throughout the city because of recent federal case law changes. Currently, there's an inconsistency between the city's business license regulation and the zoning code that has created confusion about whether or not updates are permitted as a matter of write in the city or are in fact currently banned in the city. It's important that you beds be specifically addressed in the zoning code, as other cities have done recently. And because if left unregulated, these boxes become a blight and nuisance in the community because of the tendency of people to dump all manner of junk and other material in and around the boxes. And finally, adopting a moratorium will maintain the status quo until the city can fashion appropriate zoning regulations that will address nuisance concerns, comply with new federal case law, and will resolve current inconsistencies between the city's business license regulations and the zoning code. And if we could, I would like to go to public comment right away. We're honored to have Janet McCarthy, the president and CEO of Goodwill, in the audience. And thank you for your patience. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for your service. Truly, I am Janet McCarthy. I'm the president, CEO of Goodwill, serving the people of seven Los Angeles County. And I do appreciate the fact that you've placed this recommendation to adopt a minute order declaring a moratorium against the establishment placement, construction expansion or issuance of any permits for the placement of unattended donation recycling collection boxes or bins on any public or private lot in the city on your agenda. I personally and my board at Goodwill and all those that we serve wholeheartedly support the Council's adoption of a moratorium for the following reasons Goodwill SOLAK. That's our acronym for the long serving the people of some Los Angeles County. So that, you know, I will repeat that our mission is to help individuals in our community with barriers to employment, either get to work or get back to work. Our mission is funded by the sale of donations received by residents of the 24 cities and southern Los Angeles County of which we serve. And Long Beach happens to be one of those 24 cities. Given our ability to accomplish, our mission is dependent upon the revenue we generate through the donated goods and retail operations. It's a business model that requires professionals in operations, logistics, transportation, retail and recycling. It's also one that requires knowledge of and compliance with a host of city, county, state and national and environmental regulations. The proliferation of middle of the night unattended donation bins being dropped is a concern so great that it has rose to the attention of the state capital and took shape in legislation AB 918 and SB 450 also designed to combat the problem. Unattended donation bins pose several problems for our community. They are run for by for profit companies in nonprofit clothing. They often attempt to buy communities off by minor contributions that are very small fraction of the profits that they realize as corporations. The salvage business is a multibillion dollar industry that is publicly traded. Like any other commodity, these dollars permanently leave the community without sustaining it in any way in which goodwill has for over 100 years. Unattended bins are blight magnets, routinely riddled with graffiti and surrounded by refuge, refuse that is unusable and simply dumped there. In essence, they are mobile alleys. Personally, I am, uh, called upon often by our community because they think it's Goodwill's problem. They think that we're the ones that caused that. And quite honestly, I think we're quite great neighbors in the community of Long Beach and we do everything we do and can to keep all of our community clean. Many of these unattended bins are run by companies and or individuals that are excuse me, impossible to contact and are therefore unconcerned and unaccountable for the problems that they create for the communities they exist within. With limited contact and accountability. The problems unattended bins create leave residents with one destination for their concerns. And that is all of you and all of your staff. Thank you. I got to the time here in Boise. No, it's. Okay. I but by the way, I recommend that you hope have a moratorium on this thing. Thank you. Thank you for listening. Thank you so much for everything Goodwill does. Amazing organization. And we know Long Beach is a partner, obviously, and we are so thankful for the workforce development that happens on site and for the partnerships and just you're such a good partner in building this community, so just thank you. So I really appreciate you. Thank you. Absolutely. Councilmember Austin, actually, Councilman Price. I support this item. Thank you. Councilmember Austin. Thank you. I certainly would support this item. I think I brought something an ordinance about three years ago to ban these these. And unmanned you beds in the city. I'd like to get some some clarification from the city attorney as to what has changed. Held seven Austin members of the city council. It's a little bit complicated, but I did not realize you brought an item a few years ago. But what's happened is in the last two years across the country, these companies that want to put these boxes in communities have sued in federal court on a theory that these donation boxes are no different than a panhandler in the street, and they have an absolute constitutional right to locate pretty much wherever they want in a city. So there's a trend in those federal cases that did not exist two years ago that is currently there. And in addition, within the last year, the City Department of Planning and Department of Development Services and the city attorney's office has been contacted by individual companies that desire to put these and are asserting that they have a constitutional right to do it. And we've also been contacted by different lobbying companies that exist outside of Long Beach, actually in different states, making the same argument. So we started looking into the matter and saw that cities locally, some locally, like Torrance, for instance, which were threatened with litigation City of Oakland, which was actually sued in 2015 over these unattended donation boxes . Litigation was popping up. So in order to get ahead of the game, so to speak, we thought it was appropriate to suggest that a moratorium be put in place because our current zoning ordinance doesn't. We have what's called a specific a permissive zoning ordinance. So unless you are specifically allowed to do something, you're denied. So if you brought this matter forth three years ago, that would have been the case. It wasn't a use that was regulated. And in doing the research, we determined that there is currently an inconsistency between what is in Title five about and manned donation boxes and what is currently in Title 21. So that's the difference between then and now. So from what I can glean from that, it would be totally impermissible and unacceptable to put you in a median. Well, it depends. Research it. Thank you. The median advocates will be here next week. Thanks a lot. Councilmember Pierce. Thank you. You learn something new every day. I had no idea that there are for profit companies that were using this. So thank you guys for bringing this item up. I did have a question. Are there Long Beach nonprofits that that use these youth bodies? Do we know? Anybody. I don't know the answer to that, but I do know that this will not result in a total ban on you. The goal will be to put in place regulations that will meet constitutional requirements and will still allow them. But you will probably see such things. What other cities have done. They have spacing requirements. They can't be, you know, within 1000 feet of each other, for instance, specific requirements for how they look, how they're maintained, lighting things so that people can't drop articles at night after dark, for instance. So there's just junk around the boxes. So that's what we're looking to do. And requirements also around how often they pick them up and everything. Correct. Okay. Um, well, when I first took a look at this and the other item that kind of made my hair stand on ends, but I definitely support this and thank you guys for doing the legal work on this. Appreciate it. Thank you, Councilwoman Gonzalez. Yes, thank you, Councilmember. Super not for bringing this forward. I, too, was a little unclear on this to begin with, but now it makes total sense. And just have a couple of quick questions. How many do we know off the top of our head? How many bins we have citywide? How many of these you. You would. So, Councilmember, we do have some of these citywide, but they're related to existing businesses. So, for example, if there is a drop off location that's related to goodwill or Salvation Army or someone like that, they're considered accessory to the main use and we can permit them in that regard. The unattended donation bins, we have been very clear that we do not have a permitting process for that. And so when we do come across them, we have taken code enforcement action against them. So I don't know the the the full extent of it, but it's the ongoing concern that we have about constitutional challenges that we'd like to move forward with tonight. Sure. That's great. It would just be good to know how many bins we have. I mean, I've seen them here and there, and I know that they can be a blight. And while we figure out the constitutional issues, if we can just get some information back as to where they're located and how many there are. I'm not sure I would be able to because they are technically unpermitted. I see. Yeah. Okay. Well, I don't know. Do we go out and. We go out on a complaint. Basis? So that complaint information maybe would be sure to give us some sort of idea. I know that. Right. Okay. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Well, Councilman, you'll be happy to know that many of those complaints are probably mine, because I complain about these things all the time, always emailing staff and so very, very glad councilmember super and I brought this forward. I think these things unfortunately are our blight and they have very little to do with the services being provided and everything to do with graffiti and trash being not picked up around them and they're not maintained and then the resources don't go back into the community. Councilwoman Mongo. Yes. I want to thank Councilmember Super not for bringing forward this item. I think it's a really great partnership that we have with the Goodwill. Many people know that Goodwill does not only collect these items for their purpose and mission, but they also do a lot of work, development and a lot of other things in the community that the revenues from the donations go to. And so I think it's important that we select our partners wisely. And I think that I have seen where a bin can turn into a mess. And without the types of things that my colleagues have talked about, regular pickups, requirements adjacent to a facility where every morning it can be emptied and ensured that it's not at capacity. Also, some people are putting things into the bins and if they are contaminated with bedbugs or other types of things, it contaminates a whole lot of things that it's much better to have a person available like you have at a goodwill store or an AM vet's or any of those other options. So I appreciate the item and I'll be supporting it. Thank you. And Councilman Mungo wants to know if we can put the bins in the medians. Thank you. Yes, thank you, Mayor. Congressman, Super. And I truly, truly, you know, support this item. And I want to tell you, on the last count, I think it was about 40,000 or more. That was only in my district. So we're working on it. Yes. Thank you. We had public comment. I appreciate everyone. Please cast your vote.