At the September 15, 2020 City Council meeting, staff provided background and presented data collected from the pilot street sweeping program. The information was broken down by the following seven categories: Parked Cars, Complaint Log, Street Sweeping Enforcement, Options, Cost Summary/Comparisons, Conclusions/Findings and Recommendations. For City Council reference, the staff report from the September 15th meeting and supporting data are attached to this report.
Survey of Targeted Areas
After discussion at the September 15th meeting, City Council directed staff to conduct a survey of the residents affected by the potential option of sweeping on alternate sides of the streets. A survey was mailed out to 1,516 addresses on October 14, 2020 in the areas noted in Attachment E of the prior agenda packet. In the survey, the residents were asked to choose one of five options described below. The option numbers correspond to the option numbers shown in the staff report from the September 15th meeting with the “A” and “B” indication given for the enforcement component. "A" for enforcement and "B" for NO enforcement.
- Option 1A: Restore weekly street sweeping; WITH parking enforcement
- Option 1B: Restore weekly street sweeping; NO parking enforcement
- Option 2A: Continue sweeping two times per month; WITH parking enforcement
- Option 2B: Continue sweeping two times per month; NO parking enforcement
- Option 3: Continue sweeping two times per month and sweep alternate sides of the street. WITH Parking enforcement under this option
On November 6, 2020, responses were received from a total of 500 respondents. However, some respondents did not live in the targeted areas and some chose more than one option. After removing said survey responses, the revised total number of 278 responses can be generally summarized as follows:
- 85, 31%: Option 1A
- 31, 11%: Option 1B
- 55, 20%: Option 2A
- 81, 29%: Option 2B
- 26, 9%: Option 3
As noted above, most respondents preferred Option 1A, which is to restore weekly sweeping WITH parking enforcement. Second was Option 2B, which is to continue sweeping twice per month with NO Enforcement. There were some variations in choice selection by location as shown on the attached detailed survey results. Option 2A was either the second or third choice in four out of the five areas surveyed.
Incidentally, for the responses received from residents that did not live in the targeted areas ("Other"), 1A was their first choice and 2B was the 2nd choice, which is consistent with the rest of the survey. Detailed survey results are attached.
Additional Data Collection
Since the September 15th meeting, staff has tallied the parked car count from September 2020 to February 2021 as attached. In this additional time period, both the Daily Average and the Total Monthly Number of Parked Cars have dropped 14% and 19% respectively. This indicates that the number of parked cars are starting to decrease since more people may have gone back to work or school. However, the revised daily average and monthly numbers are still higher than the numbers shown in the Original Pilot Term from March 2019 to March 2020 (Pre-Covid). That said, staff still recommends that City Council direction be based on data from the Original Pilot Term since parking patterns are expected to restore to Pre-Covid conditions in the future.
Staff also tallied additional complaints received since September 2020 as attached. There were 6 new complaints with 5 of them complaining about the lack of enforcement and 1 complaining about the frequency.
Revised Recommendations for City Council Consideration
1. Continue with Option 2 (also known as Option 2B in this report), which is sweeping twice per month with NO enforcement until June 30, 2021 to provide some relief to residents working from home due to Covid.
2. Switch to Option 2A, which is sweeping twice per month WITH enforcement on July 1, 2021 Option 2A was not the 1st choice by the residents surveyed, but staff feels that this combination provides a good balance of not requiring residents to move their cars every week while achieving improved compliance, resulting in cleaner streets and maximum cost savings. |
The fiscal impact is dependent on the option selected by City Council.
Option 1 does not provide any savings as compared to the Original Budget for weekly street sweeping. If Option 1 is selected, the unbudgeted vacant Street Sweeper Operator position would need to be filled at an additional fully burdened cost of approximately $93,679 per year. An additional street sweeper would also need to be purchased at an approximate cost of $380,000 to replace the 18 year old machine that was surplussed in 2019. This purchase is in addition to a planned replacement of one of our two - ten year old street sweeping machines that will be coming to City Council soon for purchase authorization.
Option 2 provides anticipated savings of approximately $129,100 as compared to the Original Budget for weekly street sweeping as shown in Attachment D of the attached September 15, 2020 agenda packet. FY20-21 budget currently includes cost for Option 2. If Option 2 is selected, only the additional weed control in the amount of $3,390 would need to be added to the budget. |