With the Long Beach City Council’s vote this week to tentatively adopt the next fiscal year’s budget, some fees in the city are expected to increase.

The city’s master list of fees and charges is 260 pages long and spells out the cost for everything from professional filming at city hall ($5,000 per day) to placing a pole on city property ($1.25 per pole).

Year to year some of those fees are amended or removed entirely in the event that the city stops providing a service altogether. This year, the $9.75 charge that a person used to be able to pay for a printed copy of the city charter is being eliminated, with the city noting that it’s an unused service and the charter is free to access online.

The cost of street sweeping tickets ($70) will remain unchanged, but a host of other fees that could affect business owners, marina users and the city’s other residents are changing. The alterations are anticipated to generate an additional $1.7 million for the city, according to city budget documents.

Here are some of the fees that are changing:

Scooters and e-bikes

Scooters, bikes and other rental modes of transportation have existed in the city since the City Council approved an initial pilot project in 2018. As part of that vote, the council installed rules to try and govern scooter use in the city including where they could be operated and stored.

The new fees approved in this year’s budget would penalize companies for allowing their devices to be used outside of approved areas ($2 per violation) and for failing to share real-time device location data with the city ($1,000 per day). A flat fee of $100 per device is being reduced to $75 per device but a new fee of 20 cents per ride will be charged for using city streets.

Operating scooters in prohibited areas like the beach bike path will now temporarily disable the device’s electric motor and play a notification that the user is in a prohibited area, according to a city document.

Towing 

It’s going to cost more to get towed this year. Owners of medium-weight vehicles (between 9,000 and 26,000 pounds) will see their minimum tow charge increase by $16 to $302 per hour. That would apply to large trucks or vans with the fee to tow most commuter vehicles staying the same at $221 per hour. Heavier vehicles (over 26,000 pounds) will increase to $403 per hour if towed by the city.

Increased charges for towing are not expected to be applied to people experiencing homelessness, as the city set aside $250,000 in this year’s budget to forgive towing fees for unhoused people who have their vehicles impounded by the city.

Billie Jean King Library 

The city’s biggest and newest library is the Billie Jean King branch Downtown. The library already charges rental fees to use meeting rooms ($65 per hour) and now it will charge the same fee to rent out the library’s terrace during business hours.

As part of the full budget, the City Council voted Tuesday night to dedicate $1 million in additional funding to expand city library operating hours.

Marina Fees 

Boat owners in the city can expect to pay more to park their vessels in city marinas this year, whether they’re in or out of the water. Dry boat storage is going up by just a few dollars per month per vessel, but marina slip fee increases will range from about $5 more per month for the smallest slips to over $110 more per month for a 120-foot slip.

If you’re looking to post an ad at a marina bulletin board, those costs are also increasing. Posting at a marina bulletin board will go up almost $13 to $45 per month under the new fee schedule and a one-eighth page ad in the Marina Reader will now cost $150 per issue.

Trash bills 

While not part of the master fee schedule, one of the largest increases all residents can expect to pay this year is the increase in residential refuse charges. The typical city bill for a single-family home is anticipated to grow from $28.99 to $40.87 per month as the city tries to build up its operating reserves for trash services and also purchase new trucks and cans to comply with mandatory state law. Senate Bill 1383 was passed to divert organic materials like food scraps, paper and yard waste away from landfills to reduce the amount of methane that gets put into the atmosphere.

Long Beach has until the end of 2023 to become compliant, at which point residents could get fined for not sorting out their waste into the proper bins.

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Long Beach refuse rates to increase next month; 2nd increase could be phased in later