Streetsweeping
File photo by Jason Ruiz.

The Long Beach City Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to extend the city’s program allowing people affected by COVID-19 to apply for their street sweeping tickets to be forgiven. They also approved a plan allowing businesses to continue deferring business license taxes and fees.

Both programs were extended through June 2021. The council also approved new payment plans for business fees and street sweeping tickets that aren’t forgiven. The payment plan for street sweeping citations could begin in April while the payment plan for businesses would begin in July, according to a city memo.

How Long Beach enforces street sweeping rules has continued to change during the pandemic. Last year they stopped sweeping altogether for a time before starting it up with with no citations and finally offering waivers to impacted residents. Currently, the city hands out citations as normal, but residents can apply to have the penalty forgiven if they’ve been harmed by COVID-19 or the ensuing economic shutdowns.

A memo from John Gross, the city’s interim director of financial management, said that residents living in parking-impacted areas still qualify for free parking passes in some of the city lots and those experiencing COVID-19 hardships like job loss can still have their $70 street sweeping citations waived.

How many citations the city will forgive per vehicle has not been determined, and Gross proposed placing a cap on that number.

The business fee deferral program, which began in June, was extended in November and the council’s vote on Tuesday will now provide businesses with at least three more months before they’d have to start paying.

Businesses license fees and taxes vary by business type and number of employees, but the totals can reach thousands of dollars. Those fees help fund city services like police, fire and street repairs.

The payment plans will offer interest-free and penalty free options for businesses behind on their city bills or residents who received citations that were ineligible to be waived by the city. However, other details of the new payment plans were not discussed and both program deadlines could be pushed if the pandemic worsens in the city.

Extending the programs will affect the city’s budget. Increasing the forgiveness period for street sweeping is projected to cost the city $350,000 in lost parking-citation revenue, and the payment program for businesses could push upward of $2.5 million in fees due this year into the next fiscal year. But Gross said creating the payment plan could get more people to pay outstanding fees than if there wasn’t a plan.

Business fees and parking citations are expected to bring in $30 million in revenue this year, according to city budget documents.

The city already has a payment plan for indigent residents that allows citations to be paid over the course of two years with all late fees and penalties being waived if monthly payments are current.

For more information on how to apply for a street sweeping—ticket waiver, visit the city’s parking citation website.

Jason Ruiz covers City Hall and politics for the Long Beach Post. Reach him at [email protected] or @JasonRuiz_LB on Twitter.