UPDATE Wednesday, April 6, 1:15pm | The Long Beach City Council bucked a motion to direct city staff to study the pros and cons of outsourcing street sweeping services and issue a request for proposals to potential service providers Tuesday night, instead voting to direct staff to work on improving the city’s current street-sweeping operations.

Councilman Gary DeLong’s motion to study outsourcing and issue an RFP failed 3-5, with only Vice Mayor Suja Lowenthal and Councilman James Johnson backing the Third District councilman.

Upon its failure, Councilman Robert Garcia moved that the Council direct staff to work with the city employees who staff the street sweeping arm of the Environmental Services Bureau to identify ways to improve the level of service being provided and make that service more efficient. Garcia’s motion was approved unanimously.

The First District councilman said it was “premature” for the city to consider issuing an RFP to contract out, saying there’s no way to ensure that the level of service currently provided in-house would be maintained if the city were to outsource.

Additionally, the Council in March approved an item that would study the effectiveness of equipping the city’s street sweeping machines with high-tech cameras, freeing up parking services personnel by photographing the license plates of vehicles that are parked illegally during posted street sweeping hours.

Use of such technology was recently made legal by a state law enacted at the beginning of the year. The law, however, only applies to publicly owned street sweepers.

The Environmental Services Bureau is currently studying ways in which to cut in half the four-hour blocks of time that drivers are unable to park in street sweeping zones.

Click here to view our policy on covering the Long Beach City Council.

Tuesday, April 5, 2:45pm | The Long Beach City Council is scheduled to consider an agenda item  directing city staff to research the pros and cons of outsourcing street sweeping services during tonight’s regularly scheduled council meeting.

The move was suggested by Councilman Gary DeLong and the Budget Oversight Committee, which he chairs.

“Essentially, I just think in today’s times we need to be looking at everything we possibly can to either save money or improve service levels in the city,” DeLong said during the committee’s March 9 meeting. 

During that same meeting, he stated that contracting out would only be favorable should it result in the city’s earning more revenue, whether it be in the form of street sweeping ticket fines or decreased operational costs that would result in savings.

“We at least need to do everything we need to do today, plus provide additional revenue to the city, plus provide additional benefits,” he said March 9.  “Otherwise it just doesn’t make sense for us to look at it.”

While street sweeping ticket revenue is used to cover the cost of providing street sweeping services, city staffers said March 9 that the city annually generates more revenue from tickets than it incurs costs from cleaning the streets. They estimated that the city makes anywhere from a few hundred thousand dollars to $1 million annually over and above the annual cost of providing the service, with the surplus revenue being dumped into the general fund.
 
Street sweeping services are currently provided by the city through the Environmental Services Bureau. Seventeen full-time employees are currently employed under the street sweeping arm of the bureau and make anywhere from $18 to $24 per hour.

The council meeting starts at 5 p.m. at City hall, 333. W. Ocean Blvd., in the Council Chambers.