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HomeMy WebLinkAbout10/21/1997, 6 - STREET SWEEPING IN THE DOWNTOWN ON WEEKENDS M council ho ,_p j agenda Repopt is C I TY OF SAN LUIS OBISPO FROM: Mike McCluskey,Public Works Director Prepared By: Joe McDermott,Streets Supervisor SUBJECT: Street Sweeping in the Downtown on Weekends CAO RECOMMENDATION Authorize a new half-time position in the Public Works Department to provide Saturday and Sunday street sweeping service;appropriate$12,718 from the General Fund balance.(Option6) DISCUSSION The City Council has requested information on the feasibility of increasing the frequency of street sweeping services in the downtown area over and above present levels. The present levels are a reduction from those of previous years due to the fact that during the 1993-94 budget reduction, a street sweeper operator position was eliminated. The effects were the reduction of sweeping frequency downtown from six days per week to five days per week; reduction on major arterial streets from twice a week to once a week; on remaining streets from sweeping every two weeks to once every four weeks. The effects also brought substantially more accumulation of trash and debris in the downtown core, bike lanes and residential streets. The budget reduction also eliminated the person who hauled trash and asphalt/concrete spoils to the landfill 18 hours per week and who assumed sweeping duties while either of the two primary operators were on vacation or sick, approximately five weeks per year per employee. Currently these tasks are assumed by paving crew staff, with a corresponding reduction to street maintenance/repair tasks of 1032 hours (200 hours for sweeper operator back-up and 416 hours hauling sweeping waste to the landfill and 208 hours hauling concrete and asphalt for recycling and 208 hours hauling WRF "grit" to the landfill) per year from pre 93-94 levels. Historically, Downtown Street sweeping on weekends has taken 3 hours which include 2 hours of actual sweeping and one hour of sweeper cleanup and fueling. But, because of minimum staffing requirements, an additional hour sweeping arterial streets was also performed; thus totaling a minimum four hour work effort. Finally the budget reduction reduced the fleet size to one front line sweeper and one back-up from two front line sweepers and a back-up. Traditionally, when a front line sweeper reaches the end of its useful life of seven years it is put on "back-up" and the existing back-up sweeper is sold. Several options are available to provide additional sweeping services on weekends summarized as follows: Option 1 -Add Saturday sweeping only; eliminate Monday sweeping;no increase in staffing. Effect: Trash and debris would remain in the gutter until Tuesday morning. Scheduling of existing arterial and local street schedules would have to be adjusted accordingly, along with the operator's schedule from the current Monday through Friday,to Tuesday through Saturday. Council Agenda Report-Downtown Street Sweeping - Page 2 Additional Annual Cost: None. Because the operator's schedule would be the only change no new or additional cost to the General Fund would occur. Action Required: Give direction to staff to implement Option 2 -Add Saturday sweeping only with no increase in staffing. Effect: This would increase downtown sweeping from five days per week to six days per week. It would require adjusting an equipment operator's schedule from the current paving crew schedule of Monday through Friday,to Tuesday through Saturday. Doing so would result in 416 hours (52 weeks x 8 hours)in reduced street maintenance/repair activities yearly. Because this individual could not do pavement maintenance single handed for the remaining 5 hours of the Saturday work day, staff would recommend all five of the remaining hours be directed to additional sweeping of arterial streets. This would also require scheduling overtime to cover the primary or secondary operator while on vacation or when sick although as a cost saving measure the extra sweeping could be forgone on Saturdays when those instances occurred. Due to increased usage the sweeper replacement schedule of the primary sweeper would move from 7 years to 5.75 years on a pure mathematical basis. However, in reality the sweeper would either be run beyond its useful life or replaced earlier than needed to avoid costly repairs due to breakdown. Additional Annual Cost: Salary: None; Overtime $600; Equipment Costs ($5.24x7x52) $1,907. Additional depreciation on sweeper ($9.03x7x52) $3,287. Total $5,794. Action Required: Appropriate additional funding from General Fund balance and direct staff to implement. Option 3 -Add Saturday and Sunday sweeping by hiring a temporary equipment operator to sweep eight hours per weekend, 52 weeks per year. Effects: A skilled, well-trained operator would be retained and is required to operate a technical piece of equipment like a street sweeper. The primary sweeper currently used to sweep downtown five days per week would also be used for Saturday and Sunday. As opposed to option 2, since this would be a temporary employee hired just for the purpose of street sweeping an eight hour day for the employee is not needed. Therefore only an additional one hour per day would be allocated to sweeping of arterial streets creating a minimum 4 hour work day. Due to increased usage the sweeper replacement schedule of the primary sweeper would move from 7 years to 5.9 years on a pure mathematical basis. However, in reality the sweeper would either be run fairly well beyond its useful life or most likely replaced earlier than needed to avoid costly repairs due to breakdown. Staff would still have to cover for the temporary equipment operator when on vacation or sick, or as a cost saving measure,not sweep at all on those instances. Additional Annual Cost: Temporary salary=$4992;Equipment costs($5.24x6x52) $1,635.Additional deprecation on sweeper ($9.03x6x52) $2,817. Total $9,444. Council Agenda Report-Downtown Street Sweeping - Page 3 Action Required: Authorize an addition to the work force; appropriate necessary funds from the General Fund balance and direct staff to proceed. Option 4 -Add Saturday and Sunday sweeping by an independent contract operator to sweep four hours per weekend, 52 weeks per year. Effects: A skilled,well-trained contract operator would be retained to provide the needed services. In this scenario the contractor would only sweep the 10.2 curb miles associated with the Downtown(see Exhibit A). No arterial streets would receive additional sweeping and the contractor would be responsible for all equipment clean up and of course depreciation and replacement. Additional Annual Cost: Most contract sweepers charge $96 per hour,with a two to four hour minimum. However because this would be a service that the City would competitively bid, minimum hours and hourly charges become irrelevant. That information is helpful,however, in estimating the cost of service. Using this information yields an approximate cost of($96 x 2 x 104) $19,968. However,the actual price is unknown because the service would be competitively bid. Informal"ball park"bids solicited by staff have shown a tremendous range for Saturday and Sunday service from $8,500 to $37,500. If the lowest estimate held and became reality, this would be the least expensive option for providing the service. Action Required: Direct staff to advertise and receive bids for weekend contract sweeping service; authorize the CAO to sign the contract if the amount is within the staff estimate ($20,000); and appropriate funds from the General Fund balance for this purpose. Option 5 -Add Saturday and Sunday sweeping by contracting for sweeping downtown by amending the current Parking Lot Sweeping contract. Effects: The Public Works Parking Division currently contracts with a company to provide parking lot cleaning utilizing a vacuum sweeper. Currently the sweeper contracted by Parking cleans downtown parking lots Monday through Friday, and the parking garages on some Saturdays. Although the technology (vacuum sweeper)is the same, the size of the sweeper is significantly smaller and would be less able to do as quality a job as larger, more powerful units described above in other options. Just the 10.2 curb miles associated with the Downtown would be swept. Additional Annual Cost: The current sweeping contract could be amended at$50 per hour,with a two hour minimum for an estimated cost of($50 x 2 x 104) $10,400. Action Required: Authorize staff to amend the contract and appropriate necessary funding from the General Fund balance and transfer those funds to the Parking fund. tion 6 -Add Saturday and Sunday sweeping by hiring a half time regular employee at the equipment operator level to sweep four hours per weekend, 52 weeks per year. Effects: A skilled, well-trained operator would be retained to operate the street sweeper. The primary sweeper currently used to sweep downtown five days per week would also be used for Saturday and Sunday. As described in option 3, an additional hour per day would be allocated to sweeping of arterial streets creating a minimum 4 hour work day. Council Agenda Report-Downtown Street Sweeping Page 4 In addition,this worker would work 6 hours per day,two other days (most likely Monday and Friday) of the week for a total of 20 hours per week. During those hours the employee would be used to assist the paving crew as appropriate. This may mean assuming duties for hauling sweepings, concrete ruble, WRF "grit"and other debris. The effect of this action would be to provide an additional 624 hours of work per year that the pavement maintenance crew could devote to their primary function. Due to increased usage the sweeper replacement schedule of the primary sweeper would move from 7 years to 5.9 years on a pure mathematical basis. However, in reality the sweeper would either be run fairly well beyond its useful life or most likely replaced earlier than needed to avoid costly repairs due to breakdown. Staff would still have to cover the temporary equipment operator when on vacation or sick, or as a cost saving measure,not sweep at all on those instances. Additional Annual Cost: Part time salary(ranges from $1172/month to $1438/month) $1305 x12 =$15,660; Benefits=$5,324; Equipment costs $1,635. Additional deprecation on sweeper$2,817. Total $25,436. Action Required: Authorize an addition to the work force; appropriate necessary funds from the General Fund balance and direct staff to proceed. Discussion of Options With the exception of Option 1, all options require additional funding. The expenditure of these funds, strictly for street sweeping, does not contribute toward meeting any of the Council's adopted goals for the 97-99 period and this issue did not arise during any of the hearings on potential goals during the winter and spring of 1997. Regardless, support for the downtown has been an informal if not often stated goal of virtually every City Council. The Downtown is often thought of as the City's soul and, due to its success, (caused in no small part by previous joint CityBIA cooperation) its appearance on weekends has degraded due to accumulation of trash and debris. However, it must be stated that normal street sweeping always occurs in the early morning hours and thus between the hours of 5am and 9am the streets are quite clean. Trash and debris that has accumulated on sidewalks cannot be removed by the street sweeper and is most often swept into the street by merchants getting ready to open for business. Thus part of the "look"of the downtown, at least in the early morning business hours,is under the control of the local merchants. Debris deposited in containers will not be in the street to be seen and the appearance will at least start off better each day if that occurs. Cleaning of the downtown needs to be a joint effort. The additional street sweeping will certainly help alleviate the current situation during which debris is allowed to accumulate from 5am on Friday to 3am on Monday. Each of the options above provide either one or two days of additional street sweeping in the downtown. A seventh option,the"do nothing"option also exists but is not discussed as the Council request was to look for ways to provide additional services. If funding is a major constraint Option 1 would best meet the Council's objective for weekend service. Likewise, each of the options can be viewed as one or two day solutions by either dividing or multiplying the cost by two. Staff has attempted to provide a fairly simple array of solutions without undue complications and permutations. Staff reviewed the Council request in concert with adopted Council goals for 97-99. Option 6 is Council Agenda Report-Downtown Street Sweeping - Page 5 the option that best meets the Council request for additional street sweeping in the downtown and helps meet the Council goal of increasing support of and for the pavement maintenance program. Time not spent delivering waste to the landfill could be spent providing pavement maintenance. Since about eight hours per week are spent delivering street sweeping material to the landfill the nexus for additional funding for the sweeping program is stronger. This Option is the most expensive but best meets Council goals and therefore makes the basis for the CAO Recommendation. If additional sweeping in the downtown is the paramount objective,then the decision must be made whether one or two days is preferred. Council could decide to start with one day, observe the results and, if needed, expand to two days at a later date. In either case, Staff would recommend that Option 4 be pursued. This approach was used in previous service issues and contract costs were compared to costs of temporary workers (Option 3). Depending on the results, either a temporary employee would be hired or the contract for service awarded. FISCAL IMPACT Each Option describes its annual fiscal impact. Most could not be implemented until January I' and therefore the impact for this fiscal year is half of what is stated and is reflected in the CAO recommendation. Equipment Replacement Summary and Costs: Replacement Life Present Year of service Seven Years Vacuum Sweeper Initial Cost $106,193 Surplus value -20,000* Cost for use per years of service $ 86,193 Annual Hours of use 1,680 Years to be used x 7 Total hours used 11,760 Depreciation Factors Seven Years Vacuum Sweeper Cost $106,193 Hours in service( 7 yr. Life) 11,760 Deprecation/hour of use $ 9.03 Equipment Costs Fuel per hour $2.18 Parts .81 Brooms 2.25 Equipment Cost/hour of use $5.24 * denotes actual resell value received from last surplus sale;amount may vary in the future. Attachments:map of Downtown areas to be swept. I:agenda reports/street sweeping U LJ I ST. .� � 1 �OQp N \\ pO Y f 3 IL01=. LAIIP NL D V D` a y `/f 1 ~ S a F V 24. �(� .`�...........N CIS IN! i(. S �a�.rrr r�r w � � 1 PCPPER al' J � V ,M10. td y h w LV � iN 0.NCw S u fby o 14 {3 . ti F pFnnY rl r Lf.o. oa TORO ♦ La1L Y RUT m r rt \ a J � W O r 1- N NT6 ]ROSA Ca ST, --- ]RI S co �t W co :0SCIS ST z~ � Si, PT � b ry Z _ MORRO P P.Tia Jf _ ST.— St T.Sr M �` 1 CNOnRO iOT! co S ILLLT 5T. OEM [] E E- �3 =_ n C LI ST.I 1 •LR !1 y Q \ -LL tj • Y N aI+ 1 J C L ` / — a 8R03O µ0 NIPa47 � TS Ta•Q� �. 6 ' O ,6 i BELCH ST. f'r D NO ?s `pry 12111E-S ry„ 41\, d 1 \ by Y PWALIKEn 5T, yop'yp J 11j111,O, a � Pp r \ J 3