May 24, 2022
Mayor's Office
DATE: May 24, 2022
TO: Members of the City Council
FROM:
Mayor Tom Butt
Subject:
Street Sweeping
FINANCIAL IMPACT: The proposed policy direction will require budget appropriations for signs, enforcement staff, and possibly street sweeping equipment.
PREVIOUS COUNCIL
ACTION:
The City Council has been struggling with this subject for over 20 years, most recently April 19, 2022.
STATEMENT OF THE
ISSUE:
Recent research has found that road dust is a significant source of PM2.5 pollution in Richmond and poses a major risk to both public health and health of San Francisco
Bay
RECOMMENDED ACTION: DIRECT the city manager to incorporate into the 2022-23 budget funding to provide: new street sweeping signage
in neighborhoods that have not previously been signed;
repairs/replace existing deteriorated signage in
neighborhoods that have previously been signed;
sufficient staff and equipment to perform scheduled street sweeping operations in all neighborhoods; sufficient
enforcement staff to issue citations for vehicles not
moved on designated street sweeping days and times.
AUTHORIZE vehicle towing operations in areas where
citations have not provided sufficient motivation for
residents to move vehicles – Mayor’s Office (Mayor Tom
Butt 510-620-6503).
AGENDA
REPORT
May 24, 2022
DISCUSSION:
In the last 20 years, the Richmond City Council has continued to waffle over street cleaning policy, pondering whether moving vehicles on sweeping days should be mandatory or voluntary. Most of the City’s neighborhoods have been signed for years with violators at least threatened with citations and/or towing.
There is a clear resentment from neighborhoods that have embraced street sweeping against those neighborhoods that have arm wrestled certain City Council members to exempt them from mandatory compliance for moving vehicles on street sweeping days, Although there are at least two neighborhoods without signs (Richmore Village and Carriage Hills South) that appear to generally respect the requirement to move vehicles, there are only two other neighborhoods (Richmond Annex and Annex Panhandle) that are generally not in compliance and continue to resist signs and citations.
Whether street sweeping is legally required, and further, whether signs and citations are legally required by regulatory agencies enforcing the Clean Water Act remains murky.
What is becoming increasingly clear, however, is that street sweeping is a critical component of improving human health and keeping pollutants out of creeks and San Francisco Bay. Among the best practices of an effective streety sweeping program is the motivation provided by signs and citations to move vehicles on sweeping days.
It is ironic that members of the City Council who hold themselves up as protectors of the environment are leading the charge to make vehicle removal on sweeping days voluntary, reducing the effectiveness of the program, increasing pollution of waterways and San Francisco Bay and posing a significant human health hazard, all to simply cater to the convenience of residents in a few selected neighborhoods.
DOCUMENTS ATTACHED:
Attachment 1 – Street Sweeping in Richmond, May 15, 2022