TO: HONORABLE MAYOR AND FROM: Councilmember
CITY COUNCIL Maya Esparza
SUBJECT: SEE BELOW DATE: 11/28/2022
Approved Maya Esparza Date 11/28/2022
SUBJECT: CITY INITIATIVES ROADMAP-EMERGENCY HOUSING SYSTEM EXPANSION: RECREATIONAL VEHICLE PROGRAM ANALYSIS
RECOMMENDATION
In developing staff’s proposed RV Biowaste pilot and eventual broader program, direct staff to research and consider policies around non-compliance, including potential requirements or enforcement if the program is not utilized, including towing as a last resort for those RVs that are illegally dumping biowaste.
BACKGROUND
I appreciate the considerable work that staff has undertaken to develop a comprehensive plan to address the needs of residents living in recreational vehicles while also mitigating the impacts to others in the community, as well as potential broader public health and environmental impacts.
Issues of biowaste have been a serious concern for many residents, businesses, as well as posing serious public health and environmental concerns when disposed of illegally in our storm drains and waterways. In District 7, residents have had to deal with human biowaste from residents living in RVs being dumped in their yards. We also have neighborhoods such as Rocksprings with large numbers of folks living in RVs adjacent to Coyote Creek, as well as impacted communities in areas along Monterey Road and the Seven Trees neighborhood where we know biowaste is making its way into our storm sewer system, and thus eventually our creeks as well.
Many of these areas are focal points of our $25 million Measure T investment in Green Stormwater Infrastructure, and sit along environmentally sensitive portions of the watershed.
Continued dumping of biowaste both undermines this investment, and adds yet another public health challenge to these already underserved neighborhoods. As staff explores ways and resources to provide biowaste service to RVs, we need to ensure that those who are offered these services make use of them. This will likely require more than merely citing those who are repeatedly dumping their biowaste. That is why we should include towing as a last resort for COUNCIL AGENDA: 11/29/2022
ITEM: 8.2
those living in RVs who are offered service, refuse, and continue to create a public health and environmental risk through the illegal dumping of biowaste.
The signers of this memorandum have not had, and will not have, any private conversation with any other member of the City Council, or that member's staff, concerning any action discussed in the memorandum, and that each signer's staff members have not had, and have been instructed not to have, any such conversation with any other member of the City Council or that member's staff.