The City Council on Monday, April 27, unanimously approved the purchase of a mechanical beach cleaner. The apparent cost: $90,171.25.
This was a Consent Calendar item. The council doesn’t talk about consent items unless a council member pulls one individual discussion. Nothing was pulled from this week’s Consent Calendar.
Background
“The City of Seal Beach (City) currently maintains approximately 1.75 miles of coastline, requiring staff to utilize numerous pieces of equipment and tools to accomplish this task,” according to the staff report by Sean Low, deputy Public Works director, Maintenance and Utilities
“Maintenance actions within the coastline itself include, but are not limited to, general trash collection, graffiti abatement and removal, and beach grooming,” Low wrote.
“In order to conduct beach debris and litter collection, staff utilizes a large piece of tow-behind equipment called a mechanical cleaner, of which daily passes are made across the sand itself to gather the aforementioned debris for disposal. The City’s existing unit, a BeachTech mechanical cleaner (BeachTech), has been in service for over 15 years, which is significantly over the manufacturer’s suggested complete overhaul of eight (8) years. This increased age and utilization has led to inefficient beach grooming operations, in addition to increased downtime due to more frequent repairs. Replacement parts often require international procurement, further extending maintenance timeline and costs. Continued operation of the current unit is no longer economically viable and operationally desirable, and it is in the best interest of the City to replace the unit with a new, more reliable unit,” Low wrote.
“Staff conducted research into available similar mechanical cleaners from other manufacturers, and it is proposed to replace the existing BeachTech with a Barber Surf Rake. Based on field demonstrations, the Barber Surf Rake has shown itself to be more operationally reliable and efficient, as well as having increased service availability due to locally sourced parts. The Barber Surf Rake also demonstrates operational versatility, with the ability to collect a wide range of debris, in contrast to the existing BeachTech, which solely picks up smaller waste,” Low wrote.
“Staff solicited equipment replacement quotes, as permitted by City of Seal Beach Municipal Code Section 3.20.025 (B). This code provides for an exemption from the City’s competitive bidding requirements for purchases made through a single vendor, due to the equipment’s highly specific use-case. H. Barber and Sons, Inc. is the sole manufacturer of this kind of multi-purpose beach rake mechanical cleaner. While there are other groomers, they are not comparable, as the other units can either pick up only small or only large debris. The Barber Surf Rake model does both, which is ideal for small beach cities due to limited equipment storage,” Low wrote.
