The council on Monday, Nov. 9, approved a 60-day contract for street sweeping services. The vote was 3-2 with council members Joe Kalmick of District One and Nathan Steele of District Five dissenting. Staff will come back at a future date with more information.
Originally, city staff recommended a three-year contract. However, council members expressed concern about the absence of scope of work and increased costs.
The street sweeping contract was a new contract with SCA of CA, LLC. The previous contract expired in October. District Four Councilwoman Patty Senecal and District Two Councilman Ben Wong were concerned that the new contract was brought to council after the previous contract had expired rather than before. Senecal said it was perplexing that they were looking at a last minute contract when the old contract had expired.
Senecal suggested postponing the item until staff provided more information about the contract and increased costs. Senecal wanted staff to come back with scope of work information on the contract. However, according to staff the city could be exposed to fines if street sweeping was not performed.
Council members also discussed reducing street sweeping in some areas to pay for more sidewalk cleaning on Main Street. District Three Councilwoman/Mayor Lisa Landau said she was getting a lot of complaints about the sidewalks on Main. Public Works Director Iris Lee said staff was cleaning the sidewalks on an as-needed basis. Later, Kalmick said with the limited staff Seal Beach has, there are so many other emergencies that come up it becomes easy to say, “we can’t get to the sidewalks this week”.
Kalmick argued that sidewalk cleaning should looked at as a separate budget item rather than add it to street sweeping.
Steele said he agreed that Main Street sidewalks needed attention, but he opposed “molding” that into an existing contract. Steele said he would prefer to just proceed with the current contract.
City Attorney Nicholas Ghirelli suggested the council approve a contract for 60 days and have staff come back with a new agreement.
Background
“Citywide street sweeping is an integral part of the City’s ongoing maintenance efforts to provide routine service of municipal property,” according to the staff report by Sean Low, deputy director of Public Works.
“Municipal street sweeping also satisfies federal compliance under the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) program, which was created under the 1972 Clean Water Act; of which the City maintains a permit,” Low wrote.
“The City’s NPDES permit from Order R82026-0034 requires the City to prevent trash from entering local waterways, meet strict runoff limits, and physically clean out any storm drain catch basin that reaches 25% capacity,” Low wrote.
According to the staff report, street sweeping is the most cost-effective control measure to meet the mandate.
“The City’s streets are swept on a routine basis with varying frequencies ranging from daily to twice a month depending on the location. City staff conducted due diligence by meeting internally as well as with external street sweeping contractors to evaluate the efficiency of the existing route system,” Low wrote.
“This evaluation was done with consideration of adjacent City services in order to ascertain the most optimized route structure. It was determined that the existing maps are the most efficient layout,” Low wrote.
“The proposed agreement pricing of $356,745.88 per year reflects increased operating cost pressures as well as the incorporation of the required prevailing wage,” Low wrote.
“The FY 2026-27 budget under Account #101-500-0044-52300 Street Sweeping allocated $205,000 for citywide street sweeping services. Given the large differential in the budgeted versus the proposed annual contract amount, staff will evaluate and reprioritize appropriate General Fund accounts to fund this service,” Low wrote.
“This updated prevailing wage rate will be incorporated in future budget allocations,” Low wrote.