The Seal Beach City Council unanimously approved a management plan for maintaining the city’s fleet of 97 vehicles on Monday, June 11.
The plan, based on recommendations from the consulting firm Management Partners, will have Seal Beach move $310,000 a year from the General Fund to the Vehicle Replacement Fund.
The plan also calls for Seal Beach to hire a full-time mechanic to maintain the existing fleet of cars and trucks.
Assistant City Manager Sean Crumby said in the future, staff would bring the Fleet Management Program to the council for budget review each year.
Management Partners first presented the proposed plan at the May 30 budget workshop.
According to the unsigned Management Partners report in the agenda package, Seal Beach established a vehicle fund in 2008 with $2 million dollars. However, Seal Beach has not added to the fund since that time.
The report also said the city’s full-time mechanic retired in 2010 and took his equipment with him. Since then, Seal Beach has used a temporary part-time mechanic who is only available 32 hours a week.
Management Partners found that the workload required a full-time mechanic and a part-time mechanic working 20 hours a week.
The consultant recommended hiring a full-time employee and keeping the temporary mechanic, but scaling back his workload to 20 hours.
Management Partners also recommended that Seal Beach replace two of its parking enforcement vehicles with Jeep Wranglers with right-drive steering. Seal Beach currently has three parking enforcement vehicles, all with left-drive steering. However, those vehicles require two people per vehicle to carry out parking enforcement work.
Concern over cancelled Long Beach bus routes
Victor Grgas and other residents asked the council to maintain bus service from Long Beach to Seal Beach.
As previously reported, the head of Long Beach Transit has decided to discontinue bus routes into Seal Beach starting in August.
The decision was made following a May 8 public meeting at the Marina Drive Center to discuss proposed changes to bus service in that area. There is no audio or video record of the event.
Because of state mandates, the Long Beach agency must phase out its 30-foot red shuttle buses and replace them with 40-foot buses. According to Long Beach Transit, that would require changes to the bus route on Marina Drive between Alamitos Bay Landing and 5th Street in Seal Beach.
After the meeting, Long Beach Transit announced bus service to Seal Beach would end in August.
Grgas said a lot of people need bus services. He urged the council to “sit down” with Long Beach Transit officials.
Nancy Crusher said she was at the meeting. She said residents wanted to maintain the current bus stops. Yet the next thing she knew, Long Beach Transit was canceling all bus service to Seal Beach.
City Manager Jill Ingram said the decision to cancel bus service between Long Beach and Seal Beach was not a staff or City Council decision.
She said Long Beach Transit officials made a quick and “reactionary” decision to end bus service between the two cities. She described the decision as an extreme reaction to the opposition of Marina Drive residents to extending a bus route.
Ingram said she would continue working with Long Beach and the Orange County Transportation Authority to help bus passengers.
Councilman Gordon Shanks said no one was opposed to the present bus routes in the city. Shanks said that the object of the meeting was to save money.
Shanks appeared to be suggesting that Long Beach Transit officials were using objections to their reception at a May 8 public meeting as an excuse to cancel all Long Beach bus routes into Seal Beach.
Shanks said he couldn’t prove his opinion was true.
Shanks said there was a history of Seal Beach opposition to a Marina Drive bus route.
Councilwoman Ellery Deaton reminded the public that it was the Long Beach agency that called the meeting. “It was a Long Beach Transit decision,” she said.
That same night, the council honored retiring Naval Weapons Station Commander Terry Auberry. In other news, Mayor Michael Levitt announced that state officials said the city’s new Housing Element of the General Plan conformed with state law.
