AgdaPkt 2000-02-14 - Laserfiche WebLink

Browse Search

SCS" recapture the costs and impose fines on owners of carts left in the City's corporation yard for more than 3 business days. It is recommended that the City Council add violation of the shopping cart ordinance to the list of administrative fines as follows: 1. Failure to affix signs required on shopping carts - $10 per cart, with a maximum of $100 per citation. 2. Failure to prepare or implement a written shopping cart plan in a timely manner - $1,000. 3. Failure to reclaim an impounded shopping cart in 3 business days: 0 First, second and third occurrence in a 6-month period - $zero. 0 Fourth, and subsequent occurrence in a 6-month period - $50.00. At this point a draft Resolution of Fines is presented as Attachment 3 for information only. The Resolution for Administrative Fines will be presented for adoption following adoption of the Shopping Cart Ordinance. Fiscal Impact Participating stores will pay for the majority of the cost of the program; however, there will be some cost to the City. Currently the City spends approximately $40,000 a year for .5 FTE position in the Public Works Service Department to monitor the hotline for cart retrieval information and retrieve shopping carts that are not retrieved by the retailers' retrieval companies. This position also monitors the graffiti hotline and conducts clean-up of graffiti. While the percentage of time necessary for shopping cart retrieval will decrease, more time can be spent on graffiti control. Under the new program the City's contractor will monitor the hotline and e-mail. Public Works staff will continue to retrieve carts in difficult areas such as in a creek, and staff will release impounded carts to owners who reclaim their carts. Staff recommends no decrease in the Public Works staffing. There are two additional fiscal impacts to the General Fund. First, is the time of City staff needed to administer the City-wide retrieval program. It is estimated that 20 percent of a staff member's time will be needed to initiate the program: $15,200 for 3 to 4 months. Once the program is running, 10 percent ($7,600) of an individual's time will be needed, primarily to bill the stores for services provided to them, to pay the vendor, monitor performance of the vendor, enforce the ordinance, and evaluate the annual plans. This cost will be absorbed into the work of the Code Enforcement unit and Public Works Services. The second impact is the cost to pick up "stray carts." These are unsigned carts and carts of non-participating stores who reclaim their carts within the 3-day grace period provided by State law. This is an unknown variable and therefore has been capped at a not-to-exceed expenditure of $3,000 per month. This figure was based on an assumption which would allow for a combination of the following services each month: retrieving 1,000 unsiqned carts; or paying for 1,000 carts which qualify for the "free" retrieval because they have been reclaimed during the 3-day grace U'"~_."^-^'_.-1r^'^