The Hermosa Beach City Council voted 3-2 against moving to outsource the community services division that maintains the parking meters in town.
Mayor Pro Tem Kit Bobko spearheaded the initiative, introducing the proposal to outsource in June and saying at Tuesday’s council meeting there’s no harm in taking a look at competing offers.
Mayor Jeff Duclos and council members Howard Fishman and Peter Tucker voted against inviting private companies to bid on the services. Council member Mike DiVirgilio and Bobko supported sending out requests for proposals.
DiVirgilio said outsourcing the department was “not my favorite idea.” But DiVirgilio added, “No one else is offering a solution.”
Since the city staff level has been reduced from 144 to 125 over the last several years, the quality of service has also been reduced, DiVirgilio said. Seeing that the outsourcing proposal was failing Tuesday, DiVirgilio floated the idea of a 5 percent cut in salaries across the board to raise about $750,000 to pay for more staff, including three police officers and 4-6 other staff positions.
Fishman said the city ought to move on replacing coin-operated meters with credit card-accepting parking meters. City Treasurer David Cohn wrote a memorandum to the council encouraging the installation of credit card-accepting meters as other municipalities have done in order to increase funds and efficiency.
“With credit card meters, revenue goes up overnight,” Tucker said.
In fiscal year 2011-2012, total compensation for the nine community services officers came out to about $855,893, although that total is less today because four employees are part of the “two tier” retirement and benefits system implemented last year to reduce city pension obligations.
“What we have now is fantastically expensive,” Bobko said.
Several members of the public spoke on the issue, most of whom did not support outsourcing the department, which consists of 13 people, including nine community services officers who write parking tickets.
“If you lose the group you have now, you’re not going to get ‘em back,” said Frank Hallstein.
Former Police Chief Greg Savelli, who now runs the parking enforcement department of the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, also spoke against outsourcing, saying the service the officers provide “goes beyond the balance sheet.”
Former city council member George Barks, who favors merging the emergency services of the Beach Cities, supported going out for requests for proposals.
“You need all the information before you to make the most informed decision that would be the best for the city,” Barks said.
In the end, the majority of the council stuck with what they had. “It matters who does the job,” Duclos said.
