good evening my name is karen mcinnes
i'm president of the long beach city
council and i'd like to welcome you to
this evening's work session of the city
council
and with that i'd like to head it over
to city manager donna gayden
thank you very much good evening
everyone
um tonight's presentation will be headed
by mr john mcnally
so good morning good evening everybody
um thank you for taking the time to join
us tonight both
council consultants potential vendors
and members of the public
to discuss what is obviously a
critically important issue for the city
and that being a parking installation of
potential installation of parking meters
in the central business district of the
city this has been a project that a
number of staff have been working on
really for the better part of a year so
i'd be remiss if i didn't start out by
thanking commissioner walsh and other
members of the police department
controller resnick
dave frazier our city clerk
uh corporation council's office both
joseph lupo and rich arios
uh
and members from our purchasing
department for really um carrying the
water and trying to get this right over
these past many months so as i mentioned
parking meters installation of parking
meters in our central business district
is an absolutely critical issue to the
future of the city
um it has been a solution that has been
recommended not by just
the city's
financial consultants but by the new
york state financial restructuring board
which they did in a report and analysis
of the city's finances in 2019
and just last year they awarded the city
500 000
to go towards the upfront cost of the
installation of said meters
um
while it is recognized by those
authorities and experts as something
that is critical for the city
nobody on this on the zoom should make
any mistake that this is anything but a
heavy lift
this has been a subject that's been
bandied about and discussed by several
councils
since parking meters in our central
business district were dismantled and
taken down in the 1970s and the
political will or gumption has never
really existed to get it past the goal
line
so i guess the question is why is it
different now than it has been over
these several decades
number one
the city's fiscal condition uh as
everybody on this call or at least on
the city side and our residents should
be aware
the city is in
500 million dollars or half a billion
dollars of uh debt and other outstanding
obligations um that's a hole that's been
dug over a long period of time and we
need to find other ways out of that hole
other than just
adding more property taxes for our
residents a significant portion of any
revenue
from installation of parking meters in
our central business district would be
derived from folks that do not live in
the city
and that's where a preponderance or a
significant chunk of
additional revenue streams that the city
comes up with need to come from
um number two
anyone that lives in long beach knows
that we have uh a parking issue
it's city-wide and it's acute in
different areas and plays out
differently in different areas but in
the central business district proper
we have a situation where
we don't have real turnover
in parking curbside or in the center
medians
free parking quite frankly is not free
curbside parking in front of commercial
retail establishments
is valued at anywhere between 50 to 100
000 a year to those storefronts and if
we're not getting meaningful turnover
that is significant and major lost
revenue for those store owners in the
central business district
um
so
the other the other element of this is
that
the revenue that is derived from this
could potentially go towards coming up
with solutions or at least studying the
problems that exist in other areas
whether it's the west end
whether it's along broadway whether it's
onshore road
the funds that are derived from the
installation of parking meters could
fund the studies to look at whether
residential parking permits are
something that we want to explore
or it could even go towards acquiring
parking assets
that would add to the the number of
parking resources that we have
throughout the city
um the one other thing that i felt to
mention for
the acute problems in the central
business district is
we have an issue where there's generally
two hour parking
all throughout the district so all of
the shopkeeps and employees of the store
owners in the central business districts
find themselves they don't have
designated spots
and they find themselves having to go
out and move their cars every two hours
because there's no other alternative
so taking a more comprehensive approach
to how we handle our central business
joseph would help alleviate that issue
as well
uh just by way of background and
timeline
the the city issued a request for
proposal
uh late last year
um
and we have been in discussions with the
sole respondent to that request for a
proposal since early this year it's
really been over the past five weeks or
so
uh i did say soul respondent the team
that is going to speak tonight uh we're
the lone team that responded to the the
rfp
if we were not adequately
impressed with this team i i you will
you will find out before the end of the
night they are the worldwide industry
leaders in providing these solutions
uh
if we did not think that they were
capable
of addressing and implementing a system
that would work for the city we would
have reissued an rfp um the rfp we
issued was very complex it dealt with
not just installation of meters but it
dealt with
the the enforcement side of things and
it also given the city's fiscal
condition
it dealt with
uh providing various scenarios for how
the installation of the upfront part of
it um can take place without the city
having to go through an undo financial
burden up front those are scenarios that
we're all still affording so this was a
very intricate very complex rfp that we
put out
um we have been in ongoing discussions
and negotiations with the respondent
we are generally pleased with the
direction that things are going on
tonight
um
and we felt that now was the time to
really engage the city council and the
public in these discussions well while
staff have been working on this for the
better part of a year
this is the first time that the council
or even the public have heard anything
about it outside of the larger
conceptual idea of
the city is looking at installation of
parking meters in the central business
district so
tonight is the first opportunity to get
into the weeds on some of this stuff
uh and and really the point of it is to
we're going to have our parking
consultant who's been working with us
give a little bit of a background go
through the deal details of the scope of
what we're talking about what the
request for proposal was and then he's
going to hand it off to
the potential vendor they're going to
talk about their credentials
what they're proposing for the city each
of those two presentations should take
about 15 minutes
and then the opportunity for tonight is
to really get counsel
to answer questions that you might have
to get your feedback and to get
direction
um on where things stand now so that we
can we can continue to move this
critically important project forward
so unless there's questions i will hand
it over to the city's parking consultant
uh jerry gioza from level g parking
associates
thank you john
i have a
i have a powerpoint presentation that
i'm going to call up
and uh i should be able to get through
it in in about um as john said in about
15 minutes
and i would just note before you get
into it jerry uh these should also be up
on the city's website too for anybody
that wants to review these slides uh
after tonight's presentations
okay
all right thank you for having me um
my name is uh jerry gios i'm a parking
consultant uh we're based here on long
island uh but i've worked on parking
programs all over the country
more locally
i've put together parking programs
in the village of mineola the village of
patchogue
uh great neck plaza i'm working in the
town of southampton and quite a few
others including bayshore islip
uh town of babylon and huntington and so
forth
i have been
working with um
with dave frazier and some others in the
city of long beach over the past
uh decade or so looking at parking
solutions
and uh it looks like we're we're closing
in on on a plan
that has been really 10 years in the
making
so what are the goals and objectives of
this plan
so parking management seeks to
promote parking space turnover and other
healthy parking patterns in the central
business district
by instituting these regulations
it will help to facilitate a cleaner
safer more customer friendly parking
environment
this in turn encourages economic
development and investment in the cbd
we've seen it over and over
downtown bayshore is a perfect example
um
we put meters in downtown bayshore about
about five or six years ago
since then
interest in investment in downtown bay
shore has never been higher
in addition the the revenue that's
generated from this program
will provide a funding source to
maintain improve beautify and even
expand the parking system
so a little bit of history
parking meters were installed in
downtown long beach in the 1950s
removed in the 1970s
and
meters were installed at the train
station parking garage in 2004.
there was a proposal to install parking
meters in the west end in 2008.
and there was an rfp to furnish and
stole 35 parking meter kiosks in the cbd
in 2011 exactly 10 years ago
and right shortly thereafter the
meters at the train station were
upgraded in 2012.
the current proposal is to institute a
parking management plan
in the cbd between lafayette and monroe
the the system would promote the use of
parking apps in addition to
regular parking meter kiosks
also an important part of the program is
um
is to provide employee parking zones and
discounted parking for city residents
we'll get into that in a little more
detail
as we move forward
so here's a diagram of the the areas
that would be impacted here we have
lafayette
on the
on the west and monroe on the east
and we're really centered around the
train station city hall
and again we're looking this as as phase
one
um down the road
uh we could see that this parking
management system can be expanded
throughout the city
so what are the parking space
classifications we have transient
parking
so these are going to be spaces set
aside for parking on a first come first
serve basis
and folks could use their app or their
meter to pay for parking as they go
for regular users of the system
such as downtown employees
they would be able to um
to purchase a parking permit and park in
designated areas
scattered throughout the central
business district
in the case of the employees
we'd be looking for employees to be
parking in the center center medians and
the side streets
this would keep
the prime parking spaces along the curbs
in front of the stores
open for
for transient parkers shoppers visitors
those are the high turnover spaces
in addition we'll have some free parking
spaces the handicapped stalls we're
proposing would be free
and we would also have some 10 minute
limit spaces near the post office
uh city hall and the train station for
quick in and out trips
transient parking
our current models
indicate that
paid parking would be in effect all days
between nine am and eleven pm
on a first come first served basis
a number of the spaces will be time
limited for example two hour limit or
four hour limit
but these time limits would fall off at
five pm
so after five o'clock um you know when
folks are going to be going to dinner or
perhaps to a movie or something like
that there would there would be no time
limit
we're looking at a pay by plate um
operation where the users would be
entering their license plate number
to begin a parking transaction
so they would either be able to
conduct that transaction either through
their smartphone on an app
or at one of 36 strategically located
parking meter kiosks
in addition because of this unique
structure that pay by plate structure
which is becoming more commonplace
throughout the country and throughout
the region
it will allow us to give city residents
a discount
if they
register their parking
if they register their license plate
within the system
so of course when they're asked their
license plate number if they're
registered as a city resident
in the system
the the rate screen that will come up
will be that of a resident rather than a
visitor rather than a non-resident
and our current models are
proposing that the residents would
receive a 50
discount
the
the transient fees for comparable uh
shore communities
popular resort communities uh
in our area point pleasant new jersey
three and a quarter per hour
seaside heights ocean city and rehoboth
beach are all at three dollars an hour
permit parking or proposing to be in
effect all days between 9 a.m and 11
where permitted
and they also will be digital in nature
no more stickers
the license plate will be the permit
will act as the permit so these will be
digital permits
so your license plate is your parking
permit
so when you purchase a permit you
register your plane in the system
whatever that classification may be the
system is smart it knows where it is
it knows what you've paid for what areas
you are permitted to park
and will download that information to
the license plate readers
and
everything is interconnected
so how many spaces are we looking at in
the central business district well we're
looking at the e or employee permits and
daily parking spaces to be about
30 37 of the total close to 500 spots
two hour limit spots close to 400 or
about 30
4 hour limit spaces uh 319 one hour
limit 80
30 minute limit 42 and 10 minute limit
free spaces
right now 15 but this this this is
subject to change um we are still
looking at um specific areas for these
free in and out spaces in particular
but this is the current model that we're
working with it's a it's a workable
model and it uh
it's based on studies that we've
performed
um over the past few years
enforcement of course is a critical
component of the whole system
uh the
the system has to be
uh enforced in order to
ensure compliance that people are
parking where they should be
uh that the turnover is occurring uh
that they are
putting money in the meters as um as
expected
and uh and
all of the app transactions kiosks
transactions and digital permits
would be license plate based
and enforcement will be conducted using
license plate reader technology
the procurement included uh 10 vehicle
mounted lpr bundles and 40 handheld
units so the the uh the lbpb would be
um
would be would be outfitted
with license plate readers
capable of
of accommodating enforcement throughout
not only
the central business district where the
meters are but throughout the entire
city
in terms of operations and maintenance
the uh the current model
uh we we have the event that the vendor
will operate and maintain
the entire system
for a period of five years
the city will be conducting parking
enforcement
and as and as a result of that new
parking enforcement effort in the cbd
uh
enforcing the kiosks the apps
the permits and the time limits and so
forth uh we're assuming that four new
full-time parking enforcement officer
positions
um would be uh would be budgeted
in this program
and these would be special uh specials
that um
these would be right specials
so the capital program
i'll go through it it's quite robust
it's high tech
there are multiple components here
they all need to be integrated
interconnected
and i'm just going to go through them
but this is quite a robust system as
john mentioned earlier
you know one of the reasons we only had
one response was because this was a
unique offering that we wanted this
this robust system
multifaceted multi-component to be fully
integrated and really
there are only so many firms in the
united states capable
of putting together
a system of this uh of this complexity
so what do we have 36
multi-space meter kiosks
10 vehicle mounted
license plate reader bundles
10 in-vehicle laptops and ticket riders
we need a couple extra vehicles two ford
interceptor vehicles
brand new
that would be
uh outfitted with the vehicle mounted
lpr bundles
40 handheld ticket riders that would
upgrade
the entire long beach police department
the perimeter egress
lpr
would be completed with an additional
nine lanes
we would require a civil package
including signage and footings
a digital parking permit system
which would allow users to log on
to a hosted website and purchase their
their parking permits
a pay-by-app system
a citation management system so that
whenever
a citation is issued it would be tracked
it would be followed it would be
it would be
categorized in the system and
and monitored
fine collection services would also be
provided by the vendor
in cases when tickets are not promptly
um
paid for
merchant processing the the kiosks
and the apps will be accepting credit
cards so merchant processing is included
all vendor provided
in addition a 24 7 call center that
would be provided by the vendor
all the enabling hardware software and
communications to allow these systems to
to talk to one another
and to and for all the data to be shared
and properly
properly coordinated
a back office function with a dashboard
where the operations can be monitored at
all times this is a critical piece of
the entire thing
we will always know exactly how much
cash
credit card transactions
permit transactions
are are conducted at all time
through this dashboard it will be an
open
uh it would be an open source for us
that could be constantly monitored
so that there could be no
um
other uh it's it's a high level of
internal control
in terms of uh following
uh the cash and the um
and the and the uh
uh the transactions of permits and and
all other components of the system
and finally the turnkey delivery of the
entire system the vendor
will will be delivering the entire
system fully integrated
tested and operational
it's no small task
but we believe we have the vendor on
board who can do it
the contract structure uh
the structures currently under review
are a lease to buy
a vendor financed
structure where the vendor would
finance the the entire installation
and then be paid back through a revenue
share
and we are also going to compare that
with a city financed
structure
with new debt
so what will it take to implement this
program
we will need to finalize our
negotiations and the contract structure
with the
vendor we'll require enabling
legislation and ordinances
an important component would be a
marketing educational and public
awareness campaign
so that all the
the residents businesses
will know
full in advance what to expect
um
because there are
components of the system where um where
businesses
can participate
in validations programs and so forth
finally the system will need to be
installed integrated and tested
and we have currently we're working our
models have a go live date
a memorial day
um
we have some challenges to meet that
that target date
uh it's a little bit of an aggressive
schedule but
we think if all things break properly
it's a doable
it's a doable target date
so with that we are going to turn this
over to the vendor
to introduce themselves and um
and to give their take on on how they
would be proceeding
all right um thanks jerry appreciate it
everybody my name is sean wren
i represent flo bird
we are uh leading provider of parking
solutions around the world as john had
mentioned
um i will share a brief powerpoint for
you
and introduce our team
can everybody see this okay
it's all viewable for you all
okay perfect
um well before i start um i i did just
want to say that we know how important
this project is for you all um
you know for for all the communities
that we work with around the country uh
you know we we take them all uh
you know
it's it's really important for us to get
them all right
um so we've assembled a strong team here
that that has delivered
paid parking solutions to communities
across the country
this project is very visible
to the management here at flo bird
and and we're definitely committed to
making sure that it gets off on the
right foot and that we're uh
that we're visible in the community and
and we make sure that this project goes
well
um with me tonight
is william johansen he's our senior
project manager
he's deployed you know many many
projects of this size and larger
around the country
i also have james oliveira
with our subcontractor g techna
and he'll present
in a little bit the enforcement solution
we also have
with us jason casimir also with gtechna
i can say for sure uh
that i've worked with both of them
um for the last uh probably five years
now and uh we work very well together
and i have no concerns that that
about the system that we'll deploy there
in long beach
just going to give you a little bit of
background on flo bird
and get into the technology that we're
proposing
so our team here
as i mentioned
flo bird
will be the prime contractor
um as jerry had mentioned we'll take
care of the full operations and the
maintenance of the system locally in
long beach
we're also
a manufacturer
so
we manufacture the base stations that
we're proposing
we also
provide a mobile application and a
permit system so we manage that
ourselves
we've got 50 years experience in the
parking industry and you can find our
systems in 5 000 cities around the world
we'll go into that a little bit in a
second
again we have gtechna
who is our citation management partner
and also they provide
a really sophisticated license plate
recognition solution
they've been in business since 1993 they
have over 150 clients in the u.s
and canada
and we also um one of our partners here
is going to be rtr financial services um
they'll be kind of on the very very like
back end of things when it comes to past
due collections so as you follow kind of
the uh the life cycle of parking ticket
you know they'll come at the end you
know if we if we have trouble collecting
a parking ticket they'll come at the at
the end there they're based in staten
island and they've been in business
since 1998.
just some of the numbers for flo bird um
like i said we have
over 5000 customers around the world
um in the u.s we have about 900 clients
um we are as john said we are the
largest provider of on-street parking
solutions on the planet um and in the
u.s um so
you know we are confident in saying that
that you will not find anybody uh with
more experience than flo bird when it
comes to this type of solution
um we are financially stable um so you
know when we're looking at this as a
long-term project
as you are
so we consistently generate over 300
million dollars of revenue every year
and our revenues continue to grow
as we expand our solutions
around the world we have over 1 300
employees
and we have a
market share for on-street parking of
over 60 percent
our systems are used weekly on a weekly
basis by over 100 million users
one thing that's really important for us
is the investment in research and
development so we invest over 25 million
dollars a year
into research and development
a lot of that is now going to
digital solutions
like our e-permit solution like our app
solution
and also back-office reporting
so clients like yourselves can
understand the occupancy levels on the
street and really get the most out of
the data
when it comes to the hardware
there's nobody
that does it better or has more
deployments we have over 320 000 base
stations deployed worldwide
and we've also deployed over 900 mobile
apps around the world
just as just a snapshot of
some of the locations you can find flow
burden so
if you're lucky enough to go overseas
you know and if you're in paris or
if you're in london
moscow
you'll bump into a flo bird pay station
somewhere along your way for sure
um i'm sure that we've all been in new
york city so new york city
is our oldest client
we started parking pilots with new york
city in 1988
and they're also
our largest clients so they have over 14
000 pay stations
today in new york city um
and
they're also about to launch
our mobile application
um we won the rfp for the park nyc app
um a few months ago
so we're on track to deploy that in the
next few months
on the right hand side you can see some
of our other u.s deployments chicago
being our second largest they have
close to 5000 of our base stations
city of austin
very dynamic parking
system they have there
locally here
in the philadelphia area we just
finished the deployment of over 1800
pay stations in philadelphia
and then just another highlight is
detroit where we have
close to 800 pay stations as well as the
park detroit app
as well
we're very proud of our success on long
island
if you go
to many of the communities nearby long
beach
you will see
either flo bird pay station or the
flibert app
um
in those communities
we're proud to say that that the city of
long beach is a flowbird client
the base stations that are in the garage
are our pay stations um and we've been
working with uh dave for for many years
there um to support those pay stations
um
other highlights um jerry had mentioned
islip
brookhaven uh was is a project
that went from uh like an unpaid parking
solution to paid parking solution uh
last year
um and uh rockville center is another uh
close by community that has
about
40 or 50 of our pay stations
some of them on street some of them in
the parking lots as well as the
flowboard app
so you can uh
really see that um
we have
a lot of experience on the island um and
and we're really excited to expand what
we have already in long beach
i'm going to hand it over just for a few
minutes to james um so he can give you
an overview of the gtechno company
well good evening everybody thank you
very much sean appreciate it james
olivieri i'm the senior solutions
advisor for g techno
i want to give everybody an overview of
a guess who we are uh we report to
harris computers who's owned by
constellation software
uh again you're dealing with a company
that's financially sound uh we fall
under the business unit
within harris within the public safety
sector uh we've been providing for the
last 20 plus years now integrated
e-citation
a lot of these other vendors that you
see listed here underneath harris of
course these are all
public safety cad and rms vendors we've
cross pollinate our application give
them additional tools tools and
functions
uh to be able to help
create that more robust offering
overall we're we have over 150 customers
now worldwide uh
profitable company of course we're
reached uh now that's old numbers there
it's uh 3.5 billion dollars
that the company's offered of course
over 150 other countries
uh employee base is around 15 000
and 140 000 customers um you'll note
that we report directly to buffalo new
york uh which is within uh our area that
we're proposing this solution to so um
we're pretty proud of of this structure
that we're bringing forward you can go
to the next slide uh
so i wanted to uh talk a little bit
about this slide and i don't know if
some of you already been to either
downtown dc or pittsburgh or minneapolis
yeah if you ever get a parking ticket
well that's our application that's
running there uh we're pretty proud
uh what we're putting together is a very
strong robust and proven solution
uh similar to the city of pittsburgh uh
that have uh flo bird uh both flo bird
and gtac that have been supporting
pittsburgh for over 20 plus years in
parking enforcement processing increase
improving their uh parking program uh
applying compliancy and improving
enforcement overall uh pittsburgh has
integrated vehicle lpr
the city is fully pay by plate as an
example uh pay by plate meters permits
everything's tied to the license plate
it's easy for residents non-residents to
come in and pay for their parking
the system is fully integrated
everything speaks to the g techno
enforcement application uh the goal that
we're bringing forward here is anybody
transitioning to this we understood
already cut our teeth 15 years ago in
implementing pay by plate all the
nuances behind that we've addressed it
so that the goal here is not to issue uh
tickets and error for whether it be
latency issues or miscommunication we
have software intelligence to help
address that
uh our experience of course uh digs deep
into the e-citation uh we help a lot of
cities uh you know address uh other
departments whether it be code or bylaw
or property enforcement uh whether it be
fair ticket issuance uh cities like uh
massachusetts uh within a transportation
industry uh you have mbta they do fair
ticket issuance and parking so
we understand that uh really well and
i'm looking forward to bringing that
program to the next level
uh next slide uh please oh okay go ahead
sean i think that's yours and then we'll
catch back up
yes so real quick um jerry touched on
the um the products and solutions that
we're going to deliver
just wanted to highlight some of those
for you
this evening
as jerry mentioned um
you know the the benefits of of bringing
an integrated parking system to long
beach
you know would be
you know a decrease in the traffic
congestion there um you know there's
many studies out there that talk about
people circling and circling circling
blocks for parking um you know the goal
is to try to open up some spaces in
front of the of the shops there
so people can easily find parking
and also drive more traffic to the
merchants you know the goal is to to get
people into those shops and restaurants
as quickly as possible
driving around looking for a parking
spot is not what we all want to be doing
with our time
obviously revenues generated from a
parking system
can be used to improve
the city we've had
you know clients like coopersdale new
york um implement paid parking and and
you know they use the uh the revenues
for various things but you know street
lights sidewalks those sort of things so
um parking revenues can really uh
benefit the city long term
and you know with the flow bird team and
the g tekna team here
you do get a very reliable customers
customer focused
vendor solution
we really strive to make sure that that
our customers are happy and and we have
a customer focus
as jerry had mentioned um
parking kiosks
the plan would be to implement parking
kiosks
in certain areas of the city
we provide a solar-powered parking kiosk
with a full-color touch display screen
it's really the most advanced parking
system on the market
and the most user-friendly um really
acts like a like a tablet or an iphone
on the street
um our proposal at the moment is based
on providing you with as many payment
options as you can so
um
coins bills and credit card acceptance
um there's also an extend by text option
so if you uh if you want you could pay
at the kiosk and then uh
make a text to extend your time if
there's still time left on your uh on
your parking stay
and
there's also a validation code option
which we can work with the merchants on
to
have them offer validations to their to
their customers and employees
we also have an integrated mobile
application
that's on the app store
many communities on long island have the
flowbird mobile app already such as
mineola rockville center brookhaven
east rockaway
so that the florida apps already
ingrained in
the long island community
um it allows people to skip the kiosk
altogether if they don't want to pay at
the kiosk they could just pay by their
phone
you do get nice reminders to let you
know that time is about to expire
and you can extend that payment right
from your phone up to the maximum time
limit
there's also a find my car feature in
case you're uh you know you kind of
forget where you parked um the phone
will will help you out with that
um jerry had also mentioned the
e-permits
which is really becoming more popular as
cities try to move away from stickers
and hang tags
the goal is to make everything digital
and buy and based on the license plate
one nice thing about the permit system
is once somebody purchases a permit is
activated right away
there's no delay in waiting for a permit
to be mailed to you
you are you're good to go right away you
can have multiple
vehicles on your on your permit system
um
and you can make payments online so no
need to go into an office to buy a
permit or or make a payment
i'll let james uh talk a little bit
about the enforcement solution here
sure thanks a lot sean
so uh in our proposal to the city
uh we put together a proven uh platform
of hardware and software
on the left hand side the officers uh of
course would eliminate the manual
tickets move towards a more
electronic-based ticketing system
uh the application would reside on an
android device
shown here of course it's a connected
bluetooth uh to the printer um
of course
also on the right hand side is
integrated vehicle lpr with software
both systems um have been proven uh
they're very transparent communicate
amongst both so i'll give you an example
people pay of course at the meters or
through uh permits
vehicle lpr can monitor and track
compliancy up and down the main road
uh any violators uh it would pop up
saying unpaid license plate and at that
point the officers can then populate the
the basic information uh location
violation vehicle information and issued
a citation to that vehicle
and at that point all that is in real
time it's stored on the command center
where city staff will be able to see
that
at the same time those that information
is displayed uh in real time on a web
portal where
customers can go on and and pay for that
so there's a little more description in
the next slide
so uh
this is a another added functionality as
part of the back office
is accountability and tracking your
assets in real time uh it's officer
safety it's awareness so the back office
tracks a lot of data
with that it's uh whether it be
operational data
whether it be uh financial data all that
is stored but not only that but the heat
map and activity function
allows uh system administrators to
monitor uh where their officers are in
any given moment uh track their assets
as they're moving if you lose a device
for example you'd be able to locate it
through gps
but it allows a high level overview of
how your operations are working
day-to-day
the gap report is to be able to see you
know what your officers are doing are
they accountable uh have they been idle
for x amount of time the goal here is to
be you know you've invested uh quite a
bit in this program and we're giving you
and bringing you forward some tools to
be able to manage and monitor your
operations uh life
this next slide here is
i know everybody in long beach all the
residents pay for their parking it's
non-residents that don't pay
we a lot of
challenges came with coven right so
not everybody's allowed to get go to
city hall so our self-serve customer
portal
has improved in the last year uh we're
adding more information uh more relevant
data on the ticket on the ticket portal
to give you an example when customers
want to pay their ticket they'll go on
the city website it'll direct them to a
portal where they are able to enter
their
license plate number ticket number and
it will prompt them directly to this
type of page
within the page uh customers will be
able to see all the photos that were
taken all the evidence of the citation a
copy of the ticket a gps
address of where the ticket was issued
as well as the ability to pay one or
multiple citations
once that that's done it closes the loop
those that don't pay
uh of course there's late notices that
go out and when it reaches a delinquent
stage at that point it's exported to
collections and that's where the
collections agency would uh make proper
calls to see and pull in the revenue
that's owed to the city
so this allows uh
customers to be able to pay even go as
far as appeal
so no more paper-based appealing uh
mailing in uh either tickets or appeal
letters everything can now be done
online more efficiently and customer
friendly
thanks james and to round out the system
as jerry mentioned the data is really
important
so
what we provide as a team is a is a
web-based
hosted system for the city of long beach
um where
your your team would have access 24 7 to
all reports that are related to the
system transactions um alarms on the pay
stations um all the information about
the enforcement um that's all there for
you um now we
are uh going to be operating the system
um so this isn't something you're going
to have to be doing on a day-to-day
basis
but obviously the data will be there
if you're interested in it
and just to kind of round out the kind
of the flow of how everything works
and
just to give you some assurances here
all the everything that happens with the
system is is in real time um so all the
pay stations all the the app
transactions and all the permits are
pushed in real time
to our servers and then pushed out to
the enforcement officers
so the data's flowing real-time based on
the license plates and as we mentioned
before this system is already in place
in many communities around the country
um it is tested and working so
we don't have any concerns about the
reliability of the system
i'll touch on operations and maintenance
real quick um
you know flo bird will be responsible
for all the maintenance um and the
operations of the system and the
customer support i'm not going to go
into all the bullets here but um you
know we we understand that this is a
critical program for you you all and you
know the the most important thing is
going to be stakeholder engagement um
talking to the merchants um talking to
the community
getting their feedback on a regular
basis um and and reviewing the program
on a monthly basis
we'll have dedicated technician support
in long beach
so that we can make sure that the
equipment is is always operational
and
the
we have our 24 7 call center
which will take end user support calls
for for pay station operations as well
as the mobile app and permit questions
and then lastly just wanted to touch on
public awareness
i mentioned you know talking to key
stakeholders but but we do have a plan
uh a larger plan for public awareness
that includes
um you know kind of creating a campaign
um
press releases make sure that that the
media is aware of the program um well
before we we start
um and obviously a signage package so
that everybody's aware of
how to pay and where to pay
on-site ambassadors is important for us
um so we'll have an on-site ambassador
team um
during the launch
talking to merchants talking to
parkers making sure they're comfortable
with the with the program
um we
typically encourage what we call a soft
enforcement at the beginning
um
and uh that way people get used to
paying um without uh without
fearing the the parking tickets
um social media is very important
monitoring social media is very
important we want to get the feedback
from the community and make adjustments
uh where we need to
and then after the launch you know
obviously we'll still be there operating
the system
um still continuously monitoring social
media and news
um getting to a normal enforcement
situation um
and continuing to survey the local
merchants
um so with that i'm going to hand back
to john and um you know we're free to
answer any of your questions as well
so so there's your high level overview
i know i know that was
actually quite a bit to digest um but
you know at this stage of the game we
would open the floor to the council to
ask any questions that they might have
of
anybody that's presented tonight um we
also have the full bevy of
uh
city employees here to answer any
questions from our side of things um but
this is this is the opportunity to start
to ask questions and start to give us
direction on where we want to go with
this
great thank you john for that and thank
you everyone for your presentations we
really appreciate your time
and all already your dedication to long
beach
um
obviously this there's a lot to discuss
and to discuss and a lot to digest i
mean i remember hearing about level
level three i think level g
ten years ago
so um this is something that's been in
the works for a long time and um i'm not
surprised that you know it's this
council in the past that uh this is
these administrations that have really
got to the heart of the issue so with
that i'd like to sort of structure the
next part of the discussion because
again there's so many so many questions
and so much information to digest so
first i'd like to start with the key
stakeholders from the city city city
management
to provide their insights because i
think they are going to have a lot of
answers to the questions that the
council will have
after that i'd like to hear you know
from the council
ask their questions and focus on the
operational issues of the of the systems
that are involved and finally we'll save
that i'd like to save the best for last
and that's the cost and the financing
okay so um with that i'd like to hand it
over to our key stakeholders in city
leadership
um ron you want to take this donna do
you want to take a stab first and then
pass it on what i wanted to say is um i
want both ron and john and dave frazier
um to talk
um because they have been with the
project and they bring me in when
necessary
and we talk timelines and
i ask questions and then they go back so
ron john
dave you can start off
yeah i mean i
i would actually ask commissioner walsh
to back clean up on this because because
i think he's got the most
most
recent sort of substance i mean i i i
said my piece uh i think early on in
in queueing this up this this has been
a long time coming the the city is in
a position where
you know this is a unique revenue stream
that is not just a tax on residence this
is a user fee uh this will benefit
you know it may be counter-intuitive for
some
but this is something that actually
benefits when done well and we we
believe we have the team in place to do
it while
this benefits the scent that the
businesses in our central business
district and actually
attracts
economic development um and attracts new
businesses and and brings people into
our community
so
i mean you heard most of my perspective
on the rationale why this is for this is
recommended from kind of the highest
authorities at the state our own
financial consultants
uh the state backed it up with the help
of senator kaminsky and others with you
know a half million dollar grant to help
pay for the upfront cost of this so
uh
while while we're understanding that
this is
a dramatic change for our for our
residents and how the city has functions
um
you know this becomes an imperative i i
think to
continue to to grow the city's finances
in ways that
are not just an additional tax crease
increase on our residents um and i think
the funding streams that that it creates
allow us to
explore other ways of whether it's
you know creating increased mass transit
options biking options and bike lanes
and dedicated facilities for that
acquiring assets for for other fixed
parking structures or construction of
of structured parking multi-tiered
construction
um
you know it it a revenue stream like
this
doesn't just address what's happening
there but allows us to explore
and address some of the other challenges
happening throughout the city so
you know my my preamble to this whole
meeting was basically my take on it
um you know if if mr frazier has
anything else he would like to add
because his engagement with this dates
back over a decade
um but then obviously commissioner walsh
has a whole lot to say and
i think a very informed and unique
perspective on this and he's been
very ingrained in this process to date
so i've i've no doubt his comments would
be enlightening as well
dave do you have anything to add
i'm i'm just glad to see this come back
around and see that we we're moving
forward with this
um it's been
you know this is probably our third or
fourth go around on the central business
district trying to get meters put in
um this is something we've seen uh you
know most of the other communities on
long island and you know and around
around the country they have this type
of you know these type of meters in
place in their downtowns
um and they've been um you know uh good
for those for those locate locales
um i'm just very happy to see that we're
we're moving forward and that we will
finally be able to get this hopefully
get this uh
get this going
okay thank you dave i really appreciate
all your work on this over the years um
commissioner walsh i know you could
speak for about two or three hours on
this but you know let's try to try to
keep it smart
let's go for 10 or 15 minutes okay
donna tell you to say that i know
uh actually uh i'll tell you i would
have sent you a text
um
i i i could talk for a while but really
what i want to focus in on is the
advancement to the city in general uh
uh that this is going to bring
um
technologically right now what this is
going to do for the city with regard to
the
police department and our enforcement
efforts it brings everything all
together right now we have a very
disjointed uh parking management and
summons uh system uh the the the actual
vendor that we use right now um
their information is dated it's very
difficult to get a good scaffold or
information it's very difficult to get
uh the amount of collections that we
actually have in the city all that has
been a really beautifully demonstrated
by uh flo bird and g techno specifically
on how they're actually going to be able
to
take our information and data and bring
it to such a way that it's usable to us
so that you know we're not uh you
everybody notices the boots around town
right so pragmatically we don't want to
boot a car that doesn't deserve to be
booted so
this brings us to a level where we the
the the the error margin gets dragged
dramatically reduced
um
they talk about lprs for those who don't
understand what an lpr is that's a
license plate reader this system is
based on
our police officers our
specials driving through the lots and
reading license plates and when you go
into the lot and you put your license
plate in when your plate expires meaning
when your time expires a notification is
automatically generated that people have
over time have been overtime parking so
we'll be able to target our enforcement
efforts but beyond all that the
technological advancement prepares us
for the next iterations for the city for
the parking management plan it's
scalable it's adjustable this particular
uh plan uh the the licensed place
readers on our cars is going to enhance
in general are our
crime fighting ability in the city
um things that people don't don't think
about uh the licensed place readers when
they capture the license plates if
somebody commits a crime throughout the
city we'll now be able to see where
they've been if any of our cars are
closed by a car that's been in the area
the data that we get is going to be able
to give us the ability to fight crime on
a whole new level not something that
you usually focus on with a parking
program but when i started to raise
these questions and i brought them up to
james oliveira from gtechna
and started to talk about the ways we
could use the things to protect the
citizens of the city from crime was was
dramatic like i think even i think i
even brought some things to jim's
attention
that that he didn't expect to be able to
hear the way we could use this but
beyond all that
um
when we were really very careful when we
discussed the program as a group with
flo bird with utechnal with john and the
team
to try and think of everything that
needed to be considered for the city so
how do we let the people in town rec you
know feel as if they're not being abused
by the fees right and
it's responsible how do we
get the turnover in the middle of the
city
to
drive
economic development
a lot of our store owners don't even
recognize this the the parking spots in
front of their stores are generally
worth about 350 000 in revenue every
single year to their stores and they
park in them
so when you start to change the behavior
of people giving them spots to park in
but leaving those spots in front of the
stores to be subject to the turnover
that the city would like to see
for to just start to revenue generate
these are the types of things that
really start to change the culture and
will help revitalize long beach even
that much further um
there's um the the
even even to the point where jerry the
our consultant is you know giving people
the first 10 minutes free you still got
to go over to the meter
you still got to put your license plate
in but if you know you're running in and
running out you're registered you get
your first 10 minutes free you get your
car and you leave that's what we really
want to focus on the turnover of the
spots getting people to change the way
they treat their parking in the parking
situation and the center of town and
eventually the whole city so i mean if
there's specific questions that you have
as a council i'll be more than happy to
address the considerations that i
brought to bear on it that we discussed
um i have to say that my confidence in
flow bird and g techno as their partner
was um was magnified after our
discussions
the scalability of the system is
something that you know we're starting
out with 36 i believe of these parking
meters as we we talked about it if the
meters aren't being used we can scale
down the number of meters we use and we
can utilize them in the next phase
of our parking management program for
the city if they if we choose never to
go any further we can sell that
equipment because the equipment doesn't
change that much it's software-based the
hardware doesn't change so much the
software we we talked about making sure
that all of the software is always the
most current we don't you don't have to
go to the kiosk to upgrade your system
it's all done electronically if we're
seeing things from our side where we're
having problems with meetings everything
is matter
is managed by the uh by the company so
the one thing i do want to say is the
city
doesn't have to become the expert
in managing
the equipment and the software
the city logistically handles the
enforcement the fines and the and the
management
of what the spaces are how long we want
people to park in spaces other than that
everything's over to the company and we
have experts able to deal with that if
we choose to change that after the
five-year term we can hire experts to do
it or another company but i mean
generally speaking when you have
something that works and it's not broken
don't try and fix it you know so i was
very impressed with it with with their
uh their competency in the space i was
impressed with their ability to address
all of the technological concerns that i
had dr making sure that we were able to
integrate all of our systems very
importantly so someone might say why do
we need 40 of these handheld units
well guess what all of our specials on
our boardwalk now
can have one of these units and they can
do city codes in there and they can do
parking violations
no more walking around with a bed and
you give one to every two they walk
around they can do that anywhere in the
city to do these things it doesn't have
to be a parking meter to utilize
the summons ability for these handhelds
and that's gonna that's gonna reduce
costs on a lot of different areas not
only in just the printing of our
summonses but the the the ability to
deal with a summons automatically right
now before we we get rid of our current
vendor we're going to probably look for
an amnesty program to have outstanding
is mailing your fines and you'll be
forgiven so that we clean up as much as
we can before we switch over
with this system it's automatic after 30
days they start so they tell you
you're fine you didn't come to court
they'll send out a mailer if that
doesn't work another 30 days your fine
is now going to be this and they start
and they'll put you in collections
automatically
instead of us having to trigger an
automatic collections things now you go
into collections and then there's you
know it's a feedback structure that you
know it's they get their their their
their amount that they charge as a
service fee and this city gets a much
higher
revenue generations from the summonses
that we've been issuing so
that is a quick overview from my
perspective and the way i looked at it
um i have
it's all up here so anything you want to
ask me i'll be more than happy to uh to
address your questions how'd i do donna
great
but before i hand it over to to the
council can you just speak about what uh
the stat staff can speak about
why you chose the cadillac version
of
systems in the rfp
and then what uh municipalities on long
island did you talk to um in doing your
analysis
are you talking to me specifically you
want to talk to jerry about that or this
you know i'd like to hear from the staff
you know because they really you guys
did the rfp yeah i don't i don't know
that we chose the the cadillac version
per se
we
we in in our ongoing discussions on a
staff level are trying to look at what
what position is the city in
and what would work for the city
so we we recognized up front
you know a major capital investment
uh in order to get longer term gains
might not be the right fit for us
but we also know that you know if you're
just if you're just installing
these kiosks through town and you're not
looking forward to the future of
should this be app-based
i mean and really quite frankly part of
our discussions where should this be
only app-based um but we we we dialed
that back to include
at this stage of the game more kiosks
than we had originally proposed
because we feel that that's the more
equitable way to go about it in this
more pragmatic way to go about it um
because we can't expect everybody to
have a smartphone at this day and age
you know there's there's higher
saturation of that
um
but where we really ended up
is you know what we felt would work for
for our residents we wanted we did not
want to be punitive
towards our residents we did not want to
adversely impact
the flow of business in our central
business district we didn't want to you
know
slow down economic development
um and we put
you know it was up on the website and we
can provide attending the council we put
forward a very detailed
very intricate very complex
request for proposal that we thought
would work for our city
let me uh let me say one quick thing
there
when you say like the cadillac of things
this system there are ways to greatly
enhance this from where we are even like
there are ways where your license plates
gets read every time you pull into a lot
and it tells you right away if that card
doesn't leave the the lot within 10
minutes
an alert goes you got a car on this lot
that never left because the plate wasn't
red on the way
yeah we chose not to go that far with it
i mean each one of those license plates
really can be very expensive we can
always do that later what we did choose
for this is is to have people because
the people aren't just going to be doing
the center part of town and we expanded
the hours right we went from nine in the
morning to 11 o'clock at night that
generates revenue but now we have to
have people to enforce it until 11
o'clock at night right so it's it kind
of goes hand in hand i mean the cadillac
system uh if you want to talk about
you we could dramatically enhance this
to triple the price if you wanted to but
it was really considered what is the
best fit for the culture we're trying to
create as we understand it in long beach
to create the responsibility and the
responsible use of the spots to drive
revenue generation into our stores to
create the turnover because you can sit
in genos for four hours and you're still
only going to eat one meal or you can
sit in gino's for 45 minutes get out and
somebody else comes in you know just
using that as an example so i think that
we came up with a good balance but of
course the council will have its own
opinion as to what direction the council
feels the city should go
we also looked at technology and and
that the technology can be used in the
future we didn't want to get into the
part where we're looking at technology
what is good for today because we know
technology changes
rapidly and so
one of the ways and
what i will say is that this
this conversation that we've been having
about this with the staff and the vendor
and uh with jerry has been going on for
months because we have said well what
about this let's take consideration of
this um so this
by far this is not the cadillac version
but we came up with the best version we
thought that would work for the city
okay well since we've been at this an
hour and 15 minutes i'd like my
colleagues to start
asking their questions if someone could
uh on the council could start with their
series of questions please
anybody
i'm karen did you say i'm i'm happy to
but i thought i heard you say in the
beginning that we're doing the financial
pieces at the end do you is that the
case or if you think the structure of
the conversation to you know
minor financial so i'll i'll
oh wait
any uh liz john roy mine are financial
too i think the financial is the big
aspect here i i don't you know i'll wait
till after the financial part
operational part john do you have any
operational questions i do
thank you jeff um
would you you would have been surprised
if i didn't
exactly
um
i was wondering uh i guess
jerry this might be for you could you
just discuss
a little bit that uh inaugural pay zone
inventory
that you uh showed us
can you just uh talk a little bit about
what that's based on how you came up
with that uh uh
division of spaces
sure um oh over the
over the past
over the past few years we've been um
we've been conducting occupancy counts
uh in these 350 spaces to see
what the parking patterns were
so as a result of those observations
we were able to get estimates of
how many of those cars were employees
how many were visitors how many were
commuters and so forth and we were able
to categorize uh you know based on those
observations
and
and and the the inaugural
time limits that we established were as
a result of those observations
now um
you know i will say that i've been
involved with
parking systems all over the country
the best ones are always tinkering with
that you might add a few
uh two-hour spaces if you don't have
enough you might yeah
i will tell you that we are not going to
get it perfect on
you know on the first uh roll out
but um
but with this system that we have we can
monitor all the functions and we can
make adjustments along the way and tweak
it until we get it just right
okay thanks
um so
obviously anybody that lives in long
beach knows we have
a fair number of businesses where people
kind of run in and out
um so
the hallmark of driving down park avenue
was having to go around all the double
parked cars in the central business
district
uh nice to hear that this first free 10
minutes may alleviate some of that
because people then could actually park
get 10 minutes running pick up their
pizza or their dry cleaning
and um
and run out but
let's say
ron brought up a point somebody runs
into a store for 45 minutes you run into
cvs for 30 minutes
does the system allow to uh to purchase
in in partial hour increments or less
than hour increments or do you have to
purchase an hour increments
my recommendation was that
uh if if for example it's um
uh it's two dollars an hour
um that you know you could get you can
get 15 minutes for uh for 50 cents
or seven and a half minutes for a
quarter
okay so they do have the there will be
the ability if they think they're going
to be in a store for 30 minutes
to get 30 minutes that's correct okay or
at least the system has capacity for
that mr bender
okay mr bendo oh you're getting formal
councilman
john that would be like
uh the other thing too i i guess i i
didn't hear address it's not necessarily
a part of a pay system but it is part of
a parking management system
is uh deliveries
we get a lot of stores along there they
get deliveries we don't have dedicated
um
delivery zones loading unloading zones
uh in the central business district so
again we have lots of delivery trucks
double parking
was there any thought given to
allocating space for delivery vehicles
so again they're not
a blocking parking spots when they're
double parked
and then also you know impacting the
flow of traffic
delivery i think is something that we
still
need to work on you know the the initial
focus of this is
you want to go get a slice of pizza at
geno's
you know i i it's 23-year resident of
the city i don't know how many times
i've passed on a slice of gino's because
it's impossible to get a parking spot
there um and traveled around so i you
know i think on this initial pass what
we're looking to do
is try and get that turnover
i i think it's going to take a little
bit more of an extensive study to figure
out how we you know so
the quicker turnover of the curbside
parking should help alleviate
a very large chunk of the double parking
that takes place
the delivery component um commissioner
walsh appears to have some thoughts on
it but that's going to take a little bit
more generalize the behavior of people
with the double parking of trucks when
you don't have spots for people to pull
in right with these with these trucks
and stuff like that they'll double park
now double parking in a three lane area
is actually permissible for
uh for commercial vehicles that are
actively loading and unloading in in
commercial zones unless it's strictly
prohibited by
an ordinance or or uh a law right in the
case that's happening in front of in
front of all these stores right now uh
councilman bendo is that
there's no turnover of those spaces at
least a lot of them state park for
longer periods of time so as you start
to drive uh people to pull in and out of
those spaces there'll be more
opportunity one for the trucks or the
delivery vehicles to pull in but
secondly
this is going to be enforcement
intensive the the success of this
program and the success of how this is
going to work is
almost wholly dependent upon the police
department ensuring that people are
paying the meters and that includes the
entire central business business
district area so
those cars that we're buying and those
specials that we're hiring that's going
to be their post just to be driving up
and down this area
they'll be moving double park cars alone
or they'll get a ticket
if there's a spot just up the block for
a truck to be parked in and he just
didn't want to walk six uh you know six
or three stores away
he'll be told parking the spot or you'll
get a ticket
so it changes the
behavior in the manner in which people
are used to double and sometimes triple
parking in front of that area which
we've all seen
right now it's it's
you know we focus in on it but the
the double parking takes place as we
know in the summertime way too often but
the the focus of the special enforcement
officers that are going to be in this
area will be in the central business
district to ensure that people are using
the spots and ensure that there's no
double parking that's going to be part
of this whole enforcement effort
changing the way people behave in that
area
okay i guess i would just suggest
thinking about the delivery component of
it because if these trucks are if the
goal is to turn over spots
if these trucks are blocking four spots
for 30 minutes while they're unloading
and or loading
you just took revenue
you know
out of the system
um
so
i think we need to
to think about that because
there's a lot of deliveries that happen
on park avenue we see it every day
so i know the part of the consideration
that jerry had when he was doing the
analysis of the spots is
he went with what was existing zones
already there are some loading zones and
unloading zones and then there's certain
restrictions the the consideration is
that the council would like to see uh
areas uh of loading zones to be
considered i'm sure sherry can come up
with some suggested area areas based
upon the actual traffic patterns that
take place to suggest use that but
remember when you make it the loading
zone you take it away from the inventory
for people to park in
so it's a give-and-take
yeah but we're trying to consider
absolutely could be done
um
and then i guess the last thing
non-financial um the
permits uh for the train station
uh could those be also uh
put in through this system purchased
through the system
they are they actually are going to be
everything is going to be going to plate
based systems so uh your plate will be
registered as a uh uh uh someone who
uses that and that's gonna be something
that would be working with dave frazier
so there'll be no more
uh uh of the physical permit anymore
you'll go in you'll have your you'll get
your permit you'll get the ability to do
it it gets entered in the system your
plates in and then you just put your
plate and you're automatically allowed
when you're in that yard you know that
your that parking structure it'll work
that way so that it automatically gets
billed as being in the parking garage
all right and sorry i did have one more
so i actually i have the flo bird
application on my phone
um now i know sometimes
when you've used it you have to put in a
space number you know where you parked
so does that now mean we're going to
have to create numbered parking spots no
or
the way it actually works here and i'm
probably biking off you're a little bit
of your thunder here jerry but they're
uh they're mobile
application mobile zones so you look at
the sign that we apart from you just put
in the zone that you're in that
automatically ties to the spaces that
are allocated to that zone and the
amount of time that you're allowed to
park there and when you put that into
the app it'll pop up with the maximum
amount of time that you're allowed to
purchase based upon the zone that you're
in okay
hey
um liz do you have any operational
questions
no my my concern of course is a public
outreach
which has been addressed so
you know liz it's funny that you said
that we actually um
i asked them about that about the
communications component and they uh flo
bird actually has when he was talking
about those ambassadors he mentioned
part of the ambassadors they actually
have a team of people that come into the
town with communications pamphleting and
they go into every single store and they
tell every single store owner what the
program is how it's going to work
explaining it to them and even work with
the public as they're out there to
create
that understanding before it gets
implemented and uh like he said you
always start out with something so if
you don't start out on day one hammering
people with tickets you start on
educating the public over time so that
after a month or so of them starting to
understand that hey you're gonna have to
pay for parking now and then you start
easing your way into enforcement over a
period of time so that i'm not sure what
their uh what their normal uh phase in
is but i'm sure it's between one and
three months that they by the time the
end of the period it's more strict
enforcement of not paying your summonses
i'm not sure exactly though i'd have to
ask flo bird for their recommendations
and for what they actually see in
cities of similar size and demographics
as to what we're dealing with
great
i have a couple of operational
questions that came up now
it's all plate-based if you let's say
your car is being repaired at the dealer
and you get a loan a car is there a way
to switch your plate for the time being
um i'm i'm not sure the answer that i'm
sure it could be built into the system
if we wanted to because it's like i said
it's a software program so if there's a
temporary plate for your particular car
so it when you say plate base if you're
an in-town resident and your car is
uh
needing to fix i'm sure there's a way
that we can if you went upstairs to the
uh to the uh
clerk's office and you said look my
permit is normally this this is where i
live i have a rented car i'm going to
have it for three weeks i'm sure there's
a way we can temporarily give a a a a a
permit for a short period of time for
that it wouldn't matter if you don't
live in town because yeah as long as
cars are played
yeah no no if
it's something that can be done that's a
great consideration though it's not
something that came up in discussion but
i'm positive because it's it's so based
that we'd be able to do that and ron um
this is jason from g-tech now what i'd
like to say here
is you could actually have a
configuration
potentially where you could associate
multiple plates to a permit and only one
could park in a zone at any given time
or would generate a shared permit
violation so that could be a solution
well
you never know if you're lucky enough to
get a loan a car you don't know what it
is
i've yet to get one but uh the other
question is you had said that double
parking is permitted
when you're unloading in
uh a three-lane street
and then you said that uh
however if you saw a place down there
the road that the truck could go into
you would tell the truck to move or you
would get give them ticket
what
would be the basis for the ticket if
it's permitted
so everything's written in the video i
didn't i don't have that particular
section memorized but after studying so
many tests over my whole life there is a
certain number of feet that if there's
an open parking space within a certain
number of feet of where you are double
parked and you're doing an active
delivery you must pull into that space
all right
thanks yeah yeah you don't remember
yeah
all right i used to have it memorized
not anymore so
i still have a bunch of it up there
all right anything else roy
nope
okay i just have a few a few quick
questions
um
i would just like to
make sure or state now
that you know i do have some concern
about the public employee parking and uh
the formation of an illicit market
for those spots
so um i think enforcement is going to be
key and like you know that is equitable
that you know how and that the pub the
policy for employee parking we actually
published on the website and that ought
to be communicated to all businesses in
maybe multiple formats it actually goes
even deeper than that each uh each
particular business will get a visit
from the vendor they'll explain the
rules to them that that we've set up and
you know the number of employees now an
employee could get a employee parking
but
when it's going to be up to the there's
only going to be a certain number of
permits that each particular business
going to allow to have to encourage them
that you know hey look you know if an
employee leaves you've got to let us
know because somebody else's plate is
going to be able to use the employee
parking
so their plate gets registered so if if
i work now at starbucks and starbucks
wants to park here then my plate gets
registered to starbucks as an employee
for as long as i work there when i no
longer work there it behooves starbucks
to get my plate off
and the new employees played on so that
they can also get the benefit of the
reduced parking and a closer spot
it's tough when you're managing staff
with different dedication levels of
employment
you know so something to keep an eye on
um so this is like i think a twofold
question um you touched upon it earlier
on
where
it seems that the plate information is
integrated into other systems within the
city so that so my first question is is
there a privacy issue that um someone
can talk about
no there's no uh you have no right to
privacy of your license plate
information or data when you register
your car your car is it's open in public
place so i mean i couldn't uh to the
point where even if i was flying an
airplane and had an lpr and it was on
your private property i'd still be able
to uh still be able to take your plate
information uh that be huh i'm sorry
okay go ahead i'm sorry yeah that being
said any place you go in public where
your plate is red it's considered public
information
okay so if you take that a step further
can you use that information to
determine whether or not um a person
with a long beach um
a license plate registered in long beach
uh is uh renting a leak in a legal
apartment
so it's very interesting that you say
that
uh with the lpr data and the your
creativity
in your mind is is the limits of the
program so long as you have the people
to call through the data and understand
it so as the long beach police officers
are driving around with their cars with
the lprs on them reading plates you can
get plate data and if you notice that a
particular plate is always on a
particular block but it's not registered
to anybody on that block the building
department might want to use that data
to say well let's try and figure out why
this particular car is parked on a
particular block every single night
between 11 o'clock at night at 8 o'clock
in the morning that could be done and
it's legal
okay so right now there's just it's kind
of a disparate system but it depends on
the on the collaboration and the
communication between the departments to
get to that right so you'd be talking at
that particular point in time that
somebody would actually be complaining
that there's a illegal illegal apartment
someplace and then the investigation
with the building department could be
enhanced by the data that you have in
the lpr okay
my final question is uh
ron would you need additional servers
in order to make this work no everything
is cloud-based here okay it's all over
the cloud and it's all managed by
g-technet at this point and we have
access from on the on the back end to a
dashboard to be able to manage some
things and as you need more data we can
we can always purchase more data and i'm
watching g technical shake his head like
everyone's paying attention
so
with that i think we'll move to the you
know the the
the big big part uh the highlight of his
finances we'll start with tina
i just want to say one other thing about
lprs
what you don't know right now is that
almost every tow company in nassau and
new york city and long island has lpr
readers on their car and on their trucks
and as they're driving down the streets
they're collecting all this data already
so your license plate and where you've
been is read
continuously all day long and a pattern
like if you go missing that's how we
find missing people now we can we just
track their plates so we track their
phones we track
their uses of their their information so
if the world is actually becoming you
know it was in 1984 in
2022. so i i don't want to think about
that right now
also ron we don't necessarily have to
keep the data indefinitely we have purge
tasks that can be configured based on
how long the city wants to keep some of
this stuff so keep in mind karen we're
not just necessarily going to keep it
indefinitely unless ron wants to and he
has every right to if if he wants to but
we can purge that at a you know monthly
basis
bi-weekly basis whatever it may be yeah
it's all archived data that gets put
away in cases but you would want to know
that if we found out that there was a
murder that took place in an apartment
and nobody found out for six months well
the first place we're going used to the
lpr data and starting to investigate
who's in the area at the time that that
took place it would have been very
useful over the summer uh for the um
for the sunset parties extremely useful
having all this data because we've been
able to narrow her down very quickly who
uh who did that shots fired
for instance so okay we're we're at an
hour and a half right now so we'll we'll
close it with the uh with the finances
so tina you want to take over
uh sure yes i i want to uh echo what
folks have said karen and others to
thank you all for
um a very thorough presentation of this
very important project
to our city so so thank you for that
this evening
um mainly
i don't know who is the best to answer
this if it's gerard or or james i don't
know um or perhaps you know
others
is there a revenue projection based on
some of the other comparable cities that
you have a calculation for that we might
be able to expect i would i would
actually pitch this one to ina i think
for the moment because she's been she's
been dealing with a lot of those models
hi good evening um
hi
um so i i um
have to say though i i hate to
disappoint you all
but finances are actually not going to
be included in this presentation
because um for actually two reasons one
it's uh rather complicated
involved and it um needs its own meeting
and uh two i'm still having some of my
questions unanswered so
um i wouldn't want to share with you
something that's not fully that it's
by me
um still doing my due diligence
i can talk a little bit conceptually
about the revenues and expenses of the
program
and um point where where my questions
are
um if that's
what what everybody wants to hear but uh
basically we're going to be presenting
finances of the project um in a separate
meeting
okay um i think it would be helpful if
you had the conceptual at least
you know in the moment and then we could
get more thorough
so before you start you know would you
one of the things um we want everyone to
know is that the finances were set up
one way when we originally did the rfp
and then later frb came back and said
we're going to finance
uh finance uh give you money and under
the money was this project and so we've
gone back and asked for different models
so she can give you
her conceptual but we're still working
through that because we know now we have
money coming from elsewhere that can
help us
offset some of the cost so go ahead
sure
um so on the revenue side uh basically
it's a pretty um i know that a table and
once we're doing a financial
presentation it's obviously going to be
accompanied by slides
uh but on the revenue side if you guys
can imagine the formula for the revenue
is pretty straightforward
um it's the number of spaces that we
have available for the program
times the number of hours that each of
one of the spaces um
that we will charge for each one of the
spaces like from nine o'clock in the
morning to eleven o'clock at nine uh
times the assumption of the percentage
of usage right
so will there be a hundred percent
demand or will there be an eighty
percent demand and that's something that
i personally am still reviewing that's
something that i'm working with jerry on
these are the models that he
uh prepared uh based on his extensive
experience in the industry
um and then that one once you get a
product of those three things you
multiply it by what will decide to
charge it per hour right
so that and that's how you arrive at the
total revenue from the parking another
component of the revenue is enforcement
how much we think people are not going
to pay parking and how much we'll be
able to collect
uh through the enforcement so um that
that that would be a gross revenue
on a very simple basic uh level in terms
of the course there are several
components of the course and like donna
said when we were doing an rfp we were
um
asking for um
first
for one um approach
and then um between the time that uh we
issued an rfp and got a proposal uh we
got a grant from frb in november and um
we are um
exploring
and we asked uh jerry to
um
to relate it to uh the vendor that we
actually want to know what it would cost
if we were to
um
go ahead with our own financing
so on the course side it's um
if we were to
use the current proposal the city only
has
um
an expanse of
hiring four
specials
alongside with their fringe benefits
and um
basically for the most part that's it
um however obviously there are other
components of this if we are to um
untangle the with the way that it's uh
proposed right now there is a software
request a hardware quest there is a
maintenance cost
so so um that that's something that
we're still looking for to review those
components so we can make uneducated um
and best decision for the city um one
once we have that information i don't
have this information at this point so
um hopefully we will get it soon and
once that's done we'll have another
meeting with you where we'll be
presenting that
um
in a very very great detail because
that's very um obviously very important
project that's um
not only going to improve on a quality
of life for the city of long beach and
for the visitors to our
central business and to their drivers
through the business
through the central business and through
the park avenue but will also allow us
to recoup
millions of dollars that the city um
spends on the road maintenance that city
borrowed and pays in the debt service on
the road maintenance um on
our operating quest of uh the street
maintenance from um
every operating um
budget so that's something that um i'm
actually very much looking forward to
um
it is important for everybody to know
we're looking at three different
potential ways of doing this one is the
least to buy
one is the vendor finances everything
and then they take a portion of the
revenue until it's paid for and the
third option is that we pay for it
outright
and so that's really
looking at all of that and then looking
at the user's fees and what we can use
the revenue for
that is why we just need one meeting and
hopefully it will be extremely soon just
on the financing of this whole project
thank you that was the brunt of my
questions centered around cost and
revenue so i will wait
uh roy did you want to um get your
questions in no at this at this point
i i know nothing as far as the cost
you know i except ina said
we could bring in potentially millions
of dollars to repair the roads and stuff
like that
um
you know anybody's happy to hear
millions of dollars the question is
you know how realistic is that
so you know the best thing to do is just
wait
okay okay thanks ray um john did you
have any questions or insights um in
preparation for the next presentation
uh
possibly so
we talked about the three potential
models you know
revenue sharing you know lease to own or
just buy outright but
in addition to that there is the
management
all the backside management of the
system
that's going on the tracking of
everything
uh there's obviously
how is that the
the the
the models structured
for
um
for the vendor
to make their revenue in other words is
it a flat fee
for the management of the system do you
take a share of the parking revenue
um
that's what we're looking that's what
we're going to be looking at so that's
still uh yeah yeah because we don't have
those numbers
so that is something that we have to
look at and then and i understand what
you're saying
we are that that's why we have three
different models and what goes into each
model
okay
yeah all right so i will i guess we'll
get that at the financial meeting
liz did you have any any comments no i
just want to thank everyone for their
their great work from the you know mr
mcnally please relay
um my gratitude to the staff i know that
you've been working on this for
quite a while
and i just want to acknowledge
uh former councilman mike delorey for
pushing us to get this done
thank you
and and karen
i'd like to thank i'd like to thank
donna for putting this proposal up on
the website before the the meeting so
people could follow along with it and
actually you know announcing what the
the uh issue was that we were going to
discuss tonight i think it's a great
step forward and i think a lot of people
appreciate it thank you donna
thank you roy and we're we're we're
taking this and trying to do our best to
make sure that we get the public
notified of what we're doing in a more
timely fashion fashion so i will make
sure i take that back to the team
okay
i just had a few financial comments in
closing
although it was mentioned that you know
the funds
funds from this proposal could go to
improved parking
i just want to make sure everyone is is
painfully aware that
we need additional revenue sources just
to keep just to keep afloat
you know um so let's let's let's keep
that in mind that you know we we can't
be pie in the sky here we have to get
additional revenue sources and the
financial restructuring board was
absolutely clear over two years almost
two years over two years ago
that um for a financially distressed
municipality and you don't really have a
choice
not to install the parking meters at
this point
in their in their report um again they
mentioned um they mentioned at least you
know 600 000 in revenue based on the
annual revenue based on their
projections so um we're not we're not
talking peanuts here so this is
something that um we you know really
really
pleased that we're
forging ahead on
um i also want to ask for requests that
in the in the financial analysis
um each us each scenario takes into
consideration um
the vendor component where they're
saying that they will fully maintain the
system for example for five years and
then hand it over
so it's you know well it's well and good
that it looks like it's quote unquote
free for the five years there is a cost
in the out years so you know i really
would like to see the the projections
which uh you know alluded to is that if
the vendor hands it over to us there
will still be annual uh software
maintenance costs so that's something
that you know we we need to be mindful
of
and also um you know you mentioned the
four specials those are incremental
hires for the system
um
that are projected right now but there
will also be time for current employees
to
monitor the system and it would be
important to make sure that we
allocate the percentages of some of the
staff's time to maintain um this system
so that we get a really full projection
of what this system will cost and what
what it will bring in
i'd also like to make sure that
we get some feedback or comments from
the staff on the other municipalities
that you've interviewed
for this process you know some of the
highlights maybe even posted on the
website
such as rockville center so that you
know people can see that you know
the system works and it is beneficial
for us
um
in closing i'd just like to again to
thank everyone for their um for their
hard work on this project this is really
important
and again it's just a milestone for us
that um that we are moving forward
so thank you everyone and uh john you
want to close john mcnally you want to
close
well good thank you
we continue to forge ahead i have uh
i've coveted brain so i am
not at this stage of the game thank you
all for hanging i know this was supposed
to be something of a 30 000 foot but
we were more at like 50 feet um so thank
you for the engagement and the questions
uh and everybody taking time out tonight
to learn more about this because it is
really is it's a it's critical for the
city moving forward so thank you
everybody