Fullerton residents are yet to see street sweeping tickets as city officials prepare to add new signs throughout neighborhoods and make a switch to alternating street sweeping routes.
It’s an issue city officials have been grappling with for months.
After reinstating street sweeping enforcement last year, residents – many of whom live in apartments – in the crowded south side of town began raising concerns they have nowhere to park their cars on street sweeping day.
After rising complaints, officials temporarily halted street sweeping tickets as they moved to street sweep different sides of roads on alternating days so people can move their cars.
[Read: Will Fullerton Residents Keep Getting Cited for Blocking Street Sweeping?]
“The genesis came not from people wanting to not move their cars, but from them having no place to move their cars,” Councilman Ahmad Zahra said during the Aug. 20 meeting.
It’s an area that’s also grappled with overnight parking bans in recent years – an issue that befuddled city officials until they revised the ordinance, allowing for exemptions in the south side of the city.
[Read Fullerton Council Opens Up Some Overnight Parking Spots, But Tenants Say It’s Too Few]
City staff also noted the south part of town is grappling with street sweeping.
“Street sweeping parking citation data shows a notable citation increase due to expanded enforcement, particularly in the south side of the City which has a higher multifamily housing concentration,” reads a staff report from Aug. 6.
Now, city officials are continuing the moratorium on street sweeping parking tickets as they gear up to replace street signs – but they haven’t yet made a final decision on how they’re going to roll out the updates as city staff continue studying the issue.
“The only reason we’re signing the city is for enforcement. We sign to also communicate when it’s being done, but the issue of how the signs are is more of a legal enforcement,” said City Manager Eric Levitt at the Aug. 20 city council meeting. “
Fullerton isn’t alone in grappling with the issue – the neighboring City of Brea also discussed street sweeping enforcement in April after a slew of resident complaints.
[Read: Brea to Enforce Street Sweeping Requirements]
Meanwhile, the two main options given to Fullerton City Council members for signs was to either redo them completely or add decals on top of existing signs.
Councilwoman Shana Charles said the use of decals could cause confusion among residents if decals started to become unreadable or peel off.
She, along with Zahra and Mayor Nicholas Dunlap argued that they couldn’t make a decision without knowing the cost of the decals, which city staff left out of their report.
“These timeframes are striking. I’m glad that we’re talking about it to fully understand it before it gets implemented,” said Charles.
If officials dedicate some city employees to work on replacement full time, the timeframe is estimated at just over two years.
If a part time approach is used, it’s estimated to take nearly four years.
“This is a really interesting reality check. We didn’t really have this dimension when we first started talking about this,” Charles said.
Currently there are 5,000 signs posted with another 1,000 planned for production to keep signs consistent throughout neighborhoods.
The cost for the signs is estimated at just under $375,000.
Charles also asked staff to bring back a detailed report on how they plan to install the signs to avoid confusion among residents on when street sweeping will happen.
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