Berkeley's Opt-Out for Street Sweeping
L A Wood, Berkeley Voice, July 28, 1994

The challenge to Berkeley's Street sweeping exemption program simply states opt-out is not a clean water activity. The opt-out process grew out of a council request to re-evaluate its residential street cleaning policies. City administration developed the exemption and the Public Works Department has shared responsibility for its implementation. The expense of this 1991 city resolution was never calculated and the costs remain unknown.

The exemption program and its numerous public hearings have added unnecessary costs to the budget of the storm water fund. It has also extended the workload to the Public Works Commission and city staff. Moreover, the opt-out exemption has failed to qualify as a runoff control. These budgetary allocations have only served to promote the degradation of Berkeley's storm water quality.

The initial costs for opt-out were for staff time developing the petition process which included at least one citywide mailing. Once in place, it generated an expense in the removal of about 10 percent of the residential enforced parking signs. The process for opt-out of Street sweeping has preoccupied the Public Works staff for more than 32 months. The administrative outreach required to service this program has involved at least one person and oftentimes more.

However, the most wasteful drain of assessment monies and runoff efforts has been over the endless debate regarding opt-out. The issue was heard by both the Community Environmental Advisory Commission and the Public Works Commission over a seven-month period. CEAC sent City Council its unanimous recommendation to rescind opt-out.

Almost two years ago, the Alameda County Urban Runoff Clean Water Program joined the debate and began their own discussion of the issue. The county resources included subcommittees, support from numerous private engineering firms, and all the local administering agencies of the storm water program. After half a year of deliberations, they resolved in their Best Management Practices Manual of 1993 to: "Discourage streets from opting-out of residential street sweeping."

Berkeley's contribution to this debate began almost a year ago when Public Works hired a Clean Water Program consultant/coordinator. This Berkeley engineering staffer participated and was central to the work undertaken by Alameda County. From this study came a Berkeley staff report to the Public Works Commission on copper loads entering the bay. These studies all show that opt-out increases the volume of copper and other pollutants in urban runoff.

Berkeleyans have paid for both the expenses generated within the city as well as for a share of the county's opt-out investigation. Opt-out has become a very costly idea.

At the June meeting of the Public Works Commission, city staff proposed yet another work group to discuss the opt-out feature of residential sweeping. Ignoring the work of the county, its own city report, and a commission recommendation, city council will add another six months or more of budgetary waste to preserving opt-out.

The current work group has been convened to insure the Berkeley City Council can avoid making a final decision on this clean water scam before the November election. Any perpetuation of the opt-out boondoggle is financially irresponsible. Why has the City of Berkeley already spent half a million dollars not to sweep its streets? This exemption program continues to distort our clean water efforts and to misdirect our storm water revenues. Rescind opt-out now!