Sweeping questions for San Bruno

At first, City Manager Alex McIntyre said he didn’t know the particular history behind why the city never applied parking restrictions to the west side, though the east side’s proclivity toward flooding was cited as a reason why cars in that area needed to move for the sweeper, lest storm drains get clogged with detritus.

Public Works Director Matt Lee, whose department performs the sweeping, also said he didn’t have the answer. Several councilmembers — including Marty Medina, who represents the part of the east side and recently requested a probe into the question — said the origins of the policy largely predated their tenure, though they also noted that east side flooding concerns as a reason for parking restrictions in that area.

But an unearthed City Council report from 2012 found that roughly 14 years ago, the city was asking this very same question. Staff determined that while conditions on the east side of the city — like narrow streets and shedding trees — required cars move for the street sweeper so that flooding could be prevented, west side streets were wider, less congested and less prone to flooding. The street sweeper could effectively clear debris without parking restrictions, a policy that was originally enacted in 1982, the report determined.

Ultimately, Shelter Creek Lane, which is to the west of El Camino Real, was also hit with requirements that neighbors move their cars for the sweeper in 2014 because of similar conditions, including an excess of vehicles and foliage.

Open questions remain around the policy, and they’re ones the city is also taking another stab at answering. Given an influx of cars on some areas of the west side, is street sweeping still effective if those cars have no incentive to move? Would enforcing parking restrictions on the west side be too costly for San Bruno to even consider?

And perhaps most fundamentally for residents — is it fair?

Marty Medina said it’s impossible to discuss the policy without pointing out its unfairness. That’s exacerbated by the fact that the east side of San Bruno has been designated as a disadvantaged community in 2022 under Senate Bill 535, which is based on “geographic, socioeconomic, public health and environmental hazard criteria.”

“We should do better by now,” he said. “So much talk over the last few years has been about equity. It’s not only equity with disadvantaged communities — it’s a lot harder for someone on the lower income to pay a ticket for something they are subjected to in this part of town.”

But he’s approaching the conversation with a factual lens, he said, and asking officials to analyze whether it’s able to effectively sweep streets on the west side when cars stay put. If sweeping is needed in west side areas, as well as the east side, to keep storm drains clean, then he said enforcement should be targeted to those areas as well.

“How could we obtain a better, fairer street sweeping program?” he said. “I think the answer likely is, where it is needed, you need to enforce it.”

Vice Mayor Sandy Alvarez said she also felt ticketing only the east side was unfair. She represents District 1, and said that — unlike on the east side — in her west side district, there’s enough parking to the point that residents could move their cars to the other side of the street if restrictions were enforced.

“I don’t have a problem if we enforce it up here,” she said. “We have so many parking spaces, if you schedule one side of the street, [on the] other side, we have plenty of parking.”

The answer to this problem likely isn’t to ticket the entire city for street sweeping “just to do it,” Mayor Rico Medina said. He posited that if the city made a decision based only on fairness, it would issue no tickets at all, and it was best to approach the issue with logic, not emotion.

“Are you doing it because it logistically makes sense, or are you saying it because you want them to feel the inconvenience and pain of the ticket?” he said. “Is it efficient and effective?”

Councilmember Michael Salazar could not be reached for comment. But Councilmember Tom Hamilton said putting up signs and paying for enforcement across the entire city is likely to be a cost-prohibitive venture, though he is supportive of studying the issue and considering enforcing street sweeping in other areas of the city that are particularly prone to leaf collection.

“I am not advocating for putting signs up and enforcing street sweeping every other week throughout the entire city. That’s going to be a massive expense,” he said. “[But] all throughout San Bruno, in many, many neighborhoods where parking is at a premium, those cars … don’t disappear throughout the day. It’s not actually sweeping the gutter, where the leaves are. It’s not as effective.”

The city doesn’t know how effective its sweeping efforts on the west side are, Lee said, however, they’re planning ways to track and measure it.

Fundamentally, forcing people to move their cars or face a ticket in areas where restrictions previously haven’t been enforced will create significant pushback, McIntyre told councilmembers at a prior goal setting where the topic was first discussed. That’s because the issue revolves around the city’s historic lack of parking, he said after the meeting.

“It’s really a parking issue. It’s not a street sweeping issue,” he said.

As someone who has had to move his car for street sweeping or risk getting a ticket for the past 23 years, Marty Medina said the argument that the council shouldn’t discuss the issue at risk of upsetting residents holds little water.

“That argument rings hollow for me,” he said. “If you’re saying we don’t want to do this because it’s going to upset people — I’ve been dealing with it for 23 years. What are you saying, then? It’s OK?”