Agenda

Back to Calendar Return

22.

City Council Regular Meeting

Meeting Date:

12/05/2023

BACKGROUND

Public Works is proposing to make some changes to the current street sweeping schedule. The published schedule indicates every street in the City will be swept monthly and on which day of the month each street will be swept. While this schedule has been in place for some time, the City has been unable to meet this goal for a number of years.

The City has two street sweeping machines, but as to be expected, they are down for maintenance and repair at times throughout the year. Two employees are scheduled to primarily drive the street sweepers, and they are off for vacation, holidays, illness, etc. The time of the year significantly impacts the time it takes to sweep the streets, with more leaves being picked up in the fall, which requires the sweepers to more frequently empty the bin on the sweeper. Additionally, with the growth of the City, each new subdivision being built means more streets that have to be swept.

After looking at some of Schertz' benchmark cities which generally sweep streets every 6 to 12 weeks, Public Works is proposing that each street will be swept quarterly. This standard is more consistent with the benchmark cities, provides for a better use of the City resources (the employees who drive the street sweepers can be assigned to do other duties as needed when not sweeping), and it allows for additional sweeping in the areas that might need it due to a lot of trees dropping leaves, being near a construction site where dirt and mud from construction traffic is creating issues, to clean up after water breaks, and accidents. Public Works will also take into consideration not to sweep on trash pickup days, which impacts the ability to sweep streets.