01-11-2022 CC RPT 21 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Shopping Carts • Page 2 On June 18, 2019, the City Council approved a Professional Consultant Services Agreement with Retail Marketing Services, Inc., dba CarTrac, in the amount of $300,000 from the Public Works Department Budget for cart retrieval services at various locations for July 1, 2019, through June 30, 2022. DISCUSSION: The proposed First Amendment to the Professional Consultant Services Agreement maintains the same levels of compensation and services that are currently in effect. Because of the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, customer's shopping habits have been altered, resulting in an increase of shopping carts leaving the grounds of retail stores. The demand for cart retrieval services has increased during the pandemic. Dates Number of Deliveries Avg. per Month July 2019 to February 2020 (8 -month period) 3582 448 March 2020 to October 2020 (8 -month period) 4331 529 November 2020 to June 2021 (8 -month period) 4239 530 July 2021 to November 2021 (5 -month period) 2804 561 Retailers choosing to utilize the City for cart retrieval services have their shopping carts retrieved from the City right-of-way and returned to them by the City's contractor. The retailers receive an invoice from the City for the direct cost of the retrieval services with no additional charge for administrative costs or overhead. Retailers who choose not to utilize the City for cart retrieval services are required to prepare and implement a prevention plan to keep abandoned shopping carts from leaving the business premises. Stray shopping carts retrieved from City right-of-way which belong to retailers not participating in the City program are delivered to the City's Corporation Yard in accordance with the Riverside Municipal Code. The Purchasing Manager concurs that the recommended action to approve the amendment is in compliance with Purchasing Resolution 23812. STRATEGIC PLAN ALIGNMENT: This contract aligns with Strategic Priority 6 — Infrastructure, Mobility, and Connectivity and specifically Goal 6.2, to maintain, protect, and improve assets and infrastructure within the City's built environment to ensure and enhance reliability, resiliency, sustainability, and facilitate connectivity. Furthermore, this shopping cart retrieval service aligns with each of the five Cross -Cutting Threads as follows: 1. Community Trust — Since 2006, CarTrac has worked with the City of Riverside to collaboratively address the issues pertaining to abandoned carts. 2. Equity — This service protects the general public's health, safety, and environment by keeping shopping carts out of the right -of -away and returning carts to retailers where they can be cleaned.