West Covina council puts bus‑shelter cleaning contract on month‑to‑month, directs RFP after residents flag missed cleanings

The West Covina City Council voted to extend the city’s bus‑shelter cleaning contract on a month‑to‑month basis and directed staff to issue a request for proposals within two months after repeated resident complaints and council spot checks found some shelters poorly maintained.

Councilmembers said the change is intended to increase oversight and give staff time to develop clearer performance monitoring while keeping service active. “We need more monitoring,” Mayor Pro Tem Lehi Lopez Villaro said during debate, calling for better coordination between public works, public safety and the contractor. Councilmember Brian Gutierrez moved the measure; Councilman Ollie Cantos seconded the motion.

The contract under discussion covers scheduled cleanings for bus shelters across the city. Assistant City Manager Kelly McDonald told the council the proposed contract rate is $18 per cleaning and a total annual not‑to‑exceed amount of $113,760, with roughly 120 scheduled shelter cleanings on the published route. Contractor representatives said they operate a daily crew and provided before/after photos and time‑stamped evidence of recent cleanings. The contractor and public‑works staff acknowledged that some high‑traffic locations require multiple visits per week and that shelter conditions can degrade again by afternoon due to new dumping or heavy use.

Councilmembers pressed staff to improve data and communications: produce daily or weekly before/after records, identify a single city contact for instant escalation and coordinate with Athens (the city’s trash hauler), public safety and code enforcement for recurring problems such as encampments or overflowing cans. The council asked staff to include the Clear Channel advertising shelters (24 locations identified in the staff packet) in a forthcoming review of responsibilities and to ask Clear Channel to present at the first meeting in September.

The council also instructed staff to place the contractor on a month‑to‑month term while the city readies the RFP and to continue working with the contractor to improve performance. The motion passed on a roll‑call vote with four ayes, Councilwoman Rosario Diaz absent.

The city manager and public‑works officials said they will assign a single public‑safety manager as the point person for shelter performance monitoring and will return to council with a status update and Clear Channel report at the first September meeting.