City looks beyond borders for crossing guards

COSTA MESA -- With the school year quickly approaching, the city

thinks it has found a solution to a shortage of crossing guards.

The City Council will decide Monday whether to contract with a Los

Angeles company to provide the city’s crossing guards, said Peter

Naghavi, the city’s transportation services manager.

Despite extensive recruitment strategies such as increased

advertising, salary adjustments and fliers, the city has been unable to

fill all its vacant crossing guard positions, Naghavi said.

“It’s hard to find people who are willing to work in two-hour shifts,

twice a day in inclement weather conditions,” Naghavi said.

It also doesn’t help that the position pays only $8 or $9 per hour, he

said.

But the fact that people don’t want the job doesn’t make the positions

any less necessary to the city.

“One of the city’s most important jobs is to increase safety for the

children. When we cannot cover an intersection, we consider it a major

problem,” Naghavi said.

To solve both problems of recruitment and retention, staff suggested a

contract with Los Angeles-based All City Management Services to employ

and supply the city’s crossing guards. All current crossing guards would

be hired by the company.

Councilman Gary Monahan said the most important thing to consider is

the safety of the children.

“The goal is to make sure we have enough crossing guards to get our

kids to and from school safely,’ he said. “If it takes contracting out,

then I think we need to do it.”

The contract with the company would not exceed $161,300, a staff report said. The in-house crossing guard program of previous years cost

the city $131,600, but did not include staff time for recruitment,

training, testing, certification, payroll and management of the program,

the report said. Staff contends the cost of the contract with All City

Management Services would be about equal to any in-house program.

Eighteen crossing guards and one lead guard would be hired by All City

Management Services to work at Costa Mesa intersections.

Although the city has been challenged to find and maintain enough

high-quality crossing guards, Naghavi said he is confident in All City’s

ability.

But he doesn’t know how they do it, he admitted.

“They’re the experts, though,’ Naghavi explained.

All City Management Services General Manager Baron Farwell could not

be reached for comment.

Naghavi said he will maintain supervision of the program and if the

guards do not meet a high enough standard, they will not be used.

“I know it will be a successful, good program or I wouldn’t go

outside,” he said.

When faced with a crossing guard shortage last year, the city

responded by asking both police and staff to help out, Naghavi said.

Although it worked in a pinch, those extreme measures cannot be counted

on to supply consistent assistance to school children, he said.

“We can’t always do it. We’re engineers,” Naghavi said.