Council rejects proposal to outsource Plunge Lifeguards

Lifeguards in Culver City will be keeping their jobs after a scare that rallied the community behind them.

A furor descended upon City Hall exactly one week after lifeguards at The Plunge were notified of the city's intent to lay them off and hire outside contractor USA Pools to manage lifeguard services. This led to the city council unanimously voting against the move at its meeting Tuesday night.

Instead of moving forward with the contract, the council directed City Manager John Nachbar to lead an intensive recruiting push to enlist more lifeguards for The Plunge this summer while retaining its current workforce.

Public comment on the consent calendar item to approve the contract lasted almost an hour and twenty minutes, with current Culver City lifeguards and their supporters rallying for their jobs and against the contractor's parent company, USA Management.

The move stemmed from issues with staffing at The Plunge. Parks, Recreation, and Community Services (PRCS) Department Director Ted Stevens' foremost concern was the ability to operate the pool without cutting back on its services.

Stevens said the move to USA Pools was made to ensure The Plunge would be fully staffed for the summertime. Culver City is not the only municipality dealing with lifeguard shortages, with a nationwide shortage impacting around one-third of the public pools open in the United States last summer, according to estimates from the American Lifeguard Association cited in a USA Today article.

However, the Department's way of righting the ship rubbed many residents the wrong way. On May 20, the lifeguards received an email from Recreation and Community Services Supervisor Kimberly Burgueno — whom lifeguards at The Plunge view as their direct superior — containing a letter signed by Stevens announcing the Department's decision to use USA Pools.

In this email, Stevens explained that it had been increasingly difficult to maintain the staffing level necessary to keep The Plunge open consistently over the summer.

"With only one public pool available in Culver City, it is imperative that it be made available to the public as much as possible," Stevens' email read. "The current situation is untenable."

Stevens' memo did offer a respite: USA Pools would give them an opportunity to apply for the positions they were laid off from, and it promised to raise salaries to $28 to $32 an hour for lifeguards and $50 an hour for swim instructors. He also offered to arrange to personally meet with lifeguards to discuss the situation, but said no one took him up on that offer.

"I cannot guarantee that you will be hired," the email read, "but the opportunity is there." 

With this in mind, Mayor Dan O'Brien entered the night optimistic about the prospects of this move. He said he envisioned many of the current lifeguards being smoothly transitioned into the new company's system.

According to the lifeguards who spoke at the meeting, things unfolded much differently than how O'Brien hoped it would. After being blindsided by Stevens' announcement and feeling like they had already been laid off, several Culver City lifeguards tried to apply through USA Management to reclaim their jobs with The Plunge.

Less than 24 hours later, they were rejected.

"I was fired and rehired by another company that bought the company [I worked for], and it went relatively smoothly," O'Brien said. "That is what I was visualizing what was going to happen here...obviously it wasn't."

A USA Management representative at the meeting attributed these quick rejections to the fact that the contract had yet to be approved when those applications were submitted.

Residents were not placated by this explanation and demanded that the city abandon the contract and rehire lifeguards. Stevens, both in his email to lifeguards and during Tuesday's meeting, explained that the lifeguards would remain on Culver City's payroll until operations had been handed over to USA Pools, a transition that could not happen without approval from the city council that night.

The move to bring on an outside contractor contrasted with the PRCS Commission's formal request for additional funding for the Department to support the current lifeguard staff and attract more to help maintain full operations. PRCS Commission Chair Crystal Alexander and commissioner Marci Baun spoke in their individual capacities at Tuesday's meeting, expressing general concerns for the state of affairs at The Plunge but not weighing in on the contract itself.

"It's up to the city council to decide how we can fund an operation [to give the entirety of The Plunge] to the community and do it safely," Alexander said.

"Please do your due diligence and make the right decision," Baun said.

Several commenters pointed out issues with USA Management that they argued made them unsuitable for Culver City. Most notably, the Attorney General of Massachusetts imposed almost $70,000 in penalties on the Georgia-based company for a series of wage-related infractions, including:

• failure to furnish true and accurate payroll records
• failure to make timely payment of wages
• intentional misclassification of employees as independent contractors
• failing to provide employees a meal break after six hours of work
• failure to obtain a work permit for minor employees
• not permitting employees to utilize earned sick leave
• failure to furnish a suitable pay slip 

In expressing his opposition to the contract, councilmember Bubba Fish noted that residents should not be responsible for bringing these red flags to light, arguing that the city should have a policy requiring prospective contractors to disclose labor violations in the application process.

"The burden of uncovering this kind of history should not fall on our residents," Fish said. "It should be disclosed as a part of how we do business."

When viewing the issue from a staffing and operational perspective as a business owner, councilmember Albert Vera initially thought this was a beneficial move that would serve residents by keeping the pool open. However, the strong community opposition swayed his thinking.

He cited the stories of lifeguards shared Tuesday — such as Kalen Lehmann's story of just getting a promotion and Kristal Salazar's reflection on her third year on the job and what it meant — as motivating factors that dissuaded him from supporting the contract.

"Last summer, I worked longer shifts to help cover gaps," Salazar said. "Not because I have to, but because I care."

"Since day one, I have wanted to be a part of this family," Lehmann said. "We all have dedicated countless hours to ensuring the safety and success of this facility."

Vera said that as long as the community understood that some cutbacks to the times The Plunge is open and the classes it provides may occur during the process, he was willing to work to solve the lifeguard staffing problem.

"This truly is our community," Vera said. "Listening to all of your stories, I understand the importance of maintaining the close connection of summertime jobs."

Vice Mayor Freddy Puza pointed out that, while he believes in outsourcing as a concept, lifeguards are traditionally a first job for teens and young adults, and he felt that relinquishing control of lifeguard staff takes away the city's ability to offer the positions to Culver City youth.

He argued that while contracting lifeguard services solved the immediate staffing problem, it did nothing to help generate a local pipeline of lifeguards for the future. He suggested programs like a city-backed lifeguard training academy as a locally beneficial alternative to outsourcing.

"It is so important to help our young people in their employment endeavors," Puza said. "I would love to have a more community-centered, long-term approach that includes local job creation."

Councilmember Yasmine-Imani McMorrin argued that this situation is a symptom of a budget process that does not prioritize the PRCS Department at a level that reflects the community's values. Many residents and figures in the city publicly echoed this sentiment, including consulting firm OLIN in the city's Parks Plan, which noted a need for additional support despite an increased focus on the PRCS budget over the past decade.

"People tend to rally around parks and facilities," McMorrin said. "These are the things folks want to see us invest in, and we underinvest in parks every year I have been on this council."

Mayor O'Brien understood the perception that this situation has created of certain city staff members but defended PRCS Department staff and their intentions to address a pressing need. Stevens estimated that the city would need to double the number of lifeguards at The Plunge to ensure summer hours can be maintained.

"The whole process got off on the wrong foot," O'Brien said. "All the best intentions were there."

If the city was not going to use USA Pools, O'Brien's focus was on ensuring lifeguards would be hired to maintain summer operations at The Plunge, proposing the direction for an intensive recruiting push from the city. He also officially confirmed that the city would retain the existing lifeguards.

No vote was officially made related to this item, as it was a consent calendar item.