Title
A Resolution Of The City Commission Of The City Of Hollywood, Florida, Authorizing The Appropriate City Officials To Apply For And, If Awarded, Accept Grant Funds From The Community Foundation Of Broward Through The Be Bold Prize To Launch A Resource Recovery Pilot Initiative In The Amount Of $1,000,000.00; Authorizing In-Kind Services And Funding To Equal The 25% Required Contribution; Authorizing The Appropriate City Officials To Execute All Applicable Grant Documents And Agreements.
Strategic Plan Focus
Resilience & Sustainability
Body
Staff Recommends: Approval of the attached Resolution.
Explanation:
As a progressive City with a commitment to resilience and sustainability, Hollywood has long been at the forefront in South Florida in the provision of efficient and responsible management of solid waste and recycling collections and efforts to promote waste reduction and reuse. This has included single stream recycling, recycling incentive programs and the recent extension of the ban on single-use plastics on the City’s beaches, facilities and properties.
In December of 2020, the Community Foundation of Broward put forth the Be Bold Prize Request for Proposals (RFP) seeking bold ideas that could be set into motion quickly to help get Broward residents impacted by pandemic-related job losses back to work. As part of the City’s Sustainability Action Plan adopted by the City Commission in 2017, the City established a goal of 2,000 households composting their food waste by 2025 and 30% of food waste being composted City-wide. The City’s proposal for the Be Bold Prize is to create a pilot resource recovery initiative through the formation of an employee owned and operated cooperative, Reclaim Broward, that will create new job opportunities for Hollywood residents related to the collection and composting of food and yard waste. If awarded, the $1,000,000.00 Be Bold Prize would provide the seed money needed to create this pilot composting cooperative including the funding of needed equipment and salaries and benefits for initial employees.
Food waste represents one fifth of disposed waste and is the largest single recoverable material sent to landfills where it generates methane, which is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, and is a major contributor to climate change. When food waste is composted, methane emissions are reduced and the end product is a soil amendment that can be used as fertilizer to grow healthier plants. This pilot program would serve as a model that could be expanded to include other cities and eventually become a County-wide operation.
Fiscal Impact:
If awarded, grant proceeds will be recognized and appropriated in the City’s budget via a future budget amendment. The City’s required 25% match, as required by the RFP, is anticipated to be fully covered through the in-kind contribution of temporary space for the start-up composting operation within the City’s current Public Works facility, the Department of Financial Services providing grant monitoring and reporting, and marketing and outreach support from the Office of Communication, Marketing and Economic Development. Should additional funding be needed from the City to meet the grant requirements, such funding would be requested as part of the FY 2022 operating budget.
Recommended for inclusion on the agenda by:
Peter Bieniek, Director of Public Works
Raelin Storey, Director of Communications, Marketing and Economic Development
Gus Zambrano, Assistant City Manager for Sustainable Development
George R. Keller, Jr., CPPT, Deputy City Manager, Public Safety