Board of Public Works - Regular Meeting

Order the Utilities Committee meeting for Tuesday, September 23 at 04:30. Please rise and join me for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you, everyone. Please be seated. Let the record show that Aldeperson Doherty is excused, and we will introduce ourselves starting on my left.

Adrian Stanson Martin, District 11.

Brad Meltzer, District 2.

Josh Lambrecht, District 1.

Patty Happerton, District 8. All right, thank you very much. Now we need an approval of minutes from our previous meeting from the August 26 meeting, twenty five-eleven sixteen. Do I

have So moved. Second.

All right. We have a motion and a second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed or abstaining? There are none. Four-one, that is approved. Four-zero, that is approved. We have no public hearings or appearances today. We have a couple of information items.

So the first one that the audience is here for, twenty five-eleven seventeen, the Providence Trails Drainage Study Presentation. So we'll go ahead with Deputy Director Newburger. And actually, before you get started, I just want to welcome everyone in the audience. After the presentation is over, then we can informally everyone who wants to speak can raise their hand, and I'll let you approach the microphone, and we'll gather your input that way. So for now, we will listen to the presentation and try to remember what questions you have. I'd like to not interrupt the presentation unless we all kind of get very confused and need clarification.

Thank you. Go ahead.

Thank you, Chair. So on 07/05/2024, the city of Appleton experienced a severe rainfall event that resulted in about 150 unique flooding reports throughout the city, most of which were on the North Side of the city, kind of in the area of the Northland Avenue and the Beller Ravine drainage areas, as well as some areas that were farther north of those locations in generally areas that are North Of Highway 41 in addition to those drainage areas that I mentioned. So the I'm going to talk about things like a one hundred year flood event in reference to the modeling work that was done. That's based on a January '19. A 1% probability chance of occurring in any given year based on historic rainfall that we've seen.

So we have a lot of work to do. And so we made a decision based on the flood reports that we received, which areas we wanted to analyze first. So we kind of took a two pronged approach here. The first prong that we've already talked about here is the consultant led study that we've provided two previous updates on within the Northland and Bel Air drainage areas. So the other approach that we took here is staff led analysis.

And what we're talking about here is an example of one of those staff led analyses. It's the first in-depth analysis that was performed that by staff. We're referring to it as the Providence Trails Drainage Study. Broadly speaking, we're talking about Providence Trails 1 through four subdivisions. They were platted in between 1999 and around 2001.

That was before our current stormwater management ordinance was developed. In 2004, our stormwater management ordinance was developed that called for all new flats to be designed to a one hundred year event. This preceded that. So this area was not designed to a one hundred year event. So I'll mention that part of the reason why we decided to focus on this for our first staff led analysis is that we received within a relatively tight area.

This is about a 0.07 square mile drainage area, so just under a tenth of a square mile drainage area. We received several reports of flooding here, including some reports of structure flooding. So that's what caused us to kind of bring this to the top of our list in terms of timing. So what I want to do is initially just walk you through the handouts that I've got here. We'll just touch on each page very, very briefly, and then I'll go into them in a little bit more detail.

So the first page is just an overview map showing the Providence Trails area, including the modeled flooding for the 100 degree event shown in basically the blue shapes and the city's storm sewer system as it exists today with the green lines. All right? So that's the first page. The second, third, and fourth pages show three different alternatives that the city analyzed. And I'll get into those in more detail, but just a high level overview.

Alternate one, we're calling lot improvements, and it's focused on providing property owners with the modeled one hundred year water surface elevations as shown on this map so that they can identify where a model demonstrates there's some structure flooding risk. And I will say that it tends to match up fairly well with the reports that we got, the actual reports from observers in the field of where flooding occurred during the 07/05/2024 event. And alternative one focuses on what could be done on private property to try to provide some flood mitigation. Alternate two, we're calling the right of way and easement improvements, and that is a public infrastructure focused approach that would involve upsized and new sewers within the city right of way and easements and some dry detention storage. And alternate three on the following page performed the right of way easement and lot improvements approach, and it focuses on a combination of some storm sewer upsizing, some new storm sewers, some flood storage, and potential private side improvements that property owners could potentially make.

The next page is just an illustration. We're going to use the term during this presentation of lookout basement. And I just wanted to use this as a way to illustrate what that is. This is not a Providence Trails home. It's just a generic home that helps us provide the definition.

So when look at this home, what you'll notice is there's a main floor level that's kind of up high on the upper level next to the retaining wall. And then as you move to the right of that, you'll see an area of the home that has a lookout basement and a walkout basement. So a lookout basement is that area where you can see the grade drops down and you can see basically what are windows in the basement looking out at grade. And then the walkout area is kind of the far right side where there's actually a door that comes out. And that's where the full basement is exposed.

So it would be about eight to nine to 10 feet lower than the grade that's the normal first floor elevation grade. So again, when we're talking about a lookout basement, you're talking about an exposed basement where the ground is lower where you might have like a window looking out onto a lower grate from the basement. And then the next is an illustration. We're going to also use the terms yard drain here. A yard drain is basically a section of the storm sewer system where there's potentially a low point in the backyard of a property.

And that low point receives runoff from the backyards. And there's two different types of castings here that allow runoff into the city's drainage system. The top section is a standard yard drain frame. And typically what that is, is the ground surface typically lines up with the very top of this. If you imagine it's like a hat, the bottom of the hat in this case is below grade.

It's varied. And the ground surface matches up or is flush with the surface surface drain. The advantage of these types of drains is they're they're really easy to mow around because they don't stick up. So you could, in theory, you can just run a lawnmower right over the top of it. And this is what we consider a standard yard drain for purposes of this discussion.

So developers are allowed to use this to meet city standards. Recently, we've allowed developers to use stool type grates, which is in the bottom. And these stool type grates have larger openings than the standard grate. So what that means, the advantage to this is they're more resistant to clogging, right? So with the openings are bigger, they have higher capacity.

And if you get leaves or twigs or something like that, that might flow in during a storm from a severe rainfall event, it's more likely that that material could just pass right through the larger openings. The downside is it gets into the system and then eventually it gets to a point where it might go to a stormwater pond, for example, and fill that up. But it is more resistant to clogging. So I'll mention that. And then the last page that we'll be talking about is just a detail, including some ballpark cost estimates to the stormwater utility of the three alternatives that I mentioned previously.

Okay? So that's just a broad overview. So then if it sounds good, unless there are questions on the overview, I'll go ahead and walk through in more detail how the study was approached. All right. So as I mentioned, this is about a 0.07 square mile drainage area.

Again, for reference, Northland and Bel Air is about five square miles. So it's about 70 times as large as this drainage area, just for some perspective on another drainage area that has been talked about with the committee in the past and that we're continuing to work on. So again, all the when we talk about the areas that were modeled as having flooding, I'll mention that the blue blobs again here are the modeled one hundred year water extent. I want to talk about the limitations in the model here. So it's like we model a 100 historic event.

So the events that we actually witness are never going to match up perfectly with the model event, ahead. From And

next

is

be so

we're we're going able see see the is current

previously with the other study about antecedent

moisture the conditions, which is how wet the ground is before the rain starts falling out of the sky. So we know that the ground was quite wet before we that first drop of rain fell in July 2024. And when that rain falls on a grassy area, if that grassy area is relatively dry, it has higher capacity to let that water soak into the ground. When you have an event like we had on 07/05/2024, that ground was wet to begin with. And so your a given area of lawn is likely to produce more runoff and therefore more ponded water because less is able to soak into the ground.

And that was part of what we saw happening on July. So I'll also mention that, as I talked about before, different types of yard drain castings, The modeling will typically assume little to no clogging is occurring where that water is trying to get into like a curb inlet or a yard drain casting like we have here. Obviously, if debris flows in and covers the top of a casting, it's going to have the capacity to take in much less water than if debris weren't up against it. So that can sometimes be a contributing factor if you see a difference between observed flooding and modeled flooding. So just something to keep in mind.

So you can kind of see throughout the neighborhood there were areas where the one hundred year model indicated that flooding occurred within the street and within backyard easements. It tended to be most severe in the isolated low points. And these would be areas where if it's a backyard area, it's probably associated with one of these yard drains. And if it's in the street, it's probably associated with a low point situation where there's a sag in the street. Oftentimes where there are sags in the street, you'll see what we refer to as a Type E inlet casting, which is where there's an opening not just in the flow line of the gutter, but also at the back of curve.

And it's also an example of like a higher capacity situation. So that's kind of an overview of the flooding that was predicted by the modeling. Okay. And then alternative one is it's up on the screen now. This is the lot improvements alternative.

So the focus here would be to provide property owners with one hundred year water surface elevations as modeled so that they could potentially compare that to grades that are on their property and take steps to make regrading on their property potentially with landscaping walls that would, in theory, take some of these lookout basement areas, which seemed very much in alignment with some of the observed structure flooding and the modeled structure flooding, and to try to raise that grade in the vicinity of these lookout windows to try to keep that water away from these lookout basements more. And I will say, generally speaking, every area that's shown as being modeled and reported structure flooding, which is is indicated by the red boxes, or modeled flooding, which is indicated by the yellow boxes, is associated with a lookout window. So that's definitely a factor to keep in mind, especially when we go back and think about the fact that this subdivision was developed before the one hundred year design standards that were incorporated as of 2004. So bottom line is the homes that are identified with red or yellow boxes would be potentially an area where those homeowners would, under this scenario, probably want to consider the possibility of doing work on private property to try to provide some additional protection from flooding for that one hundred year event.

So I'm going to flip back briefly to the last page and just walk us through some of the details on alternative one that I just kind of mentioned. So again, private improvements could be made. Nine lots are probably some good candidates to do some work on private property. In addition to that, the city would look to replace up to 14 of the yard drain inlet castings from the flush mounted standard castings to a higher capacity to make them more resistant to clogging during a high event. So the reason it says up to 14 yard drains, there may be some resiliency benefit on all 14 of these, but access would be an issue.

So these are all located within easements, but we would still look to physically be able to get there. So that would be something that would be a factor in terms of our ability of providing a stool type casting would be just the ability to physically get to these locations. The estimated cost to the stormwater utility there is focused on the yard drain casting component of this. So it's estimated to be about $25,000 in cost to the utility. So I think I'll probably pause there and see maybe if the committee members have any initial questions that they want to ask about this alternative before I move on to alternative two.

Alder Hartzheim. Thank you, Chair. Deputy Director, you just mentioned getting to these locations. Are you saying that these would require some heavy trucks back in there to try to make these changes to these drainage inlets. And that would mean some potential private property issues,

Right. Lawn So typically we would be using light equipment there where we could. It might be like a mini excavator, a skid steer, things like that, where the amount of work that we're talking about here to like swap out the casting could be done with with lighter equipment there. But there would still on a case by case basis, there still might be some disruption to landscaping. And again, it would have to be looked at on a case by case basis. But that would be something that we would end up wanting to coordinate with property owners.

So it's a modest concern, but not an extreme concern like we'd have to rip up something that would be outstanding, huge.

Right. Smaller equipment. Typically minimal disruption, but it would depend in part on what improvements are there within the backyards.

Okay. Thank you.

Any questions from the audience at this time, or are we Okay with just moving forward? Come forward to the microphone and state your name and address for the record.

Appleton, Wisconsin. In the model, I see water, I think it's the Southwest Side up on I think city property, and then I see a lot of water coming down towards our house at 300229, which is the second on the north, I think, east side of that. I don't think there's a whole lot of drainage that's occurring on the Southwest side. I think most of the drainage is crossing that trail. So have you looked at that drain pattern and then therefore solution space on that Southwest side?

Yes. So the model does predict that the trail overtops and it's kind of hard to see on the map, but there is a little blue line that kind of connects the ponded 100 flood on the south side of the trail. And it does demonstrate that the model predicts that there is some overtopping of the trail that occurs between the south side of the trail and the north side of the trail. And as we get into alternatives two and three, you'll see that kind of triangle shape on the south side of the trail. Those alternatives propose a dry detention pond to be located on the south side of the trail, which could be part of a solution to help mitigate that overtopping that occurs out of the model

conditions in the Huntington. And then I think on the homeowners side, I mean, we just I don't know.

How much $15,000 we put in

cleaning that because there's a lot of pine cones. We have lot of evergreens in there. So we've taken all that out and put in gravel. So hopefully, doesn't occur again if there's any contribution to plugging. But you start talking about taking those windows out and that sort of thing. Windows are super expensive. We'd have to reframe to get those up a foot. Plus we had at least $15,000 in damage. So just keep that in mind as you're thinking through these things.

Thank you. Do you have another question about this part? Okay, come forward, please.

My name is Tom Rasler. I live at 3023 East Ball Creek Lane. And I just wanted to respond to that first alternative. We had two landscape contractors and shirt drive basements. And we were looking for a solution where we could put in a berm or some type of wall.

And both landscape contractors said it wouldn't improve our situation, that the water would be just trapped between the berm and our house. And it could actually even make the situation worse. SureDry had no solutions either. When we had the flooding situation in 2024, that was just one of several floods that we had. We also had flood in 2018.

At that time, they said that was a once in a one hundred year flood. In 2025, we had water this high against the windows in the back of our house. And we had $15,000 worth of damage damage to our house. So I tried to send photos from the 2018 event and the 2025 event to all the members on the committee, but for some reason they didn't go through. So I'll send them to Sherry, our alderman, and then she'll pass those on so that you can see what we're dealing with.

Thank you. Let's see. We'll go you and then back up to the committee.

Steve Miller, 3133 East Sable Ridge Drive. I'm the middle red one where there's quite a bit of water going up towards the house into the backyard. Just to give you guys an idea of the magnitude of this, it went from sprinkling to that amount of water in the backyard in less than the time that it takes to watch an episode of something on Netflix. It was incredibly fast. And then within fifteen minutes of noticing it, we had two inches of water in the basement and we're pumping it out.

The model also does not show I believe that green square in the front of my house is a catch basin. That was completely I don't know how many inches of water above that there was. But the road in front of the house was also completely filled with water, which isn't shown by the model here. I'm not sure what the threshold they're using to show. And then as far as access to the grate on our lot line, absolutely can get equipment in back there.

It's fairly easy to at least for my lot. And we did experience bark over the top of the flat grate as he had described. Not that that's the only issue, but having an atrium style gate would help with that.

Thank you. Alder Heffernan.

Just a clarifying question. When you were talking about the walkout basements, you were talking about like soil and grading to keep the water away from the windows, not suggesting moving the windows. Is that accurate? What are you?

So I want to be careful here not to prescribe exactly what it is that we think private property owners could do on their property. Just in very, very broad terms, the approach that we took here in terms of what was built into the model was more or less based on an approach where more or less an oversized window well could be built out of landscaping blocks that could be built as pretty much as high as could be managed based on what the property owner wanted to do with corresponding grading on their property. And I'll mention another thing too. We know that type of an approach where one of these landscaping walls with grading, it's not a silver bullet solution because you're still going to have that, as I think was referenced previously, you're still going have a low area next to the house. And the question is, how do you get water out of that low area?

And in theory, that lower area next to the house can still drain down next to the footing and getting into a footing drain, but the city has no way of knowing how what a good quality those footing drains are. And then once it's in the footing drain, then in theory then it would have to be pumped out by a sump pump. And of course, those have their own capacity too. So again, just something to keep in mind is that none of these are guarantees against flooding. What we're talking about is things that could be done to try to mitigate risk.

Did you have a question or? I guess come and approach the mic again.

So I've been scratching my head for twelve months trying to figure this out, you know, what to do different. And, you run the risk of trapping water, as my neighbor Tom said. I don't think it's a solution. I think the only way you can if you're going spend the money, you almost need to put new windows in, frame it up because as Tom said, we had that much water against the house. You got water coming in as well, so you're trapping water. So I respectfully would say I'm not sure that that's an adequate solution. And I'm not looking for a guarantee. I just want to improve my odds.

Yeah, well, thank you. We do have three alternatives to get through tonight, so definitely appreciate hearing opinions one way or the other about them. It looks like alternative one might not be the winner tonight. So I just have one question before we move forward. When we're talking about how these were platted before the standards changed regarding one hundred year flood events, So are there configurations or details of these houses that would not be allowed now? Are there types of lookout windows or basement doors that if these were going to be developed today, they would have been instructed to develop the buildings differently?

Yeah. So our our current practice under the ordinance is for the for the subdivision's drainage system to be designed to the one hundred year event. And that includes calculating via the model the one hundred year water surface elevation associated with, among other things, these backyard drains. And then a note is based on that elevation then, a standard procedure is to have the design engineer then place a note on their drainage plan that indicates what that one hundred year water surface elevation is. And then it establishes a minimum grade at at the foundation that is typically six to 12 inches above that elevation.

Thank you. Are we all ready to move on to alternative number two? All right. Go ahead, Deputy Director. Okay. Alternative two

is a combination of dry detention at the on the south side of the trail I'm actually just going go ahead and refer to the last page here, I'll just actually walk through that. About 1,800 lineal feet of storm sewer main upsizing. This would be in Fall Creek Lane from Apple Creek, which is the drainage way at the bottom right corner of this illustration extending up to Sable Ridge Drive. And you can that's depicted by the purple line that follows Ball Creek Lane. And I'll I'll just kind of trace it here.

So that would upsize these pipes. The downstream end obviously is the bigger part of it. That would be upsized to a 54 inches pipe. And then the upsizing going up to Sable Ridge, eventually those pipes end up at about 36 inches in diameter as a proposed size improvement. In addition to that, there would be a pipe size increase that would occur in Sandpiper Lane.

I'm tracing that right now. And then there would be larger yard drain leads, which are the pipes that connect the drains in backyards to the main in the street at three locations, one across from Sable Ridge Drive, another one kind of across from the Mouse Ear here on Fall Creek. And then the other one would be in the backyards just west of Providence Avenue and connecting to a new main, then a 24 inches main that would extend through the park and also tie into the ir opportunity to

to

that, replacing up to 14 yard drain inlet castings with the higher capacity castings. And the cost estimate on that is $1,600,000 The modeled impact of those flood reductions would take the dark blue water surface area and it would shrink it down to the light blue water surface area as shown on the map. I will mention too, I thought the comment earlier about the flooding that occurred in Sable Ridge Drive, that's not predicted by the model. I would chalk that up to an example of what we mentioned before about if inlets get clogged by debris or something like that, that can also have an influence on flooding. So again, the estimate on that would be $1,600,000 and that would be proposed to be a storm water utility cost because it would be basically improvements to the city's public infrastructure.

And I think I'll pause there to see if there are any questions.

Alder Hartzheim. Thank you, Chair.

Deputy Director Newburger, I'm confused by the dark blue on this map for alternative two. Are you saying that those essentially disappear?

Right. Where you cannot see any light blue, that's because the model did not predict any remaining flooding.

So for instance, the wrestlers house would no longer have any kind of drainage issue and this area as well would not have any drainage issue. It would just all be going towards it would be all on the trail. And then this would disappear as well?

So again, we're talking about what the model predicts, not

with the

underlying I'm just conditions on that is the model output, yes, you are correct.

So we can essentially ignore the dark blue on here. The light blue is what would be the end result of these activities on the predicted model. Correct. Okay. Thank you.

All right. Seeing no one else, let's go ahead and talk about Alternative three, and there might be more questions when we are comparing the two of them.

So alternative three would be a the scenario here would be a combination of public side improvements and potential private side improvements. We would be adding a new storm sewer and a yard drain size increase here in the vicinity of Providence Avenue going down to the corridor. If that looks similar to that component from alternative two, that's because that component is the same part of the component that was identified in alternative two. Similarly, this alternative would involve the development of a dry detention pond on the south side of the trail. Also very similar to that component from alternative two.

So bottom line, we're looking at 164 lineal feet of yard drain lead upsize, four sixty lineal feet of new 24 inches storm sewer going down to Apple Creek, the dry pond flood storage south of Apple Creek Trail, replacing up to 14 yard drain inlet castings. And under this scenario, the model predicts that there would still be five properties, as indicated by the yellow and red boxes on this, that while flood reductions would occur in terms of the 100 water surface elevation, it would not be enough for the model to predict that that water would not get to the elevation that exists at those lookout basements. So there, again, some flood reduction would occur in order to provide mitigation up to that one hundred year event, there would still potentially be consideration that private property owners may want to do private side improvements, which we've talked about before under alternative one. The cost estimate to the storm water utility for this alternative is $330,000 alternatives that were analyzed. Staff felt like it provided a pretty good range in terms of public infrastructure improvements with corresponding cost to the storm water utility.

And our intent here was to get this in front of the committee, give you an opportunity to ask these questions to absorb the information. And potentially staff would be ready to come back at the next utilities committee meeting asking for a decision to be made to pursue an alternative if that's the direction that the committee chose to go. So we recognize the fact that there's still a lot of analysis to be done at different areas of the city. And we recognize that that's data that the various alders could potentially use to try to gauge what the right size approach to this is. But staff felt like it was important for us to present information as it became available and to get it in front of the elected officials even if we don't have the citywide or analyses done in various other areas of the city ready to go.

So we understand that snapshot it's of data. Additional data will come before the committee for the 2024 D study, among other areas as that becomes available. But this is what we have right now.

Thank you. I want to start off with some questions of my own just to make sure that I am correctly interpreting the maps. So it looks like with all three alternatives, we're really not changing anything North of Sable Ridge Drive. Looks like those blue areas continue to be exactly the same. Is that correct?

Right. So alternative two, you can see there are some flood reductions there, slight differences in some areas. But typically, as you get farther up in watershed, you're seeing less reduction there. Really what we were trying to focus on with these alternatives was reductions in modeled predicted flooding in areas that were associated with structure flooding. And while some of the areas farther to the north do indicate some flooding that extends to within street areas and onto private property, the model did not predict flooding up to structures in the one hundred year event.

So that was kind of part of the parameters that we used to decide which alternatives to look at.

Okay. Then another thing that seems to stand out to me, alternative two is the most expensive, but it seems like alternative three achieves slightly more reduction of the dark blue. So if you could just walk me through that. Maybe I'm not seeing it correctly, but it's just like, would the more expensive one not be achieving more than the less expensive option?

Could you point to a specific area on the alternative three map? And I can try to zero in on that. We're all looking.

Okay. So if we look at alternative three So there's the triangular shaped retention pond in alternative two, which has dark blue against the triangle shape and then dark blue on the other side of that trail extending there and some more, dark blue. Then in alternative three, we've got our flow direction arrows, And, there's just, also, if you go up to, a z dash 47 where there's that, swap casing symbol, the It's light blue, for the most part, in alternative three, but dark blue in alternative two.

If I may, I believe, if I'm seeing it correctly, any of the light blue on the option three is a remaining flood like that would continue to be impacted by the potential of a 100 storm. So whereas in number two, it looks like that would be addressed in that AAS two forty seven or AZ 47. It would not be that would be one of the areas that would remain a challenge if we went with Option three.

So this is option three over here where it's light blue, suggesting things have been addressed. Here in alternative two, where it's more expensive, it's still dark blue.

That's because the light blue got so small that it's either gone or it's so small that it fits underneath the dot there. So for example, the flooding in AZ 47, that is the model predicts no no flooding outside of that that yard drain symbol there too.

So the dark blue is always the existing current situation and would be anything that's light blue is now after the fact will be still a impacted, if I'm not mistaken. Sorry. Okay.

So then so when I'm looking at alternative two, where it's dark blue is not going to exist anymore? Correct. Okay. So I was reading it backwards. That clarifies it a lot. Thank you. Thank you for your help. All right. Let's go ahead. And Alder Hartzheim, did you have any questions you'd like to ask at this time?

Yes, please. Actually, sort of a statement and a little bit of a question as well. Alternative three looks to be a much better alternative fiscally for the city. There are still concerns about private property owners, and that would have to be dealt with as well. But for a substantially lower amount of public infrastructure funds, it would solve a great deal of the problems.

What I'm interested in is what are the rate impacts for both alternative two and alternative three? Are there already existing funds in a CIP or some other sort of investment fund that already exists? I believe that does exist on the storm water utility. Or will there be immediacy of an impact on other people on their storm water rates for either one of those?

I'll take the first crack at that, and then I think Director Youngworth will share some additional observations there. So I'll start by saying that I'll go back to what I mentioned before about other drainage studies that are still in the works. And there recommendations may that are going to be coming before this committee down the road that involve alternatives that are also potentially relatively expensive. And so for right now, based on the information that we're talking about right now, I can provide a little bit of context in terms of what's currently in the 2025 budget that's not that hasn't been identified for

a

project expenses this year. So in 2025, we have $250,000 that had been budgeted for flood reduction projects. In addition to that, we had also in the stormwater capital $2,500,000 that had been identified for land acquisition associated with a water quality pond. That opportunity is no longer that. Able to now DPW does not have any immediate plan to spend that money.

And I can't comment in detail on the 2026 budget submittal as it's not a public document yet. But DPW did anticipate that with the ongoing flood studies that are happening right now that there would be an identified need for some stormwater funds. So we did include a placeholder in the 2026 budget request that's currently under review.

All right. Thank you. Could I follow-up, if I could, please? Did you want to answer first or? Okay.

Since this is a separate utility and it's funded separately, are we talking about CIP funds, borrowed funds, or are we talking about funds that will be used out of that utility that will not impact repairs? So

these are all of these funds we're speaking to are all stormwater utility fee dollars. So not intended to be borrowed, not to say we couldn't borrow, and then the loan could be paid through the utility. Of course, there's that long term look we could consider. The one thing I did did want to point out so this ultimately, if we stack all of these stormwater projects over time. So Pete had alluded to this watershed, and I'm not trying to diminish this because this is this is definitely a problem area.

It's actually been our number two priority area to tackle along with the Northland Bel Air watershed in conjunction with that. The fractional amount of this watershed comparatively, it's much smaller. And from a DPW perspective, it's allocation of resources throughout the entirety of the city that we have to assess. So what I would say to the funds that we currently have in 2025, 250,000 we can safely allocate to flood reduction projects. I think there's no concern there.

The 2.5 for land acquisition, we have other, and that's for water quality purposes. We still have DNR requirements we have to meet besides flood control that we have to allocate to water quality. We are trying to work on finding alternatives to pursuing this. I don't know that they're going to be that amount. I can't speak to what that's going to look like. We're working on it. We're trying to do what we can to capture what we can when the opportunities arise. But we do have things in the pipeline. We also have potential projects for the Northland Bel Air watershed that we've alluded to that will be coming to you guys for consideration at some point in time. And that's only two watersheds within the entirety of the city.

There are a lot more. And if this storm tracked differently, we could be having a different conversation in a different watershed. We have recognized that this is a problem area that that funds need to be out we would like to see some funds allocated to, but it's a balance of the proportionate amount that committee gets to make The pleasure of your job. But that is, from a DPW perspective, what we have to look at. And as we're looking at these watersheds and we're trying to build this citywide assessment of allocation of resources, that is one thing we are working towards is having a criteria assessment so that we can be better informed with prioritizing these.

This is the first one that the study has been ready to go for. We wanted to make sure if we can proceed with something, we wanted it in front of you for consideration.

You. One more follow-up, if

I could, please. Thank you. If, for instance, Alternative three were chosen, are there opportunities for assistance in the small number of homeowners that would remain impacted? And I leave that as a very open question.

I would say that the committee would need to approve the allocation of those resources bearing in mind that that is being allocated towards individual properties. It would be private property work that would be allocated.

Thank you. Thank you. Now we'll go back out to the audience. I know a number of people in the jean jacket in the back. I saw you have your hand up first.

Rachel Peterson, 2701 North Biola Street. First of all, just wanted to say thank you for your time and attention to this. It's obviously very important to us personally, but I also know and believe that it's very important for the city as a whole. And while I understand that when we're talking about one hundred year storms, these solutions will likely outlive all of us, I do appreciate the fact that we want to make meaningful contributions during our terms here. So thank you.

And also I just want to say I trust that you guys are all up on your climate science climate enthusiasts, maybe? Every year, for every degree that the planet increases, rain clouds hold about 20% more rain, and that's only going to keep happening. So while, yes, the storm came through where it did and District 14 was very negatively impacted, it will be your district next. So for all the older persons. We saw a one hundred year storm happen in 2024, we saw it happen in 2018, and then we also, very ominously on the one year anniversary of our flood, the city of Milwaukee experienced their own catastrophic flooding.

This is only going to keep happening, so I would implore everyone involved, we're going to keep coming to this table if we only put forward short term solutions and if we only put forward the most cost effective solutions, right? Like when we're thinking about cost, think long term, please. Thank you.

Thank you. In the purple checkered shirt.

I just wanted to make sure everybody understands. The way the

Could you state your name again for the record?

Tom Rasler, 3023 East Bald Creek Lane.

Thank you.

In the first chart, there were nine properties that were in jeopardy of flooding with the 100 projected rainfall. In the option number two, there are zero properties that would be affected by the one hundred year rainfall. And in the third option, there are five. Unfortunately, we're one of those five, and we have no options to correct the problem. We've done everything we know what to do to eliminate that as a problem.

Our next door neighbor with us is in the same situation. Every time we get a threat of a severe storm, we're panicking. So option number three is not going to improve our situation. Thank you.

All right. Anyone else? Think with the green shirt on the end, you had raised your hand previously as well.

Steve Miller, 3133 Sable Ridge Drive. So looking at the alternatives, I guess I would like to reiterate, because it is a little confusing, the dark blue versus the light blue. On the alternatives, Light blue should still be considered bad. That's surface water. If you look at alternatives one and two for my property, again, center red section, there's almost no appreciable change in either of them.

And then my neighbors across the street, you can see that that large section of blue, it doesn't change anything for them. And had the storm lasted about a half hour longer, they would have also had structure damage. So I think that's something to keep in mind. And then as far as the walkout or look out windows go, I believe that was and I'm not an original resident of the development, but my neighbor is. And he said that that was a directive by the city that they were required.

And now we're finding out that they're a problem. My foundation's about nine inches above the drain, which I think the gentleman was saying that 12 to 18 inches or six to 12 inches above that would be a one hundred year storm. So it's a little troubling that the structure was allowed to be built. Even though the one hundred year storm was not the benchmark at that point, I don't think it's far off to think that nine inches wasn't enough. Thank you.

Thank you. And in the front row.

Albrecht, 3229 East Fall Creek Lane. Just a couple comments on the map. So we're if you're on alternate one, we're in one of those red boxes right there. And some of the proposed swap castings on the south side of the trail you see those pink dots we can visually see where there is a current drain right now, and the water never reaches the height of the south side of the trail. It always comes to our side of the trail.

There's an elevation difference that I think contributes to the problems. And then after this event on July 5, you had only to walk out there and see where all the wood chips ended up. And you can see the wood chips went to the end of the trail, which is just before Providence Drive there, and there's a berm. That berm stopped water. It couldn't go over the berm, and it just swished back into all of our yards.

So I think elevation on the other side of the trail, especially if you're going to add new drains on the other side. Right now, they are at a higher level that aren't affected. And that berm, I think, should be considered because it was a river that had nowhere to go but come back.

If I may Go ahead. Just to add a little bit of a point of clarification, and I know this doesn't alleviate anything, but to point out that there are two separate subdivisions going on. And I think we're seeing that interchange of water between. And the proposal to include the dry detention pond in that triangular piece is intended to keep the drainage separate as was originally intended to be. So while I understand that that segment through there might appear as a blockade, if you will, for lack of a better word of saying that, there are two separate watersheds or two separate watersheds, two separate subdivisions, and the drainage from, you know, I'll say the Fall Creek Lane area is supposed to stay on that side and drain into those pipes on that side.

So the proposals that we've brought forward for alternatives two and three are intended to make sure that we don't see that overtopping to try and separate that as it should have been. So just to add a little bit of explanation within that area specifically. And there's other the three alternatives that have been presented are not the only options out there. There's, of course, a plethora. We could allocate more utility dollars and extend pipe further up into Sable Ridge and some of the further roads north to Ashbury.

You know, it doesn't end there. It's where do you continue to go? So as Pete alluded to, we looked areas to alleviate what is seen as in the one hundred year modeled event structure flooding reduction. Take that for what it is.

All right. And the white shirt in the front row.

Bruce Albrecht, 3229 Efall Creek. That south subdivision, I believe, in several a few years later. I think it was designed a one hundred year flood, you know, the models are you probably know, but I saw it on a map, so I thought I'd mention it.

Thank you. And in the brown jacket in the front row.

Victoria Talinski, 3239 East Fall Creek Lane, the corner lot in the red in the first option. I think so we did have structure damage. You know, I appreciate the multiple models and and the work that's been put in here. I think knowing that a decision is not gonna be made today, it sounds like, I honestly invite you all, like, give me a call, come see what we're talking about here, what the berms look like. There is a storm drain between my house and Albrecht's house that is the stool type yard drain from the conversations of the 2018 and the twenty twenty four kind of hundred year storm events.

We were home at the time of the 2018, and we were pulling debris out of the drain, which I think helped eliminate some flooding opportunity. We were not home. Our neighbors were not home at the time of the 2025. I can show you pictures of our lookout window where if the window kind of end here was at the ground level, we had water this high, And then the window went higher. So then by the time family got home, there was probably a couple inches still showing, and we had a couple inches of water in the basement, the finished basement. So I just wanted to invite you guys to come take a

look and see what it looks like.

And feel free to reach out. I'm happy to give my contact information, and my husband would be happy to show anyone around just to see what it looks like.

I appreciate that. I think it can be very helpful to have an actual, like, visual point reference for making these decisions. Thank you. I will be available as well as show. Wonderful. So anyone who wants to give us a tour, stick around after the meeting, and we can get each other's phone numbers. All right. In the back in the black shirt.

Dexter Peterson of 2701 North Viola Street. My question is I'm looking at alternate two, and I see there that we have a variety of different sized added storm drainage. So when we're discussing the difference of building standards from when the subdivision was built as due today, is there a difference in size of the current storm drainage systems that we're upscaling these two? Like, it looks like the smallest one is 18 inches. So is that, like, quite a bit larger than what

storm sewers are one of the conveyance methods that can be used as part of a conveyance system. The city ordinance does allow the streets to be used as a conveyance system as well and surface ditches. So there can also depending on the design, there can also be a surface flow component. So sometimes the design engineer of a plat decides to put all of that water in a pipe. We would call that then a one hundred year design pipe.

It's more common where possible for cost reasons for developers, engineers to try to put about the five to ten year storm in the storm sewer and then look for opportunities to use the street and drainage ditches to handle the balance of that flow. So it's hard to say if this had been designed today, for example, what size pipe would that have been. They would have started from the ground up looking at different ways to manage that one hundred year flow. So I tell you right now is this is a given pipe in the ground that's 12 inches. Would it be 18 inches today?

It would depend on the specific approach that design engineer would use.

Okay. One of my main concerns is that some of my neighbors do have those drainage things in their backyard. But with the old storm systems, it's just once it starts raining heavily enough, that has nowhere to go and then just starts to bubble over back in their yards. And to me, looking at solution two and solution three, increasing the water pipes seems to be the biggest contributor to seeing the water levels go down into residential homes. And I just want to stress that while it is more expensive, I mean, is also going to be saving, as other people have said, future generations from this problem as well.

So I just want to say that, again, you know, it's the one of the sole things that gets the water away is those pipes. So even if we put those drainage systems in our backyard, if those pipes are full, they can't go anywhere. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right. Anything else from the audience? All right. Coming back up here, anything from Alderperson Hartzheim?

Thank you, Chair. As was mentioned, these are not the only alternatives. I would be really interested in knowing what perhaps pick and choose can be done to make alternative three get rid of all the little boxes. There are a few people there that are very much impacted and wouldn't be if we could, for instance, between the red and yellow box toward the top, if we could put in part of alternative two in that spot. And I don't know obviously, I know only enough to be dangerous in this regard because I am not a floodwater stormwater management engineer.

But if there were an alternative like alternative three that gets rid of all the private property requirements that is still less than going to alternative two, could we explore that? Could we find a way to see whether that's a possibility? And what the cost would be in that regard, obviously.

Thank you. I like that idea as well. I kind of saw alternative one as one end of the spectrum and alternative two as the other end of the spectrum. Alternative three is somewhere in the middle, but let's change what our target is. And I like the idea of, yes, seeing if we could eliminate those, one, two, three, four, five, those five boxes.

And then I think certainly to, you know, keep keep alternative three there for comparison, because it's possible that what it takes to eliminate those five boxes might put us very close to the end of the spectrum where we have alternative two to begin with. So I think just adding a fourth alternative to see how close we could get to that goal would be helpful for the committee. I do see a hand up in the audience again. So come on and approach the mic. And then this will be last call.

So after you, if there's anyone else who wants to speak, please come up and speak now, we're going to wrap up. Go ahead.

Rachel Peterson, 2701 North Viola Street. I just wanted to speak a little bit about cost and about taxpayer costs and cost to us as individuals. Obviously, this study was very expensive. This event was very expensive for us as individuals. And I think I mean, there are people that are in like $70,000 of credit card debt over this.

Like, to be so clear, every home that experienced damage is looking at tens of thousands of dollars in damages and those are things that need to be paid up front. In order for contractors to do work, need deposits. In order for them to complete the work, you need to pay the other half. So I think while these things are very expensive, and yes, rates would go up for taxpayers, I would personally talk to any taxpayer that would be upset by something like this because these rate increases are essentially like insurance or a down like a payment plan on this not happening again. So even if rates do go up, and I'm sure they will if we pick a very expensive project it will have been worth it because it is so much easier to pay an increase monthly than it is to be slapped with a gigantic bill to fix your home that you cannot cannot live in.

Thank you. Thank you.

All right. Anyone else with any last comments for the committee tonight? All right. We'll come back up to staff.

If that's okay. Mhmm. So just to add to the question on another alternative, I just want to point out we spent a ton of time going through multiple iterations in the model to see if shutting off certain things in that model, turning on other things, trying different alternatives, different pipe sizes, you name it. In alternative two, you see the two different outfalls. We tried them.

Does that do anything to help with the upstream flooding? What I will point out is the impacts upstream are only going to occur with the work the pipe work, the pipe upsizing that's done from there to the outfall. If we upsize just we tried this in the model. Upsizing just the outfall and maybe three pipe segments up, what would that do to the upstream model? It's not enough capacity to help the upstream area without having that pipe continue all the way upstream to those particular areas.

We also tried upsizing the pipes in the upstream and maybe less large on the downstream end at the discharge end. And, again, there's not enough of a net impact that that would be visible. And, also, having this outfall separate, this 24 inch and alternative three and and, again, we'll go with the direction we're given. I'm just trying to point out all of everything that went into our modeling efforts. That 24 inch is a disconnect from the other system to help help alleviate that upstream those upstream impacts as well. So just to clarify what has gone into the assessment.

Can I ask a point of clarification on that? Go ahead. Does that suggest that option two that we're seeing here was the model which eliminated and that was the minimum viable product Correct. To be able to eliminate the potential for homeowners in this one hundred year

To eliminate

The potential, the reduced potential

for structure damage. Correct.

Correct.

So what we were asking for is effectively if we're looking to eliminate or to reduce the potential for structure damage, model two

Correct.

Is the kind of minimum viable product to hit.

So if we start, like, throttling down those pipe sizes, now you start to see that model show standing water or potential for encroachment towards structures?

So go ahead.

So at the risk of asking you to predict the future. So essentially because I'm I'm thinking about the investment with it. Right? If you invest a good amount of money in a really good product, you're gonna get a good return. But if you only invest, like, a certain amount of money in something that's not as good, it might be a waste of your money.

And so what I'm kind of getting the idea is and I mean, I know there are other factors that we're definitely gonna have to consider. Some of them have been talked about tonight. But what I'm wondering then is if we are investing in less than what we have in alternative two, is it really worth the money that we're spending even though it seems like it's a whole lot less money, it doesn't necessarily seem like it's getting what we're trying to accomplish and then we'll all be back here doing this same process again in the next time we have a really big storm, which as has been expressed tonight is happening more and more often.

It's as effective as the input from the private owners if it's a viable option for them to do work on their own property, pairing city contribution from storm water utility funds to start making the way of progress, to bring it home, I think there needs to be some engagement if there is an alternative on specific properties. And again, that's without saying with what we've heard. I just wanna add that clarification that sometimes there's only so much that can be done when there's a walkout on either side. So take that for what it is. And that's why the alternative does include both public infrastructure and private work.

Thank you. Okay. So going back to kind of the differences between alternative two and alternative three and talking about wanting to seize a scenario where we get rid of those five red and yellow boxes, are so are we basically saying that that scenario is alternate two and there wouldn't really be a meaningful additional scenario for us to consider at our next meeting?

I would say we can slice the loaf of bread as thin as we would like it. Staff is fairly confident that alternative two, in general terms, is the right sized alternative if the goal is to result in the model predicting no structure flooding based solely on the public infrastructure improvements. So I don't think there's another alternative out there that's going to move the needle a whole lot in terms of cost and rightsizing this besides alternative two if the goal is public infrastructure is the component that's going to be focused on here too alone to be focused on no modeled one hundred year flooding of those locations.

Okay. Thank you.

Yes. I want to, at this point, ask the committee, do you feel like making a choice between these three alternatives would make sense to you? Or would you like to add a multiple choice item to this challenge? What's what's the consensus of the committee?

You mean, like, right now here tonight?

No. Like, when we come back, do we want to look at an alternative four, or do we feel like alternatives one through three have covered the bases as well as we can?

Then I have a question for clarification. I believe deputy director had said that there was still more surveying being done or something along those lines, that there was more information coming your way but you wanted to make sure that we had everything in real time. So if there's more information that we have to wait on, I would want to wait on a decision. But if we have pretty much everything that we need, you feel like you have everything that you need to carry this out, then I

would be We have everything for this watershed. Okay. There are other watersheds to be considered. So that's what that statement Okay. Was in relation Thank you. Everything has been assessed for this. Okay.

And I had also made reference to the fact that any given yard drain that we would look to swap the casting out, we would still need to identify the path that would be taken and that would be part if we pursued such an alternative, that would be kind of like the next level of analysis going into actual design would be to look at constructability.

So with regards to alternative three in the five properties that still has a potential for flooding in a one hundred year event. Was any analysis done with regards to what the potential private property investment would need to be to improve that situation versus the additional cost for, let's say, alternative two, which is the entirety being addressed by public infrastructure?

That's a tough one to answer. It's a great question. What I would say to that is if we introduce alternatives or a specific recommendation for a specific property owner, I think the potential liability implications would be such that it could open us up to, you know, potential issue down the line. So that's why we typically, for private property work, especially around a structure, we're going to look at the public side. We're going to lean that direction.

And I certainly understand that. I guess I've And heard

could vary from property to

property. Certainly.

That's the other piece to it is one thing might work at your residence but not might fit at other And matters. There might variability not in that.

Potentially based upon the property and everything that's directly related to it, there might not be a solution that is able to fully address the need as well on the private side if I'm hearing correctly as well, potentially. Right. Okay.

Well, we don't need an answer tonight. Certainly, you know, it we're planning to bring forward to the next utility meeting the option to vote on an alternative. And if we want to wait until we have other watershed studies, we can do that. If we want to proceed with a project now, we can do that also. It really comes down to your direction. And if you give us direction on what we plan to propose for the next meeting, we can certainly incorporate that because this information will be included with that as well.

So if we if we did wait to have another watershed study so that we can kind get some more context of the total cost overall for the city, what would that timeline look like? Because I know that another thing we've said since the beginning of this conversation was that we want to identify some low hanging fruit to go after. So I don't want to, I don't know, avoid the first low hanging fruit opportunity that we have. I but I also want to be prudent about getting a sense of the context so that we don't overspend at the beginning of the project and then not have enough resources to sustain the long haul of getting all the work done.

So the 800 pound gorilla is obviously the Northland Avenue and Bel Air watershed, the five square mile watershed. And at this point, based on the current rate of progress and the complexity of that study, staff anticipate bringing just another information item for that before the committee, either at the next committee meeting or the following committee meeting. And then an update number four is currently envisioned in early twenty twenty six. And at that point, we anticipate having some projects to look at on a map, perhaps even some early very order of magnitude type cost estimates. And then kind of depending on some of the feedback that we would get from elected officials, we would anticipate that early twenty twenty six, say spring twenty twenty six, we would hope to be ready to have elected officials start making decisions on preferred alternatives.

Okay. So then with the funds available in the 2025 budget, if we wanted to use those funds towards this, I assume we would have to be making that decision right away. And do those funds then just carry over and add to the pot for 2026? Or is there an opportunity lost if we don't move forward right away?

I think staff's preference on this would be we know that there are going to be a lot of projects that are lined up between this study and the next study. So with the projects that we mentioned before that currently haven't been targeted toward a particular project. Right now, staff are anticipating requesting that those funds be carried over into 2026 so that they're potentially available to apply to projects that would, in theory, materialize over the course of the development the study development that I mentioned before. So we don't want to miss an opportunity to make use of those budgeted 2025 funds by not asking that those funds be carried over.

Okay.

Would there be any opportunity for a multi phase approach? It appears to me that the option three or the alternative three is kind of a step in the direction that most of or many of the different aspects are addressed for certain properties. The main difference being that alternative two includes that significant addition of the line, the 1,800 lateral feet of stormwater sewer main. And so I'm curious, does it have to be all at once? Would there be a cost difference or benefit to potentially moving forward with Option three knowing that we would have the ability to potentially include that additional line down the line if it doesn't impact as much as we anticipate.

Yeah, that's a really good question. So thanks for bringing that up. So I think it's important to when considering the answer to that, it's important to acknowledge it's one thing for a committee to say we want staff to pursue an alternative. And then the other and equally important item on that is the actual budget approval for getting it in the ground. And so that's kind of where some of these other projects kind of come in there.

And then there's additional guidance that might be provided to staff, which is how to prioritize some of these things. And we don't as staff, we're always willing to listen. And it's important for us to hear the elected official perspective in terms of, well, we've got for example, I'm just going to throw a number out. It doesn't have anything to do with this. Let's just say, for example, that we've completed studies that have alternatives that have been identified to pursue with a total price tag of $20,000,000 Then staff has to make decisions about how to phase that.

And one important consideration on many of these projects is, does the work get done in conjunction with the street reconstruct project, in which case the pavement restoration is, we'll call it, free or it's baked into the project because it would have been done anyway as part of a street reconstruct project? Or do you get in there right away knowing that there's still some life left in that street, but you want to get the drainage conveyance improvements done early so you take that hit to the cost and maybe reconstruct the street and put a new pavement down to restore that after drainage project is done earlier than you might otherwise. So these are all part of the calculus that we go through as we're trying to plan our our five year plans out. And so the answer to your question, would say, depends on how the how the budget ultimately is adopted and what direction staff may get from directed officials on where to focus those actual budget dollars. So if you slice a project up too finely, you lose economy of scale because there's cost baked into mobilizing a contractor into a neighborhood.

That having been said, if, for example, you wanted to pursue the 24 inches pipe going through the park and then the yard drain that's connected into that and say, we're going to take a wait and see approach on the big pipe within the Fall Creek Lane storm sewer, we'd probably lose some economy of scale. But if we package it a certain way with another larger bid project, it probably won't be too bad of a hit in terms of mobilization costs. So those are the sorts of things that we can certainly we can take a look at. And we could we could still potentially get a viable biddable project out of something that would be focused, say, on the 24 inches sewer and then wait if that was the decision that was made in terms of other funding priorities for a time when we could balance it against other considerations.

We have other watershed plans that have been formulated throughout the city that we have so that when we get to Fall Creek Lane for reconstruction that comes in our five year plan we we use that watershed analysis to say okay the pipe needs at this time to be upsized to x so yes that is another tool in our toolbox that we phase in these things as well.

Alder Hartshund. Thank you, Chair. I appreciate this conversation because it would be very easy for me to say that my district is very negatively impacted, and we really want to spend $1,600,000 immediately. But I recognize, and I think we all recognize, even the people impacted here I think recognize, that this city is a city. We've got all these other things that are happening to other people as well.

So I like the idea that was presented, sort of an incremental approach to this, and hope that we can very much look into that. Even if we look at alternative three, and you said there were roughly $250,000 left in the budget, That's still $80,000 short. Where does that come from, and how does that get balanced? And as Deputy Director Neuberger said, there are a lot of ways for us to balance priorities. So while I see the benefit of, yeah, let's jump on that $1,600,000 there are too many other alternative and options available to all of us as a city to try to approach this problem big picture.

Yes, dollars 1,600,000.0 might be a low hanging fruit, but it might be an expensive low hanging fruit that takes away from someone else. So while I would love for it to be fixed right away as well for the folks in my district, I would like for us to be very methodical about moving forward with this without just saying, let's just go. Thanks. I do think we're certainly going

to need some time to make a decision. I do see someone else in the audience would like to speak. I had said that that was all the input that we were going to take. Is the committee Okay with allowing one more piece of input from the audience tonight? Okay. Go ahead. Just don't want our meeting to take forever. It's already gone over time.

I appreciate it. I like the models are great. Thank you for putting them together. There's nothing more destructive than water. If you've ever had a house flood, it's short of being broken. It's probably the second most disturbing thing you're ever going to have happen. We're growing like crazy. The land around us is developing like mad. We can figure out taxes, but it is hard to figure this stuff out if we don't fix it. And if we gotta do more, I'll pay more. But I don't want my neighbors to suffer either. Wherever they are in the city of Appleton, we got to get at it. And now's the time to get at it. Our growth is good. When we're in a downturn, that's the time when this is going to be impossible, if not terrible.

So let's get at it.

Thank you.

Thank you. All right. Does staff need any more guidance or direction from us on are there any loose ends to wrap up tonight?

What I understand, we will, at the next utility committee meeting, bring forth an action item that includes alternatives two and three is what I'm gathering. I I believe those were the two that we were leaning towards at this point in time. And we'll put that information forward for potential consideration on a vote to move ahead, if that is the direction of the committee at this time.

Sounds good.

Okay. Thank you. Thank

you. All right. So we do have another item on our agenda. I want to thank you all again for coming. And those of you who said you wanted to give us tours, you can wait around for the end of the meeting, or you could also reach out to your alder person and we can get each other's information that way.

Perfect.

Thank Thank you. All

right. Thank you very much. We're going to continue with our agenda then. We have twenty five-eleven eighteen, the water main break reports for July and August 2025.

Unless you have any questions? I hope it's straightforward.

No questions. Thank you.

All right. Yeah, we do seem to be doing a little better than earlier in the year.

We're getting a little bit back on track, so that's a good thing. Fingers crossed.

Yeah. All right. Any other comments or questions?

Just one. Alder Hefeneh. Thank you for having the patience of a saint to explain all of these questions to us because we maybe don't even know what questions we're supposed to be asking.

I very much appreciate that. Thank you. Absolutely. And we know we've done stormwater for, well

Longer than I want to admit.

Longer than

we want

to admit. I'm 19 and Pete's a couple more than that. So there's a lot of detail and a lot of in it, and we we've been trying to make sure that this is as clear as it can be, which I know goes without saying, because it's it is difficult to wrap wrap our heads around. So, we appreciate you listening and and being receptive to our talking at length about stormwater.

Well, thank you for your patience and your ability to talk at length because I think obviously the more we are able to understand these complicated things without the benefit of your many years of experience, the more that the value of your wisdom is able to be used proactively by the committee. So I think that given these issues that we have to deal with as a city, I think we're really lucky to have the staff that we do and to have the collaboration between city leadership and city staff to really prioritize the experience of our residents and take the opportunity to solve these problems while we instead of getting, caught by them later on down the road when we don't have as many resources. Thank you. All right, moving down, we have item number eight. Motion to adjourn.

Second.

Alright. We have a motion and a second to adjourn. All in favor say aye. Aye. We are adjourned. Thank you

all

very much.