Public Works Committee - Regular Meeting

Um, if there's no additions or deletions for the, the agenda, we'll just go ahead, you know, say, it's all right, we'll move on. Let's move to the minutes. I need a motion. 2nd, and any discussion on the minutes here and as they're ready to vote all in favor of the minutes signify by saying aye. Opposed? Okay. Okay, we have citizens comments this evening. We have a couple of things to say are three people that may want to talk and, and if they don't, they choose to say, you know, what's been said. And so tonight, we have Mary Ellen Edwards Mish, is that right? And Jonathan Mish and Emily. as we know, because she was here last time. But we'll start with Mary Ellen. Mary, Ms. Mish.

Hi. In 2019, you guys did the major excavation on Trueport and Volcom. And it was very successful. And we had flooded. Yeah, from the drainage. We flooded before that, like, terribly. And it was a successful excavation that we flooded last Wednesday. And I think the ditches need... Redressing or excavating?

The 2019 Camper readdressed our drainage and it worked very well. We live on the corner and we have two hills coming down towards us. And Once it was cleared out, we didn't have any issues. It's actually wonderful. The only issue is the banks of the front ditch are so steep, we have to weed the whole thing. That's on the local side, right? This is on the true source side. Okay. And everything was fine. We've tended our ditches. We paid to have them cleared out. done it ourselves. I've been up and down it, spraying weeds. But farther up, we can't get to it. And on down on the other side of Volcom and over on to... That's the house caddy corner across from us.

I've called the owner to ask them if they can remove the trees. I've called the city.

What's the next road?

Robin Hood.

Robin Hood. Yeah. Over through there, it's continued to grow up.

Yeah, the water doesn't even move through there. There's a white house that was abandoned because it floods.

But over the past probably year, year and a half, the water started creeping up again. We talked to everybody we can who we can get a hold of who had a bit of a drainage with them. And it's just continued, continued, continued. And I guess it hasn't been cleared enough that it finally came through. And I was going to bed on Wednesday night. Or was it Tuesday? I thought it was Tuesday night. We live in a split level. And I had been upstairs. I was going downstairs, getting ready for bed. And I saw two inches of water. in my bedroom all throughout and that ended up being delightful with work actually still in the middle of dealing with the water and everything else and all that all right Naturally, not technically in a floodplain, so no option for flood insurance. And the best thing we can do is come in and ask to see what can be done about insuring the ditches and the drainage is clear and has a place to go.

that's the tail there's one picture and we'll have to trace and a lot the creek becomes this small and water just doesn't keep moving very much okay now this is the deep that's up the hill from me a little bit like two houses up for me her the lady that was there sent this picture this floods completely it has an old pipe and there's what this is eroding you can tell the water comes up and then it crosses that street, so Volco has water crossing across the top of it.

Okay, let me ask you a quick question. On this right here, of course, you all didn't have to do that. It would be upsetting to look at it, but have you ever looked in there and seen if there's a lot of dirt or silt?

She said that the city came through and I guess like cleaned it out a little bit, but it's back to where it was.

road that goes or the range that goes underneath that's my house in front of our house it goes catty corner the drainage underneath a volco it is not clear and we had retaining rocks put up during the during the last dressing of our drainage and there was probably two inches thick of debris washed down from upstream and collected right there at our drain under the road and it came through with enough force that it actually washed down a substantial portion

Is it adjourned? And, you know, that was the only other question I have now. I'll relate to the rest of the committee and to city staff on that. May we keep these pictures? Yes, sir.

Absolutely. All right.

Thank you. Because our public works department will keep them and won't throw them away or anything like that. We'll have them on file in case you ever need them.

I'm sorry I didn't label them more extensively, but I just tried to put them on.

I know exactly where you guys live, and I mean... Yeah, and I remember the work that we had done there in 2019. I appreciate you letting us know that it was successful at that time. So with that work being done, they'll be able to look at your situation even better now because we're very familiar with that. And I'm sorry that it has flooded like that. It just seems like we've had more flash flooding. Right. you know then we normally have you know and then it goes to be 100 or 90 degrees you know and it goes away and then we get the storms again so um i don't have anything else do you guys have any questions on no i just like to get a report next week yes what the staff finds out okay yeah i do too I hate to meeting you all today, but that's just the way, unfortunately. That'll give us an opportunity to get out there and take a look at it and give us a report of what we can do to help. But we're here to help you. And I'm just sorry that that has happened. I really am.

We want to stay there long term.

Oh, yeah.

Nine years.

So you've all been there nine? Oh, that's great. I'm glad to hear it. All right. Well, we'll see what we can do to help. Because, you know, it's always your house is your castle. And, you know, that's your biggest investment you make for nearly all of your life.

I'm a disabled veteran. He has hip disabilities. So when we flood and we have to move in an emergent situation, it's usually hurt.

Well, I'm sorry for that. Is there anything else that you all might think right now that might can help us out or just kind of explain it a little more? I mean, I think the committee... we see things like this, so we'll kind of know, but I want to hear everything. Every little comment, whether it's good or bad, will help us do anything.

I wish we could provide more information. I wanted to do more looking and try and trace what I could find. But it's As we said, it just happened Wednesday, or Tuesday, Wednesday, to take off work to try and remediate. And this entire past weekend, we've been pulling up doors, drying out, and just really haven't had a chance.

Chairman, if I'm helpful to the staff, you can put your phone number down. So that they can contact you if need be and meet you at the station.

Yeah, and I'm home all the time. I'm pretty dang clean, so I'm home all the time. So I'm available if anybody needs like a tour or questions.

Yeah, and if you see anybody out there walking around, so it may even be me, I might run out there and look at it too. So I was hoping that working 19 we did would resolve a lot of the issues.

It held up very well for a lot of years. The women started looking online and stuff like they're supposed to be redrenched like every three to five years or something like that. I think that's just the case. It's not really a failure. It's just a maintenance thing.

Okay. Yeah. That's our deal. And we'll take a look at it. Is it all gum? The city, we all go out there and take a look at that. Yes, sir. Absolutely. I'll do a walkthrough with you.

Okay. Is it the responsibility of residents or the city to do the grass maintenance and weed maintenance? I think a lot of residents don't know. We maintain ours, but the House of Carlsbad, I don't think they know if they're supposed to maintain it or not. So there's some confusion there.

I'll have to look, I guess, at the plat and the property to make sure I've got my bearings on what's what. But I will be able to brief you on that once we... Is that yours and your neighbor's?

That's Caddy Corner across Volco, my house. That's where the water goes once it leaves my property. It's growing up with trees.

Okay. Thank you. So I'll bring the PUDE flyer, and I'll verify what's going on with the property. I'll bring a printout of that so you can see, and we'll explain where everything is, and I'm going to walk through on the site to make sure we fully understand what's going on, and we'll see if we can get it straightened out.

Thank you so much.

Thank you. You know, our committee is pretty proactive. We try to be proactive, and then when we see, you know, things like this, it hurts us. Believe it or not, it bothers us just as much as it bothers you because that's what your tax dollars, you know, Our tax dollars really do help you guys. And we'll see what we can do to help. Now, we'll be meeting next month, too, at the end of the month. But we'll let you know because we've got your phone number here. And then we'll be out there. And then we'll come back and talk to staff. Probably we'll talk to them before, way before the meetings. because I want to know what's happening down there.

All right.

It's certainly nice to meet you guys. And you all don't have to stay, but you're more than welcome to stay. It is getting kind of boring. But it's whatever you all want to do. Go out to dinner or something like that. Mr. Chairman, our next meeting will be August the 25th.

If you want to mark your count.

Thank you, Eddie. That's 530. 530. Second. August 25th. Thank you very much. Well, we'll switch it around. We may not be meeting on the 25th, but if you all stay, you'll be able to hear what we're going to do.

I can, yeah, I can. We can relay that. We'll relay whatever it is. I can call. I want to meet with you anyway, and I'll call and let you know when the next meeting is. There's no issues there.

I would like to note how... from them, but it is 619. Not 615. I do have a...

I got it.

Okay, I got you. Mine is the 615 underneath, so I can always relate it. I'm an Andersonville native. I was born off of Roberta.

Oh, yeah.

Okay. My grandparents bought their house up on Oh, my Lord.

So you all are your true Hendersonville men. Yes, sir. That's what I like to hear. There's very few of us left. That's when the lake was new. I don't know. This is your first time here, I know. That's our mayor, Jamie Clary.

I'm not actually on the committee. I just... hang out and try to help out.

In case we say something out of character, he'll step in and say, let's reevaluate that. So he's good at that.

And I remember this. I remember Volko and True Court from a couple years ago.

Yeah, yeah. I know he does. I remember that because I remember the work in 2019 on that. So, okay, well, let us take a look at it and see... And I know you've met Eddie. This is Mike Martin. He's the alderman from Ward 2. I don't know if you all met or not. And then the rest of our city staff. And they really rock. They're good workers, and we're very proud to have them. So I guess that's it. We'll go on to the next thing, and then I'll get in touch with you on this too, you know, and see what we can do. Our next person is Emily. Ms. Moore, if you wanted to say anything.

I think the main thing that I wanted to say was how appreciative I am to being heard. That the work that immediately transpired in the backyard was, I told Ricky, who was Worman, I guess, in charge with Benchmark. They sent the A-team this time because he was so attentive. I work from home. I could see what was going on, and he would correct...

Cold water drive, aren't you? Yeah. Okay. Okay.

I mean, it was impressive, and I just appreciate it. We've had two, at least two really... tests of rain to see how effective it was and um my yard it just fell through it did so well and they had um the fence moved for me which was great the rip rap that it all um I just, you know, even sowing grass, that timing was a little off. I've spent my summer watering grass. But I'm promised by Trace Burkett that in September they'll bring nine laurel bushes to plant along that. And the only thing that I would have liked to have heard about is the state of the trees along the path of the water. that if they're safe or stable, because there's three beach that are right there. Okay, yeah.

I remember walking through that and I saw that, but I didn't really pay that close attention. Yeah. But we'll find out.

Okay. But otherwise, I would have never believed this effected on us. Good. No offense, but I just felt like it's just me and it won't matter, but I... I tell everybody how much I appreciate each one of you listening and taking action.

Government works.

Local government. Ours does.

I'm glad to hear that this administration is very active about things like that. I know we always hear bad things, and there's some things that we just can't do. Right. But for the most part, we do our doggoneest thing to help.

Well, and if you don't ask, you don't get it. You don't get it. So I've definitely learned that. Thank you all.

Well, thank you very much for dropping by and letting us know. And always, if you see something you think that, you know, call us and tell us. I mean, it doesn't necessarily have to be in your neighborhood. You know, it could be something you see right there on Bonita or something like that saying, I need to put it. They got to get up. There's a pothole out there. Just let us know. Because what we don't know, we can't fix. And we're really good about doing that kind of work. So just let us know. Thank you for the compliments tonight. That is very impressive. We like to hear that. We like to hear bad things, too, unfortunately. But it's always good to have that. So thank you for coming. All right. Oh, okay. All right. That ends our citizens' comments that we have this evening. If there's no comments at this point from the comments, I think we've got that all squared away. We'll go ahead with the ordinance and its resolutions tonight. And we've got this evening, Ms. Gardner, she's not here this evening, but that's all right. She has a resolution before us tonight, 2026-23, which is a resolution authorizing the city's department of parks and rec to apply for a Blue Cross Blue Shield Healthy Place grant. So moved. Okay, there's been a proper motion, a proper second. I don't know.

He was over there hiding from me. Stay off camera.

Oh my, okay. Okay, we've got a proper motion, proper second discussion. Andy.

This is our annual glutton for punishment process. We've been applying since 2021, I think, maybe. Maybe earlier than that. It's been a while. Maybe 2019, I can't remember. We are going to shift... our application to make the Taylor Swift Kids Kingdom an inclusive playground, which would update the equipment and Provide an artificial turf surface for anybody with disabilities to use and to request to turf the athletic field that's over there. Both of those would be great improvements and much used. And a high-profile area for Blue Cross Blue Shield.

Yes, it is.

So we'll see if that might get their attention.

All right. Questions? This is Matt. Volunteer Park.

Memorial Park.

Memorial Park. In the past, we've applied it for Volunteer Park.

We have. In our last LPRF grant that we haven't heard back from yet, we applied to Turf Volunteer Park.

Good.

We're going to try to double up.

Good. Good. All right. And it's not matching. We don't have to match it.

But we find it. Yes, sir.

Cross our fingers. When do we normally, because you'll have to forgive me on this, and when do we usually, is it when it's fairly quickly?

We usually find, I usually get the phone call right around Christmas to congratulate me on not getting it.

Well, hey. We'll keep working, man. This is it. You know, what's that, in that movie, Shawshank Redemption, where he was writing those letters? To the legislature for the warm down. Yeah. And they finally did it.

We are the longest running city that has applied that has not received the grant.

Well, you know what?

And the largest city that has not received the grant that has applied.

Might be newsworthy. We'll see. We might have to make a few phone calls on that and see where we are on that. All right. Well, thank you for letting us know about that. Sorry about that. I wasn't going to say about it because I was trying to think if we ever got one. You answered that question. Any further discussion on the resolution? Hearing none, is everyone ready to vote? All right, we're ready to vote on Resolution 2026-23. Is the resolution authorizing the City Department of Public Works to apply? For the Blue Cross Blue Shield Healthy Pledge Center, there's been a proper motion. Second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Passes unanimously. On to... Mr. Chairman, I'd like to make a comment.

Yeah. All right. And all of us have seen it. I wanted to congratulate our parks director for being designated a national certification. I think it's one of 150 to 500. I thought he was one in a million, but he's one in 500. Well, congratulations. Thank you. That brings credit to you, but it also brings credit to the city.

Yes, sir. Thank you. Appreciate it. Congratulations. Thank you all very much.

Thank you for, because you do hard work. You're always on. Hang on. I'm good. I think I'm going to go talk about the arts first. See you, brother. Okay. All right. Take care.

You need anything, holler at us.

Okay. We've got that, and then that will be on our agenda at our next meeting, whenever that is. So we'll do that. All right, now we're down already to other agenda items. What I would like to do, if it's a possibility, is I would like to move the presentation of the composting up now. From Sophia? Okay. From Sophia, and Mayor, if you would do me a little introduction, please. Sophia, to introduce the committee to her. Sure.

Sophia's been interning with us Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. Yes. All day on those days during the summer. We'll be in touch. And I handed her several projects, and the one that has really interested me the most is composting. Think of composting as recycling that is very inexpensive, very efficient. It does take some effort to get off the ground. She's gonna tell you a little bit about some other programs in other cities. I've been hearing about composting in Nashville, Knoxville, Chattanooga, some smaller cities. She did a ton of research on this, and I'll hand it over to her. Okay, thank you, Mayor.

Sophia, welcome to our committee.

Hello, I'm very happy to be here.

Thank you for doing this.

My pleasure. So as Mayor Clare said, he came to me with this presentation. He wanted me to look at Knoxville's composting program. It has been very successful in diverting their municipal waste and making them money. But when I looked into that, I noticed that there was a lot of different ways that one could do this and a lot of opportunities for us to replicate it. So currently we have a landfill that we take all of our municipal waste to. We pay the AAA $73.60 per ton of waste to transport there. And when waste is taken to a landfill, it is put into this exact model. So it is basically a hole in the ground that has plastic lining to catch material that sinks down. And then it is covered in clay and usually bulldozed over and compacted and it is left there. And in this condition, it goes through a process where it does not naturally decompose, so like leaves do in the air. Instead, all the bad bacteria and everything in there, it basically comes down into the soil, it goes in the air, that produces methane. Landfills are the largest producer of methane in the world, and it's become a global concern, as well as a concern for the United States. When it rains and it falls onto the landfills, it produces all sorts of toxins in the form of lychee. Lychee? I don't know how to pronounce it. But this has the major risk of sinking into the soil and ruining soil or getting into drinking water and contaminating it. This has caused numerous issues in the past. And there's a lot of health concerns that come with it. Landfills have the ability to cause cancer. There's studies that I linked in the report that I gave Mayor Clary down by the EPA that find significant risks to cancer when from landfills. So those are really expensive. So we paid the AAA last year. $1.5 million and tipping fees and this is through the tipping fees and they are rising about 30% estimated within the next few years and We only getting more people moving in Nashville moving to Hendersonville so we need a way to figure out how to get rid of this and address it better and on a national level the EPA and the ADA decided to go ahead and address compost and I'm so sorry, guys. They decide to address the issue with municipal food waste, with methane, and just general food waste and food loss with the 2020... with the 2030... I'm so sorry. With the 2030 Food Loss and Waste Reduction Act. So this is actually one of the reasons why so many nations... They're also working with the United Nations. So many nations and so many U.S. states have been able to launch their own successful composting programs. So we have this over here. Compost is considerably better than landfills. Landfills are considered to be the worst way to dispose of municipal waste, both environmentally and just economically. So, compost isn't the best either, but it is significantly better and the most cost-effective option for the city. So what is compost? As the mayor said, it is more of an amazing version of recycling. So basically, you just basically leave food scraps, which can be eggshells, banana peels, whatever, in dirt and you let it sit and there's a special process, special bins that allow it to turn into compost. And compost can be redistributed and used in all sorts of things that are very lucrative for both the community, its impact, and it's very good for us financially because we can redistribute it and sell it. I wrote a 47-page report that goes very in-depth with this. It explains it much better than I have. that I will in this 10 minute discussion. But there are three main methods that I would like to focus on the city adopting potentially. So the Knoxville initiative that the mayor had me look at is a hybrid method. Many cities use a hybrid method. So we're gonna go through these. The cheapest option is backyard composting. So that is where the city provides compost bins to citizens where you can basically come and say, hey, I would like a compost bin. Similar to the baggy program that we have here where we give out trash cans or trash bags, a lot of cities find massive success when they hold educational workshops, and then they give out those bins for free. Or on Earth Day, you hold a festival, and you give out the bins for free. And that has shown major reduction in municipal waste per household. So per household, I have the stat right over here. It's... It's expensive for households. So each household costs us about $77,000 a year. And if 10% of the households adopt this, we can go ahead and save an estimated $94,000, $95,000. And that's just a 10% of the households And then community composting is where the Community composting is where local churches, schools, or just the community in general, residents come together and host composting. And this can be done through a variety of different methods, local gardens, local areas. I'm going to talk about the bins later on. What Knoxville does as a mix of the municipal composting and the community composting is they have bins where people can bring their compost to, and it has reduced their output significantly. What Knoxville does that has made their program so successful and it was nationally recognized, I believe, is they go ahead and work with local farms to then pick up that compost in a process of municipal collection where the city pays for compost collection. Collection is the most effective but expensive model. where basically it works similar to what Public Works does with our trash pickup. You just put your compost in the bin, put it outside, and it is collected. That is the most expensive model, but it is also the most effective.

Hold on now. The backyard bins. Yes, sir. Those are the three methods. And Knoxville is doing a hybrid method.

Yes. So many of the initiatives, you can mix and match to whatever you need, depending on whatever budget you have. So I have it right here. The Institute for Local Self-Reliance did a census in 2024 to say what kind of compost program do you want? How much does it cost? Someone said $6 million. Another said $10,000.

So the backyard bins, what do you put in the bin that can be composted?

I will get to that right here. Oh, sorry. Actually, it's all the same.

Because this is not recycling. It's a form of recycling.

So it's natural recycling, basically. So recycling, as you think of it, is like plastic bottles. You cannot put plastic bottles in this. I'm going to talk about contamination in a second. So one of the things that makes compost so amazing and just an amazing method to go back to the community is it creates something called a... economic circle. So basically, we pay local agencies to pick up compost, or we pay people in the community to pick up compost if we choose that kind of initiative. And so we support local businesses, and then people in the community come get that compost. We can take the compost for ourselves. We can use it to fertilize our own fields or parks. Then we don't have to pay for paying other people to do that. Um, citizens can buy compost and we, and many, uh, programs find that most of their revenue comes from selling the compost. Um, and it creates a massive just ecosystem within the community and it is majorly effective for job production. So 82% of the composting programs have found steady employment and it's actually been used to promote, um, uh, uh, economic equality because there is not the need for skilled labor for it. You do not need a college education to do these jobs. It promotes significantly more jobs than landfills because landfills use bulldozers to put all the stuff down. But for a composting program, you need people who sort the compost, who collect the compost. There is major retention within these jobs. And then as you can see here, three times more jobs are produced. On average, American families will save $1,500, which is one of the reasons why the Trump administration has considered this to be one of their priorities with the ADA and EPA. They want Americans to save more money, especially with the local economy. And it also saves food because I believe one in three, one in four Hendersonville people are food addicts. or suffer from food insecurity. So one of the major things that has helped is marketing. And as you can see from the Get Dirty campaign that Orlando did was you can have as much fun with it as you want. And this is one of the best methods for promoting composting, both as an individual, so telling communities, telling people to compost in their backyards You can use these programs to go ahead and say, we're doing this. There's been massive success in that. So bringing residents the composting bins is the biggest recommendation for a city like Hendersonville to start out with using phased implementation. So you have different kinds of bins and these can range from $60 to $100. What a lot of composting initiatives do is they work with local communities or they go to the EPA actually has grants that you can use to subsidize bins. And either offering bins at a free or reduced price is very helpful so people don't have to have that barrier to entry. And as I said before, enabling education to go with them is very important because one of the things that is iffy with compost is that if you put something like plastic into it, it has the potential to ruin the batch. So education is vitally important. So what the city of Knoxville does is they have their compost thing. So I'm actually going to have an example right here. So as you can see, this is not a trash bin. This is a bin that has food scraps and you can put lawn clippings in it, but you can't put this thing. So what the city of Knoxville does is that I think would be wonderful for us to adopt is in order for you to actually put your compost into one of these local bins. And this is an example of both municipal compost. So the city picks this up, but it's community oriented. you have to go ahead and answer a QR code with all the stuff about like, this is what I'm putting in, this is why I can't put it in, and then it allows you to access it. And because of that, they have had virtually no contamination. So going back to this, you can have all sorts of different education programs. One of the other programs that engages with people locally is having called master programs where you teach people within the community these methods, and then you have them teach other people. So it becomes basically this big communal effort. So how can the city start a program? There's actually a lot of resources available. So as I mentioned, the EPA is heading this program with the 2030 Sustainability Goal. And a lot of the information I've been showing here comes from the Institute of Local Self Reliance, the EPA, and other facilities, and they have full, massive documents that go through the various methods. There are other programs that have been willing to offer their findings to allow for replication. In the report that I gave Mayor Clary, I go through a lot of that and I'm linking all of them so that people can go ahead and reference them. There are also workshops for municipalities and local communities and leaders to engage in those and to create them. So I also linked those as well, as well as other policy, just tools that are available for any city council people or leaders looking to enjoy that.

Any grants?

there are a lot of grants actually. So if we're going to go over here, we are going to look at financing. So most of the payment that goes for this comes from the local municipal budget. However, the EPA is willing to give grants to people who apply. And right now it is the perfect time to do that because compost is becoming more popular. So as more people apply, the grants become fewer. And right now, it's a cool thing to do. So not only does it make the city look really awesome for doing it, and it makes us look very appealing to people coming from, say, California, moving to Hattiesville, like, I had a composting program here. This looks awesome. So we make ourselves look more appealing. But we make ourselves look more appealing to these Tennessee grants that are available, as well as the federal grants that are available. And also there were other initiatives just around the United States that are willing to work with municipal governments to give them grant money. So we have over here, we have this from the 2024 census that I have, where you can see how people funded their programs. Most of the funding came from the most So proportionally, most of the money was used from the municipal budget. However, most programs were able to get their start from federal grants. I would like a copy of that. I will send you all of the reports and everything. And then we also have this example budget from, I believe, Maryland who provided it. So it was a grand total of $300,023. Yeah, so that's a lot less than the $1.5 million that we spent just last year alone on landfills. And one of the best successes was Vermont, I believe, and they spent $10,000 on their program and have made $3 million in return. So we're going to go back to this one. There's a lot of ways for the city to make money back. So through the subsidies for the bins, that's about $60 per bin, but that's less. But the city will save so much money on tipping fees. That is one of the major cost savings. One of the major examples of this is the fact that you can essentially pay for your compost program simply by the reduction of cost for landfills. And you can create a better economy for your community in the process. I'm sorry. I've been stuttering this entire time. You're doing good. You're doing really good. And as I said, all the examples that I used here were from the EPA, NRCS, and Local Institute for Self-Reliance, and then the EcoCycle. But there are... three major documents that I used was closed-loop partnerships about keeping municipal compost, so municipal collection about how to get the ordinances. Actually, that should have been up there, yeah. About ordinances and how the city can go ahead and implement that, so make it easier for people to compost. um i don't know currently what tennysonville has for that but um if a person wants to compost they might not be able to because of ordinances that were made like 10 15 years ago that they thought it was smelly uh compost actually is not particularly smelly and there's a ways to keep rodents out those are two like the biggest issues that people like well i don't want rats in my backyard and i don't want smell Actually, landfills are smelly because of the process of decomposition that everything goes through in there. It's a sulfate, I believe.

Yeah, but they're in Murfreesboro. That's right.

But the people in Murfreesboro are statistically more likely to die from cancer and other health complications.

That was my question, is the smell. Because you're putting raw food in here, you know. Banana peelings. It doesn't smell because you mix it with mulch.

So you put like little, we got little bug friends in here and they help take care of the smell. So it's like, it would basically be like, well, the leaves outside or like the dirt on the ground. It just, you see the pile. So a pile of leaves goes through the same process that this is going through. And that's one of the ways that makes it just amazing to have because you can have this in a local area and it won't really cause so much of a nuisance. which is why you do need to have ordinances to cover nuisances. But otherwise, you can have ways to go ahead and address the ability for people to have them in their backyards. As I said, the easiest way is for us to go ahead and give bins out to local communities, local homes, and then have ordinances that make it easier in case there are already barriers in place. We can go ahead and take those barriers down and make easier ways for people to have that without any repercussion.

Very good. Hendersonville has already been composting a lot, a lot of the neighbors and stuff. So if you were to try to implement it in Nashville, it'd be a much different experience than it would be for here. So if you drove around some of the older neighborhoods and stuff, something you're going to see is a lot of gardens. They love their gardens. They compost. I have a garden, I have a composter, and I use it. But I also have neighbors who don't even have gardens come over and bring a coffee can with shells and food and everything else and use it. And I spin it and aerate it and keep the endothermic heat going. I really like the idea of that orange...

I do, too. I was going to ask after you finish. I was going to ask a question about that, too, but go ahead, please.

I was just thinking we could have a couple of those because people want to use it. And so they could put their food in here. They already know how to use it. So I don't know if the education would be as required.

So that's actually called... Oh, sorry. Okay, so that's actually an example of on-site composting. So I have a very small mention of this in the report, but you can go ahead and install this in local parks. They highly recommended doing it at places where something like a baseball game would happen, so like little league games. We can have something like this or Moss Wright Park is where I think a perfect location for that would be. And this is an area where people are like, what's this? And it allows people to engage with it. And as you said, you have the community gardens. So what community composting is... is it is run by the community but the way that the city all of these i'm proposing the city gets involved and promotes it so the way that the city would promote um community composting was if they basically subsidized it so the way that the community um the city helps with community composting is they provide financial resources they provide ordinances they provide any support with logistics and everything they have they have promotion because if you're just a local garden community you don't have the ability to have that outreach that not at least that the city does another thing is that one of the recommendations that I really liked was having a committee started a citizens committee so um the ability for citizens to come and have their own say in the compost strategies of the city. It was very effective. It was the NRCD that proposed that in their municipal toolkit. They have 12 strategies listed there on how ambitious they are. Another strategy there is pay as you throw, where you charge people based on how much trash they make. I did not include that as much in my report as one of the recommendations because that is something that we charge people. The thing with these is that you don't have to charge anyone. It's not compulsory. It is purely incentivized. You can incentivize it by offering businesses that engage with it. You say, hey, we'll give you this reward or we'll give you this incentive. And it allows them to go ahead and significantly reduce their waste. So there's an entire just movement to go ahead and get restaurants to reduce their compost and everything. But that is an entirely different conversation that I did not mention here.

Yeah. So the backyard bins sounds kind of like an expensive option.

Oh, it's actually the easiest option to implement.

The community composting, I like that, combined with those orange bins. And then maybe we'd have someone in the city just empty that out and take it over there and let them compost it, aerate it, and all that stuff.

Absolutely. And that's one of the amazing things. So I've been kind of like, oh, you can do this. It's because there are so many different methods of doing this. So in some of the major reports that I used from the Institute of Local Self-Reliance, ECOCO, they have – Each, like a 150-page document for each of the three types. So you have In My Backyard. So it goes through backyard bins, providing subsidies, providing ordinances, providing education. Then you have Keep Compost Local. And that goes through community composting. That talks about the economic cycle that can be created. And then you have... no, you have closed through partnerships for municipal composting, which talks about creating the ordinances and the contracts to go ahead and work with local contracting companies to go ahead and do the waste collection. And a lot of cities, so like New York, there's about, I think, 40 different examples of just, I used it over here. So, oh, sorry. But how I have it right here with all those cities that is from the, I believe, I have no idea which one I took it from actually. I believe it's from the community composting example, but this is how, this is all the states that did it. And they have entire reports on what they did, their budget, what their key recommendations were. So one of the recommendations that everyone recommended was data collection. So is if you wanna start a program, Look at what is being composted now. Look at what is being done now. Who's doing it in the community? Who's interested? There is a 80% scaling up. So 80% of the respondents for the Institute of Self-Reliance in their census found that they were scaling up In some way, 16% were rapidly scaling up while others were doing it more at a moderate rate. And one of the key findings was that people want this, but one of the things too is that you have to educate people about how easy this is. You have to give them bins, you have to give them the ability to access it locally. And one of the things, as you mentioned before, is that there's already communities that we can come in contact with. So working with local gardening clubs, working with churches and schools to promote this, to give it education, has the ability to make a significant impact in farming. Truly, there are little to no downsides with implementing this on a city level. So the city saves money. People save money. People get compost. That compost then goes back into the community to create local gardens. Those local gardens draw on people who want to come here.

Are we doing any composting at our city facility where they bring in all their brush and stuff? What do we do with all of that? We mulch it up.

I'm not aware of that. But Nashville actually had one of the reports that I found was on Nashville and their massive success. So all of these states are willing to go ahead and offer assistance to other states. It's creating the ability to, as a nation, work together to reduce the methane emissions, reduce food waste, because... We're running out of space.

I mean, we pick up thousands of bags of leaves and grass, you know, probably every week. I'm sure every month. And is that a source that we could compost with?

Yes, sir. That's actually... So I have it...

So what are we doing, Mayor, with our tater? What are we doing with all of the leaves and stuff that we pick up? So I'm still getting...

immersed into all the nuances and background, but I know that I see it being delivered over there next to where it is currently the police firing range. There's an area back behind there. It's a nice collection. I've heard that the long-term vision is to try to see if we can repurpose that in the form of like sales for mulch and that sort of thing. I can't offer any specifics on whether that mechanism is in place yet, but I can find out for you if you'd like me to.

And it is important that we continue doing that because the state requires that each county participate in so much recycling in order for some funds coming later on. And they consider that mulching as recycling.

Leaves and grass clippings aren't compostable. Yeah. Go ahead.

Oh, okay. Well, if we do create a program like this, Tennessee has Tennessee-specific brands that we could access. I linked a lot of those in the report as well, but there are the ability to handle yard trimmings with the compost. Hold it.

I've heard that they're not compostable, that you can't compost those. Can you?

From what the Institute of Local Self-Reliance said, there is the discussion of taking your yard trimmings as compost, but it might be a separate process for the facilities that they mentioned. I was focusing on the food waste aspect of it. Yes. So that's the organic waste. So I was focusing more on the food waste. So as the sustainable prevention goal of the 2030 goal.

I mean, as a form of topsoil, I think, you know, decomposing grass clippings and leaves would be effective in good topsoil, as long as it's mixed and processed. By itself, it'd probably be more of a challenge. So there's probably more legwork there.

We'd have to figure out how to make that effective. And Casey, I was going to ask you, I only have two questions. Since you're going to email me the cost, that you presented up there. And then also, do you think you could get your staff maybe on the Hendersonville online to do like a poll and, you know, how many people, you know, to see what people would be interested in composting or if they're even interested, period, about it. And it would kind of dictate to us you know, where to go with that. I think that's important. I mean, it's not something that needs to be just picked up tomorrow, but when you think that it'd be a good time, put it on there. And then my last question was, how long, you know, that orange bin you were saying, how long has Knoxville been... doing this? Do you know right off hand?

I think they started within the last two years and they have seen over a million dollars in revenue produced, I believe. So I also have a lot of resources. So I have all my links over here. But while I was doing my research, I noticed that the EPA wants this to be a thing. They want to reduce municipal waste, and particularly food waste, by 50% by 2030. That is a big ask. So they are working with states and they are working with municipalities to get that. And one of the things that they are most suggesting is is compost. It's not the most effective method. The best one would to be donate or just upside or prevent food loss. And you do that through education campaigns talking about it. You know, you save money by not buying the extra thing of bananas. but that's another campaign entirely. And you could do that, but we're talking about compost here. So compost is still one of the best methods to use, and it's one of the most cost effective for the city to implement. As I mentioned before, so the average recommendation was generally $60,000, $100,000 in that range. So you can go ahead and look at that. I made a little database because there's a lot of resources for local people like you guys who want to employ this. There's podcasts, there's lectures, there's webinars. Um, the toolkits, um, I linked a lot of those in the report, but I also want to have like a little navigation thing because there's a, there's the RF policy finder, which looks at a local policies in like the area, or you can look at the state. Um, so all that is there and I can understand it's a little, it was a little hard for me to find. I'm like, we're looking at it. I'm like, there was, there's more. So I ended up with over a hundred resources. So I do plan to make a little guide of linking the best resources, linking the best, um, just, uh, materials that when I'm not here to ramble on to you guys, um, you guys can go ahead and use it to create the program.

So we'll have that information here at the city.

Absolutely. And then, as I said, my report is 47 pages long.

That's fun.

It took forever. He got back to me and he said the bags are picked up by a company who does sort of use them as nitrogen fertilizer on farmer fields. So they're kind of used as a compost trace. I asked him real quick because I remember he and I talked about this not long ago. So I wanted to clarify that. The limbs are chipped up and they're hauled away for mulch. The bags are picked up by a company that uses them for nitrogen fertilizer on farm fields.

And then I got this information from Tamara. So... Yes. And then another thing, too, is we're expecting even more people to move to Hattersonville. As the mayor loves to boast, we are one of the best cities in the nation. So one of the best cities in the nation has a lot of people wanting to move there. So we will have a lot more food to throw. We'll have a lot more municipal waste to take to landfill.

Well, thank you for this because it is important. It really is, Sophia, and you've done an excellent job, I've got to tell you. Thank you.

My two cents are whatever, you'll have more success with a simpler solution, I think, rolling it out to the community.

Oh yeah, and I also, New York made a model for implementation. So they have a three part pilot program implementation guide that I also linked that kind of goes through the ways that you can do it as well as numerous policy recommendations. So it's quite literally, I can't tell you, here's what you're going to do. There are so many different ways to do it. You can run a program off of $10,000 or $6 million. You can still find a way to save money, reduce costs and make compost and just generally benefit your community, both economically, socially and environmentally as well. Thank you.

Well, thank you very much. Good job. It was very enlightening and you did a good job.

I apologize about the stutter and everything.

No, no. You did good. In fact, it was very professional. Thank you. And I appreciate that. I mean, you know, on a serious note. But I appreciate the thought that this put in. It gives us an insight and something that we can talk about when it does arise in our committee probably. Maybe in the fall or something like that.

I would actually love if I could request, if I could be kept up to date about that kind of thing.

You sure can.

Yes, ma'am. It's ironic. One of the reasons why I'm so passionate about this, I'm willing to do all the research and have the hundred links.

Well, you may be getting phone calls.

I would absolutely love that, sir. But elementary school, middle school, and high school, I would go up to my principal and go, hey, can we recycle? Yeah. And they're saying that's too expensive, it's too this. And I'm able to sit here now and talk to the actual people that make the decisions about implementing a program like this. And I think that it would be significantly beneficial to do that. And I have all the links available. I'm going to be coming in, what day is it? It's Tuesday. I have an English project worth 20% of my grade and a math exam worth 20% of my grade due tonight. Oh, my gosh. Unfortunately, I've been pretty busy. Drink some coffee.

Yeah.

Listen, I have the energy drinks lined up.

There you go. That's right.

With that in mind, I'm so happy to have this brought to you guys. I really wish I could have done more to go ahead and explain that better.

You've explained it better. For us, and we appreciate that, and good luck on your exam.

Thank you. I assure you, I write much better than I speak. I try to be very informative about the report. I have the links there. I have the index. I'm going to get an executive summary. I meant to write that, but unfortunately, I ran out of time. That basically goes through a lot of the major findings and just give those links, making the policy, like... menu of options and links and sources. So then you can go ahead and look at all those things that I drew from. Thank you. So yes.

Well, thank you very much. We really appreciate the hard work and effort you brought into this.

My pleasure. I've very much enjoyed this opportunity to be here and I really hope that I can go ahead and continue to help my community.

All right. Let's see here. Drake, let's go ahead and get the trash collection up here.

I can go through those, sir, if you'd like for me to.

Yeah, for the what? Trash collection.

Yeah, go ahead, sir.

And this is our first meeting, I think, with your name. We call you Tater.

Yes, sir. Frank Mills is my real name.

So you don't want it? Tater is good.

That's what my mom called me since I was one years old. It's kind of a formal nickname.

Yes, sir. You can come, folks, with Tater. Yes, you can.

And I do. Yes. For trash collection update, misses are consistently low, less than 10 per day in line with what we've seen over the past year. There was a small spike on Monday, July the 6th because of the 4th of July weekend, then the make-up day, but nothing inconsistent with what we've seen.

Okay, good.

Going to the drainage... behind cold water, that has already been presented. She seems pretty happy with the outcome on that.

Thank you all for your hard work.

Yes sir, it's all Trace making that happen, so I'll relay the appreciation. Spadely Pedestrian Crossing Project construction is complete. I was the designer on that. It went very smoothly. We were happy with the outcome. Timing has been settled on the RFBs and there's been discussions on maybe going to a phase two in the near future.

Remind me, Spadely. It's not off of Sanders Fair.

It's right there next to below Moby Dicky's. People use the Moby Dicky's overflow parking lot.

Is it going to have a flashing light?

It already does, yes, sir. It's done. Timing has already been coordinated. Thanks to our faculty. That's been a gracious and growing award, too.

It has been ravely reviewed already on social media. Residents are really happy to see it. A lot of folks from that community walked over to get to the Greenway from there, and they are loving it.

When I was out there checking out the site, there was a mom pushing a baby in a stroller and holding a three-year-old's hand before, like, just tempting fate. I'm like, we've got to get this. So I'm really happy to see it.

I'm glad. I'll say that tonight. Tonight.

Drake Street, stop 30 intersection. Yes, sir. We received word today from the judge ruled in favor of the city. Effective as soon as he signs the order, that property goes to us. So that was a piece of good news.

Is that Judge Oliver? I'll have to report back to him. I think it was. It is.

We have conditional approval from TDAC. We're going through our first 30-day review period for the credit purchase and the overall permitting. There'll be a second 30-day review period immediately following, which should begin somewhere in the neighborhood of August the 15th. And then we also received, literally today, a conditional approval from USACE on Nationwide Permit 14 regarding the same general effort. A conditional approval is only because they say as soon as TDAC says we're good, we're good. But they just have to recondition it until we get a thumbs up from TDAC. But that is... More or less on a good glide path towards that final.

I do have a question about that project.

Yes, sir.

A constituent mentioned it to me. We're going to replace the bridge on Stop 30.

That's correct, sir.

And the problem we have with that bridge is it's pier supported. Wherever there's a pier in the creek, trees fall.

Correct.

Is this going to be a, what's it called, a free span breach?

So if I'm remembering, it's been a minute since I've looked at it, but basically those columns that are in the creek are going to be shifted way out of the main creek footprint. There'll still be a column, but it's going to be outside the immediate footprint, I guess the tops of banks of the creek. So more or less accomplishing what we're trying to do. Okay. Yes, sir.

So we'll make it go. Okay.

Correct. It's removing those obstacles, that ability for that debris, the main low flow debris that causes all the problems is getting out of the way so we can create a better flow.

So Trace won't have to get his crews down in there.

We're still going to tell him to go down in there, but he won't need to. We'll tell him to go anyway, honestly. Oh, I got you. Thank you. Yes, sir. Absolutely. Light synchronization. Well, if you're okay to move on, sir. Sorry.

Yeah. What'd they say about the HUD water line relocation? I'm curious about the HUD update on that. Are they completed?

They have been, yes, sir. Okay.

Because I was trying to remember because I thought it had already been.

Yes, sir. They had already done it. Do we have to work in the graveyard? Do we have to do some? Why did we need eminent domain petition on the graveyard?

I will have to revisit the exact footprint. I think I owe you that information specifically. I feel pretty confident in saying that we are not going to be impacting any graves in the graveyard, but I think there's a certain amount of offset space that will be required for us just to put the road in clear space. But I can verify exactly what's going on there. I feel pretty confident we would very much shy away from any kind of relocation.

I can offer some information on that. The graveyard, it's its own product. We don't know who owns it. So that's why we did eminent domain against unknown heirs.

was just approved by the circuit court

Light synchronization project, the world famous light synchronization project.

Yes, sir. So as of right now, we're doing conduit proofing for all the signals. So basically we're determining what we have. Do we have space to run additional conduits that would be necessary to do the project? And also which ones are just not in good shape. And basically that's going to be an inventory for an estimate of what additional work needs to happen in the ground to facilitate the light synchronization.

So phase two hadn't started?

I'd say if that is phase one, we're still in phase one. If conduit proofing is phase one, I can speak to the LED street light conversion, but not the light synchronization. I think all we're doing right now is just conduit proofing. We're not getting into the actual vertical improvement.

Did you provide... I would like it. I don't know if the committee would. Yes, sir. The projected date of phase two construction.

Yes, sir.

I think we have let the bid seem like I remember that. I think we did last meeting. Yeah. Yeah. So I would like to know. I've had people ask me that.

I will report back to you on that, sir. Absolutely.

So I'll just say that we're still in, it's a working process and still ongoing on that. LED streetlight converging.

Yes, sir. 81% complete. We have 1,924 of 234 completed. Okay. Repeat that again, sir. Sir, as of July the 24th, we're at an 81% complete status with 1,924 of the 2,341 completed for the street conversion. We should be starting the replacement of the teardrop decorative lights in the West Main, Medians, and Indian Lake Boulevard. And then the expected completion of installs is about the first or second week of August, according to Stephen's notes.

Good.

And I'll get you a report on that Phase 2 construction.

Yes, sir. Okay. Well, it looks like now we've got some committee discussion on an ordinance to change meeting in time to 530. Love it. How do you feel about it? Yeah, go for it. Does that have to do with the ordinance? Yes, it does. It's a time element that's in the charter. So if you all could get an ordinance ready, have Lance. Oh, there he is. Lance, we want to amend the ordinance and put a set instead of 5 o'clock, 530 on public works meeting. Okay. All right. That shouldn't be too hard on you, would it?

No.

Okay.

I've had worse. Yeah.

All right. So we'll have one and we'll talk about that at our next meeting. Yes, sir. Okay. Other business? Does anybody have any other business? Oh, sir. I'm sorry. No, go ahead.

I was going to say what Jesse alluded to previously is that BOMA has been canceled. Stephen told me to brief this. BOMA has been canceled for 25 August, so the question is, does the Public Works Committee still want to meet on 25 August?

We'll cancel. Is that okay? I shouldn't just say that because it's not my call to make. I can only suggest to you on that. Well, no. Actually, I can do that. Yeah, I can, though. Well, but I'm not that way. I'm not that way. I can be, but I'm not, because I love this. I love my colleagues I serve with on this committee. They're special to me, as well as the city staff, of course. That goes without saying. Would you all like to cancel that 25th meeting? Yeah, unless it's needed. Okay. Subject to your call. Sure. How do you feel about abstaining? Okay, well, I'm going to vote for it. Yeah, cancel the meeting on the 25th. I'll put motion for Mr. Robertson and second for Mr. Martin. Thank you. Thank you. That's fine. Oh, that's funny. Okay, are you still on other business? And then we'll recognize Mike.

No, sir, that was it. That was just the one additional item we had to throw in there. I apologize. Well, you've done a damn good job, brother.

Want to go, Tater? First half? Tater's out. I was just going to say, did you want her to cover the composting in your brief committee report?

She will not be here.

She already left.

You could summarize. Yes, summarize would be good. But she did do a good job. She really did, and I'm proud of her. And I know she was nervous about her art. Because I remember when I was in, I did my first speech when I was running for 4-H club president. I was scared to death. Given my speech. It's the first one, yeah. Yeah, it was my first one. So I know, you know, how she felt. But she really did a good job. And she really needs to copy that and show her teachers, you know. And so if anybody sees her, tell her to do that. She did a really good job. All right.

Is there any other business? Yes. How is the switch over to the emergency thing going? Oh, it's going great.

It's done. It's gone.

Okay, no glitches or no problems with that? No, sir.

Is it still code red? It's not. We moved to Civic Plus, which is the same software company that runs our website and our 311 app and everything. So this mass communication allowed us to switch over, so it's all kind of integrated. And now residents, when they create an account for 311, it's the same account for their HVIL alert. So it's all kind of synced together, which is nice. And we were able to move the stop 30... List from our website was house to this so that now we can do text notifications for that group. In addition to just emails, because before it was just email. So that'll be great for those folks who've signed up for that. And as that project progresses and we continue to encourage, we have about 150 residents that signed up for it so far.

What about Walden Ferry?

So that's all notified through the state since that's their project. TDOT handles that. But with all these big projects that are coming, we probably will create similar things, especially if they impact residential areas where people can sign up for project specific updates related to those things. And this will be nice. It's integrated very well. We ported over everyone we had as far as the phone number goes. And we're still just working through encouraging people. to sign up and kind of go and do their weather preferences because we did not auto enroll everybody in a specific weather. We want them to say what they want to get.

Because I think I got a phone call.

So as it turns out, the county, when they switched to their new system, ended up doing a larger group than what they were supposed to. And so a lot of people got phone calls from the county system that has been rectified.

No. Yeah. Yeah. The complaint that I got is that they got a phone call after the other.

Yes.

You know, that they would get them every 10 minutes, you know, boom, boom, boom, just kept getting them. That's the only complaint that I've heard about.

So again, the county system, they moved to a different system than what we did and they ported over a very large group. And there was a miscommunication on there. And we talked with Ken Widener today about that. And that has been rectified. So now people should only be getting what they signed up for. And we've had a lot of residents call we've worked through. I don't know. probably close to 100 people that have actually called the city saying, hey, can you help me sign up or can you make sure I'm this? And they're able to pick if they want to text, an email or a phone call and which weather event they want, whether it's a tornado only or a visit tornado and severe thunderstorm or is it a flood? And so whatever they're getting, if it's from our city, it will be exactly what they've picked and nothing else.

Tsunamis. Tsunamis.

Right. You can pick it if you want. Air quality. Blizzard.

It's all in there.

Yeah. Oh, my God. I could tell you a funny story, but I'm not going to because it's crazy. I mean, it's really it's funny, really, but scary. All right. Any other discussion on that? We've had a good meeting this evening.

Motion to adjourn.

All right.