Public Works Committee - Regular Meeting

The meeting to order. I am alderwoman chairwoman Mulele A. Cox. We are joined to my right by vice chair alderman Lamont Westmoreland. To his right, we are joined by alderman Robert Baldwin. To his right, we are joined by DPW infrastructure to my left. We are joined by staff assistant Carmen Roman. To her left, we are joined by Alderman Alex Brower to his left. We are joined by all alderman Larissa Taylor. Before we begin, I just do wanna announce that for item number five, there will not be public testimony, but we do have e comments that were open.

I do have public comment on them on register for all members and for department who may want to ask some of those questions for the public or just be aware of what those questions and comments were.

Madam chair

Go ahead. Auditwoman Taylor. Before we actually start, can

we just say thank you to individuals who wore denim today? Because today is denim day. And I just like to say that we appreciate everyone who is standing with victims or survivors, sorry, of sexual assault by wearing denim. So thank you so much for that.

Yes. In recognition of Denim Day today for all those who are wearing denim, thank you for your participation.

Madam chair.

Alderman Brower.

Yeah. Thank you so much. On the agenda, if I may, I got a request from Alderman Moore to if this committee would so allow to move item 19 to after item number five to make it new item six. Audra Moore asked me that this morning. I'd like to do you want me to make a motion or what's the best route?

At the appropriate time.

Okay. Thank you. When will that be?

After item five. Okay. Thank you. Item number one, file number two, five two one eight two. Resolution relating to approving the levying of assessments and construction of accessible public improvement projects at various locations and appropriating funds for these purposes.

Good morning. Holly Rutenbeck with DPW. I will be advising on the special assessment process and the project details. For those projects approved this morning, a bill will be sent each property owner sometime after completion of the work. Within forty five days upon receipt of the bill, the full amount may be paid without interest.

If the bill is not paid within the forty five day grace period, a charge of 8.5% simple interest per year will be added. If assessment is at least a $125, the assessment can be paid over a period of ten years on the tax roll at the 8.5% interest. For those projects approved with late billing, a bill will not be sent before 01/01/2028. In relation to this public hearing, an official notice was sent to all impacted property owners and we will go in the order that is listed on the official notice. In the 1st Aldermanic District, North 37th Street from West Hampton Avenue to West Stark Street, installed traffic calming speed humps.

Is anyone here to provide testimony on this item? Out of 23 impacted property owners, two were in support and two were opposed. Alderman's the alderwoman supports the project.

Move approval.

The motion by Alderman Baumann is for approval. Are there any objections to that motion? Hearing none, so ordered. And before we to the next one, if anyone if you could please

silence your cell phones for the duration

of the meeting, that would be great.

Thank you. Go ahead, Holly. North

46th Street from West Hampton Avenue to West Stark Street installed traffic calming speed humps. Is anyone here to provide testimony on this item? Based on the results of the postcard survey, the alderwoman supports the project.

With approval.

The motion by alderman balman is for approval. Hearing no objections, so ordered. In the 3rd Aldermanic District, East Cain Place between North Warren Avenue to North Pulaski Street, install traffic calming speed humps. Is anyone here to provide testimony on that item?

I'll be brief. Good morning, Good morning. Jason Kuriyama, 1128 East Kane. I just like to appreciate the committee's attention to this. Kane does suffer from excessive speed on a regular basis, and I think that it's important to install these humps not just for the current issue, but as the attention is given to Brady with the Brady Street bid and traffic calming measures there, it's just gonna force more traffic onto Kane, which is viewed by a lot of drivers as kind of a shortcut to avoid North Avenue and and Brady.

So I think it's very important that we calm the existing speed now and in the future with future projects. I'd just like to specifically call out

Brett for who's here?

You can wait. For collecting signatures and Aldrin Brower for his attention to 3rd District and protecting the the residents of 3rd District. Alderman Brower very much appreciate your hard work. Mhmm. Thank you.

Are there any questions for this resident? I hear you now this in district. Alderman Browne, did you want to finish?

Yeah. Thank you both. Thank you all so much came out from East Kane and and for residents who've reached out. Let's get this traffic calming going. I I have been asked by constituents all over the district for traffic calming and I'd really appreciate the work especially the work that you put in Brett to get the signatures to get this happening. So I would encourage every resident in the 3rd District that wants to see this to get the community led traffic calming packet from our office, move forward, and get some of these things going. Do you need a motion, madam chair?

Yes.

I move to approve.

The motion by Alderman Brower is for approval. Are there any objections to that motion? Hearing none, so ordered.

In the 5th Aldermanic District, North 81st Street from West Capital Drive to West Febronze Avenue, install traffic calming speed humps. Is anyone here to provide testimony on this item?

Approved.

The motion by Alderman Westmoreland is for approval. Are there any objections to that motion? Hearing none,

so ordered. In the 7th Aldermanic District, North 57th Street from West Vienna Avenue to West Melina Street, install traffic calming speed humps. Is anyone here to provide testimony on this item? Out of 29 impacted properties, four were in favor and two were opposed. The Alderman supports the project.

The motion by Alderman Brower is for approval. Are there any objections to that motion? Hearing none, so ordered.

In the 12th Aldermanic District, South 9th Street from West Maple Street to West Mitchell Street, install traffic calming speed humps. Is anyone here to provide testimony on this item? Based on the results of the Aldermanic survey, the Alderman is in support.

Auditor Woman Tyler will move approval. Hearing no objection, so ordered.

West Maple Street from South 9th Street to South 10th Street, installed traffic calming speed humps. Is anyone here to provide testimony on this item? Based on the results of the aldermanic survey, the alderman supports the project.

Alderman Baumann would move approval. Hearing no objection, so ordered.

In the 13th Aldermanic District, South 1st Street from West Armour Avenue to West Van Norman Avenue install traffic calming speed humps. Is anyone here to provide testimony on this item? I believe the alderman is on the big board.

Alderman Spiker?

Nothing, Ted.

Alright. Alderman Westmoreland would move approval. Hearing objection, so order.

In the 14th Aldermanic District, South 7th Street from West Euclid Avenue to West Oklahoma Avenue, install traffic calming speed humps. Is anyone here to provide testimony on this item? Forward, please. Results of oh. I can still read the results. Based on the results of the aldermanic survey, the majority were in support so the alderwoman supports the project.

Please give us your name and address.

Thank you. My name is Abigo Perez.

Please put a microphone. Yep.

My name is Abigo Perez. I'm on the South 7th Street. We still have racing going down to there around speeding because they're cutting off the expressway to try to skip light on Oklahoma and it's just a continuous race every day. So, would appreciate a speed hump there. Thank you.

Any questions for this resident from committee? Hearing none, Alderman Broward would move approval. Hearing no objection, so order. In

the 14th Aldermanic District, South 7th Street from West Ohio Avenue to West Euclid Avenue, install traffic calming speed humps. Is anyone here to provide testimony on this item? Based on the results of the postcard survey, the majority were in favor and the alderwoman supports.

Alderwoman Taylor would move approval. Hearing no objections, sole order. Alderman Baumann will move adoption of the entire file. Hearing no objections, so order. Item number two, file number two five two one eight three. Resolution determining and necessary to make various accessible public improvements at various locations and appropriating funds for these purposes with the city engineering cost estimated to be $40,000 for a total estimated cost of these projects being $1,260,000.

Good morning. Holly Ruttenbach with DPW. This is for setting up design funding for future accessible projects.

Any questions from committee? Hearing none, alderman Westmoreland will move adoption. Hearing objection, so order. Item number three, file number two five two one eight four. Resolution determining and necessary to make various non accessible public improvements at various locations and appropriating funds for these purposes with the city engineering cost estimated to be $27,000 for a total estimated cost of these projects being $254,000.

Good morning. This is for setting up engineering on future non accessible projects.

Are there any questions from committee? Hearing none, order woman Taylor will move adoption. Hearing no objections to order item number four. File number 252185. Resolution approving construction of non accessible public estimated to be $55,879,951 and 53¢ for a total estimated cost of these projects being $52,438,733.45.

Good morning. This is setting up construction funding for non assess able projects.

Alderman Baumann would move adoption. Hearing no objection. So order item number five, file number 252210. Communication from the Department of Public Works and Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewage District relating to the causes of and responses to flooding incidents. This file is sponsored by alderwoman Pratt, alderman chambers, alderman cause, alderman Moore, alderman stamper, and alderman Dmitry Avich. Alderman Pratt, did you wanna speak to the file?

Yes. Given the recent flooding, my district was heavily affected as well as a lot of places throughout the city and the state as we know. I brought this file forward so we could address a lot of the questions that I'm getting from constituents and so we can talk about what we have done so far and really to address what we plan on doing going forward to help change the situation in ways that we can understand that these are hundred year floods that we we keep hearing about even though they're happening every year. But we we do have some responsibility or something we can do to help mitigate that and what are we doing to that end. And and that's why I brought this file forward to see what what we could do going forward.

Good morning, madam chair, committee members, other auditors here. Gerald Prashke, commissioner of public works. What I'd like to do is I'm gonna give some details about the storm that week. We're gonna go from 04:13 through 04:17. And then what'll happen is then I'll hand it over to Kevin and Kurt. We'll go through some of the things that sewers has done in the past, what they're doing in the future and some of the response related to just sewers itself. And then I'm gonna pivot over to Kevin Shafer to talk from a regional perspective from MSD. And at the end, then I will explain some operational changes as we kind of move forward from DPW ops. So just kind of the sequence of events. So the details of the storm, Monday night was 04:13.

We had extreme high winds, moderate rain. Impacts really were to more of a DPW forestry crews. It was about two zero eight service calls, more than thirty, forty trees were roughly down. That transitioned into Tuesday nights where it was the first time we've seen high rains which over three and a half inches on the north side of our city And it came down extreme intensity. So about a twenty five year flood kind of range that the which were the gauges were set.

At that time, we had about four zero two sewer calls for surface flooding, an additional 64 forestry calls because the ground was still saturated so we still had more impacts to our urban canopy. And then we go into Wednesday night. So Wednesday night 04:15. This is already when we already had two days of rain and high winds. We had a 100% saturated soils in the city. At this point, this is where the system was stressed and and both our sewer section MSD can explain what that actually means. It comes into more of a capacity issue within the system in the entire region. And that night we had 1,312 sewer calls that included surface flooding, backwaters, missing lids. There was huge pressure within the system itself that were actually popping off manhole covers. And then we had additional 22 forest ry calls.

And then we moved into Friday night which we had intense rain, minimal calls. There were some surface flooding but not as much as there was on that Tuesday, Wednesday night. So overall, the storm total for that week, had about 1,714 sewer calls, 321 forestry calls, and numerous street maintenance calls because we had paving that was basically rupturing between the concrete base and asphalt surface. Just to put this in perspective, we had seven inches of rain in five days. As of April 18, we had over nine inches of rain in the city of Milwaukee.

And to put that in perspective, the previous record was 7.38 for the entire month. And as today we're sitting here, the month is still not over and we're continuing to see rain. So I just want to put that as as as history has gone through, as as all around Pratt has said, these floods and the intensity of rain is changing on a yearly basis. What we've seen in August, what we've seen this week, even what we had seen on Monday and not high rains but we have seen intense winds coming across our city has been stressing not only DPW, but the whole entire region. So at this point, I'm going hand over to Kevin and Kurt to explain the sewers itself, a little bit about the difference between a combined sewer and what a separated sewer is because some of these are a little complex to explain but they're actually not they're simpler than they sound. Yeah. But Kevin?

Sure. Thanks commissioner. Chairwoman, members of the committee, other alders, thank you for joining today. Kevin Muse, City Engineer in the Department of Public Works in the Infrastructure services division of DPW. So basically where where we sit with events like this is that the impacts on different parts of the city differ quite a bit depending on what's going on.

So obviously, as the commissioner just noted, the rain gauges across the city showed different totals, different intensities depending on where you were. The Tuesday night event was stronger on the North Side. The Wednesday night event had had larger surges downtown and on the South Side. So that impacts what happens and what the public sees. We also have very different topography depending on where you are in the city, different sub watersheds, different basins, different things going on.

And so I know from some folks there was a and and in the file are some intersections related to surface flooding and maybe some things around the capacity of an inlet or a catch basin to take on water and the speed at which it can, as well as things that might have been blocking that that inlet and catch or catch basin depending on the specific situation. And then I had some conversations with elders and members of the public over the past couple days that were more about what we call backwaters or where there's water or some type of or the liquid coming up through the sewer drains in the basement and backing up from from the sewer system into the basement. And so, just want to acknowledge that there's kind of a wide variety of challenges we've heard and that those challenges seem to be different depending on the specific local context of what's going on. So as the commissioner alluded to, we have portions of the city that are in what's called the combined sewer area where there is one sewer network that is taking both your your sewage and your storm water into one system and shipping it to the Metropolitan Interceptor Sewers managed by MSD and and Kevin Schafer who has generously joined us and and and we'll be talking about that more.

I'm gonna just try to verbally generalize where that is. So the combined sewer system is closer to the lakefront, closer into downtown. On the north portion of the city, it actually extends into Shorewood, so along the lakefront it goes into Shorewood. But otherwise, you can think of the boundary as South of Capital. As you head west on Capital, roughly around 20th or so it starts heading Southwest.

So it is just south of the Century City development that the city's been working so hard on for a while. It ends up extending partway into the Sherman Park neighborhood, East of Sherman Boulevard for the most part, but just east of it. It then heads south. There is a portion of Washington Heights. Washington Heights is the furthest western portion of the combined sewer area, so about half of Washington Heights is in it.

You continue heading south kinda straight over the valley roughly along along 35th Street, and then it starts bending down towards Forest Home and then Oklahoma on the South Side. So if you're inside those boundaries, if you can think of your mental map, that's the combined sewer area. Outside of that, largely we are in a separated sewer system. In a separated sewer system, the rainwater storm water is being managed separately from the sewage and waste coming from homes businesses. So they go into two separate separately systems.

The sewage and waste still reaches the MMSD system and goes to be treated at either the South Shore plant or the the Jones Island plant. And the storm water in that area largely doesn't touch the system before it gets from our storm system to a river or a creek or some type of surface water. So that's one of the one of the key differences. Generally speaking, the combined sewer service area is designed and has historically been designed for a ten year frequency storm. And historically, the separated system, the storm water system in the separated area historically was designed to a five year storm.

We are actually five or ten years ago now, we decided to start with all of the replacement and relay projects we do in the separated area to also design to a ten year storm in that area as well. So that's that's kind of a rough overview. I don't I'm gonna try to keep my comments on this very brief because Kevin from MSD is gonna go into this and frankly they've been doing the lion's share of this work in close partnership with the city and many other municipalities in the region. But we've just for the benefit of the public, and I think most of you at the table know this, we've not just been sitting around waiting for events to get larger and larger. Obviously, the deep tunnel is, you know, was the most significant initial investment in managing large rain events in the city's history.

But that type of work has continued to happen and MMSD really has been leading the way on this and the city has been partners with them and working with them as they make investments in the waters watersheds across the metro area. So, know, right now there's been significant investments happening along the KK River to manage floodwaters and storm events in that area. Still ongoing but historically the Menominee River saw a significant number of investments. Lincoln Creek was one of the first to see those types of investments where we reinvested in both habitat and flood management in restoring one of our waterways in the metro area. On the city's end of things, we've continued to look for opportunities to do more storm water management.

We've got relatively aggressive requirements for private property owners for storm water management on-site. We also have been investing, as many of you know, in green infrastructure for a while and we've accelerated that over the past three to four years at the direction of the mayor in fact. And then we also relatively recently within the past decade did invest in a large storm water facility in Deneen Park. It's not our only large storm water facility, but that was a recent one that we did. That was a change as well.

We have upcoming work in and around Century City and Roosevelt area to take advantage of MMSD's future West Basin project to try to reduce flooding in those portions of town as well. So this is the thing that we're continuing to invest in. We expect to continue to invest in. Obviously with climate change we know that our largest impact at least that we see in infrastructure and I think that the public's been seen so far locally has been the increase in large events like this. And I appreciate the comment from the sponsor, the lead sponsor on, you know, we keep hearing 100 year events year after year.

You know, we recognize that too within the industry and within DPW that these the events, the categories we use to determine what type of event and intensity is occurring are set at a federal level and they look backwards. They use past data. So what is considered a 100 event does continue to change over time as we get more and more data. But because it is looking backwards, it's still always gonna be a little bit behind what the frequencies, you know, may actually be due to due to climate change as that accelerates. Otherwise, just to note a couple things.

So within the the city's management and the and the sewers group, and Kurt here can can add in a moment if he has anything to add. Who oversees our environmental engineering group including sewers underground operations, that group oversees about 55,700 storm sewer structures that capture runoff across the city. About 32,000 of those are inlets in the separated sewer system area and about 24,000 are catch basins within the combined sewer area. We do have regular cleaning of those structures. It primarily occurs between April and November, not over winter.

And that is that's part of our regular maintenance of of the city's sewer system across the city. Just checking my notes here if there's anything else. I think that primarily touches on on where we are with the infrastructure. I think we'll get into more questions, but I do want to say, you know, going forward we recognize between August and now a couple weeks ago that there's work to do to make more investments. We're excited that MMSD and the county and city are doing a joint task force to see what we can do to accelerate investments that are already in the pipeline and think about new and creative things we could do and figure out what we can fund and move forward to try to minimize this going forward.

There are operational pieces which I know the commissioner will will touch on when we get back to him. But from an infrastructure perspective, this is really important work, but it also unfortunately does take time because it is large capital projects. So we're excited to work with MSD to see what we can do to move faster on those large capital projects. Anything else?

Thank you. So good morning committee and chairwoman. Kurt Springer is engineer in charge of the environmental engineering section. Really not a whole lot more to add, Kevin covered it very well. Maybe a few other stats.

We have roughly 2,500 miles of sewer in the city split between the combined separated sewers and as Kevin mentioned the 50 some thousand catch basins and storm mill that's what we're responsible for cleaning. I would add we do focus our cleaning in the non winter months but we will certainly respond to requests for cleaning in our sewer system both on the basins and the sewers themselves. We're also tasked with responding to backwater. So if a resident calls in, lets us know that there's a backwater present at their property, we will you know respond to that.

Yeah,

think that's probably about it from him after everything he had.

Good morning. My name is Kevin Schafer. I'm the executive director of Milwaukee Metropolitan Sooich District. I have a short PowerPoint which probably addresses a lot of what Kevin and others have said, but hopefully this helps with that same issue. I guess I got to do it this way. So just to summarize MMSD, we cover 29 different municipalities in the Greater Milwaukee area. We have 1,100,000 people in that service area and around four twenty three square miles. We convey, store and treat wastewater, reclaimed wastewater and we also manage flooding, regional flooding in the area. Kevin went through the description of the combined sewer area. It's basically that hatched area that you see on the map right there that orange yellow hatch that you see there.

So it's the downtown area of the city and part of Shorewood as well. We have around 300 miles of pipe that we own and operate the regional sewers. As you heard, the city has around 2,500 and then there's individual pipes as well that are part of this. We operate two water reclamation facilities plus the deep tunnel system. So just Can you see this? Yeah. So just No. It's not working that well. There's really three systems in the region that manage wastewater. There's the pipe that goes from the business or house to the street.

That's the private sewer system. There's the municipal system in this case the city, but all 29 municipalities have their own sewer systems that drained our system and then we're a regional system. So if you look at this map on the upper left, you'll see the the homes, a depiction of that, the pipes coming from those homes. That's the private system. Then you have the city sanitary sewer system that can either be the separate sewer or the combined sewer that you just heard about, which then drains to the deep tunnel or to the the treatment plants. I have an animation, hopefully, that will work here.

Frozen.

Okay. Let's try this now. So it starts raining. You've heard about the gates on the tunnel. I'll explain those a bit.

This is everyone's nightmare when it rains. This animation is on our website as well. So if you wanna look at it there, you can. So what you'll see is when it's a normal day, water comes through the private system that I talked about into the villager city system that then takes it down to the regional system which is that pipe there, takes it to a structure and as you can see the blue line on the bottom that's taking water to the treatment plants that's always flowing. On the larger storms, we it it builds up in that chamber and we start spilling into the deep tunnel system at that point.

As the storm continues, the tunnel starts to fill up. And what we do to try to prevent a basement backups because it has to go through the MMSD system, the village system or city system, and then the private system is we have some gates where we're redirecting water from because the tunnel is full. Can't hold any more water. We redirect water from that tunnel to the waterways and that's the overflows that you hear about in the news where we had 2,700,000,000 gallons last year or last we announced last week as two weeks ago. So that animation is on our website.

Hopefully that helps explain it a bit to how the system works, but just wanted to show that. And I'm gonna go back a little earlier in April. We had three inches of rain hit the downtown area April 2 through the fourth. Deep tunnel filled the 353,000,000 gallons. It holds 432,000,000 gallons so it was pretty full.

We did not have overflows that time period, saturated as the commissioner said, ground was saturated, everything was wet. And even if you go ten days later, which is basically what it was, the ground was still pretty saturated. We moved to the off April timeline. We had a prolonged rain fall with four four inches of rain in the downtown area was over seven inches which you heard the commissioner talked about. We filled the tunnel to 398,000,000 gallons out of 432.

So the tunnel was full. When you were that close, it's full. We did have a combined sewer overflow of 2,700,000,000 gallons and a separate sewer overflow of 12,000,000 gallons. Now the tunnel was not built for flood management. The tunnel was built for quality. It was built to protect the lake, protect our drinking water supply. So we only have overflows when the tunnel fills. And although we don't want an overflow, those overflows help prevent basement backups in a lot of areas. So it's kind of a safety valve for the whole area. So we need to have the overflows for these very large storms, so we do what we can to prevent them.

This just summarizes the the rain of that week. The top graph that you see, those are hourly rainfall amounts. So every time of that bar is an hour. And as you can see on the evening of the fourteenth, early fifteenth, we had a very large event hit the North Shore which the commissioner talked about. We had overflow points not from the tunnel, but up in the system that overflowed during that time period.

That's what you see with the 08:24PM start. Those just automatically go if the water gets too deep and we want those to go because if water gets too deep, it's gonna start backing up into basements. So those try to help prevent that basement backup from occurring in those system. We had filled the tunnel around 340,000,000 gallons that night. As you can see, it pretty much stopped raining until the evening of the fifteenth.

And if you

see that one blue bar at the top, we had a three inch per hour rainfall pit, which is a very extreme event in a short period of time. You also see that vertical blue line at the bottom. So this bottom shows the cumulative rainfall. It's hard to show, but right there, right in that area, you see the line goes straight up. That's because the rain's coming in so fast that it's that's the gauge at Jones Island.

So we'd held it's around three forty three fifty during the day on the fifteenth, no overflows. And then on the evening of the fifteenth, we had this huge rainfall hit us again, is when the three inch hit. And that's when we had to close the tunnel off and have a tunnel combined sewer overflow. We had the individuals overflows up in the neighborhoods Bayside, 32nd, Hampton, different areas. And then this was a tunnel event where we had to close the tunnel and redirect that water from the tunnel to the rivers because the tunnel was full.

The tunnel was full until we ended the CSO on April 19. So when the rainstorm hit on the sixteenth, Thursday when it hit on the seventeenth, Friday, that water just passed through the system. The tunnel's full. We're treating what we can at the treatment plants. Anything over what we treat at the treatment plants goes to the rivers to try to prevent basement backups. Hopefully, made sense. This is the county's 211 calls center. This is for the storm a couple of weeks ago. And what you can see on the red dots is the reported basement backups. Now where that water comes from, we don't exactly know from these call centers.

But can it be water that comes through a floor drain, water that comes in through a window well? We don't know from this data.

And

after the storm hit last August, that was a thousand year storm. That was 15 inches of rain. We had seven inches of rain two weeks ago. When that storm hit, I asked the commission and they have agreed that we need to accelerate our flood management program. So the projects that you see here are on an accelerated timeline. They were going to be done six, seven years from now. Jack 35th Street Basin, Kevin mentioned this one, this is 30,000,000 gallons of storage. It'll be at 35th And Capital. That one goes out for construction at the end of this year. It'll be under active construction next year and probably some of the year after.

So that one's been accelerated. Jackson Park is a great partnership with Milwaukee County. This is the Jackson Park flood management project. We're going to recarve that basin so that it will store water plus the erection recreational amenity to the region. That one should go out for bid a year from now. So we're pushing that one forward as well. And these are like 40 to $50,000,000 each projects. These are not cheap. We also have Wilson Park which we now have an agreement with the county as of December where they're going to allow us to do the same thing with Wilson Park and we'll start the preliminary engineering design and get into construction. That's probably more like a 2030, 2031 timeline to start just a guess right now.

And then the Alero Steel Basin which is 69,000,000 gallons. This is a great partnership with the city. We built the basin. We need to connect the basin to the waterway and the city is helping us go through some of the mapping issues to get to that point. So that one should come online relatively soon.

So we're accelerating our flood management program. If people ask why we're doing flood management, if water comes out of the creek, it gets into the basement, it gets into the floor drain which overloads the system. So that's why you have flood management as part of this overall system. We've got great great partnerships throughout the communities, but 15 inches of rain, seven inches of rain, there's no system in the country that can handle that much rainfall. Yeah.

And so, I mean, a little response and operational changes as we kind of move forward. So as part of the response, we had street maintenance crews and operations, DPW crews assist sewers. It's very similar. We pivot all the time. So if we go snow and ice, we'll have those crews that will help us snow and ice. If we go into flood mitigation, we were doing that as well. Just like coming up in a future, won't talk about potholes and how we're pulling our resources somewhere else as well. So it's not like our folks are just pigeonholed into one duty because it is it's always moving. So some of the operational changes we're going to start moving to the future is this. Over a number of years, there's been constant change in the way we park our vehicles.

And so we get into exception parking. And exception parking is not bad. It's not a dirty word by any means. It's just the needs of our citizens to allow double sided parking on a roadway. And so what that does is that affects DPW's operations and how the city originally operated and and collected leads and street sweep or swept etcetera. So as we kind of move forward, what we're going to do is we're going to put up permanent basically signage in our exception street areas and have guaranteed sweeping days. So that means we can access those parking lanes where you have residual debris that happens there on a constant basis, rubble, other things that are there. It's something we we piloted last year in all of our Balance district but to do permanent signing. The con to this is we are going to end up towing a lot of vehicles to access those. But the signs will be permanent.

They're not going to be temporary. It's going to be like the third Tuesday. And the goal is to do street sweeping from May 1 all the way to November 1. So it's six months out of the year. And why we can only go that way is because when we get into November all the way through it gets into winter months, temperatures get colder. So that's one thing we're going to start billing. It's not going to be instantaneous. We have to put the signs up. We have to build the program's already getting built in the backside. So it'll take us a while to get to all the exception streets which is about 25 to 30% of the city now. And every day you'll see it in public safety, there's more and more streets that are coming this direction. So that's one thing. The other thing is how we actually collect leaves. Because we have exception parking in in the city and we have residual leaves, we have mother nature that is constantly affecting the way we do things, is we want to move to a full bagging operation. So that means not pushing leaves into the parking lane, not parking on top of them.

But if we can't get to, let's say a snowstorm happened like we did right around Thanksgiving time, the bags will be sitting there on the side where we can collect them at a later date. I do want to put some things forward related to leaf collection. What we did is we got a shortened leaf collection last year. So right after Thanksgiving, that Friday, we got a significant snowstorm which buried a lot of the leaves that we were collecting. We've been fortunate in previous years where we could go all the way until mid December collecting.

That not the case last year. We told residents to continue to put in those requests, which we did. There were 4,029 requests over a period of time from December all the way to April, which we satisfied. Additionally, we put out a spring leaf push out, which we accomplished by the March. And so just to put some numbers into context, we collected 13,569 tons of leaves between '25 26, which is about 1,500 more than we did in the previous year.

So we collected more leaves which is fascinating number because you wouldn't think of that as we went through. Now, there could be some numbers that change just based on how the wet there, but we weigh every leaf collection around the year. So as we kind of move forward, our folks never stopped working. So when they weren't doing snow and ice, they were doing leaf collection. Now, the areas majority when we look at the 4th District or the 3rd District, parts of the 6th And 8th And 12th were under exception parking, we couldn't access those leaves. And that did occur. So we have to pivot. You know, the city doesn't operate. So to go to bag collection is going to stop a lot of people raking in there. There's going be a lot of communication moving forward to let our residents know there is a change.

And it's not going to be easy because it depends if, you know, we're going put it on social media, we'll be in news. However, we can get it out to our residents because they're just familiar with doing things the same way. And the more we get back to doing this, this is, you know, there's a lot of comments and I I had some conversations with all of them Pratt. A lot of our constituents ask us and residents, hey, why don't you do things like your neighboring communities do? Well, is one way. I mean, a lot of them do this. We're not the only city that does this. We've been trying to poke around all over the nation what's the most effective way and to keep debris out of our, basically, our catch basins and our sewer systems. So these are the two things we're going to work on this year to change. I'd like to start the communication now.

We're talking about April because when these start dropping in October, at least the public will know. So I just I was a little put off just by the failure because our staff has been working around the clock twelve hour days nonstop basically since October. And we have moved into snow season which is the standard in the city. We get snow and ice. We're constantly in two GICs. They were doing leaf collection. They were doing forestry calls. Right now, I got forestry crews that are working fourteen hour days just because of the storms we had on Monday. We do not stop working. We try to pivot as much as we can.

Mother nature has not been our friend in April period. And I cannot control that as a department head. We can continue to do projects to try to relieve pressure off of a sewer system. We can continue to build infrastructure and green infrastructure to collect rainwater, high winds at that point and trees. I can't give you an answer there. But as our city continues to change and the way we operate or the way we are building our infrastructure, we have to pivot our operations. So these are the two things that we are going to move forward with moving to fall this year and starting the summer with a full street sweeping. So just want to mention that. So at this time, we're open to any questions.

Before before we take questions, do wanna publicly say thank you to the city staff. Yes. That have been, I'm sure as their own homes are probably flooded. Working hard to help other residents clear out their neighborhoods, their their homes, that kind of thing. So I do want to kinda lay that foundation.

I know a lot of criticism often comes when we all are struggling with what has happened, but what shouldn't be lost in that is the tremendous work of so many folks to at least try to help. So I wanna say that first. Secondarily, you gave the two things that you all plan to do immediately to help address the issue. What is the price tag attached to those two things?

So from an operational standpoint for us it's just bagging isn't going to change much. It's just how we collect. So more of it's it's sitting in the operational background. So that one's not going to be that much. Mean, I the one impact it will be to residents is actually purchasing these bags. So that's the one concern. I've had some conversations with elders because not everyone can I mean, they're minimal, they're $2 a bag, but there is an impact to some of our more impoverished neighborhoods and so that's recognizable? So there might be other ways that as a city we can help subsidize at least getting those folks bags. So that would be kind of like a financial impact there. We move into the street sweeping, we have to move the operation there and really it's the sign investment.

So it's putting in the permanent infrastructure to add the sign. So it's going to take us a while and we'll go neighborhood by neighborhood trying to develop this. And obviously, it's going to be a lot in the 4th, 6th, 3rd and 12th and partially the 8th and there's other areas even outside those districts that will be there. So there, don't I have a fiscal note tied to that, but it's just going to take us time to internally make all the signs and get those up. And we've already had discussions to start already. And so we'll start targeting neighborhoods and installing signs. And then once we have the signs installed, that's when that street sweeping will transition. I'm assuming it's we're not going to have all the signage up by the end of this year. But we will have a good portion of it. So this might take a year maybe a year to three years depending on how long this takes us to get signage up.

So it's a process because it's not instantaneous. But it's not a huge financial impact. It's just how we're doing our operation is going to be different. So building the model on the backside is a labor intensive portion.

Before I take the other question, I'll just say this too. My hope is that as you are seeing the changes and as you study best practices and bring them here, that you that that's ongoing. Mhmm. So it's not reactionary. It's proactive.

And secondarily, as you have to pivot because of the reality that we're dealing with, that you also are looking at your budgetary needs so that it's reflected in the budget that we receive or the budget that we must amend. I would hate for us to be back here next year because of some stuff we coulda did and didn't because it wasn't asked for or wasn't communicated. So you hear what I'm saying? Like, it's the it's the being proactive about looking at what's best to do, think of ways to implement it, and asking for the resources necessary to do it.

Just to yeah. Just to comment on the budget portion. I think this is a citywide challenge. And so, I mean, I can come in with numbers that would be eye popping from a street repair number to sewer systems and to operations, you know, and we only have so much money. And so I think these are great conversations to start having now as we go through that budget process is where we put our dollars. Because as a city, we can't solve all the problems. Not not with the amount of money that we need from an overall infrastructure perspective. That's out without saying all the other needs that the city has. But I do think it's a good process, you know, and having a plan forward or how we're gonna catch up or make changes. You just can't do them all at once. Alright.

You. From committee first, are there any questions? Committee members?

Yes, madam chair.

Alderman Baumann.

This bagging operation, so you will not you will stop leaf collection in the traditional way, period.

That is correct.

And what about the folks that still rake their leaves into the street? They're gonna get fined, arrested,

all in

jail, what what and the leaves will just sit there indefinitely and cover the catch basins?

So, no. So with leaf collection, we're still gonna have an operation because if you think of a city tree sitting in

a terrace area, part of those

leaves are gonna fall within this tree. So we're gonna access those leaves. What this is gonna prevent is gonna prevent people from their front lawns and their back lawns putting all the extra leaves there. So if you consider, you're gonna reduce 75% of what's going to fall in the roadway. And now, do we have some sort of do I want to penalize our residents as they're putting leaves out there? That's a potential. Because the way the ordinance says right now is throwing anything within the public right of way is considered littering with the exception of leaves. And if that's something we want to move forward just like we do with snow operations where people are putting snow into there, I'm not sure we want to go into just basically penalizing all our folks. I think we have to see how this is going to transition. We are still going to have almost both operations but we're going to prioritize bagging. It's going to take a while for our citizens to understand there's a shift. But the more leaves and stuff we keep out of yards, the better it's going to be.

It's going to take two, three years you said to put up these signs indicating designated dates for streets moving?

Well, 25% of the city, so if you divide 1,500 miles through, that's a lot of signage. So, I'm I'm taking a guess. We might have it done by the end of next year. I have to sit down with folks but they already know we're going start moving forward. It's a lot of signage, madam chair.

Okay. Along those along that questioning. Alright.

President

Perez? Yeah. So, I live next door to county owned MMSD owned land. That's where all the trees are. Are they responsible for the leaves? The park across the street is Pulaski. Is the county gonna ensure that all the leaves in the trees don't come into the public right away? They're responsible for bagging them or making sure they don't fall into the street?

Well, think with falls in county parks is within county parks. I don't think the county rakes them out to the curb for us at all.

There's a lot of trees that get into the street and into the basin.

There's, you know, when we look at, you know, as we go through those fall seasons and, you know, we make these big piles and we consolidate and we get these windy fall days, they get spread all over the place. I mean, there's still going to be residual leaves. The more we can contain them in a bag is the less it's going end up in the right of way.

So who's responsible for land that's either county or Well, the

county and the state would be controlled their own land. Correct.

But if when they don't rake them, then I call you guys?

Yeah. So, yeah. If it comes into the public right away, we're gonna have we'll have to operate like we normally do. It's just the amount that's falling in those parks would not be for us to pick up.

Okay. But some of this isn't parkland. It might be considered parkland but it's not a park. Is that owned land. Vacant land, vacant lot. Correct. Even the stuff that's vacant lot that the city has, they're response you guys are responsible then?

Yes. So vacant property is us. Yes. So there's the 2,500 plus properties that the city owns is on the city. And they don't necessarily get raked out to the curb. They actually stay on that parcel itself. And so what'll happen is as they

go through a full, you

know, they'll mulch them as they go through the cutting season. They don't we don't remove those and push those into the public right away.

And and just along the lines with leaves and how you mentioned the exceptional parking or two set in parking, we have 15 districts. Two districts for for a very long time, the third and the twelfth had the parking. Mhmm. And all that time, we've never had a conversation about we need to do something about the leaves because you have two sided parking or a plan for it or that we can't rake the leaves because of that issue. Alderman Baumann's had it a year and when we look at the concentration of the flooding and the problems, there are districts that don't have two sided parking. So I want to be very clear that it it may be an issue but when you look at the map and who's affected by it, it isn't two sided parking.

It it's it's one thing. So when we're looking at breaking out, no matter if you're in an exception parking area or not, we're gonna eliminate the raking of leaves even if you're doing alternate side parking. So I mean, it's still less leaves within the public right of way that we have to basically push. Okay.

I just Yep. The way you the way you make it sound is like the two sided parking is an issue and there's three districts affected by

And I

can speak to that with personal knowledge. The problem I have is, yes, you're working, but you're not working smart in my humble opinion. Yes. There's two sided parking which makes the parking lane inaccessible, but that's overnight. During the day, my streets are almost completely open because everybody's at work. Mhmm. If somebody came through there with a sweeper at 10AM, they'd have no problem getting to the curb lanes. When they come through at 10PM, they're cleaning the center line of the street. Yes. That sweeper is technically working. It shows up on the books. Yep. There's another eight hours, another eight man hours. The vehicle's out sweeping sweeping the center line because they can't get access to the curb. Perfect.

That's not working smart. Come at 10AM. Adjust your work schedules when the vehicles are gone, which I think is generally the case in in all our exception areas. And during the day, the streets open up and the curb lanes are accessible. I've been harping on this for ten years and it just seems to fall on deaf ears. And now it's the chickens are coming home to roost, and now there's 10 people sitting here angry as hell because their constituents are angry as hell. Work smart. Yes. You're working. I get it. The hours are being spent, but work smart.

What what are the times for both that you historically use for leaf collection and street sweeping?

Street sweeping goes Shifts. The shifts. So street sweeping, there are two shifts. So you go during the day and you do have third shifts. So you do have two shifts. So they're constantly out there. And we have 31 pieces of equipment that are out there and schedules that are tied to that. So they're continuing working out. There are two separate areas. We street sweep downtown area once a week. Part of that was with assistance of bit twenty one because they do a lot of cleanup along here. We have the basically a combined sewer system as mentioned before. We swipe twice a month. And then we have the outer districts which are farther south, north, and west that we do once a month. And so those are part of our storm water management plan.

But then it comes into what time are they coming to to schedule. There shifts that kind of go through. Even if we go down the day, we're still not going to access everywhere. So but that's kind of the schedule we've always had for years. I I will say that in the past, not now, but a few years ago when we had 569 staff that we had vacant, the first thing to knock off would be street sweeping because of our guaranteed garbage collection and recycling. Our numbers have stabilized now. They're not where exactly we're wanting because we still have vacancies about in the department about two seventy, but we've gone a long way which is a good thing. So we haven't had as many issues filling some of those spots. You know, sometimes we have so much illegal dumping about the pivot to that operation. There's a lot of things that we do and what is the most pressing we try to navigate.

And there's always vacancies and people that take vacation, etcetera. But we're in a better situation than we have

been in the past few years.

Any other questions from committee?

Madam

chair. Alderman Westmoreland then Alderman Brown.

In relation to bagged leaf collection, is that at the curb? Is it at garbage collection point?

Yeah. So the goal is going to be at the curb. So right at the terrace area, so we can run an operation. Think of it like we did with the Christmas tree collection a few years ago. We wanted to have that same kind of process there. And so the good thing now is as we move forward with this, we notice in the floods is we have route where which is our regular garbage folks can actually identify and start adding this to the system. So it's like putting dots on a map. And so that we can pivot our operation pretty quickly.

Now how will they be picked up? Manually, automated?

It's it's manually. So it's more work on our folks to pick up leaf bags than it would be from pushing.

Okay. Now, if there is a bag of leaves that sits there and it gets snowed on or rained on and they go to pick it up and the leaves fall through the bottom, then what? Do they

Yeah. And that

Because it because it happens and I have constituents that reach out all the time. I mean, don't know what sanitation policy is so maybe we can clear that up but they have yard waste Mhmm. That sits out there, they request the collection, garbage sanitation workers come pick it up, it falls through, they leave it.

Yeah. So that Should

they be cleaning that up

and taking I it or

think that's a conversation we have to figure out because there's there's there's there's options across the country of just using paper bags which is what the majority use. There are some communities that use plastic bags and then we'll cut them open just so they don't get affected. But then, of course, then you have environmental impact of how much more plastic do you want use. So there's Mhmm. There's a there's a con to that as well. And so as we kind of we're we're still trying to build this right now is what makes the most sense. Worst case scenario, let's say your bag deteriorates, it's right inside on that terrace area that we can figure out. And what a lot of communities will do is almost like a skid crew. You come through and have to pick them up. And to put some grass seed but they're not in the sitting in the roadway clogging up drains and etcetera. So that's what we're navigating but it's not uncommon across country.

So currently, what's the sanitation's policy if that bag falls, the bottom falls out?

We'll have to come back and clean it out because we had to delete service and maybe it's not because of us, it could be mother nature.

That's But part it's just the we can't take that. No. They should be taken.

And that's what should be within the system, you know. This is this is what's going be nice is here's the bag. You can see it sitting there. You can see the pile. So we will have knowledge there. And when we can get to it depending on what phase we are in the seasonality.

Got it. Thank you.

Any other questions from oh, Brower. Audeman Brower.

Yeah. Thank you so much. So this is first of all, this is this is some some good options for areas like the East Side where we struggle with a clogged catch basin that and I know that wasn't the majority of the flooding that occurred with this last storm system, but we do have periodic storm systems where it gets clogged either with the catch basin gets clogged with debris or leaves. So I'm I'm really excited about this. I'm really excited to roll this out to constituents. I think a lot of them will be very happy about this idea of scheduled sweepings. Just a couple logistical questions about that. With the scheduled sweepings, are we going to be we will be towing to remove. Right? So that we have a completely unobstructed we're not just going to say, oh, you know, mister Jones forgot to move his Well, well, we'll just go around it.

We will remove that vehicle so it'll be a completely unobstructed block where we could sweep and clip the entire That's good. When we remove that vehicle, are we going intending to take it to the tow lot or are we going to move it to the closest nearest opening in a on a street? And will there be a citation to cover the cost then of that tow truck, the removal, or how is that gonna work?

Yeah. Thanks for bringing that up. Mhmm. No. So what the goal is here to relocate the neighborhood. Don't want folks to drive all the way to the tow lot nor the capacity for that. So Yeah. When we've done these pilots before, we find a location. In some of our denser neighborhoods, this is where we have to figure out exactly where we're going to tow to make sure we can access that. And so sweeping operation takes over two days because you're going to have one side that people can still park on their block on the one side Yes. And then flip flop the next day. Mhmm. But there will be a site there's a there's a TOE fee and there's a citation because you're illegally parked. Mhmm. And so that will be addressed and ticketed just like we do for any other event in a similar situation.

And so that would be and so that would help to cover the cost then to this. We had some questions about cost and implementation at least for the towing that would is there generally cost recovery then when we are towing somebody with the citation that's issued? So the citation would be separate. So you

have a there's tow fee that's there. So we have private contractors that will tow and relocate. And so we have a statute limit there's a limitation on how much we can charge Okay. The public. But then there's a citation because you're legally parked. So two different things but that's the total fine. Okay.

Okay. Cool. And then just actually, had some other comments but I'll wait to get other alders to get their questions answered.

I would suggest as you build out that plan that you also bill e text in it, like Mhmm. So that people can sign up to be texted and reminded

Absolutely.

About the data that's coming through just to reinforce the signage. Mhmm. Adam Any any other questions from committee members?

Oh, committee members.

Okay. For now, from committee members, I'm gonna go to prep first because she was the sponsor then I'll go to you auto woman. Let me try to reach them more. My

question is for MMSD. I represent Lincoln Park which is where some of the first work was done to help alleviate some of the flooding. There are over 15 homes that were lost there about twenty years ago during a flood. I also represent 35th Street where the 35th Street Basin is, and I represent the West Basic rather, and I'm gonna I represent where the 35th Street where we're putting something there. However, along the entire corridor, the Elm Capital, even with all these improvements, I have flooding at thirty fifth, twenty seventh, twentieth, and 9th.

And sixteenth every time it floods. I I guess I'd what I'm looking for and I think what people are looking for is why? Why is this happening? What are we not doing or what can we do to to stop that? And, yeah, I'm I'm I'm I guess I'm frustrated in that and that I'm using TID money that should be improving streets to do sewer work.

Right? And I shouldn't have to, but I am because I know that we need this done. So how can I justify this? You know, know that the tunnel helps us, all of this helps us, but how can we tell people how this is working for them, what we're doing going forward because they don't see it. I don't I don't think they see it.

They don't feel it especially especially in that particular corridor, even when I put this file forward, I put forward intersections all over the city where I can go to the intersection I know is gonna be flooded regardless of how much rain happens in several parts of the city. I know for sure capital because that's my district. I know for sure to Tonya and and Kylie because or to Tonya and Kinsey. That's my district. But there's 97th in Hampton. There is 31st in Pond Du Lac. They're all over the city. So how what are we doing in those areas specifically? I wanna know to to alleviate that issue.

Sure. And thank you for the question. It it really comes down to where's the water coming from when these areas flood. Is it coming out of the creek in Lincoln Creek issue? Is it coming out of the creek and flooding the area? Or is it flooding? You mentioned intersections. That's more the local system that you have to look at. So it's a partnership that we all have to work on together. But the flood management project is the water that gets to the creeks and how do we manage that water in the creek.

If it I've not two weeks ago, I did not hear of out of bank, what we call out of bank flooding from the the river. So that tells me it's more of a storm water issue versus a flood. I know this is confusing. A storm water issue versus a flood management issue, but that's what we have to deal with on this. I think you said earlier the design storms for storm sewers were twenty ten year. Yep. And we had a twenty five year event hit two weeks ago. We had a thousand year hit last August. Our design flood management is the hundred year event. So it it really has to be a conversation where that water come from.

And if it and I did not hear out of bank flooding two weeks ago and even in August there was just limited out of bank flooding that we heard of. If there's intersections that are flooding and commissioner chambers called me during the storm Mhmm. If there's intersections that are flooding that's where we need to look at how we manage that storm water to get it to the creek. Yes. If that makes sense.

Yeah. I mean, that that's my question. That's are we are we get making those intersections higher? What are we doing so that we are directing that water away from their its pooling at 20th And Capital. You lit you cannot go through 20th And Capital if it rains. You cannot get on the freeway at 9th And Capital if it rains. You can't I mean, 27th And Capital under every bridge in the city. I mean, we saw that this time.

Yeah. I think that's one of the good things about this task force is flood mitigation task force that we talked about a little bit. It was formed about a week and a half ago. We're meeting here soon and we're going to try to the county's work, the city's work, MMST and actually all the municipalities work and MMST's work because you have to follow that drop. It's really simply you have to follow that drop of water as it goes through the system and what's causing it to back up or not back up and try to work at it. That's that angle. That's why we're installing green infrastructure to manage water where it falls. That's why we're working in private property with the those laterals that go from the homes to the street to try to realign those pipes so that they don't take in more water. You're just trying to reduce the volume of water that comes into the system.

Does the d w have an answer for the capital? I'm and I'm asking because I share capital with heart of woman Pratt, and she's right. Those particular Yeah. And and, you know, commissioner, we personally called you when Yeah. We're driving around Yeah. Seeing it ourselves. So is there for capital, is there a specific reason?

I would say it's reasons. Yes. An engineer mentioned earlier. At any specific location there are multiple reasons for why there may be flooding it whether it's the drainage structures themselves if they're clogged with trash or leaves or anything like that. The amount of impervious service that might be in the area and especially in commercial districts we have a large amount of parking and things like that.

Our infrastructure in terms of how does it pass through the system like so twentieth and capital is a good example of where there are a couple large storm sewers that pass through that area on their way to MSD's basins on the Northwest and East Basins. So any one of those things can definitely play a factor in here. Keeping the structures open certainly is one of the things that we're working towards. We can look at localized solutions in terms of adding structures if that's the right thing to do. But those add other maintenance elements, other traffic elements, utility conflicts, things like that.

So it's not always a guarantee that we can just simply put in more basins and that will take care of the problem. But we do look at those possibilities. We're always looking at opportunities to add in more green infrastructure on 27th Street just north of Capital. There's a whole series of green infrastructure along that route. And then as properties get redeveloped, stormwater management requirements will kick in that require them to contain more of the stormwater on-site as those properties get redeveloped.

Can we You all keep track of the specific areas that every time we rain Right. That is particular flooding. Right? Mhmm. Is it possible to get maybe a a list of those for maybe the last five years? And as you all look at new projects in an area, infrastructure wise, are you also looking at the storm mitigation piece Mhmm. And what you could infrastructure do to help?

Yep. Anytime there's a roadway replacement, we always look at the whole entire system at the same time. It's an opportunity for sewers to get there. So any reconstruct that comes through, not high impact paving because that's just a maintenance when we look at a full reconstruct, the sewers are always looked at upgraded catch basins, etcetera. I do want to say we do have a hot list. Are we your potential intersections that constantly flood

Mhmm.

And what sewer maintenance does is when they know these are going to go a rain is going come, they actively go out to those basins to make sure they're clear. It doesn't necessarily stop, you know Yeah. Surface flooding

I didn't see them at 20 of the capital. I'm saying like I know there's

something So we do have a hot list that we try to go to because it's just it's regular occurrence. So Deep

within the basins.

But it's deeper than

the Yeah. Correct. Okay. And there's a lot of moves. Yeah. There's they can get that the basin itself to make sure it's clear, but there's there could be other things like Kurt had mentioned.

Madam Chair, on that point, on the point of Lincoln Creek, since we own it, I know we're going to go to another side of the area. And thank you for giving me the opportunity. I want to add another area that I called both of you all on on this around Lincoln Creek because Lincoln Creek was the heaviest part that was significantly impacted in both August and this one. In particular, between sixtieth from Villard to sixtieth to fifty first from Villard to Silver Spring where Pass. What we had nine well, pass Silver Spring on Thursday.

At least.

Where we had eight blocks completely filled with water and I know I talked to you commissioner on that that I drove through. Luckily, I have a vehicle that can drive

through

it. That that drove through it and that's consistently getting impacted and I also know from August, you know, we had a lot of houses that were damaged with foundation issues, you know, in that same area. So I know, you know, you know, mister Muse brought up the initial Lincoln Creek area project to happen with that with that early two thousands.

Was early two thousands about a $119,000,000 award.

And I know we talked about this, but what are the plans moving forward to further improve that? Because I feel moving forward, that area is gonna continuously to get severely impacted. And I know that we're doing the 30 Feast the 35th Street Basin project, but are there any other location further north that we are looking to possibly add to that as well? The one I could think of is Oakleaf Park near, you know, near the Menominee Valley, you know, Menominee Park in my district off of Mill Road. Is there any other projects that we can, you know, consider moving forward with that?

Yeah. We'll look at everything. I mean, we we need to look at these open spaces so that we can store the water there as opposed to getting into people's homes and bases basements. What we are looking at right now is some accelerated green infrastructure work in the Lincoln Creek Watershed because you're right. Last August and then two weeks ago, just nailed with the rainfall.

Oh, yeah.

The 15 inches of rain hit in the Lincoln Park in the Lincoln Creek Watershed. So anything we can do to manage that water where it falls with green infrastructure, we'll do. And then we're gonna also we have this pipe check program where we pay to replace or line laterals from the home to the street. We're gonna target that area as well to try to help with that.

Okay. And then final question is, I know some of the projects with the basins like Wilson Park, is the goal of these projects to do some similar to what NMSD did with Tulsa and Hart Park? Yeah. Tulsa. I'm sorry. No, you're good. You're good.

You don't want interrupt. Pulaski Park is probably the best example. This is a beautiful park that is a partnership with Milwaukee County and a hard park would be something somewhere. It was designed to flood. I know there's a lot of issues last August where people thought, why is the football field flooding? It was meant to flood. That's what it was designed for. That kept it out of people's homes.

So

it would be the work plan for Jackson Park will look a lot like Pulaski Park and Wilson Park would be the same.

And then last thing commissioner Kruschke, you know, know far as with the exception parking and, you know, the tolls and the redirect fees and everything, especially with us shifting over to bagging things, my hope, and and I I maybe we had to put a file out. My hope is we can use those funds as opposed to putting them into somewhere else, is to put them into subsidizing some of those leaf bags for the residents to purchase in this moving forward. So, you know, we can take some of the stress off. Yes. We are punishing those who are parking, but we should still be helping those that are, you know, gonna have to pay $2 or so bags or anything like that.

So should we should really explore, you know, creative ways to help those residents especially as we make this significant shift in processes throughout the city. You, madam chair. Thank you for giving me the opportunity.

I don't want to make sure.

Thank you so much, alderwoman cogs, Chairman Cogs. Thank you, Alderman Andrea Pratt for introducing this and allowing me to co sponsor it right at the moment. Thank you for allowing e comments. I was doing a tally about 80% or so were from my district predominantly on Logan, Lenox, Russell, Bay, Limebarger, and Delaware. And like my good colleague Alderman Chambers mentioned, two parts of the city that are quite far away from each other but are going through the same thing.

I think to build off of Alderman Pratt's comments, she started conversation, but I don't feel like we got still the answer that some of our people are looking for, which is why is it harsher in certain parts, certain hot spots. I mean their property values are plummeting. They, which hurts our tax base, we all just got, know, I know it was no one's plan, getting an assessment right in the middle of the pain that the city has endured. In between the flooding, can't drive on the streets with the potholes, and your basement is full of water, and maybe a tree fell down. Of course that's not part of the city's fault, but it is painful.

I am feeling the pain of my constituents, and it's really rough because it's hard to say, well that's whether these are exceptional events. What they're looking for is that these are exceptional events. The climate is changing and what are we doing to respond? That's what they're looking for. And today, when they've rebuilt from August, they many cannot claim again in a calendar year if they even were lucky to claim the first insurance.

They are asking me to ask you all, and I will have to do it, for financial help. This is going to preserve our tax base. If people are looking to either sell their homes, they'll get less for it. You know where I'm going with this. We've gotta find a way to, if it's a I think it was called a was a basement backup valve. The mothership, which we've probably seen many articles from that I have to speak into the record, it is up for a James Beard award. This is right off of Lincoln Avenue in the Logan area that we're talking about near the Army Reserve.

Great bar by the way.

Well, I'm not I'm just getting started actually. I got more. It is a great bar. Well, think about the the just embarrassment if you will, that they are up for a James Beard award. Award. They rose from the ashes of being closed for three months in August. They got back up and they have now all that work that they did and repaired. They had to close down again. They are in a hot spot. And it's just embarrassing to me that they're helping us shine our light as a city. We're up for the Michelin, but yet they have standing water in their basement. They can't produce ice. They can't do what they need to do. The people that work there are employees in my district. Across the street is washer.

I have a email and I've sent it to y'all from the CEO who said that their HR and their control room was completely ruined. Hundreds of workers in that factory live in my district. So I I We've we've we've taken this angle from many ways. I'm gonna take the economic way, is when we add up all of this pain and suffering, there is a major impact to the city of Milwaukee. And what my constituents are looking for is what can they do today?

Can they claim something? Can they ask for funding? Is there a certain valve or anything that can be done in the basement? What can they do with MMSD? They're looking for specifics because is there a map like we were asking for when is there areas that have like less impervious pavement? We need to put each heat map on top of the other heat map and you're right, have some really specific solutions. But what would we say to Logan, Lenox, Russell, Bay, Linebarger, Delaware, and all my friends a little further north? Those residents today, what can they do today? They've went through three water heaters. They've went through two washers and dryers.

A couple refrigerators. What can be done today?

Today, I mean, today is a real challenge. Right?

Okay. I

mean, all the women, you know, and I and if I'm misinterpreting what you're asking, please interrupt me. You know, the financial impact of this, right, which is which is real and the the emotional impact which is real as well. The department is not authorized for reimbursements of that type. I mean, the processes as you know and many others do this is the claims process managed by the clerk if the individuals feel like the city is culpable those issues. We would have to have discussions including discussions that would include, you know, the finance and personnel committee and others if there was some sort of approach that the the city wanted to take from a financial perspective to to assist.

That's Okay.

It's not something that exists within DPW today. When it comes to the future, that's where I I do think, you know, as as Kevin mentioned and others mentioned, you know, we have this task force coming and I I'm hoping that we talk directly with some of these folks, you know, as you said, you shared emails with me, others have shared emails with with others at the table too, and try to figure out what we can do to address the specific circumstances in specific areas. Okay. Because those circumstances do vary depending on the topography, the sewer system, and and other things going on. And you mean individual property owners as well.

You had asked me to pause you. Yeah. So I get the today thing, but why so we're not geologically we had a conversation two days ago. Mhmm. We don't have Lincoln Creek. Why those streets that I laid? They want answers as to like what is their geological challenge. Mhmm. Yep. And maybe that's not a today thing as well. Yeah. But we need to we need to get back to as to they weren't even aware that they lived in a hot spot.

Mhmm. You know

what I'm saying? So how could they even mitigate it

Yep.

Or remediate it? And and this is what we've we've got to really highlight. Who's on the city county task force, madam chair? Is is there a number of alders? Which which alders are on there?

Right now it's just technical folks. So it's the commissioner

Technical folks? Yep. Okay.

I'm sorry. Technical folks. Okay. But we will be talk we haven't met yet. So we'll see who else we want to add to that. And then

Well, would like to make a request today that there be an alder person because we're we're There's no one I mean, if you're technical, which I appreciate because you can see these are very technical things. I've had to watch the video like 10 times. But we Yep. With all due respect, they're not necessarily calling the commissioner yourself. We have the anecdotal people driving through like my colleague. We need to have the voice of the actual people on something like That special task force. Can you ask the number? Yeah. How many people are on the task force, the city county? So please can you put at least some city legislative branch? We get the calls. I don't know how to stress this

out. Madam chair. But along those lines, this task force is put together. It seems like every player at the table you've been in relationship or communication with. So I I I don't see the I guess why now to me when everyone the media mentioned that's gonna be part of this task force. You're already talking to, you're already working with, you've dealt with the county whether it's at Pulaski, Jackson, City, engineers. I don't know understand what the difference is of the relationship now.

Well, we've had two big storms last August and two weeks ago. So those really prompted us to look at this. As I said on the one side, we have three different systems, private sewers, municipal sewers, and our sewers. And sometimes those don't connect and so we need to make sure that there's good collaboration between the three different sewer systems. Try to work with different communities on how their systems drain. How can we identify these? I hadn't heard about hot spots before but that So if we have these hot spots, can we then go in and try to target those areas first? It's just a priority system where you have to start from the worst areas and then work back from that.

So so just to be clear, it hasn't happened until now. The conversation that

We have

this prioritize prioritizing these issues now after three floods, two years, that prompted after all the years you guys have been talking to one of

We have worked to get together on all these issues but now, like I said, I just heard about hot spots. So if it's street flooding that you're concerned about, where are those street flooding locations are at the intersections and then how do we bring that together to try to drain those better in the future.

Because ultimate Pratt's flooding isn't based on huge storms. It happens every year.

Mhmm. Mhmm.

Okay. I'm gonna do my last comment because something was unclear to us over here. The scheduled street sweeping Mhmm. Is that only on the double sided streets or are you implementing that citywide?

So that is only in the exception street areas which is gonna be mandated. The other ports of the city that are just normal parking, they will have a normal sweeping because they're already alternate site parking which gives us access to those parking lanes.

Okay. That's that's great. And then just to conclude, madam chair, thank you. 2,700,000,000 gallons, that's what it was, into our water waste.

5,000,000,000 last year.

So something's gotta change. It's it's important to not normalize these weather patterns. We can change some of it in our ways. We have a very ambitious climate and equity task force. We have done a lot of green infrastructure. The federal government has been an enemy of this type of work. So it has to be said, we push forward and the current federal administration has been creating barriers along the way and this is coming home now. So we have to stand up and fight for what we know our people need no matter what because they're paying the price. So thank you so much madam chair.

I'll call other women more.

Thank you so much Madam Chair, committee members for allowing this conversation today. I just really really quick few questions going back to timeline. What would the communication plan be and timeline look like for rolling out these new initiatives?

So from the bag leaf operation, we're already trying to work on the communication plan in any platform that's including getting information to elders as well to put in their newsletters. And so that's the easier one because and then pivoting over into the exception street areas, we're still building what that looks like. And so there's going be a conversation where we start and what the local alder is to say we're going to start here and moving forward. I guess I think some of our folks don't know if they live on exception street or not Mhmm. And what that means.

And so building a map and something visual someone can see these are the roads. I mean the exception streets are built on our website right now so the public wants to go on and look up on the city's website. They'll show exactly which streets are exception now to get a precursor of where they what this impact is to their neighborhood. So they'll know right now. But we will build better things in flyers and newsletters and just everything else to get this out as we kind of open this up over time.

It. Thank you. And again, I have to concur that I appreciate that we have the opportunity to use the e comments. I've had an opportunity to read through several of them. And one in particular from one of the residents in one of my neighborhoods is something that continues to be an issue in our office is, you know, there are requests that are made in a cellar all the time and quite a few of them are always marked that they're done.

And unfortunately, they haven't. They're you know, have residents that have requests that are still open and has been open for multiple years. Right? And so if you all can talk to me a little bit about and and I brought this up with the department before, like, can we do because if it's you know what? We get so many requests. We don't have the people power to do it. I mean, I'd rather us say that so that we can think about, you know, what's that strategy or what's the plan is to get some of these requests fulfilled. But if you can talk a little bit about how can we address making sure because We're talking. I tell people to I push people all the time. You know, use a, you know, use a mobile action app.

Call the city. Right? And they put these in this information into the system. And, you know, I would say for the most part, you know, a lot of it gets done, but there's still quite a few that don't get addressed. How do you all you know, if we're continuing to push them using this particular platform, how do we work to make sure that what we're asking residents submit that they get done?

I would like to know the one offs. And so there has been a transition over the past couple years of into we'll call it a Milwaukee apps based IT background and transitioning over to a seller for requests. And so I would like to know the one offs because I want folks to call 286 I want or 286 I want folks to put in a click for action because that's what helps us get the work done faster instead of just going one spot here, one spot there, they can do groups. Correct. So I mean, if you do have something that's out there for that long and I I said this to every alder, if it's not getting addressed by my staff, I need to know.

And was it lost in the system? Is it just they're not doing it? And I can respond because that's that's far and few between because a majority of those requests, if it comes to the potholes, it comes Yeah. To the Our crews are seeing all those and this is why we constantly are trying to put that message forward. It is easier to put it in the system than it is to call myself and then I will get it over to someone else who gets it in there so it's delayed actually compared to just someone actually putting in for click for action. So but I would I mean if anybody has one offs like that, would like to know what those are.

Is that something that we can like each district request through IT department to say, hey, can you pull a list of again, I'm not sure if it's possible. Can you pull a list of outstanding, you know, a seller items that are more than thirty days later, whatever? I would love to see if that's a possibility so that we get a sense of what what is is it, oh, it's always this, you know, because of x y and z. Right? Like, I would really love to understand what's out there or what's not being addressed.

So again, it's an opportunity for us to to look at other solutions. I I really quick as well. There were also some complaints about and I just need to understand the mesh over the sewer grates. I know sometimes we do that construction time. Is it is it just specifically for construction time? Do we remove it? Like, how does that work? Because I don't know if we went to oh, we're now putting mesh under grates. Can you explain that a little bit for me?

Yeah. Absolutely. So if you see that, like, it's usually black mesh. It's usually sticking out around the edge of of the grate. Right? So that was installed by a contractor or or in some cases city staff specifically due to meet erosion control requirements. So that is to try to control the amount of silts and other run off from a construction site getting into the sewer system. Those should be removed when the project is done. If they are forgotten for some reason and someone notices it, they should flag it for us, let us know. And and however, you know, they can choose to try to get hold of us.

We we do like to know when that happens and try to identify who did it and and and how. So those can be installed by our contractors doing our projects, but they can also be installed in the public right of way by private utilities that are doing work in the right of way as well. So it's similar to the what's going on with this hole in the ground question. We would have to chase it down, but we do want to know about those and get those cleared if there's not active nearby.

That's awesome. And I definitely want to take the time to plug the Adopt A Great program. Would love to have some communication plan about that as well so that we can have our residents again, we're doing a lot with a very little. And, you know, over time we're sort of, you know, tasking our residents a little bit more where, you know, their taxes are up and they're wondering why their roads aren't done and why they're getting flooding. You know, all I mean, they're they're feeling it.

And so if there are opportunities for, you know, small ways for us to support, there should definitely be some sort of communication plan around that so that our residents can because many of them want to help our city. They want to chip in but it there I think there needs to be some concerted efforts around plans to be able to do that. Thank you so much madam chair.

Yes. Alderman Taylor.

Oh. Thank you so much madam chair. I apologize for my voice today. I do I just wanted to chime in and say thank you. I do concur with all my colleagues because I do know that we're still getting calls and I did mention that to you too.

We're still getting calls even from last year of people who still are trying to recover from the flood from last year and then they're getting hit again and and so I I just concur with that. But also with this recent flooding, whereas my area might not have been hit as hard, but just trying to navigate from that far Northwest side to get downtown. Mhmm. Every turn I made was a flooded area and again like all the chambers, I was in a in a high sitting vehicle so I could push through it but I wasn't going to. Right?

But I would pull over, call it in, turn the corner, pull over, call it in, and I just kept doing that to the point it just got frustrating. But I think after the fourth call, I just said, you know what?

I might

as well just stay on the phone with you till I get downtown because every corner I turn

Yes, sir.

I'm calling you back to tell you that there is another one. But what she did was they gave me the ticket numbers for each one so I can follow back. So I don't know if that's what Alderman Moore Alderman Moore was saying about being able to track back and make sure that those areas were being addressed. Maybe that's something that should we just encourage our constituents to get those numbers when they call so that we can track easily track those. Yeah. Alright. Thank you.

Madam chair? I think Alderman Bergalis. Thank you.

Thank you madam chair. Thank you committee members. Thank you everyone for being here. I have kind of a I have a question later but a premature a premature announcement to make. Alderman Stamper and I have been working on a project with Clean and Green to have paper bags available at various city locations for the spring cleanup. Those bags were delayed a little bit getting to DPW. Thank you to DPW and the library and the fire department for helping distribute and locate these. But we will announce very soon. We have eight locations already in throughout the district. We've been engaged with Alders to get the right locations throughout the city where neighbors can come by a location and pick up these paper bags for free.

I think now more than ever, it will be even more important to use them in spring, maybe save one or two for the fall. And this is a really just a pilot model, part of Clean and Green that will allow us to set up a test of how we can distribute bags out to residents throughout the city. So those locations are started. There are a couple elders that I think will want to add a location closer to their district, but please check your emails for those as well. In my district this time, last week's storm, I had a number of hot spots.

Of six hot spots from August, only three still had problems last week which I think is big movement or a big improvement. But those locations are those residents there are still hurting and one new hotspot popped up where a elderly couple had their basement wall collapse, they're gonna lose their house. They're gonna lose their life savings and their life's work because of the flood and insurance has denied their claim. We don't have resources or none of our city programs fit that problem. So I wanna thank commissioner Arroyo Vega for personally reaching out to those to that family to help.

But our our resources and our options at the city for that kind of a storm are really limited. As it turns out, that small street in front of their home has two sewer grates. They were both clogged. DPW came out, broomed it. Right?

But then just recently we had a little bit more rain and that sewer was still clogged and still flooded the street again. So we have a maintenance program in the city to regularly suction sewers, storm sewers. Why wasn't the department made aware that grooming the the grate is insufficient and having proper maintenance in this location where there was a 100 where there was hundreds of thousands of dollars of loss across the street. Why wasn't a vacuum truck sent there until we raised all hell to make sure that that happens? Because that that was only cleared out this week.

Today's Wednesday.

So that excuse me. So that specific location, our crews were out there during the initial storm event and I believe that Wednesday night. You're right. They did scrape the debris that was off the Great Sound. That area had a fair amount of flooding on the street itself. At that time, you know, they cannot get out there and jet that liner back out that line. Their job is to get the water flowing, get the water down into the sewer system, and frankly move on to the next because there are so many other calls to address.

And the very next time some the very next time we got a little bit of rain that street flooded again.

Mhmm.

Yes. Absolutely. And I understand. And I think that probably is an instance where have we been back out there where someone would have recognized, yes, this line needs to be jetted. I can't speak to why that did or did not happen, but once that second call did come in, we did get out there, we got that jetted. I know we talked to the neighbor across the street to confirm that we were at the right location and everything. Sometimes there's a location mix up, but we did get that There

are only two storm drains on the entire block. What's the regular maintenance schedule for jetting sewers in the city? How how how many decades does it take for the department to get down to my street before they'll come back again?

So as far as the structures themselves, they are either on a three year or one year cycle depending on the type of structure that is. That process is mostly looking at removing the debris that exists in the structure. If we get notified that let me rephrase that. When they're out there cleaning out the structure, they may not necessarily know that that drain line is clogged. That's more of a reactive process. So we get a call, you know, through quick correction or through the app. That's when that determination is made as to if that can be or not if it can be jetted but that it should be jetted.

And how many sewer jet crews do we have in the city?

So during the last flood control, we had about 20 crews out there. I believe there are eight of them that have jetting capabilities. They are not necessarily jetting during storm events if they can get the debris off the grate and get the water down at that time. That's the first priority is to get that water down, get it off the street. The jetting comes through after the fact whether it's by just it's what we call routine maintenance, but that's going by quarter section by quarter section and performing that cleaning or on an as needed basis on an on call basis.

And how many of those big jet machines do we have in the fleet? I think Kevin knows the answer.

Yeah. I don't want to commit to a number if Kevin knows.

I would I would know the max which is we have four

Oh, yes.

Of the max but I'm not sure on the jetting side

of it. I believe there's also four jet packs. Yep.

So four and Oh, there's four. Is that enough to take care of the entire city? Because two of them are brand new. We just I just saw them in the budget.

Mhmm. Mhmm.

Right? So we've doubled our fleet in the last year to to to address this. Is that enough?

Much of that is replacement level, retiring older vehicles, replace new ones. We have been adding new, what are called hydro cranes, is another vehicle you didn't mention, but it's sort of a clamshell style of machine that removes the debris from the structures. We are adding one of those every year as trying to get ahead of the old ones breaking down essentially, but we are in a little bit of a hole on that front. Yeah. We are I'm adding jet packs and hydro cranes to every budget. Budget. Okay.

Thank you very much. Thank you madam chair.

Thank you. Any other questions?

I just

had a question. Are is someone from ECO and from the office of equity at the county on the task force?

As of right now, no. But the first we meet the first time we're gonna say who else should be

in there.

Okay. Just wanted to make sure that someone from ECO is there at least.

Thank you.

Madam chair?

Somebody

over here said madam chair? Brower, think. Brower and then Westmoreland.

Yep. Cool.

So a couple different things. To what alderwoman Pratt was saying regarding these hotspots, I think we will I would suggest that we collect all of those and have some sort of public facing in some way either through our e notifies for us or even on the DPW website of here's the hotspots. It could just be a Google sheet that's out there. Here's every hotspot that we know floods every single time. Here's the result of our investigation, what we've determined is happening, and here's the steps that we're taking.

I mean, because what I'm seeing and hearing is that people at least want and I I'm I'm fairly certain there's a few of those in in District 3 as well. I will ask constituents to let me know where those are as well. But, you know, just we could just have that list publicly available. Here's where they are. Here's what investigation or here's when it will be investigated. Either I'm not sure of the tools that's used for investigating, but we'll deploy them. And then here's what here's what our next steps are. And those next steps, I mean, that could be a whole bunch of accelerated infrastructure, you know, and infrastructure spending. Right? And do we have the money for that or not is the question.

But I think the public at least wants to just know that we're looking at it, that we're investigating it, what we're what we're doing. I mean, that's what people want because I, you know, I experienced this too. I'm sure you guys do as well. Like, you know, when you go up to one of these corners and it's the same flooded corner, again and again it's like what the heck is going on? And so even if we're able to just publicly like say, we know this is happening. Here's what needs to happen. And of course, it's gonna cost this many millions of dollars, this many hundreds of thousands. Which library are we gonna close to make that happen? If that's the question that we have to put out there, and I'm not suggesting that as a political thing. I'm being a little sarcastic when I say that, but like just illustrating that we have a limited resource world, at least the public then knows.

You know, that's what that's what's going on and and it's gonna take, you know, there's been some public discourse around, you know, completely undoing our combined sewer and water system. I I mean mean, don't even you know, how many billions of dollars is that gonna cost? How many roads allowed to be ripped up? How many deck in fifteen years, ten years, twenty years to, like, you know, rip up every street to do that, which, I mean, maybe in the future if we need to do because of climate change, we need to do these infrastructure upgrades we maybe need to look at. But a question I had for you, commissioner, is so just, you know, over the decades, employment trends at DPW, I know we've had more vacancies in the past.

We've been filling them. I appreciate that. I appreciate DER working to, you know, make sure all those get filled. But oh, okay. So in the eighties, nineties, do we have more or less people at DPW? What have been some of the macro employment trends over decades with our Department of Public Works?

So it's a great question. So getting rid of just the vacancy number, the entire FTEs in the 80s and 90s, we had way more individuals in the budget book period. And so over years and you know there's 2% cuts, 5% cuts we talked about. Mean the pressure that we've had from our state says you have to go through a 5% budget cut every year and that's part of the practice we have to go through. Our numbers continually every year. If you go back and look at the budget books, you're going to see one or two here. You're going see one or two here constantly over decades. And so those numbers start to add up. There's been some years I think that we've lost, you know, a hundred, two hundred employees and that was early on. But every year we look at things and so what what we're trying to do is, this is the best question I have to our folks when I walk around is, I says I can't get you people anymore.

I go, it just doesn't happen and we're not budgeted for people. But there are technology changes that are helping us do their work. Other pieces of equipment, capital costs that we can purchase one time. And there's been examples of that. You know, we've done it in forestry with grapple cells that have sped up, you know, taking down trees. That's one example. We've purchased new equipment to to print signs in some of our sign shops. And so, I'm using our workforce to do that, but you're correct. I mean, this this department has continually shrunk over the past three decades.

And are we talking hundreds, thousands of people? Hundreds.

Hundreds. Over decades.

Yes.

Okay. So so somebody who was an adult in the eighties who could be one of our constituents would have theoretically with more people at DPW enjoyed a higher level of service than is currently even with technological advances than we are currently able to offer and that is due to budget cuts.

Well, it's complex. So even right now, I still have 270 vacancies with those cuts. So I mean, I'm still not feeling them. So that Yeah. If I got to the point where I was a 100% full and then because I can add another 200 positions, if I can't fill them that's another concern. I mean I will say the market studies that were done to make wages very equal to the outside over the past few years and I want to thank this council and the mayor for that has stabilized our workforce. Great. And we we have recruitment numbers that are way higher than that they were. So that's why we are in a good position. But there are the number of folks we have is a lot less. I mean, the street maintenance crews from I mean, you're going to hear it. We'll we'll give you some numbers when we talk about the potholes. I mean, when I was in that position in 2019, I had at least 30 more people in that unit than they do today. Wow. And that's just from seven years ago. And it's happening in every section.

Macro and I'll just comment on that. This is a macro trend we're seeing in the public sector, not just here in Milwaukee or in Wisconsin, but across this country with due to rising costs that we face, but also just I mean, frankly, as Alderman Dmitry Avish said, completely misplaced priorities here. Right? I just I just googled this while we were sitting here. Operation Epic Fury, which is our war against Iran, has cost one estimate between 35 and $50,000,000,000 so far.

And then it was it was it was like pulling teeth to get the inflation reduction act through the senate through some of the lame moderate democrats that wouldn't support that. And so even to get a measly 1,700,000,000,000 out of the senate to go to go to local municipalities or even the COVID money, like, and that's that's the answer. We need, you know, more support from the federal government, from the state government for the richest Wisconsinites and richest Americans to pay their fair share so that it could come back to municipalities like Milwaukee so we can have drivable streets and expect to not be flooded and have employment numbers. I mean, we should we could use I bet you, we could deploy if we had them double the workers of DPW. We would have a task for them to do.

There is something to improve in the city of Milwaukee that if we had double or triple the number of people in DBW or double or triple the amount of money in the budget, we could accomplish more things that would improve the quality of life, you know, for residents. And so I just want to, you know, make that comment publicly because I think it really needs to be all these these issues need to be couched in the fact that the you know, we talk about vacuum machines. Well, the richest 1% have a vacuum machine that's vacuuming up all the money in this world into their coffers and starving the rest of us, frankly. We need know, we talk about these accelerated infrastructure projects. Really glad to hear that some of this stuff has moved up.

Thank you. And again, I appreciate all of you here, seriously. This is this is a really good conversation to have. But if we want to accelerate these infrastructure improvements, we're going to need, you know, more funding from the feds, from the state. We cannot just property tax our residents to death to cover the stuff that we want here in Milwaukee.

I mean, it's just it's just unfeasible. Right? There's been, you know, members of congress have introduced legislation in past congresses called a Green New Deal that would provide funding for all this stuff. And of course, you know, our current state of politics that values things like the war with Iran over a Green New Deal, that's we are left suffering now with flooding where we've spent, you know, over $35,000,000,000 on the war with Iran. What a complete and epic waste of money that we've been engaged in as a country. And I I really do think, you know, we are in an ecosystem. It is a system. We have to identify all this stuff. The city of Milwaukee doesn't exist in a vacuum outside of the rest of The United States and and what the, you know, orange buffoon is doing in the White House. It really is really is tragic.

So I just want to put that all out there. I really appreciate all the workers of DPW. I think overall, my assessment from this and from conversations with frontline workers is that, you know, DPW hasn't failed. The DPW is being failed in the city of Milwaukee right now. It needs more resource. We need to, you know, fight for it so that we can have the quality of life that we deserve here in the city of Milwaukee. Thank you, madam chair.

Thank you. Are there any other questions from committee? Yes. I'm sorry. Alderman Westmoreland.

Just a question back to that mesh netting. Does that cause any obviously, with that mesh netting, there is not normal water flow. Right? Does that cause any stress to area, any other areas because of that?

If I guess if by stress you mean, you know, it does it reduce the amount of water that gets in there and create

Which pushes water to other areas?

It can. I guess, it would get high enough, you know, either go over the curve or

So it does cause stress the area.

Acrosophone thing.

So it does cause stress the area. Yes, it can. Okay. And with those, I understand why they're there. Now, it's there to collect debris. How often are those cleared in within the construction zones?

They're supposed to be checked after every rain event and clean monthly whether

Okay.

That's a challenge. It's absolutely a challenge because it's not only contracts that we control but it's also you know, permit work by utilities. It could be a private development that, you know, is possibly tracking in and out of their site. They would have erosion control

For any city projects, who is assigned to check those?

Our construction inspectors.

Yep. Yeah. It's the construction team.

Got it. And is there any document that, you know, checks the box to say, hey, this is when we I mean, I It's

a good question.

I'm just we we talk about like what we can do today. Yeah. I mean, I think that there are things that we could be missing because we don't have systems in place Yeah. To make sure that, you know, that's cleared. And, you know, I've got Lisbon Avenue project and I know I've checked those Mhmm. Personally and they've been gravel and all different types of things.

Yeah. Yeah. I'd I'd nothing to refute that experience, I think that's probably, you know, definitely accurate. So yeah. We'll follow-up and see if that's on the inspection report. So I'll I'll get back to you. Thank you.

Madam Chair. Mhmm.

Chambers. Alderman Chambers.

I was just gonna request. He can go. I was gonna request we keep this open. I'll keep this held.

Alderman Moore?

I I just wanted to ask really quick about just, you know, I wanna sort of piggyback what my colleague Alderman Brower was talking about as far as just support and what's needed and and I know that DPW is one of the largest departments when we talk about you know we call you guys the most. Right? We need y'all. Right? And looking at how resources is currently allocated but also thinking about the the workforce as well.

Is there a plan or is there something that as far as you got 15 districts here, I know several programs that are you know working with individuals getting back into the workforce. It and sometimes it seems like we can't put them in fast enough because you all also have people that are retiring Mhmm. Every single year. What is the discussion has been like to address address our workforce issue because it is an issue having 200 it's a lot of bodies. Mhmm. You know, even if we get half of those people, the the amount of more work that we can get done, but how are we looking to address that issue?

Yes. So that in many ways. So I mean, 270 sounds like a of folks, but it was 570. So I mean and that's only in the past three years where we've recovered that much which is great because there's constant retirements and there's turnover. There's there's high stress jobs that are Correct. Like like a parking enforcement officer is hard to keep on. You know, there there's the trades that are hard to hire. But for the most part, we've seen recruiting numbers up. And we work with our partners on the outside. If it's Employment Walkie, if it's WRTP, we're we're trying to get folks that work in the city to work for city government.

And not only for us, but also we're a bridge to work with our contractors too just for the same reason. So, you know, a lot of the work that we talk about reduced workforces over the years, we use our contractors to do some of that work to supplement. So it's it's twofold. We're constantly looking at ways and working with the Department of Employee Relations to get more folks in. So it's we're we're working on other outside partners right now to just to figure out what's the best way to to get that pipeline on.

Working with our school systems that we've started to build over the past couple of years, you know, like we're we're partnering from our our urban forestry group has done a great job of tying with Vincent High School. We're dealing with Pulaski and the mechanics. So we're trying to get in MPS is kind of a pipeline for us too and other schools to try to get them like, you know, not every job has to have a college degree. And so to to get our kids and youth to understand that, hey, we have really well paying jobs with good pensions and I think it's Uh-huh. I think it's something this city has not promoted enough is they look at just the dollar amount but there's a lot more that this city offers when we're talking about a pension in healthcare and all the other benefits that come here.

So it's not just that single dollar. These are, you know, long life sustaining careers and and with decent retirement long term. So I I think as an entire city, matter if it's in DW or not, I think that's something that should be promoted more.

And commissioner, who would be that point person to connect with if we wanted to, you know, hear more about, oh, we're partnering with these individuals or these, you know, the programs that we're running. Who would be

Sure.

Mean you could talk myself or even Jackie into ER because I mean there's a partnership here. It's not like one of works alone.

Got it. And then

I think it flew out

of the last thing I just wanted to say is that will there be a point where because I know every year you all are asked to cut cut cut cut. Will there ever be a because you know, DNS is also another big one that for me that it's just like we have to grow it and not cut it because of the needs that our residents are having. Will there ever be a point where you're just like, just we we can't continue to cut anymore?

I mean those discussions go on every time during budget. I mean, it's a this is gonna sound this is a positive and negative statement all at once because the city has come more fee based, there is a bottom end. So as we have a snow and ice fee, we have a Yeah. Lighting fee, we have real tax fees, so all these numbers, you can't go below that cut. So there is a bottom end. We're not there yet. So there, you know, as we kind of go through tougher budgets, but there is a bottom. I mean, you know, know our residents do not like all these extra charges on you know, their municipal bill. We call it municipal and not water bill even though it's tied to that. And those charges are there just to sustain services. And that's because you know we do not get funding for the city like So we there is a bottom. So it's not like we would go down to zero by any means.

Yeah. And and I'm glad that you said that because, you know, one of the things that our residents are saying is, yes, I'm paying all of this and I feel like I'm not getting all of it. Right? I I pay the light fee, my light, you know. I know alderwoman Pratt knows that all too.

Oh my gosh. Let's talk about that. Not not not not for another time. But they they talk about it, and I want to make sure that if we're going to charge them, like, there has to come a point where we say, we're gonna have to figure workforce, budget. We're gonna have to figure it out because we can't continue feeding our people, charging them all these fees, and they're just not getting the just the quality or even close to the quality of services that we're charging them for.

So, again, I know that's a that's a issue that we're gonna have to figure out how to address, but we're gonna have to figure out how to address it because our constituents are they're at us, and they are they are just not happy, you know, because they're being charged so much. And we're gonna have to increase charges again, right, to keep up with just, you know, what, you know, work for just to keep up with everything. We're gonna have to continue to raise fees and I cannot keep saying, yeah, we're gonna raise fees, but the quality of services diminishes. So I hope that's something that we can work really hard on as a body, as an administration to figure out what that that looks like and how we address it. Thank you so much, madam chair.

Madam chair. Audit Woman Taylor.

Thank you so much. I I do wanna start with thank you. Because

it sounds like

you guys are working pretty hard to figure out how to solve this issue and you're working together. So I really appreciate that. But just to kind of piggyback off of Aldwoman Moore with this employment, it it sounds hopeful when you say we have 270 openings. Is that what you said? Mhmm.

I I do thank you for coming out when we had the youth conference for the trades because then they get really excited because they think of the possibility of gaining employment. And then we try to talk it up about, like commissioner was just saying, all of the additions that you get in addition to pay. Mhmm. Right? But then they come back and they say, but it takes too long.

Mhmm. So have we done anything to shrink the process for employment? Because that's that's that discouraging factor from, you know, getting them to apply. So my ask of them was apply now and I I don't even know if they can really, but juniors and seniors, at what point can they apply? So by the time they graduate, they can get into they they can hopefully be employed.

Yeah. Before we go to I do have I am working on something where we especially in DPW particular to where we can like streamline like their hiring process a little bit more faster because I I see their pain. I hear their pain not only from the commissioner and everything like that. So he's gonna answer more about it but Yeah.

Something like this.

I do think it's a partnership between whatever rules and regulations are, you know, from, you know, council to mayor, department heads. And and I appreciate all the chambers. I mean, we have to figure out a way to get people in faster because, you know, as we hire, we do lose a lot of top candidates at the beginning because we wait so long because people aren't gonna wait once for positions. Yeah. So, you know, there's been ongoing discussions and I think there continues to be. I mean, we do have civil service rules that we have to abide by by all means. But I think there's a pathway. I think, you know, obviously, director Carter who was in there is open to a lot of these ideas and exploring what this looks like. So I don't want to speak for partner for relations, but we want to work together and be partners in this to to to help.

Mhmm. And so if they start as a senior in in in high school can it possible that we can I I

don't have the answer for you right here because

I don't

I don't

know all the rules and guidelines from what the Yeah? Department of Paralyations. I'd I'd rather leave that to it.

What is something that I'd like to to work with you on because Absolutely. I mean you you you have a group of people who are applying and I don't want to just give them hope because we say 270 jobs and they're like, oh, great. I'm gonna go and apply. And then they're waiting one and two years to get employed. So, yeah. One or

two years.

Yeah. Yeah. Think Okay.

Just to comment a little and agree with everything the commissioner just said. I think there's a differentiation between the hiring process that we're working collaboratively to improve as part of the city and maybe the requirements to actually qualify for some of these positions. Right? And those are ones that when we're posting the positions, actually, Doctor is very intensive in talking with us about is that minimum requirement actually necessary? Do we need that level to perform the job? Okay. And so that's probably more of a conversation around training programs, making sure there's access and getting people ready for be meeting the minimum requirements for the jobs. Okay. And again, as as you know, it depends on the position. Right?

I mean, a carpenter, there's a certain standard before you become a carpenter. There's a certain standard before you become an electrician, a certain number of hours that are required. And that's not something the city sets.

Right.

That's, you know, that's an industry standard. So those are the the complexities that are can impact an individual just as you talked about, but are different maybe necessarily than the things we're talking about improving with

the Doctor. Yeah. There's so many branches Yep. Right.

Well, I think it's definitely something that we need to work together on. So Absolutely. I appreciate that. Thank you.

As you develop that,

I would

love to be a part of that conversation Mhmm. As well because I know it's different, but just like fire and police have those opportunities through the cadet program and through the other programs that I think as early as 17 Yep. Young people can have a pathway

Makes sense.

Into those departments if there's a way that we can do something similar in public works. Mhmm. That could be extremely beneficial and work with the trades. Mhmm.

Can I

do that? That could be beneficial. And I know it's other it's internships and stuff that you all have tried and have had some success with Mhmm. In the past. So it might be a mish mash of Mhmm. Changing some rules here that we legally can Mhmm. And then creating more of that internish

Mhmm.

Type situation that helps lead to permanency

Okay.

And employment as well. Because that's not just for young people, it's for people in general, but for all people. But I do if there are no other flooding questions, I would say thank you to

the auto woman's friend. Bring it full circle and make sure that Yeah. That we we didn't talk about flooding and that we to ask that maybe we you like like Alderman Chambers requested that this remains open. Mhmm. And that maybe when we hear it again that we can get a report out from the task force.

Mhmm.

Yeah. That task force, I hope you heard today some of the suggestions about additional members that folks thought should be a part of that conversation. If there are not already, I would just suggest somebody from the state as well just because some of the recommendations may require some assistance from them. Mhmm. Right.

DNR. And that you all put in a report back time for to counsel and the public, and that you find a way to either stream tape or televise those meetings too. Because I think do the public is deeply interested in not just the results, but also the conversation along the way. Mhmm. And also for the department, if you have not and for members, if you have not read the e comments, I encourage you to.

And there may be some that departmentally you could respond to as well. And there's some very specific suggestions Mhmm. That may be beneficial from residents directly as well. Also, another one more earlier was talking about her love of the adopt a great program. There's huge things, right? Like, we need more basins. We need to do this and that 100,000,000 here, 50,000,000 there. But there are also little small things that will help somewhere along the way, and the clean and the adopt a great program is one of those. But I also think you have to think about how to marry the small things that you could do

Mhmm.

In those hot spot areas and those whatever wet. You know, we're cleaning the grate ain't gonna solve the whole thing, but it might be worth developing not only a strategy to promote the program, but to specifically promote the clean the great thing to be adopted by folks in some of those areas that you know, it can make at least some difference right away. So it's not just a general, hey. No. It's like, these areas right here, y'all should adopt these because it can make a difference, That kind of thing. So I just would encourage thought on the macro level, of course, but also that micro level so that we can begin to see some change in this

sooner. Just one more point, madam chair. Are you gonna come back to committee with this bagging plan and the details of the bagging plan?

Yes, we absolutely can.

What you're gonna do about non compliance? Mhmm. Okay. Expect massive non

We can come back. Absolutely.

Yeah. Madam chair. Can I

just be added as a co sponsor, please?

Let the record reflect. I don't want Tyler to be added. And I do wanna talk to you beyond this file about something I think you mentioned, Kevin. And I think one of the residents one of my residents, doctor Ovi, actually, mentioned it after one of the flooding. And that's about the when there is new construction, when there is development, the amount of whatever we make them retain Mhmm. That that could be increased, and that might help as well. One of y'all mentioned briefly earlier. Yep. I would love to have more conversation about that because that's something if that is if that would help, that's something I think legislative we we could just do. Right. Okay.

Yeah. One more question.

Let's talk more about that.

I'll schedule something with you about that whole the ones you put together. Yep.

Yeah. But one more point.

That's fine.

There is and this is not generally used in Milwaukee, but some cities do have backflow providers.

Microphone. Correct?

That you can install on the sewer lateral from

your These these are used in Milwaukee. They are. Yeah. I don't know, Curt, if you wanna describe the specifics for the critical backwater.

Yeah. So for areas that are we call it our plus four area, but there are areas that are within where the basement elevation is within four feet of, say, standard lake level or the Okay. Basement is not sufficiently elevated above the

Microphone plates. Oh, I'm sorry.

I'm so focused on the phone over there.

Yeah. That's that that's what that phone call. Was joking. Microphone. Good system.

Is that by code that they're required to have the backflow?

I believe it is a strong recommendation that they should have the backflow preventers.

So that's something that could be retrofitted in many neighborhoods like Bayview. In the areas that repeatedly flood, whether it's Lincoln Creek, whether it's Bayview Streets that alderman woman Dimitri Evers was describing. I mean, that could be offered as a remedy. Correct? It would it requires excavation because it's put basically you gotta go down where the lateral is. Right? Correct.

Yeah. It is not a cheap solution whether it's done inside the home, outside the home. There are definitely impacts financially but I think that is definitely one of those items that the flooding task force will look at in terms of the specifics Will work. Locally and regionally. They will work to a point. They won't protect you from the water you're generating on your own property. Yes. Agreed.

But that's clean water typically.

Hopefully, yes.

And that that they call that gray water.

Sure. But if you flush your toilet for example.

Right. Right.

And off against to your foundation.

Yeah. Right.

It's not sewage as a rule.

Correct. It could be. I mean if if the backflow preventer is engaged because you know sewer levels are up and you run a load of laundry,

shower, plus toilet to develop some program where we we offer homeowners that assistance. I mean, when we go in and replace their lead lateral, water service lateral, Why aren't we dealing with the sewer laterals? In practical matter, you're you're usually within feet of the sewer lateral when you're dealing with the what what lead service line. Right?

There are some instances where we are doing that working with MMST on locations where we've identified defective laterals. As a matter of policy, we have not you're right, dude. There's no mandate to put in back flow preventers. We don't have a mechanism to fund back flow preventers at this point. And I guess and there are some potential downsides as

watching, what what's what would be the typical cost range for the installation of a backflow preventer valve? A lot less than a failed foundation I suspect but

Correct.

It would be in the thousands of dollars.

It would definitely be in the thousands of dollars. It would really matter on the layout of the foundation drains, your floor drain, whether you have palmer drip valve or a sump pump, all of that combined or separated. There's all sorts of variables that would impact that Okay.

Construction. Very good.

Alright. Well, thank you all and Alderman Brower would move to hold to the call of the chair. It is gonna request that we take item what is it?

19, members.

19, out of order. We'll honor that request. Oh, hearing objections to order. So we'll honor the request of

The whole item

19, final two item six zero

I don't know.

It's not a question.

Nineteen and twelve seem pretty similar. Thank you. Yeah.

That's what

I was gonna say.

And I yeah. I don't know if we should put those together, please.

For Oh, nineteen and twelve?

Yeah. We're planning on there we are. They they have a last permit.

This is road repairs

Yeah.

Let's call them again. Okay. Well, okay. We're calling out item 19 of item 26260023. Communication with Department of Public Works regarding pothole patching requests and responses, including location, time frame, and historical data sponsored by Alder Woman Moore. And we'll also call up item number 12, file number 252223, communication on Department of Public Works relating to the possibility of directing city crews to conduct road repairs on weekends, which is sponsored by Arderwoman Pratt and Ardentwoman Chambers. Ardentwoman Moore, did you wanna Yes.

Thank you so much, madam chair, and committee members as well. As many of you know, we have start already gotten the calls, the emails, the text messages, the inboxes around the potholes. And I know that this has been a really challenging winter and it has done the weather has done a number on our roads. Each of us that have driven through the city have had challenges driving through the city because there has been so many potholes. I want I wanna just really sidebar throw out that, you know, the brewers paid for a really beautiful piece of equipment that we actually need more of that would make filling potholes a lot more efficient.

And, you know, just over time, I think it's more advantageous for us to use that method compared to, you know, what we've done in the past. But there's a there's an extremely high number of potholes that we have seen throughout the city. So I wanted the department because, you know, I wanted, you know, I wanted to use the moment as an opportunity to be really just transparent with our constituents to let them know that, hey, we understand that this is an issue and, you know, here's what the department plans are in order to address this. So I'll kick it back to the the or however it is, madam chair, I just wanna kick it back to the department to sort of give us, you know, talk about, yes, you know, hey, this is where we are, but sort of the plan on how we plan to address the issue.

And before you go to that, since we pulled them up together, are the women of pride, is there anything you wanted to to add? Or?

Yeah. I pretty much agree with everything she's saying. Really, I put this file forward because we put this file forward because because we just trying to look at expanding the time in which we're filling. So moving it to weekends and moving it earlier. I've seen that in other cities that they're doing. They've been successful with being more aggressive

Mhmm.

With how they're filling potholes. I appreciate all the work that street maintenance is doing. I've done a ride along with street maintenance to to fill by holes. I know how difficult and grueling that work is. Have lots of people work in DPW Street Maintenance who live in my district.

Mhmm. But this issue is causing I mean, I'm replacing a control arm on a vehicle. I mean, so like these are huge issues and lots of people talking about the concern over vehicle issues but even how bikers fear for their safety because of the potholes and I mean sometimes even walking if you are not looking. So just addressing that and being more aggressive with our strategy of filling them. As we say earlier, people are paying for a service and then they often feel like they aren't getting it. And one of those things are is the street.

Yeah. And madam chair?

Yeah. Mean to that point, you know, and to that point again, echo the same sentiments, but I'll take it a step further. You know, I I know that when we have our snow and ice, you know, as we spoke about earlier, we're all hands on deck. And, you know, I know that the processes were, you know, we get a call, you know, we get a call or we get a, you know, a ticket in for it and then we'll go and fill it. I I I need us to be a little bit more proactive on that.

I I don't wanna wait for tickets to be called because let's let's face it, there are more potholes than there are people making requests. And I think that, you know, I see our DPW trucks and I really appreciate their hard work as everyone mentioned in that same group. But they drive through the city every day going to tickets and stuff. I know they see potholes that need to be filled that probably was not a ticket on there. So I need I think we just need to be a little bit more proactive and, you know, I hate being on the side of asking it was like we're just squeezing out more and more time and effort and everything of that nature.

But again, I I I gotta take the all hands on deck approach with this and and tell them we just need a little bit more to like just be more vigilant vigilant in seeing those potholes. If we see it, take a picture of it, make a note of it where they can go at the end of the day, put in the database, boom. These where I see potholes at. And if it cross reference where a ticket is already there, fine. If not, you know, we have, you know, records on that because we're gonna see a spike.

We're gonna see a huge uptick in claims that will be coming into It's this body coming. And judiciary and legislation committee about potholes, about tires, control arms, etcetera etcetera coming to try to get, you know, money from the city on these potholes.

Mhmm.

And I think if we're taking the aggressive approach to, you know, neutralize this, I think we'll be in a better position to fight that. Because it's gonna get to a point where we're not gonna be able to fight it. We're gonna be like we're green. I mean

Well, I'm sure on that point, I think we are gonna end up paying these claims. Yes. Yeah. It's gonna be tens of thousands of dollars Yeah. Or hundreds of thousands of dollars because they will establish negligence. Because we knowing we know there's a problem. Mhmm. The problem is foreseeable. And now we're well past our what three day standard or four day standard to repair it.

Mhmm.

So we are negligent. So We're negligent. So I

I I don't think I we wanna admit negligence at this point. By case basis.

Thank you. But

but citizens are watching this, and then they're gonna think that when they file it, that's

what's not advocating that we are negative.

And legally, you have to prove that we knew of the specific pothole that injured your tire, and you may

not be able to prove that.

The general issue, yes, we know about it. Mhmm. But legally, if you if you try to sue us, you gotta prove we knew about that specific one there.

To my point to my point on that, to my point where, you know, I think, you know, if we got trucks out there whether that's forestry, whether that's road maintenance, whether that is waterworks, I don't care who it is. They got a yellow truck with a yellow vest and a hard hat or anything like that. If they see it, if they see something, say something. Just like we tell you know, if they can they see something, say something far as that because that could help us out in the long run. And that's the reason why you know, auto woman Pratt and I authored this file for doing this because we do need the same intensity as we do with snow and ice control on these potholes so we can right this ship. Sure.

And and I know you guys are ready to talk for older women more. You had something else to

Yes, please. Thank you so much. I just wanted to correlate the with older women Pratt's file in regards to the weekend, just how the ramifications of that on our workers because we're stretching a small group of people to work longer hours. I just, you know, we have all these vacancies. I just wanna make sure that we even have the cap for you to talk a little bit about the capacity to even do that. Sure. Thank you. Thank you.

Go ahead.

Thank you chairwoman, members of the committee and and and other alters. Kevin Muse, city engineer, department of public works. With me is Tom Langrin, our street maintenance manager, street services manager in infrastructure services. So we'll I think start with just talking about where we are. I did wanna I prefer not to start with disagreeing with any alders when I'm in the conversation, but I just wanna note where we are right now. We definitely want there's our staff members of the public to report potholes they see. But the issue right now is not reporting potholes. We have way more service requests at this time than we've ever had in any year on record. So it is not reporting potholes that is the issue. It is our staff capacity to address the potholes.

And so that I just wanna emphasize that. And I'll talk a little bit about the data. When time's right, we'll try to share the screen here as well to show a chart that we've got. So so past six years, so 2020 through 2025 on April 30, roughly April, our average is for about 4,500, 4,600 service requests for potholes being filled. Right now, April, we are at almost 11,000 service requests for potholes being filled.

Our record year, our two record years were 2014 and 2019. Those years we were between sixty five hundred and eighty four hundred pothole service requests at the April. So we are on pace for a record year. We ended those two years at around 16,000, 17,000 requests. So, you know, we don't know what the rest of the year is gonna take because this is it's very weather dependent, but certainly it looks like we're on pace for it to to break the 2014 record of 16,800 requests.

The as we alluded to earlier, staffing levels and street maintenance, the number of funded positions is quite a bit lower than it was even in 2019. So that's another challenge we have. What we're trying to do and there were communication that went out to the aldermanic offices on Friday evening last week. For members of the public who are listening though, we are prioritizing two types of potholes right now. One's on high volume, high traffic streets, so our major arterials.

Two reasons to do that. One, that is the more the the ones that are more likely to be impacting more residents, right, especially those driving and biking as we've already talked about. Two, that allows us to be very efficient with our crews in grouping those requests and kind of marching in order down the street. And so we're focusing on those. We are also focusing on no matter what kind of street it is, if there's information, the service request or a photo, we love a photo that shows a very deep pothole, we will will prioritize that as well and try to get to that as quickly as possible.

Response times even on those are at about a week right now. Minor arterials, so still important streets but slightly less, we're looking more like two weeks. And residentials, don't have a time frame right now. So what are we what are we doing? So we are working overtime. We are working Saturdays. So right now our staff are working twelve hour. So eight hours of standard shift and additional four hours every weekday. That's voluntary overtime that our staff are volunteering for. We also have staff coming from sanitation.

I'm trying to Sewers is as well. And so there's volunteers coming from other parts of DPW to to enhance our crews. We are right now also last Saturday was our first Saturday shift. So last Saturday, we did an eight hour overtime shift on Saturday. So we will expect to continue to do that as well. That's not necessarily limited by our staff's desire to volunteer for this overtime. It's limited by the availability of the the asphalt. So the the asphalt plants that we have access to the hot mix asphalt from are not open on Sundays. Mhmm.

So that is why we're

not offering the opportunity to work on Sundays. This past Saturday was the first Saturday we could get hot mix asphalt. So that's why that that happened. Tom, I don't know if you wanna try to share screen here to show the show the chart. I mean, what's essentially going on here and we'll we can email out this chart as well afterwards.

What's essentially going on is that we're seeing a combination of pretty nasty weather factors. So we had I guess I'll just explain this and hopefully I know it's it's a little detailed. You always try to remove the detail but still provide what you need, so I apologize. So there's kind of a reddish line, you know, heading heading left to right and heading quite up on the right. That reddish line is the number of service requests.

The blue line is the number of requests fulfilled in a in a running total. This starts in November 1 and it goes up to basically just a couple days ago. And what we saw is, you know, through November 1 until the end of the the 2025 and early twenty twenty six, pretty typical, we're able to meet the requests. Right? As they're coming in, we're keeping pace.

We had our first major thaw of the year in January reached the upper fifties. As it usually does, that bumped up the requests a little bit towards 40 requests a day. Again, a reasonable total, very typical for this time of year to reach that. But then in March and really in April, things started to accelerate. So on March 9, we had a high of 72.

That was followed by our late snowfall that was again timed with the spring leaf collection. March. So we had rain, snow, freezing rain, and a freeze back, and then a thaw right afterwards. And and if for those of you who have had to listen to me talk about potholes before, you'll know that that is basically the the always the start of the problems for potholes. And so you can see in that line on it's right above where it says 03/2126, but it's it's March 21 there.

You can see that it begins to accelerate up to 200 requests a day after that. We first got access to hot mix on April 6. The reason we care about hot mix is that is a more permanent solution. It's a better solution. There are some potholes that we do not like to fill with cold patch, which is what we have available during periods when we don't have hot mix because we know it's not going to stick to that particular type of pothole.

So that's we we've we want that hot mix available. It makes us more efficient and effective. However, this year our supply was intermittent, so we didn't even hour to hour, we didn't know whether or not we were gonna have hot mix available and working with our our providers. And so that was already pretty bad. That was that was you know, we were on pace for a pretty accelerated year.

And then the the rain events that we just talked about in item five really kicked things into high gear. We saw some very interesting pavement failures and certainly potholes showing up across the city up towards an average of 500 requests per day in the week immediately after the the heavy rainfall events. What we think is going on is that the ground was so saturated, as as mister Schaeffer from MMSD mentioned. The ground was so saturated that the additional rainwater on top, that three to seven inches depending on where you were, was actually meeting water that was pushing up from below on the road. And so the the water was already pressurizing underneath the pavement and then that heavy rainfall was able to lift and move chunks of pavement away.

So we saw in particular on roads that have a concrete base with an asphalt overlay, some delamination between those two layers as the water got in between and that pushed pieces of the pavement away. Right after the storm event, there was actually some very dramatic versions of that which are kinda away from this pothole discussion. But Pleasant Street right by the river in District 6 had one of these. There was one, I think it's in District 10 over on 39th in Saint Paul. This seemed to be where hills and a lot of water pointed in particular actually moved to the pavement, but that's kind of an aside.

But that is a dramatic example of what was going on elsewhere where it wasn't as hilly where where again the the water just really beat on the pavement. The good news is that the past couple days requests have leveled off a bit. We did have a press event with Alderman Moore and the mayor yesterday and the brewers that always increases requests again. So we'll see a little surge as the public gets aware. More members of the public get reminded or or become aware of how they can report potholes. But at this point, we're trying to accelerate that blue line with these overtime works to try to begin to catch up. But it is it's an ugly situation right now. Trying to figure what else. Anything you wanted to add, Tom?