Public Works Committee - Regular Meeting

Good morning. I'd like to call this Public Works Committee meeting to order. I am Chairwoman Alderman Mulele A. Todd. We will soon be joined by Vice Chair Alderman Lamont Westmoreland. We are currently joined by Alderman Robert Ballman to my right. We are also joined by DPW Infrastructure to his right. To my left, we are joined by Ms. Carmen Roman, Staff Assistant. To her left, we will soon be joined by Alderman Alex Brower. To the left, we are joined by Alderwoman Larissa Taylor. Item number one, file number 260289, resolution relating to approving the levying of assessments and construction of accessible public improvement projects at various locations and appropriating funds for these purposes. Holly?

Good morning. Holly Rutten back with DPW. I'll be advising on the special assessment process and project details. For those projects approved this morning, a bill will be sent to each property owner sometime after completion of the work. Within 45 days upon receipt of the bill, the full amount may be paid without interest. If the bill is not paid within the 45-day grace period, a charge of 8.5% simple interest per year will be added. If the assessment is at least $125, the assessment can be paid over a period of 10 years on the tax roll at the 8.5% interest. For those projects approved with late billing, a bill will not be sent before January 1st, 2028. In relation to this public hearing, an official notice was sent to all impacted property owners, and we will go through it in the order that it is listed on the official notice. In the 4th Aldermanic District, North 28th Street from West Kilbourne Avenue to West Richardson Place, concrete pavement reconstruction replaced all curb and gutter, sidewalk and driveway approaches, sodding, six foot width tree border area grading, and tree removal where necessary. Is anyone here to provide testimony?

I'm going to request that this be deleted for this year and reconsider it next year.

We can make an effort to speak up. They are on. Um,

Holly, what would be the best way to handle the deletion motion-wise for you then?

We can delete it from the program and I would bring it back next year, so desired.

So motion-wise it would be? To delete. Okay. The motion by Auderman Baumann is to delete with the intention of bringing it back next year?

Yes.

Are there any objections to that motion? Hearing none, so ordered.

in the 8th and 11th Aldermanic Districts, West Cleveland Avenue from South 43rd Street to South 68th Street, installed traffic calming speed humps and pinned on traffic circles. Anyone here to provide testimony is welcome to come up to the table. Please state your name and address before you speak and provide your testimony.

Let's start from the left, from our left. If you would go first, sir. Your name and address, testimony.

Good morning. My name is Gregory Green. The last name is spelled R-I-H-N. And I live at 4718 West Cleveland Avenue. Okay. I'm here to speak against the proposed project. I've given my objections to my alderman in detail, but I wanted to be able to address the committee, and I'm thankful for the opportunity. I have lived at 4718 since January of 1993, which gives me 33 years of experience on that street. I like living there. My wife and I have never been afraid of the traffic on that street. It's a positive value for me that it's a snow route. When I have to get to work in the morning, it's always nice to be able to know that that street was likely plowed and had a good job done on it. my one of my particular objections is to the traffic circles because my observation has been that evidently it's really difficult for snowplow drivers to do a clean job of plowing around those circles so winter driving is going to be degraded in my opinion very likely and i would say that people don't speed on that street but that's really about my only about my third concern the major annoyance of of traffic there is a noise which You know, we know we're not going to be able to do much about that. That people cruise through the four-way stop at South 47th Street just, you know, any time. But I don't think, for reasons that I'll state, I don't think that's going to be very, changing that to a traffic circle is not going to help. We observed, my wife and I kept a close eye on that intersection when the city had a test layout out, and they put in a temporary traffic circle at that location. What we observed is that people came up to it, slowed down a bit, took a look, and then just drove through, disregarding the existing four-way stop sign. So that did not strike us as being an improvement. The. I object to traffic humps in general. The thing is Cleveland Avenue is our main street. For everyone that lives north of Cleveland, you've got to go on to Cleveland Avenue to get out anywhere to the rest of the city. Much the same for people on the south side because there is no east-west street connecting 60th and 43rd directly between Lincoln and Oklahoma other than Cleveland. Now Lincoln and Oklahoma are different streets. They're largely commercial or industrial in the case of Lincoln Avenue, commercial in the case of Oklahoma Avenue. And Cleveland Avenue is kind of unique in that it's residential all the way through except for one gas station and a pharmacy at 60th Street. But I just do not think, my observation on speeders is that they're more of an annoyance than a problem. It typically happens in the middle of the afternoon when there's very low traffic level, or as we noted, in the middle of the night when there's nobody else around. So I can understand people being concerned about it, but I do not think the problem is all that great, frankly. I do object to having to drive over speed humps and around the traffic circle several times a day, every day, just to do our basic shopping, working, and home maintenance. I've done some research on these projects and the major objection to the traffic humps is that it creates wear and tear, extra wear and tear on the user's vehicles. So that's me. Some speeder who comes through from the neighborhood may get whacked once with the traffic circle or the speed hump, but I have to deal with it every day. Emergency vehicles use Cleveland Avenue There's a firehouse at 56th and Oklahoma the fire trucks and ambulances frequently use Cleveland Avenue if they're responding to someplace to the west and north the same thing about ambulances on the way to st. Luke's From other places in the city. So that's not going to be a very good a negative effect on the emergency traffic The traffic circles are not designed to calm traffic. In the Great Britain where I've driven extensively, what a traffic circle does is keeps traffic flowing and instead of having a stoplight for similar operation. So if you're on the motorway, you don't slow down when you come into a traffic circle or you're going to find a truck up your backside. they're there to flow things around and if you look at where properly designed traffic circles are like south 6th street at the end of the bridge there it's big enough to be a reasonable traffic circle and people flow right through it because they've gotten used to it it doesn't really slow down the traffic there to any extent all right thank you

Thank you. Next member, please state your name and address for the record.

John Colbert, 4407 West Cleveland Avenue. I am in favor of whatever we can do to slow traffic on Cleveland. My question is, why is there a 25 mile an hour speed limit there to begin with? I've lived there since 2010, and since 2010, speeding has been a problem. Lady across the street from me has been there 50 years plus, and she's always been concerned about speeding in Cleveland. I can tell you that from my observations, people are racing to get to 43rd Street Miller Parkway from at least 47th, 46th Street, and they will speed. There's also racing from 43rd Street Miller Parkway to the stop sign at 48th Street. I believe, I have seen the speeding in excess, considering the speed limit is 25, in excess of 45 miles an hour consistently, day to day, and sometimes in excess of 65 miles an hour, including motorcycles, construction vehicles, Automobiles, emergency vehicles, school buses. To my mind, this is a tragedy waiting to happen. There are children living up and down Cleveland Avenue in my location, and it hasn't happened yet. consistently see balls in the street, children running in the street. And I'm, since 2010, concerned about nothing being done here. I've only seen two traffic stops by the police for speeding in that amount of time since 2010. I'm concerned about that. But when the police have made those stops, people speed by them at more than 35 miles an hour. Please consider this. I'd like to see something done. What that will be I don't know.

Thank you.

Next neighbor, please state your name and address for the record. I'm Patty Doherty, legislative aide for Alderwoman Zamarripa. Only a small portion of this project is in her district. We just had four postcards go out. We didn't get any back. But we've received numerous complaints about speeding and reckless driving on all areas of Cleveland in our district. And she believes that this project is going to go a long way to address those and hopes they continue down Cleveland.

And my apologies to the committee. Did the committee have any questions of the residents that already have testified? Okay, thank you. Next resident, please state your name and address for the record.

Lauren Cardenas, 5110 West Cleveland Avenue. My family and I live on the corner of 51st and Cleveland, which is one of the main intersections of the street. As you may know, that is a 25 mile per hour street, including a school zone. We also own and operate commercial property within the zip code, so we have invested into the community. We've lived here for a year now and we do love the neighborhood. However, the biggest issue is the reckless driving. 24-7 we see speeding, vehicles driving into oncoming traffic lanes to pass others, failure to stop, racing, and road rage. Within the last month, I have personally witnessed five significant road rage events, the worst of which were two men who used their vehicles to circle each other, then park in the middle of the street, exit, and then a physical altercation followed. I had to have my husband escort our children inside in fear it would get worse. We have done our due diligence contacting law enforcement and also investing in a fence for our yard. Unfortunately, the reckless driving remains the same. I can't imagine the possible inconvenience and minimal construction or fear of change being worth more than the lives and safeties of others. Please think of my children, Cruz, Allison, and Cecilia, who like to play on our patio and greet the neighbors, who cherish riding their bike to visit dad at work nearby, who explore their new play set in our yard, take walks to the neighborhood park, and sleep within close proximity to the street. I ask that you make the decision to move forward with the traffic calming and invest into the protection of your people. Thank you.

Any questions from committee? Are there any other neighbors present to testify on West Cleveland Avenue, South 43rd to 68th Street? All right, this is in your district, Mr. Alderman Begayless?

Most of it, yes. And thank you, Patty. I did catch two neighbors that were outside from the 8th Aldermanic District that of those four properties, two are in support. of the project. One neighbor just moved in a couple weeks ago and likely missed the postcard. But this project is fairly extensive. It goes all the way from 43rd Street to 68th Street, or 66th Street. But this is a minor artery for the city of Milwaukee. Part of it is 25 miles an hour. West of 60th Street, it's 30, and we'll fix that because we do need to have consistent speed limits on similar streets. But this has been an issue long before I took office. I live in the neighborhood, and I have since – I do live in the neighborhood. I drive on Cleveland Avenue more than once a day, and frankly, one of my – Worst stories about this is driving my Ford Explorer, getting an email, pulling over about 40 feet before the stop sign on 47th Street just to finish that email. And I realized as I was writing that all of the traffic was making a complete and full dead stop, which I had never seen before. Then I realized I was driving a gray Ford Explorer parked on the side of the road, and I left it there for an entire weekend and watched – from afar as every car, almost every car, saw that Ford Explorer set back from the street and made a full and complete stop. That is unusual and had never happened at 47th and Cleveland before. But when I'm out biking, I've seen a DP, just two weeks ago I saw a DPW Packer. run through the stop sign without slowing down at all, going eastbound. Don't worry, Holly, that's already been taken care of. But driving eastbound towards 47th Street, towards that stop sign, you're headed downhill. And the packer might have been pretty heavy that day. or the driver just didn't really want to make that critical break because they were going much faster than 25 miles an hour. That happens on a consistent basis. This is one of the most frequent complaints that I get in my district followed closely behind Oklahoma Avenue. uh... road rage is also a problem uh... last summer driving eastbound rome sixty-sixth street i watched a white car flash past me in oncoming traffic chased by another car uh... and dpw uh... mpd did find i did get the plate number uh... they did find the district eleven resident who was driving the the car that was chasing the other one and uh... mpd did issue a citation for reckless driving and that person did plead guilty That kind of behavior doesn't belong in our city. At any time we have an opportunity to mitigate it, we have to. And we all know reckless driving has three legs on that stool. Enforcement is always effective, but police can't be everywhere all the time. Education is always important. Teaching new drivers the rules of the road and the consequences for hurdling a thousand pound missile through an intersection has consequences. But the third leg of that stool is infrastructure. And that's exactly what this community-led traffic home program that the city of Milwaukee has does. This is a community-led project, and I want to thank John for helping collect signatures to get the city engineers to formulate a plan, a very comprehensive plan. We don't have traffic circles anywhere in the 11th Aldermanic District yet, but we do see how effective they are elsewhere nearby in West Allis. And that really was part of the impetus for asking to consider those. We also, a couple winters ago, had a sunken sewer cover that DPW blocked off and barricaded mid-November, right before the snow fell just late enough where we weren't able to repair that infrastructure before winter set. And so we had a temporary traffic circle for about six months in the middle of Cleveland Avenue, around 45th Street, 46th Street. And I made conscious observations and have photos to document how well traffic flowed through that. uh tire tracks in the snow and then uh what the snow plows were able to do to plow around that temporary traffic circle which would be about the same size as the one that's proposed for 47th street and further west as well so my aldermanic survey was sent out to 194 residents that are affected by the assessment and i received 42 objections, including landlords, homeowners. I have received 34 objections. So with Alderperson Jocasta-Zamarripa's support, I also do support this project.

Does anyone have questions for the Alder? Alderman Burgales, you said how many objections. How many in support did you receive?

31. 31 homeowners. And I did ask to attach this document to the file with a summary, or not a summary, but a list of all of the comments received in opposition and in support.

Carmen, is it officially a part of the file? Yes, I attach that to the file.

Okay.

Can I make a comment?

We're done with the residential input. All right. The motion. Do you have one other question? Holly, my apologies. It's been a lot of testimony. This would be the roundabouts and what else?

Traffic circles and speed humps.

Madam Chair, on the motion? So there'll be a speed hump every block, every other block, what's the plan?

No, we are actually alternating between traffic circles, speed humps, there are existing stop signs, and there is an existing signal, so we are going with the optimal spacing for traffic control along the entire corridor. So I have a flyer that we can attach to the file as well that outlines and shows the spacing and proposed improvements along Cleveland.

We've had this program for, well, since 2005, actually. And initially, speed humps were questioned, but gradually accepted. It was a very democratic process. Local neighbors initiated the process, typically, by contacting their aldermanic office. Lately, when we reduced the assessment to 33%, is that still the rate?

That is correct.

That is what is in the ordinance. 90% of the cost was accessible. Now only 33% of the cost, thanks to the Biden-era American Rescue Plan funds. We've had a surge, a great surge in demand for speed humps across the entire city. I have a street, Clybourne Avenue, between 27th and where I used to. That's now part of the 10th District. But at the time, it was part of my district from 27th to 35th. It was also a minor arterial, similar to Cleveland Avenue. There was demand from the neighbors for speed humps because that was a speeding thoroughfare cut through to get from 27th to 35th. And we put in speed humps, all right, and they have dramatically reduced traffic speeds to the point where you have to crawl through there, basically. I mean, the posted limit is irrelevant. You can't go more than 25 miles an hour, because if you do, you'll do damage to your vehicle, which is the whole point of speed humps. So I applaud the Alderman's efforts to improve safety in this neighborhood. I'm familiar with the neighborhood. It's a very nice neighborhood. So I, again, move approval.

Before we take up the motion, Holly, how many properties will be impacted?

193 properties are part of the assessed impacted properties.

Yeah, I remember, Gallis, you said you sent to 164, so I'm assuming the other... No, we sent to...

There are four in the 8th District, but we did the mailing all together, so the total mailing for both districts is 194. 94, okay. Yep. And then 34 opposed.

I thought you said 42.

Including landlords, 42. Okay. 34 homeowners opposed.

Is there a differentiation between ownership versus when we do the cards?

It's the alderman's discretion.

Okay. Okay. The motion by alderman... is approval. Are there any objections to that motion? Please mark me as an abstention. Please mark me as an abstention. Hearing one abstention, the motion passes. Thank you.

Thank you.

In the 10th Aldermanic District, North 55th Street at West Garfield Avenue, install traffic calming raised crosswalk.

And come forward to provide a testimony if you'd like.

Based on the results of the Aldermanic postcard survey, the majority were in favor and the Alderwoman supports the project.

Morning, my name is Steve Kitchenmeister. I live at 2176 North 55th Street, which is very close to the intersection where the proposed traffic table, speed table, is to be installed. Living on 55th Street, it's a very busy corridor, and traffic tends to fly through there. Excessive excessive speeds. I'm all for slowing things down but My concern is how that changes the traffic patterns and how it will affect residents from being able to a Lot of their driveways, which is very difficult at times Given given traffic loading on the street There's a stoplight and Lloyd Garfield is where the traffic table is proposed. And there's another light at North Avenue, traffic control lights. And what I am requesting is that engineering be involved. Maybe re-timing the lights at those two other intersections can help to control traffic through our area so that we're more easily able to get out of our driveways. If you put in a speed table, it's going to slow traffic down, it's going to back traffic up, and my concern is that it makes it more difficult to egress from our driveways. I just want that to be considered in the overall project as it's being planned and installed.

I can put in a request with DPW Traffic Engineering to evaluate the signal timing at Lloyd and at North Avenue. The raised crosswalk would slow down traffic and also provide a safer pedestrian crossing for people that live in the neighborhood across 55th Street.

So that's the primary intent. So I'm I'm for the project, but I just want to make sure that other things are taken into consideration throughout the planning. I talked with Simon and Emily at, I think it's Highways Division, and they were going to take these concerns to traffic control. And I guess Emily this morning said she has not had a response from them yet, but is still waiting for it.

That was just a week ago. Simon and Emily are on my staff. So we have a lot of requests right now for signal timing and stop signs and things like that. So our traffic engineering unit will look at this, though.

Okay. Holly, can you make sure that a follow-up is done with this resident for his direct concerns for this particular project if it passes? Yes. All right. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony.

Thank you.

Is there a motion? Do we have a motion?

I'll move for approval.

The motion by Alderman Westmoreland is for approval. Is there any objection to that motion?

Hearing none, so ordered. I'm sorry. Did you say that there was automatic support for these?

Yes. So based on the results of the automatic survey, there were seven properties in favor and only three opposed, and the elder woman supports the project.

Okay. Thank you. Next comment.

Continuing in the 10th Aldermanic District, West Felice Street from North Alois Street to North 60th Street, install traffic calming speed tables in Pendon Islands. We have a couple of people in the audience who are welcome to come forward and provide testimony. However, the Alderwoman has requested that we hold this item.

Good morning.

Good morning. Please state your name and address for the record.

My name's Rebecca Bailey, and I live at 5702 West Fleet Street, apartment number two. I am a resident of Fleet Street and also a property owner. We have two apartments in our building that my sister-in-law and my husband and I live in, and then down below are two retail places. i um i support this project as um as i see the for the the assessment that's been placed on our property i think it's a really valuable project for calming traffic on bleak street which similar to some some of the testimony that others have given has times when it really gets heated and this this project seems to address that in a pretty sensitive way sensitive to how the street is used and and where the highest use is, Wickfield, the two intersections that are close to Holly and Bleat, and it feels like a very good net benefit.

Thank you. Any questions for this? All right. Thank you.

Hi there. Judson Riggins. I'm on 5617 Fleet Street. I'm opposed to the measure simply because I guess I don't share the feeling that it's warranted. I've owned the property for eight years now, and the only time I ever hear engines revving up and going really fast, and I look, it's a... it's an emergency vehicle so that seems to be the highest speed that is ever going through there and i have to take that to get to work every day and or leave to go anywhere and i guess i've just never noticed really high rates of speed or felt unsafe crossing the street riding my bike down the street and i guess between plowing and the bus lanes i could see it just causing more issues uh I guess my final point is, when I bought the property like eight years ago, I was told, you're going to have to pay for a lead line replacement. It's been eight years, and this is the first time I've actually gotten an assessment to pay for some changes, and the lead line's not being addressed. And that's like a known public safety issue rather than this theoretical one. So that's why I'm opposed.

Any questions for this neighbor?

My name is Jim Schley. I live with Rebecca Bailey and co-own building on the corner of 57th and the lead. And I'll just make the observation. We had a community meeting earlier this week on Monday and. The sense of the meeting, which was poorly attended, six o'clock on a Monday evening, was that we didn't want to ask you to give this a go ahead or a denial at this time because we haven't felt that we've done enough talking as a community. And we'd rather, we feel like the proposal will be stronger if we come back to you. And we talked about that with Holly. So I'll just make that observation. that we'd like to involve more people in the discussion.

Which I'm assuming is why the Alderman has asked to hold it. That is correct. So thank you all for your testimony. Alderman Taylor would move to hold to the call of the chair. Are there any objections to that motion?

Hearing none, so order. In the 14th Aldermanic District, South 11th Street from West Holt Avenue to West Ohio Avenue, install traffic calming speed humps. Is anyone here to provide testimony on this item? Out of 23 impacted properties, only one was opposed, and the Alderwoman supports the project.

We have a motion.

Move approval.

The motion by Alderman Westmoreland is approval. Are there any objections to that motion? Hearing none, so ordered. Is that the final one? All right. Alderman Baumann will move approval for the entire file. Hearing no objections, so order item number two. File number 260290, resolution determining it necessary to make various accessible public improvements at various locations and appropriating funds for these purposes with the city engineering costs estimated to be $105,000 for a total Estimated cost of these projects being $1,700,000. And we have a substitute. Has a substitute been provided?

It's attached to the file.

Have members had an opportunity to look at a substitute? Artiman Westmoreland will move acceptance of the proposed substitute. Are there any objections to that? Hearing none, so ordered. How did you want to speak to this up to?

We were setting up engineering on a project that we are actively designing right now that we had some payroll defaulting. So this is setting up engineering for future accessible projects.

Are there any objections? I mean, are there any questions at this time? Hearing none, Alderman Taylor will move adoption. Are there any objections to that motion? Hearing none, so order item number three, file number 260291, resolution determining it 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 $100,000 for a total estimated cost of these projects being $100,000.

Good morning, this is setting up engineering for future non-accessible projects in DPW. Any questions from committee?

Hearing none, Alderman Brown will move adoption. Any objections to that motion? Hearing none, so order item number four, file number 260292, resolution approving construction of non-accessible public improvements at various locations and appropriating funds for these purposes with the city construction cost estimated to be $1,392,000 for a total estimated cost of these projects being $1,907,240.17.

Good morning. I do have a proposed substitute on this file.

Alderman Westmoreland will move acceptance of the proposed substitute. Are there any objections to that motion? Hearing none, so ordered.

This is setting up construction funding for various DPW projects.

Alderman Taylor would move adoption of the proposed substitute. Are there any objections? Hearing none, so order item number 55, number 251, 556, substitute resolution assigning the honorary street name Jose A. Olivieri to South 9th Street between West Minimal Street and West Washington Street in the 12th Automatic District. Then you are here to testify on this item? Yes. If you could please sign your name and address for the record and give us your testimony.

Beth Ann Hireman, West 1054, County Road TW, Thoressa, Wisconsin. Go ahead with your testimony. I am Jose's sister-in-law and His loss for everyone who knew him was tremendous. Jose was so tuned into his community, and his community being Milwaukee. He served on the board of the United Community Center for 90, I'm sorry, 40 years. And for 20 of those years, he was the chairman of the board of directors. He also served on boards for the Greater Milwaukee Foundation, the Milwaukee Public Library Foundation, the Milwaukee Art Museum, the United Way of Greater Milwaukee, Lutheran Social Services, Freighter Health, First Federal Bank of Wisconsin, Latino Arts, Milwaukee Urban League, La Casa de Esperanza, Legal Action of Wisconsin, Hispanic Economic Enterprises, and he served as a regent of the University System of Wisconsin. He also served as a trustee for Carroll University and Mount Mary College. He was a recipient of numerous awards. I think the last time I counted, it was 40 some. Including the Future Milwaukee Community Service Award, the Metro, I'm sorry, I can't talk. The Metropolitan Milwaukee Civic Alliance Special Services Award, the posner pro bono award the todd weir award from the greater milwaukee chapter of the national society of fundraising executives the carol university distinguished alumnus award for community service and many many more jose was uh... he was a lifelong learner you would walk into their home and Every surface, it seemed, was covered with a book that had either a pencil or a pen in there marking his place. He was dedicated to the Milwaukee community and provided critical resources for the Milwaukee residents that needed them most. Aside from that he was a marvelous family man and he took great interest in the education of his children and the children of Milwaukee County. Thank you.

Did you have anything to add for DPW?

Yes, my name is John Bryan with DPW Infrastructure. We've reviewed the application and concur that it's meeting the specifications we have. The proposal is for two signs on South 9th Street at West Wisconsin and West Monroe. adjacent to the west of the United Community Center in that area. The steps that would need to be taken to have it be finalized with the council would be the fees for the construction or the fabrication and the installation of the signs.

Thank you. And this is in the 12th Automatic District. And it's my understanding that Artiman Perez is in support. Do we have any questions from committee? All right, do we have a motion? Move approval. The motion by Alderman Westmoreland is approval. Are there any... Or adoption, adoption. Are there any objections to that motion? Hearing none, so ordered. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Before we go on to our next item, we do have some visitors in the room. I did want to acknowledge those visitors. They are the Common Council Youth Interns for the summer. If you all could please stand up. be recognized. So young people from all over the city who are studying city government and are interning this summer. Thank you for spending some time with us this morning. And our hope is that your entire summer helps to inspire you to be and remain civically engaged. Thank you. And thank you all the women more for bringing them. Next up, we have item six, file number 260344, appointment of Rebecca Grise to the Board of Harbor Commissioners by the mayor. Rebecca, forgive me, how do you say your last name? Greece, like the country. Okay, thank you. Okay. Tell us a little bit about yourself and why you're interested in being on the Harbor Commission.

Thank you, Chair and all the persons. I appreciate being here today. Rebecca Grease, I work for the Milwaukee 7. I'm the executive director. We're the regional economic development group that covers all of southeastern Wisconsin. That's the seven counties in that area with a primary mission of corporate attraction, so bringing diverse jobs and capital investment to our communities through that seven-county region. And I'm honored to have the mayor recommend me for this position for the Board of Harbor Commissioners. I see this as a natural fit with what I do, bringing attention to the port. It's one of our most major and influential infrastructures within the region, and I think it needs even more attention than it gets today. And I'm very excited to learn in that position from elected officials, the port staff, as well as my fellow commissioners, as well as bring in my strengths from a regional economic development piece of bringing, making us more competitive across the country, as well as bringing my relationships with the stakeholders nationally and globally to the stage in recognizing the port.

Thank you. Any questions from committee?

Move confirmation.

The motion by Alderman Bauman is confirmation. Are there any objections to that motion? Hearing none, so ordered. Good luck. Thank you. Thank you. Item number seven, file number 250310, resolution directing a commissioner of public works to execute a document titled First Revision State Municipal Agreement for a State-Led Highway Project with the Wisconsin Department of Transportation for the Programming, Design, Real Estate Acquisition and Construction of North 76th Street from... STH 175 to West Grand Tulsa Drive to set up funds for design engineering at an estimated total cost of $2,700,000 with an estimated city share of $675,000 and a grantor share of $2,025,000 and to set up funds for real estate acquisition at an estimated cost of $200,000 with an estimated city share of $0 and a grantor share of $200,000.

Good morning, David Tappy, Major Projects Manager. So this file will set up additional design funds to take us from the scoping cert that the city and the state work through all the way through design.

Are there any questions from committee? Alderman Westmoreland would move adoption. Hearing no objections, so ordered. Item number eight, file number 260311, resolution directing a commission of public works to execute a document titled First Revision State Municipal Agreement for a State-led Highway Project with the Wisconsin Department of Transportation for the programming, design, real estate acquisition, and construction of South First Street from West Lapham Boulevard to East National Avenue to set up funds for design, engineering, and an estimated total cost of $2,235,000 with an estimated city share of $500,000. and a grantor share of $1,676,250 and to set up funds for the real estate acquisition of an estimated cost of $265,000 with an estimated share of $0 and a grantor share of $265,000.

So this file does the same thing as the previous project, sets up additional design to get us through that process.

Any questions from the committee? Hearing none, Alderman Tyler will move adoption. Hearing no objections, so order item number nine, file number 260312, resolution directing a commission on public works to execute a document titled First Revision State Municipal Agreement for a State-Led Highway Project with the Wisconsin Department of Transportation for the Construction of Interstate Highway 43 North. South Freeway, Howier Street to Capital Drive and to set up funds for real estate acquisition and construction at an estimated total cost decrease of $4,450,000 with an estimated city share decrease of $1,666,500 and a grantor share decrease of $2,783,500.

So this is to now move us into for the Department of Transportation to move into construction and for us to fund our share. Our portion has gone down, actually, since they finished the final estimate on the project.

Are all of these decreases just reflective of the final estimate? Is that normal?

Yeah, typically. And then this one, it also includes the Department of Transportation taking ownership of the signals. So a lot of that cost then is borne by them.

Are there any questions on committee? All right, Audubon Bonham will move adoption. Are there any objections to that motion? Hearing none, so order. Item number 10, file number 260314, Resolution Directing a Commission on Public Works to execute a document titled Seventh Revision State Municipal Agreement for a State-Led Highway Project with the Wisconsin Department of Transportation for the Programming, Design, and Real Estate Acquisition of West National Avenue from 39th Street to 1st Street with a total estimated cost decrease for the project of $203,700 with an estimated decrease of grantor's share of $2,678,850 and an estimated increase of city share of $2,475,150. Okay.

So this file addresses the loss of the RAISE grant to that project.

Are there any questions on committee?

What are they going to do now if they lost the grant?

The project still moves forward. So the Department of Transportation applied for a grant and was awarded $25 million, and they set aside 10% of that for us, the $2.5. Unfortunately, then that was taken back by the federal government, and so we'll just move forward with the project. The department still will fund their share, and we will fund ours.

Are there any more questions? Alderman Taylor will move adoption. Hearing no objections, so ordered. Item number 11, file number 260313, resolution directing a commissioner of public works to execute a document titled State Municipal Financial Agreement for a State Highway Project with the Wisconsin Department of Transportation for the adjustment and seal replacement of 18 sanitary manhole construction of bioswales and adjusting City underground conduit manhole cover as non-participating utility items within the City of Milwaukee city limit on project STH 241 South 27th Street, West Layton Avenue to West College Avenue as part of the Wisconsin DOT project and to set up funds for construction at an estimated total cost of $164,500 with 100% city share.

Good morning. Inkey Lee, Street Lighting and CFC.

Any questions for committee? Hearing none, Alderman Bahman would move adoption. Are there any objections to that motion? Hearing none, so ordered.

Thank you.

Item 12, file number 260315, resolution informing the Common Council of the city's compliance, maintenance, and report for the year 2025.

Yeah, good morning, Tony Jessica DPW environmental. This file is the annual self reporting to the DNR for our CMR compliance maintenance annual report. Every year we do a self evaluation of our sanitary sewer program, looking at things like financials and O&M costs and O&M activities from the prior year. And it spits out a grade for us at the end of that.

Are there any questions on committee? Hearing none, Alderman Westmoreland will move adoption. Are there any objections to that motion? Hearing none, so ordered. Item number 13, file number 260319, substitute resolution authorizing the Commissioner of Public Works to execute an intergovernmental cooperation agreement between the City of Milwaukee and the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewage District for the purposes of delegating responsibilities for the design and construction of 43rd Street ditch project for the Kinnickinick River in the Ace Automatic District.

Good morning, Madam Chair, Alders, James Washington, Public Works Coordination Manager. So this file before you is for us to enter into a intergovernmental cooperation agreement with the Metropolitan Sewerage District. The purpose of this is there is a tributary at the KK River that runs between 43rd and 35th Street. uh... it currently has a concrete line channel uh... which uh... increases uh... flows now he'll causes flooding so msd is leaving the project where they are removing the concrete line channel uh... replaced replacing it with a vegetated wide channel in addition to other improvements The reason that we're entering into this agreement is because most of this is behind city-owned property, whether it's the tow lot, the DPW sanitation south yard, and other DPW properties. So part of this agreement that we're entering into is that we're working cooperatively with MMSD. With that, we are assisting them as far as with the design review, but this is an MMSD led project. They are taking on the lead for the design through their consultant, in addition to leading the project and overseeing the construction.

Are there any questions from committee? I'm sure.

Now that the dust has settled, since I have you in front of me, and you're probably done mourning. Are you excited about the future of the Milwaukee Bucks?

Excited may be a strong term. Okay.

Are you satisfied with the return?

Satisfied enough. Thank you.

Are there any other questions from committee?

You said that you're removing the concrete line channel, putting in the vegetation.

Is that what you said? Bring the microphone closer to the person. Sorry.

Vegetation line channel. So that's going to prevent the flooding of this whole area? Is that...

It slows down the flows. It's a similar project if you're familiar with Lincoln Creek. Yes. Yes. So that whole area, that was all concrete line channel. There was a lot of flooding over by Congress between 35th and 43rd. That was removed and replaced with a natural line channel. In addition, there's also a retention, a storage basin here as well. So these are all projects basically to improve or mitigate the flooding downstream.

Okay, so it's much like that Lincoln Creek. Okay.

It's pretty similar to that. Okay.

Thank you.

Any other questions from committee? Hearing none, Audit Woman Tyler will move approval or adoption. Are there any objections to that motion? Hearing none, so order item number 14, file number 260320, substitute resolution approving an operating agreement with Badgerland Striders. running club for staging of the 2026 milwaukee lake front marathon half marathon 5k run and 5k walk in the city of milwaukee good morning again

Again, James Washington, Public Works Coordination Manager. So this is an operating agreement that Badgerland Striders is entering into with the city of Milwaukee for the 2026 Milwaukee Lakefront Marathon. Again, the purpose of this is the nature of the event is a special event that does interfere with a lot of traffic throughout the city. Has more track control the has the ability to secure and also it requires a large number of a large amount of services. So we enter this agreement to make sure that the city's protected outline responsibilities for bachelor and striders. So we have everything laid out in this agreement. For the event, thank you.

Any questions from committee. Did you want to add anything?

Nope.

Okay. All right. Alderman, hearing no questions, Alderman Baumann would move adoption. Are there any objections to that motion? Hearing none, so ordered. Thank you. Number 15, item 15, number 260334, resolution granting approval of a driveway approach with a width greater than 30 feet for the premises at 517 West Layton Avenue in the 13th Automatic District.

Again, James Washington, the Public Works Coordination Manager. So per ordinance, we have to come before the council if there is a driveway that's being expanded beyond 30 feet. This is a remodeling of a freight company that already has a driveway that's 40 feet wide, is going to be extended another eight feet. So we're presenting this file before you today.

Any questions from committee? Hearing none, Alderman Westmoreland moves adoption. Hearing no objections, so order. Item 16, reappointment of Alderman Bauman to the Public Transportation Utilities and Waterways Review Board by the coming Council of Presidents.

Alderman Bauman, did you want to say anything?

Alderman Taylor would move confirmation. Hearing no objection with one abstention. Motion passes. Item number 17. File number 260366, appointment of Alderman Brower to the Public Transportation Utilities and Waterways Review Board by the Common Council President. Alderman Bauman would move confirmation. Hearing no objections, so ordered. Item number 18. File number 191930, communication from the Department of Public Works relating to the status of current and future operations.

Good morning, Madam Chair, committee members, Joe Kruski, Commissioner of Public Works. When it comes to operations, there's a few things I'd just like to kind of note. We're in our full summer operation, so we're going through our third round of street sweeping after our big clean, which usually happens in the April-May session. Forestry is in full effect of doing stump removals, etc., which is standard for us. We have just finished our weekend box program, which we collected 375 tons. We had 288 boxes that were out in the public over 11 weekends that it has just completed. I do want to put a plug in that we are going to be starting a new cohort in our forestry department. This is our youth arborist apprentice. It will start in 7-6. And then one thing I would like to add in is we have a bunch of job openings in operations right now. One is a parking enforcement officer. We have 18 open positions right now. We're looking to close that on 7-17. A parking services supervisor, which closes tomorrow. Public works dispatcher, so this works in our fleet dispatch section off of Canal Street to help coordinate all of our fleet vehicles. which will close on the 10th. And then equipment operator, which is what we talk about all the time. This is the folks that do our plows. This is the ones that do our sanitation routes, anything that we do with the CDL. And so right now we have that position, which is continually open now, which is something we worked with the ER over the past couple of years to continually have it open and not open and close it. But we currently have 46 positions open in that realm. which is much better than it's been in the past. And that doesn't include the extra help we get during winter, but it's a continuous recruitment that we have. So I just want to kind of promote that and hopefully people continue to apply to the city.

Madam Chair? Did I hear 18 open positions for parking enforcement? That is correct. Out of how many? That's over a third.

No, we have 66 PEOs.

A little under a third are vacant.

Yes.

How does that impact enforcement? I mean, you have to have idle vehicles sitting there.

Yes, we have vehicles there. So this is one of the hardest positions to fill, and so we had 18 that came in a few months ago. We retained roughly about a third of those. People come in, and we've been changing our training methodology. So we start these folks on third shift right away. We get them interacted, which has helped the retention a lot more than it has in the past, but it's not an easy position. And so it has always been a problem. There's always been a cycle. And so what we had done in the past, and we'll talk about the 18 openings we have now, we increased the number of PEOs we have just so we can have that buffer. So before, we used to have less than 50. So we've increased that number to basically cover the city. But it is always a problem.

How many vehicles do we have, enforcement vehicles?

That's a great question. I can find out for you. We have one for every PEO, and we do have extras as well.

So 66?

No, it's less than that because you have first, second, and third shift. So, I mean, your primary shift that has the most PEOs is your third shift for night parking. But I can get you the actual numbers.

How does that impact revenue and enforcement?

Well, obviously, every parking enforcement officer that we have, if you want to put a number towards them, their value towards revenue and parking citations is about $250,000.

We could afford to pay them more then as an incentive.

Yeah, and this is one of the, yeah, so parking enforcement is, we've went through pay increases for them multiple times. It's not something that we're opposed to looking at again, especially coming out of the transportation fund, which is an enterprise fund. But it's just a challenging position by far. It's not, usually the public does not like a parking enforcement officer, especially when you're looking at third shift when things do get a little more tenacious at night.

Haven't we gone to electronic, in other words, they don't have to physically leave tickets anymore or even get out of the vehicle? Haven't we gone to that?

Yeah, so you're talking about citation by mail? Yes. And so we usually only use that right now for food trucks. It was something, there was a delay in the process going through. We use it when we need to when there's high tense areas, but we don't use it all the time.

Wouldn't that alleviate some of the confrontation issues and safety issues?

That is true, yep.

Why don't we use it more? I'm curious.

I can have Peter come back, and we probably have a separate file to discuss that. Just some of the complications with that, the delay. There's been a lot of complaints just of sending citations out a week later from when they get them, who they're going to, where the addresses are. But I think we should have a separate discussion on that.

Okay.

Do you all ever do any, like, surveying of the staff, the parking enforcement staff, to see what things would... make it more enjoyable for them to maybe stay home?

Enjoyable is, I think what we have done in having the new parking enforcement manager, which is Peter, he's been really getting more into staff engagement and making them part of a team. And same with the staff underneath them. So we had some turnover over the past couple years. So overall, it's getting to that management staff trust level. But no matter what, when we're talking about the folks out in the field, it's just not a fun job. It's very similar to the conversations we have with electricians, you know, municipal electricians versus private world where they're working out in, you know, extreme weather. It's the same thing with parking enforcement because it's just, you know, you're looked at as the enemy on a constant basis every day you go to work. And so some people, it's hard, it's not palatable for some. And we do have others and senior parking enforcement officers that love their job and they're passionate about it and they're there for a reason and have been tutoring a lot of the new folks that do come in.

Do you all do exit interviews with people who leave?

Yes.

Is there any common thread?

No, I think most of the people we lose is in the first few months. And so they'll come in, they get trained, and then once they start actually doing the job, they'll leave. It's not what I expected or it's too much.

Madam Chair.

Is there a certain profile of a person who does well in that position? I'm serious.

You know, I can find out if there is something. I don't know off the top of my head.

I say that because when you do mass recruitment, you're going to get some everybody who may not be well suited for the position. But if you can identify the characteristics, history, or background of folks who excel in a position, you can target your recruitment efforts to people who will likely remain and sustain in a position.

Yeah, we do have a lot of folks that are looking to get into full protective services that want to be a cop in the long term. So this is a stepping stone for them sometimes, which is a good thing because it gives them exposure because we're not really police, but it's that type of police enforcement aspect. So we do have a lot of folks that could use this as a stepping stone, but I can find out.

I don't want to tell you.

Along the same lines, what do we do to try to ensure the safety of those, especially those on third shift? I mean, what procedure is in place that they can follow if they feel like their safety is at risk?

Yeah, so when we talk about third shift enforcement, we have LPRs, which is Licensed Plate Reading Equipment, so they don't have to get out of the vehicle. If there is a situation where they have an interaction, a negative interaction with the public, they basically will leave the site. And if they have to come back, they will. There's constant calls with supervisors. So those people at night deal with a lot of different situations from vulgar language to things getting thrown at them to weapons pulled, which is a lot less lately. But we always tell them to remove themselves. Giving a citation in a particular area over their safety is not the priority. So we want them to leave. They will report it to a supervisor and report. you know we have cameras um now on every single vehicle so we can track so it just like the sam sarah stuff we do with plows that is now on our parking enforcement wheels and basically almost getting to every one of our vehicles to protect our folks okay and each one of our our parking enforcement officers direct line to each one of the district offices for mpd as well so those cameras okay so

They have direct access to the PD office, you just said? Yeah.

There's a relationship that has been built. Just in case there is an incident, they have a direct line to them to support them.

And then for the cameras... And so I think it's the SAMSAR system, right? Okay. And you guys have access to those, like live access to those, so you could see exactly what's happening right at the moment that it's happening. Okay. And so somebody's monitoring those during that third shift time?

Yeah, and there's also a button in there so that they can activate and record in situations. Okay. It's been very beneficial. And for us, it's not only the front view and camera, but it's also a GPS location of where the vehicle actually is at that certain time as well.

Okay, so you know where they are at all times. Is there anything on the vehicle indicating that so that the public knows that, you know, when you walk in the building, it says you're on camera, this area is being recorded. or this area is being monitored by a camera. Just, I don't know, I'm just thinking that that might say to the person, hey, you know what, I'm being watched. I can see this camera.

I know we don't have it now.

Maybe it's less likely that they would engage the person.

The opposite effect.

It could, yes, as well.

It could, yeah. But, I mean, I don't know.

I can see what industry standard is. It's not a bad idea, but we'd have to look into the security of that. My goal is to make sure that our folks are safe just trying to do their job. Right. Yeah.

Recollection exactly what they have the power to enforce and why I ask is because it may come up tomorrow Do they have the power to enforce school rules? No consider moving violations. Those are considered moving violations law restriction or is that an ordinance?

Um, that is a great question. Um, I would have to look into that. I don't have the answer. I don't want to give the wrong answer to you. Um, and I think that's something we can probably get before tomorrow on public safety. Okay.

Um, our question has nothing to do with schoolers or. I think last cycle we had, or in a recent cycle, we had the potholes be addressed. And at the time, I think we were told it was a two-week turnaround for them being addressed. And I know measures are being taken to attempt to expedite that. I just wanted to know, as we stand today, what is the turnaround time for them? That's how we're notified about it to when we're finding that we're able to fill those potholes.

Yeah. Good morning, Chairwoman, members of the committee. Kevin Mews, City Engineer, Department of Public Works. Thanks for the question. So generally speaking with potholes, and committee members may remember this, because of how many reported hazards and requests for service we got this spring, which was substantially more than we've ever received in the past, at least on record, we ended up adjusting from a first in first come first serve policy or approach service approach to prioritizing no major hazards, meaning that in the description or in the photo, we could see that it was a deep or significant pothole and or busier streets. So major arterials, minor arterials, those sorts of things. So we spent most of May working through those busier streets and did complete that effort. So any requests that come in for a busier street now will be addressed in a relatively short order. What we're working through now is our backlog of residential streets. So sorry for the long wait. answer but the problem is there's not a clear answer to your question the average for what we've closed out in june has been a 25 day lag in service request but that's because we are both clearing out residential streets from maybe march or april some very old requests and new recent requests coming in on busier streets so we're still Prioritizing the busiest streets. Again, we've addressed the backlog there, so that should be a relatively short turnaround time. When it comes to residential streets, to be efficient, we are still grouping rather than chasing around in a loop of, okay, This one was oldest. We're doing all the ones that came in this week, you know, six weeks ago or whatever at the same time. Instead, we're identifying an old one and then identifying everything nearby so that the crew is going to one spot and working roughly in one area for most of the day, which allows us to address more potholes at once, but does mean that the service responsiveness that the public is seeing is irregular right now because of that. It's been successful in helping us address our backlog. We've gotten 19, so as of yesterday, so first half of the year, June 30th, we've gotten 19,270 requests for pothole patching. Our previous annual record was 16,804. So in the first six months of the year, we've gotten more than we've ever gotten in an entire 12 months before. Our previous record in the first six months of the year was 11,800. So again, substantially more than we've ever received before. We've also resolved substantially more service requests than we ever had before because of how we changed our operations and also the investment in equipment we've made over the past few years, including the hot asphalt box that got some press that was purchased partially with a contribution from the brewers. We've resolved 10,800 service requests so far in the first six months of the year. Our average over the past five years was resolving around 6,000 requests in the first six months of the year. So we are being more productive, but the level of requests for potholes just is exceptionally high. We were seeing about 100 come in each week. Recently, sorry, 100 requests per day coming in. We've been able to resolve about 200 per day recently with our overtime operations and the more efficient approach we're taking to deliver service. There was a pothole-related press event with the mayor last week, and we did see a slight uptick again in requests after that event, which is a typical thing that happens Yeah, so that's kind of where we are right now. I apologize I don't have just a simple this is how many days for a service request right now, just with how we've changed how we're delivering the service.

Do you all keep track of if it feels like you're being requested to do the same, to fill the same piles over and over again?

We do, so, and I'll answer that. There's kind of two different ways that comes in. So one, we're being requested, you know, people, maybe different residents or the same resident are putting an additional service request for something that hasn't been filled, right? We know that's happening right now because of the delay in delivering service. So we know that, or I shouldn't say we know, we're estimating that maybe as much as half of the requests we're getting right now on residential streets are potholes that are already in the system. So there's that one, which allows us to close out more requests when we address it, but is obviously a challenge and a frustration for the public. There's also another way to look at, so I'm answering your question on both sides, which is there's also the repeat locations where we have serviced the location and then we're going back to address that location again. That doesn't typically happen regularly. Once we switch to hot mix, which is what we are in right now, the hot asphalt, which roughly happens mid April is when we get that we don't usually have to go back to the same pothole during that calendar year. It usually lasts through the rest of the season. If if we get lucky, depending on the conditions of the pavement and all sorts of other things. A hot mix patch, we hope, is going to last like three years or so. But generally, we almost never have to go back to that same spot during the same calendar year. If it was filled with cold patch earlier in the year, we may have to come back and address the same pothole again. But then there are roads. Lisbon is under construction, but this is a perfect candidate pre-construction where – Lisbon, the roadway itself was in such poor condition that we perpetually had to go back and address the same places over and over again, both sometimes within the same year and also every year we were going back to the same locations. And that was just due to the pavement of the road itself had degraded so far that there just isn't anything very good for a pothole patch to bond to in the road. So hopefully I answered your question there.

It does, but anecdotally, because of where I live and because of the routes that I take on a regular basis, it appears to me to be constantly some of the same areas that we're feeling. I don't know if it's in the same calendar year, but repeatedly it seems to be the same.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, one... Alderman 1 that comes to mind roughly in an area that I think we both spent some time in, which is on 2nd Street north of Pleasant. That is an example of a street where the pavement condition and the type of pavement, because it's tarmacanon, is such that it is difficult for the pothole patch to bond. And so I hope we're not going to the same pothole in a summer, but yeah, every winter that is being lifted out and we're replacing it again.

Does any of that have to do with the quality of our hot mix?

Certainly if, you know, I know there was a discussion during the last committee meeting, I believe it was, maybe two ago. Certainly if someone's not following proper procedures, which we work with our staff on, and not cleaning it out and those types of things, that can increase the chances that it doesn't bond well. It has... i wouldn't say we've noticed inconsistency in the quality of material necessarily it's more the condition of the road itself and whether the patch can bond well yeah i probably have a little history here because i was a street maintenance manager years ago um so we do have

There was a vendor we used in the, I won't mention their name, but there was a vendor we used previously that the mix didn't adapt well to our roadways. There was too much sand in it. And so we have, so we do a quality control check, like what is the best binding? And so one vendor we don't use anymore because of that, because we figured it didn't hold as much. The vendors we do have now, we have two of them. It seems to be working very well where it doesn't come out. There were issues previously years ago, but we kind of resolved those.

I know at the last meeting you let us know things that were being done today, and even today, things that were being done to kind of expedite things more. But even at 25 days, and even at 200 a day, I know I, and I'm sure my colleagues do too, get constantly called, stopped in the street, told about, emailed about the potholes. So, and even if you don't have an answer here today, And prior to budget, I will hope that we have a real answer for what needs to happen, even if it's a wish and a dream, in order for us to get to a more manageable. Yeah. Because I don't know about everybody else, but 25 days to me.

Yeah.

I know you're working on it. I'm not taking away from you working on it. But that's insane.

Mm-hmm.

And if I think it's insane, I can't explain that to my constituents. And because we know it and we're dealing with it, I think that we need to, when it used to be three days or whatever, that's reasonable. I can sell that to a constituent, and I think they can understand. But when it starts being, because I thought two weeks was a lot when you said it last time. Now you just said 25 days. I think this is getting insane. So do we need to invest in more of those machines? Do we need to better train our staff? Do we need more staff? Like, what do we need to do to get it to a manageable number? Because it's funny, because Alderman Bowman brought it up last time, and I thought he was doing too much until afterwards. And I had to tell him, now I get it. Talking about liability and all of those issues. The longer we know... and didn't fix it is the greater chance for us to have liability for cars getting messed up and all of that kind of thing. So I want less of my constituents' cars getting messed up. I want less complaints coming to me about it. And I want us to be able to have better streets quicker. So whatever, and like I said, I know it's hard economic times and I know whatever, but the wish and a dream, maybe it's tiered. The wish and a dream, if we could do everything we could, and then the realistic, here's some things we could actually start doing something so that we don't. see here months from now still talking about 25 or more days.

The problem here is just the peer status of our local road program. I mean, the way to fix it is to have new roads. And that's a solution. Chasing potholes is... So if you had a wish and a dream, I'd be like, can we get more funding for local roads to get replaced? That's the dream. We all know as we sit here, we don't get a lot of funding support on our local roads, so that's the biggest thing. What we have done, I just want the public to know, it's not just street maintenance that has been there. pivoted the operation we have our operations folks that are doing sanitation work and and other things in dpw have been coming over and rolling over after their shifts to support street maintenance so they're working 10 to 11 hour days during the week and they're working on weekends and i will say that i have been extremely surprised because we did a voluntary overtime and there's a lot of folks that are over there trying to help and get the backlog because right now i would tell you in a worse situation if we didn't have those folks volunteering and moving over And so, you know, we get up to 12, 13 crews that are out there constantly. On a normal basis, we don't have that many street maintenance. So, you know, we're trying to navigate this. I will say that Mother Nature was not kind to us in April. I think it really kind of took havoc on a lot of our roads. We had stuff that we never had potholes on before that there was deep paving that occurred. which put us in a really large hole in April and May, which we're still getting out of now. As we move forward, it's identifying areas that we can replace. The great example is like we did Lisbon. Lisbon, we probably had hundreds and hundreds in a year on that particular roadway. Now it's getting replaced, which is the positive. I do think there's a great investment in our tier roadways, but it's the local roadways. This is where a lot of the calls are coming from, and this is what neighbors see outside of their house and citizens see when they look out. So, I mean, we're going to constantly look at ways we can enhance this, but really it comes down to the pipe dream is to replace the roads so we don't have to spend so much on maintenance.

Just along that way, because I was going to ask, how many times do you go and fill potholes on the street before it becomes so bumpy that you just say, you know what, let's just repave this one because it's just too much now. Because you drive over a couple of roads like that.

We're well past that point on many roads in these cities. I mean, generally speaking, we're beyond the design life of substantial poor. Sorry. We're well beyond the design life of substantial portions of our local road network Okay. Yeah, and that just has to do with the city's fiscal the capital resources that the city has available to it Yeah, and we have not I Would say we haven't for a while there was also I'm trying to quickly summarize the memo that we put together last year on this but the There was also a time period Roughly through the 90s and very early 2000s, where the city was basically not investing in local roads. And so there's that piece of it too. That's a thing you can do as a short term measure, right? If you've got other capital priorities that the mayor and the council at the time were prioritizing. I'm not second guessing that decision, but the challenge is that's the type of thing that comes home to roost 20 to 25 years later because you get behind on your replacement cycle on your roads and so we are now on a reasonable replacement cycle for our roads but nothing no resources are available within the city's resources to catch up in that time period of that 15 to 20 years when we weren't spending what we needed to to to keep our local roads in good shape

Okay. Can I get one more question? Just real quick because so we call in those potholes, right? And then like I have 91st Street and It was real bad. And I called them all in. Most of them got filled. But it seemed like every time I got like, where did this one come from now? You know, I mean, so is it something that's happening later? And for instance, I do have one that I really should call you guys about because it's huge. And it's so it's like the. the man manhole and then it's like sucking in all around it so i mean it's really huge and i see people trying to avoid it um but i i just feel bad because it's like you guys were just over there and you're just like let us know no no let us know yeah okay appreciate it but um yeah so

so it's not that we just missed it it probably just wasn't asked something beforehand is that what happened yeah i mean i i would say to anyone on the council if you do notice something where it's clear we've you know you ride you drive that street or ride that street or whatever regularly and you know hey they were out here fill these potholes they missed one let us know you know that's the thing we can work with a crew on because that may be something that you know our crew just missed But 91st Street is a perfect example. With the truck traffic that 91st Street gets, new ones are appearing all the time. And so that's just the cycle of its life that 91st Street is in. Lots of business parks, lots of trucks. The way the concrete is the age of it, basically. It's going to continue to fall, especially on the edges, fail on the edges of the concrete panels. Okay.

Thank you. Madam Chair?

On the lines of replacing roads, and this will come up tomorrow as well in connection with the scooters, could you have data on the amount of protected bike lanes we have built to date?

Mm-hmm.

because we're starting to get some indication from residents that they blame us for all these scooter problems because people don't want to use scooters in mixed traffic, which to some extent, and they want us to build out an entire city worth of protected bike lanes, which, of course, is a big number.

It is.

And even if it's just confined to the high density areas, my district, Alden Brower, Alden Cox, Perez, you're talking tens, if not scores of millions of dollars to do that. We just need to know where we're at because I get that argument. and i hear this discussion about pothole and that seems to be the principal concern of the vast majority of people and the whole argument that well we have to have a less auto concentric auto-centric culture and urban landscape and i'm saying yeah good luck with that when potholes still appear to be the main concern and not protected bike lanes not micro transit infrastructure so i mean please have something ready for us tomorrow that we can at least lay out those facts yeah yeah absolutely alderman uh we may have a city that's not yet ready for micro transit and we're trying to put square holes and round round pegs and square holes yeah we can be ready for that discussion tomorrow absolutely um you know very high level uh i guess i would just note a few things uh one

Those smaller vehicles, whether they're bikes or scooters, are obviously the wear and tear on the road is much less than a car. So if somebody is choosing that, that's good for us from a longevity of the road perspective. The other thing, which you know, Alderman, of course, but for the benefit of anyone listening, many of the funding sources we are using to implement that bikeway network are not funding sources that the federal or state government allows us to use on regular paving projects. So that's another element of it. But we'll be ready for those. Okay.

We talk about turnaround time and Okay, I'll ask this question How are crews dispatched and how often like i'm assuming everybody gets like a route for the day right how often is that adjusted is it adjusted in real time is it daily um they are

The way the system works right now, and I'll try to... Tom Wenger, our street services manager, would be able to answer this more accurately than I can. But the way the system works right now is they are given a daily route based on the service requests and our supervisors and managers' determination of the most efficient way to address the service requests we received. So there's not a standard route. They're working every day. They're given that route each morning and dispatched. So if a service request comes in during the day, I... i'm trying to remember we we switched systems recently with to a more dynamic system which is great i don't remember if it's quite dynamic enough for us to be able like if it comes in an acela to you know and it's on in the neighborhood can we adjust the route half hour later i don't think we're quite at that level but you know everything that happened up until

seven in the morning when those routes are created that's considered as part of uh determining how to dispatch for the day yeah i will jump in there too um early on i mean this is a transition i'll give a lot of credit to street maintenance because before it was you would have a crew that would come in and they would just get a paper copy of location so that's it Now our crews have tablets now, so there's more live data that comes through. And they've also figured out creative ways, and think of it as Amazon, how to route efficiently when they're trying to attack potholes. So while you have seen the numbers increase in the efficiency, so we won't just base the numbers on the potholes we have. What we've been looking at is how efficient is a crew and how many are they attacking in a single day. And those numbers have increased significantly because of using technology to route them like an Amazon driver or have live data instead of just using a piece of paper that sometimes would get all...

gnarled up or dirty or messy or when they're hot so there has been vast improvements over the past couple years so just how to route our folks okay and you know i think about the specific we talk about turnaround time i mean turnaround time is a turnaround time i just like to know what so i can communicate it to my constituents but you know sometimes i see instances of uh things happening where i'm like well that's inefficient you know we could cut back on our response time if we were better in this area and one specific example i can think of is you know there were there was a request that came in um to my office approximately maybe three weeks ago um it was on keith avenue off of 92nd Street. And a constituent reached out and they said, hey, I've reported this multiple times. It's been a few months. What's the status? So we reached out. And shout out to Tom. Tom is great, by the way. Great communicator and he gets stuff done. But I reached out And they said, hey, we'll make it happen. So they made Keefe happen. And then the constituent reached out and they said, hey, they forgot half of the road. What happened? And in communication with Tommy, he said the crew ran out of material there. So at that time, when she said that, I drove to see, like, okay, is she telling the truth or is she exaggerating? Because that happens too. So I drove the stretch. In fact, half of it was done. And then I made a, as I'm heading down, Keith, I made a left turn on to 91st. And I'm like, wow, this is pretty bad too. And I reached out to the department. I said, add this to the list. Sure, no problem. So I go back. when they said they were done, to make sure 91st Street was added to the list. Keefe was complete, 91st Street wasn't, so I'm like, hey, what's up? And the answer that I got, not from Tom, but from someone else, was that we are doing this in sections, so we make sure we don't miss anything. But my argument is that 91st Street is five steps away from where you just were, so now you're returning to this location for a third time. That's the inefficient piece. So that's what I was asking. Like, you know, hey, if the crew was returning for the second time, they ran out of material. 91st Street has came in. It's right there. How are those adjustments, you know, made?

Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. That's a helpful example for us to look into. I think, yes, ideally, that's exactly what we're doing. Not what you experienced, but what you expected is what we should be doing. So I'd have to check. It does happen where the crew runs out of asphalt. Yeah. And by the way, it is done. Yeah, good, good. But yeah, that would be good to understand what the route looked like for that day and whether or not that was, you know, at an end point. So they couldn't continue on the 91st or if we just missed something. So we'll take a look. Thanks.

Any other?

Yeah, thank you so much. This the memo you were talking about and that talked about some of the street maintenance history. Would it be possible to add that to the file?

Sure. Just to clarify, this was a memo requested by Alderman Bergelis, actually. So maybe it went to F&P. I'd have to check. But basically, the history of funding for roads. So it isn't so much street maintenance, but asset management. Okay.

Great. Yeah, that'd be good. And I mean, if Norquist failed in that respect, we should call him out on that. But let's see here. I have some more broader questions about what we're doing. I mean, I will say that I do appreciate that we should be hitting things in a... scientific method where we look at what's all around there and get to it. I also have a concern about the delay. But I'm really glad to hear this high number that we've been doing so far this year. That's good. I feel like we just need more crews. We need more people. We need more people out there. We need more state-shared revenue coming in. According to the Wisconsin Policy Forum, for folks that are listening, according to the Wisconsin Policy Forum, since the year 2000, we've had $198 million, that's adjusted for inflation, $198 million reduction in aid from the state of Wisconsin. um imagine how our budget could have been this year if we had an additional 198 million dollars to utilize and deploy here because what we definitely need is these streets to be redone i mean that is that is what we should be doing we should be redoing all these streets i have so many streets in my district um that need to be they need to be completely not just resurfaced but completely we have we have limestone cut curbs and all that stuff needs to be you know redone and we just don't you know we just don't have the i mean that's That is an enormous expense to redo those things. That is an absolutely enormous expense. And so for constituents who are listening, I hear you, and I feel this, and I think this is a huge problem that we have so many potholes all over the city, but it's just that the streets need to be completely replaced. And that's going to involve, that is a gigantic order of magnitude larger of an expense than filling a pothole. And so we are stuck financially, in my opinion, between a rock and a hard place here in the city of Milwaukee. But as far as things that are within our control right now, I'm curious about – we have vacancies. We were talking about vacancies when I walked in, and I didn't hear all of that because there was a lag in Channel 25. The, as far as the positions and the vacancies that we hold, I'm curious broadly, like what positions that we have available that have absolutely zero requirements that somebody, or, you know, I mean, obviously these are physical jobs, but besides like some, you know, being able to lift and that sort of thing, what kind of positions do we have that are available for anyone without any sort of credentials whatsoever so that we can start directing people? you know, to those who may want an entry-level position in the city of Milwaukee. I do want to encourage my constituents to apply to work for the city of Milwaukee. And I guess, like, broadly, you know, what are some of the requirements that we have? I mean, are we... Is there a chance that some of these positions have such high requirements that maybe aren't necessary that, like, we could reexamine that so we could get an entry-level person in that we could train on the systems and what we're doing so we can get a human in there, especially when we have these positions budgeted? I mean, if they're budgeted and it's already July, we're, you know, we're... And halfway through the year, if there was a position budgeted, I mean, that savings, I'm not saying we can't retroactively change it, but, like, you know what I mean? Like, if we budget the positions, we've got to fill them. We have to fill them. I really want to, you know, I want to do whatever I can to support DPW in filling every single position that we have vacant. So can you just talk a little bit more about that?

yeah that's thanks oliver for bringing that up we every position we have out there we re-evaluate the job description just for that reason and we have depending on what position is and there's other ones we can't we get into technical experts like we're getting to you get into vsts engineering you know your your trades folks that have minimum requirements those you can't really move but we have looked at you know what is it required to get our labor force and this is we get door labors which basically is something you're talking about where you don't have need a lot of credentials. We help you get your CDL. This has been fantastic in our CDL program of getting those folks up to speed that supplement basically all of our field folks that comes into the street maintenance, that come to sewer maintenance, that come into water distribution. And so those positions are always open. Things we have right now is like self-help yards positions that are open, which we have too. We have equipment operators. This is a little different because We will train people and so what happens is how we fill equipment operators is we always want people with CDLs to come in that gets them right into that position. But how we usually fill those is we hire folks that are laborers, we get them their CDL, they work there, and then basically we'll apply for that next step up and get promotion. So it's almost like a pipeline because people that have CDLs just don't walk in the door on a regular basis. On an annual basis, we've been training nearly... This year it's a little down more because we haven't had as many vacancies, but we average nearly 100 CDL trainings a year.

And is that at the city's expense, or is the worker expected to shoulder some of that stuff?

We fully train them.

Okay.

Yes.

And what's that entry-level position, and is it currently posted? City labor. City labor? Okay.

Yeah, labor potholes.

Yeah, city labor, I don't know if I have the information or if that's over. Yeah, yeah.

So city labor, we do have – that's that position you're talking about that really has fairly minimal requirements, right, and comes with a lot of on-the-job training, as the commissioner was just saying, including CDL training if you don't have it yet, which is an eventual requirement of that position. But we'll work with you to fulfill that requirement. So that's really that entry-level job. A lot of the vacancies within infrastructure – Um, within my division are now at the point of, um, there are succeeding positions that, you know, once you meet requirements around a certain level of experience, certain level of skill, you move up in the, you know, the chain. Uh, and, uh, those succeeding positions tend to be where the vacancies are. We've been. We had such a high vacancy rate a few years ago that it took us a while to bring on the city laborers and then they need to have the experience necessary to move into an infrastructure repair worker as one example. Or if you're an electrical services and electrical services labor one, those types of moves are now happening, which is opening up more vacancies and city laborers. So we are reposting that position regularly. City labor is, I believe, a continuous recruitment. So that position is out there.

I can send that to constituents right now with zero requirements.

I will follow up and verify that for you. But if it's not, thanks, Tiffany. If it's not, it's coming because we just had a conversation with my staff about when we were next going to be looking at that list. Okay.

Oh, I really appreciate it. I just have a few further comments and questions about this, too. Thank you, Madam Chair. Because that's, like, I mean, that is so critical to me that we have these positions. So thank you. Thank you for posting that. I mean, like, I know we probably need to bring DER into this conversation, too, because one of the things I do hear from existing workers and people who are aspiring to work for the city is just the timelines that it's taking for us to bring people on board with the city. And that's, you know, like, I know someone who... applied in May of a year to work for the city in DPW, and they were brought on. This is not anybody's fault, I don't think. We have a robust hiring system, but they were brought on, and they didn't start until October. And in that time period, people find other jobs, and then we're back to square one where we're accepting an application. I would just appreciate your guys' thoughts on this or what you've known or if anything is in the pipeline for us to streamline that so we can get people on the ground um i mean i hate i hate the term temp agency but i'm not sure if dbw's used any of them i'm not sure i would support that necessarily but you know maybe there's just options for that regarding retaining recruitment and hiring and initial onboarding um but yeah dude what are we doing there yeah so we do use temporary um services all the time like right now we have 26 um folks that are our laborers from wcs at this moment and so a lot of the times we'll get we'll get temporary laborers we want to get them into full employment with the city so it's a transition piece Okay, so there is a pipeline for them. They're made aware of it. Correct. And the temp agency, because when I was in the school district, and just sorry to interrupt you, I just want to comment for the public here that when I was in the school district, that was a huge issue that we had in the union was people, we called them perm attempts. I mean, I don't want any of that to be going on, but if we need to use a temp agency to help recruit, i don't necessarily have an ideological problem with that if we are moving them you know forward in the in becoming city employees i was aware of somebody in a different department not dbw who was a with a temp agency for almost four years before they were brought onto the city staff fully and i i don't support something like that but i just also you know so please yeah so you know

Some of the things we do, so I have actually a monthly meeting with DER, and so we've established that to basically go through some of these challenges. Some of the vacancies we have are just some positions are so hard to fill. We've been up here talking about electricians. We have a machine repair person that sits in our water utility that's very hard to get in. Vehicle service technicians, those trades positions, that's a different challenge than just our regular workforce. So Jackie and I meet on a monthly basis now to basically start targeting things as you're speaking about. I will say... Over the past few years, I mean, and this is thanks to council and the mayor itself, is the market studies have helped stabilize our workforce. Four years ago, we were at a 25.5% vacancy rate in the department. And so it was dire strait. I mean, in water utility, we were the... Brady to bus because we didn't have enough people. We're down to 12% right now. That number is still way high, but we have come a long way. So at that point, we had 500 and some odd vacancies. We're down to 264 as of today, which sounds like a lot. And they're all over the place. We talk about equipment operators. This is one of the big ones because that's 43 of those folks. But they're spread over. P.E. always is another 18. So those two positions are probably the most. We are making strides in the right direction. We knew when we were going up, there's an uphill battle and it was going to take time. You can't just hire 570 people today and they all fill in. And so like challenges that Kevin had mentioned before is, you know, we have a lot of, we filled the bottom end. We're trying to get those folks experienced to move up to that second level. So then we can refill at that bottom level. And so we are making those moves. I get an update every single month because I've been tracking this for now four years of where our employees are. What does our workforce look like? And then how can we make it better? We continue to build relationships with our public schools to build pipelines for VSTs and et cetera, which we've had a couple come through here. As I mentioned when I first started, the Youth Arborist Apprenticeship Program, which has been fantastic. Our forestry staff is fully staffed because of something like that. We're looking at ways to do that in other realms as well. partnering with our technical colleges and our universities, et cetera, to basically get the folks that live here to transition into city work. So there's a lot of things going on, and we could probably have a discussion on the side of all the things we're doing. So we're making strides in the right direction, and it just takes time. But the relationships we do have with the ER is wonderful. way better than it has been in the past. And we're having those real discussions. And Jackie's bringing her folks, I'm bringing my leadership team, to try to spitball, like, how can we help them? How can they help us? So those are going on.

Great. And just out of curiosity, what are the requirements for somebody to work as a parking enforcement officer?

I don't know if there's much. Okay.

Honestly, because what we do through... A willingness to deal with what we deal with out there. Yeah.

I think one of the requirements is you have to be over 18 years old and you have to have a driver's license. We provide the full training because they are, you know... I think it's six weeks of ECHO training to go through. And it's really robust. But, yeah, it's really minimal. And that position actually starts at $51,000 a year. Okay.

Those are all the questions I had so far, Madam Chair. Thank you.

Thank you, Chair. Any other questions for the committee? Madam Chair.

What's the range of the parking enforcement officers?

Oh, I wish I had that. I have the starting salary. I do not see.

For the hazards they encounter, that actually sounds low.

It was significantly lower a few years ago.

Just to be my way of example, I see advertisements on TV for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which is the WeEnergies union. Our friends over there, yeah. Advertising ground men, whatever that is, as opposed to ground person, but ground men starting at $32.50 an hour. Wow. That's $64,000 a year, more or less. Yeah. And that's entry level. With the advertisement, we'll do all the training and then our apprentice program. We'll make more.

Yeah.

So I'm just wondering, you know, that's pretty $32.50 an hour. That's pretty good money for probably a high school degree of that and a driver's license because that's what they say. Clean driving record. willing to work hard, willing to work in bad weather. That's it, those are the requirements.

Yeah, honestly, that's something I would love to explore too. I'm not opposed to it by any means, especially being the transportation fund, which is not in a tax levy.

And maybe paying the commission.

I do think, and then I'll tell you, I will hand it to you. I do think I'm a mother of a high schooler. And I also know that today is the day that student loan rules change. And I also know and see and we've heard in this room just yesterday debates over, you know, data centers and AI and all of that. The reality of the culmination of all of those things, though, is that there will be more folks seeking jobs that aren't taken over by other technology, number one, which many of the jobs within your department are those. And there will be, unfortunately, more people who cannot afford to go get the extra degrees and things. um necessary to do work that is not public works related so i think by choice or by force there will be especially more young folks that kind of return to having interest in the positions that you all have It's just an interesting time. So finding ways to more strongly go after young folks or stronger partnerships with the schools as people are graduating and that kind of thing, I think now is a moment. where that actually might be extremely beneficial to you all.

If I may, Chair Orbit, I do think we as a city do have to promote ourselves more. It's not just based on the wage that you're making. There's a lot of other benefits that the city provides that I don't think we talk about enough. Pensions that our city folks get long-term when they're looking through their entire career, the tuition reimbursement that we offer to basically get them if you don't want to go to school now, maybe you do later in your life. And the city supports that to continue her secondary education. The great health benefits that we do have. There's a lot more things than just a wage that happens here. And also the pride it is to actually work and support the community you live in. I mean, I've talked about it many times in budget, but I'm proud that we have at least 78% of our folks that still live in the city. We've never had that mass exodus that has occurred. And so our folks live in here. So I think there's a lot more to talk about than just a pure dollar. It's the other benefits that attract folks to city work as well.

Yeah.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just had a quick question. Well, since you mentioned all that other thing about the pension and all the education and all that, I think we probably do need to do some more outreach with that through DEI because I don't know if our young people are really aware of what all those things are.

Yeah.

You know? Mm-hmm. And the benefit of having them. So that's been a lot of conversation. And I think a lot of that comes through financial literacy classes. So we need to do a little bit more with that. But my question was regarding the list. Is there a list that you go off of? Because I think some people think that there's a list, like they apply for jobs and then their name is placed on a list. When openings come up, then you go to that list to fill those vacancies. So do we have that list?

Depends on the position. So city labor is a good example of that. Yes, there is. So we will open the city labor position for applications. As Tiffany said, it's planned to open again at the end of July. it's open for the period i can't recall offhand how long that is it's usually a few weeks it's open for that period we collect all the names the candidates are tested and rated and then departments whoever have that position divisions within dpw in the case of city labor can then work off that list to ask people you know invite people in and determine if they're still interested in the position um so that's the type of job where a list

Okay. Makes a lot of sense.

So we just don't have enough people on that list to... We will... That's why we will open it regularly to rejuvenate the list, right? Because, I mean, as I think Alderman Brower was just talking about, right, somebody might apply in May. We contact them in October and say, hey, you know, are you still interested in the city labor position with the city of Milwaukee? And they'll say, no, I found another position, right? So that... And that's okay. That's just how the labor market works, right? And so that is a type of a position where a list is very helpful to us as a department. There are other positions where a list may exist from like a technical perspective, like that list exists, but generally we are hiring the candidates that we believe are qualified for the positions off of the list at that point and in the initial recruitment.

All right. Thank you. Any other questions?

Back to potholes. This is more so a process in materials question. Does this heat make the mix adhere better? Does it keep it hotter longer? Hotter longer, yes. Does it affect anything, the process?

So, yes, the temperature of the asphalt matters. And so that's actually one of the things, if you remember the conversation we had a couple times ago about the hot asphalt box, one of the benefits of that is that it helps us maintain that hot temperature, the hot mix, throughout the day. And that helps it adhere better as it's applied. So... As an example, with that piece of equipment, we can adjust that temperature based on the conditions. So we may not need the box to be heating as much because the air is so warm. So it can help, but it also obviously causes issues with our crew's ability to be as productive because they are overheating and we want to make sure they're staying safe.

So the materials that we are transporting that does not have the hot box, does that material stay warmer, hotter, longer with these temperatures?

Yeah, it doesn't affect as much as you think. I mean, they're usually covered. They're still insulated in there. But, I mean, the warmer temperatures do help the product, but it doesn't help it here. I mean, it's... when the end product is put in, it's going to be the same. For sure.

All right, cool. And the asphalt's kept at, what, 300, 275, 300 degrees, so it's still much hotter than the air no matter what.

How do the crews stay from overheating?

Yeah, so that's the biggest thing we talk about as a department every year where we get to these type of, you know, we tell our folks to take more breaks, extended lunches. Fortunately, we have air conditioning a lot of our vehicles I mean that is the priority for to make sure that no one does overheat and extra water out there extra water We provide we actually have electrolytes that we're doing our safety crews and supervisors and managers are constantly monitoring folks to you know When they're out there, especially all day long. I mean, that's this is what the production is gonna go down these couple of days They're still they're doing their job But it is we month on a daily and hourly basis because it is dangerous right now. All right, I

Reminding them not to drink soda.

That is a big one, yes. This is why we continually promote water and electrolytes, and this is why we provide some of those packets that get put into water bottles, because it is very important to stay hydrated.

Okay.

I'm sure.

Yeah, a resident... I was going to send you that this morning. It just posted about the recycling person who had to... We had an incident yesterday. Yes, correct.

That overheated. It ended up going to the hospital, overheated based on the conditions yesterday. It's in good condition right now. I don't have an update as of this morning, but it was doing much better and had a lot of IVs and fluids cramped up and kind of was sitting there. And luckily the public did come out and assist and help, which was good, yes.

Do we do anything on hot days for employees that we know are out there?

Yeah, I mean, like we said, we provide, we tell them to make more breaks. We do start shifts earlier. So like our sanitation workers are going to start an hour earlier to get off earlier. If it gets too extreme, some crews will shut off and we'll have them work six hour days. It depends on how each crew is a little different and exactly what they're doing. But that's the conversation. And each group does things a little bit different. But we had a conversation just on Monday of, like, what's coming up for the heat? What is everyone doing? And so we talked to each and single group of how to make sure employees are safe out there. If they have to come into one of the buildings that we have, just cool down. That is fine as well.

Okay. Thank you. Alderman Brower?

Yeah, thank you so much. And actually, Alderman Bauman, thank you so much for putting this file on here today. I really do appreciate it. I appreciate you guys being willing to give more of these updates because it's something our constituents are really, really concerned about. And I just want to also echo just the appreciation that I have for all the city work. Right now, we're sitting in air conditioning, and the city workers are out there sweating away, filling potholes, picking up garbage. I really appreciate all the work that they're doing. A concluding thought I have regarding this that I wanted to share is that we have such a huge task in front of us to win more funding from the state legislature when the new legislature convenes in January of 2027. We have an opportunity. I mean, pretty much, knock on wood, but you could run as a... A sardine sandwich is a Democrat, and they're probably going to win this fall. And so we're poised to have a friendlier legislature in Madison, and I'm committed anyway to meeting with members of the legislature, fighting for them, explaining here in Milwaukee there's a lot of unique circumstances, that this isn't just some right-wing trope of some grossly mismanaged behemoth urban center that they're trying to portray every single city as across this country. This is This is a city where we have a lot of dedicated workforce. We need more resource to make the quality of life better for everybody here in the city of Milwaukee. And that's how we're going to do it. So I'm fully committed to that fight and winning more funding in the budget that introduced by whoever wins the governor's mansion in the fall. And it'll be fought in next spring's budget fight at the state capitol. Thank you.

Are there any other questions on committee? All right, with that, Alderman Baumann will ask to hold to the power of the chair. I'm hearing no objections, so order with that. We are done with the business today, so we are adjourned.