Public Works Committee - Regular Meeting

I'd like to call this public works committee meeting to order. I am order woman chairwoman Mulele a Cox. To my right, we will soon be joined by Alderman Lamont, less than of vice chair. To the right of him, we are joined by alderman Robert Baumann. To his right, we have DPW infrastructure.

To my left, we have Luana Ortiz, staff assistant. To her left, we have Alderman Alex Brower. To his left, we have alderwoman Larissa Taylor. Item number one, file number 250900. Resolution relating to approving the levy of assessments and construction of accessible public improvement projects at various locations and appropriating funds for these purposes.

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

If the bill is not paid within the forty five day grace period, a charge of 9.5% simple interest per year will be added. If the assessment is at least $125 the assessment can be paid over a period of ten years on the tax roll at the 9.5% interest. For those projects approved with late billing, a bill will not be sent before 01/01/2027. In relation to this file, an official notice of public hearing was mailed to impacted property owners. There is only one project on this public hearing this morning.

It is in the 3rd Aldermanic District on North Oakland Avenue between East Locust Street to East Linwood Avenue and stall traffic calming raised crosswalk. Is anyone here to provide testimony? This project was requested by the Oakland Business Improvement District and they will also be paying all of the assessments related to this project.

Audeman Brower? Yeah, I just wanted to comment. Thank you and I just really appreciate DPW staff getting all this together and I appreciate the bid covering the cost of the assessments. This is going to be a really good I believe this is going to be located right near Walgreens on Oakland right in the middle of the block there. Is that correct?

That is correct.

Okay. Cool. No, this is going be

a great addition to the neighborhood. Thank you. Thanks, Holly.

I move approval.

The motion is approval by or adoption by Auderman Brower. Hearing no objections, assault order. File number two. Item number two, file number two five zero nine zero one. Resolution determining it necessary to make various accessible public improvements at various locations and appropriating funds for these purposes with the city engineering cost estimated to be $50,000 for a total estimated cost of these projects being $320,500.

Good morning. This is for setting up engineering for future future able construction projects. Any questions from committee?

Hearing that auditor will move approve adoption. Are there any objections to that motion? And so order. Item number three. Thank you. File number 250902. Resolution determining necessary to make various non accessible public improvements at various locations and appropriating funds for these purposes with the city engineer and cost estimated to be $352,000 for a total estimated cost of these projects being $1,378,000.

Good morning. This is setting up for engineering for future non assessable construction projects.

Any questions from committee? Hearing none, Alderman Baumann will move adoption. Hearing no objection, sole order. Item number four, file number 250903, resolution approving construction of nonaccessible public improvements at various locations and appropriating funds for these purposes with the city construction cost estimated to be $1,181,000 for a total estimated cost of these projects being $1,270,000.

Warning. This is to set up construction funding for various non accessible projects.

Any questions from committee? Hearing none, alderman Westmoreland would move adoption of this item. Hearing no objections, so ordered. Item number four, file number two five zero nine zero four, resolution directing the commissioner

of public works to submit a project application with the Wisconsin Department of Transportation for funding for local street improvements under the local roads improvement program. Morning. Holly Ruttenbach with DPW. Every two years, the state has a local road improvement program that municipalities are able to put in applications to receive funding to offset some of the cost of construction for local roadway paving projects. Typically, we receive about $1,000,000 every two years, which the city then matches that million dollars for a total of 2,000,000 that would be in the local paving program.

Any questions from committee? Hearing none, Alderman. Madam chair. Yes, Alderman Bergalis.

Thank you, Madam Chair. My question is why do we only ask for a million when we are spending much, much more than that on local roads and our need is much more than what we can afford?

So the state actually determines how much allocation is and $1,000,000 is much, much greater than most other municipalities receive throughout the state. So we are just providing an allocation through this program.

Appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you.

Any questions from committee? Hearing that, Ardentwoman Taylor would move adoption. Hearing objections, so order. Item number six, file number two 50905. Subsidy resolution authorizing the commissioner of public works to execute a project agreement and appropriating funds for these purposes. For the cost sharing memo of understanding between the city of Milwaukee and the Deer District LLC. For the cost sharing of sidewalk replacement on North Bell R Phillips in the 4th Automatic District with city share of a $125,000.

Good morning. Holly Rittenbeck with DeepW again. So this agreement is with Deer District. They will be, they have a permitted development that is taking place on North Bel Air Phillips Avenue. As part of that project, they are replacing some of the sidewalk, but the sidewalk is very wide in that area and there are portions of it that are in city right of way that are in poor conditions. So we would like to replace the portions that are outside their development limits so that it looks nice.

Any questions from committee? Hearing now, Audremyer Obama will move adoption. I'm hearing no objections to order. Item number seven, file number two five zero eight three seven, ordinance relating to eligibility for deferred special assessments.

Good morning. Holly Ruttenbach with DPW again. This is for increasing the household income from $30,000 to $35,000 based off of the current poverty rates.

Any questions from committee?

Madam chair. One has to apply for this, correct?

That is correct. So with each billing, we send not only on the back of their bill,

there is information on the deferred assessments program,

but then we also include an insert that

is in both English and in Spanish describing

the requirements.

We currently have five applicants on that program. Okay. Even with all of that, yeah, advertising.

Alright. Thank you.

Any other questions from committee? Hearing none. Order member Smiling will move passage. Hearing objections for order. Item number eight, file number 250820.

Resolution directing the commissioner of public works to execute a document titled second revision state municipal agreement for a state led highway project with the Wisconsin Department of Transportation for the programming, design, and real estate acquisition and construction of North Green Bay Road from West Capital Drive to West Silver Spring Drive and to set up additional funds for design engineering at an estimated total cost of $685,000 with an estimated city share of a 171,250 and a grantor share of $513,750.

Good morning. David Tapia, major projects manager. So this is to increase funding to continue the design towards a final product.

Any questions on committee? The motion by Alderman is adoption. Are there any objections to that motion? Hearing nine. Order item number nine. File number 250876. Resolution authorizing the commission of public works to execute change orders to Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District Green Infrastructure Grant funding agreements for projects at various locations in the city of Milwaukee.

Yeah. Good morning. Tony Jasik, DPW Environmental. So this file authorizes change orders between two existing funding agreements with MMSD. One was for a green parking lot project. The other one was for four to construct four green alleys. So the green parking lot project is no longer going forward and being pursued by DPW. So grant funding for that project is not needed. That grant funding was scheduled to expire at the end of the year. So MSD has prepared some change orders to allow that grant funding that was slated for the green parking lot project to pay for a portion of the Green Alley project.

So essentially what we're doing is shifting from one grant agreement that has less stringent requirements and then to one that expires at the end of the year. So we can utilize that grant funding. The grant funding that we save then or that gets transferred will then be able to be used for future green infrastructures outside of 2025, so next year and beyond. Any

questions from committee? Alright. Alderman Taylor, what move adoption? Hearing no objections, so order. Item number 10, file number two five zero eight seven eight, resolution directing the commissioner of public works to execute execute a document titled six revisions 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 increase for the project of $107,000 with an estimated increase of grantor share of $2,564,800 and an estimated decrease of city share of $2,457 two, oh, I'm sorry, $2,457,800

Good morning. David Tappy, major projects manager again. This is a revision to the agreement that takes into account the raise grant that the Department of Transportation got. We're getting 10% of that to offset some of our costs.

Any questions from committee? Can you say that you're getting 10%? I don't sound. Yes.

The grant was for $25,000,000 and we'll be getting $2,500,000 of that to offset some of our costs. Okay.

Thank you.

Any other questions from committee? Hearing that, other woman title will move adoption. Are there any objections to that motion? Hearing that, so ordered. Item number 11, file number 250395. Subsidy resolution to break a portion of North South Alley in the block bounded by East Layton Avenue, East Oxford Avenue, South Lenox Street, and South Pine Avenue in the 13th Automatic District.

Good morning. Thank you, madam chair. John Alaska, Department of City Development. The file before you is to vacate an approximately 44 foot length of an unimproved 20 foot alley. As you can see that alley dead ends and has never really been improved.

This is just pulling back what is dedicated right of way to where the alley truly ends. It was requested by the neighboring property owner in order to integrate that unimproved portion into her backyard. The alley would be split fifty-fifty between the property owners on either side to expand the backyards. I think the piece really worth noting here is the south half of the block is developed so that garages are accessed from the alley whereas the north half is developed so that garages are accessed from the corresponding roads. So this doesn't really restrict access for anyone. It just maintains the existing infrastructure as is. And the applicant is present if you have any questions for her.

Any questions from committee? When we vacate alleys, we usually do it for free.

There is an application fee that covers the the cost of city time and then during the review, there is DPW like identifies any costs associated with it because it's land dedicated for public right away. It doesn't quite work with real estate where we can set a price. The state statute is pretty clear that it just reverts back to the the land from whence it came is kind of the idea.

Thank you. Any questions for committee? Hearing that alderman bombing would move adoption. Are there any objections to that motion? Hearing no so order. Item number 12, file number two five zero five one seven. Substitute resolution to vacate in East West Alley in the block West of North Val R Phillips Avenue, North Of West Philly in the 6th Automatic District.

Hello, Johnny Lasko again. This is once again a right of way vacation. This one, however, is an improved alley in the Haymarket area of downtown. This is part of a very industrial improvements construction the

of in

building. Of we Its main use currently is as access to the loading dock north of it, which is owned by Artistic PlatingAdvanced Plating. They have recently acquired the building to the south and they are requesting this vacation in order to expand their business. They are a longtime operator in the area as well as to continue access to the loading dock. This is a case to your previous question where DPW did identify $15,400 to cover equity in the catch basin that's in the alley as well as recurbing of where the alley meets the road and rebuilding of that walk.

That being said, with it being a driveway approach for the loading dock, if they were to want to leave that open so they could continue to use it, they would need to get the appropriate permits for that and it would be any portion of that deposited monies would be refunded if it was not used.

And the you said the business owner on one side bought the other building on the other side. So it's the same owner on both sides?

Yeah. So it's different LLCs, but they're all owned by the same. And the applicants are again here to answer any questions if you have them.

I think this is the zoning file that we're here.

No. It was different.

Oh, that's different?

It was on about four of

The the condos that were

I've met with them since the interview.

Oh. Respectfully. Respectfully. Yeah. Those are across the the street, I believe. Across the church. So and here are some more context photos. You can see here's that loading dock I was describing. And then you you can see it's a very tight alley. An industrial truck just isn't going to be able to utilize that and that's how this block has been almost fully industrial users with a few others.

All right. Any other questions from committee?

I guess just like a bigger picture one. I mean, seems fine if the property is requesting it. There's no objection or no need for us to maintain the alley. But what just broadly, what is the if somebody lives next to an alley and wants the city to vacate it? I mean, this just something that we I guess is there an ordinance related to this? I'm not familiar with how this process works.

Yes. So the ordinance lives in and I'm blanking on what part of the MCO it is. It's the chapter that's titled Department of City Development and it

pretty clearly

outlines who qualifies to vacate right of way and the The process for first step that we strongly, strongly encourage is meeting with DCD and Department of Public Works staff to discuss it. I think there's a lot that kind of come up like you're describing where someone would be interested in vacating an active alley and we kind of push them gently in another direction when it's actively used right of way. That being said, everyone does have a right to apply for that vacation. As part of the process, any of the neighbors that immediately abut the right of way to be vacated do sign off on a petition that's then recorded against the properties so that future buyers know this process has been started as well as notices go out to the property owners along any part of the impacted right of way that is not being vacated basically. So, if you know if if the alley were to be dead ended further back, the rest of the people on the dead end are notified of the the request and have an opportunity to object as well and we review the Department of City Development reviews this on the basis of current and future public purpose for the right of way.

If it impacts like traffic flow, how relates to sort of our plans for the city, the city has adopted comprehensive plans. If it would impact health, safety and wellness, that would be fire access and emergency response access and sort of that criteria. We are trying to make sure that right of way that is excess can be vacated when it's appropriate and that right of way that can serve even if it's a future use. You know, if there's a vacant parcel that might need alley access, that might be a reason to keep an alley open.

Okay. Thank you. I was just curious. Appreciate it. Sounds like there's a good process in place though.

Alright. Any other questions from committee? Elder Wilma Tyler will move adoption. No. Hearing objections to order.

Thank you.

Item number 13, file number 250909. Substitute resolution approving the execution of a maintenance license agreement with Nativity Jesuit Academy setting forth the maintenance responsibilities of DPW and Nativity Jesuit for the Nativity Jesuit pedestrian mall in the 8th Automatic District.

Good morning, madam chair. Alders, James Washington, public works coordination Manager. So this file is for DPW to enter into a license agreement with Nativity Jesuit Academy. The previous file, 241341, established the Nativity Jesuit pedestrian mall on 29th Street South Of Orchard. So with this, they are going to have a soccer field, a basketball court, and some other amenities to be used by the school but also be used by the public.

And with that, it's in the public right of way and there's items that DPW doesn't normally maintain. So this is entering into a maintenance agreement that basically outlines that the school will be taking care of the majority of the maintenance items for this facility.

Questions on committee? Yeah.

I'm sure. Uh-huh. Yeah. Thank you. So, you know, I I don't recall the I'm looking at the legislation text here. The the previous file 241341. When was that when was that passed? When was that discussed? I'm I'm just curious about the the process leading up to this.

I don't have the exact date, but I believe it was late last year.

Okay. Mhmm.

And that would

have been okay. So there what I'm seeing happening here is the original file of 241341 was authorizing the project for them to vacate. It sounds like we're we're 29th. Okay. So from understanding this text, we're 29th Intersects Orchard. There's a complex of buildings all around there. We're going to be they're asking for 29th South Of Orchard. This looks like approximately 180 feet south of that to be vacated. So, that's already been approved and then this is the maintenance agreement for that that gives them some responsibility for this for the what they're going to be building on this pedestrian mall.

Is that correct?

In essence, yes. Okay. There's a small detail that's important. Yeah. It was not vacated. It was converted to a pedestrian mall. So it's still public right

of way.

Okay. Thank you for that's what I meant in my mind. So thanks for yes. That's yeah. Yeah. But I used the wrong word there. Thank you. No. That's it is so this maintains public right of way. I guess my other question would just be, like, okay.

So they're gonna put some different things on here. And thank you colleagues for humoring me on this because I wasn't here for this discussion, but they're gonna be putting some amenities there. And then, you know, always with this stuff, like but one of the one of the things that comes to my mind when we have these things and when we have public property that we're using, you know, for a quasi private purpose or or even when we're actually vacating a road, you know, for a private purpose is or we enter these agreements with different entities to manage our our collectively owned property is just what, you know, we're gonna be doing regarding, you know, First Amendment activity and all that stuff. I mean, this is it sounds like a religious organization, you know, so I guess one of the concerns that comes to my mind is just like, you know, making sure that everybody has a First Amendment right on that property to wear clothing or religious iconography or whatever for whatever religion they're expressing when they're on this property because it's still gonna be property of the city Milwaukee in the First Amendment and people's rights won't be shedded because it's not being vacated to private property.

Is that correct?

Correct. So Okay. Yeah. It still has all the or the city still has all the rights and privileges as it's being public right

of way.

So that

does not change.

Yeah. Okay. Cool. So people's pollute. So if somebody, you know, wore something, I mean, I'm I'm gonna just spitball here but, you know, I'm assuming this is Catholic. The the fact that this, you know, somebody wore say a shirt that affirmed our rights to an abortion that they will not be ejected from this property because they're wearing a pro choice T shirt and it goes against the potential political opinions of Nativity Jesuit.

I guess I don't wanna make a legal response, but the intent is that this is still remaining public right of way. So anything that you can do in public right away, you should still be able to do here.

Okay. Cool. So that including yeah. Okay. Great. And that and that includes their freedom of the right to express their religious beliefs as well, you know, from my political perspective. But just wanna make sure that we're not, you know, given, you know, people's attitudes about whether this nation is a Christian nation or not. And I don't believe this nation was founded on Christianity myself personally, but just wanna make sure that, you know, we're respecting everybody's religious and political rights no matter what the opinion of the Catholic Catholic church or Christian nationalist is in this country. So, thank you.

Is this similar to what we did with

Val Phillips or whatever by Pfizer?

4th Street?

Yes. So you're you're referred to the Deer District. So the Deer District is also set up as a pedestrian wall.

Okay.

What are we

I guess the most accurate analog to this is last year, we did the same thing for Rogers Street Academy. That's on 24th And Rogers Street. It's similar to that. That's the closest thing.

Okay. Okay.

Cool. Yeah. The so I I guess because I wasn't around for that debate as well that you're talking about the old the part of Oldville that was vacated for the Deer District. That that stretches.

That's still in the vacated.

But wasn't that good? They wanted to

be vacated but other ottoman bombing strongly fought for, wisely fought for because he was like, what if it fails? And then we gave them a whole street.

Yeah.

So, it ended. Right. And we weren't even thinking about that but he brought it up. So, we ended up not vacating it but doing an agreement to turn into a pedestrian mall. No, that's really good.

I I I appreciate that. So, that strip in between the building right in front of Fiserv Forum is still the title or right of way by the city of Milwaukee. Correct. That this one in question and this will be as well then too.

Okay. Correct.

Okay. Great. Cool. No. I just I just want to bring that up. Know, as somebody who's been politely or not so politely asked to leave different places for exercising my First Amendment rights that I, you know, believe that are God given in this country. You know, I just want to make sure that we can all exercise our rights no matter who no matter who has maintenance agreement with any sort of our, you know, parts of our property. Thank you.

Any other question? Okay. Audit man Brown remove adoption. Are there any objections to that motion? Hearing none, so ordered.

Item number 14, file number 241368. Motion relating to the recommendations of the public works committee relating to licenses. Is there a Sean Yarber with us? Sean Yarber. Is this his first non appearance, mister?

Good morning. Jim Cooney, licensed division. This is his first non appearance. We were in contact with the applicant about this meeting. It was scheduled because his driver's license was suspended due to failure to pay forfeiture. He has since paid the ticket. As to his non appearance today, don't know why I was expecting him to be here. It is, to answer your question, is the first non appearance.

So do we hold this or does he no longer need this because he paid for the 40

Well, if we hold it, it's stuck in committee. If the committee wants to make a motion to approve it, that would have the same end result as if he would have paid the ticket prior to filing the renewal which triggered today's hearing.

And we've seen proof of payment?

Yeah. The MPD confirmed it this morning.

That is not the legal requirements of appearance like it is with licensing.

Charles Gresham, Assistant City Attorney. I don't believe that there is a requirement for it. However, again, it's this committee's decision as to whether or not to pass it or I mean, you could pass it back administratively to the licenses committee to then pass it administratively so that this body doesn't make the determination if you are worried about appearance requirement, which I don't think there is.

How do we send it back? It just say something.

The motion is to remove from the table.

Wow. I've never heard that motion before. Okay. So the only reason it was in front of us because he didn't pay the amount and he since paid it. It probably is cleaner just to have a motion to remove it from the table. Okay. So moved. The motion by Alderman Brower is to remove it from the table. Are there any objections to that motion? Hearing none, so ordered. Thank

you. Thank you.

I never heard that

motion before.

Item number 15, file number 250628. Resolution approving a fifth amendment to lease agreement with T Mobile Central LLC relating to extending the term of the lease at Holly Grove Water Tower, 5701 West McKinley Avenue.

Good morning. Patrick Pauley, Water Works Superintendent. This is an extension of an existing lease for cellular facilities located at the Water Works Holly Tank. With T Mobile, the terms were to extend for five years and then T Mobile has the option to extend for an additional two five year terms. The rent payment is a continuation of what started in 2000 and has the 5% increase per year, which we've been able to hold steady despite some cell companies asking for less of an increase.

When we extended a similar lease with Verizon in 2023, there was some question about whether we were receiving fair compensation. So we asked the LRB to do a study and when they came back in 2023 with their study, they confirmed that Verizon's lease payments to us were higher than the national average. The payment in 2023 was a little less than the local average for similar leases but the 5% increase was greater than what other leases had asked for. So in this instance, T Mobile is paying more than Verizon is this So point in we believe this is fair compensation for the extension of the lease agreement for an additional five year term followed by two potential five year extensions.

What is the time period for the contract with T Mobile at this location currently?

It expires on December and it began in November 2000 and so this is the fifth amendment.

And this amendment is for how long?

This will be a five year term initially and then T Mobile has the opportunity to opt in for two additional five year terms. So it can extend another fifteen years.

Any questions from committee?

Yes. Just a few comments, Madam Chair. Yes. So first of all, thank you. Thank you, Superintendent, for your hard work at the Water Works. We really appreciate this. I really appreciate hearing that this lease agreement is at least at market. I mean, just hearing some of your thoughts here that some of these telecom companies have the hubris to ask us for reductions when your average consumer is not going to get any reduction on their bill at all by T Mobile or Verizon or U. S. Cellular or any of the other outlets that are out there fleecing America right now.

So just appreciate that we're able to get the full value from this. I mean, we can go even higher in the future with negotiations, that'd be great. I mean, obviously, I think the dynamic that's present right in front of us is a dynamic that we should observe, which is that we have an extremely well run utility in our city's waterworks. And we have other utilities like the telecom providers, like the Internet providers, Spectrum, everyone's favorite utility, Spectrum, and everyone's even more favorite utility, We Energies, out there that aren't in the public domain and aren't under the hands of of good operators like our superintendent here. So I just want to comment that, know, I'm gonna, you know, we should we should approve this because we should, you know, have this lease and people need cell phone service in the city.

So we should have a tower there. But I just want to comment that, like I think this dynamic should be apparent to everybody that we have some utilities that are working really well and other utilities that are both fleecing customers like T Mobile and other and maybe this wasn't T Mobile but other utility

that's

a a good good one. Question. I They that's are on with the water works. I can't speak to the remainder of their lease agreements. Okay. Okay. Very good.

Any other questions from committee?

I'm just yes, madam chair. Yes, I just want to note, thank you, Alderman Baumann, for bringing that up. I've said it before this committee, I'll say it again. It's worth saying for the record that any time a customer of T Mobile or any telecom provider Spectrum or We Energies fails to make a payment, they're cut off right away. So thank you for providing the information on what you're aware of with Waterworks. And if there's other telecom providers out there that aren't current with their payments to the city of Milwaukee, well, they don't deserve to have service from the city of Milwaukee. That's what they'd say to a customer and we should be saying that to them. Thank you.

Alright. Any other questions? Hearing none. The motion, item one, and Tyler is adoption. Hearing objection is so ordered. Item number 16, phone 250813, communication relating to the semi annual reporting to the common council by the Milwaukee Water Works and Department of Public Works regarding lead service line replacements.

Good morning again. Again, Patrick Pauley, waterworks superintendent. Joanna, thank you. I usually have to request your assistance and Tom, thank you. You knew right away that I was in need of technical.

I am right now too, so we're not there yet. Okay. They've changed us up on us, so it's a little.

Well, while he's doing that, I do have a a specific question that you can give me an answer to later. I had a town hall meeting last night, and one of the residents brought up land service line replacements that they noticed being done on blocks near them on the 23 And 2400 Block Of Holton. This particular resident lived on a 2600 Block, and his basic question was when is Arbilight gonna get done? And so I told him that we would inquire and see when that block is on the schedule to be done. So if you could get that to me when you can, I'd appreciate it.

Will do.

I've got out your way there as best I can. You should be able to just advance that.

With the space?

Yeah. Okay.

Michelle, would you like to?

Good morning. Michelle Dottarajan, water quality manager with Milwaukee Water Works.

So we are here to deliver the semiannual LSL report and normally we are late in the agenda and the meeting has gone long and I say I am going to go really quickly and respect everybody's time. I don't need to say that but I am still going go really quickly.

All right.

And a lot of this initial information is information that's been shared multiple times before and we are all very familiar with the risks of lead exposure and to young children and pregnant women, women of childbearing age. This is the diagram of the service line. Am very familiar with the fact that the curb stop which typically lies in the property line delineates the ownership between public and private. These are some of the milestones in the waterworks history related to lead and lead service lines. The only addition here is we talked about it at our last meeting that the LCRA improvements were finalized last October.

They will be effective 11/01/2027, which starts the ten year clock to replace OLED service lines that there has been quite a bit of coverage about. We are also well aware of the ordinance requirements that went into effect 01/01/2017, nearly nine years ago now. And then as of 01/04/2024, the cost share was eliminated for property owners of one to four unit residential properties that qualified for the program. So the average cost continues to drift down, which is really good news. I think you will remember we were well over $11,000 per location at the beginning.

The average cost as of this June, a little under $8,300 The public side is stabilized at right around $4,500 That includes the pavement restoration and excavation and the roadway. So that was always expected to be a little bit more. The private side continues to come down slowly primarily because of the prioritization program where we're working in neighborhoods and the cost effectiveness of working block by block and doing attempting to do every service on the block certainly brings efficiencies that the contractors have recognized and it reflects in their bid prices. Our 2025 budget, the goal is 3,500 replacements. This is the breakdown.

We had to we have less replacements in our base program which is the leaks, failures, child cares. So we have expanded the prioritized by a couple 100 to meet that goal. You will see here that we have completed 2,155 as of mid September. We need to complete 100 a week for the remainder of the year. We are on pace to do that.

We do have contractors under contract to perform 100 per week. We are lagging a little in child cares. We have quite a few of them that we are working on the consents and the right of entries and the scheduling. That number will rise by the end of the year. I know that even since September 15, have been working out quite a few child cares. I mentioned that we had to increase the prioritization program. That's partly because there were a few small paving projects where we replaced the service lines prior to paving, but there was no large in the past we have had National Avenue. Next year we have Sherman Avenue. Will be working Sherman Boulevard. We will be working on Sherman Boulevard to replace lead service lines before that paving project.

So we did adjust those numbers. But any other number you will see here is the owner request program. That started just this year. That was the result of the ordinance in 2024. We have 46 completed to date and anticipate getting to near 80.

So it will be another somewhat frantic finish to the year with 100 per week, but we do believe we are going to get very, very close to that 3,500 goal. Here is the list of lead safe outreach we do. This doesn't include all the individual outreach that is being performed as part of the prioritization program related to neighborhood outreach and open house hours and the multiple transmills we send. The one thing of note here is the lead copper rule requires us to send annual notifications to every property that either has a lead service line or has a material unknown designation for their pipe. And so we have we sent them out last October.

We will excuse me, November. We will send them out again this November. There are more than 30,000 properties that have material unknown on the private side. Those are nearly all of them are anticipated to be determined to be copper because the public side is we know is copper from the permit record. But we do need to get inside those homes and visually inspect to confirm the presence of copper.

And so we've been having our meter techs do that since 2018. They have made it through 60,000 properties. But there are another 30,000 that we need to get investigated before the 2027. We are also going to send a postcard to those locations in November this year with instructions and a QR code of how they can take pictures for us, upload them to the website and then we can have our meter technicians review the pictures, confirm copper, make the change in our records because we do need to get those unknowns off our plate quite honestly because until in 2027, if they are still labeled unknowns, we have to count them as lead and we do not want to do that. Madam Chair, may

I ask

a question?

I'm sorry to interrupt the superintendent. Okay, if we know on the public side that it's copper, I mean, what's the maybe this is not maybe that's maybe there's something I'm not catching here but what's there's not the high likelihood that the material is spliced at the property line. I mean, wouldn't can we could you elaborate on that? Like, how do we how do we not know on the private side? Because I'm assuming what you're when you say private side, you're striving at the edge of the terrace where the property line goes.

There's the the public the public piece of the lead service line and the private would be from the edge of the terrace of the property line into the into the home. Am I correct on that? Correct. And then so if we know on the public side that it's copper, I mean, what what is the likelihood that they were that there would be a spliced material and then it therefore would be different like lead? I mean, we just just for my own identification, can we just assume that it is that it's?

We would like to assume it's very, very low. We will likely find that greater than 95% of this, I would say it may approach 99%, will turn out to be copper on the private side. There are we have heard there are instances where if a home was built prior to the ban on lead and it had a lead pipe running out to a well, for instance. Yeah. When the water main was put in and the new service was installed, the plumber may have chosen just to disconnect that lead service from the well piping and connect the new copper. So that could happen. And they

would have spliced it basically.

And they would have spliced it. Okay. That would be a very rare instance. And we do have records of as I said, we've been to 60,000 locations already and checked for internal piping. So we could make a statistical analysis that would validate what I'm telling you that, you know, 99, 95% of the time we're going to find copper. But we out but the DNR also requires us to put eyes on it as well.

I mean, and that makes sense. I'm not saying that I'm not suggesting at all that we should just, you know, make assumptions that we're doing this public policy work, but I just I was curious about that. Thank you for answering that. Sure.

You said the DNR required you to put eyes on it. That's even with the pictures is fine. Yes.

If we have pictures, we'll ask for pictures that show the meter and show the meter number so that we can confirm that it's the meter is assigned to the account at that address and then we can tell them that we reviewed the picture and we can see that it is copper and they, yes, they will accept that.

Okay. All

right. I am going hand it over to Michelle for the water quality discussion.

Okay. So when talking about the testing results, I always start with this slide to make sure everybody is on the same page about our testing protocol. After lead service line replacement, we collect we ask the customers to collect three bottles and we do this after at least six hours of stagnation. So usually first thing in the morning or after everybody's been out of the house for the day so the water is sitting still in the pipes. That gives it time for any lead to leach into the water to create like a worst case scenario.

So after that period of stagnation, they collect the first sample as soon as they turn on the tap and that's going to be representative of the water sitting in their internal plumbing and in their faucets. And then after forty five seconds, we ask them to collect the second bottle which if it's a single family home estimates the water that would be in their service line. And then three minutes later they collect the third bottle which is typically water coming fresh from the main for you know it depends on the length of the plumbing but this is based on a typical single family home. So that way when you see the results for bottles one, two and three, can you go back

please? Then

you'll know what that represents. So in terms of the number of tests conducted, we have tested two sixty six water samples at 137 different properties. Broken down by project, it's a little bit misleading because LSL replacements, child cares and prioritization LSLRs are pretty much all lead service line replacement related testing. They're just broken up based on LSL replacements as our own internal testing. The child cares is also internal but it's specifically at child care locations because we have a different testing threshold.

And then the prioritization refers to the testing that's being done as part of our expansion of the program by another entity. And then the elevated BLLs is I'll talk a little bit more about later but that has to do with our partnership with the health department to test the lead in water at residents where the child has been identified to have an elevated blood lead level. In terms of the average results, they're all below on average each bottle is below three parts per billion which is excellent news. We do see on average higher results from bottle number one which is likely due to the variability in faucets and internal plumbing components. So if someone has a faucet that was installed before 2014 or they have some lead solder connecting pipes in their home, they have lead or galvanized plumbing, these can all be potential sources of lead in that first bottle.

Bottles bottle number two is a little bit elevated which you know some could be carryover, some could be the lead service line. Although a lot of these samples were taken after the lead service line replacement. And then the third one is very low. We did have one result that was above the EPA action level of 15 parts per billion and I'll talk about that on the next slide. But just some general statistics, all the childcare results during the six month period were below one part per billion which is excellent.

And we did have five results that were above the 10 part per billion new action level that's coming in 2027 but below 15 parts per billion. Next slide. These are the six properties where we did have results above 10 parts per billion. Since most of these are or

actually I think all of

these were after a lead service line replacement, generally it's caused by construction debris that gets caught somewhere in the plumbing, possibly at the aerator. We do ask everyone to remove aerators and flush their house after construction. But sometimes it's not enough or sometimes people don't follow through and so that's why we try to do this testing to make sure that their lines are cleared out. So when we do get an elevator result, the first thing we do is reach out to the resident within usually within twenty four hours and we let them know about the result. We ask them to remove their aerators and do a whole house flush and we offer them another testing kit so they can make sure that it was effective.

Unfortunately, while some of these were fairly recent so we may not have gotten them to follow through on the testing yet but it possibly could come in the future. But so far we've only had one of them follow through on the testing, the second test and the retest results were below five parts per billion.

Just a quick question. Sure. How soon after do they should they be retesting?

As soon as they can do the whole flush and then let it stagnate again. It could be I mean, if people had nothing else to do with their life, it could be within a day or two basically. But realistically, it can take weeks or months depending on what going on in people's lives and when they follow through, you know, we will check back in. Usually if they've gotten the retest kit and they haven't given it back to us, we'll follow-up with them. You know, oftentimes they'll say, oh, sorry, I was just busy. And then sometimes they will follow through and get to it.

Okay. And Michelle, we drop off the kits and pick up the kits.

Correct. The prioritization program has a different system where they mail the kit to the customer and then the customer has to mail it back. But our internal program, we actually have staff that drive to people's houses and they if they're willing to use texting to do it, we'll use that because it's very convenient for most customers. So we'll text them and say we dropped it off on your porch and they'll text us back and say okay, it's ready for pickup. So we do door to door service for that.

In addition to monitoring the lead, we also monitor the pH and orthophosphate very carefully. These parameters are important for making sure that water chemistry is conducive to preventing corrosion. And so the DNR has set minimum levels for our distribution samples for these parameters and those are represented by the yellow lines on the graphs. And the blue dots are individual sample results through throughout the last six month period January to June. And so you can see that at no point have we dropped below our DNR required minimums.

We did have one kind of outlier in our phosphate levels. This can happen sometimes during construction if some particles get loose of the phosphate coating. And just to illustrate what I'm talking about at the bottom right corner is a picture of pipes that have been removed from service and you can see that kind of whitish yellowish coating in there. That's that orthophosphate food additive that creates the lining to prevent lead corrosion. So if a little, you know, a few particles of that comes loose during some disturbance, that's how you can get an occasional outlier like that blue dot in the lower left graph.

Our EBLL testing program is something we started last May with the health department to make sure that if children are identified to have an elevated blood lead level, we are checking the lead in the water in their home. It is of course optional to that family as to whether or not they follow through and so we haven't been seeing as much follow through as we hoped for with this program because they have a lot on their plates. But in the samples that we have collected, especially in this last six month period, all the results were below five parts per billion. So this doesn't seem to be the primary source of the elevated blood lead level. But it's helpful when they do follow through with the testing so that we can verify that.

And then this is a summary of some of the changes that are coming with the lead and copper rule improvements starting in November 2027. We've gone over these before so I'm not going to list them out but they're there for you for reference. But one thing I did want to highlight in purple is that we did start this week on pilot testing for schools and child cares and we did this for two reasons. One is we wanted to kind of work out the kinks with MPS to make sure that we have a good system, we know who to work with, contact who to collect and pick up the samples, and to make sure that we get to all the schools. And the other reason is just this is there's a very large scope to this.

We're talking about any school that serves children in first through eighth grade, any private, public, everything and all the child cares. There are many, many child cares in the city of Milwaukee and it's always changing. And so we would like to get an early start on it because the early testing results could be submitted for waivers so that we can kind of count those as completed before the 2027 timeline starts. I'll pass it back to

Thank you. Okay. So funding, the most important piece of information on this slide is that the federal allocations from the EPA to the states for federal fiscal year 2025 have not been made yet. They are typically done in May. We heard this year that they were going to be delayed because for the first time the EPA was taking into account how many lead service lines existed in each of the states and they knew that because inventories were required to be submitted last year in October.

This has gone on far longer than anyone anticipated. We have been in contact with the DNR. They couldn't give us a timeframe for when the allocations will be made. They are preparing to issue the funding awards, is typically done in October, as quickly as possible once the allocations have been made. And we had applied for $50,000,000 for federal fiscal year 2025.

I think we were not confident we would receive all $50,000,000 but we were very hopeful that we would receive principal forgiveness to cover the full private side cost for 5,000 replacements in 2026. So we are waiting on that. We do have funding from this year that will cover a portion of the 2026 replacement. So we have already issued contracts for 800 replacements in 2026 and we anticipate enough funding remaining from this year's award to cover those first 800. But we do the concern is growing related to those funding allocations.

We also need to submit our intent to apply for the federal fiscal year 2026 funding by the October. So we will be working on that in the next few weeks. We talked about the prioritization program when we mentioned how many replacements we have finished this year. 15 neighborhoods were included. The consent process has gotten better for us.

There has been quite a bit more outreach on the front end that has limited the number of properties that end up going to DNS for enforcement. And so we were at an 87% consent rate for this year's prioritization program, which and that's as of September 15, which is very good. We always knew that it would be difficult to exceed 90% in some of these locations. That's been the history of the program since 2017. I mentioned we are going to increase to 5,000 total in 2026 and we are going to expand the prioritization program to achieve that 5,000 goal.

And then the owner request program, I also mentioned that we started replacement related to that program. We had over 900 applicants. We sent invitation letters, for lack of a better term, to 120 for this year's program. We will send invitation letter for over 200 for next year's program and then we plan to do 200 a year moving forward so we can reduce that backlog significantly. And that's the program where if an owner agrees to pay the lesser of the actual cost or the average cost for the private side replacement, we will include them in the replacement program, use our contractor to replace the full service line which and it also allows them to repay that amount as a tax assessment over fifteen years.

So it makes it the cost is far less if they are included in our program rather than retain a contractor on their own and then the ability to repay it over fifteen years is a great benefit as well. So we did have quite a bit of interest in that, over 900 applicants and we'll try to work through that list. We're hoping to do about 100 a year. And this is our footprint for the prioritization program, which is we have made quite a bit of progress in the three years and that includes the 2026 will be the largest of the three. But those are the core focus areas of the prioritization program. So we're trying to fill that fill those areas up. Any questions?

Yes. I have questions in relation to water testing at NPS schools. I'm just trying to understand, you know, how to constituent reach out to me and I'm trying to learn more to give her proper answer. She said that I want to say maybe in 2017, you would have been here for that. The council did a resolution that would require charter schools to test for lead and water but it doesn't seem that the council has done the same for MPS but maybe there's a reason for that.

Do you want me

to? Well, I guess Michelle may not have I hesitate to wade out of my area of expertise because it involves MPS and the health department, both of which can probably speak more knowledgeably about this.

Well, it's it's water that does the testing for in lead in MPS schools, right? Or no?

It it is not currently. No.

Okay. So, water is not testing?

No. But we, as Michel mentioned, we will be required as part of the LCR, the Lead and Copper Rule improvements, to test a limited number of fixtures in every elementary school, 20% per year for five years. And I think that is a one time requirement if

That is a one time requirement but then after that we have to be available to do the testing upon request and also for all secondary schools upon request.

So when you say limited fixtures, just maybe one per floor or

Five fixtures per school and then two fixtures per childcare.

And I'd assume that to capture lead, you don't have to test every fixture, right? Is that why that's only the five per school?

I think the purpose of it of limiting it was just to I mean, it's already a massive undertaking if you think about how many schools are in the city of Milwaukee. So I think it was just to make it more doable, I guess. And to get they tried to identify specific types of faucets to make sure that it was representative of what people are drinking from. So they require two drinking fountains, a classroom faucet, nurses faucet and I think a kitchen faucet. So they're trying to focus on the faucets that are most relevant to what people are consuming.

And how to determine what schools?

All the schools.

Oh, all the schools. Yes. Every school.

Right. That's why we're doing the pilot test to get an early start on it because it's a

lot. What elementary school?

First through eighth grade, yes.

Not the high schools.

They're it's starting in '20 well, I don't remember if it's starting in 2027 or after the five year period, but they can request the testing. They're not we're not required to test every secondary school, but they can we're required to test it upon request.

Okay. And what about the vacant MPS buildings?

That sounds like it might be up for interpretation and I would certainly not prioritize them in the first year, I guess. But we would have to see what happens with those vacant buildings going forward and consult the DNR to find out what their interpretation is.

Okay. Any other questions from committee members?

Go ahead. No, no, you first please. Yes, yes. So what are the factors like, I guess, I'll just say that my personal opinion on this is that I would like to see these done as quickly as possible. So I'm wondering, can we explain more about the compliance date? It looks like the clock, a ten year clock starts little a a a

bit

And what are the factors around the replacement schedule just broadly? I'd be

curious. Well, where to begin? The ten year was established through the Lead and Copper Rule improvements. So the EPA established that and there's a three year period after the rules are finalized before they're effective. So the ten year there's been a lot of talk about the ten year replacement window, but in actuality it was a thirteen year

window.

I would say that the EPA tried to balance expedience with cost and also recognizing the considerable challenges associated with lead service line replacement, not only cost, contractor capacity, utility capacity, the ability to obtain the property owner's consent. I have grown very fond of the ordinance. I have to tell you in 2017, the ordinance was a huge headache for the water utility because we had never undertaken work on private property. We were I would like to think we were good at completing work in the public right of way, but adding the property owner component to the equation and the scheduling and the coordination and the just all of the concerns that

are

associated scheduling each and every one of these because they're small projects that can be completed in four hours, but that doesn't change the customer the outreach, the coordination, the scheduling, the after the fact, each of them is their own individual project. I guess where I'm going with this is I've grown very fond of the ordinance. We were way out ahead of many other parts of the country with the ordinance. The ordinance says once you're included in the program, there's no opting out. And we've used that greatly to our advantage where other communities who don't have a mandatory replacement ordinance are struggling to get property owner consent to move forward with lead service line replacement.

So we there are other outlier communities in the country, certainly Flint, Newark, Denver, Detroit is doing good things, Chicago is certainly doing good things and we talk to these other utilities. We're Pittsburgh, Cincinnati. We're on the forefront of moving forward with completing this in a ten year timeline, which is going to be an incredible challenge. We have to get over 5,000 replacements a year next year and then continue that for eleven more years. The cost is, if we rough number of $10,000 per service all in, that's about $630,000,000 remaining.

Have I've been telling people we have $65,000 remaining but that lags the numbers lag a little bit. So we're over $600,000,000 non inflation adjusted to move forward. And so as long as the federal funding I guess the short answer to your question is as long as there is federal funding available that assists us with offsetting the cost to the city and the property owner for that private side. I think it's in the water utility's best interest to absorb the cost of the public side to meet that ten year timeline. But the ten year timeline keeps me up at night.

So your question of why not quicker is I mean, we didn't know we could do 2,700 until we did it last year. This will be the first year we do 3,500. We've got addresses assembled to do 5,000 next year. We are the program is underway, but it's going to Yes. Take a

No, no, I really appreciate it. I guess a follow-up question. I just had a minor thing. When you say the EPA was setting this, is that a piece of the Inflation Reduction Act then or other federal or what was the reason the EPA is putting that particular is that an EPA date that November 2027 date? What were you talking about with the EPA in ten year timeline?

That is an EPA rule.

Okay.

The and copper, it's an addendum to the lead and copper rule. Okay. Which is first in the 90s. Okay. So there were lead and copper rule revisions that were begun under the first Trump administration. The Biden administration went further. Lead and copper rule revisions did not include a deadline to complete all lead service line replacements. The lead and copper rule improvements do include that ten year deadline.

Okay. This is part of the code of federal regulations then and that piece. Okay. So theoretically that could be just thinking about the threats to this happening successfully. If that if that you know we're losing the federal funding if let's say we, you know, I mean, this is purely hypothetical. I'm being sarcastic. This purely hypothetical. Let's say we have a fascist in the Oval Office who wants to replace, wants to get rid of our code of federal regulations and get rid of all this funding, that could be a risk to this program as well. They can eliminate the deadline and eliminate the funding as well. You don't need to comment on the president's politics, Pat. I'm not asking you to do that. Okay. But I ask you just to comment on thick. So, this could be changed then from the federal level as well. That's a risk of this to this program.

I don't know that I can answer that properly. I don't believe the EPA has any ability once a rule is finalized and in place, I believe they are prohibited from relaxing that rule. Okay. But we are in a different place now so as far I mean, the Trump administration the EPA has indicated they're in there's a lawsuit against the Lynn Copper Rule Improvements. Okay.

The Trump administration EPA has indicated that they're going to defend the rule from the lawsuit. Okay. They've also indicated they recognize that the burden of ten years for some communities is going to be very great and that they would like to I don't know what the actual make some adjustments. But I am not no one knows for sure what adjustments they could possibly make to the improvements at this point.

Got it. I may come up with further questions, I think sorry, Elder, I'm in it.

No, it's fine. And honestly, I don't really have a question. Was I'm glad you put the the cost of how you guys are the cost. So that but just your commitment to the outreach that you're doing, thank you for that because I know last time we talked to you guys had a difficult time getting people to respond, but you keep coming up with different ways of trying to, engage the community and get them to participate. So just appreciate your commitment to that.

We need to build trust. And it's hard to build trust. And so there's I mean, the more we're in these neighborhoods and completing successfully completing and the word-of-mouth people who have had successful service lines completed with minimal disruption to their property and to their life, the better chance we have of success moving forward. And so as that footprint grows, hopefully word spreads and people are receptive to signing and letting us in to do our work and step away. We just want to get in and replace the lead service line and be done with it.

Mr. Chair. Yeah, go ahead.

Yeah. A no, you were done right. Okay. Yeah. The question that came to my mind was because I know I'll get this. I think I heard sprinkles of this throughout the presentation. But if our office gets a call from a constituent that wants the lead service line replaced, what are the just so it's on record here and so we can so my staff listening can get this to get this down for when we get these calls. What are what are the steps we'll take to reach out to you guys or what are the steps involved or the likelihood that they can actually, whether they're a property owner or a tenant or whatever, get their lead service line at their property replaced then?

So if they don't qualify for the prioritization program and they I mean certainly we talk about any time there's a leak or failure on the line, that qualifies for the program childcare. If there's going to be a pavement reconstruction project or a water main replacement project, we would be in contact with them and let them know that they are part of the program. If they don't qualify for any aspects of those of that program, their two alternatives are they can retain a plumber on their own and when they do that, that plumber would be in contact with us and they would tell us they are going to replace the private side. We would coordinate with that plumber to either have him replace the public side at the same time or we would replace we would have our own crews go out and replace the public side in coordination with that private side. The property owner then is responsible for full cost of that private side replacement and as I mentioned earlier.

Just the private side though is what I am hearing from you. Just the private side replacement which is less than on average than the public side replacement.

Sure maybe I missed read the. So this if you retain your own plumber and they mobilize out to your site to do the private side, it's going to be costly which is why we try to work with that plumber as long as you are going be out there, why don't you do the public side for us as well, we will pay for the public side. Okay. Then the property owner gets a better price on the private side because both are done at once. And so that's typically how that resolves is that we will hire the private plumber to perform the public side at the same time to make it more economical for the property owner.

But I don't think it's I still don't think it's as inexpensive as if they apply to be part of the owner request program. Although there is a waiting list for that that will extend for a couple of years. Okay.

They leave it in there typically.

Yeah. My question was do you take them out or leave them there?

There is a pipe is left in the ground. Okay. And I need to be more Because careful about

I took I had lead pipes in my basement that were removed and I saved them, basically. And then we had a meeting with the guy that runs Vulcan lead over here in Pierce Street and he said we'll take them. We recycle them. They were recycled within hours. Yeah, you mentioned this. That had come as a surprise to me. In the big pot of lead, molten lead boiling. I mean, it it actually boils at a very low temperature relatively speaking like 400 degrees or so. So, they they will take that stuff rather than us leaving them in the ground. Now, sometimes they're hard to get out if they're underneath But yeah, are just sitting there.

They are very hard to get out. They are packed in clay. So they don't pull out. And that's one of the things when we first started the program, Madison was very successful at basically connecting the copper pipe to the lead pipe and pulling the lead pipe and the copper pipe followed. Then they had a new copper service in the same exact location. Our contractors attempted that repeatedly and a lot of times the cable broke because we were told the lettuce, in many cases, our lettuce packed in clay and it just will not pull out of the ground. So, in order to get it, we would have to trench it up. Even if you were

to be able to get it out, is there any risk associated with taking it out?

Like, is

it safe for to leave it there?

I I think it's safe to handle if you've got gloves on and it it's disposed of and recycled properly.

For show and tell

a year years Oh, really?

Because I I had like.

I should be letting the water quality expert handle. It's a question. It's

very interesting. Very malleable.

Yes. That's one of the curses. It's very malleable. It lasts forever.

Right.

Yep. Mean, why don't we drink out of it like the Romans did, right? I'm just being silly. But okay, so that's really clarifying. I I'll just reiterate that like I appreciate all the work that I'm hearing that's being done. I may follow-up with further questions, but I I, you know, just will comment that, you know, this is this is so important for us to be doing this. No amount of lead is safe in this city and I'm really appreciating the work of waterworks to replace this stuff. I wholeheartedly support this. I mean, my preference would be for us to move as quickly and fastly as possible as we can. Hear what you're saying as far as the constraints regarding that.

Maybe in the future we have opportunities to alleviate some of those constraints so we can move quicker than ten years. But I'm I'm just really glad to hear that we have a timeline and a window at least in place right now for us to move forward with this. Thank you.

Thank you.

Mister chair.

Go ahead.

And my apologies if you already mentioned this. I know in the past as we've discussed getting rid of these last service lines, there's been some desire to have it be some level of job creating or training or whatever since we're going be doing this for so long. Has there been any success with trying to do that as a part of it?

There has been some success. I don't think it's been as expansive as hoped. And part of the reason for that is the contractors have become very efficient at replacing lead service lines. A crew of five, six people can replace four or five services in one day with the proper equipment. What we have done most recently, we worked with WRTP Big Step and to the require more apprentices and more apprentices that were certified from a pre apprenticeship program locally which is basically WRTP, big step within the last two years.

And so we require that 50% of the apprentice, so we require 10% of the hours by discipline, which is plumber, laborer and operator be performed by apprentices and 50% of those hours be performed by apprentices that have recently graduated from a pre apprenticeship program. And then we instructed the contractors, contact WRTP, Big Step and work with them. They have people for you that in these that have graduated from pre apprenticeship programs, want to be in apprenticeship for a plumber, laborer, operator. The first and we've only done this with the larger contractors with the contracts with the hopes to expand it to all the lead service line contracts. The first contractor had reached out to WRTP and as far as my last contact with them was fulfilling those requirements.

The second contractor just started about a month ago and I made one inquiry and need to follow-up again with them. But we are trying to encouragerequire more local apprenticeships more local apprentices working on these projects.

Thank you.

Madam Chair? If

the contractor capacity is one of the bottlenecks, I'm really appreciating the fact that we're using WRTP Big Step and getting some apprentices in there. I mean, it sounds like that maybe there's an opportunity for you know, more contractors to be created or cooperative contractors be created or, I mean, what is the possibility of us hiring in house and purchasing the equipment to do this within Waterworks itself? If we've got a funding stream coming in that hasn't been disrupted quite yet by the Trump administration and so that we can, you know, and if if capacity is one of the bottlenecks to get the stuff done, what is the possibility of us buying the

that's I I question.

Are required to be spent on the public infrastructure and not the private infrastructure. So that's been the primary hurdle throughout. I think even if we could get past that hurdle, we can certainly purchase the equipment. We can hire people. We don't have any plumbers on staff currently, but we would have to hire plumbers, union scale.

Because of we would have to change how we operate to match how private contractors perform work, meaning they mobilize their equipment the night before, everyone shows up at the job site, they start work right at seven They work not that our crews quite honestly put in a lot of long hours and are perfectly willing to work the overtime hours, but put in the ten hour days and they have a system in place that differs significantly from our current operations, which is everybody reports to field headquarters. You get your assignment, you get your equipment, you mobilize to the job site, you do the work, you mobilize back. So there would be some logistical challenges and hiring challenges in addition to the PSC hurdle,

which I was going ask if that was a PSC or local ordinance.

That was a public service commission. Okay. Yes.

Mean, isn't I the work around just having it in a different department then? I mean, if they're going to say water works, the utility can't, okay, well, we have a whole another wing of the department or the whole another you're a subset of a branch of a huge department called Department of Public Works that I mean, isn't that just as, could we just potentially have a semantic workaround to say, okay, oh, they're DPW, not waterworks when they're doing that piece.

I can't say that's not in I I had they hadn't occurred to me but. I mean, I'm right if the dollars don't cross, if the dollars aren't.

No, I'm I'm just curious.

Yeah, I mean, if this. Yes and I don't want to I'm I'm I'm going way out of my comfort zone now. So.

And and Pat, I'm

not I'm

not trying to roast you too much. I just like

I'm not trying to roast you here. What I what I have to do though, you know, as as this is my my constituents aren't like demanding that action be taken on this. I mean, I've got, you know, I I do receive contacts and and as a candidate for office, mean, you know, people are, this is probably the issue of lead broadly is one of the hottest topics in this city obviously and I, you know, and then but the issue of the lead service lines is another hot topic. So, that's just why we just want to explore in this conversation since we have a communication file before us, you know, every single option so that people can watch this and hear and and we can have public dialogue about what possibilities are. So, I am not trying to, you know, roast you here at the table but I what I I do want to do is like explore if if we don't know an answer, if we can get an answer, maybe there's a possibility, maybe that's just like a little tweaking here and there.

I mean, you know, as a socialist, I'm totally in favor of expanding the role and breadth of what government does. So if we can venture into, you know, having plumbers on staff at Waterworks or in DPW, I'm me up. I'm politically in favor of that. I'd love

to it doesn't sound like that's

a PSC thing though that we can't change locally the ordinance to allow you guys to do that unfortunately. But I just wanna make sure that we're exploring every single angle when

more

I it's it's gasoline. It was a fight against the paint companies to not use it in paint. And you're right. I mean, big driver is the malleability, the durability of the product. It is a durable material that lasts. And so therefore, we can have use be efficient in our use. And apparently apparently, know, the our our German ancestors in Milwaukee were so efficient that they packed it with clay unlike they did in Madison. So we did even better here, but we're getting bit in the butt for that but I just that's that's why I'm asking all these things and I just what I wanna reiterate is the macro thing that this is a top priority for the city in my opinion.

Mister mister chair? Mhmm. Go ahead. It might be worth a conversation with the city attorney's office about how you could get around that requirement or you of you all not being able to touch the the privates. Because what came to my mind was, could you create a structure that is not waterworks, but that is a a separate thing that could kind of maybe not the same but kind of how DCD has MEDC but technically, MEDC is not DCD.

It's its own thing. I don't know. Like, it may be some legal way to to do it. And at some point, we may want to do it. Initially, when we started doing all of this, it was only a handful of contractors that would compete, so that was an issue. Has the the wealth of contractors competing for the biz, has that increased? Is that better now? Is that a healthier? Or is it still like one of, I think they used to say, companies

used It's three or four. It's Okay. It's three or four different. Right now, we have only two contractors working on lead service line replacements, two that won all of the recent bids.

Is that impacting our timetable?

Not yet, but it is certainly something to keep an eye on. Some of the initial contractors that also did water main replacements started way back in the early stages were bidding on lead service line replacements. They are no longer so they are not in the bidding pool for lead service lines anymore because the two contractors that are doing the work now, I think their experience has been there is a lot of directional drilling associated with the service line replacements and so they have experience in the telecommunication industry with drilling conduit and they have the equipment to drill service lines. And so they have and that's part of the efficiencies that have come into the market and why the cost has come down. They brought equipment that our typical underground contractors didn't have and didn't have the experience with into the market.

And so there has been a shifting but we still don't I would say we prefer a few more it's a delicate balance. We would prefer more bidders. We also like to bid larger packages of replacements because the pricing is better and then it's the more contracts you have issued, harder it is to administer them. And so and then contractors also like the bigger packages because they know their crews will be working construction season. And so we still issue some smaller contracts of 200, but then we have moved to some bigger ones of 500 and even seven fifty because there's just no way to get to 5,000 without issuing some large packages.

And so it's striking that balance of keeping some of the smaller firms interested while also having work for the larger firms to keep their work growing and it's been quite a learning experience.

I've had conversations with plumbers from the community, people on plumbing farms, and asked them why they don't build these and it's primarily been about equipment, sometimes staffing, but also the contract size.

The bonding requirements Mhmm. And the reporting requirements

through the

But I do think it's worth exploring with the city attorney if there is a potential to stand up our own team even if not now. That may need to be an option in the future.

We can do that.

Thank you.

Okay. Any more questions from committee members? Communication file. Hold. Place on a place on file.

So moved.

Which one? Item 16.

To hold or place on file.

Place on file. Thank

you. Thank you.

Here are no objections. Here

are no objections to order.

Actually, mister chair, real quick. This this says the item is a semi annual report to this committee. So, when can we expect the next

one? February.

Okay. We're typically back in February or early March. Okay.

Great. Thanks.

Alright. Thank you. Thank

you, miss Sharp.

You're welcome. Item I got it. Go ahead.

Item number 17, file number 250933, communication from Department of Public Works submitting. It's 2024 residential recycling annual report. Thank

you. Mhmm.

Morning. Rick Meyer, sanitation services manager.

Morning. Laura Stevens, resource recovery program manager. We do have the PowerPoint. And it looks like the screen is still being shared.

Is that the report?

It's the presentation with it.

But is that what you're using? Yep.

Okay. No, it's good. Awesome.

Alright. Morning, Madam Chair and members of the committee. Again, Laura Stevens, Resource Recovery Program Manager, and I am here today to share the 2024 Residential Recycling Annual Report. For the most part, this year can be broken down into two main or 2024 can be broken down into two main categories, really operations and then the outreach side of things. We'll start with the operations side and move over to the outreach.

As a brief summary, the materials recovery facility or the MRF did get destroyed in a fire in May 2023. At that same time in May, waste management, their facility in Germantown went down for a planned nine month reconstruction repair, which means there was a lot of extra material in our region that needed a home for processing. And what that looked like for the city was that our material was being transferred out of our Lincoln transfer station, which also displaced other items like our material, like our fall leaf program. So from May 2023 to really 2024, our material is being rerouted to and processed at Regional MRFs. Waste Management ended their construction in 2024.

So for the rest of that year, we were able to move all of our material management for processing, which then really helped kind of keep all of our operations in one area, made it a lot more efficient for us, which was great. And because of this moving all material to one facility, it helped streamline the hauling, which then also lowered the cost of hauling because we were going nearby to Germantown and also to one MRF. And we also received favorable pricing resulting in lower processing costs and revenue sharing for the city. More details on the program financials are on Page 18 of the full report. As for the future of the MRF, DPW and its partner in the MRF, Waukesha County, hired industry consultants, RRS, to conduct a feasibility study to determine the most effective long term option for managing the combined tonnage of Waukesha and the city.

This study evaluated the financial projections for developing and operating a public MRF and compared them to the option of transferring recyclables to a private MRF. As a result, the study's findings, Waukesha County and the City of Milwaukee jointly decided to not rebuild at the current location and to terminate the intergovernmental agreement in the year 2025. Currently, DPW continues to transfer their recyclables to Waste Management and are looking to start a process to release a bid for long term processing agreement. Their we're we're to recycling tonnage. So that brought us a to 25,700 tons about, which is an increase of 1,400 tons.

The average pounds per household increased by 15 pounds from two sixty to two seventy five. There are multiple factors that can change tonnage across all waste streams. For example, if people are buying a lot or if they decided to hold back on buying, that does impact what our tonnage could look like. However, DPW did set out to enhance programming and outreach efforts in 2024 as well, which we helped reach that 5.8. And this was with existing partners and engaging new ones to achieve that goal, which we'll come to those highlights later.

Just a quick note about the drop off center. It served about 280,000 visitors averaging over 100,000 visitors a day, marking 11% increase from 2023. Our South drop off location handles about 64% of visitors and our North manages the other 36%. Overall, between the both drop off centers, 72,000 tons were managed with 17% being diverted from landfills. And the further breakdown of these numbers is on Page sixteen and seventeen of the report.

So some of the exciting events for 2024. We were thrilled to enhance education programming with longstanding and new events and programs. One of our longstanding events is the compost bin sale. So for their thirteenth annual compost bin sale, we did move the pickup day for that. So how the sale works is that the presale is run March either March through like April or May depending on the year.

And then customers pick up the order on a different day in the summer, usually May or early June. To streamline the pickup of the orders, we did look for another location to make it more streamlined for our operation, but then also for for residents to be able to quickly get through and pick up because there are, for example, in 2024, two fifty one orders that are coming through. So we want to make sure that people can get through. And then they also, with the change, did not have to sign up for a specific time slot. We just opened up the hours between nine and four come this Saturday to come grab your order versus being like you have to be here at 09:15 to get your order.

And that we went to the 6th And Howard Sanitation Yard and that is across the street from the Garden District Neighborhood Association community garden. So we reached out office to see if there was a potential collaboration. And what came of that is a plant sale on the same day as the pickup day. And then we worked with our longstanding partner, Keep Greater Milwaukee Beautiful or KGMB to host three compost workshops. So we kind of had mini event going on where people could pick up their orders and then go to a compost workshop or

pick up

some plants for the start of the gardening season. It rained all day and it was cold, but despite all the rain, the plant sale did sell out and two fifty one bins were picked up. Moving on to a new event. So in 2024, DPW partnered with KGMB, Milwaukee Public Schools, and the Milwaukee Public Library to pilot an art program called the Recycling Contamination Gallery in celebration of America Recycles Day, which is on November 15. Keep Greater Milwaukee Beautiful visited three MPS classes to provide recycling education and guide the art project.

And the art featured items that are commonly found in the recycling stream that are contamination and students build art projects out of that. And then each at library, at Mitchell Street Library, these items were put on display. They were on display from November 15 through mid December. And under each of the art work was a little message about why that item is considered contamination and how to properly dispose of that. So over 60 students participated.

They were from South Division High School and Marshall High School and Walt Whitman. And the gallery was officially opened by Mayor Johnson with a press conference. So these are just some examples here of some of the really neat projects that the students did. They were given some of the ideas, but some students definitely took it and made it their own, which was really exciting to see how those come together. Furthermore, to promote America Recycles Day, we also collaborated with the mayor's office to create a recycling video with Mayor Johnson to teach residents about what belongs in home recycling carts and where to dispose of other materials.

More information about all the outreach efforts are on Pages seven to 12. And then if I may, we have a few twenty twenty five updates. First one is the free food scrap drop off pilot program launched in the summer this '5. This program is a partnership with the Environmental Collaboration Office through the FEED MKE program. The city received a USDA Composting and Food Waste Reduction Cooperative Agreement.

The City of Milwaukee's ECO office launched the FEEDMKE project in June 2024, which aims to bring together public, private, governmental partners to address key community challenges, including food insecurity, waste reduction, and landfill diversion. Diversion. As part of this agreement, DPW matched for the free food scrap drop off pilot program. And how this works is DPW works with community organizations to host a cart. Residents sign up online for a specific location that they drop the food waste at home.

So they will collect everything in some sort of bucket or other vessel and then bring it to the location they signed up for to dispose. And that is one step forward in getting residents more access to composting options. We still are looking for locations, community groups to become part of the program in hosting a cart. It's no cost to the organization. Really all they are doing is keeping an eye on the cart for us, letting us know if there are any issues so that we can address those right away with our hauler.

And then in line with outreach efforts, our twenty twenty five fall sanitation mailer is being distributed to households receiving DPW waste and recycling collection services. They should have started arriving Friday, so it should be through the end of the week too that these are going out. The digital copy can be found online on our media page. We also this year have printed copies available in Spanish that if you reach out to me, I can definitely drop some off for you. So within the fall mailer is also a reminder of programs like the brush collection and seasonal leaf program and information about drop off center hours as we get into the winter hours.

There is also a reminder to residents that will receive recycling collection every other week this winter and year round. What this means to the residents is crews will no longer retrieve carts from the storage location from December to March. So beginning in winter this year, '25, residents will have to set out their recycling carts for year round and will need it to get to the collection point as they do with their garbage collection. So that's also within the newsletter.

And thank you. That was the summary for 2024.

Other one, Matayla?

Looks like our pre our PowerPoint was a little bit different from what you had up there. Please. Yeah. It looks like our PowerPoint was a little bit different from what you had up there. So I don't know if you wanna share the newest version of it.

And then you also said that there was some classrooms that were visited that you guys had worked with. How often do you guys go and visit the classrooms and do programming?

The America Recycles Day event was a one time event. We are also doing that this year. All parties felt it was well received and we are looking we are now in the planning for that for November. We do work throughout their year with greater Milwaukee beautiful. They are really our in classroom partner there.

And they do in classroom programming upon request, but then they also do programming at their facility down on Vernon, which is across from the MRF, and they also used to lead the tours when the MRF was operational. So the programming for KGMB is throughout the year.

Okay. So you'll be working with several schools of different ages because I think these are high schools.

Yeah. So this year we a little teaser. We were able to come up with some more programming for different age groups. Some of the projects that were for the high schoolers do require a lot more artistic, although I probably wouldn't have been able to pull any of those off either. So it kind of depends on the person. But we have split them off into different age groups this year and each one is doing a different project that is relative to their age. And that we were getting help from KGMB and MPS in recommending what those programs could look like.

Okay. Thank you.

And those were some newly highlighted initiatives with the art project and so on. But we've had a partnership with Keep Greater Milwaukee Beautiful going back decades or more long time in terms of reaching with programming on whether it is on recycling, waste reduction, anti litter campaign messaging. We've had programs between us and DPW as well as Department of Neighborhood Services on those topics that provides outreach to schools throughout the area.

You. Madam Chair?

Are you guys interested in referrals to different schools or connections we made for a program to occur in school to meet our districts?

Absolutely. Yes. If you want to sign specific schools, we can reach out to Keep Greater Milwaukee Beautiful and see if they have any current programming in place and then talk to them about what it would look like to have our programs.

Great. I had another question as well. And this is maybe broader than your annual report, but it relates to recycling. What is the there is a statute that I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, please. There's a statute that requires recycling in the state of Wisconsin.

Is that correct? Correct. Okay, cool. So when we have I mean, in my district over on the East Side here, we've got a lot of multi I guess I'm curious maybe if you're familiar with the history or maybe somebody in the committee can enlighten me about the history of why some of these multifamily or businesses aren't served by our sanitation services. And then additionally, I have heard a little bit of we did receive a constituent concern a few days ago where there was an apartment building that doesn't recycle.

It doesn't have recycle dumpster available to its residents, which I thought was really unfortunate. So what kind of an enforcement action, I guess like what's preventing us from doing more multiunit or offering that service? And then additionally, what kind of enforcement action do we have available at our disposal to compel some of these private landlords to offer recycling to their residents? Well, I

will start with the like who is eligible for services through the city. So we service all one to four unit properties and condos are unique. Condos can either opt in or out. By individual condo? By like the association.

Okay. Yes. And so we have many condos and then there are some that are procure private services. But outside of that condo, it's you're either prescribed in because you're one to four unit and you pay the solid waste fee and you receive our service or anything commercial, industrial, multifamily that they require to receive private services. And we used to have more residential multifamily garbage accounts that through just through budget reduction measure in 2020, that service was eliminated.

Also we used have as

an option in potentially competition with other availability for okay.

Yes. But even then that was garbage service only because we have never been equipped for we have never offered that recycling really beyond the one to four. So that is where we are now and it is primarily just where lines are drawn for capacity and competition and so on. So that is the current case. We only have a we have a very limited number of kind of exception properties that we are not able to procure private service that because they couldn't move to basically they can only have carts based on their property.

And so there plenty of dumpster service capacity in the private sector, but not there is maybe somewhat of a lack of commercial like card cost offerings. And so we have about 30 customers that because of their inability to secure private service that we service. And then the other question is on our enforcement process.

We do have a compliance plan in place for multi units and businesses. So if there is a resident that has filed a complaint with you, please do forward that to me and what we will do, the process is an inspection goes out and then they will the property owner will get a notice that they are in noncompliance. And then it kind of starts the process of the thirty day follow-up inspection and then a final notice. And then after that, they will receive fines until they come into compliance.

Mr. Chair. Okay. Great. Along those lines Is that complaint driven only? Yes. Is what I mean. Exactly. Anything else I would want add? That is complaint driven only. So we have no systematic process of inspecting the hundreds of multiunit buildings including the 10,000 units owned by one landlord who if he has recycling at those 10,000 units, I'll eat my hand. Correct. Whether it's no systematic effort to put a magnifying glass on Baratta properties to see if there is recycling?

Yes. Well, are not going to unevenly enforce. Is we are not going to look at one owner versus another. But to the point, it is complaint driven whether it's again, don't our sanitation inspection team is mainly facilitating the services around like enforcement around our program. And so we they're not doing they're not like the you know fire inspections are they they're not in the in the or the the commercial locations or the multi

family. Why not? If it's a state law, why aren't we enforcing it in a proactive way instead of waiting for somebody to complain? And I suspect if you get 10 complaints a year, I would be surprised. You probably got an eight from my office. Once I heard about it, that state law applied to multi units, we have started calling in complaints.

Right now, we do have seven for 2025.

Seven complaints all year.

And then it can range. There have been years where it is closer to 20, but it does it is complaint driven.

So and I'm sorry. You might have covered this. I know so many units, we don't even service them for regular garbage. They have to use, like, a waste management or a private company. Right? For recycling, how does

that go?

Have to use a private company. Same. Mhmm. It the same companies or it's different one?

Generally, same. Private haulers generally offer garbage and recycling.

For the multi units that have to use something other than us, is there any point in the process that they have to, like, submit to us or prove to us that they have a contract with a a contract with an outside sanitation plus? Only upon inspection and all of that? Correct.

Yes. Otherwise, just broader than recycling again, if there is a capacity issue at a property that it's maybe they haven't procured enough service and there is and so you have overflowing dumpsters, stuff on the ground. That's where Department of Neighborhood Services is involved in that aspect and then as part of their enforcement would be ensuring that the property owner is putting in proper capacity.

I probably would agree with Alderman Baumann as I think about it. I would I would venture to say the majority of multi units probably don't have recycling. I'm just thinking of not just complaints, but the neighborhood walks and stuff that we do. I think I've rarely seen recycling. How you might see the waste management thing in back, but I rarely rarely have seen a recycling thing in the back of those Montana.

If we were to enforce it, we could recoup the cost of enforcement from the property owner, right?

Generally you have to notice them and then if they cure it, they would not have the fines. But if they write, if they stay in noncompliance, then you could recoup costs. The neighborhood services is more I mean, they do this on a routine matter for all these inspections. So they might have more input than

I can do.

If we look for it routinely or built it in routinely, would that be easier for them to do than you guys for DNS?

I mean, it's it would be yeah, where would the resource be best place? I don't, I mean, to me, it's it's it's something that is happening already like like I can't imagine fire department looking for recycling, but something akin to like what we are in every property for like your periodic fire inspection, your periodic building inspection. That might be a way to kind of pair it with that process.

Not just because it's certain land owners who own a lot, but who might be in violation. But also just as we think about the world and the future and just how important recycling is to us taking care of this earth, that actually requiring us to look at it might just be a small way that this city could help push people to recycle more. Mhmm. But other women, Tyler? Yeah.

I was just thinking kind of along the same lines. I I mean, it sounds like it's your questions were really geared towards working with residents. So have you guys thought about because some of the commercial properties too have to do recycling. What if they did, I guess it'd be a good thing. Maybe working with the bids and the needs to see maybe you guys can work together to try to encourage people to recycle more to recycle more.

So that might be another option or or even just helping with encouraging people to do that with flyers or distributing flyers or just having a larger outreach for encouragement. Just an idea.

Madam chair.

Honorary Tyler, are you done? Mhmm. Honorable mom?

Yeah. In my both side of my district, Concordia in particular, I have a massive trash problem all related to one landlord. And I am beside myself as to how to get enforcement. You could have an inspector permanently assigned to that eight or 10 block area. Constant dumpsters left on sidewalks, constant overflowing dumpsters, constant. The neighbors, homeowners are outraged. Homeowners are beside themselves in rage and we don't know what to do. What do we do? What do we do to solve that problem? What does your department do to solve that problem?

Well, again, the Department of Neighborhood Services would So

they are the call.

Even for dumpsters left on the public right of way, that is

a DNS call. That aspect right of way would be city. City. Who is city? Meant to say DPW. Yes, right away it would be DPW and that's the group under the James Washington.

And if a landlord repeatedly refuses to move those off the sidewalk, what do we do? Nothing? Issue fines? Issue fines? The guy had collected $6,070,000,000 dollars a month in rent. We issue fines of $200 $50 Is that everybody? You think that's effective? Dealing with landlords of that kind? You do not relay what a detrimental quality of life aspect trash and litter is. The trash and litter is constant. People see it. They drive through and say, oh, this neighborhood is no good. Look at all the trash and litter laying. Look, overflowing dumpsters. Trash on the ground next to the dumpsters.

Dumpsters in the middle of sidewalks so that people have to walk around them. It's constant. And it it there seems to be no remedy. What do you think we should do about it?

Well, I think you would be better served asking neighborhood services because I know that are talking about some of those communications and it sounds like they are putting resources to areas where you described. But it really is their process when it comes to commercial properties.

Who do we call those people are rampant automobile work, repair work done at the curb in parking lanes. Oil left, oil cans, car parts left in the gutters, who is that responsibility? Is that DPW or DNS? Public right of

way. If there are materials left in the right way. Now, there might be if it's stemming from a private property use that may or may not have appropriate permit or what Cars

are I got cars sitting on jacks in the curb lane. Mhmm. Disabled. Up on jacks with their tires gone. We worked on it. Next day, they're back out there repairing it in the cars. Drag, they drop it down and it drives away. But all the parts are left. Sometimes motor oil. What do we do about that? Oops. Too bad. Neighbors, you just gotta tolerate it. Your choice for having a your choice, your your bad choice to live here?

Well, we would say like the clean out is something in the right of way. Would that public works would need to, you know, we would clean that up and sanitation, we would clean that up. But in terms of if there is an aspect of a is there supposed to be some kind of licensed use or process for that business activity?

There is no business activity. These are apartment buildings. Yeah. That they're doing carpet repair in front of. Yeah. No business. Yeah. Don't you go around the city and see this stuff? Yeah. I I don't but I don't know if you're talking about individuals.

That's what it means by business is that they are doing a business activity that's not licensed. Yes. That's what you are saying.

Yes. And so what the city's processes around regulating those kinds of activities again is not my expertise.

Alright. Bye.

This might be a little eerie, but I do think as politically people talk about concentrating on neighborhoods more, a lot of time we think only about housing. But I think people's quality of life as a whole is part of that conversation and stuff like the people working on cars where they shouldn't be, stuff like the trash piling up where it shouldn't, stuff like people not recycling when they should. Like, all of those things add to taking away from the quality of life of the neighborhood. So I think if we were serious about focusing on the neighborhood, I think we would come up with more creative solutions for some of these habitual problems that we have throughout the city in neighborhoods. And some of that might mean us thinking outside the box.

Some of that might mean us partnering with neighbors. But I do think we probably need to begin to focus more on neighborhoods and neighborhood level solutions for some of this stuff. Because a lot it's stuff we it's hard for us to change, but it's stuff that we really could be impacting if we just thought a little differently than we've been thinking. That's just my 2¢. Alderman Broward?

Yeah. I mean, first of all, just broadly, this report's awesome. Thank you guys for the work you're doing to get the word out about recycling. I mean, I just I wanna see I wanna see more of it. I do and thank you for answering my question about the compliance piece.

I may want to follow-up with you, Rick, about the you know, the question of when we stopped doing, you know, multifamily and and all that stuff and I was just was just talking with somebody on the school board just the other day and the idea came up of why don't we provide dumpster services for the school district. I mean, we could do it better than waste management, would imagine, which is their provider currently. But so I just I want to note that that's a question broadly I have. It sounds like it was budget cuts in 2020 that causes to lose that ability. So that's those are all factors there. But just overall, thank you guys.

Any other questions from committee?

Alright. Thank you for the presentation. Alderman Brower will move to place on file. Are there any objections to that motion? Hearing none so ordered. Thank you. Next up, we have our final file 18. File number 250935. Communication department of public works reviewing the feasibility creating the third drop off center location. Members may recall, I think this is from a footnote, a budget footnote from last year.

Try to make sure that these were scheduled as many of them before we got back to the budget just to see what progress has been made. This is an effort to before we discuss it at budget to see what they came up with. So

Yeah. Yes. This one, department did such a study in 2021 that we reported to council. And with the continuing, primarily been a matter of limited resources budget for why we haven't been able to pursue the Department of Public Works has requested capital funds towards a drop off center in our department budgets. But again, understand it wasn't priority that the city is able to meet with budgets in recent years.

So 2021 was our last some the advantages or benefits that could be had here that you and your colleagues have discussed at the table. Alderman Chambers had the resolution, sponsored the resolution to implement the footnote before the summer break. And so we are back to report on that. And with that, I will turn it over to Laura.

Thank you.

So to start off, we can start with the kind of current background of the two drop off centers. So DPW does operate two drop off centers for residents to recycle, compost, or safely dispose of over 20 different material categories. The South one is at 3879 West Lincoln, and then the north one is at 6660 North Industrial Road. At our South location, there is also a Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewage District hazardous waste drop off program. The drop off centers are open 7AM to 3PM, Tuesday through Sunday from April to November, and Tuesday through Sunday from November to April.

There is a fee schedule in place to help offset, some of the costs. However, 63% of visitors incur no fee when using the drop off centers. And these are typically the passenger size vehicles with disposing of bulky waste, recyclables, yard waste, scrap metal. So on the slide here you can see a five year average of visitors and overall materials managed. It is split between landfill and materials diverted.

So the South, again, handles 64% of the visitors and 36% is managed by our north drop off center. So as we get into the bulk of this report on the operations cost and the construction cost for a hypothetical four acre drop off center. The Buildings and Bridges Infrastructure Division evaluated the construction costs and then operation costs were derived from data from our 2021 report and then incorporating some new considerations. The cost to build a third drop off center is estimated to be $10,900,000 with an annual operating cost of $3,000,000 The cost to build a third drop off center co load it with a transfer station is also provided, which we that one does include then eight acres of a hypothetical site. So the drop off center would be the four and then the hypothetical transfer station would also be on four additional, so eight total.

And then the cost to operate to build that would be about $21,500,000 and then the drop off center to operate the drop off center would be about 2,100,000.0 The difference you see in the annual operating cost there, about $868,000 is the difference between having a transfer station nearby. Currently, our drop off centers are co located with a transfer center station. So when material, especially for landfill, are put landfill materials put in 20 yard boxes by residents and then they are directly tipped at our transfer station. What that would look like at a third drop off center without one is that the material would have to be hauled off. So the extra cost there associated with essentially all the hauling that would be needed for that.

Anticipated usage. Again, the numbers for this third drop off center for anticipated usage was looking at the total capacity for the site. So not necessarily redistributing potential visitors from the two currently, but just in total, what could that site provide? For that, the estimation is about 224,000 visitors and could manage around 31,000 tons of material and projection of about $940,000 in revenue. The revenues, again, to offset costs of the program, mainly charged from disposal fees for items that are larger disposals.

So not your passenger vehicles, but bigger like trailers, for example, that are looking to dispose that are charged. And some of the benefits to the city for a third drop off center would be alleviate pressure on the existing transfer state or the sorry, drop off centers, enhance operational efficiency and service quality, expand materials management capacity, and opportunity to serve the broader region and generate revenue. This wouldn't necessarily be something this DPW looks into if this hypothetical third would be opened right away. But if there were to be extra capacity at the drop off centers, it could be potential to open it up to nearby communities, which then would be a charged fee, which would then be a revenue for the city. However, those revenues were not put in here for this study just because the point is to a city of Milwaukee residents.

And then on the resident side, increased access to convenient affordable disposal and recycling composting services, especially within central city. This could also open up the opportunity to collect other materials that we currently don't collect at the drop off centers such as foams, food waste, clothing, a lot of those other categories that residents are interested in. And then also a potential for opening another partnering with MMSD on another hazardous waste disposal location. For residents, also lower travel time and wait times. Occasionally, well, often there can be up to like twenty, thirty minute wait times at the current drop off centers.

And those do peak then on the weekend when most residents are available to do a lot of their hauling. And it also can facilitate cleaner and greener communities, giving the community more access to disposal options and potentially closer to their own homes would help facilitate those.

Madam

Chair? One moment.

DPW still owns a facility at 33rd And Vallee that's maybe not four acres but close to four acres. And it is vacant. It has been unused for fifteen years. It is pretty blighted. Did we look at that as a potential neighborhood level drop off center? A, it is in the central city. B, it is kind of midway between the South and North Side facility that we look at that.

Yes, it is too small. I forget the acreage, but I want to say it is closer to one than four. It is too small.

At. Alright. Fair enough.

Does the hazard department looked at where they would want to get located if they were given opportunity for a third site?

Well, we we know not no specific site do drop off center. We

to

operations, we really need another the transfer station. And strategically, are to optimize both for our own internal hauling costs is somewhere Central City North Side. When you look at again just Lincoln, 38th and Lincoln North Of Mill Road 66, where those are, you go somewhere between them north, south and a little bit further east that would optimize the efficiencies as well as the access. I mean those are the same sites for the residential access. So that would be probably where we would have the biggest benefit.

Is there any four acres we already own that fits within that geographic location?

I don't think that is considered available for this.

What are you thinking of?

Well, there has been discussion in the past about the Century City area. We are not proposing that. We understand that there is other visions for that area. But I mean that's certainly some city property that's owned in that area or in conjunction with the bid. Otherwise, we are also looking at where else could we potentially acquire lots for sale. And this is part of a broader DPW facilities need. So the commissioner is working with DCD and others on and administration on our broader facility needs and what our options are.

You say the approximate revenue annually could be the 944. And I'm sorry, I might have missed it. What's the annual cost?

That would, I think, like roughly, what, maybe that would be half of the operating cost?

Yeah, roughly $3,000,000 Annually. Annually.

So if we look at our current sites, the revenue that fees bring in, not derived it is not trying to get full 100% cost recovery, but it's trying to offset the where the heavy users are kind of proportionally paying for their disposal. And so under that kind of model, which again, we talked to counsel about like we have to be mindful of our fee structure is very favorable compared to if someone's option is go out to regional landfills and cover more distance and pay more. So we have that benefit. There's also concern about like, well, any fee is that a barrier for people to properly dispose. So our current fee structure, we believe is kind of a responsible balance of that.

Any other questions, Doctor. Wendy?

You can go ahead. Was there more or was that it?

That was all.

So actually, yeah, real quick here.

So just to be

clear, so we don't have a location currently for this.

We do not.

Yeah. Okay. I mean, this is all this all sounds great. I'd love to see us have a third drop off center. I know people on the East Side would appreciate a location like that. And we get calls and questions about people want why isn't the city picking up yard waste anymore or in stuff like that. I mean, we refer them to the drop off centers and then, you know, we get the complaint of, well, that's so far either be the one on Lincoln or the one on Industrial. So, it it would be good. I mean, I think it would be a a benefit to the city to have a third one. Centrally located.

Madam Chair? Thought Bob Alderman Bowman just said that it was the site that he was referring to was four acres. And you were saying that

you It's

smaller. May not be.

Don't know if you think.

I'm sorry.

Can you say that again?

That site at 33rd Fleet is much smaller. It's too small. We did look at

it. Okay. All right.

And the four acres is the close of the transfer center?

Yeah. Coincidentally, it is four acres is kind of what minimum that we would need for each, like if we had the drop off center component, we had the transfer station component.

So Rooney 8?

That would be more of the ideal site, yeah.

It's not that you would probably have to acquire and demolish a whole bunch of stuff in the geographic area that you're talking about if we're not going to do Century City.

Madam Chair.

Is this the option for construction, the building in site, that 10,000,000,

is does that any are

you does that cover? Are you are you including condemnation costs in that? Like, if we would condemn properties to go construct this? No. Not that I'm saying we want to but okay. No. That's is just the cost of if the site is ready to build without contamination, without existing buildings and then that is $10,000,000 to construct then a

Yes.

Does include drop off center some assumptions on when you mentioned contamination as far as if there is environmental conditions we need to but we are not it does not assume that there is a current like building to be demolished type of thing.

Madam Chair, along those lines, Century City is a possible location. Well, yes, I mean, that's the

one that we actually used in our 2021 study. We use that as a hypothetical and we use that address and again, we knew there's sensitivity to like the intended use for that area. It was just hypothetical. We're still in hypothetical right now. We're not we don't have a particular site.

Well, did you consider that site as a possibility and estimate the cost based on free land? Well, that would demolished, already cleaned. I mean, basically, got flat land to do everything you do at the South Side or the North Side facility?

That essentially was our 2021 study. It was hypothetical but it was using

was million dollars to develop a drop off center on land the city already owns? Yeah. What's the $10,000,000 for it? You have that paving, you have got some warehousing to be built, you have got some pole buildings to be built. I trying to get my arms around where the $10,000,000 because that would seem to be ideal. I mean, that land is going nowhere fast. How long has it been now since we have fifteen years maybe?

The drop off center only portion of it, a lot of the costs come along with unknowns, so environmental remediation, erosion control on those items. So that is where some of the higher value costs come in. But we did include all like contingencies included in here, infrastructure, permit, legal inspection fees. That's all included in that 10,000,000

Madam chair.

Auditor Chambers.

Thank you, madam chair. And and

thank you

for bringing this file up. I guess to I think that that right there. What why are we still hypotheticals when this is the third time this came up? I know you said 2021. I know auto woman Pratt brought up her footnote and not subsequently brought up another footnote saying the same, why are we still in the hypothetical thought? Why we don't have the the idea of identifying a location on where this possibly can be centralized at and working on trying to make this a reality?

Well, don't have a site. So again, it's part of a broader DPW facilities need that the commissioner again is working on with multiple parties and administration on addressing some of which pieces of that will certainly be in the 2026 budget. So this is a full report on the anticipated costs and constructing and operating, but we don't have a site. We don't have a site.

So my follow-up to that, we need to put a footnote instructing you to find a site and to find planning dollars to make this possible?

I mean, if there is a like if we're talking about having department say development facilitate acquiring property that I mean yeah those are good discussions that's yeah, I don't want to speak over my own ability to speak on this other than to tell you that the Commissioner of Public Works is very in tune with this and our facility needs and the overall planning. This is a component, but we have a lot of needs that we are trying to meet with limited options for places.

To piggyback on Alderman Chamberlain's questions, you mentioned that it has in the past been one of the budget requests that the department. In the budget request, where was it going to be?

Well, it would be if we had the authority of the budget to say yes as a city, we think we can prioritize this and do it, right, then we would have to figure that out. Would have to get there.

So, what did the budget request assume was going to happen for the location? You get what I'm saying? Like, there had to be some assumptions made to be able put that into a budget request. What was the assumption for the location?