Public Works Committee - Regular Meeting

Order the public works committee meeting on Wednesday, 12/03/2005 2025 rather. I am will be joined momentarily by the chair, alderwoman Malalee Cox. I am joined. What do they do? Left to right or right to left?

Either way you want to go.

I'm going to mix it up. Okay. All the way on the left by auto woman Taylor to my right, Alderman Baumann, and to other woman Taylor's right, Alderman Brower. First item, item two five one two eight six, resolution determining if necessary to make various accessible public improvements at various locations and appropriating funds for these purposes with the city engineering cost estimated to be 265,000 for a total estimated cost of these projects being $2,685,000. Good morning.

Holly Rutenberg with DPW. This is setting up engineering for future assessable paving projects.

Move approval.

Alderman Baumann moves approval. Any objections, same non so order. Item two, two five one two eight seven, resolution determining and necessary to make various non assessable public improvements at various locations and appropriating funds for these purposes with the city engineering cost estimated to be $365,000 for an estimated cost of these projects being $4,128,000

Good morning. This is setting up engineering for various non accessible construction projects.

Motion by Alderman Baumann is approval. Seeing objection, so ordered. Item three, two hundred fifty one thousand two hundred eighty eight, resolution approving construction of non accessible public improvements at various locations and appropriating funds for these purposes with the city construction cost estimated to be 5,000 no, $5,171,688.02 dollars for a total estimated cost of these projects being $18,025,702.8

Good Morning. This is setting up construction funding for future projects.

Okay. Thank you. Move approval. Motion by Alderman Brower is approval. Seeing objection, so order. Item four, two five one two eight nine, resolution to remove obstructions and to remove or reconstruct encroachments, projections, and special privileges from streets and alleys on the 2026 paving program.

Good morning. This is one of our standard yearly housekeeping resolution that allows DPW to order the removal of obstructions and encroachments on the 2026 Paving Program.

Motion on the floor is approval by alderwoman Taylor. Seeing objections to order. Item five, two five one three four five, resolution relating to amendment three to the Harbor Assistance Program grant agreement between Port Milwaukee and the Wisconsin Department of Transportation and to the acceptance funding and expenditure of additional grant funds awarded to Port Milwaukee in conjunction with this amendment.

Morning. Brian Kasberczak, Port Milwaukee. Again, this is an existing grant. The third amendment is a cost increase. That's why we bring it before your committee here. Basically, we're adding another $0.02 $5,000,000 to this project. The city is on the hook for 20% of that or $50,000

Any questions? Yes, Mr. Chair. Go

ahead. What's this project?

This project is for dock wall repairs in Intermoring Basin. So again, it's a municipal dock where multiple ships dock and we are making repairs along there about approximately 600 feet we repaired and after the flood or the storm event in August, we discovered more damage. So again, the State of Wisconsin has been a great partner through the Harbor Assistance Program and they managed to get us some emergency funding basically to address it.

Very good.

Thank you. Move approval.

Motion on the floor or motion is approval by Alderman Brower. Any objections seen on so ordered. Item six, two five one one three one. Resolution relating to the acceptance and execution of a green infrastructure funding from the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District for the construction of live five bioswales and three grass swells at West Beacher. Good morning.

Good morning. Solomon Beckler from OP.

I gotta finish that. Straight near the Interstate 43 Overpass and authorizing entry into post construction maintenance convene convene con covenant in the 12th Automatic District. Good morning.

Good morning. Solomon Beckola from DPW. This resolution allows us to accept grant funding from MMSG to construct infrastructure under the Beecher Street of the past.

Any questions? This is chair. Auderman Brower.

Yeah. Thank you so much. Just for I think I have a good grasp of some of this green infrastructure, but just for the listening audience and constituents, and I'm for myself, I actually do not know. Can you define bioswale and grass swale? And what's the difference between those two things?

Bioswales are such they are landscape areas that are excavated and they're filled with engineered soil that are produced to infiltrate more storm water to in the ground.

So when people these are the things that we see, and I I see this all the time around around the city where it's a depression, an engineered depression in the ground. Sometimes there's a drain in the middle but it actually the drain rises up so that the water can. Right. Sit and then and then drain over time. Okay. Usually, there's native plants in there. You're going As well.

It's a plants in there. Yeah. Water comes in through openings in the curb and then it goes into the this landscape areas. Then, it would infiltrate into the underground system and when there's too much water, it would rises up and goes into this overflow structures or like a little tubes, tubes that it it goes into this openings and then go goes back to the source system. Yeah. It would be.

This is this is related to the fact that like a third of this world is paved right now and it

is impermeable, right? So, so the the whole idea was to to reduce storm water. Mhmm. Flow into the source system. Yeah. And this will reduce flooding and public hazard. What's the difference between

a grass swale and a bioswale?

Grass swales are essentially just landscaped areas of depressions more or less to slow the water and infiltrate ground without, you know, without engineer soil. So, are usually depressions into the into the grass.

Oh, and there would just be like sod there or regular seeded grass? Usually there.

So, I'm curious. Okay. Yes.

Okay.

And there will be an opening in the curb again and then water goes into the grass area and then slows down going through the grass and then comes out through the another opening downstream.

So, we're not talking like a like landscaped grass. This is just gonna be like a planted that could be mowed. Right.

Okay. Exactly. Yeah. Alright.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, mister mayor.

Yeah. Go ahead. Is this

to capture stormwater runoff from the interstate?

Yes.

Yes. And this is right where the Connecticut River narrows down from a natural water course to its alderman dredged course.

I can't remember exactly what that that path is. You probably have to get back to where

are these located? In the tree borders or is there

In the tree borders.

Yes. Ah.

Very good.

Yeah. In the tree borders.

Got it.

Thank you. You probably most likely in the in the land owned by the state which we get how to get permissions.

I see.

For the state.

Yeah. Any

further questions? Alright. Motion is approval by Alderman Baumann. Any objections? Seeing none so order. Item seven, two five zero nine eight six. Resolution approving first amendment to the lease agreement with Tower Co twenty thirteen LLC for a portion of the parcel located at 3929 South 6th Street in the 13th Aldermanic District.

Good morning. Good morning. Assistant City Attorney Jordan Shettle before you is a first amendment to a land lease agreement with TowerCo twenty thirteen LLC. The only major change in the first amendment is it extends the lease agreement out to essentially 2060. It changes the term to 2030 and then provides six additional five year optional terms that kind of when running uninterrupted will go to 2060.

Any questions? Yes. Ottoman Brower.

Yeah. So what what does Tower Co do and what are they doing with this land?

Yeah. So the.

You just can't find it right away in the lease agreement here.

Sure. So the original lease was signed in 2015 with New Singular and New Singular Wireless is a company used by AT and T to put up cell towers. They assigned that lease in this lease in 2016 to TowerCo. TowerCo simply manages the cell tower itself. So there is an actual physical structure that TowerCo manages on the property.

Great. And for the other question, Mr. Scherer.

Yes.

Go

ahead. So what are the how much are they paying for this?

Sure. So current rent is $40,722.37 escalator attached to that rent. Every year there is a rent schedule in the lease itself. So nothing the rental terms aren't changing in any way. Those are going to continue.

Okay. I'm seeing that in the schedule in the file, but that's okay. And that 40,000 is over the term of the lease or

per year? That's for this upcoming year. The following year is 42,000 Okay. That increases. Next Yes. Every So year it will increase by 5%.

Thank you. Thanks for clarification. Yep. I'll move approval.

Okay. Motion by Alder Member Brouwer's approval. Any objections? Hearing none, so order. Thank you. Item eight two five one two six five resolution authorizing the city engineer to apply for federal transportation alternatives program grants for the 02/2030 application cycle with an 80% grantor share and a 20% local share.

Alright, good morning all morning. Mike Ansden, DPW, multimodal transportation manager. This file simply gives the city engineer the authority to apply for the next cycle of TAP grants.

Mr. Chair?

Order me about me.

Is this program even still alive at

It is. Federal

Yep. Yep.

Alright. So they are accepting grant applications. Are they awarding grants?

Are formula funds that are administered to the state.

They are

not discretionary funded through the feds.

Okay. Well, okay. Alright.

Any other questions?

Move approval.

Yes, just had a quick question. So what kind of things are we I mean, this is a can you describe some more of this program for me and the constituents who are listening?

So the transportation alternatives program, we've been successful over the past decade or so in getting funding for reckless driving mitigation projects, street redesign projects, pedestrian safety projects, transit pedestrian improvements at transit stops, bicycle projects, trail projects, planning projects, you name it. This application cycle, we're looking to submit five applications. We likely would not get all five. Two are street redesign projects looking at pedestrian and bicycle safety. One is a Safe Routes to Transit project where we work with MCTS and made pedestrian safety improvements near high frequency and highly utilized transit stops.

And then two projects are trail projects along the We Energies power line corridors on the South Side as well as the West Side of the city.

Mr. Chair. Yes, sir. Yes. And I was all to say thank you so much for doing this work. I'm really glad to see that the administration is on board with a lot of these transportation alternatives. I mean, let's keep this going. I really appreciate this. Great. Thank you. Thank you.

We have a motion by Alderman Bowman. Approval. Any objections? Seeing. Seated. And here none so ordered. Thank you. Item nine two five one two five three, resolution adopting the 2025 Milwaukee County hazard mitigation plan.

Good morning, chairman and committee. Kurt Springer's Department of Public Works. So yes, this file the purpose of this file is to adopt the 2025 Milwaukee County Al Hazard Mitigation Plan. This is an update to the 2017 plan that the county prepared and essentially replaces the City Of Milwaukee's 2019 plan. And adoption of this plan, essentially what it does is it gives us access to mitigation grants to the federal through FEMA and then also disaster assistance as well.

Any questions? No questions. We have a motion. I'll move approval. Motion is approved by Alderman Brower. Any objections? Hearing none so ordered. Thank you. Item ten, two five one zero one nine, substitute resolution assigning the honorary street name, rabbi Michael Torsky. Torsky. Thank you. To North 51st Boulevard from West Burleigh Street to West Keith Avenue in the 7th Automatic District. Good morning.

Good morning. Thank you for Absolutely. Having

Thanks for coming.

Pleasure. My name is Gerardo Cristal, and this is mister Alan Borsok.

Yeah. Go ahead, guys.

It's a lot.

Gerardo is the president of our synagogue at 52nd in Burlei. He and I both live on 51st Boulevard. One of our congregants got the ball rolling on this. He could not be here today himself. It's just a way of honoring Rabbi Torsky who is the key figure, the leader of our community has his family goes back to the 1920s in the neighborhood. He himself is frankly probably elderly and not in the greatest health and the idea was just to do this as a honor to him at this stage of his life.

Very well. Any questions?

Move approval. Move approval.

Alright. We have a motion for approval. I think I heard Alderman Bowman say it first. Any objections? Hearing none, so ordered. Thanks, guys.

Thank you.

Thank you

very much. Yep. Okay.

We have one.

Moving on to item 11. Two five one three six zero. Motion relating to the locations of various Milwaukee County Transit System bus stops. Good morning.

Good morning, everyone. Tom Bertrand, MCTS. Just here for some bus stops. Alright. I have three in this in this round.

Any questions?

That's mister Auderman Brower.

Yeah. So what is the describe for me just because I'm new here some of the interplay that we have. I mean, obviously, MCTS is county and then privately operated. And then we're we have a role in approving these. Can you describe what's what exactly the mechanisms are here

for this? Sure. So as I understand it, every time we have stops being sort of moved like ad hoc with our quarterly service changes, we are to come here to call the course committee

and just sort of seek that approval. What's the process for if if we're if we see an issue with a bus stop and this maybe outside this file but now that you're here, let me ask you. Yeah. What's the process if we see either an issue with a bus stop or we have a thought about the location of a bus stop or an amenity at a bus stop. And I'll tell you, I've been just to clue you in a

little bit. I mean, I've

been receiving some concern with constituents for the bus stop. I think it's Route 14, the southbound on Humboldt Northwest Corner of Humboldt Center. We did lose a sheltered stop there. Sure. You know, and so and anyway, mean, I you know, there's there's not a motion related to that. I'm I'm just curious about, like, what I could do going forward to maybe remedy that. What are the considerations? Does that have to go through the county board? I mean, I was gonna contact supervisor Cox who's the county supervisor for the area about this. Uh-huh. But since you're here, I thought I would ask about this and what the what the process is for them. Sure.

Well, you know, our our line is always open. You'd feel free to reach out. We usually make service changes four times a year. And so that communication would happen and then the change would be made whenever that next quarterly service change period occurs. And that would just be kind of a dialogue and with us and us determining whether the change sort of meets our needs, meets the community's needs.

And if it's something so simple as a shelter, I mean, actually do have a division which deals with shelters and bus stops and things sort of at that zoomed in nature and I would imagine it would be a pretty simple process for something like that. If you have anything specific you want to communicate to about that shelter you had mentioned specifically, we can have a dialogue about that.

So okay. Cool. Thank you.

Oh, woman Taylor.

Oh, I see that you have the each older person listed for each of the bus stops. Do you consult with the older person prior to? Is that one of the mechanisms that you may use to notify the community that that bus stop is moving?

Not necessarily. What what happens, you know, if if if the older person is involved in, for example, bringing the issue to us then there is of course that dialogue but situations like what we have here, these are like the little ad hoc things that come usually from members of the community and you know typically we just we take a look on our end and see if it fits our it meets our needs what they are asking for and then we essentially come here to DPW and that is usually the process. If we feel it's necessary to always include the city elder person in cases like this for city and Milwaukee bus stops, then by all means, we can

would think make that it'd probably be a good idea just in case that we were to get phone calls and say, hey, it moved about a block away and now I gotta run an extra block to get to the bus stop. Yeah. Yeah. Especially in where they're like like we have today. Mhmm. It might make a difference for some people. So, just so that they know that it's happened ahead of time. Yeah.

Absolutely. Yeah. They could So, could be able

to add that too. Okay.

That's a

good idea.

Mister Chair. Alderman Brower.

Yes. No. And I'm and looking at this like actually the the change here that you guys are making in the 3rd Automatic District on Brady Street eastbound. Great, great move actually there. So thank you.

Yes, that was the bid was involved in that. And we're just the existing shelter at that location, Van Buren and Brady, it's a little long in the tooth and we're just looking to it needs it has needed repair. And so we're looking to sort of move that stop. That's sort of the reasoning behind that one. Yes, great.

Mr. Chair.

Yes, go ahead.

Speaking of bus stops, how is our record of damage and replacement on the BRT line with very expensive bus stops are?

So we have a BRT team. I could get more details to you after the fact. I understand we try to address these things pretty quickly. And I think we're in a pretty good position at the present moment but I could give you a history of how this is going if you'd like or

That's fine. Sure.

Mr. Chair?

Yeah, go ahead.

This is just another question just for myself because I see one that's in Alderman Pratt District and I know that she's very great advocate for needs, special needs, things. And so when you have bus stops that are moved, and I'm just noticing that the one in her district doesn't have access, like, for a wheelchair to go up on the sidewalk to wait on that bus stop. Is that something that you consider when you're moving bus stops?

It is. Excuse me. It is. So we when we're moving bus stops and in this example, this was moved at the request of a local resident. When we're moving bus stops and we're considering the area in which we would like to move it or the area in which they request we move it, the first priority is always access as you say, access for persons with disabilities.

This is Sherman And Douglas. This is an area where the area in which we would like to move it, it's not great for pedestrian and wheelchair access and unfortunately we did not find a location which had a pre existing cement pad. We usually like to move it to places where we already have a pad and that helps with wheelchair access. The request here was people were sort of apparently loitering on this residence front stoop area and there was a lot going on. And so, you know, we decided to move the stop across the street and it just the conditions just didn't exist.

But to answer your question, top priority is always access in that regard.

So you can easily change this if need be if you find that there is a need for it?

If we find that there's a need for it, by change, do you mean like move the stop?

No. Not move it, but just provide that access there. Sure. Install a pad where a wheelchair can

Sure. So we we don't have our own funding like dedicated to the pouring of the concrete pads and stuff like that. We usually try and piggy back off of other sort of projects that are taking place in the project area or asking the municipality to help us out with that. That is something that is done on a basis determined just based on the situation at hand and as needed. And this is a situation where we just wanted to do it relatively quickly and so that would be a lengthier process pouring the pad. So, Thank

you. Mr. Chair. Yes, go ahead.

Yes. And no, I mean, what you're saying about that, I mean, looking at the details in this particular stop in the first automatic district, mean, that like makes sense what you're saying. Obviously, safety around buses is such a huge thing. I mean, I do I mean, this is totally out of scope of this file. So, not expecting just to share this with you.

I mean, I get responses from constituents about safety on the buses, the bus you know, saying things like if the buses were safer, would use them more or if there's security on the buses, more prevalent. I mean, that's you know, I mean, obviously, all that stuff comes with a cost. And that would be if we had security on every single bus, every single route, every single hour of operation, we are basically doubling our personnel costs for that route that may be completely financially impossible given the current situation. But, you know, and so and to also to what to Alderman Taylor saying, you know, access is is super is super important. I'll just I'll just note that if we would put a curb cut there, you know, we'd have to like have one on the other side of the street and there's gets to be some complication regarding that if there was curb cut for a wheelchair access.

But maybe that's something that we can consider getting something poured there. Of course, to my knowledge, because of our financial situation for the owner, Aldrich, President, we're like about five years behind in sidewalk pouring repairs. So that may end up on a long list of behind other ones that more desperately need to be re poured of the sidewalk pads. But a question I had about this then, just about this stop because I'm trying to get my head around this. For Stop 906, Sherman Douglas, if if we're moving a bus stop across the street, that is basically I mean, obviously, it's the same route. Route 35, it goes both, you know, this is is this a 35 northbound and southbound?

Yeah. So that's location it is.

Yeah. So that it would be moved. I mean, then basically, the people going northbound wouldn't have a stop there then because it would move to the southbound. Is that correct?

Yeah. So this would be for the southbound. We usually like to have pairs of stops. Mhmm. So this is a case where we are we have a a pair. We have like a northbound stop that is associated with this and that is going to remain on the other side of the street that we're not going to be moving both of them because I guess to get into the weeds here, the other side of the street from the the image you have here in the packet is like it's even worse for accommodation so much so that we wouldn't even wanna like move the other stop there.

Well, so we're not losing a stop though, I guess. We're not losing a stop. Like like we're not, you know, the the one side, the one area doesn't have one less stop then. We're basically you're you're trying to move. When you say across the street, you're not talking about moving it from the northbound to southbound. You're talking about moving it across a perpendicular street or something or

It would go from as we say far side to near side. So the bus would stop here before it gets to the intersection as opposed to after it gets to the intersection, if that makes sense. And this is a situation where you might see in the image that it's mid block. So this is not on a corner. Reason for that is there's a funeral home at that location and we would be sort of buses would be getting in the way of the queuing of the vehicles at funeral home for their operation.

So it's awkward. This is a situation which is not like fully ideal for us. We usually like to have a pair and they're both at the corner and they both have a pad and ad hoc when we just have situations like this, we just try and get it done as quickly as possible. As we say, there is sort of a ranking of what we consider most ideal to dedicate like funding and resources to. No.

And that constituents public safety concern is a legitimate one. I mean, people were sitting on my porch, wouldn't like Mhmm. Waiting for the bus. I mean, that yeah. Actually, that is similar to what a that lack of a bus shelter on the Northwest Corner Of Center in Humboldt. That is what I mean, that's they're saying, okay. Now, there's no shelter anymore. Now, they're sitting on their

porch when they're waiting for

the bus. So maybe I mean, was that something that and and I'm not here just like grill you. I mean, I know you guys put a lot of effort into the into the route planning and all this stuff, but was that something we thought of as well? Maybe they're sitting on the porch because of a lack of a shelter rather than just I wanna be a dick and just sit on some of porch.

So that that is considered in this case, I believe in the particulars of the intersection. It it it just we knew that it would not sit high on our ranking of like where a shelter should go just because like I say, we have very limited resources for like built infrastructure. And so that was not necessarily deemed an option and so just moving the stop would be a lot easier in terms of the administrative heft and everything that goes into making that decision. And so it kind of just we just try and put our shelters in like the most vital places, transfer locations, main intersections and this just is not that necessarily. So it's priority just thing I guess in this case.

It's unfortunate about the loitering and we've seen that pop up around the county over the years and typically something like this happens where we just we move the stop or in some cases we remove the stop depending on the context of the location. It's very much case by case basis. But with these ad hoc situations, it's like we kind of want to fix this problem as soon as possible for that resident. So it's like a lot of things in government, Uh-huh. You just want to have more money to.

Yeah. I'm

I'm you're telling me.

I mean,

you know.

Yeah. Mister chair.

Madam chair now.

Madam chair. Thank you.

Okay. Never mind.

Mister chair.

Go ahead. How

costly is it to move the bus stop? Because it it's not as if you just say, oh, you know, okay. We'll just move the bus stop across the street and we'll install a sign and it's no cost to it or because I remember asking to have a bus stop moved for a business that was having kind of the same issue with people kinda hanging out in the business. And it was explained that there was a lot that went into that. It's not just a simple, just take the sign and just move it.

Well, my understanding is that there's a lot that goes into it in in terms of the thought process and making sure you're moving it to a location that makes sense. As far as the cost, I couldn't give you an estimate necessarily, but administratively for us, it's we work in our sort of software on the back end to have the stop moved for so that it shows up that way on our public facing sort of maps and we move the bus stop blade, which is what we call the sign that shows the number of the bus stop and the location. And then there is coming here seeking approval. And as far as the work involved, it those three elements largely. The biggest part is making sure that you're making the right decision and we have sort of thought process that goes into moving a bus stop, adding a new one, anything relating to stops.

There's good amount of thought that goes into it so that you don't have to change your mind, in a new bus stop, move a bus stop and then doesn't go well, people aren't happy, you have to then change it again. Mhmm. Come here, hat in hand and say, hey, we made a mistake. Mistakes we or things we try not to make. So that's the biggest part is making sure you're making the right decision. So yeah.

Thank you.

Any other questions? Hearing none, the motion by other woman Taylor is passage. Any objections to that? Hearing none, so ordered.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Item number 12, file number 241103. Motion relating to the recommendations of the Public Works Committee relating to licenses. First, we have Kumar Sanjeev, taxi cab license renewal application for Sanjeev Kumar at 8582 South Cortland Drive. It's Kumar Sanjeev with us or Sanjeev Kumar. Good morning. Good morning. I've never done one of these. So

It's just like licenses. So if you wanna

get us under oath

Please raise your right hand so you can be sworn in.

Yes. Only affirmative. Baits and penalties of perjury that the

testimony you're about to give is the truth and

the truth and nothing but the truth.

Yes. Okay. And then if we can get receipt of notice.

Do you acknowledge receipt of notice of today's hearing and that your license may not be renewed?

Yes. I received a notice.

Alright. And then chair, Jim Cooney, licensed division manager. MPD is not here. There are no police reports on any of these. These were all scheduled for neighbor objections.

Are there any neighbors present to testify on this item? Seeing none. Mister Cooney?

So, at this point, it

it it's really up to

the committee as to what you'd like to do. You have the objection in your file. You wanna ask the applicant about it or certainly have to answer any questions or

Have you seen the objection that's under your file?

Objection in my file.

Yeah. You haven't seen the objection?

It could be the complaint, though. Yes. You have?

Yes.

Do you have anything you wanna say about it?

I think that is the only one thing, the restraining order, main thing. And I think that's what happened because I I I was separated with my daughter, like, eight years, seven years. And then I I was not seeing her, like, at a certain time whenever her mother want. So I filed, you know, custody. And after that, she filed against me the restraining order.

Thank you. Any questions from committee?

Wait, wait, wait. There was, well, that was wasn't that the objection that's in the file unless I just missed something there. The objection file was related to a discrepancy in a charge for the same ride. Can you No.

Right, there was no any charge.

Am I am I looking at the wrong

That's my child. That might

be one of the other

Oh, I'm sorry. That is a that is a different applicant. I apologize.

Any other questions from committee?

Well, there's some pretty serious charges in here but I'm not sure that I'm seeing the proof that the charges are here. Alderman.

Are you this is this is for mister Kumar. It was my police report. Yeah. Yeah.

This one says Sanjeev Kumar. But there's no police reports but there's charges in here and and I I mean, I hate to

And that's why I asked

a lot. But there's charges of alcohol, charges of stalking, charges of threats. I mean, are there any re any reports to document any of this? Or

Sure.

Right, Mr. Fleming. Thank you. This was referred to the Milwaukee Police Department for a background check. They did not discover anything to corroborate this. This email that's in your file was submitted by a constituent. Mhmm. And that the chair did call for neighbors to allow them for an opportunity to come and speak to this.

Okay. I just wanted to make sure before we say yes and then we discover that there's more to the story. But if it's just that it's just complaints but there's nothing to substantiate those complaints, then I don't have any further questions.

Any other questions from committee? We have a motion.

Move rule.

The motion by Alderman Brower is approval or is it renewal?

Thank you. It'll be approval.

Okay. Yeah.

It's just

approval of the application. It's a renewal application.

It was approval. Are there any objections to that motion? Hearing none, motion passes. Good luck. Next up, we have Mohammed Salim. Sixteen foot long to you. Public passenger vehicle driver's license renewal application.

Is Mohammed Salim This comes up every year. I'm sorry. With us.

But these are

I'm sorry, madam chair.

They're biannual

licenses every biannual? Okay.

Oh, yeah.

So he's not here. Is this his first nonappearance?

It it is, sir.

Yeah. Alderwoman Taylor will move to hold to to the call of the chair. Are there any objections to that motion hearing that's so ordered?

Now we just this one's

Next Next up, up, we have Miroski And now we're And

the next ebook here. We're on this ebook here for Miroski.

Can I take out license renewal application for MT at 7830 West Potomac

Yes?

Avenue. Could you pronounce your name for me? My husband. My husband? Yes. Alright. Could you please raise your right hand to be sworn in? Are you interpreting or something wrong?

Yes. I'm his daughter.

My husband's also raise your right hand? Yes.

You've only affirmed that the penalties of perjury in the

state of Wisconsin that the testimony you're about to give is the truth, the whole truth,

and nothing but the truth. Yes. Yes.

What's your name for

the record?

Azeb, a z e b.

Same last name? Yeah.

No. What's your last name? Weldemariam, w e l d e m a r I a m.

You got it. Waldermariam.

Wald. So w e l d and then meriam, like a meriam.

Spell it for me again. Hold on. W e l

d e, m as in Mary, a r I a, m as in Mary.

Okay. Yep. Thank you. You. Thank you.

Alright. Do you acknowledge receive a notice of today's hearing and the possibility that your license may not be renewed?

Yes.

Mister Coney?

Thank you, chair. This is here on an objection as well. There's no police report.

Are there any neighbors present to testify on this item? No. Neighbors present to testify. Madam chair. Alderman Baumann.

Two two of

the license division. What is the law on dropping the meter flag?

The ride needs to be metered start to finish.

So, flat rates are not permitted? Correct. Did you did you charge flat rates?

Can you explain what the flat rate so I can explain what that is?

A set charge for a trip.

Yes.

You realize that's illegal?

The he's asking, can you explain what the flat rate is? Because I don't know what the whole taxi taxi situation. So if if

if you don't mind, I don't know. So, normally, when you're in a taxi cab, it's a meter that's running. Right. Alright? So that's a meter charge. What he's saying is flat rate is from here to the airport is $20 Okay. As opposed to during it.

So just say it out loud?

No. No. No. So is he charging flat rates where it's just like from here to there, it's just $20 as opposed to metering it. No. He said he doesn't? I mean Do

you own your own cab?

Yes. Yeah.

Okay. Since there's no complaint, we'll approve them.

The are there any other questions?

Yeah. Yeah. But I'm sure. I don't if I'm no. Thank you so much. I I mean, I'm I'm inclined to improve approve this as well but I just wanna share that I mean, let me ask this. Look. It looks like from the from the complaint that we've received, took a cab somebody took a cab from Potawatomi to Amfam Field. They were charged $15 on the return trip. Same driver charged $31.

So that's like double. Do you does the does the applicant to the applicant, do you have a currently operating meter that works in your cab or some other way for you to charge an equitable price for this on this for the same distance? I mean, I know time is a factor in it. So if you're, you know, if you're getting hit traffic or something, obviously, potentially either one other way could be more or less. But do you have an operating meter in your cab now?

I checked this morning. It does work.

It does? Yeah. Do we do anything about the specific situation that happened on September 27?

As he was explaining to me this morning when we were coming here, so then I have more fields of what he was trying to

say Okay.

Is that usually for this person, they would ask him, like, oh, how much it is? And he said because you know the places. And he said, oh, it might be roughly around $20 And so and the person came in and he said, oh, yeah. Yeah. But then he went to different caps and asked him behind.

And probably they say the same thing. He came back to my father and he said, oh, but then you're asking without the meter. But usually, my father goes in and when someone sits in there, he starts the meter the meter without instead of saying, like, oh, how much it is because that is illegal to what the definition of the term was. And so when my when that person asked how much it cost and because the distance that he knows because he picked up many peoples, and he said, oh, my costs are roughly that around that because not a lot of people would go in or don't have cash or don't have card in their hand that will fill the amount. And maybe that person was mad.

Maybe that person had different reasons. And so when that happens, my dad was like, I'm not taking that person then.

Sure.

Thank you. Because she is the translator and not the applicant, can we just clarify, was this a conversation that you had in preparation for this meeting or?

Yes. We had it this on the way here.

Okay. Typically the questions would come to him and then you'd Right. Yes. Speaking. That that would be for the leave that to the pleasure of the committee.

Yeah. She said that at the beginning.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah. That's the only reason I let her do that. Perfect. Are there any other questions? The motion by alderman Baumann is approval. Are there any objections to that motion? Hearing none so ordered. Good luck.

Uh-uh. So Ma'am,

I don't wanna hear the last one. Oh. The other one, miss Taylor? Yes. Sorry.

I I think that, with that last one that we had, if I could be recorded as an abstention, I'm just

not The last one was a hold. So you mean the first one?

The first one. Yep. With Sanjeev Kumar.

Do I have to reconsider? My daughter. Okay.

Thank you.

Duly noted.

And then you need a motion to

because this is a

Alderman Westmoreland would move approval of the file. Hearing no objections, sole order. Item 13, file number two five one two one seven. Communication from department of public works providing a comprehensive review of the City Of Milwaukee's snow plowing policies and procedures. This file is sponsored by Alderman Brower. Alderman Brower, did you want to say anything before we have the department speak?

I did, madam chair. Thank you so much. And this

might be

actually, I think this is my second piece of just the second file I've introduced. So hopefully I don't mess this up. No. But no. I I introduced this file to in the attempts to and I I see there's some folks from DPW here.

I really appreciate everybody and all the hard work they've been doing. I introduced this file a couple weeks ago to basically preemptively, like, get a discussion going, get something on record here, get a link that we could send out constituents regarding, you know, the city's snow plowing operations, things that people are concerned about, things that people wanna see improved, what's working. So we sent out an e notify as well to our constituents asking for thoughts, questions, suggestions, concerns, things they wanted me to bring to Department of Public Works regarding snowfall. Now I didn't anticipate when I introduced this that we would have had a giant snowstorm already this year. So what I wanna say that I was texted by some folks over at DPW to join one of our salt trucks on Saturday afternoon.

During the storm, I really appreciated that opportunity. Got a chance to go out and have a lot of questions already answered. But I wanted to bring all of to the table, get this on record, and get this video out to constituents so we could start, you know, conversation and people could have their questions and concerns answered here. So with that, I wanted to pass off to Danielle who already received some of the initial questions we received and then I'll have more questions after that, Madam Chair, if that works.

All right.

Good morning, Madam Chair, Committee members. Danielle Rodriguez. I'm Department of Public Works Director of Operations and I also oversee our snow and ice operations. As Alderman Bauer indicated, I will do a very high level overview, hopefully hitting on as much as I can and of course any questions or anything I missed. This is an extremely complex operation. It has lots of moving pieces and there is a lot of if this then that. And so I will do my best to do broad strokes. But if there are specific questions, obviously I'll try to answer them. So I am going to start with our service levels. There's various service levels.

Our first service level is usually what we would call a pretreat service level that usually comes in the form of brining. That's when you see the white stripes that go on the street. That is done as a preventative measure that that prevents snow from sticking to the pavement and creating the inability to move it. It's not a 100%. It won't, you know, prevent all bond but it is a really good protector and barrier first level.

After that, if there's more snow than would be handled by a pretreat, we would do something called what we call a GIC or a general ice control operation. And that's typically when our salt trucks or what we call our sensors will go out. They drop salt at various rates typically with that same brine solution that we use to pretreat. That is a salt water brine. So it's a diluted salt, if you will.

After that, depending on weather, depending on how many inches are expected, depending on what type of temperature is expected, we'll go into what we might consider a partial plow. And that's where we put plow blades on the sensors. So that happens obviously quite often. And then what we had this past weekend is what we would consider a full plow and that's where we actually bring in all of our packers. So our packers are the garbage recycle trucks and then we put plow blades on those pieces of equipment.

During snow and ice operations, we have something called an A team and a B team. So that's a twelve hour shift morning, twelve hour shift at night. That includes operators as well as management support staff, office staff, yard staff. There are about 120 pieces of equipment or sensors that come in and about 159 employees that work for a regular assault truck. And that does include also light duty pickup trucks that get into, say, narrow streets or need to do very unique some of the pedestrian installations that you've seen out.

A lot of times our pickup trucks do those. When we do a full plowing and bring in the packers that adds another 60 to 90 pieces of equipment and that does not include our private pieces of equipment. Those are the end loaders. The end loaders, they do our dead ends, cul de sacs, crossovers and that's about somewhere between, we hope 36, sometimes up to 50 pieces of equipment. Really depends on who's available and who can get here.

This particular operation, I won't get into too many details of this past operation unless you ask me to, but there is still a lot of construction out right now. So a lot of our operators weren't available, private operators want to clarify that. So then at that point when you do a full plowing you're talking about two fifty to 300 employees working at a time. As far as priorities go, there was a question about what's an arterial. I admit ten years ago when I started working snow and ice, I was like, what's an arterial?

No one knows what that is, but apparently everyone does except me. It's a main street. So it is the main street that fire and police travel, bus routes, where your main streets are leading out to your residential streets. So our priority one is opening up those mass transit routes that includes arterials or main streets to help traffic move from point A to point B as effectively as possible throughout the city. Then we move usually into the residential streets and getting the dead ends called the Sacks and boulevards opening.

Priority three is going to be alternate side plowing and cleanup. So you saw that recently when we called a snow emergency where we asked cars to all park on one side so then at night we would go through and clear the opposite side and then vice versa. We usually like to call those in two days increments unless we know the snow is going to melt back. So say April, there's a snowstorm. If we had to call a snow emergency, we would take a look at what our temperature is looking like and then we might elect not to call that second day because things are melting back.

But right now, obviously, we want to set the tone right out of the gate because if this snow stays around the entire season, we want to go curb to curb the best we can. Priority five, which happens once we make sure all our travel lanes are cleared, we start clearing our bus stops, parking meters if those are blocked out, litter cans, that type of thing. One thing I didn't mention that happens during priority one is also the bike lanes. So at the same time we're salting or plowing, we are also brining, salting and or plowing our bike lanes and installations that move bikes to and fro. Priority six is snow removal.

And so snow removal doesn't happen often but it is part of things. So if you can imagine on the viaducts when we plow snow to the edges, that could cause a very dangerous condition that we call ramping. And so at that point, we would then have ribbon blowers that go out and actually blow that snow into a dump truck we remove. So that snow removal. Few years back, I want to say four years ago, there was a very, very narrow street and I believe Alderman Perez's district that was very parked up, very congested and we actually had to go in for a several block stretch and remove that snow.

We try to make sure we do a good enough job moving cars which can be a challenge making sure cars are moved and plowing from the beginning because snow removal can be very expensive. I believe just a three or four block snow removal effort cost over $1,000,000 So we do not try to do that unless we absolutely need to for public safety or for access. Let's see what else. If I didn't mention it, we also have tracklesses. Those are smaller pieces of equipment.

There's maybe, I think, a handful that go out every single operation and they always do the non assessables of the city of Milwaukee. So those are areas that city of Milwaukee is responsible for and not accessible on the tax base. We're responsible for those. Over the bridges, sort of pedestrian walkways, so our smaller pieces of equipment clear those at the same time. And then usually towards the end of the operation when we're in what we consider cleanup mode, we have an entire trackless complement of I believe it's 38 that go out and clear corners.

If our plows now this can sort of vary if you will, but if our plows plow back snow that cause undue hardship on the resident to clear out their corner, our trackless operators will go do that. Now we don't send them out to clear corners on every snow and ice operation because corners are the responsibility of the property owner. Okay? So fire hydrants, corners, bus stops, that's the property owner's responsibility. But of course, we recognize that that's not realistic, especially in the last snow we had.

We send out those tracklesses to clear open those corners. So that happens. Let's see what else I can get to. Service levels, I think this is important to also mention during a plowing activity. Anytime we are pushing snow our plows only have the ability to push straight forward or at a small angle right or left.

Some snow going back into driveways and is inevitable. There are times when a resident may call us and let us know, hey, this all froze. There's, you know, a berm that's taller than my thigh. We don't know what's going on, but can you come help us? Absolutely we will.

Absolutely we do. We just need to know about it. Oftentimes our operators, as they're pushing that snow, recognize it themselves and call back to the field to the supervisors and managers and let them know because a different piece of equipment has to come out. There are times when I hear the feedback that a plow dumped snow or put snow into a driveway. That's seldom I mean, I understand the perception of that, but our plows cannot actually lift up and dump.

They can only push. But some snow back into driveways is an unfortunate and inevitable part of snow and ice. Ice. But we do try to be reasonable and especially we want residents to let us know what's going on. What else? Go

ahead, Alderman Baum.

I think I want to thank Alderman Bauer for bringing this Every year we usually have had these files to both give a refresher as well as provide feedback and actually air complaints if there are complaints out there. On the first of all, want to speaking from my district, I think the plowing operation went very well. What didn't go very well is a parking issue. I don't see anybody here from parking. Right now, your major problem is parked cars.

And I don't have any solution to that. Short of very vigorous enforcement which nobody seems to want to do and hasn't done for four years. So, there's been a pattern established that people figure it is now free to park on the streets of Milwaukee. Why should I get an annual permit? Why should I worry about emergency declaration? I mean, this emergency declaration, there was no response to it whatsoever in my neighborhood. It was different just a normal night. I don't know if people tune it out, don't watch TV anymore, don't read the newspaper, don't listen to the radio. They certainly don't have e notify. But that's not your fault in terms of operations.

But that is a DPW issue. And I don't know the answer to it at this point because I've been complaining about this. Finally, we abolish the odd even rule and actually that's helped because you eventually got to the curbs in some areas because it's the daytime when the parkers leave, not the nighttime. That's philosophically though. I mean, the other cities do this differently. I was just reading the website for the city of Montreal which does remove snow almost universally across the entire city. They get a lot of snow. So it's very expensive. They spend about $100,000,000 on snow removal. We spend maybe 8,000,000

or $9,000,000

Depending on the season between eight and thirteen.

Right. But that's a philosophical question. I mean, do we ever have that discussion on what should be the policy and ask our citizens do you want streets so clean you can eat off them within twenty four hours after a snowfall Or are you happy with the current situation? Because there are other ways to do it. Snow removal is the answer.

But it's snow blowers, it's trucks, it's melting. They do all those things in Montreal at tremendous cost. So I'm just curious, have we ever had that discussion either internally with the budget office, with the the mayoral administration, and presenting this council with option. The gold plated option A, you're going to cost you $50,000,000 a year. The bronze silver plated x dollars, bronze plated x dollars, or the steel plated x dollars. I mean, would think that choice should be presented because then we can go to our constituents and say, we can eliminate all snow problems but it's going to add $50,000,000 to the tax levy.

Right.

Your choice. We'll do it. We'll do whatever you are willing to pay for. I don't think they realize there's alternatives.

Right.

Necessarily. So, if we ever had this philosophical discussion about what should be the policy and then the other issue and this is we've been harping on for twenty one years that I've been, you know, at this committee. The issue of of addressing pedestrian facilities especially in high walkable neighborhoods which is a lot of the East Side. A lot of downtown. A lot of the West Side. 12 Aldermanic District as well. 6 Aldermanic District as well. That does seem to still get second fiddle. The pedestrian is not a priority. Moving cars is the priority. And that's been true for twenty one years. It's been tug of war for those twenty one years. So that's my comment. Comments. But on the philosophical question, I

think I don't think

members much less probably realizes that there are different ways of doing it that are way more costly, but you'll have clean streets curb to curb and and you can eat off them in January, right?

Right. Madam Chair? Go ahead. Yes. No, I'm glad you brought that up because we talk about this a lot and in fact, I like how your analogy, we usually say, do you want the Cadillac version or do you want the, you know, maybe the Subaru version or whatever, right? But yes, we have these conversations a lot. In fact, we explore is there ways for us to adapt snow melting. We've investigated about can we get a snow melter? What would that mean? How much would it cost?

What would it cost to operate, to purchase long term? So, we have these conversations often. We talk to the budget office often. We work together. Right now, I think we're under the impression that, you know, the the amount of funds that we get and and not creating undue burden on the tax base that we're we're trying to serve and and give the best service that we can with the money we're afforded. We are certainly willing to come before the council with various other options based on different types of operational approaches and service levels for your consideration. If that is something you would like us to do, we can definitely prepare that.

Yeah, I mean I would like to look at more snow removal especially in the Central Business District because that really does interfere with commerce. When you have the piles of snow, people can't get to the meters falling over the piles. All those types of and now we have all these dedicated bike lanes which on Michigan really kind of worst skip for the most part. I think there's still snow covered. I think they may have been addressed last night.

But now we have all these slalom slalom courses that we've set up on some of these roads which require smaller equipment to even start the job. And it seems to me we should look at much more snow removal options for heavily concentrated high density neighborhoods downtown especially even Lower East Side residential, near West Side residential, Walkers Point neighborhoods, and you know, what is the cost? And since we do most of this cost recovery through a fee, we can modulate that fee to generate whatever revenue is required for plan gold or plan silver. Right. And perhaps even modulated based on areas of the city.

Right. I'm not sure the legality of having a a graduated snow snow collection fee that is higher downtown and lower on the Northwest Side or the Far Southeast Side, something like that. I mean, I think there's other methods of looking at this that gets us to a better place at some higher cost. And then could tell give people the choice. Especially since the stone ice fee is now paid by everybody. Right. Is positioned on the street.

Mhmm.

Non profit tax exempt doesn't matter.

Madam chair.

Pardon me. You

go first.

You want the second one?

So first, thank you. I do wanna say thank you because I think you guys did a great job. You were very responsive. I had residents calling, but then they also called back and said thank you for the job that was done. So I greatly appreciate all the hard work of the men and women that were out there during the snowstorm.

But as again, thank you to Alderman Brower for bringing this out. And then also thank you to Alderman Bowman for the things that he was talking about as well as far as pedestrians. And But there was and so I just wanna bring this up too because I think it's really important as we look at snow plowing and how it's impacting the residents. And I had asked about the alleys being plowed, And I think that that's still something that needs to be considered. And I think you said that there was 4,000 miles of alley. Was that is that correct?

So we actually did a pilot alley plowing study in 2018 and I'm happy to share that report. I'm just trying to look through the report. I don't want to confirm if there were that many lane miles of alleys because I don't have it in writing and I wouldn't want to misspeak. But at the time of the 2018 pilot, they did estimate that initial cost for a snow plowing program in alleys would initially be first year $4,600,000 and 3,000,000 to $3,200,000 each year after that. That's obviously $20.18 dollars We can go back to the drawing board and estimate it for future costs.

I will say there are concerns about plowing alleys in particular in regard to plowing an alley again is just a straight movement and it doesn't account for the spill off of blocking people's garages and maybe potential damages that might ensue after that. But it is something that if you would like to talk more in detail about some of the considerations for that, I'm happy to do so.

I think it's worth talking about. I think that if you can anticipate what the problems may be, then we can come up with solutions to address those those issues. So I I think that we definitely need to have that conversation and definitely need to look at that because you can clear the streets, but if a person's parked in their garage, they can't get out if the alley is not plowed. So Yeah. You still end up with the same issue. So I think it's something that's worth looking at. And I don't want to have it fall by the wayside and we don't even consider it. So that's one. The other thing is is I think Alderman Baumann was right. We do have this conversation.

And so I have only been here for three years. But each time, we've had this conversation. And last year, we came up with the idea that maybe cameras would help. And so I definitely don't want that to fall by the wayside either because I think we had a lengthy discussion about equipping the trucks with cameras. We looked at different types of cameras.

You guys also talked about having a pilot study of the cameras done, and we haven't had that conversation yet. So I'd like to make sure that we don't let that fall by the wayside either. I think it may be costly on the front end to make sure that each of those trucks are equipped with cameras, but I think it saves on the back end, in that it helps with the number of workers that you have. It helps with the number of phone calls that are coming through. It helps with each of the alders being able to monitor what's happening in their district so that we could speak to that when we get those phone calls.

So I think it's something that we definitely need to continue to have a discussion about and we need to continue to put into place so that it helps us all the back end with communicating with residents on what's actually happening in their district. I think I know the camera system was very technical and and but it had a lot of parts in it that that would allow for us to have access to where the trucks were, what they were doing, whether the alleys were being plowed so that we could actually defend the work that that people were doing in DPW with snow plowing. And and I think that's important to be able to do that. So I just wanted to make sure that we don't lose sight of those two things cause I think they're going to just make us a better city overall and more appreciated.

Absolutely. Thank you. We'll get the alley plowing pilot study up to date with today's dollars, share it with the committee and look forward to more discussion on that. In regard to cameras, those have been installed. So our management group, we need to start a step one management group, myself, let's see what we see, let's make sure everything is working along with those cameras.

We do have ability for access on a map right now that is being piloted and tested. This operation in fact was the first time we've tested that. We obviously don't want to roll out something that is still needs some massaging with tech, right? But this gives me a great opportunity to plug tomorrow's meeting at 01:00 for elders and your aids to come and talk about our seasonal operations. Caitlin Jenick, our operations manager will talk to all of our operations and specifically roll out the look of what that map would look like.

Hopefully get some feedback from you all so we know what you like about it, what you don't so that we can keep massaging and make sure when it rolls product. Thank you. You're welcome.

Are these some of the drivers that you have with you

here today? These? Yes. They are some drivers. Yes. Absolutely. Well, I I for one want to

say thank you. I know it's not easy being out there in the cold and in the snow. I'm trying to make sure that our our streets are safe. So thank you for your work. Are there any other question? Autumn automatist form.

I'm just curious. How long does the shift last during a snowstorm like that?

Do you want me to answer them?

Twelve to sixteen. Twelve to sixteen. And

and that isn't the end of the shift, right? They get to go back for ten, right, ten to twelve hours. They get to go home, hopefully manage their own snow, go to sleep a little, eat, and then they come back for another twelve to sixteen and in fact, we have a slight low right now. That's why the small group has joined us but they're still out there. Okay. Doing cleanup and and and getting things.

Alright, thank you guys. My questions are not really in relation to snow removal. It's it's the leaf piles. So, I'm just I just want to know. So, the leaf piles that are created by DPW can you explain why they're there?

Yes, absolutely. Thanks for asking. So obviously, seasonal operations are very challenging because we're basically dependent on weather to do sort of weather's thing so that we can respond to it. So leaf season for us usually starts early October. Obviously this year, I don't know what happened, but leaves were very slow to fall.

We're still out there working regardless because we know if we are so there's sort of a couple stages of leaf collection. First is the pushing stage. You'll see the smaller tracklesses with broom kind of rakes on the front and they are collecting the piles that the residents have put out into the street. They push those into the big large piles that I'm sure everyone has seen.

That's what I'm referencing.

Okay. And then a different crew because that crew actually has to come around and collect those large piles, if you will. So we start that early October because we know if we can collect as much as we can early on. Once the big sort of let go from the trees happens, at least we don't have, you know, this other ancillary stuff going on. We it takes anywhere from two to three weeks to collect all those large leaf piles citywide.

So our but I do have my sanitation manager here, but I believe and I know he'll correct me if I'm wrong but I believe we had all of our crews, all of our available crews working pre snowstorm trying to collect as much as we possibly could citywide but it it's just not enough to collect every single pile.

Right. How was it determined where those piles go?

Where they're pushed to? Can you speak more to that?

Sure. Rick Meyer, Sanitation Services Manager. If you see the training or drivers get on where to consolidate or leave those piles, you wonder that they have any spot because we're trying to obviously avoid the driveways and all the accessibility issues, not getting too close to stop signs and corners where you're impacting visibility. So there's a lot of criteria in terms. But in general, I will say that it's on the side streets.

So we're not trying to create the piles. We know people if they live on Main Street anywhere, they're going break them out. But when we make our larger piles, we're attempting to push them around to have the lower speed side streets, lower issues with access visibility and that kind of thing. Does that answer your question?

It kind of. So like, is it like to make collection easier? Is it is it like mid? I know it's situational. No block is the same but mid block, end of block on a tee like at the end of that block where that tee starts like or is it just random? Wherever it makes sense.

Yeah. I mean, I think.

Probably a lot of judgment call that our operators have to use. We give them guidelines. And to Rex point, there's a lot of places we say you absolutely can't put a leaf pile, but it's very situational. It really depends on lots of things, unfortunately.

So is it documented where exactly these piles are

put? Yes. So our process, the crews that are consolidating them, when they leave the piles, they have and we're moving working towards the digital format and so on that we've talked about some of that that we're using in our garbage recycling collections. But our traditional method is that they are documenting on the paper maps, the leaf maps that they have or where they're working. And so they're just indicating where they're leaving the piles on those.

These maps, they're close in, so they can be pretty accurate as far as where it is on the street. And then those maps are then what we use as our basis to provide the collection crews. And so we're pretty good about identifying where we left it and where we need to pick up. Occasionally do we miss a large pile that doesn't fall through cracks? Yes, but on usually, we're really good. You know, it's pretty straightforward. We left piles here. We send crews there.

Okay. Alright. And just so everybody's clear, I mean, I I understand we're all short staffed, the same, in most cases, the same people that are picking up the leaves are the same ones that are doing the plowing, correct?

So, the same people that do your garbage and recycle are the same people that pick up the leaves and are the same people that do snow and ice.

Okay. I just want to put that out there because some people think it's different.

Yes. It's an important detail, I think.

For sure.

Yes. Thank you.

Thank you. I would also like to mention just to follow-up, Alderman Taylor, it's 4,000 alleys, not 4,000 miles.

Oh, okay.

Thank you. You're welcome.

I do wanna give you kudos too for your social media post. I think I think a few years ago, we I think many of us all just started sharing the the email that you send us. I found the recent social media post to be just as engaging for the regular constituent.

Yeah. Tiffany Shepherd, our communications and marketing specialist is phenomenal. We're really happy to have her and lucky because it helps with communication.

Madam chair.

Okay, mom. We've also discussed from time to time clearing sidewalks. Again, doing my back at the note research here. Toronto does clear sidewalks. Above two centimeters. I think two centimeters is, well, it it it's not much. So, the property owner is required to clear under two centimeters, above two centimeters to city plowed 98% of their sidewalks.

Mechanical The equipment. Right.

Have we ever discussed that?

We do discuss that. Myself, Gerald, Kevin Muse, we discuss it a lot because we realize that pedestrian access is just as important as other mobility forms. And so a lot of the barrier is the cost and what should we do that's affordable and that we can afford and how do we make sure that the sidewalks are clear and safe for all modes of transportation whether you're walking, biking, driving or otherwise. So I don't think we've landed on a good answer to that yet but it is discussion we have quite frequently. Not yet but we can certainly do it.

We can certainly go through the exercise. We know it'll be quite expensive. Some of our you know we have some concerns with it because we think we would need private contractors to come do it. That can be

Well, that's what Toronto does.

Yeah. That can be

Were you on a trip with that I wasn't.

A famous trek to Toronto No. Middle winter when

I wasn't. But I was working for DBW when you and Preston went. And so he told me a lot about

proud it went. It was very interesting. Callback

went, right?

Yes, indeed he did. And we saw the Minutemen, all their big dump trucks with plows that sat basically ready to roll. Contractors.

Mhmm.

And they lived on the site of the place where the trucks were parked. Mhmm. In these trailers, literally. Mhmm. And these were folks that would come down from the North Of Canada who would do, you know, lumber work and the things in the summer then they'd come down and live in these trailer camps during the winter and would man these trucks and out they go and they're big purple, big heavy duty. I mean, so they did but again, they spend 10 times what we spend. So I mean there are alternatives. Hear about the sidewalk issue constantly. And rather than the whack a mole process we have now where you're trying to running out and issuing orders and people got what twenty four hours to comply

or just

do it.

Right. Send them the bill. Mhmm. And or at least give people the choice

of that.

Right. I think you'll see many people say, yeah, okay. If that's an extra 5,000,000 to do sidewalk plowing. Fine. We'll add that to snow and ice feed. If it's another 5,000,000 to do certain alleys, we'll do that. Because it's done other places. We

can cost that out.

Sure. Has there ever been conversation with bids about the sidewalk thing and maybe them paying for it?

So I think we've already engaged with some of the more active bids about sidewalk clearing, certainly historic 3rd Ward, downtown bids. I think we could maybe do a little more about talking to some of the other bids about how they can help support us and how we can partner. That's not a bad idea at all.

I think it might be wise.

Madam chair, can I get in the queue for when the committee's

done? Yeah.

Is there any other commitment? I'll go ahead. I'll have

your question. Oh, yeah. So now newly, I have between 100 And Berli on Lisbon paid bike lane. Is the city that came up yesterday from constituent city? Are we clearing those bike lanes?

So we yes. We clear bike lanes. Now, remind me the way that bike lane looks. Is it is it raised or protected or is it

just It's protected.

It is a protected bike lane. Yes. Then the city would be clearing that if it hasn't been cleared. Okay. You know, so I can.

Alright.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. And you said, what what was that again? So, I'm going to check it.

Well, it's only open from on the westbound side from 86th Street to 100 Fountain.

So part of that might be that it's even the part that's open might not be completely ready per the contractor so that might be why it's not on our maps It's ready. Okay. Well, I'll I'll double check

on it. I haven't looked

Okay.

To see if they did it. I was just curious if we are clearing those.

Yes.

Okay.

Thank Just

for the edification of the listeners, if a street isn't done, like a regular resident, who what what do they do? Who do they call? Sure.

So it is two eight six city or there is a online request that they can use using the app or going online to request service. There's a couple different service levels there. There's like street mist for a plow and then I think icy road conditions. I will caveat that with when we are just starting out an operation and we're still in the middle of that operation, we typically do not open up those service requests because we know that there are still streets that we haven't gotten to. You know, we always you'll hear me say this over and over and in my emails, you know, patience is key.

Please be patient with us. You know, somewhere between twenty four and forty eight hours after snow stops falling is when you can expect for us to get to every street. But there is a time after that time period, usually within twenty four to forty eight hours when we open up those phone lines to take those concerns and requests.

So it's not put it on social media and tag your older person and

complain about it.

No. It is not. We

your honor.

We call 286 or do it online. Right?

And if it's okay, I would even say we would prefer to know about it. If you call 286 if you have the app, if you go online and request do that service request, that actually gets to our field quicker than if you call or tag your alder because you might all not be available. You might be doing other things. The people you email to you know, the things you email to us, we are usually, you know, hustling and bustling in the middle of a snowstorm. But those service requests in the field that's directly in the field, they print them, they hand them directly to the drivers.

And so it cuts out all the middle noise. I mean, obviously, if there's concerns, people are free to do what they want and what makes them comfortable. But we want to be responsive. We do not want to miss the street. We do not want to do a poor job.

What's the response time usually for if somebody calls like 6 six city?

Usually within twenty four hours because depending on what time they call and and have the request entered, you know, if it's late in the afternoon, we might not print that until overnight or early morning, but within twenty four hours for sure.

If you guys already have this, please send it. But if you don't, you might wanna make it. Just a graphic that says if we miss the street or if your street needs to be plowed, call 286 and put the link Yeah. Or use the app or whatever so that across social media platforms, we all could be sharing that.

Yes, absolutely. We're happy to do that.

Thank you. Alderman Spiker? I'm

actually waiting on.

Okay. Alderman Brower?

Yes. Yes. Thank you. Really appreciate these questions. And I had some more from constituent context we've gotten to. I just maybe I should make clear, think this was made clear to me some of the vernacular that we're using because obviously, like, a plow a plow plowing snow is a form of removing it from a space. So when we use the term in in DPW world, when we use the term removal, we're talking about, like, getting it off the ground, either melting it or into a dump truck to like literally take it somewhere else. Yes. Okay. I just I just want to make sure that's where so when you say snow removal, we're talking about it getting it off of the street, off the ground in a specific area.

When we talk about plowing, we're talking about using a blade to push it. Into different things. Okay, because you talked about okay, just want to make sure for everybody listening and we're planning on sending this link out to our constituents. So I just want to make sure that's clear. So the question we talk about costs, we talk about logistics, where we engage almost exclusively from what you were saying, Danielle, in plowing and our city crews engage in plowing and then removal. Maybe there's some examples of other cities like Montreal that do full blown removals of all the snow. We only do removals on an as needed basis. Correct. Okay. That that's a thank you so much.

I I really appreciate that because that does lead to one of the questions I did get about alleys and we already touched on it a little bit. You brought the concern that if we're plowing an alley because a constituent emailed constituent emailed our office and said, why can't the city plow only the alleys that have garbage collection? Like just as we're collecting the garbage, have a plow on the front of that thing.

And then but I mean,

I mean, I I just

this this is a question we got.

So I I just want

to answer. I see you guys laughing. But this is but I and so I'd all acknowledge that. But I, you know, this is a legitimate question we got from from one of my constituents. We asked like, I asked my constituents to deliver me questions. And so that would be a question I can see, you know, from from what you were saying earlier, like, we're if we have a garbage crew and I was out for six hours with our garbage collection, I know the drill. But if we're out there, that's I don't see the could you just describe that because that was a question we got.

Yes, absolutely. And actually, that's I mean, it's a good question. It really is. And but at the end of the day, I think one of the things we need to remember that part of the process of plowing snow requires, you know, like torque in a vehicle, right?

Yes. Okay.

And so garbage collection means that you have to stop, empty the garbage

Like every three houses.

Yeah. Every couple

houses. So the garbage packer itself needs momentum to push that snow.

Okay.

And if they stop, in fact we see this a lot when we use our garbage packers when they're plowing. If they are plowing heavy snow which I assume is when we would want alley plowing, they'll get stuck. They will get stuck in the road. That's thing. So, front of the plow blade.

Some of it is falling off the edges. But the majority of that weight is right in front of that plow blade. And so it would be two houses before now they were stuck. If there were potential for plowing, say for example a street, you'll notice they don't really slow down or stop. They'll come to a street, analyze it, can I get through? And they have to go because if they slow down or stop, they're now stuck there.

No. And that's maybe to a broader question about whether we want to offer this to our constituents or not as far as plowing alleys or snow removal or plowing on alleys. I mean, sounds it seems like in the alleys, we would have no choice but to engage in snow removal because then we're gonna you know, had a constituent. You know, they they said, you know, when, you know, it would plow you know, the snow snow removal in alleys would plow in. Mhmm.

You know, the the you know, you're talking about that plowing the the garage doors or if we're doing that with driveways. I did get another email from a constituent who's concerned about driveways. Any amount in front of a driveway is a concern for elderly individuals who have trouble shoveling and removing that snow themselves. So any of any of that kind of stuff would would be had to be a snow removal really in the end and then we're talking about, you know, just a a larger assessment, property tax assessment or a fee assessment which I'm I'm not opposed to and I I I like what Alderman Bomber is saying is that we should just explore offering this to our constituents. What do you guys want?

Perhaps, there could be some sort of option kind of like our community led traffic calming. This is was daydreaming about this the other day. The word like community led traffic calming where neighborhoods or groups like petition and then it comes before us here. We authorize it and it becomes an additional fee into a specific geography where a neighborhood has said, yeah, we want a little bit more premium kind of services from the city where now our alley is getting snow removal. There's there's plying on the sidewalk or something. I'll just I'll just throw that out there. I know that would be enormous cost but there are some neighborhoods that would be willing to to pay that, I think, or just to like, I mean, you know, there is a a time factor in money as well. So, you go, okay. I'm gonna have to shove my my sidewalk or my alley. Well, okay, I saved myself some time and now I'm paying for it enough fee on my assessment.

Yes. So what's interesting about that sort of concept is that, well, certainly, I grew up in Milwaukee. I know from the time I was a child all the way until I was a 30, 35 year old adult when I didn't live on an alley anymore. And I know neighbors still do it to this day. They do sort of exactly that.

They get together, pool $20 $50 I know what the cost is anymore. They get together, pool their money. They hire usually a a contractor with a pickup truck which is much more nimble in an alley whereas, you know, a garbage packer, it's just like plow it straight through. You know, a small pickup truck can have a little more maneuverability in that tight space and be a little more careful with what they're doing. So, usually, neighbors, you know, get together, pay contractor for the season and the contractor comes and does their alley.

Know there's I hear a lot of residents talk about that and usually when they get most frustrated is when at some point the neighbors, somebody whoever was in charge of collecting that money no longer does does or when the neighbors just no longer simply contribute or they lost their contractor to do that. I know on our website, we do have a list of contractors just to try to direct people in a direction if they want to get that pool of money together and maybe get a contractor to do that for them.

And if there is a this came to my model with that. If there is a contractor out there that wants to be on the website listed, there easily is just I mean, they could drop an e mail to DPW and have it be listed. There's not a particular like vetting process. You're just like, hey, here's snow removal or plowing contractors that are out there if you would like to

We contact don't incur any type of liability. We're just saying here's a list of contractors who you want.

And the nice thing, know, the the problem, well, yeah, with the alley clearings is the free rider problem. You know, Joe Smith at twenty five sixty five didn't pay his fee this year and but then alley still got alley still got cleared. Of course, you know, now we were the government. We can levy a tax, so the free rider problem isn't as much of an issue there. I just want to go through a couple terms that you were using.

Mhmm.

There you you talked about what the viaducts and the issue of of plowing those and ramping. What is that? I'm not familiar with that term.

Sure. Absolutely. So on the viaducts, obviously, they're very long stretches of bridge. Our plows go through and plow the snow, you can imagine, to the edges. And then a sidewalk crew comes and clears the sidewalks so that people have accessibility on the sidewalks. And usually there's a little bit of back and forth, but eventually between the street and the sidewalk over the bridge ends up being a berm.

In winter That happens almost in any street,

doesn't it?

Any street. It's particularly impactful, I think, in bridges. One, we want to make sure we're keeping those bridges as wide open as possible. But two, when that snow freezes in place, if there were an accident and a car were to what we call ramp up that frozen ice, they'll go over. So you'll notice like on freeways, the home bridge, the state, the county, they are very particular in how they clear the snow because anything over an overpass that has that sort of berm can cause what we call ramping and we

obviously So want the vehicle could potentially ramp up Yes. Over

And so that is again a removal of snow and usually it's frozen by the time we remove it.

No, that's I appreciate that. Thank you so much. Okay. When you said we go we said one of the when you're going through the priority list, you were talking about clearing bus stops. Is that plowing or redoing a removal at some point in your priority? I don't remember which priority tier was the agenda.

Sure. So when we're well, when we're done, when we're in our cleanup phase, usually as soon as we can release our our end loaders. Once our end loaders are done clearing our cul de sacs, dead ends and crossovers. A crossover is like in between boulevards when you streets meet. They're done with that, they are immediately released the very next evening, if you will, and they are sent out to clear bus stops. Now what they do is they clear the pad in front and potentially where sort of that back way would be. Now corner usually

And they'll clear it

in front

of Yes. It, you Usually, corners are on a bus stops are on a corner. So again, like snowfall is it is the responsibility of the property owner, but we recognize that it can be very challenging to clear that much snow off of a corner. So we do deploy those resources whenever we plow.

Okay. And for that.

We'll

to At what point are those corners do And we ever engage do in a removal to have that fully accessible?

Sure. So we talk about it internally and the language we use is anytime it causes an undue hardship on the homeowners. Okay. Right. So if it's an inch or two of light fluffy snow, we consider that to be manageable by just a reasonable average resident. So we would not clear corners in that instance. This obviously plowing, we know we're plowing back boulders in some case, right? So that is absolutely an undue hardship. We absolutely clear all corners then.

Okay. Oh, so okay. Then that would be on us for us to clear out those.

In fact, I believe they're working on that operation right now. Are they not? Yes. Okay.

Yeah.

And then speaking of the workers here and then for those for those of you that are present, thank you all so much for your commitment to this city. Thanks to everybody. I mean, I just want to ask this question because I know we've gotten this in some of the email correspondents as well. Like this is a for the people either whether you're on an A team or a B team or whatever. This is kind of a mandatory overtime situation that's occurring. The people are called in beginning with pretreatment.

Yes.

At what point then just to okay. So then thank you for every worker who's listening to this and whoever does that. Like, thank you. Thank you. Thank you all so much for coming in and and doing that hard work. At what point and just going back to the the beginning with some of the priorities here. At what point do you do we make a determination who or whom makes the determination about pretreatment? I mean, obviously, like, you know, you never can predict the future. Right. Right? Like, so we you know, the, you know, the the meteorologists, oh, they say there's a storm coming. Yeah. I mean, I mean, who sits there and says, okay. Well, that's real or I or I believe Mark Baden, you know, said that what he

says is this is gonna happen. You know, this storm is

gonna happen, so we better get out there and pretreat. So at what point are we and and I really do actually I'm actually curious. Besides the joking aside, I am curious about what point we're making a decision to pretreat and then which roads are we deciding to pretreat and what are the priorities there?

Yeah. Absolutely. That's a great question. And I'm going to start it with we do actually pay have paid weather services that send us official weather reports. And so we have rotating managers who keep an eye on that. They formulate it for a team. There's never one person making these decisions. There's a team of people because more heads are better than one.

So Krusky is not out there reading the tea leaves or anything.

No one is reading the tea leaves.

Well, maybe

they are. But sometimes that's more accurate, probably more accurate sometimes. But weather is, as much as it's a science, it is also an art. We're learning. Talked to one of the meteorologists from National Weather Service a couple years ago who said, you know, the majority of the science that we're using to make the prediction, right, is no longer always holding true.

So we, you know, we see a weather front happening and we use science to say, so this is what's gonna happen. And that is not always what happens. In fact, there's times when I'm in our weather room looking at a radar showing a system of snowing and I look out the window and I'm like, but there's not one flake hitting the I don't understand. You know, it's like this disconnect. It's dissipating and drying out before it actually hits the ground.

So it is very challenging to predict when to do something, what to do, and you don't always get it 100% right, but we always try to on the side of being more proactive than less. As far as pretreatment goes, there are times when we will not pretreat and pretreatment is typically the brine but can sometimes be a pretreatment of salt although we try to avoid that.

And what constitutes the brine?

Yeah. So the brine is the salt water solution and that is white lines that end up on the street. We will not do pretreatment if it's raining or going to rain because it just washes that salt away and it's useless and it's just washing down. If it is not going to rain, we'll go ahead and brine. We always start with mains. We sometimes try to get into the districts. If there is a large snowstorm, we will pretreat with salt in the districts, meaning residential streets because we know we're gonna be on the mains so long that getting back to the districts, we want to put something down. Okay. That's why I've seen pretreats

on Hackett or other residential streets. Okay.

It's biding us time. And we've been we've been trying to do a really good job being responsive to the council's needs of us getting into the residential streets earlier so that it doesn't pile up and render people unable to even move from point A to point B or even get to the mains. But one thing that's important to know about the mains is that although we may not make sure it's perfect curb to curb before we go to the residential, we do have to make sure it's at least safe. You know, if people are slipping and sliding on those mains, we internally talk about losing it. We say we're going to lose the mains.

That means that we have not treated with enough salt or have not plowed early enough that you're driving a main and it feels like you're driving on a residential where there's, you know, like thick accumulation. Like, that is a very, very serious situation for us because we cannot lose those mains. So we stay

on Because

the buses depend on them.

Ambulance Ambulance. Fire service. Okay. Yeah.

It's how we get from point A to point B. We understand that on the residentials, it is very impactful for us to get there sooner. So we've been doing a good job about we maybe leave the parking lanes on a main street. We'll come back to those a little later that affords us time to get into those residentials.

No. And so this is a really good point because we get contacts about like, why did my street get plugged? Well, and I'll just say then this is a I guess a resource distribution question given that we don't have unlimited resource to do everything that we want all the time at any moment. We do have to make priority decisions and then so therefore, we had to decide which streets these arterials are gonna serve the most constituents and most residents of the city at any one point. And so therefore, a the street like and we have I mean, where there's only houses or it's six single family homes on a block, therefore, has to be a lower priority.

And given that we don't have a limited resource, we can't get to all the priorities immediately. And so that's what's literally occurring. So you might have a soup so is this a decision maybe a supervisor might make at the moment on the ground of, okay, well, we've already done a, you know, we did one clearing of say like North Humboldt and and we've done all the main areas over in District 3 or you I know you guys number your districts and have different layouts that aren't contiguous to Aldermanic districts. Right. But, you know, we've done parts of the East side or river west of the main streets.

We're moving on to residential. Might a supervisor then make a call based on accumulation on the ground and say, now we gotta go back to the mains and arterials and end plowing in the residentials. Can you describe like, some of these factors that go into those decision making process?

You actually described it perfectly, sounds like you want a DPW

job. Okay.

I know what actually, was joking. I was joking with the I was joking. I know. I was

joking with the crew that if, you know,

if this political thing fails for me, would be applying for a a job in sanitation