City Council - Regular Meeting

Who's going to win? Maybe somebody when you say speak now forever. I want I want to see the spread. I want to see the the sheet. Who's got more? What if somebody when we take bets on somebody pops up to protest? You know, a sworn in love right now. You have I don't know. You look like a funeral director today. We have We have taken out the parts that were sent with anybody.

I will not. I really love me. So I sit down the night before council the morning of and I'll usually do a little prayer and I I think about and I'll put something together about the thing you make a you do we ready to proceed? Yes sir. All right. Thank you ladies and gentlemen. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning.

On a beautiful day in the greatest city on earth, we're going to ask Alderman Curtis Perti to lead us in our opening prayer. No zingers, huh? No zingers. Nothing. Well, you went there. We're asking we're asking the uh newlywed to be

to awesome. There we go. All right. If you all would please uh please bow your head in prayer and go to prayer with me. Heavenly Father, we come before you today with humility and gratitude. asking for your presence to guide this council and our community. Grant us strength in moments of challenge, clarity in times of decision, and wisdom as we serve those who have entrusted us with this awesome responsibility. In a time when our nation feels divided and sometimes our community, we ask for unity. Help us listen with open hearts and lead with compassion and to seek common ground over conflict. remind us that we are stronger together, bound by a shared purpose and a hope for a better future. Lord, we ask for courage to do what is right even when it is difficult. Courage to stand firm in our values and courage to lead with integrity and fairness for all. Lord, we take a moment to honor and remember the brave police officers who have given their lives in the line of duty. As we reflect during National Police Week, we pray for their families, their colleagues, and their communities. May their sacrifice never be forgotten and may their legacy inspire us to work toward peace and towards justice. We also lift up the students in our public schools in our community here in Savannah who are preparing to graduate in the coming days. Bless them with confidence, purpose, and opportunity as they step into the next chapter of their lives. Surround them with encouragement and guide their paths towards a bright and meaningful future. May all that we do here today be done with respect, purpose, and a commitment to the greater good, but mostly with love in our hearts. In the name of God the creator, Christ the redeemer, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Thank you all so much. Uh thank you alderman peri. Yes, I'm I'm going leave it alone. Uh gentlemen, uh organizationally, do we have executive session issues today? None for me, sir. Mr. Attorney.

All right. All right. Well, that's good news. So, we're going to go ahead uh start off with a uh workshop agenda. This is something that um staff has been asking about for quite some time and I appreciate city manager and team's diligence in uh providing as they had committed to doing a presentation about illegal dumping and an exciting uh hopefully exciting discussion about glass recycling. So, Mr. Manager, it's on you, sir. Uh thank you, mayor.

Oh, before uh Mr. the clerk is out handling district business. So, um, standing in for him is Gwendelyn Jones, the deputy clerk of council, all the way from Albany, Georgia. I have expected you, mayor, to begin the workshop with dearly beloved. I was going to see see. Is anybody here? Speak now. And you better hold your peace. So, we're trying to take some uh well, I'm going to say this, but uh um we're taking some some bets about the ugly cry. So, um if anybody wants to just see me afterwards, we're taking some We have a line. There is a reason that Linda calls me what?

Big baby. Lord, it's going to happen too. Saturday's the day. Um well, thank you, mayor, and uh thank you, um alderman and all the women. Um we know that one of the biggest challenges that we face in terms of our quality of life um and municipal service standards um is illegal dumping.

Um and uh in 2024 with the creation of the government operations service center and the addition of park and tree to that service center. Um we created a task force around illegal dumping. Um, so we want to begin today with members of that task force talking through what we know about illegal dumping, what we've done um to um increase our embaitment um our enforcement. Um what we're trying to do now to enhance both of those efforts, what challenges we persistently face in both the abatement um and the enforcement and compliance pieces to illegal dumping. And then we're going to talk a little bit about um things we are going to be bringing forward to council for consideration that we think may help um in both the abatement um and the enforcement and compliance um and deterrence efforts um for illegal dumping. I want to mention right off the bat um that this is an issue that every member of council has talked to me about um over the last several years um and uh glad that we're spending time today talking about um this important issue um and so just want to get that out that this has been a priority for council to get underway. So, we are going to hear from our senior director of um solid waste management, Kuana Andrews. Um we're going to hear from our senior director of code compliance, Cynthia Knight. We're going to hear from our senior director of park and tree, um Gordon Denny. Um and this is these are uh leaders within our government operations team, which of course is led by our chief, Chief Gan, um PVAP. Um we'll get through the illegal dumping um discussion which we hope will be a discussion and then turn to um our uh other items on uh which is our 10-year solid waste management plan

which is going to be coming before council later this summer. Um and um some good news about glass recycling um that we'll be hopefully bringing to back to our community very soon. Um so with that, let me hand it over to Chief of Government Operations, Mr. Gene Pvette. Thank you, Mr. Melder. Good morning, Mayor and Alderman. Good morning. Thank you for taking the time to uh hear us.

We've already introduced our senior staff. We uh have a strong showing from our sanitation transitioning to a name solid waste department. In the back we have senior director, excuse me, division director John Denion, residential refuge collection, recycling, commercial and literary abatement. Uh division director Fonda Mason. We have Carlos Bass who is special project manager in sanitation. We have Brad Mole who is our planning and operations coordinator. And there's Leah Scott Thompson who is our keep beautiful executive director.

So thank you all for showing up. U good job team.

All right. And again all these are items that are everybody's close to everybody's heart. Uh first thing that's very encouraging is our GPS alignment. You can see that five uh of six strategies under go are objective one under quality of life and improving municipal service standards are folded in under this few statistics and background. Uh our illegal dumping task force the mergers of solid waste co- compliance and park and tree form the nexus of our task force. These are the principal agencies that are uh working on illegal dumping. There's also a group of us multi- uh disciplinary across the city organization where we meet monthly to uh collaborate and coordinate on problems like this. And it's very broad-based. It includes I think just about every service center in the city. And it's about 25 30 people we gather every month. Okay, here are here's some background on the common materials that are discarded. These are the major categories. Debris and objects is the largest category by far with over 80% being things that are discarded uh from moveouts and the like. Uh construction debris is about 13% of what we're seeing out on the street and then tires are about 5%. Tires are particularly ownorous because they require completely separate handling and regulation under the Solid Waste Management Act. Typical locations are vacant lots, uh, back streets and lanes, roadside shoulders and highways, remote and

isolated areas, and uh, railroad crossings and things like that. additional data. Uh these are code cases separated by district over the last three years. As you can see, uh it's fairly low citywide comparative to the first district. And first district probably has three to five times more than any other district in the city. District five is a close second. Uh here is data on our rightway cleanups by the sanitation department. You can see the trend. Uh it's increasing year by year. Got we hit a low back during COVID because there was so little activity going on, business activity. Uh our peak last year was over 1,200 collections which is you know basically a hundred a month and then year to date we're at about 750 collections and at this point I'm going to ask Cynthia Knight to come up. Good morning mayor council and all. Um, I'm Cynthia Knight, the senior director for the city of Savannah co- compliance department. I'm going to be sharing

Okay, thank you. I'm going to be sharing some information in regards to um enforcement and illegal dumping in our community. As you can see from this photos that we come across illegal dumping sites that are massive, they are very costly and they require a coordinated effort to get these sites clean. And when we come across these sites, we are seeing them on private property as well as on public property along the rightway. So as chief shared, Pervette shared um we have common locations where we're finding the illegal dumping. Let's look into the enforcement process. Our enforcement process includes investigating the illegal dumping sites, documenting the evidence that we find, issuing notices, and legal action may follow if we are able to build the strong enough case. Alongside that is the coordinated cleanup with the uh multiple departments, co- compliance, solid waste, and parking tree. We also um find that education is a vital component. Um informing the community about proper waste disposal and environmental impacts can help may help preventing illegal dumping incidents. Here we have our hotspot location by yearly comparison. Each year we track um locations with frequent dumping and what we're seeing is that the locations are increasing

year by year. These locations come to us by way of us as uh city employees working in the community from many of you in the room informing us of these location and from our citizens. And we're finding that these locations are frequently being used. So we basically have committed to conducting bi-weekly inspections. Many of the locations are weekly but bi-weekly inspections going by there uh being proactive taking action to have the site clean without having the citizens having to call through um the 311 system to be serviced. At this point, I'm going to turn the presentation over to Director Q Andrews from Solid Waste.

Thank you so much.

Good morning, mayor. Good morning, council. Good morning, executive leadership, and all others in attendance. Um, we're going to start off talking about the abatement process, which our team, um, Solid Waste, all of our Solid Waste professionals, um, this is where we do the magic. This is where the magic happens. Um the very first thing we do is we go out and we want to identify where that site is. U we do it via field observation but there are opportunity for the publics to chime in um via our 311 and our 311 app or they can call the customer service line. Sorry. There we go. And then we want to investigate. And then we want to determine the source, size, and scope of the illegal dumping site. Um, we want to also make sure we collaborate with other teams that would include us, solid ways, park and tree, code compliance, and other departments throughout the city. And then once we understand exactly where um the illegal dumping is taking place, um if it's rightway, of course, that will be us going out and to abate it. If it's city property, it's Gordon's team and park and tree. And if it's private property, it will be um Cynthia's team in code compliance. And then once we um collect and clean up the site, um we go back and we inspect it. So we want to review the site work to ensure it's completed up to standards. And here are our cleanup calls um from FY24 all the way to FY26 to date. As you can see, um the city has spent a total of $597,622 abating these sites. So that's total cost again including um our solid waste um park and tree doing both city property and encampments and coal compliance um the number of cold cases um they've processed.

And then we have our education and outreach arm within the solid waste department which consists of keep Savannah Beautiful. That's our major contributor. As you can see some of the key events and highlights on the slide for um FY26. Um just highlighting some things. Our spring community cleanup, we had participation across all cleanups of 487 um volunteers and then we um were involved in 15 neighborhoods who helped out in that effort. And then you can see the four areas of impact. Improve neighborhood cleanliness. We made sure we enhanced partnership. We want to we made sure we in heighten awareness and we sustain momentum for the um future. And with that being said, I'd like to introduce Mr. Gordon Denny Park and Tree Senior Director. All right. Good morning, mayor and council, executive team. Again, I am Gordon Denny, the senior director of the city's park and tree department. Um, I'm going to be going over our challenges, um, what we've done, what we are doing, and, uh, where we want to go next. So, beginning with our challenges, uh, here you'll see our main challenges. We deal with issues such as behavioral factors, uh, repeat offenders, people that just litter constantly. Um cleanup cost recovery is a challenge to us getting the funds back we spend contractors and other dumpers. Uh again these um contractors that are dumping illegally in the rightway become challenges. Limited monitoring and violator identification to illegal dumping. Um being able to have enough eyes and uh on the street be able to see these people doing these actions. Uh low awareness or motivation to report illegal dumping. Obviously, we're we're not getting a lot of reports on them on who's doing them. And then easy access to dump sites,

whether it's in the rightway or on one of our vacant city-owned lots. Um so, so what have we done? Um to date, we have added two additional knuckle boom grapple trucks, you'll see in the photograph here, to the solid waste fleet. These help with the pickup and collection of these illegal dumps. Uh in FY23, council approved voted um expansion of the litter program by adding three crews to specifically address litter issues. Uh expanded rock the block events which we know started in district three and um has just spread throughout and it's been a great program. Uh as Q mentioned earlier, we've coordinated neighborhood cleanups through keep uh keep Savannah beautiful. We developed a hotspot tracking as uh director Knight mentioned earlier and we've been installing uh no dumping signage and at least 800 plus to date. What we are doing so currently um obviously we're encouraging the public to report these violations uh to 301 uh through the 301 app or call or even a call into the customer service line of our solid waste management team. Um we're responding and abating these illegal dumps. As um senior director Q Andrew said earlier, um code compliance will generally respond within about 3 days to any notification of an illegal dump and then once it is handed over about 7 days for the actual dump to be collected and disposed of through solid waste. Um, we're continuing to service dumping hotspots, as mentioned earlier, installing no dumping signage, and always continuing our education and outreach. So, where do we want to go next? Um, these are concepts, and obviously, as um, Chief Pvat mentioned earlier, they would require us to come back before council um, for any action or further discussion. Um, but some of these ideas are to require businesses to have a solid waste management plan. Again, the idea of being a good member of the

community, you know, have a plan for managing your solid waste. Uh raise penalties and fines, uh require contractors to provide proof of lawful disposal, impose business license sanctions for illegal dumping if caught dumping, and then to adopt the state scrap tire um management as a local ordinance. And this is a requirement uh for a hall permit and a manifest if hauling tires. And lastly, you know, we want to end with again, how do you report illegal dumping? We ask that everybody please call 311 or use the app and report it so that we can address and manage it accordingly. Um, yes,

thank you. And before we get into the discussion, I could um if you're if you can drive the PowerPoint back to the first, I just want to point out some data points for council just to be clear. If we can go back to slide six. So slide six, this is showing where our code enforcement cases regarding illegal dumping are. So this is illegal dumping on private property. Um and as you can see um the first district um really has the most code cases in private property. Um the you'll you'll also see and this is going to be clear in the data um too. you're you're going to see the numbers really jump from 2024 to 2025 and 2026. A lot of that is because we started this task force and we started to really really pay attention to where this illegal dumping um was happening. That's not to say that there isn't more today than there was in 2024, but that we we're taking a really concerted operational effort um to to try to understand what hap what's happening with illegal dumping and get our arms around it. Um so if you can move um to the to slide seven um you'll see that trend um continue. This is where we're abating illegal dumping in the right of way. Um and you can see that last year um was our highest year by far in the number of illegal dumping sites we were abating in the right of way. So this is um team sanitation se team solid waste um getting out there and using those knuckle boom trucks and the resources and the extra crews to help us increase our capacity for illegal dumping. Um though it's really hard to stay in front of. Um now if you can move

um to uh slide 10 you'll see again that for our hotspot locations and this is hotspots that are generated um all across um there's no wrong door for a hot spot. We get a lot from 311 requests. We get a lot from city council members um that come to Daphne and Lita and myself and we work these into our hotspot locations. These are also identified by um team sanitation, solid waste, team park and tree, team code compliance. And you'll see that the number of hotspot locations have also increased. I want to make note here that we do not pull a hot spot off the list. Um even if we've felt like we've got it addressed and we keep going back, we know that's a place where people have illegal dumped before. There's a reason why people illegal dumped before. Um and we want to make sure that we're continuing to get back there um to stay ahead of it. Um now I want to spend a little time on slide 12 um which is our cost um uh and and and how that correlates with those numbers as well. So um this chart is has everything from 2024 um all the way up to 2026 year to date based on our lines of service. So you'll see that um uh you'll see if if you kind of go to one two three four five rows down solid waste in 2025. You'll see the number of dump sites cleaned was over 1,200. That goes back to the bar chart we saw before. And you see a real cost driver across the row at $120,000 to abate um those sites was about $10,000 um or $1,000 a uh um a a cleanup on those

sites. Um go to the row below. Um this is this is park and tree. This is illegal dumping on city property. you'll see that the costs to clean those are much more expensive per site usually because um it's a much bigger dumping situation. Um there are 14 that were cleaned last year at a cost of $180,000. So I want you to see the one the drive and focus for trying to address these sites, but how that's impacting um uh the cost as well. So, those were some data points that I wanted to be able to um to make sure that we had some discussion around and the some of the data points that that um jump out to me um as we look um through these um issues. So for me, getting a handle on illegal dumping on city-owned property is going to be our big biggest cost driver down and continuing to invest in being able to address our right of way um illegal dumping which has a much lower cost to unit ratio um is going to be really really important for improving quality of life. So those are the things that jump out for me from a data perspective. So, if we can move Gordon to the slide that you ended on, which is or at least um the slides of where we want to go to next. And I think we can toggle between in the discussion I hope this slide and the challenges slide. um which are really kind of driving operationally and legislatively where we think we might want to um talk about what possible solutions we have um to decrease the behavior we're seeing in illegal dumping. um either decrease the

access to sites that um uh that lend themselves to illegal dumping, increasing our technology and strategies for how we enforce and identify violators and bring them um to justice. And then um I think some lowhanging fruit is how we increase the deterrence for illegal dumping. Um, one by requiring contractors, home builders, and other businesses to have solid waste plans and bring those receipts to us before we issue a business license or certificate of occupancy as well as raising fines for the violators we are able to identify um and bring through the court system. Um, so that just wanted to kind of before we get into the discussion, mayor, highlight what what came up to me in looking at these issues over the last several years.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Manager. Thank you, team. Um, I I'll I'll start and then alert we'll go around. Um, so it it appears to me, well, a couple of things. Um, I think raising penalties and fees, I think you have to you have to catch people in doing it. Um, you're right. I think it's a behavior change, but my question is, is the thought that the behavior exist because there's nowhere viable to dump.

For example, um, you walk around, you have a piece of trash in your hand, you look, and then it goes underground. that if maybe in some of those places and again you know a lot of industrial places that are out of sight if we just had a um thing there or whatever that's called the

no what's that called the the dumpster I mean do we help ourselves in helping to be able to to address those issues um because obviously people illegally dump because it's easier to illegally dump is to legally dump. And so, how do you create it where we're vectoring the behavior towards legal dumping if we're having such problems catching the illegal dumping? That make sense?

It does make sense. And I think there's one, there's a lot of research on that. And I'll just like a week ago, I was at a stoplight and I saw a man sitting on a park bench or sitting on a cat bench with a trash can right next to it. and threw his uh fast food bag on the ground. Um, and there's a lot of research that suggests that the more receptacles you have does not actually drive down. But you're a city marshal. Did you get out of sight him at that point for being able to do that or did you make him pick it up? I I made a call. Yes, sir. The same but but that that's what I'm saying.

So, the fact is is that it was still dumped. I mean, it was still put there. The behavior has to be addressed. See, if we're I mean, people tell, well, you know, I I know outside my name, but folks out there, the uh the what they call the clean team or whatever, they're out there and they pick up this trash. But we have to be able to address the behavior. But that's what my point is, right? So, but you could have cited him right right then and there for that.

I I could I don't carry a site book with me, but um so the but but well noted, mayor, thank you. Um the the issue is we could put convenience centers all over the city and we do have convenience centers where you can dump. Um and and the problem would would still persist. So the some of it is about access, some of it is about education. Um other other parts of about it are it is about changing behavior. And you're right, you have to you have to catch those um who are doing it. And for illegal dumping, um one of the the big things that we're we're asking or going to be looking for and asking council to consider um is allowing us to adopt the state scrap tire management requirements under a local ordinance. Perhaps that would allow SPD um and others to pull over folks that are hauling tires and and request the the paper on where they're bringing those tires. So, that's something that we're looking at doing.

Um the and these are all on the imposing business license sanction for illegal dumping, requiring contractors to provide proof of lawful disposal before a certificate of occupancy. So, we think these are the behavior change mechanisms that are going to get at this kind of largecale um illegal dumping that we see because we tend to believe that these are repeat um offenders um and that you know the the more you know and there's going to be a site that everybody knows, hey, there's a site down the road. if I if I throw out my bag of trash there, um eventually it gets picked up by the city. So, it is in effect um a an accessible way to to throw away your trash. And so, that's you know, we could put a a convenience station there, but I don't think people want a a dumpster at that site um either. So, we're going to have to think um from a policy lens and a legislative lens, how can we make sure that we're for um for the for the 10% or 5% of bad actors out there, we're going to have to make a 100% of people show their receipts on this. And I think that's a big part of um the the work that we're going to have to do. When was the last time we cited someone for illegal dumping that we last time we caught somebody in the neck, so to speak.

So, Director Knight had some information on that. Um, we're going to share. It's very very difficult to identify illegal dumping. Um, but she can talk through about what that process is and um and and what we've been able to do over the last couple of years. Often we arrive. Excuse me, Mr. City Manager. Can we ask questions now? Are we waiting? We we have questions but yeah let the boy go ahead and finish.

Often we arrive after the dunk bin has occurred and through that investigation process that we talked about earlier we find uh something leading us back to the individual male. Um we cite them. Uh this year we probably had about three cases where we were able to identify an individual. I will tell you it's some challenges with getting into court. What we're finding is the individual, we can't prove that it was them who did the dumping. They may have had a move out and then it gets very convoluted in the sense of my manager, the property manager um threw it out. I hired someone to haul it away for me. So, it's not a solid case. So, sighting is one aspect of identifying putting a notice in their hand. actually getting it into court and for them being fined. That's a whole another challenge for us that we need to work on. We have convenience centers that are available to the public for disposal of solid waste generated at their own residences. So if you're moving out of an apartment, you've got a sofa, you can haul it to the landfill. Okay. Um, a lot of the dumping we see is commercial level and it's a the material is dumped illegally in order to save cost. Solid waste collection and disposal is a cost of doing business just like power or fuel or personnel and we need to focus on that as well. on bulk trash. We pick up bulk trash at our residences

weekly. Um the landfills are available in the convenience centers. We do provide commercial roll off and commercial refuge collection for businesses including apartment complexes. If they want a rolloff container there, they could have that. That's all. Thank you.

Okay. there. First of all, I want to thank my colleague Linda Wilder Bryan. She uh she led the charge on the rock to block initiative um some years ago and I know most districts, if not all, have adopted that. The sixth district has we do it quarterly and it seems to help. Um we noticed that our our uh community members that live on the south side, they will use it, but we also notice that there are a lot of contractors that come in and they'll attempt in those areas. So, we know there's a challenge there and we see that. Uh, a couple questions I had in the cost of the cleanup, did that include uh like when you're dealing with roofless folks that where their camp their encampments have to be relocated, is that part of the cost in there as well too or is that not

the in So, we've got a uh a specific line. If we go back to slide 12, Cynthia, um you'll see one of the service lines for park and tree and illegal dumping is is titled encampments, and you'll see the cost there per year. Um so who so when when uh folks set up camp at a private residence, right, and has to be cleaned up, is that solely on the private land owner? Even though they may not have allowed folks to to camp there. Yes, that's solely on them, but we work with them.

For example, we tell them if they can get it to the rightway, sanitation, solid waste will come and remove it for them. So, it's a joint effort to get it clean. Um, even if we had to extend the time, normally we give them 15 days to remove it, but if they need longer and they're trying to work out a solution, we will work with them. Okay.

Last last question I have. Um, so I've noticed usually on the southside, Abberorn, Middle Ground, White Bluff Roads, uh, throughout the fourth, fifth, and sixth districts. Uh, usually we get, you know, I'll send a 311 request in, we got littering on the on the medians, and they'll come out, clean it up, and all of a sudden it's right back out there again. More littering of that nature. Is so the the folks that we contract with to do the rightways out there, is that in their contract that they should be picking that stuff up as well? Gordon, get in a dress.

Yes. So, part of the contract, whether it's our rightway maintenance contractor or our median maintenance contractor, involves collecting of litter at time of service. So, they only collect prior to mowing, and that's on a two week in the medians and then three weeks on the rights of way.

Okay. Um I don't I don't have the answer for it, but I mean I I I know we're seeing all throughout the city the issues with trash on the side of roads and the medians. Um, I mean, if that's a thing where we need to budget more folks to help get out, clean it up, or enforce it. I don't know the answer to it, but maybe maybe we can we can look at that, whatever y'all suggest. But I just know that it seems more and more that I'm seeing a lot of that. I watched yesterday two kids walking home from school, threw their stuff down right on the side of White Bluff Road, and it's like, you know, what's going on? Trash cans are not that far down the road, but I I watch people throw stuff out of cars going down the road. And it's behavioral changes that I think we need to we need to really hone in on and focus in on.

All right. Aldo Shabbaz.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and thank you, city manager, and um all teams here, a part of this task force for your your services. I also would like to um thank Alderwoman Linda Wilder for uh the concept of rock the block and uh it is it is the banner u that she she started and over in the fifth we just have a little subtitle we call it the the fifth the fabulous fifth district cleanup but it still comes under that big banner of rock the block. Thank you so much colleague. Um, I want to um talk about uh what the city manager pointed out in reference to the data uh that's been presented here today. And when we look at and as I look at and analyzing um the the work and also with the the analytics that that's behind these numbers um with the the fifth district and I'm just just telling you um slide number six what what happened um in in in the years um previous years and what has been a concentrated uh effort of mine is that I have been uh over the years have been but I focused in on uh even more and also I I've got to say this too uh with the help of um older woman uh Alicia Blakeley uh because we we sort of balance this thing uh when it comes to this particular work uh in the fifth district uh she she really we we coin in and get together and the balance of the of working the entire district. Um she handles that southside and in the middle part of of

the fifth and I take care all of it. So what we have been doing is that with a concentrated effort and that's why you see the numbers is um uh paying attention to the folks that's calling us um 311 as I will shout out and say 311 works. It works. 311 works. Your your your baby child uh in the years previous. Yes, ma'am.

And and it works. Um it it took a lot of work to get where it is now. Um but it did get started. Uh but it it works. I I just have to say it. So with having our citizens and it is necessary to continue to voice to our voices to our constituents and saying we need you. We need you to call us. You don't have to call anybody else. If you don't want to call 311, call us because we need you. It is their eyes that see what goes on. We don't see everything. So, what's been happening? We've been getting the calls in and we've been calling 311. I tell you I'm I'm regular speed dial on 311 and our numbers are showing what we have been doing and it is a it is not by happen stant it is by concentrated effort that's going on uh in the fifth district. So I just wanted to to to let you all know you see the numbers high it is because we're focusing and you also see it was high in 25 and you see and whoever came up with the bringing this task force together it is working. It is working. Uh the other thing I want to to mention is um hotspots. I'm just big on it. I am super big. Oh I see Mrs. Knight I tell you. and um Mr. Q and just I be I'll be with him through the city manager's office for sure. Hotspots I I just the psychological behavior behind it is that we've got to we got to clean it up because if we don't get it cleaned up, folks walking around and thinking and riding around, oh this is a good place

for me to dump in the future. So, we have been making a a concentrated effort to uh even though uh we still need your public to call in and see stuff. And I like what you're saying, city manager, about the adopting of the state ordinance and bringing it here and making sure that we are and and getting to the point where enforcement and enforcement, I wrote that down, enforcement on what you're talking about and having our officers or whoever you um designate to to stop these commercial vehicles or even private owned vehicles with stacks of tires in it to to find out uh where you going with this? Where did it come from? It is it's it's an important thing. I like I like that. So, we need to move forward with that. And on the challenge, the challenge uh slide, you had a bullet point here that says low awareness or motivation to report illegal dumping. We need everybody to be on board in order for us to keep Savannah beautiful. Arise the behavior. Let's all call in and get on board. Thank you, city council, Mr. mayor uh for your leadership and how we continue to to fund the efforts uh in making sure that uh whatever uh our three departments need to keep our city beautiful, we do the work and making sure that we vote and get those um those things done. Last thing, thank you so much uh keeping Savannah beautiful. All all of you who who do this work uh with Savannah beautiful and having our uh district and community um neighborhood associations and

communities come together along with the divine nine along with all the organizations that come out when we have these efforts with Peep Savannah. Beautiful. It's a beautiful thing. So, I just applaud that and and we just need to continue uh doing that work. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Two points to those comments. One is we consistently see in 311 that illegal dumping is usually in the top five um uh in terms of of most calls every week. That illegal dumping is usually around 3, four, or five there. So, we're seeing our community use 311 and talk about that issue. I also just want to make you aware that in my Tuesday night memo because I thought it was such a good um thing, Carlos Bates sent me a few weeks ago a summary of the keep Savannah beautiful um uh N cleanup effort with that had the um service organizations and uh fraternities and sororities in it. I included that update in your Tuesday night memo so you could see that this effort is got to be bigger than um our services here. It's really going to be a community effort that changed that culture. So, I just wanted to point those things out. Read that at your ledger.

Excellent. Alder Palumbo, then Aldot.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you guys so much for the presentation uh and your approach because it is comprehensive and it is the yes and and we're going to keep Savannah beautiful and we're going to motivate the neighborhood associations in the community uh and involve code and and truly at working together as a team. uh in a great presentation that you've articulated the cost that it it hurts all of us uh across the community because beauty is our brand. It's our identity and we live in a very special place that we want to fight for. U and I and I had a thought, you know, especially when it comes to the illegal dumping uh and that becomes a cost of doing business for some unscrupulous uh owners and and crews. And that's what's really tough. That's where a lot of the cost comes from. the good operators are getting rewarded with paying a fee uh by doing the right thing. Uh are there any incentive programs out there? Just a thought that encourages proper disposal, a spot award, a random spot award, a punch card if you do it right 10 times. All right, the team's going out for pizzas and Pepsis and Papa John's. I don't know. I'm just trying to be creative here. uh because clearly I mean understanding the psychology of the enforcement is really tough finding out is the decision being made by the crew team leader business owner uh but somebody's making that decision. So it might be uh hit them in the heart with the crew. All right, we do it the right way. You know some a creative thought to encourage uh good behavior and it's going to pay us huge dividends if we don't have to clean up more illegal dumping. Great idea, sir. So, when we put put together these ordinance proposals, we'll think about those incentive strategies and keep having discussion about I think that's that's the best way to change behavior is incentivize the better behavior. Yeah.

Thank you, team. Thank you,

thank you, Mr. Mayor. Uh definitely a shout out to all of the different teams and and uh Q and also Miss Knight. the different teams. You guys go out, you always answer the phone, but I want to make sure that we highlight the uh the people who are being targeted for the illegal dumping. Uh a lot of our seniors who live alone, who don't go in their backyards a lot, um like we have one on 36th Street and 1100 block between Waters and Live Vote. There's a lot of seniors that live in that in that alley and they're having a lot of people coming through there and they just dump. So, I don't I want us to be able to uh at least go and talk to some of those seniors and just work through it with them. Some some of them are uh getting letters from the city that says you got to get this cleaned up and they can't do it on their own. But, um I think the team has actually done a wonderful job by uh working with the community and and giving them whatever they need. A lot of them who are doing a lot of cleanup, they receive bags and uh the litter pickup things. they get a lot of that stuff from our community, from our uh from our our employees. So, uh shout out to them for that. I just want to be able to highlight the evictions and I know you touched on it a little bit, but a lot of these uh landlords, especially during the time when the scad kids start to leave, they they do the evictions or they move out and they put everything in the cities right away. And um I don't think it should ever be on the person if they are evicted. They should not go on their water bill and they shouldn't be charged for it. It should be on the person who own the property who um who should be charged or who should be uh brought before um some judicial body because sometimes people go through hardship and they have to be uh evicted or they have to go through something but I don't think that they should it should be on their water bill when it's time for them to transition to a brand new property or go to a new house or to get

back on their feet. Um but third thing is uh we at Chattam Area Transit we uh uh have a new initiative going and we are investing monies that we do have that we've uh budgeted to address a lot of the bus stops who have receptacles and we doing our part to hire individuals that go by and check every single uh trash receptacle at those bus stops. And we doing new stops and also um new housing for the bus stops also. Um, with that being said, this weekend the Thomas Square cleanup is this weekend. So, if uh anybody want to come out, if you do live in that area, just come on out to the Thomas Square uh cleanup and uh see how the community is working together.

Al,

thank you, Mr. Mayor, and thank you team for all that you're doing to keep Savannah beautiful. I love it. Um, thank you a special shout out to Miss Knight because I had an instance. It's been a while back now where a private property owner had some ill well actually it was it wasn't illegal dumping. It was um uh encampments uh out on the south side of the city and you you all worked with her. She lived in the county so she owned the property but lived residents was away from it. So, she wasn't aware really of what was going on on the property, but she comp complimented City Safe while you work with her and helping her get through that process. 311 I love and I should love because 311 was my baby when I was employ an employee, not as a city council member, but my department started 311 several years ago. So when I'm in neighborhood association meetings and I hear folk praising 311, it's like that's one instance of may the works I've done speak for me um thing. So, I love it and I love what has continued over the years, Collus, and all of you back on the back wall with your uh keep Savannah Beautiful. The I think um one of my colleagues mentioned the engagement or the involvement of civic organizations and sororities and fraternities that started years and years ago, but that's something that has uh continued and I think it's a good thing to engage the public. I love uh Columbbo's idea too about positive uh incentives um or offering some incentives for people doing the right thing. It blows my mind when people drop trash on the ground when there's a receptacle. I don't understand that behavior when it's I mean right there

maybe a two or three feet away but um I haven't done the research so I don't know why we do the things that we do but um all in all I I I am also interested in the um I circled this adopting state ordinances that um we may want to localize. So that's a great thing too. But to the team, I say you're doing a great job. Team Savannah, we appreciate what you're doing and um keep up the good work. Yes, ma'am. Otherw

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mayor Jones. So, staff, thank you all for your presentation and for your work. Um, I don't want us to get this issue too too confused and convoluted because we're talking about a lot of different uh phases of of the issue of sanitation, trash, illegal dumping. And if we're going to impact a change here and could you go back to uh slide six, please? If if we're going to impact a change, we're going to have to understand this thing and break it down. It's a lot confusing people's dry trash with the illegal dumping issue. Uh we probably talking about several issues here. We just came in with a lot right here. And what you all are doing staff is great. Um, we've noticed in the community as of late, you're being proactive, getting some powers up before it gets to be it comes to me. Um, and thank you for that. And you're doing what you're supposed to do. But that's not where the problem lies. You all are dealing with the repercussions of the problem that people feel like it's easy to dump in Savannah. it's okay to dump in Savannah, not necessarily Savannah, but in the first district.

And so this is just indicative of the way the first district is treated overall of being the dumping ground of the city.

Um, and it's just not like we have dirty streets. It's an environmental issue, environmental injustice issue. It's a public health issue. And based on these numbers, it's a public health crisis in the first district. Um, so we have to send a message and and Mr. uh prevette was absolutely right that money that we're spending doing this is the money that's being passed on to the city by these business people who are not paying their cost of doing business and they should assume that amount and we are assuming it because anything allowed persist anything allowed persists and and and I wanted to sit there for a minute because it was even suggested here that the people in the first district aren't dialing 311 or doing something to to warrant the numbers going down. And that's the most ridiculous thing.

And so based on what I'm seeing right here, this is why for the last six years, this has been the issue that I have brought to management continuously because obviously it's impacting certain people much more than it's impacting others. Although it's impacting our entire beautiful city, we need to send a message. people think about dumping. You all travel. You see some of these cities are so clean you wonder how they did it. How do they do it? Because it's a standard and we need to create a standard here in Savannah that if you think about dumping here, we will use every mechanism that we have. We will use every piece of innovation and whatever we have and we will catch you and we will exert the law to make you pay. for that cleanup. And then we need to highlight that person and show them out in the public. These are the people who were caught dumping. These are the people who are charged $5,000 fine. So people won't think about that. We have to be very hardlined. And of course, this is me talking from my point of view from that first district. We have to go, we have to create a hard line about and strengthen this ordinance so people will know that these neighborhoods are not landfills that they cannot continue to dump uh and impact the quality of life of already marginalized people. And the numbers show that uh the environmental justice issue um it impact residents and marginalized areas more so than than more affluent areas. The research show and tell that. So we're going to have to do something here that we haven't done before to send

a message. We need to strengthen the audience. And once we start catching the perpetrators, then we need to let everybody know, hang them out. We need to let everybody know that this person was caught, you know, dirtying our beautiful city. Um, we got to take a hard line. And the people in the first district, the people of our beautiful city all over, we are expecting some changes in this issue. we have gotten finally to the point where we're having a workshop and Lord knows that took a lot for us to get to this point even with what you're seeing behind you. And so that's indicative of the treatment that marginalized and and the definition of marginalized lowwealth underserved neighborhoods and this is why. So we got to do something here today. Um we got to we got to change the ordinance. We need to send a message which you are recommending that we do. um increasing uh let's see raise fines, facilitate empoundment, increase surveillance, uh have them produce their their sanitation plan or whatever, all of those things. Let's not choose. Let's let's roll it all out. If we are serious about impacting this problem and changing it, eliminating it, let's roll it all out for everything that everyone does after it's dumped and and after after the fact. And you all appreciate it and we noticed uh the change that that you all have been providing in the last several weeks since I've been a little bit more vocal about this on social media and we've noticed the change. So, thank you for that.

Likely Jay, you want to respond? Uh, no. I think that that's absolutely right. Those are the places we want to go next. We should be comprehensive. All Blakeley.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you all so much for your presentation. Um, I know your job is very hard and I applaud you all for the work that you're you're doing. But my issue is this, and I have been saying this for the last six years. If it ain't broke, why are we trying to fix it? We can go back to I would say about 15 years ago, Savannah was a very beautiful city. When I say beautiful, you could ride down the street, you wouldn't find trash, you wouldn't find debris, you would find nothing. It was just beautiful. people actually talked about how pretty our city was and something happened. I believe it was a individual by the name of Rob Hernandez that came in and changed the whole trajectory of what our city had been doing for decades to keep it so beautiful. So my question is um how can we go back to that? You know, I see that you all have spent $500,000 plus dollars, but sometimes you have to spend more to get more.

Yeah.

So I would suggest that you all look into Mr. City Manager and your staff, us going back to the way it used to be. It hurts my heart to see roadkill in our streets. A deer, a deer on Middleground Road had been there for about a week from what I was told and then about two days prior to me calling you all. And I'm like, what happened? We used to have a a crew that went around the city, made sure the medians were clean, the streets were clean, all of that. How can we get back to that? It might cost us a little bit more, but we wouldn't have to be dealing with these type issues. Also, when you talk about uh the individual sitting next to a receptacle and did not put the trash in there, just dropped it on the ground. That's a reflection on how that person was raised or being raised or whatever. So if we connect with our school system, sometimes the children could help the parents, the brothers and the sisters and what have you and tell them, I learned the day that you're not supposed to put trash on the street. You put it in the trash can. if we can get back to that cuz we used to have all of these public service announcements and what have you and then all of a sudden they just left. So let's try to talk to board of education and and and see if they can possibly put something in their coffers to educate the children. So then the children educate the parents, the brothers and the sisters. Okay. But thank y'all so very very much. Mr. Pvat, where did Jean go? Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. Now, I do have a question about um furniture and what have you when a person is moving, can they put the the sofa, whatever on the side of the in the rightway and then call and you know, we all pick it up. How does that work?

You can place bulk items at your regular Bulk items should be placed at the regular point of collection where you roll your card out, put it right next to that and it'll be picked up as a matter of routine. If it's a house full of furniture, that's a different story. We can get that, but that becomes what is called a special collection. And we will charge you, Mr. Andrews, the rate. It's uh every 15 minutes how long it takes us. We can move a lot of stuff in a short amount of time. It's about $25 every 15 minutes. So, it's really a low cost. 50. All right. Pardon me. I stand corrected.

Now, let me ask you this as well. Um you know, I've been talking to you all constantly about trash in the median in the area where I live. Is it possible that once they collect trash on Mondays uh anywhere, can if and if they see this stuff there, can our garbage collectors pick this stuff up? Is there something that you all could put in to tell them to pick it up? Cuz it's right there. They ride by it and they just leave it. So, is it is something in the books for something like that? It might be possible, but frankly the tasking on those collection crews, they're picking up probably 13 to 15,000 houses per collection day. And uh they start at 7, they get off at 5. So there's not a lot of time there for that. We do have through our contractors that are supposed to do a litter cleanup before they service the lane. Then we also have in litter abatement, we have teams that go out and cover the streets that way. So it should be picked up on a regular schedule. And if there's any, you know, there's some spots that are just difficult. There's one particular on the south side there at the end of the Truman. Uh it's a a chronic spot that's actually in the county, but we go by pick it up and I sanitation is now making a stop there every week just to make sure we can get that particular one up. But uh

and subdivisions I understand we are we are looking one of our projects under GPS this year our priority project is our median maintenance to make sure we're getting all the media kept up appropriately and that we're looking at where the trash is.

Okay. Again thank you all so very much. So woman in terms of your comments about what the city is outsourcing versus what it's doing internally. So I just want to make connect some dots here. We've talked about this before. It's an issue you've brought up. Um but well really all three departments code compliance, park and tree and sanitation have been the subject of what we've called back to basics investments over the last five years of the budget where we've increased internal staff, increased internal resources to be able to do more and add more capacity inhouse um that was lost over time or contracted out. So we are trying to grow those services um inhouse so that we have the people power and the muscle power to be able to go out and take care of priorities as they come. Um we still need contracts and contractors to um help and supplement that work. And so we do have contractors that mow and contractors that help pick up litter. But we are trying to build the internal staff capacity um the internal tool capacity um and the resources in terms of our fleet to be able to get out there and address those. So our numbers have increased over the last 5 years in terms of the staffing um and the capabilities of all three of those departments.

I hear you. But looking around the city, I don't see it. So we got to do that. Okay.

Well, look, wait a minute. I I have to go there because again, this is human behavior. There is not a day, very few days that I don't see somewhere in this city, and I'm in every area of this city, a city of Savannah truck, a City of Savannah employee picking up trash. And I I think that is important to to be said. the trash doesn't get there by itself. And I just feel like we I think we we have to address the behavior side to all the women's point. Um I'm I'm in favor of severe penalties and public examples. Um the first district which I'm very familiar with obviously is a little different than most because of a proximity. consecutive is um very close to industry and interstates and all of these other dark places that people like to to dump. But I I I want to make sure not even for for council but for those that are watching because I think we do invest and I think our team takes a lot of pride uh in in that work um and picking trash up. But it seems like and I guess it would be frustrating that the more you pick up the more it seems to be dumped. And I don't think it's a lack of effort on our part, but it is this lazair attitude that people have that is just okay. Uh hence why our summer programs are so important because young people will change their behavior. They got to pick the trash up. And so I just want to make sure that it's not because we have team members in here that represent team members. Um, I

appreciate what they do. Um, but I also know that it's extremely slippery slope because they're out there picking up trash and then you come back and there's trash out there again and it's like, well, god dang, I just picked up trash over here. Um, and so I would appreciate if there was some way, and I know we have people smart enough to do it, to create a really high-profile thing. We put people's faces all over the place and their businesses all over the place. And I think that is how you stop people from being able to do it. Um because the drop and pick up, drop pickup is an endless cycle that will never change unless we interrupt that cycle. Um and I think that's what we have to be able to do. But I just wanted to make sure I lifted the fact that I know we have people who are dedicated uh daily to that's all they do is pick up other people's trash.

That's right. Uh off of our rightways and byways and and and they do it with great pride. Um the young days, what do they call them? the the queens. What do they call them? Call us what they call the litter queen. The litter queens. Litter queens. I mean, they be out there and they like and I see them and you know, but I just want to make sure that, you know, we're our money is doing what it's supposed to do. We have to change the behavior. And so, I just wanted to lift that. Um, anyone else? Yes, ma'am. I'm sorry.

Um, Mr. city manager. I wanted to thank the uh presentation. Uh but I have just a couple of questions that you know want to be really succinct about it. We always talk about uh the shortage of staff in our law enforcement agency. I want to know how many people uh to complete your roster that you need in your department. So you're asking the vacancy rate. The vacancy rate code compliance. Code compliance. and she may not be able to give us that answer today. Uh yes, it's um currently it's at 3%. No. And so that 3% would uh equate to how many people?

Um we're about three uh three total. Okay, three. But uh Okay, just hold that thought right there. And what about in sanitation? Do you know your vacancy rate?

I do I do not know my vacancy rate at this time, but I can get that information to you. And so the point I'm trying to make is uh we we keep operating in this wheel, right? And so that wheel negates us from doing what we're supposed to do. And so this new city ordinance is going to be enforced by an already short staff. We keep creating city ordinance and then we don't have the manpower to do what they actually need to be done. And so we need to fix that before we create any city ordinance that we vote on. We need to make sure that they're showed up so that they can actually do the job in addition to all the other things that and code enforcement. Cynthia is a beast. She needs some help. Okay. And we want to also give kudos to Carlos Bates because that rock the block was born out of a ne necessity to to assist them during the uh the pandemic. And so I want to ask that here Q the best people to get information that we need to be productive and move forward is these midlevel people that we're not we're not utilizing their brain thought we pay them and then we go and talk to them. That was not just a Linda Wilder Bryan thing. That was a college bait things and she continues to sh herself up. We got people in this in these offices that are doing amazing jobs and not getting the support that city council has not given them fully because we too busy fussing with each other. But there are some things that need to be done that we need. She needs some help. We talk about sanitation. He just had an awesome idea. We talk about all the time when we get everybody involved. Everybody is involved during Thanksgiving. We We have fun. Who has the most canned goods? Why can't we do the same thing? you already have uh why can't each department go to that site and they put on that little bulk weight stuff because you have the capability to do that. Carl's been talking about that.

Q's been talking about that. We got to utilize the things and be creative so we can have shortcuts. The other thing about you're absolutely right about the great staff that we have. We do a city of Savannah cleanup day too um that keeps Savannah beautiful to us. So the whole staff goes out um and cleans up one day. Um it's a really important effort. But I will note that the time for us to talk about where we're adding investments into staffing um that's coming up as for the FY27 budget.

Okay. So I'm not finished. And so, uh, the the, uh, when we have these code violations, and I'm hoping that this new, uh, election when and the adding the adding of our recorders court, it's I've been to recorders code and it's a joke. We get most of those cases that we work and we complain about, they get passed or they're dropped and people don't show up. We got to get a better reduction rate on that. And the best way that we talked about it, the alderman from the first district said the same thing. Behavior changes should uh come with fun fundamental and financial penalties. It's a joke. It is. What we haven't had is what we need consequences. We need to be a more sterner. We need to whoever is our prosecutor. I've been to these court cases and they're getting passed. They're getting dropped. People don't show up. So the consequences and the determent should meet the crime and then you'll see some cleaning in Savannah. You got people I'm going to keep reiterating that we we we need the recorders court to work for us. We're responsible for recorders court and it's not working for us. We got cases and probate key and all of that stuff that have been sitting there getting passed. We got to do a better job and you have to hold your people more accountable. Now the this uh this is

for reporters court the judges the cases the cases some of our cases are they not what what court are they in reporters court yes sir and that's what I'm talking about what is the the problem is the problem is when we when she goes in there and we're telling these illegal dumpsters and stuff like those cases they're either getting dropped or they getting slapped on the wrist. She He said it, the mayor said it, the first district order. We're all saying that we want sterner fines and we don't want those people to sit in court where they go unnoticed, especially in our in the third district, right? And the other thing that I'd like to have that nobody's put in force, these slum landlords, there a lot of these dumping. They're doing illegal dumps, too. But that's another thing.

So, to make sure that we're all clear on recorders court, the city manages the administration of the court. We do not manage the judges. Okay. No, that's not what I said. Don't don't try to I said with the new elections and how we just I'm I'm hoping that we can move uh forward and then the consequences are swift and people are not sitting there. That's what I'm saying. I know we manage it, right? The other thing is she needs some help. If we have to send another attorney in there to help her shure out these things, then let's get another attorney in there. I would be willing to say that. The other thing, these convenience centers, where are they? Because it's about money. every time every time we have illegal dumping and stuff, people are not wanting to pay that fee. And so when you say that they don't want them, people don't want them in their uh site, these dumpsters, put it in a designated area so that people we we win by doing that. You know, we can't keep saying that we're going to put all these things in places and the things that we have in place, we're not utilizing them, especially the brain power of mid mid level people. you didn't let me finish talking about but if we could think of something like canned goods right why can't we think about all these departments that come in and who has the most garbage and litter by departments then we give them a reward we do that the camaraderie the the the the litter queens were designated queens and people said oh you shouldn't call them queens but they embrace that because every job that a person has we have to make them feel like they have value and y'all are not giving people the value that they need in these jobs and productivity comes with people being valued. I'm going to get off of this thing, but we can't keep putting city ordinance in place and we're not valuing one our people who have innovative and costreventive ideas that save us some money. We said that we was going to have a number where people could call in our staff because they know what we need. They know what we need. What the problem solutions that we have, they come after the fact. We need to be in front of it. We need to get in

front of it. Thank you for what you do. Thank you for what you do. But you coming and giving this presentation, y'all need some solutions. And those solutions are creating a deterrent that's not a slap on the wrist and move swiftly through this court system. We make that happen. And y'all see a change. If y'all keep saying that the behavior uh creates change, I know it created for me cuz I got three $100 tickets from from going inside his school. I bet you I hadn't got another ticket. So when we start making these people pay, I'm a citizen, too. I don't want to keep paying taxes. I don't want to keep putting money on a budget that's already stretched, but you stop making people and hold them accountable. That means everybody at this table and a city manager who's a marshall who doesn't say pick that trash up and I'm grateful to be here as a public service, we all have to do better. Mr. City Manager, thank your staff, but they need help and they're not getting all the help, especially in code enforcement. If we talking about trash, she needs some help. Mr. Pette, what you going to do about that, sir?

Let me before we go there, I think Bill has something. I I remind all of you,

right? You all can have whatever you're willing to pay for. Each year, city manager brings to us a budget and we give him budget priorities and he has to be able to um deliver a budget that's balanced. um unlike the state, unlike the federal government, but um based on those priorities and oftentimes the first thing we say is we don't want any types of increases, but we want money for this and this and this and this and this and this. So this is a priority. Um the budget season has kicked off already uh internally. um then make sure that's for everybody um that he is aware of your desires keeping in mind that for where that occurs something else can occur. So just wanted to throw that public safety public service announcement out uh for budget budget time. inv but if a contractor is um renovating a property and we suddenly see um it's not I don't know whether you would call it illegal dumping but we suddenly see the lane lined with maybe a used um sink or a um a toilet fixtures or that sort of thing. Can we just assume that that's coming

that's happening right now on both the lane

you it's not sufficient to sight somebody report you actually have to observe them doing that. Uh we've talked in the past about flock cameras um and technology's gotten better. We're going to be re revisiting that some, but the we've had photos and those are not sufficient in recorder score. We have to have more than that. It can tell us when something is happening or where something is happening. So, it's good for uh for intelligence, but it's not sufficient for evidence. And if I could go back to Alderwoman Wilder Brian's question, our convenience centers, one is at the city landfill on Dean Forest Road. That's 13

1327 Dean Forest Road. And there's one on the south side. It's on, and the address escapes me. It's on off Old Shorty Cooper Road, which is south of Bacon Park. And before you get to the tennis courts, tennis complex, the landfill that's off of um Skidway, that's the one. It is it possible for that to be a convenience city because that is the city center. But the rule is the rule is it is for material coming from your doicile that is your legal residence.

That would be a couch. Yes. Yeah. It has to come from your house. Now, if you are on multiple properties and you clean those out and that's different. That's a different case. So, we don't we don't take from commercial. And how would you determine that? You're asked for your identification when you go through that site. No, but I'm saying if there's a person that has a lot of houses and they bringing couches, how do you know they're not going to your other convenient cities doing the same thing? either one. No, at at both convenience centers, you have to check in

and you have to certify that this is coming from, and maybe that's not the right word, but tell us that it's coming from your residence and we might ask you proof of residence, water bill, something like that, and says this is where you live. Okay. So, let me ask you again so you understand me. Are you cross-referencing this information, your staff saying that you have this person going to these different things for free? Right? Do how do you know that these people aren't um using the system? I'm just saying this because

I can answer. We're we're trying to prove residency. Now, we're also we don't want our convenience centers to turn into commercial dump sites. That's why we have that bar. We also don't want people with five couches to be turned away and then put those couches in an illegal dump site. So, there's a balance that we try to to bring with saying this is a to to the mayor's point earlier that we've got accessible places to be able to dump trash that people feel like it's easy to go to like our convenience centers. Um and then these ordinance changes um that we want to bring to council is is there to target commercial dumping. So, if somebody gets a has to get a permit because they're redeveloping a home, they're flipping a house, they're building a new house, they're renovating a home, if they've got a permit, then they need to prove a receipt that they brought those um dumping items to the a proper uh landfill and dump site and that we have that that receipt. That was that's been a suggestion that Alderwoman Laneir has brought to us. We've done the research. We'd like to bring that to council for an ordinance change. The other things that we're asking for is for us to be able to proactively stop people hauling tires so that we can understand where they're bringing those tires to because a large part of uh illegal dumping um is tires as well. Gan will tell you and Q will tell you that if it's your tires at home, if you're changing your tires or you need a place to dispose your tires, you can leave those at your collection point. um and we will pick those up. Um so we make it really really easy for residents in the city to be able to dispose of their trash. Um what the problem is are commercial um commercial enterprises who as Jean

stated um at the beginning trash disposal is a cost of doing business and they're looking for places to reduce their costs. And one way these bad actors do it is by illegally dumping trash. So where we're trying to get to is uh we're trying to to get them to to have to prove that they dumped that. Now, do we think that we see commercial um enterprises use our convenience centers in inappropriately? I'm sure that that does happen because we do have commercial enterprises whose home address is in the city of Savannah and maybe they're bringing in uh building material because they're a home builder somewhere and they're and they're bringing that to the convenience site and they say, "Oh, I'm doing my own home. This is I just want a convenience." I'm sure that that happens is very very difficult for us to cross check and I think it would probably be we're not worth the squeeze on that. where we want to get our commercial um properties is at the the permit area and at the certificate of occupancy area. If we if they don't get a certificate of occupancy or they don't get a permit unless they're showing proof of disposal, then that hurts their ability to operate as a commercial enterprise. And that's what we want to do.

I I still didn't get my question answered, Mr. City Manager, but I do want to say that we do amazing things in this city, and this is the first time. Why do y'all think that ties are everywhere? because we don't do a good uh communication of telling people it's free if they're your tires and that's why they're all everywhere. We say that all the time. Why wouldn't y'all have them SGTV? You don't have to pay for your tires if it came from off of your car. Nobody says that. So that's why you see them everywhere. We don't do a good communication piece on how this stuff is free. So people don't want to do that because there's an extra cost not at them for them. So we need to do that. And then again, there is there is an easy way if she's introduced a city ordinance. It's called accountability. If y'all got paperwork and you putting stuff on a computer, you you you mean to tell me that y'all can't c cross reference if that commercial companies who's discarding information or discarding uh debris or whatever. Y'all can't capture it on a piece of paper on a spreadsheet says that this person is throwing away stuff at this convenience center and that convenience center and that convenience center. If you can't identify them, how are you going to penalize them? We got to have some kind of some kind of system in your system to recognize these people because they're repeat offenders. And you got the same people working these these these these uh these these trash sites. They know who they are. Give them some initiative to to do these things. It makes their job easier. I mean, we sit here and we beat each other up about simple things when they're doable by the people who do their jobs. You can't tell me that the people who are at these sites don't recognize these people who come and bring those stuff. Why can't we notate that and find them? That's that's all we're asking for to be innovative and creative and cut some of these corners where people who know what to do, the people who actually work in these sites and then we'll see a change. Thank you so much for your time.

Mr. Mayor, ma'am, I do have a question. Um, I think this question will be for code enforcement. Um, could you please tell me what is the difference between an overgrown yard and the term wilding?

Wilding. Wilding. So, I don't recognize wilding, but the ordinance states that your um grass can't be over 10 in. Anything over 10 in we site as overgrowth. Um we do have um sight for unkempt vegetation, unckempt vegetation um such as the vegetation that you would see under your shrubs that may grow upside your house, but wilding. No. Uh we don't s for cultivated flowers. Some people have um something that looks like uh I guess sunflowers are something in their yards that they like. Maybe that's wilding. I'm not quite sure on that definition.

So it's flowering. Yes, flowering flowering beds and that is what's considered wild just growing just right and they can have that cultivated flowers. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. All right, thank Mr. Mayor

woman, she just was describing what we need to do and creating a system and she's absolutely right on that. And I'm just sitting here thinking because we spend so much on um on technology. I have a nice budget, but just about at every every meeting we're spending money on technology because that sounds like a app that I could create. I mean, they just every time you go to the landfill and and I use Sharon Park mostly um I count your own but it's closer. Um but you have to show your driver's license every time you go. So, a photo of that in an app, you know, that cross reference that person's use. I mean, it's it's

easy. Sounds kind of simple.

Yeah. And we can look into that. I think the if we're looking to get it illegal dumping, uh, making it harder to use the convenience centers is going to increase illegal dumping. So, that's the that's the balance here. So that's the that's the policy kind of trade-off that you're making there. If we want to catch commercial enterprises who are misusing convenience centers, um then we'll look into those strategies and come back to that. But again, some of the unintended consequences of that is if you're making convenience centers harder to use, you might see more illegal dumping as a result. So you got to be able to do both. So I we'd much rather people bring their trash to a convenience center um uh than us have to pick it up with a knuckle boom truck at an illegal dump site. So that's the those are the the trade-offs there. But I do understand the concern and I do understand that there are likely technology fixes for us to understand who and how often folks are using convenience centers. Well, I just think, you know, big intentional public

changes behavior. What are you saying? The campaign you want? I mean, something I mean, there's pictures out there. Something internal, but I mean, I just think we have to we have to do a thing. We have to catch people. Yes. I mean, you pick the location. I don't care what it is, but you know, you have means. If you're looking for somebody, we know how to find them. So then let's create something where we know somebody's going to do it and then we drag them all across everything and we stop doing it. And you know if it's businesses then you know maybe we need to look at how they you know create business then when people know oh shoot I don't want to get caught up in that they'll stop doing it too. We have to have a way to interrupt the current way of doing business.

Anyway let's move on. We we we want to so so thank y'all for the presentation. Thank you all for your work. Yeah. Educate the parents, you know. Um, well, we brought the recommendation. So, does city council want us to bring these ordinance changes? Yes. Y'all don't get scared now when it's time to do it. That's not That's not We ain't never spring. I mean, bring up city man. They bring it then y'all get up here. Well, you know, so I mean,

we got to stick to the plan and we got to follow through all these plans and you don't get introduced to all these things. You got sitting around here wanting to do the work. So, now we'll um we're going to stay on the general subject um and talk through I believe our um 10-year waste management plan um which is uh something that our solid waste team uh puts together um every 10 years or so. Um ours is due

I'm sorry. We're going to talk through what is in a solid waste management plan. Um what's in our proposed solid waste management plan uh and what's the process of getting that solid waste management plan adopted by city council and submitted um to uh the proper authority. So um I think we're going to hear from um uh Mr. Q. Andrews again, senior director Andrews again on our solid waste management plan. Nice color. Um good afternoon again. Um I just want to give a brief overview of our um city of Savannah solid waste management plan and to understand that we had a plan um that expired in 2018. So we had to go through and we did an update of that particular plan. Um so what is a solid waste management plan? Basically I have the definition up there but it's our roadmap and guide to how we manage the solid waste um system within the city of Savannah. And it's a plan that is required under the Georgia Comprehensive Solid Waste Management Act that all local municipalities that are have solid waste management facilities um they should have a plan. So what's inside the plan? Here are some of the major components of the plan. Um, you have the waist stream analysis and that provides analytical on the types of quantities of waste generated within the city of Savannah. Um, you have your collection and transportation which

outlines how waste will be collected and transer transported from homes and businesses and other locations. And then you have the disposal section which specifies how waste will be disposed of at permitted solid waste facilities. And the main thing about this is we need to show 10 years of waste disposal capacity which we do have from 20 2025 to 2035. Um you have waste reduction and reuse which um the plan aims to waste generation as it source and promote reuse materials and encourage recycling. Um you also have the land limitation section which provides requirements to protect the environment by identifying unsuitable areas for waste um handling facilities. And then last you have your public and outreach component of the plan which encourages um management and participation in waste reduction and our recycling program. So, here are the steps um the next steps into getting the plan adopted. Um by law, we are required to have two public hearings. Um we tenatively are scheduling our first public hearing um in June of 2026 and then we'll move to our second public hearing and plan adoption at the first city council meeting in August.

If I can stop you there. We're going to do this like we do um our one-year action plan for HUD um from our like our Department of Human Services. So, the first public hearing will not be at a city council meeting. It'll be at a a a um noticed um public meeting. Um and we'll have that first public hearing and then the second public hearing will be at a city council meeting and then the plan will be um agendaized for adoption post that um public hearing. Mr. City Manager.

Yes, ma'am. Is there a plan that he has a draft on or will the people in the community be uh adding to what our plan already is?

Uh no ma'am. We have a we have a plan. It's a fairly technical plan. Um we want to talk to the public about that plan. Um and uh and and hear the feedback and if we hear feedback that warrants changes is we'll make those changes. But this is a fairly technical document about what our solid waste management plan is for the city for the next 10 years. It's not just our solid waste management department, but all of our solid waste partners. Um so it includes um it includes other people that operate solid waste um within our boundaries as well. So it's pretty all-encompassing in terms of how we handle solid waste. And so because when we do have these things in meeting, I would want to be in front of that if it's possible that we could get a draft to to at least know what we're talking about before our actually constituents. That makes it easier for me to know before we present stuff to people that I at least have some type of knowledge in advance instead of waiting to get that information when we see it and share it with other

Yes, ma'am. City Council will be shared a a proposed um solid waste management plan before the first hearing. Um we'll we'll publish it on our website um for public comment and we'll do our public hearings. Is there a reason why we can't have it now if he already has it? I don't making any finishing, but if he's ready to go, we can send the proposed. Not for us to present it, but so that I can get some barriers and maybe have some questions that that will be near and dear to me and the other people will have it. We need just be um proactive in these things and uh just like that GSP, we just need to be prepared though. So I want to make sure that I want to make sure that you know I don't want to be proactive when we're not prepared. So

okay. And so to be prepared, a part of being prepared, I'd like to have some advanced notice so that I can read and not be rushed into August. There are a lot of things that we got. It's just an idea. You reading this document. It is really exciting. Um, but we will send it to city council as soon as it is ready to go. Um um I um I've read the pre-draft, so I think there's just some some some probably some tweaks that we're making to it. As soon as it's ready, city council will be the first to see it. All right. And we have a kind of a artificial hiatus in uh from June from Yes, it is. That's the one from the beginning of July to the be August. So it' be plenty of time on your free time

to be able to review all of those things and we can planning anything really important. June, July, August, what's it what's the date last year? Uh we do the first meeting in July, right? And then we don't reconvene until the first meeting in August. Oh. Okay.

And it's going to be the same schedule. So, we'll be doing um midyear um budget and financials before we take our quote unquote summer recess. And then we get back, it's going to be millage rate adoption time. So, you know, the the midyear is uh pretty important in terms of um our financial responsibilities for the city. Um but there is time for a a break in between um in for that that last part of July. We want you to rest up, spend time with your families. We want counsel to, you know, our staff to not have to live under the the pressure of preparing for for us and uh then we get we get back and hit it hard again. So,

so again, y'all not hearing me. I'm saying from July to August, that's exactly what I want to be doing. But but but if you're saying that we're going to be um getting this information in August, when are we going to get this? Ma'am, you're going to get this. You're going to get this before the first public hearing, okay? And there will be plenty of time between the first public hearing and the second public hearing for you to digest what's in the plan. Okay? Most of it is very very technical. Um um most of it is not exciting and does not change our service areas. It's it's it's about um a lot about what our landfill capacity is, who our partners are. So

well, I'm very familiar with that. I was an environmental health and safety bar. But I'm just saying that that kind of technical stuff, but we should get some advanced notes so that when people ask us, we can tell them what it's about. We will send you that. We will send you that plan. Thank you so much, sir. I appreciate. Um, we have another slide or two. Uh, we do have another topic to So, if y'all ready to move on to glass recycling, we are one of us has been waiting for one slide in this whole presentation. And I think it's the next one. I think it is. Here we go. Okay. There it is. All right. So, let's We saved the big one for the end. Let's Let's hear it. Well, I'm glad this is the big topic.

All of it is. As you know, our geek

our glass recycling drop off program was suspended um for a reason um in 2024. So, what we're looking to do now is we're trying to bring back that drop off program. Um, our initial phase will be to stand up seven glass recycling locations throughout the city of Savannah. Um, to assist with that, the city of Savannah was awarded a $251,000 recycling conversion grant from EPD in January of 2026 to help fund that. Uh, we plan to release a request for proposal in June of 2026 and then to kick off the program in um the first quarter of 2027. And our next slide and our last slide will be just showing some of the tenative glass recycling locations and where they'll be. Those will be where we tenatively plan to stand up seven um of our first phase of the recycling drop off program.

City and that's all I have. Well done. City manager. um in reference to um since there are only a few dots um on the map, can it be stated in words where these um recycling locations are? Certainly. So, uh, Bacon Park Transfer Station, Barnes Restaurant, um, Capitol Street, um, Fire Station, yes,

Coffee Bluff Fire Station, Dean Forest Road Landfill, Savannah Fire Station 14, which is out in the Highlands. Um, and the SPD Northwest Precinct. So those are going to be the um seven locations for the um glass recycling that um is proposed in our proposal. So just for city council's knowledge on the next step, if you can go back to the previous slide please, Mr. Director. Um so we are going to have an RFP released in June. Um we will receive proposals um back and that means we will hopefully be bringing a um authorization for a contract to city council um by the end of this year so that we can start glass recycling um drop off um in the first quarter of 2027. So hopefully the next thing you see regarding this is um an authorization for me to sign a contract for glass recycling.

Oh, thank thank you so much team. And you know, I'm excited because this is the this is the white whale of of waste management uh in the cycle because it's a commodity that's just trying to find the market. And I know we did the pilot and we were heartbroken, you know, when that didn't work out and it wasn't any any uh uh cause on our end. You know, it was just the vendor that we were working with. So, I really deeply appreciate uh Miss Mason, her team, uh and all of you guys for keeping at it, finding a new opportunity to kickstart this, and it's a catalyst. Uh but for the community, for this to work, we need people to recycle their glass to to feed the machine. Uh because we we're going to need glass to make this work and make sure that it pencils out. Uh there is value in it. Uh so, I'm excited to see it coming back online. I know it's not easy. Uh but really in the long run, it's going to help us deal with the mythology uh that has emerged around recycling programs. Uh especially in our community because you hear it all the time. Oh, the city of Savannah doesn't recycle. Yes, they do. Uh there are certain products that are in it because it changes all the time. Uh but this is going to help get us back online again. I really appreciate appreciate you guys uh sticking with it and finding new opportunities. Yeah,

I know it's not the most important thing in the presentation today, but it's uh much appreciated. So, thank you. I I think it deserves a public service announcement like you can only recycle things that can be recycled and that have a market for recycling.

Um and we do collect recycling um uh curbside for many many objects. um uh please make sure that what you're putting in that bin is recyclable um and it's clean and it's not um uh tainted or compromised because that means that your whole cart um instead of going through recycling goes to the landfill. So, if you uh want to be a responsible recycler and you want to make sure what you're putting in those bins um ends up being reused um in some form and not in the landfill, be a responsible recycler and don't just throw anything in those bins. Make sure you know what can be recycled. Question.

Thank you. Um Mayor Pro Tim, now we're going to do this. is going to be successful and that's great. But how are we going to separate the glass? Will we just put the glass right in there with everything and then somebody else? Yeah. No ma'am. So that's what's the different about glass than some of the plastics that we were able to and and paper and and cardboard that we're able to collect

um from residents. um is glass needs a different recycling stream and its own recycling stream. So that's why um right now to get glass recycling back up and running um if you want to recycle glass and we want you to recycle glass, you're going to have to bring your glass to one of these seven locations. And there will be a specific receptacle and container for glass. Um and uh and once we have a contractor that that that contractor wants that glass and they'll haul that glass off and recycle it and and turn it in um to another product for use. U but but we want glass out of our landfill stream. It's heavy. Um it takes up a lot of space and it's able to be recycled. But the key to recycling is you have to have a market for the recyclable. Um and glass right now is there's um difficult It's a more challenging market than other types of recyclable materials. So, this is the solution that we want to bring back to the city here, which is um the this convenience um drop off type of glass recycling. Hopefully in the future um there will be a bigger market for glass recycling. We'll be able to do that, a residential glass recycling pickup. Um and um so we we really want to evolve and innovate here, but this is a service that we really do want to bring back to residents.

Sounds good. Anyone else?

Um I want to make a comment. We did um do recycling in the city of Savannah um since I've been here and it it became u cumbersome for our staff but uh it's been a really really loud outcry from the our citizens here in the city of Savannah. So, it's been said already. We're bringing it back just like we have gotten on board with our yellow yellow top recycling. I'm pretty sure we the numbers are up on our recycling here in the city of Savannah. We're going to need the community, the public to get on board. If we're going to keep it and be successful with it, everybody have to do their part. So, let's let's get it done. We bringing it back. Anything else? City manager.

Uh, no, ma'am. All right. Um, so no. Um, which is session. Is that a session? All right. So, we shall convene at 2:00 for our city council meeting. Thank you all so much.