Planning & Infrastructure/GIS Committee - Regular Meeting

Let me go wash my hands.

It's so yellow.

Thank you.

Yeah. I was waiting for Jackie to come. I would like to call to order the planning the infrastructure meeting to order. Councilman Telefero of Collins said that he would be late, and I know your time is valuable, so we are not going to delay it. Thank you all for coming, and at this particular time, if there are any public comments, you may come now.

Anyone with public comments?

before we move to the agenda. Anyone with comments? Because we don't have a quorum, we won't approve the minutes. The first item is grass mowing progress. All right. OK, so we had grass mowing progress. Yeah.

Good afternoon, how are you? So I guess I had a little issue with my laptop. So right now with the grass cutting season, we're still on a two-week rotation. As you can see, we're still dealing with weather. There's a major issue with the weather. We're getting rain twice a week. I do have representation from different contractors that are in the audience that could pretty much vouch for what we're dealing with. But there's... really much we can do about the weather. Once the weather clears up, we'll be back on it. During the two week rotation, hopefully we can accommodate for the amount of things that we have missed thus far. With the mowing, it's pretty frustrating right now. As you can see, we got a huge amount of rain that we dealt with yesterday that will pull us back maybe a week or so. But we are working full-time schedules, even weekends, as needed. Any more questions you got?

Anyone else? Any questions on the .

I know we talked about that, and so we wanted to make sure to, when we discuss our right-of-ways and the thoroughfares, well, I'm going to go back on the thoroughfares. What I'm talking about, I'm talking about in the city. in the city travel on our main streets and keeping those particular right of ways cut, especially coming in, especially from downtown, from the airport. And because when that high grass, even in our inner city neighborhoods like that on our sidewalks, then it makes it difficult for a lot of people that walk. It's just not a good look. So we want to make sure that we keep those areas.

Yeah, we do have us, we added more contractors to, we got with Leon, we added more contractors to what we already have, plus our daily operation as well. So those extra contractors that we added will be able to assist us on the extra cutting that we need. We didn't need any extra money or anything like that. We just... whatever small contractor that Leon had, if it was something small that they could take care of it, we brought them along and we're going to put them on those issues so we can be able to address those pretty quickly.

So to pick up for, too, that when they're cutting and the picking up of trash and ensuring that the grass is not in the street is a part of the contract as well?

Yes, ma'am. They pick up the trash. They're supposed to pick up before they're cut and after because sometimes we're not able to get everything once we're picking up the litter and once we start cutting because the grass has been so high. And that's a safety issue as well. You don't want some guys out there picking up litter, maybe possibly pick up some rodent or a snake or anything. So we have to be careful with that as well.

Okay.

You're still next up on item B, update on plans for keeping interstate and on and off ramps clean.

We got the information from DOTD. Yes, they're here today for representation. What it is that they cut. The concern for the constituents that they have right now are the on and off ramps and not being able to see on those particular exits. Okay. So if they can give us an update, I know it's a new fiscal year, but if you can give us an update on when those will be cut, this would be great.

for what they could for interstate 220 or for our interstates but 220 for sure okay i think all right i think they're cutting 220 right now they just had a prolonged with the weather from yesterday so it'll be a while maybe possibly end of the week dealing with what we're dealing with hopefully without having to mess up any grass or anything like that

Well, I have a request. Is there any notice that we can send to the public and let them know this with grass cutting? But we know this. We try to share it in infrastructure or on social media or whatever it is that we do. But they may not have a general understanding of that. When they see high grass, what happens is we get the phone calls. And they blame it on us. And so if there's any notification that can go out to the public and let them know that grass cutting is resumed or whatever the delay is, because I do think that communication is essential in going in and doing that. I'm asking that from DOTD. And then whatever it is, too, that we can somewhat put on our channel, on our Little Shreveport channel.

Okay, so are you asking before we start cutting or are you asking what kind of time schedule?

Like right now.

Okay, so we put out a notice saying that once the rain starts clearing up, we'll be on it.

But sometimes it's just good to just update our public because all the time they don't know what we know. and so to break down the confusion of letting know that it's a concern for everybody for the most part with the grass and they can't see, yada, yada, yada, just to inform them what we're doing and we'll do our part to support that as well.

We can do that. Okay, so the cleanup on the 220, 3132, Expressway. How do we go about getting that clean?

So right now, we have a schedule that we do twice a month that we go out the city and we sweep and we pick up all debris on the interstate. That's city of Shreveport crew. I'm not sure of the state crew because, like I said, they just renewed all their contracts, so things kind of changed. I'm not sure how they do their sweeping schedule. We were doing it one month. That's why we went to every other month because one month they were doing it, then we'll come back the next month and do it because the litter on the interstate was just accumulating too fast for us to keep up with, so we couldn't. wait for them on a bi-monthly cycle to clean it up. So what we did was we made a deal. Once they cleaned it up, their money will come behind them. The following month, we'll clean it up. And that was actually working pretty good. It still is, but like I say, we having issues with the amount of litter that we picking up on the interstate. I'm not sure what we could do about it. I talked to the chief or whatnot, but, you know, they have major issues that they're dealing with on their side as well to be able to help us kind of write citations or whatever we could do to possibly hold off on the amount of litter that we're picking up on the interstate.

Do we have any cameras on the interstate?

I'm not sure.

Are they with DOT? You can come up if you'd like.

Erin Buchanan, DOTD. The cameras that we do have, the DOTD-owned cameras that we have on the interstates and 3132 are live stream only for the purpose of monitoring conditions in real time. They do not have recording capabilities.

Okay, because I had one of my constituents who had a wreck on a big truck hit him, but the truck kept going, and they were wondering about the cameras, so they just lied.

They're just live. They live stream on our 511 website and app so that people can, the public, anyone can access those cameras and see what traffic is doing at that very moment for trip planning purposes and those sorts of things. But they do not have recording capabilities. And we receive many of those same questions, you know, regarding crashes and incidents that occur. Yeah.

So what's you all's cleaning schedule like?

Sweeping schedule or cleaning?

Sweeping both.

Sweeping, right now we're waiting to get the green light for the new fiscal year to start the, and Jarvis alluded to that, to start the sweeping schedule back up. We typically do it on even months, and then the city of Shreveport can supplement in the interim. So we are just waiting to be able, with this new budget, to be able to begin that sweeping again. Just keep in mind that sweeping occurs on bridges and overpasses. Sweep just a regular roadway shoulder. There's nothing for that sweeper to be able to move against to remove that debris. So I think a lot of times there's a misconception about what the sweeper does and how that functions. Yeah. Right. So that's what we're working on. Now, to supplement that as well with our crews, we are trying to get our maintenance units to utilize some pickup operations. Now, that's moving them away from roadway maintenance activities, but places, hot spots like the Cross Lake Bridge and Red River Bridge, those types of areas are... weekend work adding that into their schedules to be able to try and you know keep that litter to a minimum but again as mr morgan mentioned enforcement is a critical component of this and so right now i don't know that that's occurring

Do you all have any call boxes on the expressway interstate on either of those?

Other than 511, which will reach our Traffic Management Center for Emergencies, but there's not, I mean, they can always report it to us directly to DOTD if they see, you know, large debris, you know, appliances, things that are posing an immediate safety hazard, certainly that should be reported to us. We want to know about that. We have roadrunners who run and try to pick up the large amount of tire debris that accumulates. That's a huge issue. But there's not a particular call box that's out there currently.

If they wanted to contact you by emergency, what number would they dial?

They would dial 549-8300. That's our district. Say it again. 549-8300.

It's our district headquarter office. And then the trucks that travel, how often do they travel down the expressway are 31, 32, 220?

The trucks?

Yeah, the State Farm truck emergency.

Oh, the Matt Motors assistance? Yeah. They travel their regular routes. They work like 7 to 7, I believe is their schedule. So they run their regular routes that they're assigned to all the time. So they often come upon stranded motorists before that motorist even has a chance to try and figure out, you know, what they're going to do. So they're constantly assisting motorists. So they travel in the metro area, in the urban area, they travel all the interstates and 3132.

So do you call them or they just show up? They just show up. Okay. So there's no way to reach them? It's not a call-out service. Oh, okay. And I see most of them are marked with State Farm. Is that a courtesy from State Farm? How does that work?

They're technically a contractor. They're not DOTD employees. So I believe that they did receive some funding from State Farm as a company to be able to continue that service. Okay.

What's the number again to contact? 549-8300. Okay. For the state forum?

Oh, no, no, no. That's just for our district headquarter office. There's no number for the map. That's not a call-out service. But they run their regular routes, and they come upon those motorists.

Is there a way for you all to put this number on something on 220 on the expressway that they can see that number just in case they was just traveling and they needed to know that number? Is there a way that you all could put a number like that up?

It's a possibility. The permanent message boards do have some restrictions from the federal government on how they're utilized, but we do have some leeway and flexibility on certain messages at least once a week. We try to put up a safety-related message. So, I mean, it's a possibility we can put up the district number.

Okay. You'll look into that?

We can look into that for sure.

Thank you. Any other questions?

Jarvis, when there is an accident on the interstate, who's responsible for cleaning after the accident?

That's the tow truck responsibility. He's supposed to be able to pick up.

Okay, to remove all of the debris off of the interstate? Correct.

Yes, ma'am. Okay. Thank you. Next item, we're up to drainage, grass, right-of-way, and upkeep.

Yeah, so yesterday I had the opportunity again to ride and figure out what was going on. Like I say, the systems are, they're functioning good. Just a number amount of rain that we just can't control this out of what we're able to control. As far as the drainage canals and the systems are, They're doing pretty good for what we understand. I did have the opportunity to go by the address that we had the issue on yesterday with the 314 East Boulevard. And like we said, it's just a number amount of water that that location going to have to be a possible relocation for her because the amount of water that go there is coming through there when she have a ditch next to her home that goes underneath the street. And once she's trying to go underneath the street, it's also coming at the top, especially when the ditch is full and it's flooding her yard. She's the only one in the area that's having the issue. The rest of the homes are practically gone on down the street further. It's clear, no issues. And I do have videos for that. that we can possibly watch. This is on yesterday, that I went out yesterday. As you can see... Okay, it might take a second. But as you can see, right here in this portion right here, That's underneath the road. And I guess once the video could play, it could show how the water is flowing. It's flowing really good. It's just where she's at, the location she's in, it's a possible flood zone for her. And the only information that we could provide for her is that she possibly needs to relocate because the water is flowing. It's flowing really good. I'm sorry for the slowness of the video, but as you can see, that's the underneath. We call those box coverts that go underneath the street. You can see how the water is flowing. It's flowing really good. He's in a bad area. And also it's going to the Red River that's going to Erie Drive, where the water's supposed to flow. So we was out there yesterday. We stayed out there a while, looking at possibly what we could do. But it's underneath the capability of what we could do. Possibly for one home, we don't want to spend a numerous amount of money for trying to fix something that's not broken. But I wish you could see the video. It's a really good video. It shows how the water is flowing. And that's, as you can see yesterday, it was a lot of water. But trying to get all that water into the box cupboard underneath that street is just an issue with the amount of water that's coming down the streams. For some reason it won't play, but I guess we'll, I'll worry about that later. But I was able to show how the water right there at the box covers what you see is flowing pretty good. That's the flow of the water, and it's flowing. I talked to a couple guys that were out there with me on the streets and drainage crew, and we was downstream. We got out and walked. We made sure there were no trees or no sediment or anything inside of those ditches. And it's just that area right there flows everything in that particular area, and it flows to that ditch, and it tries to get out towards Erie Drive.

What is your schedule on cleaning drainage ditches?

We don't have a schedule because we have a crew that's ongoing. That's what they do all day. We have a drainage crew, and what they do is they inspect drainage ditches weekly.

All right. Thank you.

So this is what blocks them? Just blocks it by draining ditches?

No, this is the amount of litter that we pick up daily. That also affects drainages and that's That's something that I'm putting together with the media team to try to educate the public on, you know, what they're putting out and how they're putting it out is affecting the drainage and how it could affect the drainage moving forward. And as you can see in the photo provided, this is what we pick up daily. This is not just one particular photo that I just took. This is daily stuff that we pick up to try to keep our city clean. And my guys are not putting it out there. I'm sure no one in the city of Shreveport that understand how litter works and how drainage works put this stuff out there. So that's why we just need to educate them and let them know, hey, look, this could cause problems. As you can see, we have all type of trash inside that truck. And this is what my guys pick up every day.

How much grass do you incur in the drainage?

Uh, it depends, uh, how much, uh, with the amount of cutting that I'm sure everyone will be doing right now. And if they're not educated, uh, the grass is really high. So you'll have a lot of people that will be blowing grass in the street and that'll cause settlement buildup and that'll cause drainage blockage. And those are the issues that we'll have from the previous video. But like I said, right now, the systems are working good. Um, we do, uh, have emphasis where we do go out and we do catch stuff like trees and, uh, whatever, animals, dead animals, paper plates, buggies, everything that's inside those ditches that can cause a block, especially when it's trying to go underneath the box cover. As you saw in a previous video, they can cause a very big blockage. So when we talk about litter, we have to also talk about drainage as well because litter is an issue with drainage. You have to educate your citizens on and your constituents and let them know how to put the litter out on the side of the road. And I do have pictures that I'll show at the end of the presentation to kind of help us and let you know what we're dealing with out here.

You have it today, the president? Yes, sir.

I mean, yes, sir, I do have pictures. We could just go on the agenda and I'll show it to you at the end.

Okay. All right, thank you.

And we were able to get with the juvenile court, and I haven't talked to Sheriff Whitehorn yet. The last we talked to him, it was the issues with the inmates on trying to help us get some of the litter control that we used to have that ability for. I'm not sure where we're at with that. I haven't talked to him, but I did talk to juvenile court, and I showed them, I gave them an idea, and I pitched the idea, and they were with it. So they'll be sending us some of their inmates to help us pick some of the litter up. So hopefully it'll catch a juvenile that picking up litter ain't as easy as you think. So it'll educate them on why you shouldn't throw litter out your car or you shouldn't throw it on the ground at all.

You're exactly right. I was behind somebody on yesterday and they stopped at the light. And before they pull off, they just... open the door, and just drop the trash right there in the street.

Yeah, someone did that to me. I pulled in front of them. I don't have a badge or anything, but I told them to pick it up because, you know, and did my education portion on it. I educate my family as well. I don't know um how many of them still possibly do it but i go around show pictures like these and hopefully they can uh look at this and say hey look this ain't safe this is not safe this go to your drinking water this goes to everyday living habits so when you look at these don't just look at someone out there working hard picking up litter just look at our environment uh impaction of what it does to the environment mr chair

Yeah, and then Saturday, somebody just took the ashtray, just dumped it out, hid it on the side of the door deal, put the ashtray back in, and all the cigarette butts and everything's right on the ground. Yeah.

You didn't say nothing to them? Huh? You didn't say nothing to them?

I didn't have a gun.

Well, what you could do is you could take pictures of the license plates and you could take pictures of what they're doing and you can report that to the police and hopefully we can get a reaction from it. But that's a long process.

They didn't look like somebody ought to be taking a picture.

Now, we're not asking you to get out your car.

You told us that. You told me that. Yeah, I told you that.

You called me and said someone got on you about it. got on me and i got right back yeah we want we want to educate everyone to be careful with that we're not we're not asking you to do anything that you need law enforcement's ability for yes sir councilman jackson um

I think it's good. I'm big on education. My thought process between you and the administration, if there's some way we can do these presentations for the school board and even get to the principals at some point, you know, to the young kids. A lot of times parents, you know, won't do things in front of their kids and The kids are seeing it, and they have been educated on the process. They'll say, hey, mommy, we're not supposed to throw stuff out the window. But I think it's important to raise the next generation of young citizens as to what's important. How do we protect our infrastructure? Everybody say we got to invest in it, but we also got to make it last longer. We can't destroy it. If I give you a brand new vehicle, how long are you going to take care of it? I think proper maintenance is an education that we all need to have as early as possible and often as possible.

Yeah, that's something I have been working on already. Hopefully that will be pretty soon. I talked to a couple of the elementary schools already, and I'll be doing that pretty soon. And I've had the grace from the mayor already to go ahead and do that. So we'll be working on that.

Also, and even if you need to put it in the song like yesterday, go for it.

I have the ability, but that's not what it would be for.

Also, up on Monk House where we're getting ready to change the whole deal, if we could incorporate something up there.

Councilwoman talked about the signs that we got from the state. We went and picked those signs up, but they didn't give us any information. So we're having to build things to put them on. All we have are the signs, and we'll be putting them out. We sent the email from State asking us to go ahead and pick them up. We picked them up. We just have to put something up, get something to put them on. So once we do that, you'll see those signs put out. I think they were from the Attorney General. We did pick those signs up. So we do have them.

Because anywhere that you want to see cigarettes and butts is right there at Monk House in Hollywood.

Yes, sir. Okay. That's your district, huh?

Yeah. That's it. I got it. We'll take care of it. Stop being a butt. Okay. We'll move to update repair, work on interstate lanes marking. I guess that would be for

Item number D. Okay. Which one? Are we at the pause?

Lane marketing. Okay.

Okay. As far as the lane marketing on the interstate, that's another path with DOTD. I think he can come up and talk about it and figure out where we're at.

Okay.

Before I give an update, was there a particular area that was of concern?

I'm not sure. That prompted it? I think this was an item that Councilman Teller-Farrer put on. Okay. But he's not here, but you can just, I guess, speak about it in general.

Yes. So the good news is that we have several pavement marking projects that are either in various stages of completion, underway, or about to be completed, or about to start, excuse me. So as part of the I-20 rehab, we were able to stripe I-20 throughout the Bossier side, of course, the rehab section, but all the way to I-49 as that part. We have a section there for a future striping project from I-49 to I-220. We just finished striping I-220 on the Shreveport side to the Texas state line. So that project is done within the last few weeks. We're about to kick off striping of I-49 urban, which is a section that starts at I-20 all the way down to Southern Loop. So that part will be freshly striped. We're also about to restripe I-49 North, which starts at 220 and goes all the way up to the Arkansas line. So with the exception of that small portion of I-20 that is also slated for repair in the next few years, basically all of the area, oh, and there's an I-49 South striping project as well that will be kicking off. So the vast majority of all the interstate system will be restriped. We had just restriped I-220 prior to that winter storm, and all of that was, well, much of it was damaged as a result of moving snow and ice. So that's something we'll have to take another look at. But if there were any other locations that we can... answer or address, please don't hesitate to let us know.

If so, you could leave a number, and we'll pass it on to him, a card, and we'll pass it on to him. He could call you directly.

Okay.

Ms. Buchanan? Yes. Do you have an update on Ford Street?

Yes. That actually lets next month. So it goes to bid next month. Okay. So once the project goes to bid, we typically see construction start within about 90 days after that. Okay. Thank you. It's coming up.

Thank you. I'd be happy to hear that.

Thank you. I guess that was the interstate lightning in that as well, right? The same thing.

David, you want to come in and update anything that we have?

How's everybody doing?

David Smith, city engineer.

I-20 lighting, we've got several segments under design, but we're only just getting underway. Was there any particular questions I could feel for you?

Will there be any LED lighting on it?

Yes, sir. We expect it all to be replaced with LEDs. Oh, okay. I know DOTD's actually done a project at Burr Coombs, and they're working on one very soon at Monk House intersection, and then the city's bond program will address as much of it as possible from downtown out to Monk House.

Any update on when that?

No, sir. We're still pretty early on. DOTD's designing two segments, and then we have the rest of it to design. No, sir. It's going to be a little while. But I can get you an estimate schedule on it. Okay. Mr. Chair?

Yes. What's the lifespan on the new LED lighting? You know, are they prone to wind, rain? You know, once we get them in there, are we going to see, like, outage? Will we have to come back and change?

So, I know they can be a bit finicky. Some of them may go out. before their life, but it's 20-25 years. They're expected to last much longer than the high-pressure sodium that's up there now.

I want to get some update on some street projects that are in Allendale by SoCo Park and those streets there that were Almost undrivable. Okay. So I need to get an update on that. Will you all get an opportunity?

Okay.

Please. And I can't think of the other street.

Patsman and.

Yeah, Patsman and another street around Chester and Calhoun. But going up that hill. Yep.

I'll get you an update.

Okay.

All right. Thank you. Okay. Next item is update on pothole repair. Okay.

All right. So we do have a pothole crew. It's a difference of maybe five to six guys on a good day and they do repair potholes daily. So we also have to make sure that weather plays a huge factor as well in potholes because we have to go get the hot mix and sometimes the hot mix plant It's closed on the impact of weather. But we do have things that we call cold packs, which a lot of people don't like, but we have to address those potholes as fast as possible because of liability issues. We do have a crew that works overtime, day and night. We get calls at nighttime as well about potholes because we have to address those. issues pretty quickly because of the liability that we have on them. Once they're reported, the city's liable if anyone else hits them. So once we get a pothole, those are reported probably one of the fastest processes that we have right now. Being that the rain has played an issue, rain does cause a major issue with potholes because of the amount of waters they settle. And once the rain clears up, that may cause a pothole issue. So, those guys, like I said, they work overtime, day and night, trying to make sure that we get the streets, the potholes repaired as soon as possible.

So let me ask you this. I see on Morning News, I think on Channel 3, they have a pothole patrol. Yes, sir. When they find those potholes, do they call them into y'all or they just do a story and that's it?

No, they report those to us. They actually called me Monday, well, yesterday, and they wanted to ride along with my guys as well for another ride along. And I granted them their grace to ride along to see how the process goes because it's a process. Like I say, we have to get the hot mix early in the morning. Those guys have a certain amount of time to get their stuff out of their truck before hardening on them if it's not at a certain temperature. So that job is not an easy job at all.

Okay. Any questions?

Do we have any upgrades in pothole technology?

Yes, I do. I have had an email from someone send me an AI detection power and I'm supposed to host a meeting with them to figure out how could it help us.

Okay.

Mr. Chair. Yes. What happens when the street just has just been overlaid with pothole material just too many times? It's just crumbling just completely. Can y'all do like a big... What can be done... when in the interim of redesigning the entire street can you do one big overlay over a section is that possible versus keep filling multiple potholes that's in the same given area yes we this so it's an operation between uh two divisions that streets and drainage and engineering so streets and drainage come out and do a

a daily maintenance on that. And so once they see that it's something that can't be just throw a hot mix into a hole, we then pass that information to engineering. The engineering starts doing their research and making sure what kind of process it needs. If it needs an overlay or maybe it just needs some some drainage issues that's causing the water to settle right there. So it's an operation that goes between two divisions, and they communicate that. And we have meetings about it, and we'll possibly put it out. If it needs an overlay, we'll put it out to engineering, then they'll create a project for it. So what you're asking for, let's say we have an alligator street. So Streets and Drainage does have that ability to repair that because they have the equipment to, but they don't have the big equipment for us, what we use on like a major overlay. They can do maybe 20 feet, 40 feet at the most, but that's it. So that's why when we have a huge street, we have to be able to pass that information along and we'll have to get a project for it because we don't have what we need to do that. I mean, as far as we did, maybe... That was 23 when we did the research on it. And I think we were able to get a great amount of streets on it to repair that were in major need. And we still have that data. And I think that data, if we update it right now, we have done a real good job on it.

Yep. And I guess what I'm looking for is I want to be able to give my citizens a reasonable expectation, you know, what things can come out and be fixed within, you know, a week or two week process and which things that we just have to be budgeted for and it's going to take forever to get done because it has to be budgeted. So I'm just trying to, like I said, when I send you something, what things can we reasonably, you know, fit within the budget to make it look better, safer, smoother, and which thing has to be budgeted and may even be considered for a future bond proposal. I just want to be able to pass on factual information.

Yeah, that would, like I said, it would depend on the linear feet of it. How long is the stretch of it? If it's something that Streets and Drainage could do, like I said, it has to be 20, maybe 40 linear feet so that they can repair before we have to pass it along. And it's just a process. Usually, you just can't go in and overlay a street, continue to overlay it because that'll cause an impact and drainage as well. So we have to go out, the engineers have to go out and do their survey on it, look at what it's doing for us, the drainage, make sure it may not need an asphalt street anymore. It may need... concrete street so that's why when we talk about the process of engineers why it takes so long because we want to make sure that when we put this street down that we are giving it the lifespan that it needs before we come back and repair it because we can't continue to come back and just try to patch it and two months down the road we're back down there because we're trying to do what's best right then. But once we pass it to the engineers, they do their research. They do the surveying. They make sure that it's not a hydraulic issue, a drainage issue, anything that will cause for us to be back within the lifespan of what asphalt does, 15, 20 years or so. So we're trying to make sure that we get our money's worth once we put that overlay down. We don't want to be back out there with months and a year down the line.

Okay. Any other questions? Okay. You want to do your video now, or you want to do it after SWEPCO?

Yeah, SWEPCO can come up.

Okay, Mike. It's all on you, man.

Mike was saying, don't.

Why didn't you play the video first? Yeah.

Play the video, Jarvis.

Okay, Mike, thank you for coming. Services and outage. The mic is yours.

Good afternoon, and thank you for inviting me to the meeting again today. I have prepared some information-based questions that we got regarding North Shreveport and Southwest Shreveport. If you'd like, I can go through that information, and then if there's additional questions, we can go from there. That's fine. Okay, so we'll talk about North Shreveport first. There are two primary circuits that provide power to North Shreveport and the North Market corridor. The first circuit has about 610 customers, and that circuit is 37 and a half miles in length.

Thirty-seven and a half miles.

Thirty-seven and a half miles in length. So there's a lot of space for threats in that circuit. I went back over the past 12 months. We've had two what we refer to as circuit-level outages where the entire circuit is out. One, September 4th, 2025, where we had a transformer failure. and one June 27, 2026, when a snake entered a transformer at the substation. We've had a number of localized outages, and those are smaller outages where the entire circuit does not go down. Thirteen were due to weather, wind, lightning, so forth. Seventy-five were due to scheduled company maintenance for reliability work, pole replacement, or tree trimming. and I'm going to talk a little bit more about scheduled company maintenance later on. Some streets that we were given to research, Morris Drive and Shadow Lane, they were only impacted by the two large circuit level outages. Lincoln Drive, Addison Avenue experienced both the two circuit level outages a scheduled outage on March 4th of this year, and a tree from inside the right-of-way on June 21st of this year. The second circuit that serves North Shreveport has about 1,040 customers on it. It's 23 miles in length. It has had three circuit level outages in the past year. July 7th, 2025, a broken pole was caused by a tree from outside of the right-of-way that fell and broke the pole, took the lines down. June 21st of this year, a broken cross arm on a pole that was caused by high winds and an afternoon thunderstorm. And then the infamous June 27th snake at the substation outage. There have been a number of localized outages on that circuit as well. Sixteen due to weather, and those impacted 40 or less customers. Thirteen due to scheduled company maintenance. Those also impacted 40 or less customers. Five due to trees from outside of the right-of-way impacting 40 or less customers. Um, Question may be, what's the difference in the whole circuit going down and just a portion of it impacting fewer customers? We have technology built into the lines that helps isolate where the fault is. So within one or two seconds, it can automatically do some switching and keep people at both ends of the circuit powered up and only disable those where the immediate fault is, in the case of a broken cross arm or a tree or something like that. This second circuit was also identified by SWEPCO as a low-performing circuit at the end of 2025. So we have assigned a rapid response team to that circuit. They are constantly monitoring the circuit, addressing issues with vegetation management, forestry work, and ongoing inspections of the lines and related equipment. So if we move on to Southwest, uh, Shreveport, um, the circuit that was in question, which serves, I think both Newcastle and the church, um, that circuit has about 1,446 customers own it. It is 41 miles in length. And it has experienced three circuit-level outages in the past year. September 28th, 2025, we had a windstorm blow through. Tree outside of the right-of-way on Heatherstone Drive fell into the lines. May 19th of this year, again, weather and wind. July 6th, a tree inside the right-of-way on Castlebrook Drive fell in and took the circuit down. There have been 13 weather impacts, localized smaller outages impacting 85 or less customers, and eight outages on that circuit due to company maintenance that involved 26 or less customers. So scheduled company maintenance, why is that important? We've talked before about the amount of forestry work that we're doing. We have a very aggressive pole replacement program underway right now. for our people to do that work safely and in the time allotted, then we need to schedule smaller outages. It's important that we have the customer's contact information, either their cell number, their email, both would be great. And an example of that is, This morning, we did two automated calls about work that we'll be performing tomorrow. And basically what that call says, this is SWEPCO, we are performing maintenance work on the power lines and the electrical grid in your area. And in the first one, it says from 8.30 to 10.30 a.m. tomorrow, and it will impact Cove Circle, Pine Cove Drive, Drury, Overlook, and Willow. Second call went out this morning. Same thing, we're doing forestry work. We expect an outage from 8.30 to 10.30 on Blom, Hollyhock, Acacia, Brookwood, Marlow, and Turner. So if we have the customer's information, then we can contact them with this automated call, or we can possibly send them a text, but we like to do an automated call for this type of work. So as you have meetings with your customers or our customers call you, your constituents, please encourage them to go to SWEPCO.com, to go to the SWEPCO app, or to call our call line at 1-888-216-3523 and update their contact information. We find that we have So many people had landlines, they've had an account forever, and that's the number that's still in their account, and they haven't had a landline in years. But we have a lot of ways to communicate with our customers, keep them up to date on what we're doing, but we have to have that contact information.

Okay. So you are consistently doing upgrades or maintenance, I should say, with this system. That's good. Thank you. I appreciate that. Okay.

So what other questions can I answer? Also, Mike, I can't remember what the date was that we came to church that Sunday, and one of the legs was burned out. What causes a leg to burn?

It can be a variety of things. There could have been a limb impact and it affected that leg coming into or out of the transformer. Could just be wear and tear as well.

So that ditch behind the church, I know it's difficult for you all to cut that back there, but are y'all going to do any kind of infrastructure back there anytime soon?

We do have more trimming planned back there, and, you know, kind of like you heard from Jarvis earlier, a lot of it depends on when we can get equipment in some of these low-lying areas to do the trimming, but trimming's not going to stop anytime soon.

Mr. Chair? Yes. Let's say there's a tree in a neighbor's backyard in the ditch and it's growing up and it's hanging right above a power line. Whose responsibility is that? And they feel like it's going to cause an issue. Is it the neighbors? Is it the city because it's in the ditch? Is it your responsibility?

Either neighbor can always call our call line and ask that forestry come out and evaluate a tree. There are different scenarios there. If it's in or near the right-of-way easement, then we may just take action and remove that tree. If it's in the customer's yard but it's leaning, then we have to work with a customer. And, you know, sometimes the customer is cooperative and sometimes that customer is not cooperative. You know, our – with all of the work that we've done with trimming the past 18 months, when we see these little afternoon storms blow through like we've had the past month, It's very obvious to us where we've trimmed and where we've not gotten to yet, because that's where we see the outages.

And the reason I'm asking specifically, I have a constituent who said they called Swepco. Swepco said it's not our responsibility. We called the city. The city said it's Swepco, and then they called me.

And you may have already sent that one to me, but if you don't mind, send that address and customer contact again, and we'll look at it again.

But that sounds very familiar.

And a lot of times, a customer may believe there's a threat because a tree's leaning and we go out and look at it and our arborists don't see that same threat.

Okay.

So, Mike, let me ask you this. This is another question. Say for instance, this is your line and say there's a bad limb here and the folk that you all got cutting the limbs, instead of them cutting the whole limb off, they just cut a little piece off and leave the rest, whereas the next time the wind blow, it's going to break, and then we're going to have a problem. So why they don't just, if there's a limb, why they don't just cut the whole limb versus cutting around it and waiting until it breaks?

Depending on what type of line it is and what the voltage is, there are clearances that, minimum clearances that we need. So they will generally trim to those minimum clearances. You've had calls about it. When I sat up there, I had calls about it. When we go in and we take the side of a tree off, which makes sense because now we've eliminated all the threat. Right, right. Then somebody's not happy because grandma planted that tree, you know, in 1923. Right. and and now we've we've damaged it so it's it's a bit of a game to how do we trim to eliminate the threat but keep the tree intact and keep the customer happy well going down pines road right past um

Pastor Duran's church, there's a tree, whereas they cut around the line, and basically the next time the wind blows, I'm sure that limb on top is going to break. But if you could send somebody down that way to check it out.

Sure, sure. And the other thing that happens, too, is when crews are going out on our behalf to trim, They're only trimming for the electric lines at the top of the pole. If there are fiber and telecommunications lines and all that at a lower point, we're not trimming that. Right.

Okay.

In most cases, unless we see that it's a big threat.

Right. Okay. Any other questions for Mike?

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Mike. Thank you. I appreciate it. And she got snakes and pigs that's calling her lines are going.

Don't worry about it. I'm going to send them to ELF.

We mainly have snakes and squirrels. No pigs yet. All right.

They probably came from ELF.

Okay. Jones, you ready?

It's not really much of a presentation. It's just showing photos of, like I say, educating the citizens on what we deal with every day. As you can see, that's a fire. That's not a fire department issue. That's something that we have to pick up and clean up. And we have to get it up real quickly because it will cause a major issue to not only the drainage, but hazards to the citizens as well in the area. Those happen quite often, especially when we have a major fire. And we go out and assist the fire department to make sure that we get everything up because we don't want anyone to go to digging in a pile and touch something that may cause them harm. Next photograph. This is today. This is what we get calls about. This is not the correct way to put out a bulk pile. As you can see, it's beyond what we are called for in our ordinance. But we don't want any issues. We go out and pick it up, no problem. But this is things that we have to educate citizens on. Let them know this is not the correct way. And by law and by ordinance, we are not required to pick this up. But good standards, great city. We want it to look good. We go ahead and remove it. We do write a citation, maybe stamp the door and let them know what's the expectation moving forward. Hopefully, we can educate them and let them know that this is not the correct way you put out your letter, regardless of how much you have. We want you to know to put it out correctly because we have a boom. It don't move back and forth. Once it moves forward, it has to go back. you have to get back in the truck you have to pull up and be able to get all that we want to be able to snap and go next photo we saw this earlier as you see this in the alley in the drainage ditches that we're cleaning out out of the sediment inside of the ditch as you can see in the back of the truck you have tires litter types of things that we clean out next photo this is a drainage ditch As you can see, furniture, tires, one photo you can see a toilet seat or possibility a toilet. This can't happen. And we clean this stuff up. We make sure that it's clean. We make sure that the ditches are flowing. But once I go out and I do my inspection on ditches, these are the things. And this is not something that's been sitting for years. This is something that as soon as we pick it up, we have to go back out the next month and it's in there again. This is what we do to protect our drainage systems. This is what my guys inspect. This is what we take photos of. We have before and after photos. This is some of the stuff that we deal with. And I wanted to show the citizens these photos because my guys are not doing this. No one who is responsible for cleaning this ditch up is doing this. And I have a way to let them know that, hey, educate your people or your family and let them know what we deal with and what they can do to help us. This is a blockage in front of a drainage inlet right here. This is something beyond any one cost. This is just an old tree. They grew, the roots have grew, and we have to go out, we have to cut their tree, we have to remove their roots, and we have to make sure that their drainage ditch is able to function properly. Very life of a tree, maybe 300 years or so. Likelihood, a big oak tree possibly, they spread pretty widely like that and cause issues. But we do have to go out and address those. As you can see, a tree, I'm not opposed to trees. Let me take that back. I am opposed to trees, but we need trees. Trees are good for the environment, but these are the things that it does to us as we're trying to protect our drainage waterway. This is something that we need cause on. If you have this issue in your home, give us a call. We will come out. We will flush that pipe. We will get your ditch back on grade. We will make sure that this is not affecting the entire neighborhood. It may be a process because the ones that know to call us understand that they cannot do anything about this. They have to call the city. They have to get us out there. We have a machine that go through and clean out the entire pipe, and we make sure that it is able to flow again.

I need y'all to do that on Booker T. Washington.

I'm sorry.

I need y'all to do that on Booker T. Washington. Okay.

All right.

Yes, Mr. Chair. Yes. Mr. Morgan, do y'all have a schematic or a map of where all these pipes are located?

not uh not roadway ditches like this this is this is in front of citizens home this is citizens responsibility for upkeep right here but if they ain't no way we have a citizen responsible for this especially when they get that bad do you want to know what that is that's them blowing grass inside of the ditch That's settlement from once the water come there, the amount of speed that it come there, it builds up inside of that pipe. And that's why it's important to not blow grass inside the ditch or in the street because this is what happens. And this is where we get the call out and saying that we're not doing anything about this. We're not responsible for that. We're responsible for cleaning it, of course, but we don't know that the pipe is not able to flow that I'm not sure what we're supposed to do about it. This can cause a major issue in the neighborhood. Just this right here alone. So if you're having this in front of your yard, give us a call. We'll come out and flush it, make sure that it's flowing. We got guys that will re-dig it and re-grade it and make sure that it's flowing. I have this in North Highlands. A lot of these. Yeah, all they have to do is call. It only takes maybe an hour or so. The truck blows this stuff out of there super fast. This is proper upkeep, unproper upkeep for a citizen responsibility right here. They call us, they want us to clean it. We can't touch it because it's a liability on the issue for Shreveport. Once we touch it, we'll be reliable for it forever. So we have to go out, we have to educate their citizen, hey, look, this is your responsibility. A lot of them don't understand it, but... It's just fair for the city because we don't want to touch that because we'll have to upkeep that. What we could do is make a recommendation. If the recommendation don't work, we get with property standards. We start the citation issue and we'll start following the process like that. Things that we could adjust in the ordinance to make it better because this does infect drainage. But that's for another day. This is just educational photos on what we deal with and how we handle those issues. You possibly can't see that, but in the back, it's a stockpile of tires. Yes. We have to get that. I know. It's an eyesore. We're not doing it, but we have to pick it up because we want the city to be clean. As you can see, we may have some people that hang out there because there's a sofa right there in the front. But those are things that we have to pick up, and they take away time for other issues that we could be resolving because there's probably a day of work right there. Probably about... 10 or so truckloads of tires. I'm talking about 20-yard trucks.

Where would you find this? Is it off the roadway? Yes, it would be off the roadway. Is it visible from the roadway?

It's visible, yeah. You can see I took it from my vehicle and you can still see it. As you can see, I don't know if you noticed the little small item. That's a boat right there. And we have to move that. We don't have capability of moving boats, so we have to crush it up and get it out of there. But those are things that we deal with. Another thing, another drainage issue, baskets. If we could zoom in, you could see baskets. This is not something that we maintain. This is something that we go out and assist to make sure that we have proper drainage flows inside the city. We have... numerous amount of baskets. We have a pipe that crosses there, maybe a sewer or water pipe. Not sure because I can't see it, but if we zoom in, it'll show you everything. But this is something that we recently cleaned up, possibly maybe six months or so ago. This is behind Walmart on Pines Road. So another instance where it's in someone's backyard, simple call, maybe we can do the servitude on it, make sure it's not something that we maintain or if it's something that the citizen maintained, but this is what we run into quite often. Once again, improper way of putting out your bulk pickup. Blue cans still get used. We get calls saying that we didn't touch the blue can. We're not supposed to touch the blue can, but I have told the guys if it's trash, you know, go ahead and grab it. And we try to take the blue can with us. Once again, education on how to put out a bug pile. This is something that we shouldn't be picking up, but we want the city clean, so we go ahead and pick it up. Combination of things. As you can see, the right-of-way ditch right there. We're not supposed to cut that. city responsibility. There's homeowner responsibility all the way up to the backside of the street. But we have to go out and address those issues because there may be an issue with the drainage flow. It could affect the drainage. It could affect livelihood of those citizens on that street. So we go out and address those issues and try to make sure that the drainage system is up-kept. Another photo of tires, trees, all type of things. We have to go out and pick up, and we have this quite often. Another incident where someone just decided they just didn't care. They just throw it out on the street, and hopefully someone get it. That's not good for the environment. But these are things that we pick up, and that's pretty much all I have.

Okay.

Thank you. All right. I have one question.

Okay. Okay. Jarvis, that second picture of the house with all of the litter at the curb?

Yes.

You said y'all sometimes issue citations?

Yes, sir.

Was that an eviction or it looked just like a clean out?

We don't know. If it's an eviction, it's a proper process that they're supposed to use. They're supposed to report that to the marshal's office and the marshal's office get with us and we sit out there and wait on... for the homeowner to put all their stuff on the side of the road. If they haven't heard from the citizen in a certain amount of time, sometimes we run into incidents where the citizen is out there and so we'll go ahead and move on to the next process because we're allowed on 24 hours to clean up. But if it's an eviction process and they have no clue, they have not heard from that person, we go ahead and snatch it right then.

What type of citation are they issued?

It's just a yellow slip saying, hey, look, we see that what's going on, and we'll put the ordinance on there. And they say, we don't have any way to enforce it.

Is there a fine involved? Yes, yes.

Okay. Yeah, but I think the citation gets them right. So we haven't had any incidents where we had to go back and actually enforce it. We'll go out and put the citation and let them know the ordinance, and we don't have any more issues with that. Is it?

Thank you, sir.

Thank you. Thank you very much. And that's the wrap up our agenda for today. Mr. Chair. Yes. Would you like to go ahead and approve the minutes from the previous meeting?

You have a quorum now?

We have a quorum now?

Yes, sir.

Yes. Is there a motion to? So moved. Second. Moved by Councilman Jackson. Second by Madam Chair. Any questions, comments? If not, this agenda was approved. The minutes have been approved. All in favor, aye. All in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? If nothing else, then this meeting is adjourned. Thank you, sir.

Thank you.