Public Utilities and Public Works Committee - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everybody. This is the Sustainability Infrastructure Committee meeting of April 29. I'm your chair, councilor Jesse Klingen. And before I, call roll for quorum, let me just read this blurb that allows us to do this meeting, remotely. So pursuant to chapter two of the acts of 2025, this meeting of a city council committee will be conducted via remote participation.

We will post an audio recording, audio video recording, transcript, or other comprehensive record of these proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the city of some of our website and local cable access government channels. With that, bit of housekeeping out of the way, we have with us clerk Poirier. Clerk Poirier, can you please call the role, to establish quorum?

Absolutely. For quorum, counselor Scott?

Present.

Counselor Hart?

Present.

Chair Klingon? Present. You have a quorum.

Thank you. And you know what? Actually, I noticed is a is this a newer part of the blurb, counselor Scott, that after the copy and paste, it says, persons with disabilities who need auxiliary aids and services for effective communication, I e, CAR, ASL, written materials and alternative formats or reasonable modifications and policies and procedures in order to access the programs, activities, and meetings of the city of Somerville should contact the ADA coordinator in advance at (617) 625-6600, extension 2059, or ADA@SomervilleMA.gov.

I think they got it in a few months ago.

Yeah. That a few months ago, but I, yeah, I haven't I I don't think I've had alright. So let's just, call roll on these, minutes. This is the approval of the minutes of the sustainability infrastructure committee meeting of 03/18/2026. Any discussion on the minutes? Members? No. Alright. Can we just, call the roll on this, clerk put here?

Absolutely. Counselors counselor Scott? Yes. Counselor Hart?

Yes.

Chair Klingon? Yes. Those minutes are accepted. Alright.

So we have a number of items, and we have some staff here. I don't wanna try not to hold anybody too long. The first thing I'm gonna do, I'm actually gonna it is actually an exact the first the first two items are DPW items. They're items that we had, in a previous meeting that I had, sent back to committee, severed from the committee point and sent back to committee. The reason I did that is because during the night of the last meeting, we had this amazing presentation from DPW.

It's like a two hour long presentation all about sort of post recap from the the snowmageddon, the two big storms we had, what we did, what we could do better. And and that was all great. But, of course, you know, as meetings run long, you feel like things get to be a little bit of overkill sometimes where you're like you know, you may have more questions or concern or particular issue, but you start to feel like you're stretching a little bit. And, when I left that meeting, I definitely felt like some of the, and let me actually say before we actually before I actually read the items is that I know that there's no easy solutions to these. I just felt like not enough time or consideration was given to two particular items, and I'll read those into the record.

But I really just wanted to send them back and just make sure that we fully understand the challenges that, you know, people with disabilities face in the city. I I have numerous so pictures that I've been made privy to with just some of the conditions that were out there on the ground that, you know, again, this isn't this everybody will acknowledge that the DPW did an amazing job with what they had in terms of taking care of the snow. This is more about, you know, just changing the entire protocol or, like, the you know, and and things have been done a certain way for a long time, and we've improved in a lot of things. And we've improved in a lot of things around ADA accessibility and compliance. But the question is, is there a way we can sort of systematically change like, come up with systems that will allow for a little more care and consideration for certain things.

And that's really you know, it's not gonna be perfect ever. It's certainly not gonna you know? Yeah. Certainly, it'll be perfect, but it doesn't mean we can't improve. So that said, the first item is the is item number two, which is ID number 260337.

And this was from councilor Yun Campan. And, you know, I I again, I feel a duty to my colleagues who put orders like this in. They usually come from constituents, obviously, and and, you know, we we hear the same concerns from constituents. So it's on us to do our due diligence around these issues. So it's from council Yun Camp and a slew of other councilors who signed on that the commissioner of public works discussed with this council how to ensure that handicap parking spaces are not used for snow storage and are cleared at the same time as other spaces.

I don't know that this came from particular incident or if it came from, you know, multiple sightings, locations, what have you, But I wanted to give the and I know that the commissioner did speak to this a little bit on in the last meeting, but I wanted to kind of circle back and just double check. I know that one of the one of the main ones was a municipal lot. One of the ones, the pictures that I saw was a municipal lot where in order to clear every other available space, it seemed like snow was pushed into the handi into the the handicap spots, which, of course, I don't think anybody thinks is is, you know, the way to to be handling this. So so that said, I will yeah. I'd I'd like to and I have talked to commissioner Weissman, you know, prior to this meeting, so he fully understands what we're what we're discussing here, what we're looking for as a city, you know, as a body.

And yeah. So if you wanna go ahead and take it away, commissioner Weissman, I guess the question I would ask is is while we may be addressing, again, a one off or maybe a few different locations where this happened, I guess my question to you, and you can take it away with, you know, what how what is the protocol? Like, how are we systematizing with our snow removal with relation to handicapped spaces, be it in a municipal lot or potentially on streets that if a if a if a resident has a a handicap spot where they have to move from because of the odd even, they can move back. But if they're on the side where the snow is being pushed to, they essentially lose that very important spot for them. So what what, you know, what we're looking for here is how do we address our neighbors with with disabilities who require special parking, handicap parking, how can we better accommodate or really just I shouldn't say better accommodate.

I really wanna be clear because there's guidance from the state of Massachusetts on what our requirement is as a city. I understand there's a lot of challenges in the urban tight environment, but we really need to remain, you know, very clear and focused on what the guidance is from not only the ADA, but also the state and its various entities.

So commissioner Weisman? Sure. Thank you, chair Eric Weisman, commissioner DPW. Thank you all for having me again to talk about snow, and in particular, this issue of handicapped spaces in I'll I'll start with public lots, and then we can talk about the streets. So as as you alluded to, chair, it is the city's responsibility to clear our public lots.

We we typically do that with city staff, not contractors. That includes it it can get complicated during a snow emergency because there's an entire process of cars being allowed to park in public lots and having a window to remove the their vehicles so that we can clear the lots. Let me be absolutely clear. We expect those lots to be cleared at every space, including HP spaces. That that's nonnegotiable.

I saw the pictures that you sent or or that a a constituent sent about this issue in a particular lot. There could be any number of reasons why there may have been snow into that in that space. To me, it looked like a performance issue that would be something we would address with staff and through education. But it could also be that a vehicle cleared off the snow on their vehicle, like, that the that the spot had been cleared and somebody cleared off their snow on onto spots. That's something that happens, and it could also be that the, in that case, the business that is responsible for removing snow from the sidewalks empty snow onto the sidewalk.

So at any rate, there shouldn't be snow in any HP spots. I have talked to constituent services about creating a special service request type for HP spots so that those issues don't just get mixed up in the snow removal salting request. There's, an a huge deluge of snow related requests that come during and after storms. I wanna make sure that these get the attention that they deserve and promptly. So I think we'll be working with constituent services over the summer to set up a special request type for unshoveled HP spaces in public lots.

So so that that's public parking lots. You also brought up the street side spaces, particularly on the opposite side where the the snow may get pushed onto an empty spot. We spoke internally about using a contractor in the list maintained by the traffic commission of all the HP spots in the city. We have a list now. That is something we will be sharing with staff and contractors to clear as part of our post storm cleanup efforts.

And then I think that also we could work with constituent services to make sure that there are separate requests for those if there aren't already. So, again, we do not feel that these spots should be storing snow. That is not our intention, and that's our plan for dealing with this.

So did you see the one so and, again, this isn't like I I just wanna make sure that we're all on the same page. Yep. You I I kinda mixed things up. The the the municipal parking lot handicap spaces, they just weren't, like, plowed, like, at all.

That's what it looked like to me. That's why I thought

it was I'm talking about the one on I'm talking about the one on and this would I guess this would fall into the street one. You know you know, the one on Evergreen? I'm sorry. Thurston Street. I don't know if you saw that photo.

I'm not sure. Clark, I don't think

I can get this to you, but can you can you let me share my screen, or is that too much of a that's no. That's that's not that it's not that one because I didn't I didn't get this one into the work and thing.

I believe you can share screen. Give me one second.

And I should've just oh, no.

It looks like you should have permission to oh, I need to unshare mine. My bad.

Oh, no. I I don't yeah. I think I have to send a request first. I'm sorry.

You should have the option now.

Okay. Yeah. So it would be this one here is like, you know, the store and equipment and snow into it. And this looks like it was, like, a bit after the storm. So I think this is can everyone see this?

I cannot see.

No. Oh, shoot. I didn't I didn't hit didn't go I didn't follow all the way through. Now do you see it? There's, a Yeah. So so

yeah. If if I may, that appears to be construction, like, street construction that does not that's not a piece of city equipment. I don't know. I don't recognize that as being part of an engineering project or a utility project. But, yeah, I'm not I'm not sure what that's about. Oh,

I see a call on engineer director. Welcome. Good

evening. Good evening, committee. Brian, director of engineering. I'm only chiming in because I know that this piece of equipment was from Nash is they're, like, 95 percent confident this was National Grid's equipment because they were beginning to do Thurston Street gas line over the winter. And I think they had moved some equipment over to start, like, right before the snowstorm hit.

Okay. I mean, so that explains the the equipment, but I don't you know, as far as how to snow about where it is, again, this is just more about being more considerate. This is right next to two public properties, you know, the the Winter Hill School as well as the annex, which we have city staff in. So I just want to highlight that, and then I also I just have one of the photo that I'll show with regards to the other item that we're discussing. But I'm gonna turn over to colleagues now. Anybody have any questions regarding councilor Hart?

Thank you. And through you, thank you, commissioner Weissman and and director Postoway. Just curious since since this photo is still up and we're looking at it, you know, the if the it looks like the machine is not in the handicap spot, but that the that the snowbank is. So, again, we can't know what happened here exactly, but just wanted to am I correct in reading that? Correct. You know? Is that

what you're It looks

like that's what I

wanted to Yeah. Yeah. It looks like it's mostly out of the mean, so there's a little it's a little bit in there, and the cones are little bit in there. It definitely looks like you know? But yeah. And, again, this would be part of, again, systematizing it as the commissioner said if there was a way to address the the street handicap spots. And I don't know. I'm sure, like like you said, the traffic commission or or traffic and parking could probably provide that.

Yeah. Thank you, Chad. This is this is something that I noticed in some other locations. There was a spot filled the the HP spot in front of the West Branch Library wasn't cleared when the building was cleared. That was something I brought to my staff's attention. I didn't see this one. This is definitely not our standard.

Yeah. Okay. Alright. I'm gonna stop sharing this for now.

Could I just chair call

you her. Yeah.

Follow-up question?

Yep.

I just wanted clarification on the what you said about having lists about where the spots were for residents. I just didn't follow that, so I wanted to ask. The other thing I wanted to to just say was thank you so much. I love the idea of creating a special service request so that things don't get lost. So I would just wanted to say that I like that idea as well. Thank you.

Sure. Thank you. Through the chair, there are a list of the the sort of registered HP spots throughout the city when a when a HP spot is requested. My understanding is it goes before the traffic commission to be approved and then gets added to the list. Every so often, that list is pruned of people that moved away or no longer need the space for one reason or another, and then the list is sort of refreshed. So that would be something that we would annually share with whoever is doing that clearance.

Great.

Thank you. And I know these this type of thing, you know, takes resources and so on, but I believe if you look at the language and the, you know, the guidance from the state, it is that these are protected spaces. So I know we switch off even to odd, so there is gonna be a year where, you know, a space might like, with those last big storms, you know, be potentially un uncleared. And I did note last meeting that you all were really good about if it requested come in. You know, it might take a few days to a week or somebody stuck the the stake in the in in the pile and said, you know, don't go near this where there's gonna this is for snow clearing.

So I will, recommend that. Councilor Scott, I see you have your hand up. Do you have a question or comment?

You know, counselor Hart asked exactly the question I had. And, I guess you know, I and I appreciate the answer. I guess I I keep coming back to the question you asked about, what systems we can put in place to try to ensure that that we're we're doing this. I mean, so, you know, the the list how often does that list of spaces get updated? I'm sorry. I didn't catch that part.

Through the chair. I believe that the parking department, does that annually. It sends out something to, I'm not sure about the the mechanism, but there's there's some check-in as the spot's still needed.

But, like, this

The director's here.

Yeah. But this HP spot has existed in front of the annex for quite a long time, hasn't

Yeah. Through the chair, yes. I I think we're talking about spots in the neighborhoods that are, requested by residents.

Okay. I just this is, the only reason I'm I'm trying to get to this is, you know, we had a big problem down in Ward 2 that was not the city's fault. A 100% not the city's fault. This was a contractor acting badly and dumping snow into, into already cleared sidewalks and to ADA ramps. But this does look like something that was a result of the city city contractors just piling the snow there.

So I wanna make sure that for the things that we have direct supervision and control over, you know, then then I understand what the what the procedure is. And I maybe I'm slow or Sure. It's possible my my brain is pudding, at this point. But, so so there's a there's a list of spaces that drivers get on their routes to ensure that they make sure they they get those cleared?

Historically through the chair, historically, no. My understanding is that these putting aside ones adjacent to a city building, which my policy is that it should be part of the clearing of the snow at the city building,

the

spots in the neighborhoods were were cleared as requested. I think the change that's going to happen going forward is like like we do with bus stops. We will provide staff or contractors with a list post storm, post snow emergency to go and make sure they're clear. That's basically what we did. Without the list, that's what we did after the last storm.

It was just generated by three one one request. I wanna be more proactive about it and send them out with a with a list to to clear. I'm I'm not exactly sure what happens here. It could be city staff. It could be contractors, but it looks to me like somebody tried to clear the corner for the the crosswalk and ended up pushing the snow into a HP spot.

Yeah. Alright. I appreciate that. Thank you for explaining the change for me. I I appreciate it.

I mean, there's, like, the ones that like I said, they're just on the odd just on the wrong side of the street like this one here at Union Square. Although there is a porta potty in in the spot a little bit too, but that's not your

Mister chair, for the record, I wouldn't recommend that as a spot for a porta potty.

No. No. No. Definitely not. Okay.

I do see that yes. I do see that, somebody from the audience has their hand up. I will recognize the public. So well, first of all, did did the director of track and parking, did did you just wanna chime in on the on the the issue of handicap parking spots, sort of like the inventory and how you how you might be able to assist also with supplying a list or something.

Good evening, Chia. Suzanne Renford, director of parking. So every two years, the residential spots are renewed and the public spots, those are remains constant. They do change or get moved sometimes due to streetscape changes. But we do have a list, all of it is in the traffic commission rules and regulations.

So street spots would obviously be all of the ones in the like, this would be a street spot that we're looking at right here.

That is correct. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. So, again, this is all just like to have a discussion so that, you know, the DBW commissioner and his team can can, you know, kinda go through and and figure out what, you know, what's the what have what have they historic not you. Like, because you're, you know, you're new, but, like, what historically has been missed and how can we improve on it? And on that note, I I like I said, I will if you could, mister Clerk, unmute Holly Simioni, Warfork constituent, also led Cher of the persons with disability commission.

Mister Cher, that person is unmuted on our end.

Full disclosure, I believe this these orders came from probably her and her, advocates, to counsel you on Campen, and rightfully so. This is exactly what we would expect from, disability advocates. So I think it's appropriate to hear from, Cindy O'Lee.

Thank you, counselor Klingen. Can you hear me?

Yes.

Great. I'm highly impressed with all of the city officials that are here today, and I really appreciate your time this evening, especially commissioner Wiseman. The picture that Jesse is showing is I don't remember if it was after the first or the second storm, but I know it was after a lot of melting had already taken place. But I think it's a good example of where, you know, as I say, plows don't drive home with the snow that they've scooped up. They have to put it somewhere.

And I know that typically, it's a corner out of the way. But unfortunately, sometimes, and this example is the diner on Ball Square. It was right where the HP spot was. And I, myself, and some other members of the commission started to notice a lot of different places where snow had been moved, looked like into all the different areas where the HP spots were. And this is not a time to figure out what happened or to blame anyone that especially any city staff.

Our DPW staff worked very hard. And during those two back to back storms, I mean, was whiteout conditions, very dangerous, and not easy to see. But what I really was hoping was to find a way to identify where all of these spots are and a manner in which they can be cleaned out. I put in numerous three eleven requests, specifically about the parking lot at CVS on Medford Street, and that is also a city owned parking lot. And I got on the phone.

I got transferred all over the place. And at one point, there were those flags that were put out. And I called back to 311, and they explained that they would get cleared out then. I know there are pictures of Medford Street. Jesse, I don't know if you can pull one of those up.

But partly part of the issue is, obviously, it's very hard. You're not gonna see the blue logo on the ground when you're when you're driving the plow. But the signs that stand up should be located so that you can see where those spots are, but also what's called, like, the access aisle. It's the hatch marks that go in between where someone unloads and reloads. And then in in front of each space where those marks are I'm sorry, to the side, the aisles, it's supposed to be a curb cut.

And the parking space, the aisle next to it, and the curb cut to get on, not the toilet. Well, actually, this is one of the four areas at Conway. And this was definitely no that was pushed into this corner. And again, I think, you know, this is an example of just how do we make sure that whoever is is plowing the next big storms knows from a list yeah, here you can see it more Yeah. How to find these spots, which is actually on two lists.

There's the list that traffic and parking has of spots like this that are city spots. And then there's which would include spots on the sidewalk. And then there are lists of the residential requested spots. And I have to say that there were some spots, like in Davis, where someone went back and they cut out yeah. This one was this is also Conway where the where the rink is.

Someone moved the dumpsters out of the way so they could shovel, and they slid them into the handicap spots, which still were covered in the other piles of snow.

So, I mean, I think, miss Miyoni, I think the point there is, like, you know, these these do a good job of of just kind of going, demonstrating the breadth of, like, the issue. I, you know, I have full faith that, you know, the DPW commissioner and his team, you know, they get the message on, you know, we need some TLC here. So I think as far as the parking spots go and to your point, the accompanying aisle where somebody has a child in a with a handicap van that, you know, this would be really difficult to navigate here. I I do think we've gotten the message across, and I and I appreciate you, like, adding your commentary. And I don't mean I'm not trying to cut you off.

If you have more more to say, I would just say that as far as this particular issue goes, I think it's there from the photos that, you know, we have work to do. That's, you know, that's I think we'll all agree that we have work to do in this area.

I agree. Thank you, counselor Klingon.

Yeah. I mean, like I said, by all means, know, wrap up if you if you'd like.

But but the you know, I'm a resident. I've lived here yeah, here's the Medford one. I've lived here my whole life. And I had a child who needed these spots. And I drove for many years a wheelchair van.

So I my goal is to figure out how do we identify where both lists of these spots exist, and to make sure that whoever is plowing or shoveling knows that they have to clear the access aisles, the curb cuts, and the full parking spots. Now, the priority is always schools, first responders, roads. Those are the first priority. I am not saying that handicapped spots need to be a first priority. I'm not sure if they have to be a second priority.

But I do feel that when it is safe, that people would then need to go to the drugstore, by example, or to other places, that they get taken care of it at that point. But there's also like, this example is where where residents Oh,

I'm sorry to interrupt. I was gonna say that's on the other item, and the reason why I'm not addressing that with DPW is because I do feel

like that's

more Okay.

No. That's okay. That that picture I just the crosswalk issue is item number three, and I I don't know that we can discuss it with like, I with the commission, I I think that that's more of an obviously, you know, he's the captain of the ship. He'll take whatever orders that, you know, like like, you know, and whatever resource we wanna give. I think the issue of the curb cuts, the abutting curb cuts to properties, although, I guess, I would, you know, I alright.

You know what? I'm just gonna read number three into the record just because I think a little bit one of my concerns about the curb cuts themselves is that even if we ramp up enforcement and get property owners, landlords to understand that if they have bought a curb cut, it's act actually their responsibility. I think then it opens the door of, like, okay. So they clear to the street, but there's still a lot of snow and crosswalks. I think that's the challenge. And I and, again, I don't expect. The city is, like, trying to keep the roads clear for emergency vehicles. That's, the, you know, the

first priority. The first priority.

Yeah. And then and then they're able to come back. But I will read it. So item number three is that the commissioner of public works discussed with this council how to ensure that accessible sidewalk ramps are cleared following snowstorms and ensure that three one one reports on this issue are promptly responded to. Again, the reason why I say, you know, I guess it's still maybe worth broaching, but, ultimately, this is gonna be a matter of, education and enforcement, more than it is what the DBW can do except if we ever get to a point where there's, like, the mayor's sort of shovel brigade where, basically, we are at the point where we can clear those without any delay, and then we bill, you know, the and and, you know but, again, that would that would be where the enforcement and the education come in.

Liaison Radissi on this issue?

Thank you, mister chair. Yeah. I was just since you mentioned it, the mayor wanted me to mention that he's working on a program to allow the ramps to be cleared. It's still in development, so we don't have all the details. But once there are they are filled figured out, we're happy to bring it back to the council for a discussion.

Excellent. Yeah. So like I said, I just wanna acknowledge the fact that this is a you know, we've been and now when I say we, I mean society. I don't mean summerable. I mean, we've been somewhat we've I'd say we've been negligent on a lot of these issues for a long, long time.

And I you know, we're trying to trying to rectify some stuff. It's not gonna happen overnight. It's not gonna be perfect. But I think, you know, the more that advocates like the commissioners, like the commission I see on here in the Bull Cannon, mister Mioni, remind us and bring this to the forefront, I think it just makes it that much more you know, helps us see through that lens and and make sure that we're prioritizing the most vulnerable people. So with for those two items, I will so first of all, colleagues and my last Mister chair? Yeah.

If I if I could just jump in really quickly. Absolutely. I wanted to thank miss Simeone for for, you know, raising the issue. I she did ask about, like, sort of the two separate lists when it comes to particularly for the the the city lots, which which are clearly a pain point, We do run training sessions every November for city staff and and, basically, anybody that plows for the city. This will absolutely be something we're going over with the staff responsible for clearing the city lots.

I would say that it doesn't meet our standards for HP spots, but it also doesn't meet our standards for clearing those those spots, period. So I just wanted to mention that, and thank you.

I mean, I I, you know, I have full faith with a new commissioner that, you know, here is a wide open. And, you know, and one of the things I think and I know that, you know, I don't want the elephant in the room sometimes can tend to be the fact that, like, modes of transportation are important and parking isn't so important except for certain populations. And the reason why I say that, what I mean is the fact that people have noticed that, you know, we are making sure that the community path and the bike lanes are clear, in the priority list. And I think Patricia Simioni even just said she's not expecting it to be one, two, maybe not even three, but somewhat in a quick you know, in a timely fashion that we have this on the priority list. And I don't know that it is right now.

Like, for instance, this spot here, it's a street handicap spot. I don't know if, you know, if we ever it's not really in a commercial district, so I doubt we went you know, it wasn't like we went back through, like, we did in Union Square. I don't know that this one was taken care of until it melted, basically. Alright. And then, so I don't see any colleague hands. I'm gonna give you the last word, miss Semyon, on this, before we move on. We have many other things on the agenda here.

Thank you, chair, councilor Klingen. This is an example of where no one honestly owns the spot in front of there. It's right on Broadway near the bridge, right outside of Wall Square. And I don't know, following the ordinance and getting large groups of volunteers, which a lot of people jumped in to shovel out spots for people who needed spaces to park. I think that the whole goal of this, really, is to allow the Disability Commission to have a seat at the table, or to provide some information.

And that is partly what that is what the commission is supposed to do. I'm not here as the commission. I'm here as a resident. But in this case, this should have been completely plowed, and also the sidewalk, so that if someone were to park there, they have to be able to open their door onto the sidewalk. And there were some places, maybe outside of Union, where a DPW or someone did go back and clean HP spots, but they didn't clean the sidewalk.

And so someone can't, you know, get out of their car in those areas. And again, I I just I saw this as an opportunity to look at it afterwards and say, how do we do? What do we do differently? How do we prepare? What information is there? Is there, you know, something the commission or an advocate could help with, like an MOD grant for Eric, I loved your comment about heated sidewalks, I think, or something was heated. Maybe there's a I think small

it's game.

Yeah. I think that was great. I did watch the meeting afterwards as I, for different reasons, was not able to be added the last time. But if there is, you know, something that we could discuss writing a grant for through MOD that would be smaller to use for these spaces to melt things. I mean, we all hope we don't have two horrible storms like that again, but we know it's possible. And I just I just heard from a lot of residents who were stranded because they couldn't get across the street. And it's not just wheelchairs. It's it's people in strollers. So I I don't wanna I don't wanna assign blame to anyone. I see this really as just opportunity.

But I really am asking that the commission be allowed to be involved in some of this process, even if it's to talk about how to support it more. So I appreciate everyone's time tonight, and someone I do believe did remove that porta potty from that one spot that was there.

Yeah. And, you know, liaison with DC will bring that back to the Mayor's Office. And, again, we'll let our professionals take it from here, and, like, I think the message has been received loud and clear. I think that, you know, we have Eric's great systems approach type person. I think that we can get this figured out. I see councilor Hart has more thoughts on this. Councilor Hart, floor is yours.

Thank you. And I just wanted to also appreciate miss Simioni for taking the photos and, you know, being advocating on this important issue. I just wanted to am I correct, Chair, that now would be the time to talk more about the curb cuts as well?

Or Yeah. Yeah. I think, like, as I said, it's more of an administrative thing. And and in other words, unless the and, like, liaison Radissi said, if the mayor can get some sort of program going or or or if we can allot some other bunch of funding to DPW and they can hire, I don't know, like, somehow on this. You know what mean?

Like, come up with a group of people, then we could then the administration administrative piece then gets into their court where it's done, and then we bill the homeowner or something like that. As far as the curb cuts themselves, I mean, you can see from pictures that, you know, even or even when people do cut them, one of the one of the notes from one of the residents is that sometimes we have angled crosswalks. And so somebody on one side might you know, they they're they're they're clearing the corner, but it's not the actual crosswalk. So there's a lot to be you know, a lot of challenges to be tackled there, but a lot of it has to do with enforcement and education. But go ahead. Take it away. Whatever your thoughts are.

I I mean, I agree with you completely. I think a lot of people don't know that it is the the property owner's responsibility. But, you know, also, are a lot of spots that are in public ways or, you know, are in places where it's not gonna be cleared by a by a property owner. I was just curious. Commissioner Weissman threw the chair to you. Is it possible to use the smaller machines that clear the bike paths for things like major sidewalks and curb cuts in in

sure. This would be a perfect example of of yeah. You know? I don't we'd have to maybe build back to the property owner, but and and and I think director Polsoway could also appreciate this since, you know, his team and mobility do the crosswalks. You can see the person thinks they did an opening, but it's not the actual curb cut. Anyway

Yeah. Through the chair, thank you for the question. So so we we do clear snow from curb cuts adjacent to city buildings, schools, parks, public property, as is our responsibility as the property owner. That is by law whose responsibility clearing sidewalks and curb cuts is in the city of Somerville. We also do it adjacent to any bus stops, whether they're in front of city property or not.

When we clear snow from the bus stops, we clear the adjacent curb ramps. So we're already clearing quite a few curb cuts throughout the city. Like, as the chair said, I think it really comes down to an enforcement and an education issue. I find that people tend to do a good job, you know, clearing in front of their driveways whether there is snow pushed in front of them or not, and I think that the same standard should be held for curb cuts.

So there's not a Okay. A like, repurposing not not repurposing, but an additional purpose of the smaller machines is not realistic to use them in that way.

Through the chair, that's not something that we we have done in the past except for on Broadway and School Street, our priority areas, and then, yeah, around cities and city buildings and school buildings.

Thank you.

Yeah. And this is one of those issues where, you know, it's only comes up when there's situations like this, and that's why it can tend to fall by the wayside. But the truth is mass general law empowers the municipality, and then we write our rules, which in our case are that the the butter is the person responsible. And when this came up, when I tried to really kind of emphasize that language in our snow removal ordinance, it got rejected by colleagues, but, okay, no big deal. The reason for the hatch is because I want I I'm curious as to, like, whose liability it is if you know, we're saying that it's on the property owner because the state allows us to say that.

But then if somebody was to get hit by a car in a situation like this where the crosswalk's completely covered, who who's liable in that instance? You know? Like, does it expose us? So I think these are questions and things that we really need to, you know, bring back to decision makers and, you know, the the, you know, the administration and try to figure out a way forward. I don't think it's easy.

I don't think it's cheap. But, again, we have a job to do to to make sure that our citizens are being heard. And I think we've covered this pretty extensively this evening, and it's definitely something that's gonna be I believe that I fully believe it's gonna be addressed certainly in the future. Hopefully, it never snows again, and then we won't have this ever have this discussion. Alright.

Anything else on items two or three? Okay. And I I encourage you. I know, like, no one wants to think about snow, but these conversations could and should continue because like I said, it it it sneaks right up on you, then we're in this yeah. Then we're having the same same conversations all over again.

Alright. Clerk coach here, we're gonna work complete items two and three. I think we can get with I don't know at this point if it's the commissioner or the engineer. So there's two two quick ones, commissioner Weissman. Item number four that the commissioner of public works discussed the council of frequency of street sweeping throughout the period of April through November.

I will say, councilor Hart, that I know that I've heard a few residents have asked this question. It doesn't have to be so free, Grant. Or, what I didn't what I should have probably talked to you about beforehand is is is I don't that's probably an administrative decision more than I mean, Eric will probably tell his people, you know, to do whatever he's being instructed to do by the city. So I have to imagine that there's some historical knowledge. Maybe somebody that's on this meeting has that knowledge.

Still, perhaps, council director Polstowate or even I'm sure I'm sure director probably has been around for this conversation. It's probably happened two or three times through the years, and how we got to the the place of

of sex.

Doing it twice. Okay. You know, doing it every, every other whatever. Doing every week, basically, through those months. If you wanna set it up just so I understand fully, councilor Hart, like, where where where your head was at with this. And

Sure. I mean, it sounds like you you understand the issue well. I've I heard from, you know, a handful of constituents already just because parking is such a kind of pain point in the city. And that in the spring and the fall, it definitely, you know, is clear the need for the street sweeping at very regular intervals. But, you know, for the months of July and August and September, you know, is it is it possible to relax it a little bit so that the parking crunch doesn't come as frequently? So that was yes.

That's a that's another councilor, Rakeem, thing. I have an answer for you on that. It's the it's the stock answer of the city always. What they'll say is it you have to it's training. So if you mess around with it and then people get tickets, councils are gonna be getting, no. When did it I've every you know, I've been you know? And so it's just like with the bus lane time slot versus always, it's it's training. Is that what you're gonna say, director Polsoway? Or or no? Are you gonna speak to this?

Yes, chair. I can speak to this. Again, Brian Polstoway, director of engineering. I that wasn't what I was gonna say, but I do not disagree with you. I think you're absolutely absolutely right.

Right. Like, there is an importance and consistency when it comes to when it comes to constituents, motorists, etcetera. Being consistent with following the rules, it's important that the rules are consistent. So that's so there is some truth behind that, chair. But what I was gonna say is that that the water quality issue the the reason why we do street sweeping in part is for aesthetics, in part is for a public safety of just having clean streets that don't have tripping hazards and so forth that are left in the streets, but a very large portion of that is for water quality.

When we sweep our streets, we pulled dirt and material off the streets that are now less likely to be flowing into our public waterways. And that is that is a very critical component of it. That is something that we're regulated to accomplish, and that is something that we have to have street sweeping in order to do that. The the Summerville does conduct street sweeping more often than the absolute minimum required, but that gives us better treatment for our water quality. And as time goes on, like, counted in years, those water require water quality requirements are increasing.

So we are actually in a place where we should be considering doing more street sweeping, not less street sweeping. And I I hear the the thought that winter or spring and fall conditions, they do. There's a lot more biomass litter that comes onto the ground in the spring and the fall due to trees. However, that's not all of the things that we're sweeping. We're sweeping sand.

We're sweeping oils, dirt, greases that fall from our motor vehicles, and and those aren't seasonal. That happens year round. And so it is important that all of it get gets swept up as often as reasonable so that it improves or it doesn't further deteriorate the water quality. So that's that's the goal here, and it needs to be done year round for those reasons.

Yeah. I haven't heard I haven't heard that one before. Councilor Hat, yep, floor is yours.

Alright. I just just wanted to appreciate that answer. Director Postoway, yeah, I thank you for the information and educating me, and that makes total sense. So thank you.

Yeah. No. Thank you for bringing this up. Like I said, I I I've seen people you know? And then I also see people rebut those people online and go like, yeah. Then you'll be complaining that, you know, there's all kinds of stuff in your gutter. So so it's kind of a lose lose. Count Scott.

Just gonna say anybody who thinks we, do street sweeping too often, I should come by Union Square. I I think we could give that one another couple passes right now, actually. So, no, I I appreciate the discussion, and I know it's one of those things that, you know, I've I've gotten calls, about it as well. I think people just ultimately want, you know, wanna have good service, wanna have their streets, clear, and understandably get frustrated, when they get caught up with a ticket. So, I appreciate revisiting. Anytime we make a decision like that, it's worth, going back and asking, hey. Is this still the right call? So I appreciate the conversation, but, I think I'm all set on it myself.

Alright. Counselor, how are you satisfied with? So it's consistency. It's water quality and the sewers and the water system. And, yep. Sounds good. Clerk Poutier, we're complete. Item number four. And, folks, don't if you're thinking that we're gonna get all two of the items, the two of the water and sewer items that we're keeping in committee, not only was it a little over ambitious, but also, we're not ready to discuss those yet. So so it's not as much as you think is left on the agenda.

Item number five. And this oh, this is snow related, and that's another reason why, you know, councilor Link had put this in after the fact. And so if commissioner is here or whoever owns the, I know the commissioner I know they own commissioner DBW. I know they own the snow removal of the path, as far as whatever debris is left over, you know, we'll let him speak to that. So item number five is that the commissioner of public works conduct a citywide sweep to remove large debris from the community path and bike lanes now that the snow season has concluded. I'm assuming this is in response to a bunch of stuff that turned up after the snow melted. Council commissioner Weissman?

Through the chair, yes. Thank you. There was quite a bit of debris that got churned up as a as a result of the ongoing snow operations. We did clean that up this spring.

So it's looking good out there? Yeah. Right on. Well, thank you for that. And That's we're complete. Mister Clerk, anything on that, colleagues? Clerk Pottier. Yes.

Mister chair, as this is referred for recommendation, it

does require a roll call vote.

Alright. Can we just place it on it, put it on the table, and we'll take it up with the German? Absolutely. Alright. So, let's just I'm gonna stay in order on this one here, item number six. It's ISD all but also, I think, involves traffic and parking. I've seen the directors here. I think that concludes thanks for you. Right, commissioner Weissman? Thank you. Our mind.

I hope so. Thank you.

Yeah. Have have a good night. You take care.

Thanks to you all as well.

Alright. Alright. Item number six. The the director of inspectional services discussed with this council how to ensure that temporary dumpster permits do not conflict with handicap parking spaces or that temporary handicap parking spaces are relocated for the duration of the dumpster permit. This was also put in by councilor Yuen Kampen.

I believe there was I know I can speak to my own personal, wood council experience of one that was on Moreland Street that, was put into a handicap spot for quite some time. I also have an issue with as it relates to snow with the dumpsters where I know that the rules are that during a snow emergency, those are supposed to be taken off the street if it's on the side that gets plowed, and that also didn't happen on Wallin. So I've I've I feel like with these dumpsters, it there's definitely, you know, some room for improvement on, how we're enforcing, and getting the message across the people who use the streets for these dumpsters. So, certainly, we don't wanna see them being put in, handicap accessible spots. So, that's all I really have to kinda set the table for this other than I'll just call upon staff to speak to this item.

Like, you know, how we how can we ensure that temporary dumpster permits and may you know, maybe a simple answer as well. We just tell them if they do that, they're in trouble. I I don't know. So, we see director Renfret is here and on camera, so I'm gonna turn it over to her. I know ISD is here also, but, just wanna take it away.

Good evening. Thank you, Suzanne Renfred director parking. So when folks come in for a permit for a dumpster to get parking signs, of course, they're asked making sure that this is a legal spot. We don't know. Our clerks don't know every spot on the street. We expect that the cut constituent is telling us the truth. Unfortunately, parking cannot ticket these these dumpsters. They don't have a license plate. So we typically will call ISD and say, hey. There's a problem here.

In regards to the Moreland Street one that you just discussed, we did know it didn't make it right, but the folks that did request that parking space had moved on. They were no longer utilizing that spot. The spot prob the sign probably should have been taken down earlier, but we had to investigate to make sure that in fact nobody was using that spot, that the people no longer lived there. Obviously, they weren't using it because the dumpster was in the way, but we had to investigate to make sure that that they were no longer living there. But I agree with you.

We do ask every constituent when they come in to make sure that it is a legal spot. They are supposed to move those dumpsters for snow emergencies just as you had said. That is a condition on the application for the for not only for the the permit from ISD, but even when you're getting signs at the parking department. Not only is that a condition for for dumpsters, but it's for any restrictions on parking during snow emergencies. Thank you.

Okay. Well, I appreciate that. We got traffic and parking side of it, which is, like you said, that even in the case of Moreland, there was a investigation. I I I wanna say and, you know, I'm not challenging you. I wanna say that it was in or at least even half in at one point.

The one of the times it was picked up and dropped off in the handicap before the person had passed away that lived on Mr. Cat. But that said, I think that really begs the question of where does ISD come in on this in terms of inspection of the site and, like, where the dumpster actually is or when, you know, when they happen to go I know they're not gonna continue to roll by and check the the dumpsters they get dropped and picked up, you know, on a on a regular basis. But I I I'm curious to know what role they play and how they can help ensure that developers aren't putting dumpsters into handicapped spots and that they're also following all of the requirements such as moving when there's a snow emergency. I did see director Klein here at some point.

Director, you can are you are you able to unmute, or are you there? Are you still with us? I see you on. Now I see two direct declines. I think he's trying to rectify it.

Director? Alright. While we're waiting, I do see a member of the audience. Again, I'm assuming that this is one that came from Citizen Advocate to

Can you

hear me now?

Yeah. I can hear you now. Yep. Were you listening? Were you able were you able to hear the discussion? Direct a client? Yes.

I yes. I could. What we usually do is call all the dumpsters, tell them to get removed. And if they don't do that, we actually issue them a warning on the first part, and then second is a 100, and then the third is 300. But, usually, we have a good compliances. Probably about six tickets in the last few years years, but I would support a little more stringent, maybe 300 for the first offense, especially if it's close to handicap. And

Yeah. I mean, I would think I know there's no license plate. So but, I mean, I know handicapped parking in a handicapped spot is a $500 fine. And I would think that, you know, taking up on those spots should have a pretty stiff, stiff penalty as well. No. I appreciate you suggesting increasing the fines, and I do understand that those get picked up and dropped up regularly. So it's hard to sort of, you know you might see their original placement, and then you might go back and and, you know or or you might not go back, and and maybe they they had dropped it a little bit different different different different different different different different.

Also, maybe a stop work order would be a good way to get their attention also.

Or, would you mind unmuting, Miss Simeone? I believe she has a comment on the placement of dumpsters specifically in spots, which is something she may have witnessed or something.

Thank you, chair Klingon. Yes. This was the other item that Ben put in for us. And and at this particular location, it they truly did the best placing the dumpster to not completely cover the HP spot and not completely to cover the crosswalk, but, unfortunately, they did cover both. But I think what director Klein just suggested is saying that we can't put dumpsters within so many feet of a an HP spot, specifically because the dumpster in this and there was a picture of this.

The dumpster is blocking the access aisle for the person in that HP spot. And even though that person may have left or if a dumpster was there before, any type of resident can still use that spot within the city. And there are so few HP spots across all areas of the city. But but I I do really think that director Klein's suggestion of not having a spot within so many feet or possibly having a picture sent to ISD or parking showing that it's not blocking anything because it's this idea of we're not policing them. We're assuming they're putting it in the right place, and, clearly, this one in particular wasn't.

But there's also the option of moving that HP spot to another location, whether it be across the street, just temporarily so that that dumpster could have close proximity to the work that's being done. But where it was in the middle of the snowstorm, I don't know. Someone would have had us shoveled out the other side of the street and moved a spot. But thank you, chair Klingon, for letting me me add this those comments.

Yeah. No. Absolutely. I stand corrected.

Spot isn't 500. It's 200 unless something changed.

No. No. You're right. I stand corrected. I stand corrected. I looked at it. For some reason, I I thought it was may maybe I'm thinking of fire hydrant or something. Okay. So, yeah, again, I think this is more just about calling attention to something. I mean, it's something we, you know, we can all assume everybody knows everything, but unless without advocacy, you know, things can tend to fall by the ways that I go go overlooked. Colleagues, anything on this particular item, or anybody else from city staff have anything on this particular item? Nope. Okay. Doctor Scott?

Yeah. I guess, I'm really curious about commissioner Klein, bringing up the the use of stop work order, because, honestly, that's more compelling than any ticket amount. Is is a a little dumpster placement something that you'd be willing to issue a stop work order for?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I would

I'm sorry for the echo. I would definitely have the ward inspect there, maybe inspect where they have the dumpster. There should be probably no in a handicap spot unless it unless it gets moved. They should have room to actually get out of their cars and a little room away from the spot or the dumpster, I mean. So that's my suggestion, and maybe we can put it to the ward inspectors to talk to them or maybe put something on the website. When you get a dumpster permit, you have to make sure it's away from the handicapped spot. Ordinance could be worked on. That would be productive, I think.

So would that require are you saying it would require us to pass an ordinance, or would it simply be because it's already illegal to have a dumpster in a handicapped parking space that you could just issue a a directly I mean, is this something you could do as a matter of policy, or are you saying we would need to pass a separate ordinance?

I think we would make a policy on the website when they pull a permit. That could be conditional when they pull a dumpster permit. I don't think it should be a big deal for us.

Oh, that sounds excellent. I would love that. That sounds like a great solution, and it I guarantee, mister chair

We'll we'll follow-up. More about

a stop stop and the door than about a ticket.

Yeah. And, I mean, you know, I know traffic and parking does require people to move handicaps. But as as even the as even said, you know, if it it's not if it's a matter of getting the dumpster closer to the to the construction site for everybody's know, you for less headaches for everybody in the area, then then there can be, an accommodation made as far as a temporary move of the spot. But if it's not on the website and then the you know? So if it's on the website, then developer sees that they know that they have to reach out to traffic and parking to make that step happen.

Because if otherwise, you know, as you said, if they if they break the rules, there's gonna be a stiff penalty, which would be a stop work order. So I don't wanna see that. Yeah. I mean, if you could firm up that language, if you could work with, you know, city staff or whoever and firm up firm up that language, I think that would be Alright. Well, thank you for the time.

And No, man. No, man. No. That goes something else. Echoes something else. Echoes something decline. Can you just hit your mute button? Thank you. Alright. So yeah. So, I mean, I appreciate you being here and listening and understanding the issue and working to address it. That's really what this is all about and designed to do. So if nobody else has anything, item number six, we're gonna work complete. I'm gonna quickly jump ahead, just to do some housekeeping. So clerk Potija, items number nine and ten, we're gonna keep in committee.

So we will not be discussing those this evening. Item number 13, we're just gonna work complete that. That's been resolved. Actually, DPW was really great in helping. They ran a line overhead until National Grid could fix the issue, but there is power now to that location. Right, counselor? You're satisfied with work completing this? Yeah. They were able to run a run a line. They dropped a line overhead until, the utility could could deal with.

So so item 13 is work complete. And so then we're gonna bounce, jump back to actually, we're gonna go to item number 11. Sorry, director Craig, if, you know, if you're they give you a patience. It's just I wanted to quickly get you that way then we can have a discussion about three one one. So that brings us to item number 11.

Item number 11 is that the administration discussed the process of disposal of city surplus items and whether those items may be offered to employees of the, or the public through the creation of a free cycle style system. And we have a a memo from the solicitor's office regarding this item. And I'll just I'll just kinda paraphrase. I'll just read a little bit of it. I know this came from council Strazo.

We all signed on because nobody wants to you know, we wanna be sustainable, and nobody wants to see things go to waste if they can be reused. I can tell you that from my time in state government, there's a whole sort of, you know, end of life process for whether it be electronics or many different items. And the same, you know, the same rules apply in a lot of ways to city government, which is sort of laid out and demonstrated in the the memo. And kind of the gist of it is that the city is required legally required to follow a step by step hierarchy when disposing of surplus property. They they just cannot simply give the items away at the outset.

First, an item must be formally declared surplus by the owning department and confirmed as no longer useful. It must also be valued using reasonable market methods to determine whether it falls under $10,000. Once declared surplus, so under $10,000 and deemed useless to the department head, the city is required to prioritize internal use first, which was similar to this day. Like, they put out a a citywide email. Hey.

Who could use a, you know, a chair or something? Whatever the item may be. So they so they do an internal reuse first, offering it to city departments, and then in which this step is mandatory by master of law. And then repeated is repeated attempts may be made for some final, internal takers. If no department wants the item, the city must then attempt to sell it publicly using commercially reasonable methods.

This includes advertising the item, listing it online, or through auction platforms. This actually speaks to whether it's more than $10,000. Soliciting bids or quotes, giving the public a fair opportunity to purchase it, the city is also required to choose the best reasonable offer and document the transaction process. Only after these required internal and external sale attempts have failed can the city move to final disposal options. At that point, if no buyers have found, the law allows the item to be disposed of in commercial reasonable manner, which means which may include destruction, recycling, or potentially donating or free transfer, but only if it can be legally justified and does not violate ethics or anti aid rules.

So speaking to the specific piece that put in about discharging to, like, say, an employee, I don't know if she meant through the internal process or if she meant if some if we had computers that were you know, we were getting a new contract of computers. The answer would be no. That and, like, if it was valued at more than $50, we couldn't give it to an employee because that would violate ethics rules. But in short, it's reuse first, sell second, and then only consider disposal ordination with strict documentation and legal oversight every step. One example I'll give is, you know, we did come up with a legal framework and process to donate the the bicycles that the police department had collects throughout the year with abandoned property, oftentimes left connected to, you know, poles, street poles and stuff.

We were able to figure out a way to donate those to a a bike organization that that repurposes bikes, you know, fixes bikes up and gives them away. So no money is made off of those bikes, but it had to be very strict language with that program. So as far as just, like, a general reuse type program or, you know, this, you know, master in law lays it out and this was his office memo covers this pretty pretty succinctly. So I don't have anything else on this. I don't know if any of my colleagues have any questions for the for the liaison or, you know, that she can bring back or answer now or anything on this issue at all.

No, mister Chair. I just really appreciate this, memo, and it's one of those things that I'm gonna bookmark and download so that I can send it to constituents when I get this question from time to time. So I really appreciate it.

Absolutely. Okay. Oh, councilor Half.

Thank you. Yes. I I also really appreciate the information and the discussion. I was curious, in the you know, I read the city's policy, and I wondered if it would be possible to, you know, add something that's, like, you know, below a $100, you know, a less stringent set of rules, Excuse me. If it's something that's valued at less than a $100, you know, then there's less stringent rules that have to be followed. So just something that I thought that might be useful to I did not see that something like that in the policy. So

Yeah. I I'll let the liaison kinda give her 2¢ on it, but I I would say I mean, my initial thought would just be again, I think the concern is this, like, from you know, think of it from a watchdog standpoint is, well, now who's deeming it under that? And even if they're using the the the the proper things, then it's like, who's ultimately getting this item? Like, is there you know, if this is this is really good item, it's like, you know, did we allow everyone to have access to be able to get this item? You know? But I hear you. It does seem like, again, this is where bureaucracy just makes everything impossible, but and I don't know if this would be a she's if liaison would bring us back to solicitor. The way could we augment the language in some way? Like, would it require, like, a whole new petition? Anyway, liaison would easy.

Thank you, mister chair. I'm happy to bring that question back to, PCS and to the law department, and I can connect with councilor Hart with the response offline if that's helpful.

Thank you. Good. I would like to know the answer as well. So, councilor Hart, you could share that with me once

Mister chair, I can send it to all the members of the committee if that's helpful.

You really you can do that? Or what is it? Like, through, like, email? Or

Through email. Alright.

Good question. Because like I said, it's it always seems like you know, imagine you just go buy a dumpster and there's, like, a million calculators that, you know, we've could've, you know and it and it's valued under $50, but it's like, oops. We couldn't do anything else but throw it into this dumpster because of the law. You know? I get it.

Alright. So item number 11 is work complete, clerk, and then we're gonna go to item number 12. Liaison, I don't know that I we really discussed this one. Oh, but I do wanna say that I was with the mayor the other day at the rat deratification thing, and I just remember him mentioning something about, they're working on something in terms of addressing this issue kind of holistically or unless I misheard, but it speaks to what counselor link the the heart of what, you know, what he's getting at here in terms of waste and you know? So liaison Radissi.

Thank you, mister chair. Yes. I I know there was a certain there was a part of the request was about a dollar figure associated with swag, which is the part that I we don't have that ready yet. Ed has director Bean has been working on budget things, obviously, and so hasn't really been able to divert much energy towards the numbers piece of this. But I'm happy to follow-up maybe post budget once he has a little bit more time to dedicate towards that. And, yeah, I think, generally speaking, there's a desire across the administration to make sure that we're not being wasteful when we don't need to be.

Yeah. So, I mean, I don't know if that requires us to, like, work complete this and and have John read submit it to be, like, the feasibility of a year with less swag. Mhmm. Or what? Because, you know, it really just depends on what the councilor is you know, what his intentions are with this order.

I I think that even, you know, I've talked to when I've talked about this or even thought about it, you know, some of the what steam swag when some of the swag is actually could be really important information passing items. Like, I remember I was watching that, the pit or whatever. They had these you know, I mean, the woman's I mean, we you could have, like, a pen that has, like, a lifesaving information inside of it. Is that considered swag, or is that considered you know, JT, Councilor Scott, see you shaking your head a little bit. What what you got some thoughts on this?

No. I mean, I just I don't I don't think I'd make anybody resubmit it. I just think it's an interesting, conversation and, one that I've actually heard the mayor discuss as well. So, that said, I think when it comes to the promotional giveaways, just from my years of looking at the budget, the the I call it the pencil, the colored pencils budget. Right?

Every department has a very small amount of office supplies, budgets, or promotional supplies, budgets. And, on the general scope of $350,000,000 city budget, we're talking about very, very small fractions of a percent here. So, I I I can understand it from a, from a wastefulness standpoint and all that, but, I think man, I think it's an interesting, thing to consider, but, I can certainly understand that the administration might have bigger fish to fry at the moment.

Yeah.

Might be something that we, hold in committee and revisit after budget season. But if the

You know, I was

Yeah.

Message, counsel Scott. I was actually thinking the same thing because it is so broad and it's a year without swag, and I don't know, you know and, obviously, this year, would be too late for that, or well, unless we go by fiscal year. But the point is is that, I think of this as more from a waste standpoint, and I think there is more discussion to be had on how do we tighten up on, you know, like, we could have a year with more thoughtful swag versus, like, a year with, you know, like, like, the water. That's how this came up. We were talking about that.

We're saying it was false advertising because the city for the cleanups, they put out this thing, and it said something about water bottles. And, and I was like, I had no you know, there was no water bottles. I was teasing. And then I was like, I'm blaming Joe. But and that's when the mayor said something about, you know, they they they're obviously this this is a focus of the administration as far as waste goes. And so we'll we'll we'll keep this in committee, and and we'll revisit it in the fall. So number 12 is keeping committee. Anything from any other members on those? Okay. So we have director of three zero one services, director Craig.

Steve Craig is here to discuss items seven and eight, both related to three one one, which is our constituent service, our amazing constituent service department. One of the I'll read them into the record. There there's two items. We can take them up together. The first one is item number seven, which is, from councilor Wheeler that the director of constituent services update this council on the three one one system.

Recent and upcoming improvements, open roles, and the approach being taken to directing the wide variety of resident needs to provide answer solutions and follow through. That's an interesting because I think yeah. You know, I take things quite I I read that, and I think you quite literally, and I'm like so, I mean, do you think we'll ever get to a point just just from my from me reading that, like, me thinking about what that says, do you think we'll ever get to a point where three one one is able to, like, answer things. I don't mean to jump directly into it, but let me read the second one first. But but that one really just kinda strikes me.

And then the second one is from number eight is from myself and direct and also Saeed that the director of constituent services appear before the committee on sustainability infrastructure to discuss the process by which two and one tickets are routed and closed after rerouting. You know what? I'm sorry, miss Cook. Let's just take up item number eight first since it's pretty it's more specific, and we can just discuss that and get it over with, and then we can we can take item number seven up. So on item number eight, I do see liaison Radasi's hand up. Yes.

Sorry. Chair. Yeah. I just wanted to say director Craig also prepared some remarks that goes through, like, how three one one works. So I don't know if that would be helpful to address both items or what, but just wanted to make sure that he got a chance to to say those comments.

I did not know he had he came prepared. I should've known better. Let's take him up together and turn it over to director Craig, to address these two items.

Thank you very much to the chair and to the members of the committee. My name is Steve Craig. I'm director of constituent services for the city. As we just mentioned, I have a a brief overview of three on one, and then I'm gonna talk a little bit, about how, work orders are managed and routed and everything like that, and then I'm happy to answer any other questions, after that. Excuse me.

I think everyone knows that three one one is kinda considered a a front door to to city services. I know for, you know, some people within the community, maybe one of the only ways that they, you know, may engage with municipal services. So that's why it is extremely important for us to ensure that access to programs and services and other supports are as easy as they they, you know, possibly can be. And one of the main things that we do to ensure that is we have seven key points of entry or or channels as we refer to them as. The first channel is voice or or telephone.

That is by far the most popular. That's the one that's used more than basically all of the others combined. Our exceptionally hardworking city staff, they work extended hours. They do a little over fifty hours a week. As I've talked about in the past, we do have a support service that does nights, weekends, holidays, and overflow.

They cover an additional hundred and ten plus hours every week that allows the call center service to be available twenty four hours a day, three hundred and sixty five days a year. So that is sort of the the main point of entry for us. We also have the welcome desk. Anytime you walk into city hall, you can do a face to face interaction. That is obviously the lowest barrier to entry.

We do utilize, multilingual supports, whether it's our multilingual staff or our vendor that we use for, interpretation and translation services. So, language, you know, should not be a barrier, for those two channels that that we engage with folks in. The the next would be email, live chat, and social media. Obviously, those have a technology element to them, but they are still very popular. And then fifth and sixth would be our mobile app and online, portal.

Those are fully automated. You are actually working just directly with our system at that point. There is no back and forth interaction with a city employee if you're using self-service. But, you know, we found particularly some of the younger residents in the city, they want, they don't wanna call in to 311 necessarily. They want to go online.

They wanna do it through the app. So it's important to us that we make sure we're utilizing all seven channels, effectively to make sure that we're able to support as many members of the community as we possibly can. And sort of to that effect, last year alone in 2025, we handled, about a 118,000 unique requests by way of three one one. And just to contextualize that, that's, almost 10,000 requests a month. That's a little over 2,200 requests every week that we're dealing with.

It's about twenty two sixty, twenty two seventy, somewhere around that number that we're doing on on a weekly basis. And, you know, that that happens because we have roughly 300 unique categories in our system, across two dozen, different departments and divisions across the city. About half of all those calls are for things tied to the Department of Public Works and the parking office because we are the dedicated customer service team for those two offices, but there are at least 20 other departments and divisions across the city that we work with. And in order to be able to effectively do that, you know, we are constantly doing work to make sure that workflows, service levels, other mechanisms to create accountability or in play. It takes a lot of coordination and buy in from different offices that have different staff, different priorities, different systems.

So there's a lot of coordination, and I'm very grateful to have the opportunity to work with all of these different departments across the city. So that's sort of at the highest level is how the the front end of 311 is configured. On the back end of things, we have this catalog of all the services. There's at least 200 that we have documented that have standard operating procedures, policies, processes, a lot of detailed information, workflows, process maps so that we can make sure, you know, that things are not only being taken in properly, but they're getting routed to the right department, right individual, and finally closed out. I I could spend much more time than anyone wants to be here tonight talking about them in detail.

But what I would like to do is just kinda break it down into three buckets, and then I'll stop at that point to answer any other questions. In in the perfect world, we would resolve every request, you know, on the phone call. So when we talk about resolving an issue, what that basically means is three one one handles it with no additional action. You know, that's what time does city hall close today? How do I apply for a parking permit?

Where do I go to get a yard waste sticker? We document the conversation, and we immediately close that out in the system. So that's what a a resolved issue would would be like be considered. The second, and I think the one that most people think about is when we report an issue. So when we report an issue, what that means is a constituent calls into three one one, three one one intakes the request, it gets routed to the best person or department on the back end of things, you know, a pothole that would go to DPW or a permit application issue that goes to the parking office, something like that.

And, you know, that takes a considerable amount of work in terms of what information is required, how do we configure that in the system. As I mentioned earlier, we have process maps. There's scripts that we create for the three one one staff to make sure they're asking the right questions, intaking the right information. And then also on the back end, we work on canned responses, because some things are routine. You know, like like a pothole or something like that where there isn't a lot of variability in what the comments are.

So we'll put in canned responses to instead of having to type up the response every time, the department that's responsible for completing the request can drop in a comment and close it out because it's much more effective to have the department that's actually responsible for the fulfillment, the the back end side of things, to have them close it out, then have them do the work, send us information about what happened, and then have us send it to the person that made the request that you know, especially when we're talking the volume of things that we're doing, we found it to be much more efficient and effective to do things that way. And and the third bucket would be a a referral. Referral's are really one of two things. It's either it's either something that cannot be handled by the city, and, you know, that can really be anything. Maybe it's a state issue.

So something for Masstadt. Maybe it's actually on the Medford side of the line. It's not something the city of Somerville has jurisdiction over. Sometimes people call us about an issue with their you know, something in their neighborhood, and it's actually this is a neighbor on neighbor type issue where we can refer them to Cambridge Summer of Illegal Services or we can refer them to other options, but it's not something that we have ownership of. So in that case, we wouldn't be able to do much about it.

The other the other time we would refer something is if there isn't what I said before, when we report something, if we don't have a process map, if we don't have an agreed policy and process and service levels and all of that, we we refer it over. And an example of that would be if somebody calls about a police issue. The police, they have the CAD system. They have everything that they work out of. So if someone says, someone took my my mirror off my vehicle, I wanna report that.

That would from the way we look at things, that would be considered a referral. We would tell them how to contact the police. We would transfer the call over. We would still document that interaction, but then it would get closed out of the system because that request won't go any further in our system. So that's another example of what a referral, would be. So, that's that's a very quick, overview of how we're set up to receive and engage requests, how we manage them on our end, and how we partner with other departments, you know, across the city to get things done. So I I can speak to that a little bit further if you'd like, or if you'd like me to answer any questions at this point, I'm happy to pause.

Okay. I'm sure members have questions. I I am just gonna jump in with the order that I put in, and the reason I put it in is so it asks, discuss the process by which you were wanting tickets are rooted and or closed after you're ready. You just did that in a very robust way, except, I guess, the reason this got brought up to me and also by me is because I was trying to understand you know, you hear things through the rumor or, like, somebody said something online. Like, that basically say if you put in something that you put in the 311.

The 311, it it requires ISD's attention. And so they just so the so the so the ISD person or whoever gets the ticket, basically, like, they have their own ticket. So, like, they have, you know, citizen serve or whatever. So, like, it seemed like that tickets three one ones are getting closed, and there was nothing in the notes saying, you know, opened citizens serve ticket, like a ticket number or maybe that's not possible. I don't know.

But it just seems like sometimes tickets get closed, and I'm not saying that that's what has been happening. Sometimes they may just get closed, and there is legit like, it may not even be about ISD, and there's just no it's just closed, which I'm not saying you know, whether it's DPW or whatever, and I'm not saying that is what's happening. Seems like a lot of that happens. Is there an is there an automated part to it where, like I said, where they they just have a drop down? And if there is, could we have it so that it auto fills with something.

I don't you know, I'm just I'm just like, these phantom closes is really, like, what you know, I even talked to the Mary's like, yeah. Sometimes that happens to me. Like, there's no you know, there's nothing in the in the notes. And I'm just like, is it has it been done? Can you even just say done? Just the word done? You know? So that's kinda what I was getting at with my particular order, and then we can get into, concert wheelers more broad order.

Well, thank you for the opportunity of addressing your concern. I think the the thing that you initially brought up that that sort of sent me looking into this is a very nuanced and unique situation. Because ISD works out of citizen serve, what happens is we built a a bridge, an integration where three one one works out of our system, ISD works out of their system. So we submit something through the three one one system. It goes over to citizen serve. ISD goes out. They inspect. They issue a a ticket. And then what they will do is insert comments and close it back. And what we found was happening is sometimes the comments were coming back, sometimes they were not.

And we tried to replicate it internally. We couldn't. We reached out to our vendor asking them to try to replicate it. They couldn't initially, and it wasn't till we got our vendor and citizen serve together. What we found out was there's a character limit in citizen serve to how many characters can actually go in to comments.

So if an inspector just dropped in the canned comments, it was fine. But if the inspector was adding additional notes, it was exceeding the character limit, and that was causing a a break so that the data was not coming back. As as not exciting as as that sounds, that was the the problem. And so what we did is we reviewed and edited down the canned responses. So they were only a couple 100 characters so that if ISD is adding more notes or additional information, it is not eclipsing that 500 character limit.

So as of now, we have not seen that problem. I'm not saying that solves everything, but the initial concern that was raised to us that sent us looking into this, it that's what it was. It was a character limit with citizen serve. And when that character limit was exceeded, it was causing information to not push back to our system, which then caused it to get closed out without including those notes, which was causing the constituent frustration. So if you hadn't brought it up, we wouldn't have found out about it, and we wouldn't have fixed it.

Yeah. And and like you said, that's definitely the the bridge the broken bridge to ISD, I guess. And this is more probably of a of a of a, I don't wanna say discipline, but, like, more of a training issue. As far as other departments, if they just close, they have the option of a canned response even for something as simple as, you know, down tree limb. Like, instead of just having nothing, they there's is there a care response that just says tree limb picked up or something like that?

Like like like, how hard is it to just put something in there? And, again, I'm not looking to I'm not looking to bust anybody. I'm just trying to understand the different scenarios that arise and why somebody because I always thought they might be a good they may not be putting something in. They'd be for some reason that I don't understand, that I don't know outside of the case of the ISD thing I'm saying.

Certainly. I I would say I think part well, there's there's there's probably a couple answers to this. One of it is a training element. Yes. I I absolutely think that's something that we can always be working on, and training needs to happen with every department that interacts into the system.

But another thing is that catalog, that portfolio of services I mentioned, we've only been working on that for a couple years, and I know that's a long time. But there's, about a 170 or so services in that system, and we do not have a complete list of canned responses. We did have a vacancy in the office, the in in constituent services for the last several months that has been filled. And I'm only mentioning that because the person in that role is the primary point of contact with all of the back end departments. And one of the things they're gonna be doing throughout this year is meeting with every department, starting with the the big ones, public works and parking, and going through every request type that comes in every service, whether it's a tree limb, a pothole, a sidewalk pair, and making sure that the list is accurate, it's up to date, and that it's something that's functional for the department.

So that is something I'm happy to follow-up on at a later time and report back. But I can tell you we are going to systematically be going through the entire list to make sure that the right canned responses are in there even if it's short. Because I agree. Even saying done is better than just closed with no comments. Yeah. And and, you know, I understand some departments, if the right comments aren't in there, maybe it's just easier to just close it out. And that's something that I'm happy to work on to make sure that the because, I mean, I'm a customer myself. I buy stuff. If I submit a request for something and I just get it closed out with no information, that's frustrating. And so I just want you to I want everyone on the committee to understand that I take it seriously, and it is something that we're working to improve.

And, again, I'm happy to follow-up on that later.

Yeah. Because I picked down tree limb sort of from memory, and I and I just went to my three one one app, and it was it was back in July. It was it was, like, really heavy winds that day. Mhmm. A tree limb came down, and that was, like, leaning. Anyway, the point is is it got picked up, and, you know, I happen to live nearby. So I saw it, but I wouldn't have known if I if I didn't go out and look. Like, it it just the the ticket just got closed. You know? So instead of just saying branch picked up or all even all set even all set, just an acknowledgment that's that an action was taken.

And, and, again, that's more of a training thing. I just wanted to make sure that that we weren't missing something. Like, there was some breakdown. Well, that's what got me thinking about the whole other the other thing. Anyway alright. Any question on this particular item, item number eight, in terms of the the comments and so on?

I would just add just that for certain requests, for certain staff that are using iPads, we are also working to include photographs that show what was fixed to what resolved. But that does require staff in the field with iPads, and those aren't available for all staff. And that's not practical in every case, but I in addition to comments, we're also working on photographs as well.

Nice. Councilor Scott.

Thank you, mister chair. I just wanted to follow-up on the, what you said to director Craig about a vacancy. I know at the start of the fiscal year, service operations manager and quality manager were vacant. Did those two positions get filled during the year?

That the service operations manager is the position, that that I've been speaking about and that has been filled. It's been filled for about a month. The requisition for the quality manager has, gone in. It's, under review. I it may be have posted this week. I am not certain, but we are anxious to, get going. That was held till January For budget reasons, that that position, we were not able to move forward till January, but we are actively, moving on that now.

I'm sorry. For budget reasons, you had a you had an appropriated position in the city's budget. Who would have told you that there wasn't budget for that?

We we cut six months of the salary out of last year's budget, so we weren't

Oh, alright. The quality manager

moving on that for six months.

Alright. So the quality manager was was was only, right. I'm looking at the budget book now, and I see that it was only appropriated for six months. But Correct. You know, January 1, that's a long time ago. Alright. So that so the service operations manager was, vacant through the year. It was authorized to start 10/01, but, it only got filled a month ago.

That's correct. It was filled in March.

Yeah. Okay. Alright. Yeah. I mean, that's, I think that speaks to our long, lag time in hiring. You don't you don't have any, other vacancies in the department right now, do you?

We have one customer service rep at 311 Yep. Vacancy. They just, we had someone leave us very recently. Okay. But that that's the only other vacancy.

Yeah. I mean, that that kinda turnover does happen. Alright. Then I I guess my only other question you know what? I can save that one for budget. Yeah. No. I I appreciate it. I really appreciate you getting to come in. You know, we do have a lot of new counselors on the committee.

So having a rundown of, how three one one works is, I think, could be really helpful. So I appreciate this. I I do know that, it is kind of a kind of a running joke about having tickets closed out without knowing what happened to them, but, I'm glad it's something that, you're recognizing and working on improving the systems there. So and I will say, the last time I reported a pothole, I did, counselor Klingon's point, to I did get a one word response saying filled. So that was that was just fine by me, honestly. Thank you so much, sir. I'm all set, mister chair.

Thank you. Yeah. I was looking back through. I see one from 2024 that says service request rerouted to mobility. That's Craig. That's you. So so, like, you know, it's good, I mean, even to identify yourself. Listen. I used to before, I used to work at a limousine company with a tyrant of a boss that, like, you better have every t crossed and I dotted. So for me, you know, it's like it's all about, you know, chain of command, whatever accountability, really just to cover yourself. You know? Imagine if one of these things blows up, and it's like, what? Who who closed it? Anyway, councilor Hart.

Thank you, chair. Just to piggyback on what councilor Scott said, I this has been very informative. I really appreciate your presentation, director Craig. And I I have always been a big fan of three one one and have used it for many, many years. But now being a counselor and having the app and submitting things all the time, it's it's remarkable. And hearing about the volume that you're dealing with, it's really amazing that and I I appreciate that our city has this. So thank and thank you for being here tonight.

Yeah. You know, it's funny. It's one of the downsides of the budget season. We used to be able to ask general questions, and then when we streamline the whole budget process, we don't get to see know, you if you're not on finance, you don't really get to see department heads or anything like that. So I don't know.

Maybe we'll start a practice of, you know, having just even a brief presentation or something from different you know, throughout the year with different department heads as they pertain to the to the alright. Now I'm gonna get to item number seven, and I'm gonna be pretty I'll I'll be straightforward here that I do have some questions from councilor Wheeler that I'm gonna gonna relay because it was his order, and he's on this committee. And, you know, I'm happy to accommodate. He says the 200 or so documents that the three one one has developed with various departments that guide that guide staff in navigating various questions. These are awesome.

He has an explanation point. What I wonder is, how do they know when they need a new one or some other new resource like this for caller answers to refer to? So, like, how how do the call takers know if they if they need an updated version of something or yeah. So how do they know when they need a new one or some other new resource like this, I e, for call answers to refer to?

The thank you for the question. The best answer I can can give you with without taking up too much time, but I'm happy to elaborate if if you'd like, is when we are designing support for a service, we look at the entire life cycle. So the the for us, the beginning is the end. And what I mean by that is once we figure out what is this service that the city provides, what is the information that three one one needs to be asking or relaying to a constituent is is, like, the first part of that. So, you know, first, I you know, I'll take DPW.

If we meet with DPW about a particular service, we find out what is the service, how does it work, who would it route to, how do we technically set all that up in the system, What does the process map look like so that we understand if something gets lost in the shuffle? And then before we sign off and activate it in the system, we we meet with public works or whoever their office would be and say, what does three one one staff need to be asking? What are the questions? You know, how big is the pothole? Have any injuries been reported?

You know, what what it the I I'm happy to provide more detailed examples, but that that's the idea. And we are constantly, constantly training three one one staff. We are we are reviewing calls with them. We are sending them updates, near daily, if not a couple times a week, of, hey. The regulations change for mattress disposals.

Before, it was just scheduled. Now you have to buy a sticker in advance. So that's something that staff need to know, and we will send out staff memos that go through what those changes are and give them the opportunity to ask questions before we make it live in the system. Because if they're not asking the right questions, if they're scheduling mattresses for pickup that haven't been paid for, then they're not getting picked up, then the constituents getting angry, the possibly getting a ticket from, you know, ISD because the mattress is sitting out in the sidewalk. So things can very much break down if we don't look at it holistically.

But the answer is the service operations manager, part of their job is the main part of the job is to work with the departments to make sure that we're doing everything. But the other very important part of that is making sure that three one one is asking the right questions so that when we're intaking a request, it doesn't, you know, break down or it doesn't go to the wrong place or it doesn't go in as an invalid request. So every time we meet with a department we just met with the parking staff and, folks from DPW just in the last, you know, week and a half, two weeks. And Mhmm. We're starting those conversations again.

You know, commissioner Wiseman mentioned earlier, we're gonna be adding some new snow related requests. So, you know, we're gonna be making sure that three one one is asking, is it on the street or is it, you know, in a lot? All all the questions that we need to be asking to make sure that it gets to them, they can actually act on that request, and it's not just causing a bottleneck in the system.

Is that like, is that like a drop down? Like, when you're saying that they're asking those questions, is it like a drop down system where they they ask the the first question sparks the next question, or are you saying just from, like, a a field guide, like, like, a guide that they use?

It's very close, but just so the drop down menu is more of pothole, tree trim, sidewalk repair. And then when you select the issue type, the request type, then the page populates what are the questions that have been determined need to be asked related to that request. And so if you change the request type, then the the questions will repopulate.

Mhmm. And I guess sorry.

No. No. That was all.

Yeah. And then, like so because I was wondering I mean, that makes sense too because I was I was wondering if you have, like, an internal almost like an intranet, like, internal, like, search system where, you know, like, when you like, you guys have, like, a database where when these memos, as you said, memos come out, you know, some some of the workers might see their emails, some of them might be busy doing the work, you know, and they don't see the email. I didn't know if there was, like, an internal data center or something. And I guess so councilor Wheeler gives an example, and I think what he means so in other words, like, maybe not like hot button issues, but, like, as issues arise or he said he called in one time about an unhoused person looking for shelter, and the 301 call worker didn't have many phone numbers or to suggest that I call. So I guess that would speak to, like, you know, resource guides.

I mean, I know that they're not necessarily there to give an extended list, you know, because I don't know. Maybe that yeah. If there's an approved resource list, I I would imagine. Right? Because you gotta be careful with that type of thing. Right? It's like next thing you know, someone's asked for drug treatment, and you you don't wanna be referring them to somebody. Turns out your cousin works. Yeah. I don't know. You know what I mean? Like, we gotta be real. But but, like, but if if if the situation or people are concerned about that and they're calling in, what is the protocol and sort of, like, how how do like, what how do you make information available to the the call takers as far as what resources they should be how they should be handling that type of call?

The the thing that we're facing now is that there is too much information in too many different places. And what we're trying to find right now is a tool that allows us to consolidate where, you know, there's the parking website, the city website, phone number lists. And, you know, there are there are tools out there that exist where we can dump, for lack of a better word, all of the approved knowledge and information into one source and where staff can then ask the question. You know, you mentioned supports. Obviously, the Summer of Homeless Coalition is a great resource.

But if someone's looking for, a bed tonight and they can't reach someone, you know, if we had a an approved list of all of the and this is just one example.

Yeah. Yeah.

We could put all of the resources related to this topic into this tool, and staff can ask the question in sort of native speak. Like, please find a list, and that's something that we're working on because staff do a darn good job. Don't get me wrong. But the more departments we support, the more services that are available, the more people need, it just it there's a ripple effect to it, and it's getting very big, and it's getting hard to manage. And you're right.

There's only so many emails they can look at. There's only so many memos we can hand out where things don't get lost in the shuffle. So we are trying to find some new tools that are not that expensive that allow us to continually add new and updated information that we can have ownership of and modify as necessary without having to inundate staff with, here's another heads up, here's another change, here's another change. They just know search this tool, the right information will be there. So that's something we're actively working on right now.

Yeah. Because, I mean, in my mind, the protocol would really just be not to insert themselves and just to refer to the proper department or whatever and then let that department tell them. But at the same time, like, I think what councilor Wheeler's getting at, and I and I also wanna there is you know, like you said, instead of inundating those departments, there's certain things they could handle on their own. But it's a fine line. You know? Because It

is a fine line, and it varies.

Lean on how much people wanna we're gonna let people lean on three one one, you know, because, you know, the more let people will you know, it'll get overwhelming, I I think, to to some degree. But I think there's a happy medium.

I agree. You know, we don't want three in one staff telling people how to do electrical work. You know, if someone says, I'm, you know, I'm putting a a new bathroom in my house. They shouldn't be giving advice on that. You know? We refer that to the subject matter experts. But there's a lot of general knowledge and general information that if we can take that lower hanging fruit off the table, that frees up staff time across the city to focus on more complex tasks. So that is that's part of the work that we're doing is finding where those lines need to be for each department and service.

Yeah. Alright. I'm gonna try to motor through these last couple. Colleagues oh, counselor, how's the question? Colleagues, you know, I know that with with the less you know, since we did combine, you know, open space environment energy, you know, these meetings are gonna probably always go, like, two hours if they're gonna be once a month. Otherwise, again and I can only get one in once a month. So, otherwise, it's gonna be biweekly. So, anyway, you know, try to keep it as close to two as we can. We're we're at the two hour mark now. Councilor Hart, go right ahead. You have the floor.

Nope. Please. I I have a question, but I didn't realize you had more questions. Please continue. I'll save it.

No. No. If it's if it's on no. No. Go right ahead. You're on the committee. I'm doing a courtesy.

It's actually to a prior question anyway, so think it go ahead.

Okay. Alright. So well, because I don't wanna get too deep in it. Like, I I some of these questions where they're going, like so there's only a couple. But the other one is when it's after hours, who are the people to picking up the phone, still always some of the staff or some call center somewhere? What are they able to help with, and what are they not able to help with? I'm I'm interested in the answer, but I do think I do I do believe that we do use a call service after certain hours. But, anyway, I'll let you answer the question.

Yes. Counselor Scott is particularly familiar with this. We've talked about this, multiple times. Three one one staff were are working a little over fifty hours a week. There are a hundred and sixty eight hours in the week. That means our answering service is working about a hundred and eighteen hours a week. We have done the numbers on what it would cost to staff twenty four hours a day, three hundred and sixty five days a year. That that is information I don't have readily available, but I'm happy to, give you those estimates. I can give you as early as tomorrow, so you can see what that looks like. But as of now, we do use a vendor.

They are trained in our system. We do trainings with them usually quarterly, to make sure that they understand how request work. They look. I I cannot say they are as good as the staff within the city because they are made city staff are amazing. No one is as good as they are. I think they do an adequate job. I think they can do better. That's why we're always working with them. I would be happy to show you the near daily emails that we send them, reminders of how process work, of errors that we find so they can speak with staff. We are reviewing things that happened the night before so that we can try to get ahead of anything that's incorrect being submitted.

Mhmm. It it is definitely not an ideal solution, but I will say that, you know, larger cities bigger than than some rural such as, like, Philly, for example, they don't even make the attempt. They just close at 07:00 every night and say, too bad till tomorrow morning. So Yeah. You know, I would like, us to continue to stay twenty four hours a day, as long as possible, but I do think the answering service is something that needs constant, effort.

And that's actually, I didn't mention this early, but that is another part of the quality manager's role is to do more dedicated regular trainings, just with the in house staff, but with our vendor support team to make sure that they are having the right information and answering questions to the best of their abilities, when, you know, whenever we're not available. Because the other thing they do is if we have, extended wait times during business hours, they can function as a backup support. So we want them to be ready to take calls at any at any point in time.

And I I know you said they're not as good, but, you know, you do go over a of stuff because the second part of this question, like, what the is it what what are they able to help with? What are they not able to with? Sounds like, I mean, they basically can take ticket information. I mean, I don't know how deep they can I'm sure any some of them three one one operator is gonna be able to handle a lot more than some contractor somewhere, but but they're they're sufficient for, like you said, for the overnight for people who aren't technology savvy. Like, you know, our our agent population are able to pick up the phone and and get in a three one one, where they can email.

So I I do see the value in that as much as I would like to see FTEs, covering these, if you're saying they run the numbers because, you know, it might be a juicy contract. I mean, like, I I got it's probably only a couple calls that come in overnight. I mean, you know, I don't know. I mean, you could probably do one, like, a, someone, you know, with a laptop at home doing, like, you know, coverage, you know, once a yeah. Again, don't what the contract cost.

I'll let you you figure that out, but, somebody could be home with a laptop. You know, each person rotates through through coverage, you know, in in the Alps. Anyway, and then this one you kind of already touched upon says how is follow-up handled, when is the ticket worked on, and when work is done for now, but the problem might not be resolved. I guess what I would add to that is to say that you can always put in another 311, but because, like, is there a customer reopen feature? I forget.

Generally, they they don't re open it. They would just reach out to us, and then we would investigate and reopen it. There's other functionality I didn't speak to. There are things that get put on hold. If someone calls in, you know, a sidewalk repair in December, that's not the right season. They're they're not doing those for several months. So something like that would actually get put on hold Mhmm. And would sit for for several months before it actually would get acted upon. So I think that gets to be and and I just pulled that example, you know, out of there. There's not necessarily an issue with sidewalk repairs.

I just know that that's a seasonal, type of work that can't happen year round. So there are there are situations where things don't get acted upon maybe in the timeline that a constituent may want it to be done. But there's usually a good reason. You know, sometimes tree trims. Obviously, we didn't have a tree crew for an extended period of time. Things were going to contractors, So only the most urgent things were getting done. And some of the more, you know, nonurgent, trimming requests were were sitting for an extended period of time. So I do think that's something

But but, again, doesn't the specifics of his question more speak to the department for which how they handle tickets, like, terms of revisiting? Because he says, the question is when a ticket is worked on and the work is done for now, but the problem might not be solved. So in other words, you know, you know, maybe there's a quick fix, but it's not fully I mean, would that would probably fall back. Say this let's use DBW for an example. They have a ticket related to something, and, you know, they they do a quick fix, but it's not fully resolved.

I mean, in terms of prioritizing or curating their tickets, that would be on the department, or do you guys kinda do cleanup, like, follow-up at some point and go, like like, once the ticket's with somebody, does it sit with them, or do you guys kinda clean up old open tickets or, like, follow-up with somebody or something?

It largely sits with the department that has ownership of the issue. Maybe not all the time. There are cases where, a couple times a year, we will go through and look at and we do this called an aging report. We'll look at things that have been open for a certain length of time and see, is there any additional information that three one one should be including? Is there any information that we can relay to the constituent? So it fortunately, it's it's rare that it happens. It doesn't mean that it doesn't need to be addressed, but this is not not the norm. So we generally looked at more of a case by case situation when things like that are happening. So I'm happy to talk about specific examples, of things that are

happening, but it's not

something we have a general resolve for.

Yeah. I think the council's listening if he wants to dig in a little more. Sure. He kinda the the last question I'll let you answer, but it actually since he is the chair of finance, this is definitely the finance, appropriate question for, you know, when you come before finance. Or, what are the staffing needs for three zero one to operate most effectively? So I guess I would add commentary on that to say, like, you said they work fifty hours. So I guess we could ask what's the baseline? Well, you know, I'll just let you answer the general term. What are what are the staffing needs for three one to operate most effectively?

I I will say thanks to the support of the council. At this point in time, we are we are in the the spot of where we need to be. We are not overstaffed. We are not understaffed. We we measure our service levels, and we have been consistently in the green zone of where we want them to be.

There are, you know when we have the the snowstorms from a couple months ago, wait times went up, service levels dipped. If we have you know, if a flu tears through the office type of a thing, we may not be at the service levels we want, but we're also not, you know, sitting around twiddling our thumbs. We are we are where we need to be in terms of of services. We don't have, you know, fat fat to trim, but we're not going hungry either. So I I think right now, we are in a very good place where we are busy.

We are consistently busy, and the growth that we've experienced over the last few years has been in line with the staffing additions that we've made so that we are able to do more work but maintain a similar level of of support and and, adherence to our goals, basically.

Okay. That's all I have. Counselor Hart, you have that question lingering question? Go right ahead. The floor is yours.

Thank you. It did get addressed somewhat through the discussion. I was gonna ask about, open open tickets. Just this is something that I've experienced having having a ticket be open for many months and just kind of wondering, you know, what the process is to make sure that those tickets aren't sitting out there or, you know, what I I'm not sure if it's with three one one or with the department, but how is there what's the process of reviewing to make sure that that things get get closed or that things didn't get missed?

The pro thank you for the question. The process does vary by service. One example of that is snow removal requests. If a snow removal request is open at this point, there's not and I don't mean to be funny. There's nothing to review.

The snow has melted, so those will get batch closed out after a certain period of time. But if it's something where there's a clear chance that something was missed, something fell through the cracks, depending on what department it is. You know, we meet either couple times a month, monthly, quarterly, or or at least biannually. And so depending, on what department it is and what type of service it is, we will do, as I mentioned before, the aging reports to see how many are open, what the cause is. And, really, it is is it is it a situation where there's a large number of a certain issue that are open?

Maybe it's due to staffing, maybe it's due to equipment, or maybe it's just a one off. And if it's the one off, you know, address it with staff and, you know, hopefully, it's not happening again. If it's happening at a larger scale, then we actually look at maybe changing the scripting of what's being asked by three one one, what the closeout process looks like. We'll review the entire workflow, the maps that we do in Visio, and find out is there a point somewhere from beginning to end where things are falling through the cracks, and we'll try to address it more you know, I don't know, holistically is the right word, but in a more complete manner than just that one time something would happen.

Thank you. That's helpful.

Sorry.

Can I ask you one last question, director Craig? Yes. On the app. Right? So, like, say, the one that that you that I said that it said you rerouted. So if I then can I in the app, you have the you know, it says comment? Right? So submit comment. If I say thank you, right, in there, like, after a ticket's already closed, does anybody see that? I'm just curious. Like, does it does anybody get a notification when somebody or if or say, like, an open ticket. Right? I have this one about traffic calming to, and they routed it to to Kate White. And I just I just added a comment because from a year ago, I had to kinda bump. Like, I'm trying to, like, bump it up. Like, do they will they get a notification activity on the ticket? Alright.

Whoever that issue or that request has been assigned to, they will get those comments 100%.

Bump. I just I just said bump. You know? I'm cool. Alright. Anything else from anybody? Liaison Rodolfi, you got anything? You're ready you're ready ready for dinner? I am. Go for it.

Through the chair, I just wanna do something that you said earlier about making sure that departments are coming and presenting this information more frequently. If there's any areas that the council feels that would be beneficial, especially with our new counselors, I would just recommend that you reach out to IGA, and we can coordinate with the department to see if we can submit an officer's communication where the department can kind of highlight some of the initiatives that they're working on and all of that. So just wanted to put that out there.

Yeah. I guess I was more speaking to I'm not gonna say making sure that they do. I'm saying if there's a desire by counselors, like, in lieu of what we used to have was, like, a robust sort of discussion almost. When the budget would happen, they would come and present. They do a presentation, and then we would ask questions.

We've been re subsequently, we're told that those questions may not be finance related, and so it's not germane. So I think this could another alternative could be a little FaceTime where it's more just like the person, department head, or what have you want us to come and and say, you know, what they've been up to or something. Just just you know, it's just nice. It's nice to have a little FaceTime. You know, JT, you know what I'm talking about. You must those old days that we used to just they they we would talk about the veteran counselors. Now is your time. You know? Now you you know, talk to the ask you questions. And then subsequently, we were like, well, maybe that's not quite, it's not germane to the actual item.

Therefore, probably not appropriate, for the finance. At least that's the way it was Yeah. Said to me. Okay.

That's probably why budget season used to take about a hundred fifty hours.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Imagine if

I love your idea, though, about having, having time for counselors. I mean, I know the tendency lately has been to avoid, meetings the whole, but it might be a really useful, opportunity to offer to counselors, to to offer committee the whole meetings where there's, a broad discussion intended about, the operations in a given department. I think that's a really interesting conversation. That said, it's also one of those things where, you know, sometimes you're bringing up an item so that it can be discussed, and the members of the public can see it. And sometimes it's just about trying to get your head around how a department does things.

And I will give IGA all the credit in the world. They are wonderful about setting up meetings with department head to to to go deep on these issues if folks just wanna know more.

Absolutely. If you're a new counselor, you're trying to wrap your head around it. You know? Go visit the you know, go to the you know, visit them. Visit the building. Set up a meeting. I just meant for the benefit of the public. Like, I think having Steve here talking about three zero one is beneficial to anybody who's watching, and and that's kind of more or less what I mean. We don't get that as much anyway. Alright. Those two items will be work complete, Clark Potier. And so I just do you have any questions on any dispositions of any items? I do know that we have to roll call for German as well as that discussion item. But are you clear on every other are you clear on every other

Mister chair, no questions.

Okay. You're clear on every item. Okay. Great. Yes. Alright. So, council Scott moves to adjourn and roll call on that resolution, that discussion item. And, can you call the roll on that discussion item and adjournment, please?

Absolutely. On item five and on adjournment, counselor Scott.

Yes, please.

Counselor Hart?

Yes.

Chair Klingon? Yes. This committee is adjourned.

Alright. Thank you, everybody. See you next month.