City Council - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon everybody. Welcome to the sustainability and environment meeting. Today is uh March 17th. I'm calling the for meeting to order at 3:08. Uh I am being joined remotely by councelor Fenton. Welcome councelor Fenton who's also a member of this committee. Um I'm also joined by the DPW director Chris Noli. Thank you Chris for joining us. I'm also joined uh remotely by Mr. Steven Howard.

Uh here in the chamber is just myself, council Davila and the news channel 22. Thank you for joining us guys. Uh today the purpose of today's meeting is to discuss discussion of potholes including their environmental impact and the city's plan timeline and cost to address the repairs. As we all know this uh season has been incredibly difficult both um snow-wise. I think we got in like 65 inches of snow so far and then we got uh so far

uh a lot of uh subsequently a lot of potholes and it's just completely uh awful getting a lot of complaints all throughout and I have found myself quite quite a few of the potholes without even looking for them and it's quite an experience as building. Uh so before we get into it uh the emphasis that we have on the um the uh the environmental uh perspective of uh the pothole situation is that uh I've been doing some some some research and I found out that it does have potholes has environmental impact and you may ask to yourself what's the impact well apparently uh when you have potholes. Uh you have a increased vehicle emission and the reason that that happens is because uh cars tend to slow down and speed up repeatedly. You have increased water pollution. You have a lot of oil, gas and fluids that get into the water system. Uh you have road degra degradation. Uh they become as the holes grow they break apart into smaller particles. uh they can wash into waterways uh as sediment pollution and they can also contribute to microplastic like debris from the world materials and of course you also have the aspect of uh increased raw resources. Uh you have to have more heavy machinery out there working on this pothole which also increases the um the environmental impact and of course the noise pollution. We know that when there's more pothole, there's more people honking their horn, doing more noise, more clanking. So that's the aspect of the environment. Uh how the potholes impact is not only an inconvenience to us and a costly endeavor to the vehicles uh and to your property, but also it does have an

environmental impact. And so today I asked uh director Chris Noli to come in so that we can have a chitchat about this. Uh, and I'm looking forward to hear what the plans are, what we've been doing. I do have to acknowledge and recognize uh, Chris, that you have added, if I'm not mistaken, one more crew out there to address a pole situation. I think we got two crews out there right now. Is that correct? Actually, three. Three. Okay. So, you added one more. Yeah. Two more. Or two is three. Yeah, we've had three out all last week and they'll be out. They're out there today and this week as well.

Okay. And so you got three crews um both holes. Okay. So Chris, before I I'm going to send you this list myself, but uh people have been contacting me through all the cities. I'm going to read out some of the complaints that I gotten and some of this you might already addressed already. Uh but again, I'm going to email this list to you.

Yep. Uh these are the list of potholes that people have emailed me. Uh by the way, anybody who's watching uh you can email me at counselor victor dilla counselor victor davilla that's d a v i laggmail.com and I will pass it on to Chris because I do want to keep some of accounting as to where we are with this. So Chris, uh, people have emailed me. They have told me that there's, uh, pothole situations in Orlando Street between Allen Street and Orange Street, Orange Street and Dickinson Street, Anglician Street and Dwight Road. And I think that there was a sandbag that was placed on that port hole.

So does that the curve at Piney Woods and Forest Park. It looks like a moon crate. Actually, all of Piny Woods is looking like a moon crate. Uh Chris teras it looks like a war zone literally uh by holy natur you know I I'll urge you to to pay the attention to that ASAP because it looks like a warome it looks like somebody dropped grenades on the on the uh on the road. We also have um from Indian Orchard section we got 2137 Page Boulevard,

2157 Page Boulevard, 2165 Page Boulevard. Playful street also looks like a moon crane. The whole street line street and Sar Avenue uh I was I experiencing the pothole myself there yesterday and it was awful. Tiffany Street between Carroll and Breman Street, I believe. Uh there's a big um orange cone out there. Uh and I seen a couple of people close to hitting it before. Uh so so those are some of the uh locations that people have emailed me. Yeah.

And so let me get into the questions. Um and I got two questions for you right away. One of them is why are we placing sandbags on port holes? And if you can also tell us what's the difference between uh cool patch, cold patches, and hot patches.

Right. On the bigger potholes, we're putting uh sandbags. It is not sand. It never has been sand, never will be sand. Uh people were asking why are we putting sand in potholes? It is not sand. It is bagged roadway millings uh that we are putting in these potholes because some of the deeper ones uh cold patch just basically washes right out. And that was over the first couple weeks when we were doing it when we were still getting a ton of rain. Uh so people were were I'm going to say complaining to me, why are you putting sand out? It is not sand. It's roadway millings that we're putting out. Um so putting them in bags just keeps them together for a little while. So, it's called roadway what?

Excuse me. Roadway roadway millings. All the millings that we do when we're doing roadway uh paving projects and we mill up the roadway.

Uh it is just reconstituted pavement that we're putting in the bags uh to secure some of those areas. The bags disintegrate. The bags disintegrate, but they hold up for uh you know for a week or two and allow us to get a decent base out there. The cold patch material um is open all winter. We use it when we're having to do our excavation work. Utilities do it when they have to do their emergency work. Um the material during the winter works okay. Uh once we get into the spring and once it gets wet, uh that stuff doesn't really work very well. Everything that we've accomplished probably over the last 10 to 14 days probably got washed out yesterday because of the rain, because of the cold patch. uh doesn't really hold the uh we were notified uh uh Friday and then again today that uh asphalt mix is going to be available next Monday. Uh so we're going to be starting using actual asphalt next Monday on all the repairs. Uh we're going to be doing as much as we can this week obviously, but the actual hot mix asphalt is going to be available from uh uh at least one of our vendors next week. Uh the other issue that we're dealing with is a significant amount of failed uh trenches out there uh associated with construction that has happened. uh especially if you drive through the X, that's all um utility work that's been done. A lot of the failures that we're dealing with out there, I'm not gonna say all of them, but a good portion of them are utility failures. So, we've been going back and forth with utility companies on that. There was one today on Mil Street that we lower Mil Street that we were dealing with on that. So, uh a lot of the utility companies there, they've all been put on notice this week that they have to get out there and

start fixing their stuff as well. Uh, and we have three crews out there. We have two crews that are working with a hot box. And the hot box basically is just the the cold patch that we're keeping uh warm in the hot boxes. And then we had a separate crew that's just using a dump truck uh for the material. And as you drive, as I was driving around the city today, I could see in a lot of areas, you know, there's a lot of uh gravel all of a sudden, and those are the ones that have popped out over the last couple days. So, uh, we've had three crews out there, uh, for the last probably two and a half weeks. Um, we're going to continue to do it. We will probably continue to do it for the next three or four weeks until we're, uh, we're all caught up.

Uh, but the hot mix, uh, to do permanent work is going to be starting next week. One additional vehicle uh, that we'll probably have out is our road patcher. uh we have a vehicle that uh on its own uh once we have the hot mix material um we can start you know that's one person that can basically drive around the city and start hitting some potholes on their own. So it kind of creates a fourth group of people that we're dealing with. So um we're going to have you know three groups out in the field with um personnel and then the fourth one will be our road patcher doing that. Uh, I'm going to, you know, it's going to take us uh a good a good 3 weeks to get to everything in the city. But what I tell everybody is that if they have a pothole, uh, get it into 311 for a number of reasons. Number one, we need to know exactly where it is. You know, we received a call today that just said Parker Street. Well, you know, Parker Street at East Long Meadow or Parker Street out by the Lello Bridge. Uh, so get the address. Number two, uh if somebody gets a request into 311 and the location is not addressed, uh they can make a claim on the city. So, uh getting, you know, people complaining on social media is all well and good, but we don't monitor social media between people on Facebook. So, if somebody has a pothole, get it into 311. It gets on our list. uh we then close out that report so that we know when we did it. So in case there's a claim, if somebody pops a tire, they they damage a rim, something like that, that information is in the system. So uh with everything that we're doing, we have the crews out there and as I said, we're still using cold patch this week. Next Monday, we will be going to the uh hot mix asphalt uh and working with the three plus plus our road patching crew uh that we'll be addressing over the next two three weeks.

Right.

Uh paving work uh for our remainder of our fiscal year 26 work will be starting on the 30th as well. And I put that list on Facebook today of the streets that we're going to be finishing off on. And just for paving purposes, um, one of the two April meetings in front of the council, I'm not sure yet which one. Uh, we will be there to get approval of our chapter 90 money. We received notice on that last week. Uh, 5.5 million. Our paving program this year will pay 6.5. Um, and one of the things that we're trying to do with our paving program this year is hit some of the chronic locations where we know we have a lot of uh potholes. And I'm going to use, you know, streets like Worthington and Parker and um, Suri Road, uh, Bay Street, and I know I'm missing one. Uh, Sar Avenue Extension, streets like that where that have been chronic. Uh the you know somebody asked um um I received an email from somebody that said, "Hey, you know, how come certain streets hold up and certain ones other?" Basically, the ones that don't hold up are the ones that we haven't touched in 20 or 25 years. Uh the newer streets hold up really well. Island Pound Road and Brewood Boulevard that we've just paved along with some others have held up really well. It's the older roads and with the amount of salt that we use, it just really accelerates the deterioration of these streets, especially in the spring. Um, you know, with good rain yesterday washed a lot of the salt away, which is okay, but now it's sitting inside the pavement. Uh, that helps degrade it as well. So, from a, you know, short-term plan, we're going to be working with the with the coal patch. And starting next Monday, we'll be doing permanent repairs with asphalt.

But uh Chris, before I turn it over to uh my colleagues, a quick clarifying question. Uh tell me again what the cold patch is.

Cold patch is basically a winter product that is made to be temporary. The uh asphalt patch, you cannot put it down when temperatures are below um uh 32 degrees. Uh and it cannot be manufactured until it's permanently above 32 degrees. So the material that is put out there has um minimal um uh batumin mixture in it. Uh a lot of aggregate uh and a lot of sand that goes along with it. So it's really a gravel product that's kind of held together uh temporarily. Whereas the asphalt product that we get has a lot more uh asphalt batumin material in it that it holds together permanently. So, it's meant to be a the the patch um material is really really meant to be temporary.

Uh now, the hot patch is just as the mixture of asphalt. Mhm. Okay. Permanent asphalt. Yeah.

Permanent asphalt. Now, did I hear you correctly? Uh we chopped the 90 allocations uh that we're getting a decrease. We're getting $5 million and last year we got 6.5. No, last year uh the same number as last year. Actually, it's about 10,000 or 11,000 less than last year. Uh we're receiving 5.019 million, but our paving program for this year is going to be 6.5. Uh cuz we also received um uh what's fair share money and we received rural roads money. So between all of those funds, we're a, excuse me, we're able to put out a bid this year using about $6.5 million.

So the 6.5 is to divide it into two. Uh, so 5 million for P for roads and the remainder for this uh um side street.

No, it it's what we're we're doing the list right now uh for this coming year. Uh we're determining we split it between arterial streets and we and between arterial and residential. We may lean a little bit more this year on the uh arterial streets. In the past, we've leaned a lot more on the residential streets uh simply because those are the ones that are deteriorating more. So, uh we haven't finalized the the list yet because we needed to really wait to see what we were getting from the state. But uh when we when I make that submission to the council, excuse me, for one of the two meetings in uh April, uh we will have the paving list complete. Uh we've already done the coordination with water sewer and um uh Eversource Gas on the work that they need to do and stay away from. So uh we've already got that list. So now we're just doing our final estimates on everything and we'll be able to have our paving list together, you know, probably in the next couple three weeks, but it'll be as part of the submission we that I come in front of the council for in April. So, for this year, how much do you estimate you're going to spend on potholes repairs?

Oh, potholes. I I can't even guess on that. It it it ends up it's not a lot. Uh the material is is is relatively inexpensive. It probably only ends up being, you know, in total 2530 $40,000. It's not a huge number because it's just raw material. It's raw material that our guys are putting in. So, um, when we're doing a paving program, we're paying the contractors for everything. It's all their personnel. So, uh, it's really just the material cost that we are dealing with. And it it probably, you know, probably in total ends up being about 30 $40,000 worth of material.

I just want to make sure. So, we're talking about up to $40,000 citywide. And that is budget money. That is not uh any chapter 90 money. Uh, that's just all money within our budget. Gotcha. Good. Uh before we move on, I'd like to recognize Madame President Tracy Whitfield who has joined us. Thank you for joining us, Madame President. Thank you. You're welcome.

Uh Chris, um and so actually now it's a good point, a good uh point to uh um I got two more questions, but let me turn it over to my colleagues. See if they have any questions. Um, councelor Finton, Madame President, do you have any any questions?

I have one. It It may have been addressed um, Mr. Chair, when before I joined. Um, but there's a new program out that, um, Sorry, I pressed the mute that was communicated to us. And um how is that going, Chris? And is it like temporary fix for the potholes? Yeah. People report them.

Yeah. Over the over the last um I'm going to say two two and a half weeks, we've been having a lot of crews out there and the material that we've been putting out is the cold patch material, which I I'm going to say it's probably 40 50% that it holds, especially when we have rain like yesterday. Um, so we will we end up having to go back uh with that. But we've been working with the coal patch material and I'm not sure when when you hopped on um it was uh we will be starting next Monday with um um actual asphalt material. The plants will be opening. One of the plants is opening on Monday. So we'll be having actual asphalt to do the permanent repairs. Whereas the stuff now um you know you you if you get 40% to kind of hold through that's a lot uh especially with the rain that we get. So um the permanent repairs will be you know when I say permanent we know that that material will stick uh for that as well. So

okay thank you. And then one more question um Mr. Chair um Chris um I know that sometimes during the winter we put moratorum on digging. Did that happen this year? Yes. Okay.

Every year, every year around December 1st, uh sometime there, we start a winter moratorum on uh excavation work, roadway excavation work. And uh the utility companies uh get very upset with me because I stopped them from doing work. And uh we have, as a matter of fact, they're being notified this week that they can start their work next Monday because they will have actual asphalt material available. Uh but during the winter, the only excavations that are allowed are emergencies. Um and as you know, there was a ton of water main breaks uh this winter that water and sewer had to deal with. and there was a number of uh Eversource gas and electric issues that they have. So, one of the things that we we give to them is we have that list that uh worked on through the winter. Get out there, get those things repaired. Uh and I mentioned before there's an electric um excavation on Mil Street down in front of at down at the bottom uh kind of where or Cadillac and the old uh fire station was. Uh that opened up because it was all temporary. So, uh, we, yeah, we we stop all that work for the winter. And a lot of utility companies want to keep going and we just we, you know, especially with this winter, couldn't let them do it. And

yeah, it just it turns into a mess. And they say we can get material, you know, we can get asphalt from someplace else. But it's like, you know, they the the problem with that is that when you open up the ground, it it really we did that one year over on Thompson Street and the road has never ever recovered from we ended up having to repave it simply because of what we ended up having to have Eversource repave it um because of the work that they did. So yeah, the moratorum and we're going to be lifting it next um next Monday. Next Monday. And that's part of the reason we couldn't like just go and fix all the potholes and stuff too.

Well, we were we were we started about 3 weeks ago once the weather started to turn a little bit in our favor. You know, the temperatures got a little warmer. Um we've been doing, you know, we fix potholes all winter. Anytime that there's out there, we fill them in as, you know, as best we can. A lot of snow and uh especially with the, you know, with the heat. I I hate to use the word heat because it's not really heat, but we had two or three days that were, you know, in the 60s and then with all the rain, I mean, uh, everything in the gutters, you know, still was still holding water. So, it it didn't help us. The ground is still frozen. And that was one of the big problems this year is that underneath the pavement, there's no place for that water to go. So, it sits there

and, you know, expands and contracts. And by looking at the weather, as I do just about every day, you know, the weather's not going to really warm up and we're going to be getting into the, you know, high 40s, low 50s, but we're probably going to be at about freezing uh overnight. So, uh, you know, I was kind of hoping we turn a corner and, you know, really, you know, as long as we're not getting into the teens and stuff like that, you know, the the deterioration just won't continue and the ground can kind of unfreeze a little a little easier and that uh that causes a lot of problems as well. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you for that shared. Um, Chris, quick question before I turn it over to the other counselors. Uh do you have an estimated timeline as to when you're going to be done with the pothole repairs or is this a yearly around?

It's we'll probably be working on it. We'll probably be working on it at least for uh starting next week will probably be at least three four weeks. uh and we do it throughout the uh uh throughout the year anyways because potholes, you know, whether it's around one of the big problems that I'm seeing is a lot around a lot of manholes and water gates uh uh gates that are in the in the road because they uh expand and contract so much especially with the water. Um so that's that's something that kind of goes on throughout the year anyways. But the the heavy work that we'll be doing is probably going to be a good three four weeks worth of work.

Gotcha. Got it. And Chris, um, two more question. How do you determine the priority for to to fix the pothole? What are what are the guidelines used to determine uh I see I see some potholes that are just like, holy tamali. Yeah.

And what what we've usually been doing is we kind of take them in priority of when of the list of of of when we receive them. um for the simple reason as I mentioned before if there are claim you know if we say oh this isn't a bad pothole I'm going to do another one uh and we don't do that one you know that opens us up excuse me opens us up to a claim so we kind of go in order at the same time people like myself and others you know when we start to see big ones somewhere uh last week as an example I started to see some really big ones on Worthington Street and some other locations so you know we get the crews out there and the crews that I had out there the last couple weeks, they were working till about 7 o'clock at night um uh on that. So, you know, we're it's not just an eight hour a day we've been working on. So,

so Chris, I'm going to turn it over to the council in a second, but but question for you. Um so, if I'm not mistaken, I will urge you. Uh the X, I mean, it's getting rougher. Okay. I feel that the potholes are getting bigger. uh and it's a problem and so if I recall correctly you have mentioned to us that's the responsibility of DOT is that correct yeah we had a uh one of the big name

yeah it's the DOT and their contractor we had a meeting with them on Friday that they needed to get out there uh one of the big ones is in front of Walgreens uh and there's a few other locations that they need to so they should have if they they if they're they should have been out there today I haven't been out there to take a look at But they

Well, I I I I'm going to Chris, I'm going to push hard on that and I'm sure you're doing what you do. Uh let me know who we have to set fire under. Uh did I say that the right way? Uh who set fire under. Uh because that needs to be get fixed. Uh I counted at least four potholes that are just concerning to me. Uh and one of them is between TD Bank and Sar Avenue. Um trust me, I found it out. I found out I found out about it without looking for it. Uh and so I have gotten complaints in the area, a lot of them and I would urge you to do whatever you need to do to get those pe those people are there. Uh if they haven't come out today, uh I will follow up with you. Uh because that needs to get done. Um thank you Chris. Uh councelor Fenton, councelor Hurst, any questions, gentlemen?

I think it's a good discussion. Thank you. No, sir. Thank you, council. Uh, Chris, and so you mentioned that one of the issues that we having is utility failures, meaning that they do work. Yep.

And apparently they don't do good work. If I'm not mistaken, last year we were having a meeting, I can't remember which meeting, and we were told that before that patchwork is clear is a DPW supervisor or engineer supervisor has to clear and okay that it has met the standards, city standards. Yes. Yeah. So, can you can you connect the dots for me on that? Because what I hear you saying is I think the opposite before. Yeah. The bigger issue.

If it's supposed if it's supposed to be if it's supposed to be done properly the first time, why are you saying that they're not doing it? It's a utility failure. Connected.

What I'm really talking about is kind of the stuff that they've been they've had to do throughout the winter. uh you know starting in December and working through the winter on uh on whether it's gas probing or um water mane failures. Uh as a matter of fact on you know right down around the corner from me on Dwight Road uh Dwight Road and Tiffany Street both had big water mane breaks and what those breaks have done is not just where the break happened, it's where all the water has gone. One of the problems on Tiffany Street, uh we had a and I want to say that was the beginning of January. We had a big water mane break. The week before we were having and and if you've driven by there, there's a big uh barrel out in the middle of the road. Uh the week before we had a sinkhole happen there and you know, we thought, geez, something really weird has happened here. And then of course the next day we find out that there's a huge water mane break. So, you know, the water main break was 3 or 4 hundred feet upstream from where we were. So, it's a lot of the utility work that's been done over the winter. That's not necessarily at the exact spot where the issue happened, but all around it, especially on the water main brakes and the water that's gotten into the pavement and expanded it. So, you know, yeah, we do have some stuff on the utility side um on regular stuff that I'm not happy with and um but most of it is just stuff that's happened over the winter.

So, I take it you're going to be cracking the whip. Oh, yeah. Yeah. The Ever Source isn't happy with me right now. Okay. All right. Um and so let's talk about the last point. Um salt. You talked about salt. Uh and you mentioned that salt and dust damages the road. Uh I know that at least maybe three two years two three years ago we're talking about the quality or the type of salt that we use. Yep.

Uh and I remember if I'm not mistaken that you were saying that one that if we sell these second the the second the secondary streets it will end up costing the city an extra $300,000 if I'm not mistaken. throughout the city per snowstorm. And then you talked about the the salt itself. Yeah. Are we using the cheapest or is there something that we could use even if it's more expensive that will be environmentally friendly and will not degrade our roads quicker?

No, it we we go out to bid every year for salt. Uh we do not use state contracts for salt. Um, one of the issues that happens when you use state contracts is there's a lot of entities out there uh that can't get sold with since we do not use a state contract. We have a specific vendor uh that we deal with. So, we go out to bid.

We use we use an we use an untreated salt uh product. There are treated salt out there, but what we do is we use liquid calcium and we treat the salt on the truck depending upon the circumstances of whatever event we're dealing with, whatever the temperatures are.

Um, you know, depending upon uh uh the roadway type, whether or not we we mix calcium with it or if we're just putting down straight salt. When we're doing a uh a pre-treating standpoint, we're using salt with a little bit of calcium with it as well because we do want that to to stick around a little bit. Pre-treating of the roadways when we have a major event takes us uh probably 12 hours to do all of the um uh arterial streets in the city. And we may hit them once or twice depending upon how much time we have. Based upon that, if we were to have to do the residential roadways uh in the city, uh I would probably need 30 more trucks and 60 more drivers

uh to do that. Simply, we just don't have the people, the material, or the time to do that. So, we're doing all the uh uh arterial streets. We hit residential streets, but ones that are on hills. And then we have a secondary list that are problem areas that we know of um because there's certain areas in the city where you do not get sunlight and we know that it's on a hill and we got to treat it. So we you know trying to hit all the residential streets uh in the city is would be next to impossible. All right Chris, who's the vendor that we use for the salt? Uh I believe it's Mid-Americ Salt. Who? Midame American. Mid American Salt.

Yeah. Uh, Stephen, I see you. I'm gonna uh give you the floor in a second if you allow me please. Meet American salt. Okay. Um, Chris, if you could please, I would like you to keep us informed the council on a weekly basis as to the roads that have been addressed with the potholes, the progress report. uh so that we have some sort of idea what's happening or we can go back to a constituent and tell them what we are. Uh is there something you could do for us, please?

Yeah, because what I what I have is we have our work order lists that are given to the the drivers that come off of our our card graph system that we have. So, you know, every two or three or four days, I can just print those out and get those out to everybody of what's been done over the last, you know, over those last two, three, four days.

Thank you, Chris. Uh Steve, do you have a question? Yes. Uh thank you, Mr. Chair. Good evening, afternoon everyone. Uh Mr. Signal, let me just uh give you a round of applause for patching my street, especially since it has drastically reduced the amount of vibrations by those commercial trucks that go by when those potholes start to uh develop. So, thank you for that. Uh couple of uh questions. Now, one main thing that's been coming up in the Mcnite neighborhood council meetings is the traffic that will be coming over the bridge once the construction starts. Uh that's the first question. Who what what will this what kind of routes will these commercial traffics be taken? And uh the second thing is folks complain a lot about the potholes and when these have to be fixed naturally it's some money that has to to be spent and yet people complain that they that that they get ticketed when they don't move the cars on snow emergency days which uh could you talk about the impact that it has on the city when these vehicles are not moved, when those uh uh emergency regulations kick in.

Yeah.

As as far as u you know contributing to you know the problems that we're facing with potholes. Thanks. just for uh everybody's purpose that Steve was asking about the project. The Armory Street bridges uh that um that are between I think Jennese and Taylor are going to be replaced by a mass DOT project starting later this year. Don't know exactly when. The bid opening is uh I think the end of this month. Uh so there's going to be a um obviously an impact to traffic. What I'm going to do with that, Steve, is um I'm going to get the detour map uh provided to us by Mass DOT and I'll once that project gets a little closer, I'm going to get that posted on our Facebook page. And just for everybody's purpose, I posted a bunch of stuff on there today about uh um even lost track. yard way starting in a few weeks uh and our paving program starting and also we're having a meeting for the X project as well. So the uh other thing with regard to uh towing vehicles uh we probably towed two or three times the amount of cars this year than we've done in any past year. Uh and the reason why is what we did is we kept the parking ban on after the storm for a long time. the storm at the end of January, we actually kept on for two full weeks and during the day we were going out and trying to get back to those locations and we were towing a ton of cars. Um the issue that we end up having number one is just making the roadway more narrow and then number two uh the snow on those streets just gets packed down too much that really has an impact on the road itself uh on on many of those streets. So when that roots that stuff gets packed down, it's not going to melt like the other streets do.

You know, I I hate to use my street as a comparison. One end of my street, nobody parks on it. It's down the pavement in two days. The other end of my street is still, you know, for for a week afterwards still has uh snow on it simply because everybody's parked on both sides of the street. So we we work with the police on getting those vehicles towed. But it does it has kind of a rolling effect. number one, you can't get cars through it. Number two, uh uh parking on there becomes even that much more difficult and then nobody cleans it. So, that was the big effort that we did this year, uh and really use the a lot of the ordinance cops this year to get out there on days after and do a lot of cleanup uh throughout the city. This was also the first time in I think 12 years we've done snow hauling. Uh we actually did a lot of snow hauling out of uh intersections uh throughout the city and everything was um brought up to Kylie Middle School at the end of Bsentennial Highway. So that those are the things that we've been doing this year.

All right. Thank you. Thank you, uh Chris. Um so the time is now 3:45. We have about five more minutes. Uh Chris, I do intend to have a follow-up meeting in about four weeks for kind of a progress report on this particular issue. Uh and so before we go, I do believe uh the press, any questions? Um yes, I do have one now. Um so we're going to be heading to a specific street called Thompson Street. Um it's just near State Street, right? Um yeah, between State between State and St. James and Bay. Yep. Yeah. So, I was just hoping to see what types of repairs were going to be made to that specific area.

Off the off the top of my head, I don't know, Kaylee, if you want to tomorrow, I don't if if you want to tomorrow, uh if you're around, uh get in touch with me because I'll hook you up with a crew. Okay. Yeah, that'd be perfect. Yeah. Did Did you go with I I know somebody from 22 was with a crew a couple weeks ago. Uh I don't know if I don't know if it was you, but yeah, give me a call in the morning and I'll hook you up where uh you know on some of the some of the places where we'll be. Okay. Yeah, sounds good. Thank you. You're welcome. I'll be the reminder.

Yes. Um I just Sarah Henan in Reminder publishing. I just wanted to ask, you had said that if a pothole is reported through 311 and there is damage to a vehicle, if it hasn't been addressed, that the uh resident can file a claim with the city. How much of that have you seen this year? And is it more than in previous years?

Um, from the claim side, I usually don't see it. I mean, you know, some what will happen is uh the the way the process usually works, somebody will file a claim with the city. Uh we will get an email and and this claim can be for anything. Um you know, they're going to file a claim against the city, whether it's a pothole, um traffic light, an accident, or something like that. And somebody will come back to us and say, "Hey, there was a pothole here. Did you have a call on it? Was it in the system?" we provide them the information. We usually don't start to see that until April on that, but I have not seen um you know anything out of the ordinary yet. Do I expect it? Probably. Yeah. Uh but I haven't seen it yet.

And then my only other question is um anecdotally at least um potholes have been horrendous this year, worse than in previous years. Um is is there a reason for that? Is it simply because of the backlog of streets that haven't, you know, haven't been able to be gotten to over the years? What what's causing the influx?

Well, this year I think it's three-fold. Number one, it is the age of a lot of our roadways in the city. You know, I mentioned that we're going to do $6.5 million worth of paving this year. That's going to be less than 2% of the roadway. So, just by doing math, certain streets in the city may not may not get paved for 25, 30, 40 years. So when pavement when roads start to deteriorate, they deteriorate rapidly. Number two was the extreme cold that really really locked in uh frost below the ground everywhere. Uh on that and then number three was the amount of snow. Uh we have been I' I've mentioned it at council meetings before. We have been extremely lucky over the last 10 years or so that there was like seven or eight years in a row where when we plowed a storm, the next time we had to plow, all the snow was gone. You know, this year was probably the first year in a long time where we plowed where there was snow on the ground from previous storms. And that just again uh you know it you know catch basins get blocked water can't go anywhere the pavement begins to freeze not just the base of it but the pavement itself starts to free becomes more fragile so it's kind of a three-fold effect and I'm you know I'm just I'm seeing reports from all over the place right now you know and uh you know there was a big thing I I think it might have been you guys on 22 Kaylee who did a thing on the mall Um I saw you know Hoyok Mall. So yeah you know we're not immune to it and you know everybody's kind of uh in the same boat this year but those were the three really three big reasons.

All right thank you so much. Uh so before we it's 3:48 um any questions from counselors online before we journal questions? No. Okay very well then uh Chris thank you so much again. I will be you all later. Anybody has any questions, just get in touch with me. Yeah, Chris, we'll be uh scheduling the meeting for progress report. Please Sounds fine.

Make sure that you send us a weekly progress report as well. And again uh to all the people who are watching this, if you have a portal that you want to report, you can call uh the city 311, you can report it that way. Just dial 311 from the phone or you can email me at counselor victor debila gmail.com and I will make sure that that information is passed to Chris and Chris will promptly get into it. Tomorrow we'll get you out there. Okay. Thank you. Thank you everybody.