# Council Environmental Quality Committee - May 14, 2013 > Auto-transcribed civic record · May 14, 2013 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/2985 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/2985?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2013-05-14 - **Last revised**: July 16, 2026 - **Length**: 16,198 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed with OpenAI's open-source Whisper large-v3-turbo model, run locally by The Lexington Times. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude. Verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Environmental Quality Committee met on May 14, 2013, at 12:02 AM, with Stinnett presiding. The committee addressed five agenda items during the meeting, taking one vote and hearing four public comments. The committee's actions included approving an item on Easement Construction Issues, deferring a Drainage Ditch Issue for later consideration, and receiving informational presentations on three topics: Waste Management Operational Efficiencies/Use of GPS, Monthly Financials, and Projects List. ## Attendance **Present:** Stinnett, Mossotti, Gorton, Akers, Scutchfield, Myers, Clarke, Henson, Lane, Kay **Absent:** Farmer **Late:** None ## Votes and Decisions **Standard Operating Procedure for Sewer Line Maintenance Division** [timestamp: 1:41:49] A motion was made by Myers and seconded by Clark to approve the draft Standard Operating Procedure for the Sewer Line Maintenance Division and move it to the full council for approval. The motion passed by voice vote with no abstentions or opposing votes. The following members voted in favor: Stinnett, Mossotti, Gorton, Akers, Farmer, Scutchfield, Myers, Clarke, Henson, and Lane. ## Budget and Financial Actions The meeting addressed funding for two waste management infrastructure projects: **MRF and Recycling Facility Expansion** The FY14 Mayor's Proposed Budget included an appropriation of $700,000 for the expansion of the MRF (Materials Recovery Facility) and construction and demolition recycling facility. **Household Hazardous Waste Facility Retrofit** Funding was discussed for a retrofit of the household hazardous waste facility at Bird Thurman Drive. Specific appropriation amounts and vendor details were not specified in the available meeting materials. ## Public Comment Four residents addressed the committee with concerns related to sewer maintenance, infrastructure issues, and drainage problems. **Donald Schaffner** [timestamp: 0:38:41] described multiple failed attempts to resolve a sewer backup that resulted in his property being excavated without advance notice. The work caused damage to his landscaping and driveway. While expressing a loss of faith in the city's handling of the situation, Schaffner indicated he welcomed the proposed Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) as a step toward greater accountability. **Kim Schroeder** [timestamp: 0:41:52] shared her family's experience with repeated sewer backups occurring over a five-year period, which caused extensive property damage. Schroeder emphasized that the proposed SOP, while potentially helpful, does not address the underlying cause of the problem—the lack of proactive maintenance of the sewer infrastructure. She urged the committee to prioritize addressing root infrastructure issues rather than focusing solely on procedural improvements. **Louis Proctor** [timestamp: 0:45:32] reported an instance in which city crews wasted time and resources by digging up a sewer line that was not actually clogged, due to misidentification of the problem. Proctor stressed the importance of improved communication and coordination with residents before work begins on their properties. **Katie Stites** [timestamp: 0:49:23] requested city assistance regarding a non-paved drainage ditch on her property at 386 Waller that was altered following the city's construction of a turn lane. Stites noted that the city had resolved similar drainage issues for her neighbors and asked that her situation receive equitable treatment. ## Contested Items **Sewer Line Maintenance and Public Trust** Residents raised concerns about the city's sewer line maintenance practices and communication with the community. Multiple instances of unannounced excavations, missed pickups, and inadequate communication were reported during public testimony. These complaints reflected broader frustration with the city's responsiveness and accountability in managing sewer infrastructure. The testimonies underscored a need for systemic reform in how the city conducts maintenance work and communicates with affected residents. **Ambiguity in Drainage Ditch Responsibility** A procedural dispute emerged regarding maintenance responsibilities for non-paved drainage ditches in commercial areas. The current ordinance lacked sufficient clarity to distinguish between city and property owner obligations for maintaining these ditches. This ambiguity created confusion about who was responsible for upkeep and led to disputes over maintenance duties. The committee acknowledged the problem and agreed to revise the ordinance to clearly delineate responsibilities and resolve the ongoing confusion. ## Drainage Ditch Issue [timestamp: 00:03:00] Council Member Henson raised concerns about unclear responsibility for maintaining drainage ditches in commercial areas. The lack of clarity regarding maintenance obligations had created confusion about who was responsible for upkeep in these zones. Director Martin provided clarification on the current framework. Under the existing ordinance, maintenance of drainage ditches in commercial zones is assigned to property owners. However, the city retains responsibility for structural repairs that relate to roadway safety. The committee discussed the need to address the ambiguity in the current ordinance and agreed to take action. Two specific steps were identified: - Revise the ordinance to clarify maintenance responsibilities - Map the city's ditch inventory The outcome of this agenda item was deferred, indicating that further work and discussion will be needed before a final resolution is reached. ## Easement Construction Issues Director Martin presented a draft Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for sewer line maintenance to address construction-related issues [timestamp: 00:17:51]. The proposed SOP emphasized three key areas: pre-construction planning, property owner communication, and improved restoration practices. **Presentation and Key Points** The draft SOP outlined procedures designed to improve coordination and communication during easement construction projects. Martin's presentation focused on establishing standardized protocols to enhance the planning phase before construction begins and to ensure property owners receive adequate notification and updates throughout the process. **Public Comments and Concerns** Members of the public raised several ongoing concerns during the discussion: - Missed pickups during construction periods - Poor communication from the responsible parties - Lack of accountability for construction-related issues These comments reflected frustrations with current practices and highlighted the need for the improvements outlined in the proposed SOP. **Committee Discussion** The committee members—including Myers, Schaffner, Schroeder, and Proctor—engaged with the presented material and public feedback. Their discussion centered on the adequacy of the proposed procedures to address the identified problems. **Outcome** The committee approved moving the Standard Operating Procedure to the full council for further consideration and potential adoption. This approval allows the draft SOP to advance in the formal review process for implementation. ## Waste Management Operational Efficiencies/Use of GPS [timestamp: 00:52:36] Brittany West presented on the implementation of a GPS routing system for waste management operations. The presentation highlighted several operational and financial benefits achieved through the system's deployment. **Key Financial and Operational Results** The GPS routing system has generated $394,740 in annual landfill fee increases. The system has also reduced go-backs and improved overall customer service through enhanced operational efficiency. **System Capabilities** The GPS routing system enables: - Real-time tracking of waste management vehicles - Route optimization to improve efficiency - Data-driven decision-making for operations management **Committee Response** The committee noted the system's potential for broader application across other city divisions beyond waste management. This feedback suggests interest in expanding the GPS tracking and routing technology to additional municipal departments. **Outcome** This agenda item was presented as informational, with no formal action required. The presentation demonstrated the effectiveness of technology implementation in improving waste management operations and service delivery. ## Monthly Financials The committee reviewed the monthly financials during this agenda item. [timestamp: 1:18:56] **Key Speakers** Martin and Gordon led the discussion on financial matters. **Discussion and Concerns** The committee examined the water quality fee fund and raised concerns about its ability to cover future capital obligations. Specifically, questions were raised about whether the fund could sustain obligations beyond the initial $30 million consent decree commitment. Additionally, questions were raised regarding landfill fund expenditures and monitoring costs. **Actions Taken** A third-party review of the water quality fee's use was scheduled for the following summer to further evaluate the fund's financial sustainability and allocation. **Outcome** This agenda item was informational in nature, with the committee receiving updates on current financial status and scheduling additional review processes for future assessment. ## Projects List Charlie Martin provided an update on several key infrastructure projects currently underway or in planning stages. **Upcoming Construction Projects** The committee was informed of upcoming groundbreaking activities for three major projects: Bobolink, Century Hills, and East Lake Trunk Sewer projects. These initiatives represent significant infrastructure development for the municipality. **Town Branch Wastewater Treatment Plant** A notable focus of the presentation was the relocation of the storage tank at the Town Branch Wastewater Treatment Plant. To support this effort, a Request for Proposal (RFP) has been issued to identify and secure off-site facility space for the relocated tank. **Stormwater Quality Grants** Martin highlighted the availability of stormwater quality grants that can be utilized for private property projects, providing information about funding opportunities for stakeholders interested in stormwater management improvements. **Outcome** This agenda item was presented for informational purposes, with no formal action required from the committee at this time. [timestamp: 1:25:00] --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed: Motion to approve the draft Standard Operating Procedure for the Sewer Line Maintenance Division and move it to the full council for approval --- ## Full transcript Music Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. to order. This is the May 14th Environmental Quality Committee meeting. Council members, first up on our agenda is the committee summary from our April 23rd committee meeting. Do I have any motions for corrections or approvals? Second. Got a motion by Council Member Scutchfield, second by Council Member Clark. Any discussion on the summary? Okay. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, that passes. First up on our agenda is the drainage ditch issue. Council Member Henson, you put this into committee about a year ago. You want to kind of give the council members, especially the new ones, a background on how this issue came before the committee. And then we have Director Martin. We'll take over from there. Thank you, Chair. Charlie and I met with a commercial property owner, and there was no clear direction about who was to maintain drainage ditches within our city. And these would be stormwater drainage ditches. So I felt, and Charlie and I discussed it, and we thought it should be placed in committee so that we could get an understanding of what the city's stance is on that and how we would, you know, just have a clear direction, I guess. So I guess we'll turn it over to Charlie for his presentation. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Director Martin, Charlie Martin, is here to give us an overview, a brief overview of our current ordinances as it pertains to drainage ditch maintenance issues. Mr. Martin, take it away. Yeah, that's not a phrase you want to say quickly very many times in a row. It's not. It gets messed up quickly. As Council Member Henson said, I was invited to come out and inspect a problem. And, you know, because it's water, it seems like usually the Division of Water Quality ends up with this. but it wasn't something that we had been exposed to previously. I've never been involved in the ditch maintenance or ditch evaluation business the entire time that I've worked for a county government. So when Council Member Henson and I talked about it, I said, okay, well, I need to do some homework to see what the statutes say about it. So the first slide is what the Kentucky Revised Statute has to say about it. And there's a little bit about ditches and maintaining ditches along public roads. But honestly, I just included this so you could see for yourself. I don't think that it contained anything that was applicable to urban county government. So then I switched to looking at our current ordinances as they apply to stormwater control devices. If you will recall, some of you were on council several years ago. We had put forth a new ordinance that was required by the consent decree to clarify who was supposed to maintain stormwater control devices. So you see that there is a lengthy definition included in Section 1601 of the ordinance, and it doesn't say ditch, but it says drainage way. I say that for emphasis. So we've got a definition that talks about a drainage way or references it. So where does those things show up at? Essentially for stormwater control devices, which include drainage ways, is that in residential areas the private property owner is responsible for non-structural maintenance. That means mowing, picking up the trash, just general type of things. So we have a specific definition that applies to a residential area. Likewise, we also have ordinances specific to residential areas when it involves the maintenance of structural repairs, such as dams or head walls, concrete channels, those type of things like that. And you see that it says repairing paved ditches. And in this section of the ordinance, it says the urban county government is responsible for structural repairs for residential areas that include all of these stormwater control devices. Well, the area that we went to see is more of a commercial area than it is a residential area. So what I did then is I tried to focus then on what is applicable to commercial and industrial areas. And here's the applicable legislation that I found for that, is that maintenance and repair of basins or other stormwater control devices located on property used for commercial or industrial purposes is the responsibility of the property owner. So that concludes my review of the legislation. Past history is that urban county government has not routinely maintained ditches in the urban area. except I've been here for 14 years never has been involved in my division whatsoever in talking with Streets and Roads who in the past has had some responsibility for those type of things that they told me that there was a rare exception that they would do that sort of thing but it was always related to roadway flooding that threatened public safety so with that I know I've not given you a whole lot of information here I gave you what I know And as Council Member Henson said, it was really to come in front of the committee, I guess, and have a meaningful discussion on what direction to go. Council Members, if you have any questions for Mr. Martin, please log in, and we'll call accordingly. But, Charlie, as we do so, who is responsible for if we do have to maintain? Is it your department, or is it another department that actually does any type of clean-outs, repairs, et cetera? The agreement that we have right now is my division is responsible for cleaning a pipe or a storm inlet. We also will do the capital construction if something completely needs to be rebuilt. On more of a maintenance-oriented, if it involves structural type of things, such as the truck drove over the inlet and crushed the lid, and we all see that one a lot, or there's crushed pipes, the division of streets and roads, takes care of that. They basically, and I know Albert's here, and he may stand up here and correct me, but I think that they maintain essentially from curb to curb. And the reason for that, as far as them being responsible for the structural portion of it, is because they're responsible for maintaining the integrity of the roadway. And so, you know, rather than having two cooks in the kitchen, one coming out and raising manholes, and then another one coming in and paving, and then you end up with the dips and those kind of things like that it made more sense is that streets and roads you guys take care of the structural component of storm sewers that are located within the paved area because that way when the surface goes down it all works as an integral unit not disconnected very good i don't feel anybody behind me so i guess i got that right you did fine i'll tell you if they're walking first up we have council member clark Charlie, just quickly, the ordinance says paved ditches. Is there such a thing as a non-paved ditch? And if so, and I assume there are, whose responsibility is that if it's an easement? And that's the problem with this ordinance as it stands right now is that it's not clear. It is somewhat ambiguous. I'll be honest with you, I played a role in developing this ordinance. Ditches were not on the radar screen, unpaved ditches, Because, like I said, I'd never been involved with them before. And so all the focus, when we talk about a paved ditch, I'll use the one that's in my backyard. I have a detention basin that's part of my backyard, and there's a paved ditch there where the creek used to be, and it was built as part of the development. EPA, when the enforcement action happened, they were very focused on who was maintaining those stormwater control devices. You know, ditches, unpaved ditches, traditionally were built for getting water off the roadway. That was their sole purpose is to, you know, get it off the crown of the road. So it was not considered in the development of this ordinance. And I can honestly say, since I was also involved with the development of the water quality management fee, it wasn't on the radar screen then either because it wasn't in the cost service model to maintain ditches. Thank you, Charlie. Thank you, Chair. Any other Council members want to weigh in on this issue or have any questions for Mr. Martin while he's here? Council Member Henson. Thank you, Chair. Charlie, in the particular issue that you and I looked at, I was told that that drainage ditch, I don't know if someone from Streets and Roads can speak to this or not, but that it is doing what it's designed to do. And that's where Streets and Roads would step in, correct, Albert? That would be correct, if it was affecting the drainage of the road itself. Okay. I was out last week, I guess, when we had the hard rain. The ditches had water in them, but they were not overtopping anything out there, and they were not getting into the road. Okay. And that was about a two-inch drain, I do believe, over a period of time. I guess I have a concern that the commercial properties are paying a great deal of this water quality fee. and even, you know, it would depend on the layout of the property, of course. You know, you could tell by the design of the property where the water's coming from, what's causing it to stand in certain places. So if the drainage ditch is taking care of the public road, then I would think that would be our responsibility in the case that it wasn't. But if the drainage is standing due to the property itself, then I could see where that would be the property owner's responsibility. But I still don't feel like we have, I mean, in your opinion, is this ordinance sufficient to do what we need to do? I would like to see it be a little bit more defined, like Charlie said, and just give us some guidance. But there are some other issues. In that particular instance, there are some cross drains under their entranceways that are part of that problem, too. Okay. And that particular one you're talking about. And I know we're not talking about one property here, but because this affects the entire city. That's correct. But the reason that this ended up in committee is because we didn't feel like we had a clear understanding of what our responsibility as a city is and the property owner's responsibility. But I guess I had wished when we had had all that discussion that this would have been addressed as far as the water quality fee being implemented. So maybe we should go back and take a look at the ordinance and better define it? I think that would be advisable because, as I tried to illustrate, it is ambiguous to that type of situation. As I was saying about, you know, the ditches are built basically to drain a roadway. You build a roadway and you build a ditch line along with it. But as soon as you build the roadway, here comes the buildings, and that's the only place that they can tie into, in many cases, is the ditch line. And so after a while, you get a situation to where, one, is that you've got a ditch line that was really only built to handle one thing, and you've got all of the adjacent properties coming into it. And then there's the second part of it, as Council Member Clark alluded to, as far as paved versus non-paved. Non-paved do have some other issues with them because just of natural erosion and those type of things like that. So I think that there needs to be greater clarity on this because I know I wasn't clear on it, and I'm still not. I know that there's a legitimate concern there when it comes to being able to adequately drain a property. What concerns me most is how we would do that, And again, with the water quality management fee, is that where are the resources to do it? Right now, I'm not even certain how many ditches there are on the radar screen, and that gives me a cause to pause. Asperhens, do you have anything else? I still don't feel like we've gotten very far, but what would you suggest? Why don't we do this? Following up on Mr. Martin's last point, is there a way to map our system or go out in a shorter period of time, a month, to identify or to identify what our inventory is of these type of situations? And then secondly, Councilman Henson, could you work on language and bring it back to the committee as to ways we can improve the current ordinance? I will. Thank you. We could do that as part of some homework, and then we'll keep it in committee and address it. We can try to do that. My only concern is that we'll probably have to do fairly extensive, not only aerial, but also some field recon as well. A month might be a little bit ambitious, but we'll do our best. Well, we'll set a benchmark and try to get there. If we don't, then I completely understand. It's a large task to go through our whole inventory in about 30 days, considering you have the CAP program and other things on your belt trying to get implemented in the next 30 days. So take as long as you need on that, but I think the revisions to the ordinance can come back sooner. Okay. Any other council members run away? Vice Mayor Gordon. That was my comment is I think a month is going to be very ambitious, knowing what all is on your plate and how long it takes to map things. So I would hope we wouldn't push for the month if you need more time. I think we need to do it right and take the time that we need. So I'll look forward to the ordinance of changes that are proposed. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Anything else from the committee? Okay, moving on to our next issue. Flip back over. This is the easement construction issues brought in by Council Member Myers. Council Member Myers, you want to give us some updates? Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for taking this into committee. We've got Director Charlie Martin here to kind of go through this quick policy. But the background in the situation is that we needed some process improvement regarding how we interact with private landowners whenever we're going to do an excavation project on their property. And I've got several constituents here that I think might want to speak. I'd kind of like, if it would be the pleasure of the chair and the committee, to have us go through the policy first, and that way we can talk about what changes we're making to improve the process. And then if anybody wants to come up and speak, then maybe they can also talk about how these changes would address the situation that they currently have or did have. So without further ado, I'll kind of just let Mr. Martin go through it. And you don't have to read it word for word. And as we talked about, we weren't going to. There's not a presentation with this because the policy itself kind of speaks for itself. I did throw one slide together to just kind of help guide us today. First of all, let me say I apologize to Councilmember Myers and the gentleman or whoever is in the audience. We have failed. We should not allow these things to happen as far as not timely communication with customers, timely response, and timely restorations. And so in working with Councilmember Myers and his office in trying to develop a standard operating procedure that gets us to a path to improve performance for our customers, You have that in your packet, and there's a heading there that says draft standard operating procedure for point repairs, which is our word for excavations. What happens is that we get a call, complain, a disruption in service, and so we go out there to figure out what's wrong and try to initiate corrective repairs. I think what happens is that oftentimes there's this rush to correct the problem, and there's not enough work done in the advanced planning to where the customer understands what's going to happen and when it's going to happen. So you see the very first part of this, it spends a lot of time trying to put more detail into the advanced planning aspect of things. pre-inspection of the site, pre-construction photos of the surface so we understand and have a record of what it looks like before we get there. Essentially, planning is to begin with the end in mind instead of just reacting, showing up with the backhoe and two dump trucks and starting to rip into whatever it is that we're ripping into. The second part of this talks a lot about advanced contact with the property owners. The impacted property owner deserves an explanation of what's going to happen and some choices. The one particular incident that Council Member Myers brought to my attention is essentially we showed up, blocked somebody's driveway, and started working, and they didn't even know we were doing this, and so they can't get out of their driveway. Timeliness in the far as how we're going to do things and when it's going to be completed as far as expectations are concerned. And then lastly, probably the most important one is the restoration of the property when we're done. You know, excavations can have varying degrees of disruption, but I'm sure all of you have visited with constituents in the past that have experienced this, is that it is disruptive for folks. One of the things that we had implemented a few years ago was offering an alternative restoration where we meet with the property owner and allow them to get their own person to do the restoration. And if the estimate is consistent with what our costs would be, is that we allow them to do the restoration using their contractor. That accomplishes two things, mainly is it puts the property owner back in control. And I think that gives people a lot of comfort, particularly if you've got a lot invested in your yard. You want to make sure that it gets put back the way that you want to. Secondly, for us, though, is because the property owner then is contracting with a contractor themselves and not us, we're kind of out of it, so we don't have a long-term liability issue there. But mainly the main purpose was to give people control of their outcome. Lastly, the last component of this spends a lot of time on the follow-up after the dig is complete, is that even if we do everything right in step one and in step two, you still have to follow up and make sure that everything gets closed out the way that it's supposed to be, and we need to do a better job on that. We initiated a software program a couple of years ago called Acela. You've all heard of this before. and I pretty frequently go through there and review to see how many open work orders we have in different categories of work. And it just so happens that right before this incident happened, I had gone through and found several open work orders. I had let the maintenance department know about it, and I believe at least one of these particular ones is one of the ones that I told them this thing is still open. And so they, you know, trying to be responsible employees, rushed out to do it, and we ended up creating a bigger problem than what we had in the first place. Because before it was just open and no work had been done, and now we've got it open and it messed up and not a clear path to resolution. So the point of all of this, and I would welcome ongoing feedback with this. I look to Council Member Myers as far as what action he's looking for today, but I see this as a dynamic document and a big step to improving our performance and how we're responsive to our customers because it shouldn't happen that way. I apologize for it happening that way, and we're going to fix it. Councilor Myers. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Director Martin, for coming in today and for working on this. And I just wanted everybody to know that when we brought this to his attention, he immediately circled the wagons. He brought all the appropriate people together. And we had an excellent meeting in which this document was created. and very good partnership in the way that he worked together with us to make sure it was comprehensive in nature and that if you were to read this document, it has all the checks and balances in place and it has the accountability built into it and then places where, for example, the pre-construction photographs are going to be put into the electronic system and then the post pictures will be put there as well. So there's a lot of accountability here. there's a lot of really good process improvement here. So I just want to tell you, Charlie, we appreciate you working together. It's been really helpful to do it this way. Mr. Chair, now if this would be the appropriate time to have any of the folks who signed up to speak on this particular topic come forward and speak. If you didn't get to sign up on the sheet, raise your hand and we can accommodate that as well. Do any council members have any questions in regards to this draft that's in the packet before we open up the public comment? And Councilmember Clark's up, and then Councilmember Kay. Charlie, I know some of these events are contracted out. And so how does this new process or accountability affect outside contractors? Well, and that's a good question, because we really utilize two different kinds of outsourced contractors, There's one who does the whole project from cradle to grave, and then the others who are essentially an extension of our maintenance group. The person who heads up that contracted outsourced maintenance thing was part of this group that Council Member Myers brought up. So I wanted to make sure that we solicited that individual's input, thus that these would be utilized in the future. One of the things that we had identified is the use of door hangers. We've used door hangers for a long time. They don't always work very well. The wind blows or you hang it on the front door and nobody uses their front door. They go in through the garage or whatever else. And so some of this advanced contact stuff was really, I guess, from an outshoot of what the contractor has experienced over the years. So we're taking their model, using it to improve our processes, and likewise. I see. That's good. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Clark. Council Member Kay. Thank you, Chair. Charlie, a very minor thing, you've got a typo in number eight knocking on the door. And then kind of more substantively, we had a fairly lengthy conversation last week in this body about accountability for code enforcement. And the one thing that I would like to suggest is that when there are delays, that there be a mechanism for noting that in the file and the reasons for it. Because I think that's when we get into difficulty. You see a project, for whatever reason, isn't being completed, and you can't tell from the file why that happened. And so there's no, if a constituent calls you and says, well, you know, they were here a week ago, and now it's still dug up in what happened, there's no recourse. So I would say if there are delays for any reason, part of the procedure should be just to note that, what the reason is, if it deviates from the standard operating procedure. Thank you. Yeah, I think that's built in here because there's supposed to be that outreach to the folks who you gave an original time frame to, and if that time frame has slipped, you know, we need to move towards more of a caseworker type of format, is that if you are the foreman who's in charge of the dig-up, that you're essentially the caseworker for those individuals until you get that thing done, until it's completely crossed off your list. That way, you're having a one-on-one conversation with the affected property owners. They have the ability to have a one-on-one conversation with you, and essentially you own it until it's over with. Thank you. Council Member Farmer. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Charlie, thank you for working on this. So you were part of the group that helped draw this draft up then. Yes, sir. This is quite a standard to perform to, it strikes me. Can you perform to the standard that's set in here? I guess I'm a believer in setting the bar high rather than low. And so, as I said before, we're going to do our best at it. The Acela program, the reason why we invested in that was for that reason, And for me to have, I never really felt like I knew where we were. All right. And so, for example, we spent a lot of time on the reporting aspect of it. I sent one out today is that here are the aged work orders that are still open or pending. And, you know, we've actually had a bit of a revolving door in sewer line maintenance in particular. I think we're on our fifth superintendent in the last eight years. So continuity over there has been a problem. We have a superintendent that started in December of this year. I think that he is of the mind and of the determination to be able to turn things around. There are vacancies that are in that section as well. I kind of held them until we had selected a new superintendent because I wanted to give him the opportunity to essentially be able to build his team in order to be able to accomplish that. But I think it is a lofty one. But I think that if you set the benchmark high, then your performance is going to improve measurably. I agree with you. It's just part of the group of changes that goes along with the consent decree. So many things are going to be happening at once, it would seem. And I like your caseworker analogy. This is where people meet the person digging in their front yard, backyard, side yard. And it's about that communication being direct and clear. The sewer line maintenance folks are the one group that has more public interaction with folks than anybody else, at least in my division. I agree. What I tell them all the time is that when you deal with somebody, you've got to treat them like it's your house. Put yourself in their place. They've got a lot of emotional investment in it. And I know that's hard to do. I think I read a case study years ago about EMS folks, is that after you go on so many calls that you get somewhat desensitized to what you're doing because that's part of your job. And maybe in sewer line maintenance, it's a little bit like that too. We had 570 dig-up repairs in 2012. We operate basically two crews and the outsourced crews. So you get a lot of them. and I'm sure that there are a large portion of them that they do really well. I got an email from the mayor's email address forwarded to me the other day, providing essentially a commendation of two individuals who came out on Mother's Day to solve their problem. We do a lot of things well, but there's enough things that we don't do well that we've got to do better at. I've had them come out on a Saturday, too. They're really nice guys, and they show up and do what they can for you right then. Thank you. Chair, just one question for Council Member Myers. Just practically in looking at the draft under number three at the bottom of whatever page number this is, 19, must utilize the Polk Directory to find telephone numbers. Is there no other way? Is that the absolute? There is no other way. Well, I own stock in the Polk Directory, and so that's why I wanted to use it. No, I'm just kidding. I'm glad you asked that question because the other thing that I wanted to say is that I did not draft this. It was really, Charlie Martin's excellent. And it's clear to me that, number one, he understands what his people do. He really understands what they do. Number two, he really cares about his employees because when you hear him talk about his employees, he really talks from the perspective of a mentor. And he talked about who's doing what in different positions and how he's bringing different people along. And so really this document comes from sitting down with Charlie, explaining what his, our constituents have said were the concerns that they faced in dealing with us when we came to their property to kind of take over their property and do something. And so he really just sat and listened like a psychiatrist, and then based on him knowing what they do and how they do it, he really put this document together with his people to say, this is what we're charged with doing, how do we most effectively do that? And so, for example, that must utilize the Polk Directory, the question really would go to Charlie because he's the one that put that in there. So I just want everybody to know that. This is really a great exercise for me because I watch government and our professionals that we pay really come to listen and then produce a product that really spoke to what we said. Must is a strong word in many places, but, again, setting it high. The Polk Directory is probably the best resource that I'm aware of. You know, technology and everything is such as that, you know, where do you get somebody's cell phone number if they don't give it to you? You know, I don't have a home phone number anymore. I have a cell phone number and stuff. And so this advanced contact thing is going to continue to be a challenge because it is. It's just hard to get people to pay attention when they're living their lives and stuff. You know, we've jokingly talked about, you know, in the big construction meetings, You send out the mass mailing for a neighborhood meeting, and five people show up. You've all experienced that as well. Yes, sir. If we went out and put orange Xs on the sidewalk or on the trees, everybody would show up for that. Not that I'm advocating doing that. So what you must is that's the term that we're going to use right now in this draft. And, again, as I said, it's dynamic. As other mechanisms come about, You know, the advanced contact is that if you go out and do the pre-construction video or pre-construction photos and you knock on doors and stuff like that, there's a good chance you're going to get somebody in that. And that will kind of cull the list down to where you've got these remaining folks that you can't get in touch with. something I thought about yesterday when I was kind of thinking about what I was going to say today and didn't put in this is that if you've got somebody that you can't get tell their neighbor I'm still trying to reach Mr. Brown and they'll go over and knock on their door at 8 30 at night and say you got to call this guy because he's getting ready to do this and that should have been in here didn't think of it appreciate the answer and the work thank you chair thank you Mr. Farmer anyone else I did have a couple questions Charlie I can't help but look at the title and this is sewer line maintenance sop for sewer line maintenance only what about our other divisions such as stormwater streets and roads couldn't this spill over into a lot of those that from time to time have to work in our residences yards and do the same type of work i think you know obviously with you know their input of the folks who are the end users as council member Myers pointed out I mean I when tasked with this I went back to the people who do it and try to at least get their input on how you're going to do it you know it's you can really write a great plan but if somebody can't execute it but I mean yeah as in a boilerplate at which that others could use it yeah I mean my division exit is that pump stations and the wastewater treatment plant folks they're largely contained in their own little world and so they do This didn't really apply to them. And since structural stormwater maintenance, as we covered in the previous topic, is Albert's group. I was focused exclusively on sewer line maintenance and digging up pipes. We do a lot of that, 570 of them in 2012. In the post-consent decree world, that number is not going to go down. Yeah, I just can't think but help of all the sidewalk ramps we're putting in right now, all the, as you say, the inlets we're repairing, the stormwater projects out there, that this can't flow over into other divisions unless, I didn't want you to say that we had got this from another division. So this is brand new so we can take it the opposite direction and maybe spill it over into some other divisions. Commissioner Maloney, I know he's listening with good intentions, and I think we can maybe spread this across. And I appreciate your willingness to be the first one to draw something up like this, but I think it's well written. I appreciate Councilman Myers for bringing it to our committee, but I think a lot of people can use this type of procedures across government. If you don't mind, I'm going to go to a little commentary for just a second. I mean, one of the things that I've wanted to create in my division for a while is essentially that one person or group of people that all calls and complaints come to, that they, you know, especially in e-mail now, is that you send out the scattered e-mail hoping that somebody is going to somehow work on this and solve your problem. And, of course, the bad part of it is if you email ten people and one of them is responsible, the other nine are spending time trying to figure out how to help you. I know all of your legislative aides have that issue. Some who are more experienced know who to go to. The newer ones, they're still trying to figure out who is the person I talk to to make things happen. And it can't always be me. I'd like it to be a group or a dedicated couple of people in the division. And if I've got a problem with water quality, I'm going to deal with so-and-so, and they're going to get me to the right person quickly and be accountable for that. I still am hoping to get to that model. Thank you, sir. Anything else from the committee on this issue? Okay, we do have a couple members of the public here that would like to speak on this issue. First, we have Donald Schaffner. If you'll come up and give us your name and address, and you have three minutes to address the committee. My name is Donald Schaffner, and I live at 3340 High Hope Road. Let's see. To begin with, the problem at my residence, it actually originated at my neighbor's sewer line, backed up sewage into her home. This was back in June of 2012. As of today, my property has still not been repaired. I made several attempts to get in touch with supervisors that were working on the job, foremen. I think the first call I made was August 29th. I got bounced around. Eventually, he told me that he would show up the next day. to start work on the project. He never did. This kept going until eventually December 13th. They came out with a backhoe, set it up in my yard, didn't knock, didn't call, nothing. My wife was inside the house. Luckily, she was able to come out, get the van out of the garage before she was stuck in there. You know, if she hadn't came out, I don't know how many kids would have gotten picked up from school that day. Or pretty much for the next week since they never came back and filled the hole. Eventually I got that current supervisor on the phone, and he said he would come out within a week and do a cult patch. Because obviously it was December, and they couldn't do anything other than that. I still have gravel in my driveway. they've destroyed my landscaping my lawn eventually I did meet with Charlie and Councilman Meyer about two weeks ago I suppose and we discussed the alternative to go and get my own contractor to do the repairs so I think that's a good thing that I've got a little bit controlled back now and I know it's going to be put back the way that I like as it comes to the proposed draft I like that I probably would have written it up the same way looking over it throughout this whole situation I've lost a lot of faith in the city because I love living here. I've lived here for 12, 15 years, paying my taxes. I'm a small business here, but this has left a major bad taste in my mouth. But I'm glad that things are getting taken care of now on my property, and I hope to get it fully resolved soon myself. Thank you, Mr. Schoffman. We appreciate the comments, and hopefully we can restore your faith in our city. as time moves forward and appreciate your endorsement of our draft. Next we have up Kim Schroeder. If you'll please give us your name and address. My name is Kim Schroeder and I live at 3336 High Hope Road. And I just want to say I appreciate the time the committee and the council has taken to address this issue. As Mr. Schaffner mentioned, the reason he has had damage to his property was because of damage to our property. And I feel like while this is a great step in the right direction, it doesn't address the underlying issue. The reason Mr. Schaffner's driveway was dug up was because after five years, two sewer backups and $30,000 worth of damage to my home, we repeatedly called the city to ask for what should be routine sewer maintenance. two of the gentlemen who responded to the second sewer backup alerted us to the fact that our sewer line should probably be scoped because it was determined there was no damage on our property to any of our sewer lines. There wasn't anything we could do to prevent further backup. So after repeated calls to the city, they finally came out and scoped the line and found that the sewer line was actually crushed under the easement in Mr. Schauffner's driveway. After repeated calls again, they finally came out in December. The second backup was in June. In December, they finally came to make the repairs, and that's when Mr. Schaffner's driveway was destroyed and his wife was almost caught in their house. And we so empathize with them because we've been going through the same thing for five years. And I think I really echo his sentiments. We have little to no faith in the city. It was our first home. We had lived there less than six months before everything in our home was damaged. furniture, carpeting, walls, drywall, soaked in human waste. People tell me all the time about stormwater backups, and I empathize with them again, but when you're walking around in toilet paper and human waste in your home, it's disheartening, particularly when you're a first-time homebuyer. This is my husband and I first foray into this. And so I'd really encourage you all to start looking at those underlying issues. I mean, in our mind, we've actually marked on our calendar to contact the city again to have our lines scoped because we frankly can't afford to keep reconstructing our home because of these sewer backups. And unfortunately, there's nothing we can do in terms of additional maintenance on our property to alleviate the problem. So we just encourage you to really look, while this is a step in the right direction and really address Mr. Schaffner's problems. I mean, my husband and I have considered multiple times moving out of the city just because we We don't want to keep reinvesting our money in fixing a problem where we can't really get at the source of the problem. We can't alleviate that. So I'd really encourage you all, the gentleman who was speaking before, to think about if this was your home and you were wandering around in human waste and had to throw out your belongings because they were soaked in sewage, how you would want that entire process to be handled and how you would want to be treated. Thank you. Ms. Scherer, thank you so much. We appreciate the comments. Anyone else from the public have any comments on this particular issue? Yes, sir. Give us your name and address. My name is Louis Proctor. I live at 3617 Bovita Drive. But the one thing that I think the department should consider is reviewing their system of checking sewer lines. an issue happened around this time last year across the street from me in which they dug up, they spent at least an hour and a half digging and then breaking apart the pipe for a sewer line that was not in use. It had turned out evidently that the line was under a tree. The tree completely closed the line. and they put in a second line. They shut this line off and put in another line. And so they did all this digging, broke up the towel, and tried to unclog the line. They pulled out four feet of tree roots the exact size of the pipe. They brought in a high-powered water truck. It took about 45 minutes for them to get there. Excuse me. And they tried, and they couldn't unclog the line. But again, this was a deadline. Now, I observed the guys about two or three weeks earlier running their camera through, and evidently they made a mistake when they identified this as being the clogged line, but they didn't notice the other line three or four feet over. That was open. the lady who had no knowledge of their coming out to do any work came out and said, what are they doing? Well, they're going to unclog your sewer line. I don't have a problem with my sewer line. So eventually they go up to the clean out. They put some water with dye in it. And that water went, and then they came out. And here's the dye. Well, then they realized there was a new line over there. So all that worked for nothing. The equipment cost, you know, the time and the material they had to use to repair what they had broken apart. Okay. And the most important thing is that, and then, of course, they did have another job two doors over. There was some clog in that line. And the gentleman came out not knowing anything was happening. My God, I can't afford all of this. How much is this going to cost me? And I said, don't worry about it. They're going to take care of it. But unfortunately, neither person was contacted to say, we will be coming out to unclog your sewer lines. And if they had communicated with the lady, the first one, they would have said, hey, we have no problem. There's no need to do anything with her because she had no clog. okay so yes please communicate thank you mr parker we appreciate that is there anyone else from the public wish to address the committee at this time any other council members want any follow-up comments councilor myers thank you mr chair i just want to say that that's my father lou proctor that came out and spoke so if you want to know where i get it it comes from him Thank you. I wasn't going to say that, but Mr. Proctor, Mr. Schaffner, Ms. Schroeder, thank you so much for coming and helping us on this issue, and hopefully we can improve our communication and your faith in our government. So thank you. All right, next, before we move on to the next item on the list, I received the sign-up sheet late in regards to the first item, the drainage ditch issue. And Ms. Stites, are you still here? I know you had signed up to speak about the issue prior. Do you want to speak now or do you want to wait until the end? Well, if you'd like to come up and if you'll give us your name and address, and you have three minutes to address this. And I apologize, counsel. We need to go back one issue. Ms. Stites? Hi, I'm Katie Stites, and I reside at 215 McDowell Road. I have the issue of the non-paved drainage ditch at 386 Waller. And I just wanted to point out that my neighbors' drainage ditch issues have already been addressed by the city. And the city paid for that, undertook it all, and that's why I request that the city would kindly take care of me. Also, I wanted to point out that the city hired ATS Construction to come to Waller and add a middle third turn lane. And because of that, then all of the dirt was disrupted, and it was pushed over into the ditch, and now it altered the ditch. And the ditch is very shallow, and it's not nearly as wide as it was formerly. So I wanted for the city to please consider that. Also, I'd like for the city to consider finding some funds to correct the problem of the drainage ditch there at 386, since they were the ones that created it when they hired the ATS, et cetera, and caused the ditch to have the problems that it has. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Deitz. We appreciate your comments. Ms. Deitz, were you here at the beginning of the meeting? and you heard we're going to keep this in committee and look at revising our ordinance. I know the Department of Law and Commissioner Maloney are looking into your specific issue, but the committee will continue to look at our current ordinances and see what we need to do. Any changes recommended? I just want to make sure you were here to hear that. Were you here earlier? Yes, sir. Okay. And can I ask, I have had correspondence with different people here, and I certainly appreciate it, and I'm unclear whether or not it would be streets and roads or exactly what division and who I should be communicating with about this. I was told by Mr. Richard Maloney that the city needed some additional information, and, you know, I have been working on this now for about two years, and I was wondering what additional information do they need? Well, they are all here, so Commissioner Maloney, you can speak with him in the back. during the meeting, I'm sure they can explain to you the proper challenges and what information they might need on your particular issue. So, Mr. Marlone, can you address Ms. Stite's question when you get a second in the back, and then we'll proceed with our agenda? Yes, sir. Please. Thank you. Next on our agenda is the Division of Waste Management and an update on our operations efficiency boost, otherwise known as OEB. And before we get into our demonstration on the GPS, I want to revisit back from our last meeting, and the folks from the Leadership Lexington class are here once again, so thank you for coming back. But I wanted to also provide an opportunity for the administration and Director Feast to respond to what they're working on and how it pertains to your particular project. So if we could do that first, that way, unless you would like to stay for the GPS, you can feel free to go. But if you want to stay and see our demonstration, please do, because it may give you some fuel to your fire as to what you're working on as well. So, Mr. Feast, you want to kind of give us a quick update on how your department is working on these? I'll be brief. Your information is in the packet. I don't know if you have since we've kind of changed up the order here. But first of all, I would like to thank all the folks from Leadership Lexington for all the work they've done. Esther Moberly and I sit in on a lot of their sessions kind of acting as resource people. I can tell you this was not the standard leadership placements and project. The amount of hours that they committed to this project was enormous. Very impressed with everything they did. And, Director, before you get started, it's on page 39 for committee members. That's where we're going to start, actually. Okay. And so, yeah, we were just asked to come back and talk about our view of everything in terms of what we're doing working towards zero waste. And let's see here. There we go. And so what we're going to do is just talk briefly about some of the initiatives that we're involved with. I'm not going to bore you with all the details. Most of you are already aware of what we're doing. But we're going to take point by point the recommendations from leadership places and just talk about them. First of all, with education, we do as a community quite a bit with education related to solid waste and recycling and composting. Lex call 76,000, almost 77,000 calls a year that are related to waste management, recycling, composting. A lot of those are asking questions about how do I recycle, how do I compost. We do a lot with newsletters. One of the big things that we do is Bluegrass Pride is one of our partners that has worked in schools over the last four or five years and is now working primarily with businesses and apartment communities. Every school in Fayette County, public or private, has a significant recycling program in it. Many of them are very strong. Some of them are going towards zero waste. Expanding organics collection and processing. Our waste room analysis back in 2008 showed that a huge component of our waste stream was made up of organic material, things that would rot. and didn't need to be landfill. Now, we've made strides in that area since 1997. We've picked up yard waste separately. Of course, we do the leaf vacuum program. One of the areas where we're not very strong in yet, and it's a burgeoning area all across the United States, is really focusing on food waste composting and the rest of the organic stream. we are doing a couple pilot programs in the Southland area and with some of the selected businesses and schools for food waste composting so it's a whole new realm if you look at a pie chart of our waste stream the largest untouched component of the landfill material is food waste and other organic materials Okay. As far as recommending the recommendation to expand the MRF, we are looking at our 2014 budget. We put $700,000 in there to really deal with expanding our overall capacity to handle business materials. That's something that, you know, if we're really focusing now on that portion of the waste stream, that's really where we need to increase the capacity. We're also doing other initiatives like paper shred day and business recycling increases. Construction and demolition recycling facility. We've put money in the budget for 2014 to move forward on a system that we're looking at behind the old transfer station and old Frankfort Pike to perform construction and demolition recovery. We're already doing some other things as far as paint reuse with Habitat for Humanity. As far as really focusing on hard-to-recycle items, we have started the e-waste facility at the Vercels Road campus. That's been in operation for the last seven, eight years. And we are also looking next year at having the household hazardous waste facility up and running. We were retrofitting the old truck wash on Bird Thurman Drive, so we will finally have a permanent waste facility for residents to bring paint, chemicals of all kinds, oil, antipodes, and things of the nature. We also do some of the hard-to-recycle items, such as MedTOS, in conjunction with the police department. We do tire-emnest days in conjunction with the State Department of Natural Resources. On the next two slides, we've got really two areas that we've talked about in the Waste Management Task Force. The recommendation about establishing a uniform baseline waste collection system all across the county, regardless of whether it's private or LFUCG. We've talked about that, and we've also talked about the recommendation for revising the rate structure. Most of those things I'm sure we'll continue to talk about here in the near future. The last two recommendations from Leadership Lexington, we've got some room to grow there as far as more or less establishing policies that promote zero waste, updating our ordinances, and whether or not we want to change our name at the Division of Waste Management. Those are things that we certainly need to take a strong look at. And ultimately, the recommendation is that we move ahead with pursuing a strategic plan, and one that includes a business model, timelines, policies that support these activities. And that's really all I have to say. Any questions? Council members, any questions for Director Fease as it pertains to this issue? Any update from Leadership Lexington? Ms. Cave, do you want to respond in any way or have any other additional things to add to what you all presented last week? I know you had to rush out, so okay. Well, good. Well, thank you all for your work. Thank you for that update, Steve. And we'll continue to keep working on all of these initiatives, and I think there's a lot of good opportunities here. So, Steve, who is going to present on the GPS demonstration? Ms. West? Not done yet. I'm sure most of you know that about three or four years ago, we procured a routing management system for the additional waste management. and we didn't realize exactly at the time what we were getting. We certainly got a routing system, and we have rerouted, taken the first wipe, and we've already realized a dramatic level of decrease in our routes. We've cut out seven routes. This year we'll cut out ten trucks out of our fleet. But along with that package came a whole set of opportunities for us to really change the way that we operate at the Division of Waste Management in terms of providing better customer service, increased efficiency, more responsiveness. And so we're continuing to work with this software and developing the interfaces and working with employees to really change the way we do everything. And so Brittany West is going to make a presentation, giving an update on this. She's our project manager, and she's done a great job of moving us forward. and right now I'll leave it up to you. Thank you Steve and good afternoon council members. Welcome. Thank you for the opportunity for us to be able to present our progress on the operation efficiency boost project at the division of waste management. Of course it's also known as the routing system and the GPS system but we call it the routing system because it's just easier for us. Today I would like to discuss with you the project objectives as well as some of the efficiencies that we've gained since the implementation of Phase 1. And then I would like to review with you those things that we did implement in Phase 1, as well as one of the implementation discoveries that gave us a little bit of a setback, but we've been able to overcome that and work towards our end goal of integrating these systems. And then finally, I would like to review with you the Phase 2 components and where we're going in the next few months. And we've got some exciting stuff to tell, So hopefully I can keep you awake when we get down deep from the technical stuff. Okay, so the first piece that I'd like to review with you is the increase in revenue that we intend to realize by utilizing the data from the system that we're gathering. Every day the routes go out, and as the routes go out, we see what's collected and what's not collected. And part of analyzing that data will allow us to target areas that are maybe not recycling as much as some of the other areas and maybe do some promotional activities to those areas to get more recycling going. It will also allow us to look at the dumpster upsell opportunities and pieces like that where a commercial group may have a bunch of rosies that we're collecting on a business side, and we can work on getting them a recycling dumpster that would be revenue for us to bring in. And then ultimately it's to give us more accurate billing. What are we actually getting services on out there in our collection area? What do we service? How many Herbies? How many Rosies? How many Linnies? What ancillary services are we providing regularly? And on the next slide, I'd like to show you what we've done so far with our implementation. As part of the Phase I implementation, our routing system has allowed us to realize $394,740 increase per year for our landfill user fees. And this is due to the reconciliation of looking at what drivers are running on their routes and making sure that we are accurately billing for those landfill user fees. And that we've done all of that while we continue to reduce our fleet size because we're able to look at our routes and balance them appropriately with the data that we are retrieving. Okay. As far as the operational cost containment that we're able to realize, We intend on making a 50% reduction in the number of go-backs. Go-backs are considered whenever a customer calls into LexCol, excuse me, a citizen calls into LexCol and lets us know that we've missed a container. And so currently in the month of April, across all commodities, we've had 628 missed pickups. We would like to decrease that to at least 300 or less. And we intend to do that by monitoring in the afternoon as a post-trip inspection to ensure that all of the routes have made it down their streets and have done their collections for the day. Because we have the ability to look in real time during the day to see if those stops have been collected. The other piece that we're looking at is balancing the routes by utilizing the data that we retrieve and the number of stops per pickup that we have on each route. And making it more fair and more uniform across all of the routes for the drivers. And one thing that we've been able to realize so far is we are decreasing the amount of overtime that we have, at least in the PeopleSoft values of how much we are spending on overtime. There's been a 50% reduction from last year's physical year to this year's physical year in our overtime by looking into these routes and looking at idle time on the routes and ensuring that the drivers are being productive and efficient. On our customer service side, we are implementing pieces with LexCol to work with real-time service request completion. We've been able to work on our ancillary services, our cart delivery and mattress pickup. And one positive note that I do not have in the presentation today is that our cart delivery has gone from an average completion time of 15 days to 3 days. So we've really honed in on getting those services completed for the citizens. and LexCol has also been given an opportunity to have a piece of our application to utilize to answer citizen phone calls when they call into LexCol and let them know when they can expect to have the truck come by and when they regularly get collected if they have questions on that and some of the pieces that we've realized already and I've got some metrics coming up on the next few slides, is we are seeing a downward trend in the amount of missed commercial pickups. The red line on the graph indicates when we completed the implementation of Phase 1 and when we implemented our work groups. And I'll discuss work groups a little bit later in the slide so that you'll have more of an understanding. The other piece that we're seeing is where we have a downward trend on missed streets from LexCol. And again, the red is where we have implemented our work groups. We are also seeing an increase or decrease in the claims that were submitted for waste management overall. Our safety improvements have come in by having onboard systems on the machine that allow turn-by-turn directions and navigation for the drivers. That alleviates them from having to look at paper maps during the day that were color-coded to the areas that they're to pick up. It allows us to configure right turns, so that makes it a little easier for the drivers to utilize as well and limits traffic issues. And we're also utilizing the data that we receive to ensure that we're getting the information back into the system to use it for capital planning purposes. If a truck has an electronic inspection report that comes back and it often has significant issues over and over again, we can target that truck for replacement. And this graph shows that we are having a downward trend on those total number of claims, and that was taken from our risk system. Okay. The final piece that we are seeing is that we are getting recognition in the city of Lexington as being an innovator in the waste collections industry by implementing smart truck technology. Our routing partner, Routeware, has been able to give other cities our information and ask them to reference us as the implementation group to help them answer questions. Recently, the city of Albuquerque was referred to us as a group that has went through an implementation and can answer their questions regarding issues that they may have during their implementation. And then we would like to, of course, be a leader in our customer response times, our citizen response times to closing things out and ensuring that we are utilizing our data for operational and business decision making. Okay, so we move on to Phase 1. Our project team completed a huge milestone in Phase 1 by implementing and integrating our address GIS XY, our lat-long components. That allows us to get every address in the city to where our truck would recognize where that pickup was. So by integrating the address GIS points, it allowed us to get our repository of services complete so that we could run the stops and have a clear picture in our system of what was being collected and what was not being collected. We also were able to complete all of our onboard computer systems, and I know you guys have seen a lot of payments coming through for route wear and those items. The units that were in the truck were four years old because we started this back in 2009, and we're just now getting leverage and we're starting the implementation process. So as we went through, we found that a lot of the onboard computer equipment was in need of replacement. It had old parts. It was broken. and so we have a resource on staff that helps us bring that up to speed, and we've got a fully functioning fleet, and we're able to dispatch routes to those now. And after implementing Phase 1, you'll notice this slide depicts the issue that we found upon implementation. Our addressing GIS components are typically at the center of the parcel. So you'll have the center parcel, your address is in the middle. Our routing system has a GPS halo on the truck that only extends a certain footage around the truck. So when it was traveling down the street, it was unable to find the addressing GIS piece that was given to us from our system. And then issue number two was that the containers aren't always on the street that the physical address is at. So we found that a lot of times people's driveway, they put their containers out where their driveway is, and it's on the other street. So in this example, on Street 1, that's where our truck was expecting to see the containers, but it's actually on Street 2. So in order to rectify this problem, we created a team that worked through every route and every service point that we had to collect the street-level container GIS coordinates that we needed in order to get this information in our system. As part of that work group, we also implemented training in a peer-to-peer type of way, where a driver who was very proficient with the system was brought into the fold to help train his fellow drivers. And we used this opportunity to get feedback from the drivers and work through the process of things that they had found on their systems that they didn't like. We tried to address for them and make it better. We are currently servicing approximately 223,000 containers. That's not extra set-out. That's not yard waste bags or bundles. That's strictly containers in our system. And the work group has been able to process about 42% of those since August, and they've really made a strong headway through getting all those in there for us. The remaining 50% will be our Rosie Linney additions, which we will be doing electronically, so we're not going to have the drivers go out and pick up where the Rosie Linneys are. we'll be collecting those GPS coordinates from the Herbys. So we actually completed that on Friday. So we have our Rosie Linneys in, and we're going to start testing those routes coming up probably over the next week or so and getting everybody on board. Due to these work groups, we have increased our driver on board usage from being at 56% to being near 100%. These are only the drivers that have went through our workgroup training sessions with their peer-to-peer drivers, and they've really done an excellent job of coming on board and giving us positive feedback and suggestions that we can use going forward to help them with the systems. And the Rosie-Linney routes will be going through exactly the same workgroup and process as the Herbies and the commercial pickups. Our phase two pieces consist of adding, of course, the Rosie-Lenny routes and getting them to complete those work groups, and integration of our weight data to help us understand how to optimize the routes efficiently. We currently just completed our integration of our weight data from the transfer station and our recycling center and from the landfill. So we are getting that data into the system now and being able to take a look at how many times someone goes to the dump and how much they're actually dumping in those locations. And the other piece that we're working towards currently is the integration with LexCol in a real-time closeout where we can route the service request from LexCol, create a route, send it to routeware, and then allow the driver to close that out and then close it in LexCol. So we're really making some headway on that. And this comes from a time where we had hundreds of sheets of paper that people would print and give to a supervisor, and then they would try to sort those paper into a map for someone to take and close out. And it may or may not get back to where it belongs. So we really need some headway on those pieces. And then finally, I would like to extend an invitation to any of you who would like to see the system in action at Waste Management. I'll be more than happy to walk you through the different pieces. I provided you a briefing document that gives you a little bit more in-depth. If you didn't get enough of the technical components, there's a lot more in that briefing document. Okay? So questions, answers, hopefully I can provide them. Is there not a way to do the system example here on this overhead? No, because of the way the wireless is set up here. I have to have an Internet connection in the way that I get into the system, I've found, can be a little plugey if I'm not connected to a hard wire. Fair enough. Maybe we'll set up a field trip for the committee. Sounds great. I'll walk you through it. Come on out. Very good. Committee members, do you have any questions in regards to our update? Councilman Henson. Thank you, Chair. Thank you for your presentation. And it's good to see that the efficiencies are coming into place. I did have a question as far as with this system, does that make your route times quicker? Does it change that as far as mileage and driver hourly rate, I assume? Yes. Actually, we're utilizing the data right now as we get it in to make a standard across the board of what a route should consist of. how many stops is accurate based off of the average that we see. The system will allow us to look at average stops per minute, and then we can see should a driver be running at this minute or should they be running at this minute, and we utilize that to standardize those routes across the board, which, yes, it does decrease the amount of time that we have drivers out on routes. And then, I guess, can you distinguish the areas that are not recycling as compared to the ones that are? Absolutely. We can. Right now, we've put in a group of containers, and we're going to see where the drivers are picking up and where they're not picking up. And if they're not picking up in an area, we can focus on that and see if we can promote recycling. That sounds great. Thank you. We'll get there. We will get there. Thank you, Council Member Henson. Council Member Lane. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for your presentation. I was just curious about the cost for the GPS system, how much it costs to implement all that. I will have to get back. Can I tally up some numbers for you? Because I don't have it off the top of my head. I know that we have spent a lot on it over the years, but a lot of that had to do with us not implementing it timely as well. So let me see if I can get those numbers and get those back to you. Okay, and then the second part of that question would be you probably are saving money because you've reduced the length of the routes and maybe have less personnel, less trucks, less fuel costs and all that. Could you sort of analyze what your payback will be, how many years it might take you to earn back the cost through the savings, and of course you'll have the ultimate efficiency going into the future. I thought that would be a good question. for the ROI of the system in general. I think originally we had leverage partners come in as a consultant, and they did do some analysis up front of what we would end up seeing as an increase. And they had put the ROI at approximately 24% in realizing that as of 2014. However, that was not taking into account the discovery of issues as you went into the different phases of it. So we're looking at those. Okay, well, if you could come back with a little follow-up report on that, I'd be very interested to see it. Will do. Any other council members wish to comment or have questions? All right. Thank you so much. Thank you. We appreciate the update. Next on our agenda is monthly financials. Does any committee member have any questions on the monthly update on financials or wish to ask any questions of the administration? They're here to answer. Anyone? Okay. Vice Mayor Gordon. I guess really not to put this into the spotlight so much, but since we are getting out of ways on our water quality feet, Charlie, I know that we just talked about not thinking about the drainage ditches when we did the water quality fee, but when you look at your fund, do you see anything that stands out from when we implemented this? You know, we had the financial model that guided us as to how much the fee should be and anything that's really not running true to what our guesstimate's going to be. It's hard to characterize that right now. in this level of snapshot. I can tell you the things that concern myself, and I share this with Bill on a regular basis, is that you remember when we implemented the water quality management fee is that it was only set up to incur the debt service for half of the $30 million capital obligation that we were going to be required to do. We've been able to use existing bond funds to be able to shave off some of that $30 million. We're getting ready to transition into the next phase of that, which includes part of the Kentucky Infrastructure Authority loan that we were endorsed for last month, roughly $4.5 million in stormwater projects. That's a very favorable loan condition, but it's going to be a new loan that's going to be pressing against this fund. I know Bill's sitting here. I don't want to say too much, but I'm not worried yet. But the big concern is that I know we still have a capital obligation that this fund going into it wasn't prepared to handle. And so then when we start talking about adding things in that weren't on the radar screen, that concerns me. Well, that concerns me too. I mean, at the time this council passed this fee, we had a pretty thorough, planned-out look at how it would be spent. And I guess I would have concern about other things that weren't projected getting added in, and that is a concern. I mean, we don't want to get in a situation like we have with some other funds that are not living up to the expectations that we set up for them. You know, I know that we're in the process of, well, I assume that we're in the process of finishing up the audit. Bill and his team and my team have worked on that quite a bit. I think that getting ready for the FY14 budget maybe has derailed some of our progress on that. But, you know, it might be a good time to look at that and reevaluate our priorities. As you recall, the number one priority at the time had to do with the consent decree and being able to meet water quality requirements. Those are still priorities. They didn't go away. We've just been able to manage them to the ground. It wasn't as much about drainage with the exception of the $30 million because that was also a consent decree obligation. As you recall, we talked about street sweeping and leaf collection and all that, and we all decided to set those things aside because they were not a consent decree obligation. At least that's my interpretation of it. It was not a consent decree obligation. and then when we were implementing that fee, it was a very difficult time to go to the community and say, we need another fee. And so we set those things aside. But, I mean, there's nothing that prevents us from talking about them in the future. But as you said, we do it in the context of the aggregate, not individually. Yes, I appreciate it. Commissioner, you came right up. So I wouldn't want to, Mr. Chairman, I wouldn't want to give, you know, take away your opportunity to respond. Well, I wanted to respond with another level of answer to your question. When I took over the acting commissioner's job, Charlie, in his thoroughness, reminded me that there was a requirement in the original ordinance that requires a review after so many years and that we were due to that. And next Tuesday, I've already put this into the system, next Tuesday before Council, we'll be engaging Dean Dorton Ford Allen to do agreed-upon procedures to review the water quality fee as stipulated in that ordinance. Okay. And we're hoping to have that response back by the end of the summer, which would give a third-party review of how we've used the dollars in the past year. as a comparison to the ordinance, which is, I think, helping to address some of the issues that you're talking about. Okay, I appreciate that. That's exactly, I think, what Council wanted from that and the reason we put it in. So thank you, and thank you, Charlie. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Any other committee members have any questions on our monthly financials? Okay. Moving on to our next item and last, project list. Charlie, you want to give us an update of our multicolored project list? Yeah, the big 11 by 17 multicolored. You know, I always try to just hit the highlights. I'm sorry. Number 25 on your list, the Capacity Assurance Program. As you recall, we brought forth the task force recommendations back in December. There was a resolution passed endorsing those recommendations. Substant to that, my team has reconvened and brought in stakeholders, some of the stakeholders that participated in the task force, to begin crafting the ordinance necessary to implement those. The ordinance was blue-sheeted on Friday, so most likely you'll be seeing that in your packet on Thursday. for work session Tuesday the 21st. So it's coming forward. We involved a lot of the stakeholders that were involved before. I think we have a pretty good work product. I say that with some reservations because it's really hard to have a good work product with some folks, including myself. There's a lot of risk. There's a lot of uncertainty associated with it. But I think that we've got the best that we can moving forward to meet a requirement of the consent decree. Then on numbers 31 through 33, that's Bobolink, Century Hills, and East Lake Trunk Sewer. Those are three of our first consent decree projects, capital projects. What I'm told is that we expect to break ground on those this year. I think that there have been, well, I'm certain there's been public meetings held on all three of them. The Council Member of Scotchfield is nodding because I think two of them are in our district. So the dirt is about ready to start flying. Can you bring up that other slide, that one last one that I had? Number 34 is a fairly significant dirt flying project, and things are getting ready to happen with it as well, and that's the Town Branch Wastewater Treatment Plant Storage Tank. As you may recall, the original budget was $111 million for 44 million gallons of storage. Vernon Azevedo and his team have led a value engineering process through this and basically determined that the best location for the first phase of this storage is actually on Town Branch itself. And so you see a slide here. Right here is Lyle Industrial Avenue as it makes the turn. This is the stockyards right here. And so this is our driveway coming into Towne Branch. The outlined red area is where the storage tank is going to be built. First phase, 22 million gallons. Here's the rub is that that's where the existing sewer line maintenance and pump station folks are located. And so we're going to have to relocate them off-site from Towne Branch. There's an RFP that's going to be hitting the street today soliciting proposals for square footage to either lease and or purchase to be able to relocate these facilities. A mix of office, commercial, industrial type of stuff. We spent some time looking around and it finally dawned on us that we were better off just to go out and post something out there and see what hits. And that's going to be an interesting process. So some of you may be getting recruited right now. I sent an email to Stacy looking for a volunteer from the council office to assist us in this selection process. So stay tuned or lay low, whichever it is that you choose. Moving on is number 51. Actually, it's also referenced as number 90. I mentioned this for Council Member Farmer. He's asked me about this a couple of times. we're still leaning on the state to try to get them to issue their approval. They're not used to reviewing stormwater projects, and so they have to review it because this is involved with the loan. But I'm assured that we're going to get this by the end of the month. So hopefully we'll still be walking a bit on before we get to your break. Otherwise, if there's any questions, I tried to hit basically what the really hot button issues are. You can see that they're broken into what's completed, what's going on, and what's getting ready to happen. Anyone have any questions on the updated list of projects? Councilmember Massadi, first up. Thank you, Chair. Charlie, this is just a quick question, but I'm not sure. I look at some of these, and they say stormwater quality grants that are all throughout the list. I've had some neighborhoods ask me, and I'm just not familiar with it, does it have to be on public property, or can it be on private property with these stormwater quality grants? I mean, it affects like a certain neighborhood, and it has to do with drainage or erosion or whatever, but it's not on public property. It actually more often is on private property than it is public property. We've had a couple that involve public property, but it has to be something that we're not required to do or is an obligation of Irving County Government. But the private property, like I said, they lead most of that. So if there's a private property issue that somebody wants, they can go on our website and learn about what the application process is or contact our office. They would get them in touch with somebody that would help kind of explain to them some of the nuances of applying. There's a scoring sheet that is involved with this, and then there's a separate board that is appointed by the mayor that actually reviews these applications and takes our staff recommendations. But like with any competitive grant, you get a whole lot more people applying for it than who actually win. And so there's always the nuance of how you prepare your submittal. Is it a matching grant, like the neighborhood matching grant, or is it fully funded? We do both. is that there's only so much of a limited pot of money, and so we try to encourage folks to provide matching. Sometimes the neighborhoods will provide some in-kind type of matching. Sure, labor or whatever. Okay. Sure. Thank you. Anyone else? Any other questions on our project list? Okay. Vice Mayor Gordon. I don't have a question on the project list. Could we go back? I forgot a question on the operating funds that I wanted to ask, and it's not about yours, Charlie. I don't know if there's anybody left here to talk about it, the landfill. Operating funds, not mine. Is there any? I know Bill left. I just wanted. I know maybe we can tag to him because we just went over this in the link, too. so maybe I can help too. I'm so sorry, and it's not really numbers related, but when we look at the landfill fund, I just wanted to ask, okay, so the old Frankfort Pike landfill is closed, and how much do you know offhand how much we're spending to maintain it? As a percentage of the overall fund, it's very small, I believe. Okay. Okay. And then the Raven Run landfill, as I understand, was closed by the state, correct? I believe they used their, what they used to call their orphan landfill program to help. So do we monitor it or do they monitor it? And do we have any expense related with that ongoing monitoring of Raven Run landfill? We have to check on that. I don't think we have any expense related to that. I don't think we spend much on that, just trying to recollect the requisitions that I've seen come through. But, you know, I believe we still own it, right? So with ownership comes the responsibility. So I'm not sure what our, just for that fraction of it, I'm not sure what the liability is long term. Maybe next month, are we going to have these every quarter or every month? We'll have them every month so we can discuss them. Maybe you could get those answers for the next month's operating fund. And then the status of Haley Pike landfill, is it closed yet totally? It ceased accepting waste a year ago. But is it actually capped and closed? George is overseeing that. The project is complete. It was actually completed in December. The only thing left is we're doing some reseeding out in that area where the grass hasn't taken, and so we're monitoring that. Okay, so it's in the monitoring phase except for the grass reseeding? Yes, it is for the municipal waste portion of it. It's still taking yard waste and those type of recycles. Okay, so what would be really helpful if you could do it for next month is we don't have any landfills left, correct? that were in Fayette County that we're using. That belong to us now. That belong to us. It would be really helpful for me and maybe some other council members to see this operating fund and how the expenditures are being, where they're going. I mean, other than the general category, since our landfills are all closed. Well, I know some of that landfill fund goes to disposal of waste. Right, and it would be helpful to see that broken out. Yeah, but let's see it broken out, though, how much we're paying Republic, et cetera. Yes. I think just it's kind of a unique fund because our landfills are closed. So it would be helpful to see the breakdown of how it's being used. We can provide that information. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Very good. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Anything else on our project list or financials at this point? I will remind my colleagues, if you hadn't already heard, that we are – I'm sorry, Councilman Myers, did you want to jump in? Okay, I want to remind next month we have been asked to cancel our meeting in preparation for the budget discussion. So we will not have a June meeting for environmental quality. So that means we will not meet again until August. But if there is an issue, I don't mind having a special call meeting. If there's another issue, such as the distillery district master final plan gets back to us, be glad to have that meeting. If there's another issue you see on our items referred that you'd like to hear sooner than our August, because, again, July is a short month, I'd be happy to do that as well. Councilor Myers. Thank you, Mr. Chair. A couple of things on the policy that we just looked at in terms of how we address people's private property. I'd like to, and Charlie and I kind of discussed this, move this out of committee and on so that we can actually vote this out. And I don't know if we need to make it an ordinance or a resolution stating that this is our policy or how we want to do that, but I'd like to do that. And then also I'd like to leave the issue in committee. My constituents ask me to leave it in there and maybe six months from now just get an update from Charlie on how the new policy is working. Okay. We can leave it in and note that as an update item. Okay. Are you making a motion? Yes, sir. I'd like to make a motion that we move said policy forward through the process to be blue sheeted. Seconded. Okay. There's a motion by Councilman Myers and a second by Councilman Clark to approve the draft SOP, Standard Operating Procedure for the Sewer Line Maintenance Division, and move it to the full council for approval. Any discussion on that? Vice Mayor Gordon. Thank you. I just had a question. So since this is a standard operating procedure within a division, and I'm trying to think of other SOPs we've done in divisions, how is this going to actually work? Are we doing an ordinance or a resolution? It's like we're putting your operation procedure on you. So it's a little unusual, And I just want to know. Yeah, it would be probably a resolution. Through, okay. And I would also say. But not a CAO policy. I think we kind of talked about it being a little bit more gravitas behind it than that, not that that's not a big hammer. And part of the reason was the chair spoke earlier to Mr. Martin about whether or not this could become the policy that we use sort of as a standard across the government for different divisions that do work on private property. So it is a little bit bigger than just Charlie's group. But I think it's important. One of the things that I heard from our constituents is it's really important to them that we get this right and that Charlie has the leverage he needs to do what he needs to do. And this is a new way of doing business, right? And so I'll just be quiet now and let Charlie speak. Yeah, I don't know if I would characterize this as a new. So it's putting in writing and having a more consistent way of doing business. Because, again, like I said, we have good days. I mean, I've got a lot of stories and a lot of e-mails and stuff I've gotten about where they did things just exactly right and people were thrilled. It's about doing a consistent process and having a predictable outcome with that. You know, obviously it's the pleasure of the committee or the council to do whatever they wish. if it were an ordinance, clearly that law would have to have some input on it because it becomes codified. A resolution that endorses this as a measure that divisional water quality should be following, that helps me a lot because that gives more, I guess, emphasis on it. and then if the council chooses to modify this and use it more as a public communications plan for the government as a whole, I'll leave that to the council and the administration and decide how that process would unfold. And so I was just going to say the law piece to me is big, that we see that, and this isn't yours, Charlie, it's someone else's duty to do this, but we see from law how this would play out through their eyes and before we ever actually take any action on it. I don't mean take any action, but before we, I'm happy to pass it on, but I would like to see law's review of it and how they would put it into policy. Absolutely, and that's the way I worded it for that reason, to pass it on so that it goes through the proper channels and we make sure that's done. So they would do that before we ever have first reading on it. Absolutely. And then I would also say, Charlie, if you could speak to maybe the EPA and the consent decree and whether or not this helps. When I wrote this, I think I mentioned it during my comments earlier. We're SOP in my sewer line maintenance and pump stations and all my operations people to death because there's that program called CMOM, Capacity Management Operations and Maintenance, that's not the capital program, so it's not the 800-pound gorilla in the room, but it's still very important. They want a well-run system that prevents overflows from happening when it's not raining. All the capital program is devoted to handling it when it is raining, but like the one lady mentioned, she had two backups in six months. That's what a CMOM program is about. And so in my mind, this SOP is just one of the several dozens that we're writing right now and that, you know, obviously law making sure that we're not overstepping ourselves, but I'm pretty comfortable that it's consistent with everything we're doing right now. Thank you. Okay, we have a motion on the floor and a second to move the draft SOP for the serial line maintenance to the full council. Any other discussion? Okay, we'll take a vote. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, that passes, and we'll report that out at our next work session when we report out the minutes. Any other business to come before the committee today? Do I have any public comments signed up? Anyone from the public wish to address the committee? Okay. Do I have a motion to adjourn? Motion and a second to adjourn. All in favor say aye. Any opposed? We're adjourned. Thank you all.