Morning.

Um today is Monday.

Uh April twentieth.

Um twenty twenty six.

I'm calling the municipal service and properties committee to order.

Madam Clerk, can you please call a roll?

Here.

Here present.

Present.

All right, thank you.

Um we're gonna start off with uh we got three pieces of legislation today, and then we're gonna hear a couple of presentations after at the conclusion of our presentation.

All right, director, would you uh bring your team to the table?

Is Parks in Rec here?

No parks and recall.

All right, we got a piece from Parks and Rec.

And director, we're gonna we're gonna take your piece first.

The ordinance or their presentation?

The ordinance.

So we can do the presentation.

Um presented it the last time.

Okay.

Okay.

Um let me see who else.

So I'll tell you what, let me hear public works first.

Yeah.

I'll take public works first.

All right.

All right, director.

All right, good morning.

All right, we're gonna start off with uh ordinance number 10 uh 1406, 2025 by council members Bishop Palency, Harrison and Griffin.

This is a departmental request, an emergency order ordinance determining the method of making the public improvement of repairing, constructing, and installing various speed tables citywide for traffic calming and pedestrian safety purposes, and authorizing director of public works to enter into one or more public improvement contracts for the making of the improvement.

Okay, director.

Thank you, Chair and Committee.

We uh have a piece here.

This is new for us, um, but in lieu of or sorry, not in Lua, but in uh uh the uh I guess the the whole the increase of people wanting speed tables throughout the city has uh has um we don't internally have the capacity to be able to do the amount of speed tables that um that are asked for that demanded.

So what we decided to do is to go out and get a contractor to help us supplement that.

So this piece here is giving us the ability to be able to reach out to a contractor and have them be able to help us as we uh try to put in more speed tables.

So I have with me Commissioner Mavic from uh traffic engineering.

And if you have any specific questions about speed tables and how that's gonna work, I have them here with me.

I also have assistant director Haley with me as well at the table.

With that, I'll I'll open it up for any questions.

Okay, director, so this cut this uh piece of ordinance is gonna have you contract with the outside um company to put in our speed tables.

Uh chair, that is correct.

Uh so this will be the first time we've done something like this in the past.

We tried to do it internally.

We had a crew and I will say a crew and a half last year because it takes us about maybe how I'm gonna rob about what six or so people to do it.

Press it to the screen.

The wrong one.

Gotcha.

Yeah, so I think it takes about six folks from the division of streets to actually install them, and then uh our crews come behind that and do the signage and and pavement markings.

So as as opposed to right locking up about maybe 14 or so people to do this, we are gonna have one dedicated crew for speed tables, and as you know, as we add the speed tables to resurfacing, we want to be able to make sure that we can keep that going.

So we want to bring on a contractor to work alongside us to be able to keep up with the capacity.

Okay, so director, has our cost uh to install the speed tables have they kind of remained steady or has it come down?

So uh through the chair of the councilman, uh council member.

Um the division of streets holds the cost for their group, and I don't know that offhand.

Um I know in the current contract with MoCap, it's part of the requirements contract, those are 8500.

So our goal is to bring some of those costs down.

That's why we're putting this contract out.

So it's part as part of that.

Okay.

Um, you know, as I travel around, uh I just got off of a trip and uh I hit so many speed tables is unbelievable.

Uh we are so far behind in Cleveland on our speed tables.

I mean, it's speed tables everywhere I turned when I when I was traveling over the week.

Everywhere I turned, it was speed tables everywhere.

And so I was just thinking about how far Cleveland is behind with speed tables, and we got to do something where we can catch up because our residents are really really concerned about the dangers of uh high speeders coming down uh um in um um residential areas around schools, um, and it's just it's just making driving in Cleveland a uh uh a living yeah.

Okay, so we are so far behind.

So I'm gonna open it up to my committee.

All right, first I want to go to uh councilwoman gray.

Thank you, Chair.

Yes, good morning, team.

How y'all doing?

Um I already had my uh meeting with um commissioner um last week.

Um we went over uh a lot of the speed tables that I have requested per se, but I just want to piggyback off um chair about the speed tables.

Could you explain to uh the audience uh uh residents?

Um when it comes to speed tables not saying every street will get one, but since chair noted that we are behind in speed tables, uh we have short streets, you know, we have short streets.

Um lot of people concerned about speeders coming down a short street, like I live on a short street.

Uh I can't say if one is coming on that short street, but a lot of the residents are looking to have one on a short street, and also if you have a bad street, they want a speed table on a bad street, but the street is too bad, you have to wait till it get resurfaced.

So could you explain short streets and and the reason why bad streets can't get a speed table per se?

Um chair to uh one director or the commissioner.

Hey, through the chair, that council member.

Um so we do is when we get a request, we'll actually go out and then survey and do a study on the street, and that kind of determines the worst of first.

So we're trying to tackle where we have the highest number of street speeders and the larger volumes on some of these residential streets.

Um our group has recently integrated some of the pavement management into the speed table location.

So there are the there's the new program to install uh the speed tables as part of resurfacing.

So we're kind of looking at the F streets and where it lies within those studies to see if we in fact want to put one there, knowing that's on a list somewhere to be resurfaced over the next two to three years.

So that's kind of the approach that we're taking.

Yes, I understand that.

So could you explain uh since residents are listening what a F street is per se?

I know what it is now, but you said a F street, and some of the residents don't know what a D or the F or ABC street is to say why a F street can't get a speed table.

They might be able to get something else, uh, but could you kind of elaborate on the explanation?

Because they don't care, but could you explain to them why uh they should care if you got if you lab in the streets, ABC and then D F chair to the commissioner.

Uh through the to the chair of the council member, the so the F streets are are streets identified that will be resurfaced over the next two to three years, or even that that year that's happening.

With a lot of limited resources, we're trying to really identify which ones and which streets this would be most beneficial, meaning do they are there a higher criteria, meaning there's more speeding and or larger volumes in our residential streets.

Um I do want to kind of circle back to the long and short streets question that you had asked.

Yes.

Where we're finding in all of our studies that are these really long blocks is where we find the most speeding.

Um it's not necessarily in the short blocks, those are generally lower speeds, but you know, good examples are on the 140s, um, between like Buckeye and Kinsman.

You see significant number of speeders or even um I just nothing, you know, some of these streets are escaping my mind, but just looking at some of these higher volumes, it's really about where we have these long blocks.

So we're taking the approach of not just speed tables, but maybe other traffic calming measures that we'd like to implement.

Yes.

Um we're exploring some of the neighborhood traffic circles as part of this program as well.

We found great success on Franklin.

We have a project on Wade Park that's being scheduled over the next year.

Um, and we have a couple in the hopper that are quick builds that we're not quite there yet, but uh that's really the approach is not not just speed tables, but looking at it holistically to make sure that we're use utilizing all of our um every everything that we have in the in our uh playbook.

So right.

Uh one more question, Chair to the team.

Uh while you say in different structures, I know I had my meeting with you, different structures such as the solar panel signs, um, the roundabouts, uh, probably the uh yellow bump outs with the flashing yellow lights.

Um could you kind of determine what spectrum that you're looking to put those particular structures in different areas on the um intersections of the neighborhood and if not on the main road and streets through the chair, the council member chair to the commissioner so um I think you could talk about the radar feedback signs that we we have 28 currently um deployed.

Some of those were bought um from the administrative side, some folks some council folks also purchased those.

We had we did struggle.

I'm not gonna lie, we struggled rotating those.

I think over the past three months, we've come up with a pretty good solution of how to rotate those speed tables, or not speed tables, but the radar feedback signs.

So we're on a weekly rotation with like four or five of them each week, so that some of these streets that we've identified, whether they be short blocks or other um problematic streets, we'll be able to put these signs on more effectively moving forward.

Okay, thank you, thank you.

And I wanna just say this.

I wanna say this to the residents.

Um I was able to get 14 streets resurface for this year, and two of them will be getting speed tables, and that's Ashwood and uh 50 and fleet to char.

So just to say the least, um those are costly, but I but I am I have a better understanding on how to use the funding to start getting speed tables and other structures uh on the streets in the community a more of an effective way.

So I want to thank you, Commissioner, for having that meeting with me a couple weeks, because I'm able to understand and determine and to and to communicate to the residents to understanding how these speed tables will be affected on certain streets in certain areas.

So thank you, Chair.

All right, thank you, Councilwoman Gray.

Well, Councilwoman Gray, you're a veteran now, right?

Yes, I am veteran.

Okay.

Yes, I am.

Okay.

You get to hang it up, you're getting the hang of it.

All right, I'm gonna go to uh councilman Bryant Casey.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Mr.

Chairman to the director, in your legislative summary, you've got uh 1,105,000 per year.

And the source of funding, though, you've got 400,000 for uh out of ARPA dollars, and then you have five separate wards that have contributed to this.

So it looks like um we're just putting 400,000 dollars because you've used the council allocation as your estimated amount per year, correct?

So of the 400,000 dollars that is ARPA dollars, that money is gonna get distributed equally amongst all 15 wards, correct?

Mr.

Chairman to the director.

So through the chair to the councilman, um it will be based on the studies.

So I'd have uh so Rob, if you want to try to address that, that ARPA money will be based on if a street is definitely meets the criteria, then we do try to distribute it as equally as possible.

But again, it does depend on where those streets lie around if you want to.

Through the chair, the council member.

So one of the things that we've tried to do since we've taken over this program late last fall was really look at where we have holes within our counts and study areas, and we're focusing a lot of effort and time on like getting a really good picture of the city, not just where folks are complaining or not complaining, but putting in their requests.

Um so we met with most council folks and kind of went through the disruption of where speed tables either were um met that criteria, or if they put in discretionary funds, put those on the map, and also some council folks have chosen to use the speed the resurfacing program to install speed tables.

So we have a whole map um of every ward.

Um, the combined wards, some folks or some of the wards that were consolidated, had funding for speed tables, and those were distributed to the new breakdowns.

So we could certainly sit down and go through your ward if you would like to.

Well, Mr.

Chairman, to the director, uh there's not a council person who is not in need of speed tables, no matter what this mystical magical study is.

Um our study is people calling us, right?

So um according to this with the 400,000 dollars and the estimated 8500, I look forward to every council member at least getting 26 speed tables out of this piece of legislation, um, especially when we're using ARPA dollars.

Chairman to the director uh there's not a council person who is not in need of speed tables no matter what this mystical magical study is um our study is people calling us right so um according to this with the 400 thousand dollars and the estimated eighty five hundred dollars I look forward to every council member at least getting twenty six speed tables out of this piece of legislation um especially when we're using ARPA dollars ARPA dollars are should be used citywide and every time I've allocated for ARPA dollars it's for every single section of the city um should be receiving ARPA dollars so I really hope that that 400,000 uh is spread equally amongst the 15 wards matter if you think we're mini mayors or not it doesn't matter what's fair is fair and ARPA dollars went to the city of Cleveland it didn't go to one certain section of the city of Cleveland so this 400,000 and these speed tables every single council member wants speed tables every single council member needs speed tables and to biggy back off councilman pull uh councilman bishop I just did a uh uh a college visit with for my daughter uh queens new york or or queens uh university in South Carolina I told my daughter under nowhere is she going here just because it took me 40 minutes to get down the street from every speed table that was on every single side street down there.

Um and this these dollars need to go equally across across the city if in the ARPA dollars and then addition to um when you say a million one point one million per year um this this piece this is not one point one per year is it this is the because the administration is putting no general fund dollars into this so correct good question through to the chair to the to the councilman we say one point one this is our first time doing it so it'll be one point one for this year right so what is one point one this year because five members of council are also putting in 700 thousand dollars through the chair to the council that's correct correct and as far as the equal allocation of these speed tables what I do ask we've met with a lot of council members I ask if we could meet with you as well and any council member because again there's a bias.

We're gonna have a bias as to where we think things should go because of how we do things.

So it is good for us to be able to work across the table you want to say hey I want to have them here here and here.

So I do ask that you know as we are trying to allocate these funds if you could work with us to be able to make that would make this a much better process.

And Mr.

Chairman to the director I don't think you don't have a member of council that won't work with you but it's a matter of fairly working with each member of city council as well.

Sure absolutely that's my two cents so it looks like at least 26 26 speed tables per ward coming out of this piece of legislation.

Do the chair to the councilman uh I I can't absolutely say that but I will say we will work absolutely work with you to make sure we get well Mr.

Chairman I don't know if if I can't get at least feeling somewhat confident that it's going to be distributed somewhat equally I don't know if I'm ready to to pass this because what I don't want to see is I don't want to hear that and then all of a sudden we get one ward that gets 50 and another ward that just gets three.

So unless we can get some sort of you know commitment from from the administration that this is going to be spread equally amongst the council or amongst all 15 wards I don't I you know I I'm I I never vote no against a piece of legislation from any of my my colleagues but it's getting to the point now where it's like what's what's fair to all the residents of the city of Cleveland has got to be fair.

So to through the chair to the councilman I'm I absolutely agree with you I just don't know if I could tell you 26 that's my only point.

Well if I if your own numbers 400,000 divided by 8500 is 26.6 if the price is different I that's still my only point I'd be because according to to the commissioner you're you're trying to bring it down.

So maybe it's more than 26.

Could be to the chair to the councilman thank you Mr.

Chairman all right excuse me thank you councilman casey uh councilman uh truly um uh get your point um because you know we all want to see things done in an equitable way um because it brings you know it brings back um feelings when I drove down uh franklin avenue I saw more um uh roundabouts on Franklin Avenue than I've seen citywide total in the whole city so uh I can understand about you know members want um things done distributed fairly um so I I get what you're saying councilman um next I'm gonna go to uh councilwoman Hudson thank you Mr.

So the paint will still remain white.

Um they'll go all the way across the table on either side.

Um the signs will be placed directly at the speed table along with a what we call a mega marker, but a big yellow um post on the sides of them so that it'll be identifiable in the winter when there's snow or or even um during uh non-winter times.

Okay.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Uh that's all.

All right, thank you.

Um you brought up a great point, uh, council councilwoman.

Um because a lot of speed tables I've hit going quite a bit uh quite a um uh a high speed rate of speed because I didn't see them.

And when I went back to look, they didn't have any paint on them.

Uh I'm not exactly sure that that we just failed to paint them or the paint just wore off, but we have to and and as I as I went back and I after as I hit these speed tables, um I noticed that the signs are right at the speed tables a lot of times, and I think we need to put the signs uh to give you fair warning that the speed table is coming up as you drive down the street.

Um so I'm not sure sure if everybody else has noticed that, but the sp the signage needs to be uh a lot further away from the speed tables on the streets.

Uh and and and we right.

And now what about reflectors?

Do can we put any reflectors out there like they have on the freeway?

Through the the chair of the council member that is part of the new spec.

So on either side of the table, there'll be reflective posts that are flexible.

So somebody hit them, they won't damage their vehicle, but they're actually will be in the roadway.

Okay.

All right, I'm gonna go to councilman uh Shaw.

Thank you, Chair.

Uh good afternoon, Director and Commissioners.

Thank you for your time.

Um I I apologize for some of the basic questions I might be asking.

It's my first time, so it's helpful for me to understand some of this background as I'm learning.

So I appreciate your patience.

Um could you just explain to me, um, Commissioner Director, just kind of the time frame for what an installation of a speed table looks like.

Are we is this amount is this a job of hours?

Is it a couple days, a couple weeks?

If you could just walk me through what that time frame looks like in terms of actually installing a speed table.

Through the chair, the council member, uh, once that program begins and the streets identified that the are you asking when the crews go out there, how long will does it take?

Yeah, the physical aspect.

One to two hours for the actual installation.

Um our group will either follow up later that day or first thing in the morning and sign it and pay and paint it.

So what once it's been decided uh to the commissioner through the chair, um, that a speed table is gonna go at a certain location.

It's only about a couple hours job that it actually takes to install the physical.

Through the chair to the councilman.

I want to make sure that that's what we do internally.

Well, I don't won't know what won't be able to say what the actual contract or how long they will be, but for internally that's what it takes us, about two one or two hours to do.

Okay.

Um and then I was wondering over time, what what's the maintenance cost or time frame look like?

Are we anticipating repaving these or kind of refreshing these speed tables every so often?

I I've I have no idea so I'm anti what what do you anticipate uh through the commissioner director through the chair?

It's through the through the chair, the council member.

So this is a relatively new program.

What I we can tell you is we do restripe it each year as it relates to the maintenance.

I'm not aware of there being a maintenance issue at this point with the asphalt ones.

Um we did have and do have some issues with the modular ones that were in the original installations where there we've had to replace pieces and some are missing.

So I would you know, at this point I think we've had pretty good success with the uh the asphalt installations.

No doubt at some point they'll need to be replaced or or maintained, but currently we haven't seen any issues to my knowledge.

So far you would say it's minimal maintenance going forward?

Through the Yeah, through the chair to the council, but it is minimal because we just started.

But um how old how old is our oldest?

So this is this will be year three, I believe, for us or I think year four, either three or three.

Year three for us.

Okay.

So I mean, just like any street, eventually it's gonna have to because it's asphalt, we're gonna have to do some things to it.

We just haven't run into that yet.

Thank you.

And um, I know I've heard a couple different numbers.

Um I know you're trying to bring that cost down of how much it costs us right now in-house, of heard anywhere from five to ten thousand dollars for each speed table.

Um is that still the anticipated number that you're looking for when you go out to bid, or what what are your best guess at what what we're expecting?

Through the chair to the councilman, I I would hate to give bad juju, right?

Because you know, maybe there are people who are listening who will may want to bid on this.

But what we can say is that the in the last contract it was about $8,500, only because it was buried in into a larger contract.

And typically when you have something that's kind of uh a part of something larger, the contractors aren't really in it for that, so they may bid a little higher on those.

Our hope is that the price goes down because we're pulling this out as a separate piece with locations already set.

So, you know, right now the con that price was about $8,500.

We hope for it to be lower.

And uh to the director through the chair of that $8,500, how much is the uh cost of the materials itself?

Through the chair, the council member, we'd have to look into that.

I I'm not aware of what those costs are.

That's an asphalt cost, there's a labor, the science.

We could get you a number, but I just don't know offhand.

I I hear you.

And uh do you have to pay is it more than half of the cost is materials or labor?

Like what do we what's the split?

I'm just wondering.

Yeah.

Well, through the chair of the council member, there's one thing, uh just maybe take a step back to the contract that's currently in place.

Um those are a bit out for modular tables.

And I believe when this the division purchased the original modulars, they were $8,000 apiece, something like that.

Maybe $3,000.

I'd have to get it to you in the exact number, but um Yeah, I we could provide a breakdown and we I don't think we're prepared to give that to you today.

I mean at the table.

Yeah.

I I think that would be helpful um to chair it through.

Uh I part of you know, the line of questioning I'm I'm on, um I'm wondering this is a significant amount of money, 1.1 million dollars, and I think as Councilman Casey pointed out, we may not have the same allocation in the future.

Uh my question is just once again, I think we've had these different variations of the same question of why are we not doing this in-house?

If this is a cost that we're anticipating, if we have the if we're able to source the materials, we have the expertise.

I look at you know, as a basic someone who doesn't understand a lot of this world, 1.1 million, we can if it's a crew of four people, uh you could pay each of these people a quarter million dollars a year of salary, and you could still have this if the costs for the materials are lower enough.

So I know that's obviously not straight enough how it works, but that's if you can explain to me why why aren't we why wouldn't we look to do this in-house?

Yeah, throw through the chair to the councilman.

That that is a fair question.

And it really is about our capacity.

So going from a $12 million to a $20 million resurfacing program, those same folks who would do those speed tables would be working on resurfacing.

So in order for us to really be able to get through the resurfacing, we are adding speed tables to that as well.

We're gonna need all hands on deck to add more people and equipment, uh it's not easy to do it very quickly.

So as we've been trying to add, even last year, we added a little bit more, we had a couple more.

You have to consider the all the costs that may go into and I'm coming from a resurfacing perspective because that's really the area we want to focus on mainly.

And so to add, if I pull away folks from that to add another crew, which we tried to do last year, we had difficulty doing that because uh to be able to finish the reservation on time.

We've got a very tight window.

And I I hear you, Director, and I I want to go back to just a few months ago we were here at the table.

Uh we went through the budget process.

All of these tables were allocated, right?

We knew they were gonna be going in, we knew what the costs were.

So why not allocate more money for additional staff during that budget process for the division of streets or division of traffic and engineering to anticipate these labor things that we knew we were gonna be having to put in?

Yep, yeah, through the chair to the country to the council person, we did.

But again, there is also a learning process if we do it internally.

Uh it is not just get uh you know a Snyder Blake person or just you know uh uh uh MSL.

There's a lot of um there's a technique and the skill that comes with it.

So you've got to build that skill.

So to be able to do that, you can't just get a regular labor unit.

You're gonna have to get people who've been through it, and that means you gotta pull those folks away from the resurfacing.

So it it does take time to build to that point.

So that's why we really want to try to have the capacity there so over time we can increase people who have the skill to be able to do it.

Because it's not just a one-for-one when you make that exchange.

I hear you, and I appreciate that director.

Generally, I'm gonna defer to you all.

You you guys are the ones doing the work.

Um but if I'm hearing right, you're what you're insinuating, insinuating or implying is that you're hoping to make this a practice that we do in-house in the future, is that correct?

So that we're not going to be going out to bid every single year for these speed tables.

Is that correct?

Through the chair to the councilman, that that is our hope.

But again, we this is our first time doing this.

We have to see if it's successful or not.

If if it is not successful, then we have to if it is successful, then you know, we have to really look at the cost versus the benefits.

I hate to make a promise today.

That later on down the road, I may not be able to keep.

What defines success?

What what does that look like to you that in the future or what are the guard that not guarded rails, but what are the tracks you're putting in to make sure we get the expertise in-house in the future for this?

If to me, success would be to be able to have a volume, right?

That we are able to do exceed the volume that we anticipated doing at a cost less than what we expected to do to have.

And what's the volume you're anticip what would be a successful volume?

Well, it would all depend on the the demand, the request that we get in.

So today I think we have about 70 that we know that we have to do.

And just depending on how much more demand you get, right?

That will that will be 70 speed tables across the city.

Yes, that's from all the meetings that we have with council and the leftovers from the previous period.

That's what we have today.

So it could increase because again, as we sit down and talk with more, as you just heard both uh Councilman Kidzie and Councilman Bishop say we're behind.

So if that does increase, right, we you know that that demand will change.

Let's say by the end of the year of 2026, we have twenty seventy speed tables put up by through this contract.

That's success for you.

Uh if if we're able to do that and we have it do that at a price where it makes total sense, yes, that would be success for me.

Okay.

Yep.

Because again, you have to think about when you bring on employees, you bring on benefit costs and things of that sort.

You have to consider additional pieces of equipment you have to bring on.

If you have a contractor that's able to do this successfully, they take the cost, they bear the cost of the equipment, they'd be there the cost of fringe benefits.

So the that's the the kind of balance you want to look for if we're able to be able to do that in my mind, that's the same.

I understand.

And like I said, for me, the parameters of what success looks like is not for me to define because I don't know what I'm doing.

Um I'm looking to you for that.

Uh my job is to understand, okay, are we actually keep following through on this?

Um so that helps.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

All right, thank you, Councilman Shark.

Uh Councilman Um Star.

I'll be well brief, uh, Chair um with this ordinance 1406 2025.

Obviously, this was introduced back in November of 2025, and the only thing that I definitely would like to attribute to and ask questions on.

Um, I see the estimated mill uh cost is about 1.1 million dollars.

And based on this, these numbers of these wards, this is our projected or source of funding came from the old wards where we have 17 wards, and the actual funding source came through what type of funds through the chair for each ward house breakdown, because it says ARPA dollars, there's money, then there's money coming from uh ward six, war twelve, war fourteen, war fifteen, war sixteen.

What is the actual funding source for those funds?

So through the chair to the councilman, I'd have to get back to you.

I I want to say maybe some of this is NEF funds, I'm but I'm not 100% sure.

I'm not an expert on that area.

No, but we can we can I can reach out to uh Tony Tell.

All right.

And then from that standpoint, those wards funding sources are going to go strictly into those wards because they put those extra dollars.

Through the chair to the councilman, that's correct.

It'll be written the ward.

And you and the council person will choose where those speed tables are.

So when I look at war twelve, there's a significant amount of money in that ward, that ward no longer exists.

So how is that broke up between who possibly are representing that ward to see how this funding allocation is going for those speed tables in that ward through the chair?

So through the chair to the councilperson, actually I got that information from Tony.

We so I did send it out to council person gray and a council person bishop who now have those areas.

Okay.

So the how they will split that um well, I guess it would depend on on the council side.

I I would just uh take the resource.

So through the chair, the council member those um those tables were already identified on streets from where the old ward 12.

So we took the vow the values, values on each one of those areas and we're fit into the new ward or the reallocated ward, and we split that.

We sent uh that to council, I think a week and a half ago to Tony to kind of break that those numbers back out.

So it wherever that those speed tables were requested for that particular street, whatever ward it did fall into under the new configuration.

That ward kept those tables and those fundings.

Okay, and then from that information that you sent out to the council representative, they're now will have to vet to look and see if that's where they actually want, or those are just already done and they just have no say so with the current council through the chair.

Through the chair, we've had those discussions with the council folks or council members.

So if you want to sit down and go through the um your ward and how it breaks out from uh qualification, what ones were um discretionary funds to the previous council member, we certainly can do that.

Yes, because that's very important to make sure we understand where that dollars are at.

Um, because I do have parts of Ward 12, and I'm not sure there was any allocation of speed tables in the area of the new war five.

Um through the chair, I I believe um the way that the ward was separated or re realigned.

Um through the chair, I I believe um the way that the ward was separated or realigned, each new of the wards had eight or several tables within that allocation.

So I definitely would love pretty evenly.

So I definitely would like to look into that to see what we can do.

And also just from that standpoint uh that you did hear earlier regarding the op ARPA dollars that were um put aside for this initiative, making sure we are um spreading those dollars around to each table.

I know we've had the different costs between 8,500 to maybe 10,000, depends on if streets does it or mocap does the street on the speed table, it determines the price, um outsourcing and definitely I do agree with my council colleague uh councilman Shaw as he spoke to uh what we can do to possibly get this in-house instead of um having to go out and contract it out and outsource it, which is always difficult because those prices changes determine determining on who actually does this.

One thing I definitely will ask, what is the projected timeline for this rollout?

Um this the tables that the division of streets would be perform performing.

Um they're looking at a mid-May kickoff.

And and then also within that, me and May kick off.

I would definitely um ask within at least 10 days before the actual um rollout of any street added speed tables, whatever notification that is going out 10 days prior, can that get sent over to that council member to make sure they have enough time to um get the word out as well?

Just because sometimes the streets or different departments put out memos and put out messaging, but also it's good to be in line so council can put that message out as well.

So whatever communication that you plan to mail out or any notices that you're dropping, can you get that message over um within 10 days before starting the at uh additional these speed tables to the chair?

That council member absolutely um we're still we'll put together a messaging plan for each council or either uh street within a council ward, make sure they're aware of it.

All right, and that's very important because I don't know like everybody else, like I've been reading in the paper.

Um people say I'm the mini mayor in War 5.

And me being a me and the mini mayor, and I'm the closest thing they see to anything in 601 Lakeside.

So one of my jobs as an elected official is to come down here and advocate for dollars and changes that we need in our community.

I don't go and bring the politics of City Hall to my neighborhood.

I bring the issues from my neighborhood of City Hall and try to find resolutions to be able to solve those problems.

So when I was thinking about this over the weekend, I did look up, and when I thought about it, it shows that on the U.S.

has about 19,500 cities, towns, or sm villages, right, in the entire country.

And of those number of 19,500 different cities and towns, roughly 15 to 16,000 have populations under 20,000 residents.

War five have 25,000 residents.

So 75 to 80 percent of the U.S.

cities are under 20,000 people.

So to the media and to anybody in here feels the type of way in 601 Lakeside, Richard Starr is the mini mayor of War 5, and I am the council person.

So when I want to see things get done, it's my job to advocate and be the voice for the people who oftentimes can't get to 6-161 Lakeside.

So I just want to say I like the partnership and a collaboration with the administration on Director Learned as well as any director in chief for us to work together.

So I'm not gonna always agree.

I'm not gonna always see what each week have differences, but at the end of the day, my job is to bring dollars back to war five because war five needs the right investment.

And when you talk about these speed table installations, I want to make sure that we also are getting um some speed tables in war five, even if I do or don't put any additional discretionary funds through that to that funding source.

And I yell, Chair.

All right, thank you, Councilman Starr for that um um perspective uh about the cities and how um how big our wards are.

Um go to councilman Pelinson.

Thank thank you, Mr.

Chairman Minable Colleagues, and to the director to his team.

Um I just wanted to follow up is along Councilman Casey's comments as well.

Um I did submit streets to city planning, which I was told to submit, and I don't see anything here.

So through the chair to the councilman, I I think this is uh based off what happened a while ago.

This this is not finality.

This is not final.

This is just um um a rough draft for us to be able to get started.

Okay, so you can we can definitely make sure that you're you speak your words.

I I think we're all talking about the let's face it, the challenge that we have here and why there's this demand upon members of city council for speed tables because there's no traffic enforcement in these neighborhoods.

That's the reality we're confronted with.

It doesn't exist.

It does not exist traffic enforcement.

And I just submitted a lengthy list maybe about a week ago, a little over a week ago, as pertains to streets where I would like to see some traffic enforcement on.

Okay.

And I hope to get a response as to what their plan is to try to address the growing concerns, Mr.

Chairman, to the director that all of us have at every one of our neighborhood meetings that this administration does not do traffic enforcement.

And that's what our citizens want.

So these speed tables unfortunately today are more relevant than ever before because of demands that are being placed on us at neighborhood meetings and with neighborhood groups and by schools, et cetera.

So, Mr.

Chairman, to the director uh to the director.

Um, and I want to say I believe we have a very competent director here in the in this department.

Um that's my opinion.

Um, what are we doing with the the original speed tables?

The the rubber ones we put out there that were hunks are missing out of them now.

Through the chair that council member, the ones that we can repair, we're repairing the ones that cannot be repaired will be replaced with uh asphalt ones.

Okay.

So, Mr.

Chairman to the Commissioner, we're not using any more rubber speed tables.

Did the Chair of the Council member no?

Okay.

The the follow-up on any other comments that the Chair made, and he was absolutely correct about you don't you can't see these things.

And I look at the ones in Akron that are highly color-coded with hash marks and and the signage, etc.

Um we don't have to recreate the wheel here.

We just have to look what other cities are doing, because again, um, I had a situation on Grovewood Avenue where someone was on a motorcycle and did not see the speed table and went off that motorcycle, flew off that motorcycle and broke their leg.

So we need to be very mindful that there's there's liability issues, potential liability issues for the City of Cleveland if these are not properly earmarked, delineated, and we don't have proper signage.

Um, because I was um I'm I'm still waiting on that one.

That was um uh late last year, and so maybe they're not gonna pursue any action, but I uh as soon as it happened, I said to myself we're gonna have a problem here unless we better identify these speed tables.

So, Mr.

Chairman, I would hope as well that we could do this in-house.

I think that's the general, because it's my understanding, and please correct me if I'm wrong, even on resurfacing, because I raised this issue last year with Director DeRosa in MOCAP, that when we go out for contract, it costs us more per square yard asphalt than we do it in-house.

Is that correct?

Through the chair to the council uh that is correct.

Okay.

So to my honorable colleagues, um, a long time ago, we used to do everything in-house.

We resurfaced all our streets in-house.

We had the crews, we had the equipment, and then somehow over the years through uh one administration after another, um, that ceased to exist.

So now we become about how many about on a percentage, how many of our streets and our speed tables are being done by private contractors?

Through through the chair to the uh uh councilman this year, all the residential streets will be done in-house.

That is good to hear.

Um but as far as the mains and the secondary mains, we we won't do those.

That that will be done by contractors.

I understand the big streets.

Uh I'm that's that's a given.

But I'm really glad to hear, John, that you're uh bringing that stuff back in-house because that's been a real rub with me.

We need uh we need to be more cost-effective.

We need more uh more things strategically and surgically here, as we used to do.

And it's I keep telling myself constantly, it's like we got to go back to the future around here in every department and get back to the way we used to do things.

So, Mr.

Chairman, I'm glad to hear that.

I hope uh get this issue with the speed tables resolved.

I want to again thank you, Mr.

Chairman, for uh taking this issue up because it is very important to our citizens.

Thank you.

All right, thank you, Councilman Plansick.

Uh next I'm gonna go to Councilman uh Harsh.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

I'd like to uh offer an amendment to the ordinance.

We ready?

Um Mr.

Chair, I would like to offer an amendment to Section 5, line five.

Uh after the period, please insert the following.

The director of public works shall provide written notice to the clerk of council whenever any purchase is made through the cooperative process, comma.

Which notice shall include the details of such cooperative purchases.

Okay, that's all, Mr.

Chair.

All right.

Um Councilman Harsh has an amendment on the floor.

Is there a second?

Councilman Councilwoman Hudson seconds.

All right, is there any discussions on the amendment?

Council uh director.

If I'm able to just ask a quick question, uh this is that's just related to quiet.

If we do a co-op, you just want to be notified.

Is that the intent of this?

Just want to make sure that we follow what you're asking for.

So the director yes.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, director, yeah.

When whenever we see the section 108B, we we make this amendment on time when we see what it makes that we we follow because of course we want to be able to follow it.

And and Mr.

Chair for the colleagues, this is just so that we're notified in council when they spend this money, they'll let us know that the money was spent so that we know it happened.

Right through the just really another if so we go through competitive and it's not through a co-op.

Do we still do you also want us to notify you?

Well, we we just want to we just want to be notified when there's um um contract written, um, when there's a contract agreed upon.

We just want to detail regardless of what kind of yeah, under this section.

Yeah, okay.

All right, is there any discussion?

Any more discussion?

Councilman Sarrone I understand the amendment for us to get the actual reporting um when actually when actually the department um seeks to contract or is it gonna be a RFQ or RFP for this speed tables?

And also from the point that we heard earlier from uh Councilman Shaw, is there any way that we're gonna work to get this back in-house instead of outsourcing it?

Is there anything that we have in place for that or plans for to do in-house as opposed to having a contract out, or we're just going to go through with this or and possibly bring it back later?

Just what just an axe through the chair.

Well, uh, I think it's up to the department to determine you know how you want to um erect these speed tables and how you want to produce these speed tables and what manpower or what methods you want to do that.

Um, but I just want to have us notified of that, councilman.

When they do a contract, when they when I write a contract, we just want the council wants to be notified of that.

Okay because we have no other way of knowing when you know if they what in the section 108B, they can write a contract and we have no way of knowing, you know, who who and where it went to.

All right.

All right, is there any other discussion on um councilman Jones?

Mr.

Chairman, um, you know, uh one of the things that my colleague uh Mike Plinsick brought out, which I think is important is how we brighten these uh speed tables so that people who are coming into the neighborhood who may um not be aware hitting these bumps and a lot of them in my neighborhood and now the paint is gone.

So you don't you don't even know it's there and it's difficult because when they previously started working on putting these in the neighborhoods, they had big signs out letting folks know they're coming upon a speed bump.

So if you if we could look at what others are doing to brighten it up so that people are fully aware before they hit these speed bumps, um, because it can be very dangerous, Mr.

Chairman.

Uh if they hit these speed bumps at a a fast rate of speed, it can go out of control and run into someone or to someone's property.

So if we could look at what they're doing, the model uh a closer look at what's happening in Akron and then you know that helps us enhance our speed tables, Mr.

Chairman.

I think my suggestion would be that.

And then also the speed tables request is has ballooned in our community.

And part of that is because Mr.

Chairman, um, people don't that there's no enforcement, there's no traffic, there's no police visibility, and so people think they can do whatever.

We've seen a drive-by, you know, hit that's happened here recently in our neighborhood.

I've been talking about this, Mr.

Chairman, for quite some time.

And um a week before that, a car flipped over going so fast.

So we we really need assistance.

Um our citizens are are uh at if you had to go to a scale of one through ten in terms of serious, we're at that 10 rate where people are just unfortunately, Mr.

Chairman, just speeding like they've lost their mind.

So whatever you can do to put more of these speed bumps in, but yet at the same time, Mr.

Chairman, make sure that they're I don't know if you put some kind of neon light or neon kind of coloring on on them to keep it out of some type of strong paint that doesn't wear off.

Um that would be appreciative, Mr.

Chairman.

That's my suggestion to the director.

Okay, council.

So is there any other um discussion on the amendment on the floor?

All right, those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed, the ayes have it.

All right, Councilman Jones.

Um are you finished with your commentary?

Uh I just want to know if uh if thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Just wanted to know if the director had any thoughts on that in terms of sprucing it up and in such a way where uh it's it's totally visible to the public.

All right, yeah, Councilman Jones, we have uh went over that pretty thoroughly.

Um a lot of members have already expressed they need to be a little bit more visible.

Um so we have uh uh told our concerns to the director.

All right, so is there any other comments on ordinance number 1406?

Let me make sure I got this right ordinance.

1406 2025.

Councilman Shaw.

Uh just one last note.

I um Councilman Polencick's comments brought up this final question for me.

So it's to the director through the chair.

You're saying it costs us more for the materials when we're going out to bid, is that correct?

Through the chair to the councilman, the uh just to be sure that we're the cost for the for internally for us to resurface streets has traditionally been lower than the cost for a contractor to resurface the street.

This year.

Just the materials.

Um the entire cost.

The entire cost.

Yep, the entire cost.

So this year, all the residential streets will be done in-house.

Why would we not anticipate the same thing for speed tables then?

Oh again, because because we made that switch to be able to do all of the residential streets internal, that's going to take all of our folks.

So even even though we did get additional people, we're gonna need that to be able to do all of our resurfacing.

We still have one crew that does speed tables, but again, it it is really a capacity.

We really want to be able to try to meet the demand.

And if the demand does balloon, I don't want to say, hey, we can do 200 speed tables and we don't have the capacity to do it.

So this is why we wanted to try to have something to supplement our staff.

And we're this is a two-year contract or one year with an option of renew.

Through the chair, this is not to exceed two years, so it would be two years.

I I'm a little hesitant after hearing about if we're getting charged an arm and a leg extra when we go to the market.

Um and if we're saying if we're gonna do this in-house, director, I think.

Part of me wants to make an amendment to do this for one year so that we can build up that capacity to do it in-house starting next year.

Through the chair to the councilman, I I don't have a problem with that.

Really, we are experimenting with this.

Okay.

So if I I don't have a problem with that.

Okay.

I'll be honest.

Part part of me also just wants to say no to force us to do it in-house.

But hearing, and like I said, I'm gonna defer to you this year if you're saying this is what it takes to build up that capacity.

But um I I want it to be done uh starting in-house.

I've already heard Councilman Palency talk about you know what it looks like when we go to market.

So if if you're okay with that, Chair, I'd like to offer an amendment to make this a one-year contract.

This this is this is a one-year deal, right?

It's up to two years to the chair.

But we got one year to spend the we got two years to spend the money.

Okay.

But but but this is not an ongoing piece of legislation.

It is a one-year contract, though, Chair.

So we would spend another one point one next year.

No, this is this is coming from the ARPA funds, and this is coming from uh council allocated um ward dollars.

So unless you allocate them some more money, this not is not you know, that's the end of the contract.

Is that correct?

To the chair of the council member, this the contract supplements what the groups can do.

It's a two-year-old.

It's it's a supplemental to our crews.

I mean, I think the goal is to have our crews do everything.

I don't know if that's feasible or reasonably to expect.

Um when you have a 20 million dollar resurfacing program, the weather, limited time to get these things in.

So um we're looking at this contract being part of the ARPA funds.

We're looking at it being part of the councilmatic discretionary funds.

If the division of streets can get to these before this contractor can, great.

Um, but it is a a tall task based on whether the amount of resurfacing that you're doing this year.

I I just this is a but an almost unnecessary thing to have in place.

Well, when I will say, as far as the two year, this could go up to two years.

So if you ran okay, if the money ran out and you got money next year, we could keep the same contractor.

So again, I have no objection if you want to do it one year, we have to come back to you next year to if we want to do it again.

I have no problem with that.

Just so I would also point out to the chair and I see Councilman Hirsch, but it also says the other funds deemed necessary by director of finance.

So if the administration wanted to cobble together other funds, the director of finance and administration could do this without council approval if it's two years.

Through the chair to the council, that is correct.

If we had two years, we could.

I hear you.

Councilman Harsh has a comment.

Okay.

So are you um so um are you trying to promote oppose propose amendment, Councilman Shaw?

I I think based on a better understanding of what the terms are.

Um I'm I'm willing to, like I said, I this is my first time.

I'm willing to take your word for it, uh, unless other council members agree that uh we should limit this or uh feel strongly about it.

Otherwise, I will draw my proposal.

Okay.

All right, Councilman Harsh.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

If I may, I think I think there's a little bit of a confusion here.

Um the ordinances to expend is to spend 1.1 million on this effort.

The ordinance is clarifying that they have up to two years to spend that.

The ordinance doesn't give them the ability to add another 1.1 million next year.

We're giving them a cap at 1.1 million.

That's the amount they can spend on this according to the legislative file, uh 1.105.

Um but they've got two years to spend it.

If they aren't able to get the work done, they can roll it into if what's it what's the date today?

April 18th.

What are we on the 21st, 120?

April 20th.

Stay 420.

It's 420.

Um, so if next year on 421, they still have some of the money left over, they don't have to go back and ask us for permission, they've got two years to spend it.

My understanding, I think, is 1.1 million per year.

So I think they can't do it again next year.

These are funds are coming from the council allocations.

But it says other funds deemed necessary by director of finance.

So next year, if they want to do it again, they can without council approval, as long as director of finance is able to cobble together other sources.

All right, can you clarify can you clarify the director?

Uh through the to the chair, that that then it would be true.

So again, we we were asking for 1.1 each each year.

Sorry, sorry.

Yeah, or if the council wanted to add more money to it.

So if again, if there were more uh requests, we could in our mind we would do, you know, the following year, if we if we hit 1.1 in this year, and then we will say, okay, well, next year we'll get another allocation from whoever, and then we'll have another 1.1.

So it could be 2.2 million over a two-year period.

Okay.

Mr.

Chairman.

All right, Councilman Harsh, are you done?

Yeah.

All right.

There are any other questions.

Mr.

Chairman.

Councilman Jones.

Yeah, the the just for clarification, just to make sure I'm hearing this correctly.

Um, this is going to be a 1.1 uh proposition each year for the next two years.

Is that correct, Mr.

Chairman, to the director?

Uh, through the council to the chair to the councilman, yes, one point per year, a total of 2.2 over two year period.

I see.

And then, Mr.

Chairman, the next question I have is just to make sure I'm hearing this correctly.

This is in addition to what you're already doing, the program that you already have out that's doing this.

And is that correct, Mr.

Chairman, to a director?

Through the chair to the uh councilman, yes, this will supplement our in our internal um crew that does this as well.

And then, Mr.

Chairman, the next question would be um how much is that cost uh that we are we're already incurring to to do the existing work?

So through the chair to the councilman, um if you ignore the labor costs because there are we already paying these folks.

So we're we're really looking at the cost of the asphalt.

Um and honestly, uh I I can give you a concrete number.

I just don't want to give you something off the back of my you know top of my head.

So we can give you a number for the cost of the asset.

No further questions, Mr.

Chairman.

All right, I'm gonna go to Councilman Casey.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman, Mr.

Chairman to the director, just to clarify, your 1.1 million a year, right?

700,000 of that is coming from councilmanic allocations.

So if next year the council does not allocate dollars, is the administration still coming up with 1.1 million?

Uh uh do the chair to the councilman.

I I don't know right now if they will or will not.

My hope is that we do.

I will we will advocate strongly for that, but I can't say that I know that right now.

Okay, so this really isn't per year, this is just for this year with the with the councilmatic allocation, correct?

Do the chair to the councilman, that's correct.

Thank you.

All right.

If it wasn't already asked, because I stepped out.

Okay, I'm gonna go.

Councilwoman Gray.

Thank you.

Uh here, uh here uh on the public improvement speed table installation.

You have your source of funding, and you have um one, two, three, four, five, six wards, plus the offer.

Could you explain that breakdown of only six wards?

If this supposed to be allocated to speed tables allocated to all wards, all 15 wards.

So through the chair to the to the to the council member, when we do a legislative summary, it's really just to get us started.

It is not the actual.

So we actually do have more wards and so other wards that want to be a part of this.

This just kind of gives a ballpark idea of what we're starting with, so that you can add to this and again up to that 1.1 million dollars is where we're at.

Okay.

All right, chair.

Thanks, Director.

All right.

Um seeing no further questions, ordinance number 1406 2025 is approved.

Please sign.

All right, thank you, Director.

I don't I don't know if you have any other pieces.

We just presentation that we can stay.

Okay.

All right.

Um next up, I'm gonna call the uh parks and recs up.

I'm sorry.

Um so that was ordinance number fourteen oh six twenty twenty-five as amended.

I'm sorry.

All right, next up is ordinance number two two six twenty twenty-six by council members House Jones, Bishop, and Griffin is a department of request.

This is an emergency ordinance authorizing director of parks and recks to cause payment to downtown Cleveland Inc.

for the cost of providing landscape maintenance services at malls B and C in the year 2025.

Um Director, can you please uh introduce your guests here at the table before we get started?

To the chair, thank you.

Good morning, and I apologize for my tardy arrival today.

Um today I have with me uh Sam Rocco with Downtown Cleveland Inc.

and I have Sylvia Iorio we're also with downtown Cleveland Inc.

Uh and this is the organization that provides the service on the malls maintenance.

Okay, all right, good go ahead.

Thank you.

Um the uh City of Cleveland has uh been working with downtown Cleveland Inc.

as it relates to management of some of our downtown properties, uh one of which um uh includes both malls B and C.

Uh prior to downtown Cleveland Inc.

doing this work, um there was an organization called Group Plan Commission that was doing the work under a couple of different agreements.

So um downtown Cleveland Inc.

took over for um group plan commission and uh we've been contracting with them.

They work with a landscape management company to take care of the malls.

Um and this work is outside of the scope uh that our parks team can handle, and we've been very pleased with this agreement with downtown Cleveland Inc.

Um, and they've been doing a great job, and we would like to ensure that we um take care of this payment.

So today we are requesting authority to contract with them to pay the 2025 invoices relating to maintenance of malls B and C.

Thank you.

I'll take any questions.

All right, so all right, so Director, um this is for last year's work.

Uh to the chair, that is correct.

This is for last year's work.

Um part of the issue is that the agreement uh was previously with group plan commission, and so we're working through the logistics of transferring uh those agreements to downtown Cleveland Inc.

Okay.

So Director, do you know the cost of the city for the prior year in 2024?

Uh I'm gonna have to check my records on the prior year costs for the service.

Okay, all right.

Um is there any questions on ordinance number two two six?

Uh councilman Casey.

Mr.

Chairman, thank you.

Thank you, Director or Mr.

Chair, Mr.

Chairman to the Director.

This is for public property, correct?

Uh through the chair to the council member, yes, that is correct.

And it's basically a contract with the private entity, correct?

Uh through the chair to the council member, that is correct.

All right.

So I was just told um Mr.

Chairman to the director that I could not use discretionary funds to hire a landscaper in my ward to keep public areas uh landscaped and beautified.

So if we can't do it using our own discretionary funds, why is it okay for us to do it in downtown with obviously general fund dollars for a private entity to take care of public space?

Uh through the chair to the councilman.

Um I wasn't aware that uh council members were unable to use discretionary funds for maintenance and landscaping.

Uh I believe we do have a couple of agreements to do that and a couple of different wards.

I'd be more than happy to work with you to resolve that.

Um as it relates to uh downtown Cleveland Inc.

Uh this all dates back uh many many years to the development of the convention center.

Um and I believe also in preparation um for the uh public square improvements as well.

All right.

Um Mr.

Chairman, is this is this coming to finance today?

Uh I'm not sure, Councilman.

All right, Mr.

Chairman to the director, can you find that out for me before this goes to finance?

Um if council members can use discretionary funds to beautify public spaces within their within their wards, and not only just for to hire third party landscapers like like we're doing here, right?

Because they're downtown Cleveland Eagles not doing it, they're hiring a landscaper to do it, correct?

Uh through the chair to the councilman, yes, that is correct.

Okay.

So I just want to make sure what's good for one section of the city is going to be good for the for the rest of the section of the city.

And then I don't know if it's just me, but on my tablet, I don't have an executive summary.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Um, Director, um I I uh I think I've said this before, but I am not going to let any legislation pass through the committee unless it has an executive summary.

Matter of fact, I will not hear any piece of legislation that does not have an executive summary.

But since we have two uh wonderful folks from the uh downtown Cleveland Alliance, we're gonna let this uh pass today.

Is there any other questions on ordinance 226 2026?

Councilman Shaw.

Uh yeah, Chair, thank you.

Uh just real quick to the director, uh, through the chair.

Can you do we have uh split on how many events is the city hosting on these malls versus how many events are um downtown Cleveland hosting versus other organizations?

I'm just wondering what's the actual usage of this public space by the city versus uh third parties.

Uh through the chair to the council member, uh great question.

Uh the majority of the events hosted on the malls are hosted by private operators.

The city does not do a whole lot of um special events that are sponsored by the city.

And is 77,000, 77,500,000 is that the total amount that is necessary for the upkeep of this area, or is this just a portion of what it takes to maintain um the malls B and C.

Uh through the chair to the council member, um the 77,000 is primarily for landscaping to ensure that the grass is growing, that it's well maintained, that we do um early growing season maintenance um and then uh fall growing season maintenance, and then it also includes any repairs to the irrigation system as needed.

I I guess I should clarify is are other third parties, perhaps even downtown Cleveland, are they pitching in for the maintenance of this space as well?

Uh through the chair, I'm going to defer to uh Sam Rocco to respond to this question.

Thank you.

Thank you, uh Chair to the Councilman.

Um we do contribute uh to to the services provided.

Um I don't have a dollar amount.

We have ambassador services uh that provide graffiti removal, uh trash removal, um different types of services like that.

So I can give you um the additional services that we provide.

Yeah, I'd love to just understand what's the actual total cost in maintaining this area and how much is the split versus what the public is providing versus provided by private third parties.

Um I just want to understand because if if other third parties um not just downtown Cleveland pick up uh if if they're not, I see this more as a subsidy, which we can be okay with, but I think we should be up front that this is what that becomes if the city is not utilizing this space itself.

Um so either that would be we should maybe perhaps use it more or we should ask other parties to uh pitch in a fair share if they're using it for the majority of a portion.

That's all.

Thank you.

All right, thank you, Councilman Shaw.

Uh next I'm gonna go to Councilman Palency.

Thank you, can you pick it down?

My honorable colleagues to the director um and the folks that are here.

Um just educate me.

The fund number.

What is where where the where are the dollars coming from?

Uh through the chair to the council member.

So this is pretty complex.

There's a couple of different um uh agreements as it relates to the malls.

And so um typically the malls had to come from economic development, and that was relating to when the other agreements were created with group plan uh for m maintenance of uh the malls and of the public square space.

I believe also Perk Plaza.

Okay.

So some of the this could go back.

Through the chair to the councilman, yes, that is correct.

I believe this goes back to 2016.

Oh, that's all?

Maybe.

Because Per Plaza has been around a long time.

Uh I will check on that.

Okay.

Um I bel I will have to go and look and see when those agreements are um I don't have them uh pulled up in front of the.

I would also make that request, Mr.

Chair, through this through our staff to identify those funds uh where they're coming from, because I want to go back to Councilman Casey's line of questioning.

Um we are told that we can't do this and we can't do that, and then we see here's a case where we're able to um hire a landscaper to do the uh the maintenance, which I believe is important.

It's got that's important.

Malls B and C have to be maintained.

But so I would like again to get some clarification there from whoever uh as to what the protocol is, what the process is, and then it was my understanding that the um the businesses downtown, the property owners downtown, are all assessed um by downtown Cleveland Incorporated.

Is that correct?

Uh through the chair to the councilman, that is correct.

So in the assessment, that wouldn't cover uh through the chair to the councilman.

Uh it covers a portion of it.

Uh I will also note that the city is uh a contributing member to the special improvement district.

Say that again, I guess.

Uh the city is also a contributing member to the special improvement district.

Well, that's what I'm saying.

You're we're contributing.

Is this on top of what we're contributing?

Uh yes, through the chair.

My my my just gonna need to get some clarification.

Um because if if we're getting if we're contributing already for maintenance in the downtown area, um and now we're being asked again.

Um I just um I would like to know can you tell us what we're contributing now before this 77,000 dollars?

Uh through the chair to the uh councilman.

I don't have that number in front of me, but I'm happy to provide that.

I would, Mr.

Chairman, I would request that to see what we are contributing to downtown Cleveland Incorporated.

Um because again, we want to maintain the malls.

That's not even an issue.

Uh the malls have to be maintained.

They're city property, and we want them maintained.

Um, but we also want things in our neighborhoods maintained, and that's been the growing rub here.

We can't get stuff maintained in our neighborhoods.

So I'll leave it at that.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

All right, thank you, Councilman Plansick, and uh thank you for bringing up that point.

It's be uh um interesting to figure out how much we are contributing and all of the downtown folks are uh how much and how we determine how much are we charging downtown folks as far as contributing to the to the um to the uh downtown upkeep?

Um I'm gonna go to Councilman Jones.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

For the downtown um Cleveland Inc., how many contracts do we have uh with you currently, Mr.

Chairman?

Through the chair to the councilman, I don't have that number in front of me, but I'm happy to provide that.

Well, not the now when you just for clarification, not the amount, but how many contracts do we have?

Is it like five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, two, and then?

I would need to speak with our maintenance team.

All right, is it well I'm just talking about all contracts?

I I don't have that number in front of me.

Okay.

Do you have more than five?

Um I I don't know.

I apologize.

Are you the executive director, Mr.

Chairman, to the distinguished lady?

Uh no, sir.

I am the senior director of policy and research.

I see.

Um, Mr.

Chairman, I would like to know how many uh contracts the City of Cleveland has with um the downtown Cleveland Inc.

And then the second question, Mr.

Chairman, are we going to pass this?

Uh or are we going to get an executive summary and then come back and pass it?

No, we're going to pass this councilman.

Okay.

So then, Mr.

Chairman, my next question would be um, do you have the actual verbiage of the contract for this particular contract that's in front of us, Mr.

Chairman, to the director, if you can make that available?

Through the um chair to the councilman.

Um it is my understanding that um we have uh two contracts um with group plan, and we're working through transitioning those contracts to downtown Cleveland Inc.

Um as it relates to agreed upon work, um we have an agreement relating to public square and uh PERK Plaza and uh the malls.

And so I believe I need to check and see those agreements with PERK Plaza and uh Public Square, see if they are uh connected.

Um and then I need um can check on the malls.

So as it relates to um this afternoon, I'd be more than happy.

I apologize uh that the executive summary was not provided.

I'll make sure that I have that completed.

Um I will make sure that I have information on uh landscaping enhancements that's done in the neighborhoods and in other wards and how the city has allowed councilmatic dollars to go for that too.

And then Mr.

Chairman, uh, if we could get those contracts, that would be great.

Give me a chance to take a look at them.

And then also um, and these are the the landscaping contracts that we've had uh previously.

Uh not only this one, but want to take a look at some of the older ones you might have.

Um how many uh uh uh you you said you had to move from one group to this group to give this group that contract.

Can you talk a little bit about that and why that is, Mr.

Chairman to the director?

Uh through the chair to the councilman, uh I apologize.

I haven't been with the city for that long.

Um my understanding, the city had prior um work with an organization called Group Plan uh Commission, and the group plan commission uh worked collaboratively on public square and mall improvements.

Uh group plan commission dissolved.

I'm not sure what caused that to happen.

It evolved into downtown Cleveland Inc., which I believe was previously called downtown Cleveland Alliance.

Um so there's just been kind of this um transition into what uh this group is right now as downtown Cleveland Inc., but I can't share any details around group plan commission and how it changed.

I wasn't with the city at that time.

Okay.

So so Mr.

Chairman, would you would you would have the ability and capacity to have those contracts, is that correct, as a matter of record.

Uh through the chair to the councilman, I do have copies of those.

I'd be more than happy to submit them um so that you can see what they are.

I will um acknowledge they are pretty lengthy.

No worries.

So I I appreciate that, Mr.

Chairman, to the director, and then um as my colleague um uh uh has eloquently stated, Mike Pelenzik, you know, we do need to take care of our city properties and want to make sure that downtown is attractive.

Um and talking about that, um, certainly uh we had a conversation about Frederick Douglass.

So making sure that we have landscaping uh that is appealing and they keep that that facility clean and neat because it is something that you know we take pride in and we definitely need help.

So I I want to sit down and see how we could put something together like that uh for my facility uh in the neighborhood.

Um so uh when could we sit down and talk about how we can maybe get an alliance with downtown Inc.

to help me or or another organization to help me in my neighborhood to keep my facilities uh neat, clean, and nice for the citizens because that's important.

Uh and um also I wanted to sit down with you to talk about um and uh you know giving you resources to assist me and thank you, Mr.

Chairman, for just that quick miscellaneous um to the director.

Uh I really want to uh I really want to make sure that you know another year doesn't pass because I know we talked about this a couple years ago uh when you first came in, Mr.

Chairman, to the director to talk about how we fix some of the problems that are ongoing inside our our um uh uh swimming area and how they the steam needs to be let out because everything is rusting in there quickly.

So, Mr.

Chairman, thank you to the director.

Uh do you know when we could get together and and and really start putting together a plan?

Uh yeah, through the chair to the councilman, yes, thank you.

Um we hired an assistant director for parks and recreation operations uh later in 2025.

I'd be more than happy to schedule a meeting um so that we can sit down and talk about some of the facility improvements we've already started to make and some of our goals relating to how we can make improvements, and we certainly appreciate the partnership that we have with our council officials as it relates to our ability to improve the um quality and conditions of uh programs and services.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

To our director, uh you know, I appreciate the good job that you're doing for us in the city and and congratulations to the alliance for doing the work that you do to keep our city looking good as it relates to incoming people coming into our city, they do come to public square.

So we definitely need to do everything we can to maintain that.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

All right, thank you, Councilman Jones.

Councilman Shaw.

Just real quick, uh Director, the events that are hosted on malls B and C, are they also uh subject to the same permitting fees that any other facilities are subject to?

Yeah, through the chair to the councilman, yes, that is correct.

Whenever we have uh special events, a lot of um event planners want to host uh events at that location.

It's great.

It brings tourism to the city, it activates our downtown space, um, and then all special event fees do apply um as it relates to permitting and labor.

So uh earlier when I was asking about you know if it's third parties that are mostly hosting events here versus the city, if they went through that special permitting process, that's you're not considering them as part of what the city is hosting, correct?

Uh yes, that is correct.

Through the chair to the council member, any third party um event planner that wants to host an event, large event at that space.

Um it is not considered a city sponsored event, and they uh do pay um rental fees, labor fees as it relates to use of that space.

What's the rental fee for malls B and C.

I'm gonna have to check uh on that and I can get you the um a breakdown on the costs.

Okay.

Thank you.

All right, is there any other questions on ordinance 226 2026?

Seeing no further questions, ordinance number 226 2026 is approved.

Please sign it.

All right, director.

Thank you.

All right, director.

Yeah, let's do the ordinance for us.

I hope it doesn't take another hour for to do one ordinance.

All right, ordinance number 353 2026 by council members.

Uh hold it just a second.

My council members Bishop Santana and Griffin, this is a department of requests.

It's an emergency ordinance giving the consent to the city of Cleveland to the to the Director of Transportation of the State of Ohio to install a dynamic dynamic messaging system, a queue warning system light, a queue detection cameras, and associated infrastructure at various locations along IR 90 and SR State Route 176 in the City of Cleveland, accepting gifts and grants, inquiring, accepting, and recording necessary rights of way and authorizing uh agreements.

All right, director, we have heard this piece in this committee before, and we have gone through this and we brought it back to give some unanswered questions that we was not unable to get the answers to be previously.

So do you want to take it from here?

Uh yes, sir.

So uh Mr.

Chairman, so Assistant Director Chambers will present this since she was with you at the last committee.

Right.

To the chair to the committee, um, for your questions from your questions from last week.

We did send out an email um addressing all of those questions.

I hope you have those in front of you or have had a chance to review those questions.

I guess that would be yes, exactly.

I'm not exactly sure the questions that we had.

So they were all addressed and information returned.

Um, one item that really stood out to the committee was about the cost.

Cost.

And per that question, um ODOT was able to make a revision to the agreement to be more clear about the cost and how there are no costs to the city for this project.

We do have Anthony Tony, excuse me, talk that is um joining us from ODOT.

He's also from ODOT.

He's also address additional questions.

Um but per that response, we do have an amendment to um the ordinance.

Okay, can you uh hand me an amendment?

Yes.

Could you go over that?

Uh yeah, go over.

Can you have a copy of it?

Mr.

Chair, I can uh propose the amendment now if you'd like.

Okay, go ahead, Councilman uh Harsh.

So the the amendment is is for section six to strike it in its entirety as presented to us today.

So the tablet version would be strict struck stricken, struck stricken section six would be stricken as it's currently written, replaced with the following.

The new section six as is as reads.

Upon implementation of the improvement and unless otherwise agreed, ODOT shall at its sole cost maintain, repair, and replace all newly installed devices related to the dynamic message system and queue warning system.

Period.

This shall not change any existing agreements regarding the maintenance of IR 90 or SR 176 that may exist between the city and the state of Ohio.

Okay.

Councilman Harsh has an amendment on the floor.

Is there a second?

Councilman Hudson.

Councilman, Councilwoman Hudson, seconds.

All right.

Is there any discussion?

Yes, Mr.

Chairman.

Councilman Jones.

Uh Mr.

Chairman, did uh just for a we're saying that ODOT will be responsible uh in terms of the changing of the provision.

Um has ODOT agreed to that, Mr.

Chairman to the director.

Yes, uh Councilman Jones.

That's what we're we are changing, we're uh uh amending out.

So we we heard this the last committee, and everybody was concerned about the cost.

It was pretty um it was not specified who would maintain this system over the course of time.

ODOT was not at the table.

Now ODOT is at the table today.

So your question is, is ODOT in uh in agreeing with with section six and this amendment?

Is that what you're asking, Councilman Jones?

Yes, Mr.

Chairman, that's correct.

Okay.

Um Mr.

O dot I'm sorry, Mr.

O dot.

Tell me it's fine.

Uh yes, this is correct to the best of my knowledge, yes.

Okay, all right, Councilman Jones, are you okay with that?

Yeah, I'm I'm absolutely great.

I think it's a great amendment, and glad that ODOT is at the table in agreement.

No further questions, Mr.

Chairman.

All right.

So we have the amendment on the table.

Is there any other discussion on the amendment?

Seeing no further discussion, all in favor of the amendment say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All opposed?

The ayes have it.

All right.

Is there any other questions on ordinance 353 2026?

Councilman, um councilman uh Casey.

Casey.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Mr.

Chairman, uh if these questions were answered, I I did not make the last committee hearing, so I apologize.

But do these cameras do any type of surveillance at all?

Do they no they do not?

Do they capture any type of imaging with license plates or anything like that?

And what exactly are they, Mr.

Chairman, to our ODOT representative?

It it is a system that monitors speeds of the vehicles, and once the speeds decrease, it warns drivers upstream that the speeds are have been decreased and that you will need to stop.

So if I'm GPSing, right, and I'm following my GPS, and then all of a sudden the GPS it's blue, but then it becomes red because there's traffic ahead in the GPS.

Is that what this would do?

I'm not sure I exactly follow it.

So we've all had been on GPS, right?

And then all of a sudden you're you're following your blue line and your highway, but then it becomes red in your GPS because there's traffic.

Is that information gathered from what type of information gathering is are these cameras doing?

It's a different way to gather that information, but it registers this it picks up the speed.

GPS devices pick up blue a percentage of Bluetooth devices that are on, and that's how that works.

But but these work off of actual cameras picking up the speed of the vehicles.

Okay, and then Mr.

Chairman, to our ODOT rep, what why?

What what are you gonna do with the with the data with the information?

Uh Mr.

Chairman is a councilman.

This this isn't we're not collecting data per se.

What we are trying to do is prevent rear-end crashes because people driving at high speeds have a very difficult time of figuring out how hard they should hit their brakes when there is a slower speed up ahead.

So it it helps prevent rear-end crashes at high speeds.

And Mr.

Chairman to the ODOT rep, where where would these be placed?

Mr.

Chairman of the Councilman, this these are at uh I-90 westbound going into the curve, and state route 176, northbound, north of Denison going towards Steelyard.

How many are going in?

It's just two systems.

Two systems?

Yes.

And all this does, Mr.

Chairman, because I want to make sure, right?

This collect this collects and stores no data.

Correct?

Correct.

Okay.

If by chance somebody asked for data, data or information from these, you guys do not share it?

Mr.

Chairman, we we will store the video for 72 hours like all of our other cameras, and and that's all.

But if they had a public records request for that video within that 72 hours, we would give it.

And what would and and here we go, Mr.

Chairman?

So our ODA rep, what would be on that video?

License plate numbers.

Just whatever you can pick up from the video.

Yeah.

So it's surveilling.

Yeah, it is.

It is.

You're collecting data, you're collecting information of people who are driving on the highway.

You're storing it for 72 hours.

If somebody wants any information on that from 72 hours, you provide it to them, correct?

Mr.

Chairman and Councilman, we will have the outside video.

They will not be able to zoom in to see anything.

Whatever was recorded and stored.

If there was an incident on our normal cameras, we zoom in and you may be able to see a license plate.

These cameras are.

These cameras are 80 or 90 feet in the air to up to 100 feet in the air, and they're looking at a distance of um up to a mile.

Right.

That's a large area.

Yes.

So we normally survey that whole area, and we only zoom in when there's an incident.

So you're only going to get a capture of a large area.

That's all that is.

So Mr.

Chairman, to our ODAT director, to our ODAT rep, I think you answered the question.

You use the term surveyed.

You you tur you use the term zoom in.

How do we know that somebody's not going to request within 72 hours because you have it?

License plate number.

ABC 1234, and you guys have the ability to go back and say, yes, that that car was right there at that point.

And you would share it, correct?

It is very unlikely.

Okay.

That could act actually happen.

Because we're not that that's not what these the purpose of these, they're not license plate readers.

Right.

But you're gathering the information.

Not gathering information.

We're just recording video.

All right.

I mean, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you.

All right.

Uh Councilman Harsh.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

I share some of the concerns that Councilman Casey's getting at.

And this is kind of a conflicted issue for me because I I understand where we're going with here.

There are very good altruistic uses for traffic data.

I'm not proud, but I was recently in Florida.

Um and they have no signs on the highway that say warning, slow traffic ahead, expect a half hour to the next exit.

It just gives motorists a heads up that there is a slowing in traffic.

And that's good for safety reasons.

And I can imagine that if there was an accident on the highway and they wanted to go back to look at the some footage to see what happened and caused the accident, that could help a lot of people resolve issues.

I understand there's a lot of good productive uses for this type of technology.

But I also know that uh you can swap out one camera for another and the next camera can be the LPR.

I don't think that the current system they're proposing has the capacity to read license plates in real time.

I don't think that's part of the installation.

But you just swap out a new camera or you just put new software on the camera and it suddenly can do that.

And I understand some of the concerns that we have.

We we keep getting put into this spot where we have to think about what's convenient, what's efficient, and what's helpful versus what's a violation of a person's privacy or a person's rights to to exist in society without monitoring.

Um and and there really isn't a really a happy space for for this to end.

I am going to support this, Mr.

Chairman, because I believe this is the state of Ohio.

These are interstates owned by the state of Ohio, and I think this is a network they're setting up across the state to help uh with traffic um uh information and conveying that information to motorists.

I would rather motorists get information about traffic conditions from a sign they're driving under than being on their phone.

I also have uh you know Google streets on my phone that I check every morning before I leave the house.

Google gathers information from Google users who have their location devices on to give real-time information on um on how bad traffic is.

I check that before I leave the house, but other people check that while they're in the car driving.

And we'd rather they not be on the phone while they're in the car driving.

Uh we would rather them have a sign on the road that says, hey, traffic's gonna slow down in front of you here real quick, get ready.

Um so I understand where we're trying to go with this, and I understand the concerns that that we have about this.

In this particular situation though, Mr.

Chair, I'm gonna defer to the state.

This is uh their interstate, they're agreeing to pay for it, which was a big issue for us.

We weren't sure who was supposed to be responsible for this moving forward.

If a car takes out a poll and knocks one of their signs down, it made it look like the city of Cleveland had to replace that sign.

We've now clarified that ODOT will pay for any uh maintenance that needs to happen with these devices since they're on uh state property.

So I'm fine with that part of it.

But I do understand it's very conflicting for us, and um I don't think that uh councilman Casey's concerns are without merit.

I think they're they're they're real and that we can easily convert these into more surveillance type devices, but um I will let us handle those issues in the city and let the state handle those issues on the highways.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

All right.

Uh thank you, Councilman Harsh.

Uh councilman, you're gonna have to teach me how to go on Google to figure out before I leave the house.

Uh next I'm gonna go to next I'm gonna go to Councilman uh Shaw.

Thank you, Chair.

Uh Chair, all I'd ask is up.

Can we take a vote on this?

I uh my colleagues have convinced me um I I can't support this.

Thank you.

All right.

Um so is there any other questions on uh 353 2026?

All right, Madam Clerk, can you call a row?

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

No.

No.

Yes.

Five days, two nays.

Five years, two nays.

Okay.

All right, is there any other questions on ordinance three five three twenty twenty-six?

Seeing no further questions, ordinance number three five three twenty twenty-six is approved.

Please sign it.

All right, director.

Um director, you want to call up our guests for a presentation?

Yes.

Oh, yeah.

Come on up, guys.

Um Mark, why don't you sit here and then whoever's Mark?

Gentlemen, ladies.

All right, director, can you um just give us uh can you set the table?

Um can you can you um quickly set the table?

Uh we have uh new members here that was not here when we originally hailed when we originally heard this piece of legislation from Leopardo.

Can you briefly give an explanation about what's going on?

What what these um uh lovely folks are here to um to kind of report on and basically give us the rundown.

Um absolutely, Mr.

Chairman.

So, first of all, to the to the new council members, the ordinance that was passed in 2025 is uh 723 2025, and what that authorized is uh uh design build contract um related to all five of the police districts.

Um and the um the it's a 20 mil 21 million dollar contract, and the goal was to show um that we could recoup the money that we're putting into the improvements through um energy efficiency and procurement savings.

And so we're gonna go through kind of how our project is working.

Um, but I wanted to highlight for the group that this is really the first step to really look at how our public safety facilities are um the condition of the facilities and how we can work to increase the the uh the the um standards, if you will, for our employees that are in the public safety facilities.

So this relates to um uh the police stations, all of them.

Um so with that I'm gonna hand it over to Mark, who can give a little bit more of an update on um the project, introduce our team members, then we're gonna go through a PowerPoint presentation, and then we're gonna answer any questions that council may have.

And this isn't the first time that we're gonna be before you.

We're gonna come back and and give another presentation um either you know during still when we're under construction or when things wrap up in the summertime.

So with that, I'll hand it over to Mark Doolick, who is the um the manager of architecture and site development in uh Capitol Projects.

Thank you, Director.

Uh, through the chair to um all of the members of council, definitely those present.

Um thank you for this opportunity to present to you, which is really uh the what is really the city's um first energy savings performance contract.

Um there's any questions about what the nature of that is, be happy to answer them.

This is a great way for us to get all of our police facilities at this time to a good quality and truly maintainable standard, as well as increasing the energy efficiency.

So our first time, I have to say my staff and I are very pleased with how it is going so far.

Um we're pleased with the efficiency, and one thing that's especially gratifying, I have to say, is the uh the enthusiasm which with which these improvements have been embraced by the actual police department staff who operate these facilities 24 hours a day.

So I think that's the real reason we're doing it is to not only improve uh traction and retention, but to really make the daily life in the districts for the the men and women in blue um a better experience and support their mission to serve uh the public.

Um with that, I'd like to introduce Heather Gray and Eric Betts.

They are from Leopardo.

They are the uh partner that we chose to work with for this energy savings performance contract to actually implement these changes as well as uh identify the procurement and energy savings that'll allow us to pay off this financing.

So with that we mentioned that it was through the thank you, Mark.

One real quick uh thank you, Director.

Um, through the chair to everyone.

Um this was procured through a request for qualifications where we put out basically a public solicitation for um companies that perform these kinds of design build contracts and execute the the work as both contractors and energy savings performance uh companies.

So um we selected uh Leopardo from those that proposed as the um one that fit the city's needs best.

So and for those that want to do some homework on it, if you look at Ohio Revised Code 717.02, um that's what authorizes uh cities to enter into these types of agreements.

And so with that, I'm gonna hand it over to our folks from uh Leopardo.

Thank you, Director to the Chair and through the chair to the council members here today.

We thank you for the opportunity to come and present our upgrades for the Q1 uh feedback on this project.

Um as Director DeRosa mentioned, uh this was uh enabled through ordinance 723 2025 by unanimous unanimous vote through this council and some of the discussions that we had with uh in agreement to come back to you, provide you updates on how it is progressing.

So that's what we're here to do today.

And I'd like to start off by playing a video.

Hopefully, this works.

They don't usually assign tech roles to me, but we're gonna see if I can do it today for you.

A promise was made to the city of Cleveland, and together we are delivering on it across districts one, four, and five.

New boiler systems were installed in January and carried those buildings throughout the rest of the heating season.

Major HVAC replacements are now underway with chillers, air handling equipment, pumps, piping, and control systems are scheduled to be operational by June.

Key exterior improvements have also been completed, including facade restoration, concrete and masonry work, roofing progress, and station upgrades.

And it has been done the right way with local union labor, local coordination, and real work happening inside Cleveland neighborhoods.

The City of Cleveland and Leopard will set out to modernize these facilities and reduce operating cost.

And that is exactly what is happening.

Eric is I'm gonna turn over to you to walk through all of the the project scope so far on the ground.

Absolutely, thank you, Heather.

This is just an overview of where we're at in construction.

We're about a third of the way through.

Um we've done been able to accomplish a lot with the heating systems this this winter, getting them up and running, and we're able to heat on new boiler systems um through the end of winter if it ever ends.

Um in addition, we were able to get tuck pointing and concrete work done at districts four and five, and are currently um about done with district one as well.

Um and so that's some of the pictures that you saw there in the video, and we have more to follow.

Um in addition, we've been working with the MOCAP team on the interior renovations, the lighting, the ceiling, and HVAC, and they've been great to work with.

We're currently um at district one, four, and five, uh replacing all of the mechanical systems.

Um so right now those those those districts, as you saw in the video, we're having all of the equipment removed and new equipment will be being installed through May.

The goal, obviously, when it gets warmer here, they have heating and cooling available to them along with new automation systems.

In addition, the solar uh solar arrays for each roof uh are getting ready to be installed.

Um, we're starting two of the districts this week, and we'll be starting uh two more in the following months, and then um the roof at District 5, which is currently um under construction, uh will be done in July, June to July, and then we'll do those solar arrays then.

So, Heather, I know we gave you a lot of information in the packet that we emailed out.

I just kind of wanted to go over that, and then we can kind of go through.

Sure, I can click through.

Yeah, it's kind of far away here.

Let's see here.

So as we look at each district, it's going in chronological order here.

Those are all the the actual scopes for the buildings.

And then we just have some before and afters, as you can see, and this is pretty typical of all three of the of the districts, one, four, and five real boilers.

We were able to replace these in January and February.

Um, and then we did some concrete work on some railings there at district one.

I think what you can really find though when you look at the facades, and we'll get to that uh here a little little later.

Um again, third district solar is going in here currently.

When we we look at four and we really look at the before and afters here of again the boilers, but then the tuck pointing and uh, you know, we don't always get to drive by these, but just the conditions it was in, and then the conditions it's in now on and everything being done here is is gonna last that 20 30 year time period.

This isn't just some covering that we're trying to cover up the holes.

Um we've also uh rehab the signage on at four and one, and then if we go to five, um it's where you see another we new boilers, you see new garage door, uh the other garage door had already been replaced, so now they have new operating garage doors.

And then these concrete front entry steps, you know.

If you if you look at what it looked like to the public there, and now um, you know, it really looks new, looks brand new.

Um so again, from a safety and uh and uh beautification perspective and uh and for how long it's gonna last from here on out.

We've got again more concrete work uh that was done, and then I think you saw the signage in the video.

Um so this is the our master schedule.

Don't expect you to be able to see this, but this basically this big line here shows you we're about a third of the way done.

Um all of our design is done, and we're working for those interior scopes to follow over the the late spring and early summer months.

Um again, uh what we're looking at now is HVAC work all the way through May, early June, and we're starting the ceilings and new lighting um in May and June, and then the interior refresh of new flooring, new paint, um, all the accrements for carpentry and stuff like that to make the interior spaces feel more uh good and and and funny story at district five.

We were talking to the captain there and we did all this concrete work, and uh I was like, Well, what do you think?

And he's like all the all the female police now they want to build a garden out front, and I thought that was really cool.

Like they're actually excited to to have a nice looking front to the police district.

So that said, Mr.

Chair, they didn't put a guard well it's been a little cold.

I think they're gonna I think they're gonna get there once, yeah.

Yeah.

Um, Heather's gonna talk a little bit about procurement.

So while this is an energy efficiency savings contract, we knew that it was important to address quality of life issues for the police staff.

So what we were able to do is add things like the entry points, um the the flooring or the lighting that really have such a major impact on their quality of life, even though lighting, of course, uh um you know helps with energy efficiency, but we added the things into this so that the police stations, while they're not gonna be perfect, they're gonna be what we need to um to attract and attain um retain our employees.

And then if this is a successful program, then that really shows us that hey, this is possible to address all of the buildings at the same time and not have to piecemeal them through um yearly capital improvement plan uh allocations.

So with that, why don't we talk a little bit about how these savings are gonna come back to the city?

Thank you through the chair to the council.

Um for those of you who weren't on board at the time this was passed.

This is as Director DeRosa passed out a guaranteed energy savings performance contract.

Um so all of the investments that you've seen here, 21 million dollars worth of investment in the police stations are funded through the savings that are accomplished through this program.

A major component of those savings were our operational procurement technology savings.

So we've been working very diligently with the city's procurement team.

Uh thank you to Director Uh Johnson for all of her assistance and her staff's assistance and getting us the information that we need in order to achieve these savings.

I'm gonna walk you through some of the initial steps that we've um accomplished so far.

And when we come back and meet with you for our second quarter update, I think you're going to be really excited about the results that we're going to find.

So if you could see here um the progress to date, so we've established a cross-department invoice data extraction and analysis plan.

You guys have a lot of um purchases, obviously, for a city of this size.

So we've worked with the team in procurement as well as other um departments within the city who manage large spend categories to ensure that we're getting the data in an expedient way, um and it's not creating a burden on staff, and that we're able to understand the data and providing the spending transparency so we're making these data-driven decisions.

So we've analyzed two and a half million uh purchase orders and from different payment reports over the years from 2023 through 2025, and we're continuing to work with the staff on a weekly basis.

We've also obtained letters of authorization that are generated through the legal department as well as the different divisions throughout the city so that we can uh speak to vendors on the city's behalf to provide that information and recommendation for the city to take action with that data.

Um we've also done business reviews of existing vendors and all round one target.

So we're approaching this very strategically.

Contracts that are up for renewal, contracts that there are issues with, and what could be good savings motivators.

Um we're also doing oh, there we go.

Okay, we're back.

Thank you.

Um we've also uh have ongoing uh coordination with the staff, meeting weekly with the the uh appropriate personnel, doing these contract review reviews and bids uh for when those are uh appropriate timing and establishing the RFQ uh for large purchases procedures.

So again, just really grateful for the great uh cooperation and collaboration of the city's teams.

They help us make this very successful and have achieve a lot of progress thus far.

So some of our big accomplishments to date.

We've identified $38,000 in annual savings through consortium optimization of apparel spend.

We're also working with the police department, which is uh, you know, not an easy thing to target, but actually on shooting targets, uh a spend category where we can accomplish $34,000 annually in savings um with a qualified vendor for this uh particular uh good.

We also have been working very closely with the IT departments um analyzing 2,477 telecom lines that have been reviewed um in pursuit of this consolidation competitive bid strategy, which we project will have at a minimum of four million dollars um in annual savings to the city, which is just absolutely incredible.

Um we'll talk a little bit more about that in a minute.

We've also requested from the city to look at a tire RFQ that they were having to manage and having some difficulty managing.

So we added that to our our targets um to review with the city and have qu uh collaborated to uh create an RFQ that would provide a qualified vendor for that particular service.

So telecom, as we started off saying, this is one that we're very excited about.

We've had great engagement from the city staff.

Um the problem here is that there's so many lines, the data is extremely complicated and complex to get through.

Um so our team has been working to get all of that information from the telecom vendors and provide um uh other opportunities in which we can have the same amount of service, same quality service, but at a better cost.

And so we're currently working to achieve that.

We are very confident that by the time we're here next uh quarter to provide our update, we will have the the actual numbers in this uh category.

Apparel and equipment again looking at consortium spending and competitive bid spending um to achieve $38,000 annually in savings.

This one is near completion.

Um it has been uh that all of our analysis has been performed and recommendation has been given to the city staff for ultimate uh decision.

Um so again, expect to have a final determination on this spend by the next quarter as well.

Shooting targets, as I mentioned, working with the police department um to establish a plan of action.

You know, we're really working with the um city's weapons committee and ammunition team to identify product requirements and and really using that feedback to ensure that we're not uh lessening that quality for that department in the spend category and identify $34,000 annually of savings uh connected to shooting targets.

And last but not least, janitorial supplies, looking at utilizing an RFQ strategy, um projected annual savings of 100,000.

Um expect this to be achieved in early uh Q3.

Um so working with the city staff to analyze the data at this point and identify existing vendors in order to uh develop this RFQ for these savings.

And on deck we have fuel.

Um looking at that, we're going to get ahead of this agreement.

It expires in uh for the 2027 year uh contract year.

So we're looking at it now.

It is one of those complicated ones that touches um many city departments, and so making sure everybody's needs are met.

Also, again, this tire disposal uh was what the city had asked us to help them uh draft an RFQ to to deal with some of their existing challenges.

So that will be accomplished in the next round of targets as well.

So again, some exciting things happening here.

This is where the savings are primarily coming from that are funding all the great improvements that Eric walked you through.

Um so excited to come back to see you guys for the next update and give you some definitive numbers in which we can disclose some vendor uh names uh so as to not uh disrupt the progress we're making.

And then I'm gonna hand it back to Eric for the energy savings component.

So from an energy excuse me, energy savings perspective, um, the solar arrays will certainly uh contribute a large amount to that.

Um those are going in now as I mentioned prior.

Uh we in addition with our boiler plan upgrades that we did over the winter, um national gas usage savings will be happening along with the fact that the boilers now um are are operating better and so now the officers have heat.

And then we're also going to be working towards the lighting and um the lighting replacements with LED lighting that will uh that will offer energy savings there as well.

So that is the end of our update.

We'd just like to thank you again at the council as well as the division at MOCAP and um everyone that's helped us at the police stations thus far, the finance department with Director Barrett and procurement with Director uh White Johnson, who's been of great assistance throughout this program.

We're happy to answer any questions that the council has.

Excuse me, through the chair.

Thank you, Heather.

Thank you, Eric.

Really appreciate the presentation.

And hopefully you can share some of our excitement about not only how well this going, but what the promise that this holds for a long-term solution to how we take care of our buildings in a in the most uh effective way.

I did want to mention, especially for those uh council members who weren't necessarily part of the whole process of getting to the legislation for the city to be able to do this, is that there's another component of the energy savings performance contracting, and that's the guaranteed savings component of this thing.

Um just as a reminder.

Um the savings that they are um pursuing together with the Department of Purchases and Supplies through the Department of Finance.

Is they are truly guaranteed.

In other words, the energy savings, the procurement savings, those annual savings, that money goes to pay off the debt that was taken on, the 21 million dollars.

That is guaranteed by Leopardo.

So whether they garner those savings or not, they are responsible for the amount it takes off takes to pay off the debt every year.

Um, that was clear and understood about how this very effectively mitigates the risk to the city of Cleveland that we are their guarantee allows us to have the confidence to move forward with this knowing that we can achieve these uh savings.

Thank you.

Good work.

So uh so councilman, we are um excited about how well this is going.

Good so uh so councilman we are um excited about how well this is going uh they hit the ground running they'll be finished in the summertime and uh we would like to come back uh for another update uh perhaps of the August committee of the whole or if you want to wait till September but we'll be ready to come back and with that we'll open this up to questions that the council may have.

Okay um so you you uh you did say that this will take a year originally correct and it's gonna still on track to take about a year to get this all completed yes sir so they should be finished in August September of this year so yes sir.

All right so now district three um what's going on with district three do we have any so district three only have one X uh and S says is in progress so we're not doing very much the district three building is that what is that why we don't have any um excess right here?

So Mr.

Chairman short answer then I'll hand it over district three is the newest building that we have in our system.

Okay.

So there were a lot of um energy efficient uh elements of the building already but technology changes fast um so there are some improvements that we're putting into that building uh so lighting for instance even though it was a newer building there's more efficient lighting uh that we could put in to help us with our energy efficiency okay um uh and I was over at uh district four uh a couple of months back and um I did ask the commander about the progress of you know what's going on with the building and he was he was really surprised and very excited about um that he got some stuff done over there that they were trying to get uh for years and uh and I'm I don't I'm not sure if Leopardo did it but I don't um but but he said it was done.

I think it was some uh some work to the locker rooms or something something like that.

But anyway the commander over there was very excited about that.

Um so have there been any changes made to the city's procurement and bidding process during this whole time director thus far you mean in the pro in the process?

I can speak to that thank you director um uh to the chair so we are working with the city's procurement team to work within the city's policies guidelines and requirements for purchasing but that do so more strategically providing additional information through our technology where we're able to look at the spend and analyze the spend so we're giving the procurement division this information in order and we give them a recommendation as to who they they have as a qualified vendor that they might want to select based upon the analysis and then they're actually executing any contracts that go through this program.

Okay.

So what has the city spent to date on the contract with Lear Powder including any maintenance contracts director.

Do you have that do you have those figures?

So first of all we don't have maintenance contracts um in place yet since we're still working on on the actual construction.

I think we had one one invoice last year and we have two that we're in process that are probably over two at this point.

Yes I think it was approximately 5.7 million up to this point.

Total 5.7 million total roughly okay um well I'm glad to hear everything is going um very well um we're seeing new stuff at these buildings we've never seen before um so I'm gonna open it up for questioning I'm gonna start with the Councilman Harsh and I'm gonna come back to Councilwoman Gray.

Thank you Mr.

Chair um so I'm I'm glad you guys came in today and this was a bit of a confusing proposition I think when it first came to the table I I think that what one thing I highlighted what highlighted was financed by savings.

I think it was one of the terms that we're we're using here that this is being paid for by the efficiencies that are being realized through the process and I'm I don't know what pages was on the slide I think page 18 on the slide where you break down the telecom versus targets versus tires and all that.

Yeah there you go.

And so my question is first question through the chair are these the savings that we're talking about that finance the renovations yes through the chair to the the councilman that's absolutely correct.

So this is part of the savings that are within the guaranteed um savings amount so this was financed through um the Ohio revised code 717 which allows for um essentially an equipment lease uh non-taxable equipment lease um in the equipment what equipment lease need lease lease so it's not a traditional um geo bond financing it is specifically allowed for in the statute which allows you to use the savings as the repayment source uh the guaranteed savings to this program so some of the ones that we're highlighting here um are savings that we've identified through procurement uh technology solutions once the construction period is absolutely complete we'll have better numbers on the actual um energy savings you know components things like with the lighting as we've mentioned with the solar that we're um implementing through here we'll have those additional savings combined that will um have to match the guaranteed annual savings amount that we uh provided within the contract so

So some of the ones that we're highlighting here are savings that we've identified through procurement uh technology solutions.

Once the construction period is absolutely complete, we'll have better numbers on the actual um energy savings, you know, components, things like with the lighting, as we've mentioned, with the solar that we're um implementing through here, we'll have those additional savings combined that will um have to match the guaranteed annual savings amount that we uh provided within the contract.

So so through the chair, is the process because obviously the the workers out there need to get paid, they can't wait for savings to get paid and the the materials need to be bought up front.

Um is the process that Leopold pays for these things up front and then gets reimbursed by the city afterwards, or that the city pays up front and then the city gets their money back from the savings that Leopold realizes through the process.

So it's it's the latter.

So if you think of this in a more traditional construction sense.

Leopardo, I'm sorry.

Leopardo, yes.

Leopardo.

So we we essentially pay for their construction work as they complete it based upon pay applications that documents the work that they've done.

So they invoice us on a regular basis for maybe if they ordered a boiler, uh, you know, and and or they they completed the tuck pointing.

So through the chair, there's really no savings up front because the work costs X amount, labor costs X amount, materials cost X amount.

We're using the same materials and labor, union labor good work.

Um but the savings that are created by the renovations then end up backfilling the amount that we spent on the renovations themselves.

Yes, and that's what the section 717.02 of the Ohio revised code allows for.

Correct.

Through the chair, if I if I may um expound on that a little bit.

Um it's also during this construction period.

So it's it's financed through you know the the lease purchase agreement that we discussed.

During this construction period, there are no payments uh on the fine financing.

So you get that whole construction period to accrue the savings so that you have savings within that designated fund prior to any debt service payments coming due.

So we're currently within that construction period, as Eric mentioned, we should be wrapping construction um in August or September of this year.

Um and so that's the way the debt schedule will be set out.

They'll be accruing all of these savings throughout that time frame before uh the finance department has to issue the financial uh debt service payment.

Okay.

And so by that time, then the savings uh so by that time we should have extra money because we're not spending it on.

But uh I guess that just leads me to this question through the chair.

Um it seems like the largest savings are from telecom.

I mean, 38,000 and uh uh essentially uniforms, 34,000 in targets, that's not even one officer salary.

I mean, that's 64.

Um it's the four million in telecom savings.

I'm I'm I'm kind of like trying to figure out how that plays into the energy efficiency component.

I I understand that we can get you know raked over the coals by telecom, and if you f figured out how to make our phone bill cheaper, you could save us four million dollars a year, and that makes sense.

I get that, but how does that play into the energy efficiency?

And that's just one piece of this puzzle.

So there was also Eric showed you the slides that related to energy efficiency, these all relate to procurement.

Correct.

And through the chair.

So if I may, um as I said, during the construction period, we're not uh calculating those energy savings just yet.

We will be once all of those, the solar, the lighting, all of that will be implemented.

So you will see in the future what those specific uh savings uh come to.

As far as the the telecom savings, the other procurement savings, Ohio's uh legislation is is incredibly flexible.

Um and one of the things it calls out is technology improvements.

So through the use of our our procurement technology investments in this program, the council identified specifically that the procurement savings could be um identified as an energy conservation measure, which can be guaranteed and captured through this program to fund the improvements themselves.

So this was something that we spent a significant amount of time uh with staff and and both the council and the city law department to identify what these savings look like and how they should be placed within the program.

Which wonderfully segues into my last question through the chair, which is this how did Leopardo know that there was going to be enough efficiency savings at the end of this to dive in at the beginning.

How did you figure out how much savings was actuated?

It could be could be discovered in a way that allowed you to think that this was even worth entering into.

I'll I'll start, I'll hand it over to you to you.

But so we started this whole process with an energy audit of our police station.

So if you just start from an energy standpoint, that's why we know when we're done with this project, we're gonna be able to quantify those savings because we have a benchmark from prior to any energy efficiency work being attained and then what it is afterwards.

Now that's part of the puzzle as far as procurement.

Um I know that they spent time with us before we came to City Council table to do an analysis of our our ecosystem related to police to determine if there's enough savings for them to give us that guarantee.

So maybe you could speak a little bit about how you dug into our current um uh police ecosystem.

Sure.

So um as you said, we were able to have access to some of the data, some of the reports uh for your vendors spend.

We do this with other communities and have identified uh this to be a challenge almost everywhere we go.

And part of that problem is that the technology that is used to um to process payments to do all of the things that you need to run a city is your ERP system.

It's not a procurement technology.

And so we have developed uh this technology to give us this information, give us visibility to what municipal spend is and help us to provide strategies in which you can procure more effectively.

So we had a pretty good idea based upon the spend and very high level review of your your vendor uh spend reports that we could be of of help here.

Um I will say that we are also very conservative in our numbers.

We place safety factors in all of our guaranteed savings, particularly in procurement.

We put in higher safety factors because it's more behavioral.

And so we do ensure that we're you know setting the bar here and and guaranteeing here so we're not missing for you or for ourselves.

Um and I will say that based upon what we showed you today, the annual guarantee was $3.7 million, and just in telecom alone, we think we're going to achieve that.

So we think that there's going to be significant surplus savings here.

And again, the the contract took that into consideration saying if there are surplus savings, this might be something that we want to do again, and we're able to capture those savings for future phase work.

So we recognize this is a good opportunity, and uh I think this is a very effective way to get some of this work done that uh MoCap has been looking to do for some time.

Okay.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Chair.

That was my only that was my last question.

I I will just leave with this.

I I was very skeptical of this at the first at the beginning.

Um we're chipping away at some of that skepticism.

I'm starting to understand a little bit better about what what the goal is to accomplish here, and it seems like it's moving in a good direction.

I will uh uh tell you that I toured second district.

I I mean I went on a visit uh about two years ago and it was depressing.

It was a sad, sad state of affairs down there at the second district police department.

Um I really understood why it's not a good work environment.

Um and I'm really looking forward to seeing the tour uh October when when everything's wrapped up.

And that will be the final, I think, uh uh decision about whether or not this is all worth it combined with the financials when we're all done here of of how much we're saving on heating and cooling all these buildings and and all of that.

So it sounds like we're moving in the right direction, and I thank you all for coming in today.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

All right, all right, thank you.

Um, Councilman Harsh.

Um Director, maybe we can get Leopardo to uh look at the HVAC system here, City Hall because our I mean this this room right here is what it's like an ice box in here.

Today I agree.

All right, uh next I'm gonna go to uh Councilwoman Gray.

Yes.

Thank you, Chair.

I just want to say um I'm just gonna wait for the tour.

But everything looks good.

The presentation was awesome.

I have not been in fourth district at all, but uh seeing it from the outside.

It looks good, but I'm just gonna wait for the tour.

I'm happy that it has happened and it's happening.

That's it, Chair.

That's it.

So good job.

All right, uh, Councilman uh Gray.

We uh we appreciate your uh directness and your promptness.

Okay.

I'm gonna go to um Councilman Jones.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Certainly looking at this here, I just want to give, you know, I'm gonna be on the same line as um councilwoman Gray, looking at the presentation here, um, realizing that there's some potential savings.

Um at the end of the day, uh Mr.

Chairman to uh the director, um when will we realize those savings?

Yeah, well, I'll hand it out.

Through the chair.

Um so uh again, so this is an annual guaranteed savings, and those savings then will be used to it uh pay the debt service that funded the investment into these properties.

So we're we're accruing these savings right now through the construction period, and annually we'll come back and say these were the savings that were achieved with a full measurement and uh verification uh program to show you exactly where those savings are outlined and how they were achieved through the program.

Mr.

Chairman, you know, I wish we could do this with a number of our departments because it sounds like I just want to make sure I'm clear and I understand this correctly.

You're saying to me that you you did the investment, the city pay for the investment, and that because of these investments, we're going to realize real savings and those savings that the city has put up front, those savings will actually be allocated to pay off the debt.

And I would assume, Mr.

Chairman, would that be our bond that would be paid off or so the the nice uh through the chairman and the councilman?

The nice thing about this is that this program is outside of our typical bonding cycle, bonding capacity.

Now, obviously the finance department uh was you know locked up with us in this process, and they had to make sure that as a city that even if we have a guarantee, this is the first time that we're doing this, to make sure that we have uh entered into all the agreements, knowing what our capacity to repay the debt would be.

Um so it's outside of the bonding cycle, but it is it is debt that the finance department has through a definite different mechanism which would be paid back through through these savings.

I don't know if that was too too much, but that you know it's still debt, but it's not through the bonding cycle, it's not through bonds.

Well, I would love to uh Mr.

Chairman understand the because it's probably more than meets the eye here on how we would be saving and what that formula looks like uh for us to spend a lot of time here at the table to talk about.

But I would love to to take a look at the nuances of that.

And um, and this is let me ask this question, Mr.

Chairman.

Is this to the director?

Is this the first time we've had something like this in the city of Cleveland?

Uh through the chairman, yes.

So, and that's one reason why it took so long through many meetings with council, many meetings with finance, procurement, sustainability to get here, but we are hoping that this is successful, and we are hoping that we can replicate it.

Um the reason why the police districts was an attractive test case is because there's five buildings, right?

So you have sort of a known quantity, garages have big doors that open up, he you know, can go out, fire fire houses.

We have a gazillion of them.

So this was a good one to test on five buildings.

Well, Mr.

Chairman, I I certainly want to um uh commend you and the administration for this program.

Um it it certainly is impressive.

I've not seen anything quite like this in my time here in the city.

And if we could uh probably look at you know some of our recreational facilities, you know, um, throughout the city of Cleveland, um if this is a possibility, I don't know how you would work that out, but there's a lot of need in the city of Cleveland, and um we might take up all your time.

So I'm not sure if you working with someone else, but uh but uh I think the city can give you enough work to keep you busy.

Um what I will say is uh want to comment, Mr.

Chairman, about the fourth district.

Uh years ago uh when the fourth district was uh being uh run by uh then um commander Mike McGrath, who went on to become uh the chief and then the safety director at some point in the city of Cleveland.

Uh we contributed myself at the time, um O'Delia Robinson, and uh so you know it goes way back.

And um uh to contribute to the fourth district uh um uh entryway where where the customers are handled uh in their main room.

And one of the things is is that it's uh we need to do something there so that when we're receiving citizens who have been traumatized that we have a really good um uh room where they can sit down and and and deal with their issues with a police officer.

Um so how how do we fix that that intro room?

Or are we even looking at that in this this particular project?

So through the Chair, um so as part of this is interior renovations for all one, two, four, and five.

Specifically at four and also at one with that kind of industrial look and entryway we've been working with the MOCAP architectural team to not change the structural look of it, but change it and make it more comfortable, make it more um hospitable for the public coming in.

We're also replacing all of the storefronts at each of those four buildings so that they look nicer at four, we're replacing the the steps right now outside.

Um so if you drive by there, you'll see the steps are torn out, we're putting in new concrete steps.

So the goal for for the MoCAP team and also for us is to make not only the police areas look nicer, but also the the customer facing uh portions looking nicer as well.

So I think you'll see an improvement over the next four months, and then we can assess that after that.

Uh Did you want to uh see the d the safety director came to the table so Mr.

Chairman?

Through the chair to Councilman Jones.

That's a great question.

Um the um it's really important that victims that come to any district, in particular district four, have privacy.

Uh as you know when you go to district four, they have little areas, uh very area areas that are cordon off or they have uh different things there.

But when we have something or someone that comes into our division of police and they're traumatized, um they're taken uh to private areas uh if it's not sufficient uh privacy in that particular lobby area.

I I can give you an example when I was a district commander many moons ago.

You and I have been around a long time.

When I was a district commander in district six, which is now district five, uh we had a uh a grandmother bring in a couple of her grandkids.

Um they were sexually assaulted.

Uh they were uh young kids that were sexually assaulted by a relative.

Um the lieutenant that was working actually took them from the lobby area into the captain's office.

It was at nighttime to get the privacy that you're talking about in such a uh traumatic incident.

Um and ultimately the families were taken care of, the suspect was arrested and so forth.

But those are the things I'm talking about.

We do we take the privacy of the victims extremely important.

So we do separate them out from others to make sure that they have uh a level of uh dignity when we're dealing with them.

Mr.

Chairman, I just again I want to thank um um the safety director for his comments.

Um I'm glad to know that um this is a part of the whole process renovating the the open area for the public and making sure that when the public comes in they have that sense of confidentiality of their their situation and it's held in a private way.

Um so that's good to know that that's happening.

And so, Mr.

Chairman, I I'm really impressed with this uh entire operation here.

Look forward to commend uh again, Mr.

DeRose and his team and the group that's here uh bringing the the proposition before the city of Cleveland.

Thank you for the work that you do.

And uh Mr.

Chairman, I yield to the floor, have no more further comments.

Mr.

Chairman.

Um Mr.

Chairman, could could we have Director uh speak to how this is helping the morale of the folks that work in these buildings?

The chair, though and all the council members, uh it's it's helping m with morale because again, being a police officer for 35 years uh here in the city of Cleveland, uh I work primarily in district one.

Uh district one uh was my home.

Um but uh again with my 35 years, I visited every single uh police district and other um um facilities that we have.

And um let's be honest, they were not in the best condition.

I mean, that's just the reality of it.

Uh the uh furnace didn't work or didn't work on a regular basis in a lot of these little districts and so forth.

So now having Leopardo doing the work that they're doing, and by the way, doing excellent work.

Thank you so much.

Um for the districts, uh it's extremely impressive to see the districts, the fourth district, and how it looks on the exterior and the things that they're doing in uh on the interior as well.

That that helps our officers.

It helps our officers feel valued when the city is investing in the repair of the districts because they spend a lot of time in those uh facilities.

So knowing that the city cares about them, um investing over 21 million dollars in all five police districts uh speaks volumes uh for our officers and and help helps with their obviously their morale.

Also helps us with the recruitment uh when we have officers who are happy, uh happy to come to work, knowing that the city values them uh by the the investment that they're they're putting into the officers now in the facilities and so forth.

The officers are more inclined to say, hey, you know, we uh the city cares about us, they're paying us well, uh which I we are doing.

The city of Cleveland's administration is paying our officers well.

The facilities now are coming up to par.

So that helps our officers to recruit individuals.

And by the way, um the best recruiters are are our officers.

They're our best recruiters.

We can do spend millions of dollars on at, you know, um uh trying to get folks to come in, advertisement, but the best recruiters are our police officers, and from the uh implementation of Lopardo and having them uh doing what they're doing through the subcontractors, obviously, and contractors to to improve the uh the conditions of these districts.

That's helping our officers with their morale and also our recruitment efforts.

Okay, all right.

Thank you for that, um director.

Uh we do want happy officers, uh happy officers can um you know it can make serve our communities uh a lot um uh a lot better.

I'm gonna go to councilwoman Hudson.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

I just uh to follow up on uh what my colleague, councilman um Joe Jones and the safety director said, you know, um I uh absolutely commend you on this work, which was you know very necessary and um you know a lot of delayed improvements to these um these police stations and uh something I heard about previously, you know, the the updates to the HBAC in particular were very, very needed, and I can understand how um how happy the officers are about that.

Um I had heard stories about officers in the summertime having to, you know, write reports and and do things in their in their vehicles because that's the only place where um they had air conditioning and um I'm I'm sure that it it does help tremendously with with morale and um just you know with their overall attitude towards interacting with the public.

Um so thank you for your work and um I'm excited to see all of these changes.

All right, thank you, Councilwoman.

Uh next I'm gonna go to uh councilman Casey.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Uh just some of the feedback I've gotten from the first district, they've been great and respectful.

Everything has been done as said.

Um they're doing a great job.

Thank you very much.

Uh so to Leopardo, Mr.

Chairman, thank you very much.

You guys have been able to accomplish something that the administration would have never been able to accomplish on their own.

Being five police buildings in in the in a year and a half time is a major accomplishment, right?

And it would have taken admittedly a long time to get that done.

Um that being said, Mr.

Chairman to the director, I'm not really sure, and and again, I was for the legislation and and everything, but I'm not really sure about our our savings, right?

So our savings compared to what?

Just so we budget, so we budgeted something, right?

We're not gonna have to pay that budgeted amount, which then looks at the savings, correct?

Uh through the chairman of the councilman, yes.

So if you think about how the city budgets its operating expenses, it budgets if you think about the things listed, it budgets a certain amount for telecom, a certain amount for uniforms, a certain amount to pay the electric bills and whatnot.

So we have a baseline from which to compare after all this work is done, what our new realities of operating costs related to the police are.

And that delta is what the savings are which would be used to pay back the debt that was put forth for the 21 million dollars to do these improvements in this short amount of time.

And I will say, you know, the other thing, we think about how it's unusual to do all five districts at one time, but think about the cost increases by inflation as you piecemeal these buildings out.

So it also gave us cost savings just to do them all at one time as well.

Mr.

Chairman's the director, and that's why I said it's a good thing that they it wasn't an unusual, but it wasn't a knock on the administration, right?

It was uh it was uh almost a godsend that somebody was able to come down and be able to upgrade these five buildings.

But Mr.

Chairman to the director, tell me how how does something like redoing the stairs, right?

How does that how is that a cost savings to us?

So um through the chairman of the councilman, so we knew that we wouldn't really hit the mark if we only did things that gave us an energy efficiency um, you know, in the buildings.

We knew that there were some quality of life um components of the buildings that if we didn't address them during this this process, that we would really be missing the mark for what was expected.

So the budget grew, if you will, from just those items that could produce an energy efficiency into something that included the quality of life issues like having steps that are not welcoming or not compliant, and so then that um increased uh some cost, but this team at Leopardo did the analysis to see that we could include them and still be covered in the efficiencies through procurement and energy.

Okay.

And then, Mr.

Chairman to the director, with the influx and the unstableness of electricity and energy.

How are you figuring the cost savings in on utilities?

Uh through the chairman of the councilman, that is a good question.

I'm gonna have to ask the team as the cost of anything goes up over time, utilities or uniforms.

How does that factor in to the equation?

Yes.

Through the chair to the councilman.

So all of this is uh factored into the actual contract inflation is built in there.

Um and particularly with the electric energy uh cost savings, there are um standard guidelines which we have to follow in order to calculate the savings and determine what that baseline is, as the director um previously mentioned.

So when we do the measurement and verification annually, we go back against that baseline through the standards um set forth for this type of project, um, utilizing those calculations to determine where the savings were achieved or if they were missed.

And then Mr.

Chairman, to our presentations, I can understand when it comes to things like replacing boilers.

Um the first district, I just saw the pictures, right?

The first district hadn't had a boiler or HVAC upgrade and probably since the building was built, right?

So I can see that.

But when it comes to electricity, with the with the fluctuating of the market and everything now, I'm just not sure how we can how we can bake in savings when we know that the cost of electricity itself, right?

No matter how you're getting it, is so unstable right now.

I'm just through the chair.

Um so as we showed you today, uh a good portion of the saving savings are being achieved through the operational savings through the procurement strategies, right?

So when we look at this, it's not a specific where we we outline where we believe the savings are going to be, but it's a comprehensive savings guarantee.

So we're evaluating every savings stream that's part of the program to evaluate whether or not we made that savings guarantee.

So some of the safety factors built in this uh account for things like you know a volatile market, some of the safety factors measuring exactly, you know, we're we're going to far exceed the the projected savings allocated to procurement, and maybe this year the energy savings for electricity was lower, but comprehensively, that's what we're required to meet and what we have to um pay you if there's a shortfall.

All right, and then my last question, I don't see her in the room anymore, but I know that the city aggregates its electricity, and I know that it's for residents and small businesses, but I'm not sure if it's for if the city police districts that are serviced by first energy are eligible for our aggregation program or not.

I and does any I don't um that would be her.

Yeah, be director O'Keefe.

Yeah, I apologize.

Okay, all right, thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

All right, thank you, Councilman Casey.

Um you may say that um our are some of our uh districts are serviced by the uh alumning company?

Yes, yes, sir.

Wow.

All right.

Uh next I'm gonna go to um councilwoman gray.

Yes, thank you, Chair.

That's what I was gonna ask just about just piggybacking off uh Councilman Casey.

I'm not sure, but I think fourth district is first energy, correct?

Uh through do you think it's fifth?

Go ahead.

Yeah, I think the fifth district that's fourth district.

It's fourth district, it's fourth district first energy.

Because I know a long remote, I know all we moan uh uh uh uh a boulevard is all first energy.

So that was my question I was gonna ask.

Are the different we have different uh utilities um service for uh all districts?

Okay, so yeah, I'm sorry, I should I direct it to other chair of utilities?

Is Fourth District first energy?

The only district that is not serviced by Cleveland Public Powers, the first district.

It's first district, okay.

Every other district has the ability to have Cleveland public power, whether they do or don't.

Um I'm sure that Director Drummond will let us know before before two o'clock today.

Okay.

That was my question because the loan of Ramona Boulevard is the first energy per se, and I was just wondering uh because of the upgrade, and you have sold chair to the team because you have solar.

You said you're gonna implement the uh solar, you're gonna install the solar.

And I know solar, normally in the beginning, it was dealing with first energy.

That's why I kind of lewed to the question was that first energy in that in that area.

So no one knows right now.

We'll we'll get that answered later.

Okay.

Uh through the chairman of the councilwoman, I believe it's is as the councilman Casey says it is just the first district.

Yes, first district.

But we will confirm that inlet let council know.

Okay.

All right.

Through the chair to the council people, I believe some of the districts for backup or security purposes actually have service from both.

Okay.

And that was an intentional decision.

So the primary services from CPP wherever possible.

And some of the districts, I don't remember which ones offhand, have first energy available also in the event that there's a power outage, and it can automatically switch over just in an emergency.

Okay.

All right.

Well, good answer.

Good answer.

And also, I just want to just make this comment to uh director of public safety.

Since the morale is high and is better because of the beautiful vacation of the environment of all your districts.

Uh would that uh help with the consent degree?

Just asking.

I'm just throwing it out there.

That's all.

Is that because that in the in the real that's something that you know that uh because of the relationship and and what's been going on to uh to a certain degree of all the things that were happening over the years of around per se?

We have a certification of the high, you know, um you know that can also be made to uh service and relationship to our uh residents and the community and also assisting with uh service of your um the officers through the chair, councilwoman.

Um yes, I I believe that yes, uh what's going on with the buildings uh are helping, I believe, uh with morale with the officers, um, which also helps with recruitment, recruitment is as part and staffing is part of the consent decree.

So, yes, so it is helping with that.

Yes, and obviously, when you have uh people in general, but we're talking about officers and officers in particular who are morale are are better, of course.

Uh they they feel better, I think.

I know I would.

Um so I think you have a tendency to treat folks even better when your morale is higher.

Um coupled with the training and couple with the training that uh the officers are getting the accountability measures and so forth that's that we have here in division of police, and ultimately, ultimately, uh the officers that we have now are dedicated.

Uh they're they're committed to providing the best possible service to our our community or residents.

Yeah, and I want to just piggyback on you that because I go to um I do I have a very close relationship with the fourth district officers.

I'm out there all the time running into them.

Um I'm just saying that the attitude is much better and calmer.

They are always at every community meeting that I have.

Your officers at uh always attend, whether it's the acting commander Shaw or Harter or Jones or uh Lieutenant Lamb, they are always at the meetings and they and they are upbeat, very relatable.

Uh they answer questions.

I don't because that is safety, and um, and even attending the safety meetings at 4th district.

Now we got one coming up just this week.

Um, it's just the whole attitude and a relationship with uh uh residents in the meeting is joyful, it's comfortable, it's laughable sometimes, and uh um and just uh uh era in the entire room is fantastic.

So I'm just saying that just over time we were able to see uh the uh the comfortness with the officers now in the community because I run into them all the time, and I um I just feel better about um their presence.

So if the if the environment of the um building made a difference per se, I uh congratulate you on that.

So just giving you my feedback through the chair, councilwoman.

That's uh I think that's part of it.

It's uh a multitude of different things, but that's part of it as well.

And again, their their morale is higher.

Um vast majority of them, but the the fourth district as well as the the first through the the uh 5th district, the officers again are uh are doing a really good job, in particular to 4th district commander uh sh uh Sean Smith.

Um he's actually now he was uh um appointed uh the commander last week.

He's actually the commander, uh still the process for CPC is involved.

Uh they have to make recommendations, but he was sworn in um as the uh commander of district four last week, just one.

Really?

No, and the officers uh are out there doing a fantastic job providing service to our community.

Well, congratulations.

I'm definitely gonna be at that safety meeting uh Wednesday.

Uh uh I'm happy and surprised, uh Councilman Um Bishop and Joe Jones.

I know we had a fruit uh uh prior to what happened with um our uh other commander Valentino.

We weren't sure um between the other two which one was gonna get that position, but however, um the two was explosive, you know.

Um Commander McKish was definitely um boots on the ground, uh dedicated, uh involved, engage.

Uh I give my kudos to her, but congratulations to uh um commander Shaw.

Uh, we definitely uh see him this Wednesday at the safety meeting, and to ensure that everyone that be in that safety meeting will um uh will congratulate him on that promotion.

So wow, that's fantastic.

And he was just at my community meeting last month, and uh uh he served so much great information to the messages and stuff.

I'll you know, you know, um I almost thought he took over my meeting, but but anyway, what he shared was uh those uh um doorwing cameras, and that was fantastic for all the residents in the community to be provided for that and not just a certain section of it per se.

But I um I am I'm in awe.

So I will see him this Wednesday at the safety meeting.

My two colleagues uh try to make it there.

Thank you.

We're very excited about uh what uh Sean Commander Smith's gonna do out there, and also to follow up on the previous question.

All of the uh districts are serviced by CPP.

I just wanted to all the all the districts are okay, all right.

Thank you.

And then also one last thing.

Um Chair Bishop, um, the safety meeting gonna be at uh um uh the um the holy church.

The whole yeah, the church on 131st.

All right.

Okay, we'll talk later on.

All right, Councilman Harsh.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Just uh one last thing that came to my attention.

Um this year when we did the budget through the chair to the safety director, we claimed a two million dollar savings from the police department on telephone exchange savings.

It was in the budget this year is a two million dollar savings through the chair.

Was that half of the four million that's being reported to us today?

Um so uh Mr.

Chairman, I'm gonna say no because we the the these folks were just doing their analysis.

Um we wouldn't have realized any savings in time for it to be reflected in this year's budget, which is really finished like at the end of last year.

So, then we'll straighten out that up.

Okay, thank you.

All right, thank you, Councilman Harsh.

Um next time we'll go to Councilman Palency.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman, and to the directors that are here and to the folks from the apartment.

I'm sorry, I had to step out for another meeting.

But I, you know, I um as the chairman knows, and because he and I spoke about this, you know, both of us had some reservations about this to begin with.

Um this was a completely different approach than what has been taken in the past.

And so it was through, I guess, the persuasion and the um of uh director de Rosa and the finance director that we bought into this, and so I hope as a result of what is transpired transpired here with this uh that we now had derived the benefits that have been originally laid out to us in this whole proposal.

Um my question though is this, and if it's been asked already, then I apologize.

But we see the improvements that are made, and we know that these buildings were long overdue, as the chairman knows, because when we went in the fifth district, it was like sections of the fifth district had you sent city inspectors and you could have shut the building down.

That's how bad it was on the inside.

So we know this was this was long overdue, we needed to do it.

My question though is this going forward.

Who's gonna maintain the buildings?

Because what we got into was kicking the can the street for 40 years of unwillingness to address the issues.

And it's been our uh it's been well, it's been my opinion, and I I think it's shared by a lot of people around here that um Commissioner Nagel.

They don't have enough people.

They don't have enough people to maintain city facilities.

We have, I'm told, 190 buildings, parks, etc.

etc.

Um, I think we have what how many plumbers?

What two plumbers?

Two plumbers.

So we just spent and we are spending 21 million dollars on five buildings, and if we don't have a maintenance program in effect, at some point in the near future, we will be in the same situation again.

So I want to say this to the administration through the chair.

Um there's got to be a game plan because we're going to get into the next discussion with the firehouses.

And some of the firehouses again are in deplorable condition.

So we got to get back to the future again here.

We got to get back to what it was in the day when something was broken, it got fixed.

We had the people, we had the plumbers, we had the carpenters, we had electricians, we had everybody in place, and then somehow that all vanished.

And now we we have to go out for more and more private contractors, we have to go out emergency situations.

So I'm appreciative of the work that's been done, and I appreciate the role that the chairperson um Councilman Bishop is is taking on this issue.

Um and the help that he's given me because I've as the director knows I constantly bring up this issue about the maintenance of the buildings.

I expect our buildings to be it looked as well as better than anybody because if the city buildings look deplorable, what message are you sending out here in the community?

You know, I want to the message sent that we're gonna maintain our buildings, we're gonna provide good, clean, safe working conditions for our people.

And on that specific point in this process here, did the locker rooms of the fifth district get repaired?

Uh to the chair, uh the interior renovations are gonna be happening over the summer.

Okay, yes, that's done.

So we don't need five gallon pails in there and more catching water.

So the goal here is we're gonna get the roof done first.

Okay.

Um that way it's watertight, and then we're gonna do the interior so we don't damage the interiors.

Because that was an absolute embarrassment in there.

It was deplorable.

I don't know how you could expect any officer, uh, especially the female officers, to be in that type of setting.

It was a sad, sad situation.

So I'm gonna be paying a visit, and I'm sure the chairman's gonna be paying.

Maybe we'll do the tag team again.

We'll go out and take a look at these buildings because I want them repaired.

And then again, I I just hope that somehow, and I hope both of you directors can try to stress this to the administration that we gotta maintain stuff.

We can't we just can't let stuff rot and go without maintenance.

And it goes on and goes on and goes on, and it never seems to end.

And so um that's the end result here.

And then I'm gonna ask Leopardo if you can provide to me a more detailed explanation on the um on this the specifics of the um the round one targets, round two apparel and equipment, um, the janitorial supplies, round one, round two, uh fuel, um, tire disposal.

I'm gonna ask for more detailed explanation on that.

Not here, but you know, if you can provide that to me, I'd like to know all those other areas outside of the actual physical buildings, those other areas that you addressed and be more specific so I could see a better understanding as to um where those cost savings were or where you're making recommendations in the future for additional cost savings.

We gotta be lean and mean here at the table, and um I hope, Mr.

Chairman, this is the the beginning of more public improvements to our safety forces.

Um looking forward to the firehouses, so the director doesn't have to hear me every week um lobby him about fixing the firehouses.

So we're we're in the right direction again.

I want to thank the chair for the leadership that he took and the committee on this issue.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

All right, uh thank you, um, Councilman Pless.

Is there any other comments before we uh um let Leopardo team go?

All right, well, thank you to the Leopardo.

We really appreciate your all your efforts and uh showing us a way how we can um um have great buildings uh throughout our safety forces.

Uh and thank you, Director, for uh your leadership on the acquisition of a Leopardo and actually putting all this thing together and get up as a path forward to finishing these buildings.

Um but and thank you, Director, uh Safety Director.

Okay.

All right, thank you very much.

I'm gonna call up uh public works next.

We're not finished.

No, we're not finished.

We had a we had one hour piece of legislation started us all.

We're not finished.

Where's Councilman Jones?

How come we're gonna do that?

Okay.

All right.

So we're gonna talk about grass and um summer summer grass program.

No, I know legislation.

It's just they're gonna give us an update.

Um we're gonna we're gonna do a shortened session.

Because there I know everybody.

I know everybody's wrong.

All right, director.

Sorry for the wait.

I see you had your whole team here.

Yes.

Say the best for last.

All right, so we so we won't take up a lot of time.

I know you guys are probably ready to get up and go, but just really quickly.

What's that?

Okay.

Just wanted to give a presentation on baker properties you'd ask for this.

Um, so here it is.

So we just really quickly got some, we'll do introduction, we'll talk about ordinance 209, staffing vehicles and equipment, um, how we enact the ordinance and then some quick stats on it.

Um so based on ordinance 209, our charge is to abate nuisances and what is a nuisance uh grass over eight inches, noxious wheat, refuge, and stagnant surface water according to an ordinance.

I do want to stress um that this is abatement and it's not landscaping.

Um although we do our best to try to make it clean, um, you know, sometimes people want us to make it look like a golf course.

This is really enforcement.

This is there's a a person did not follow the rules.

We are out to uh enforce uh a rule, a law.

So we're not out there to be landscapers.

Uh the way it works is with the ordinance.

The first thing that happens that that um the the commission of environment, I think this got changed to building housing, but I'm not 100% sure.

But somebody outside of my department posts a notification to the city saying that we have the ability, if you don't take care of your of these nuisances yourself, the city has the right to come on to vacant property and do the maintenance or abate the nuisance according to what this is.

So it's eight inch grass on a vacant property, or if there's not excess weed, or if there's refuge, we have the right after 72 hours of you not doing it, we have the right to actually abate that nuisance.

Now that's it's important for us to say that, and we'll talk about this a little later.

We have to inspect every property before we actually abate it, based on what this ordinance says.

Because we don't have the right to just go on property and just willy-nilly do things.

We actually have to have a reason for being out there.

We and so based on the ordinance, we have to observe this, and after a 72-hour period, then we can go and abate.

So typically what we when once I get a call from either be from one of your offices or through 301, it's been that three uh three-day periods pretty much, or 72-day hour periods pretty much expired.

Um, but that's the first thing we have to do.

Also, according to the ordinance, um, again, this is the rights that we have, or as far as uh what the ordinance says that we are able to do.

Um, if it's an imminent threat to the public health, uh, and it says the Department of Public Price Recreation and Properties or Recreation, uh, I think this this has changed, of course, but this is what I saw on the uh on the site.

So it it but it's uh public works.

But uh we have the right to be able to do that, and based on that, um, if there is an occupied structure based on the residents first, we're also able to go on property after it's gone through the health department and the building and housing, after it's gone through those that group and it's definitely been cited by them, then it gives us the right to actually go and abate the nuisance.

Again, we're not landscapers, we're just abating the nuisance.

Um the cost that um once a person gets uh we do this work, and we if somebody if it's privately owned, we will send an invoice to the owner of the property.

The cost that we charge is seven cents per square foot, seven cent per square foot.

Now, how we got that number is something that happened years ago.

Um it could be uh should be revisited, it might be higher now, but back then when we did this, and I'll be honest with you, this happened probably somewhere back in 2003 or 2004 when we got that number at seven cents per square foot.

But that's the number we came up with, and that's the number we've been using to charge.

Um again, more on the ordinance.

Uh just uh wanted to clarify that this is for um vacant parcels.

So if somebody's living in the private, if it's a if it's a property where a house is on and somebody's living in the house, we don't have the authority to to exercise this.

It has to go through building a housing.

They'll have to cite the person in that house, and then we can um take action.

But if it's a vacant land or if it's a uh structure, if the structure on the parcel that's vacant, then we have the right by this ordinance to do the work.

So it's important again.

I always go back to and we'll talk about how we want to get into that really quickly.

But just our structure, the way it's structured, that all this is happening in the director's office.

You know, when we may have the split, it used to be in park maintenance, used to be in that division.

When we had the split, this work came under the director's office of public works.

I have with me, I should introduce everybody at the table.

Sorry about that.

You know, assistant director Haley.

I have Arental Brumfeld, uh, who's the is he at the other workshop at the right underneath me, and he does administrative support uh for this or for this group because we don't have a commissioner.

So he I won't say he's at hot commissioner, but he really takes on a lot of those kind of administrative roles to help this organization out.

Next to him is uh Jose Rodriguez, who manages this, uh if you will, he is the uh the gentleman who is uh I guess touching the people, if you will, um, and actually doing the the work as far as administrative work as well, but not as high level.

We want to keep him uh in uh around this as much as possible.

Next to him, we have uh Tamisa Chris Mine, who's uh administrative manager.

And if you ever called into the office, you probably talked to Tamisha.

She does a lot of the things where if a few uh we uh with our Snyder Blake contract with the employees with our system city works that we use, these are of things that uh Tamisha has uh has touched on and works on often.

And next to her is Mike Ingram.

Mike Ingram is uh I like to think of him as our field general.

He is out on the road pushing the crews, making sure that folks are working uh and and doing what they need to do.

Um so that that's that.

So that's uh a pretty much a layout of our our uh uh our group.

We have um 22 full-time employees who are dedicated doing this work and vacant properties.

We use 57 city um employees, city seasonal city employees, and we have 90, somewhere 90, could be a little bit more or a little less of contractual.

We we would probably hear them call them Snyder Blake employees.

All right, so that's kind of the lay of the land, the mix.

And the reason why we do it that way is because uh this is really a seasonal program.

Uh so you rely a lot on seasonal employees to do that kind of work.

When you get into the winter time, it's not much for them to do.

So this is why we we try to keep this as a seasonal program.

Um we have uh as far as how we break those folks out.

We have we segregate the work into crews.

We call tractor drivers a crew, so one tractor driver we consider as a crew.

We have city managed uh two-person crews.

So these are typically like the Snyder Blake folks, or it could be our seasonal folks.

We put them together, put them in a truck, and they go out and they do detail work and they work on vacant structures.

And then we have contractor crews.

Now, these are crews that this is something new that happened recently.

We have an outside contractor where it's their people, their equipment, their everything, and they work alongside of us.

And then we have war crews.

Um that these are crews that say within the ward and they do work inside the ward, the typically under the direction of what the councilperson is looking for.

Um our equipment, we have about 47 tractors that are on the ground, about 47 tractor cutters.

Those cutters are just as important as the tractor itself.

Uh and uh we can if you have questions about that, I can let Mike and Jose talk a little bit more about how we use those cutters and what they mean to what we do.

We use about we have about 90 to 100 light and heavy vehicles, so that's pickup trucks, uh, we have some waste packers, um, we have uh maybe a few other Osidin kinds of vehicles that we use.

Uh and then as far as landscaping equipment, I left a dash because we have we have tons of it.

We have uh blowers and we have um weed eaters and things like that.

So we have lots of those, and they kind of come and go every year.

Um let's see what I want to add here.

Um we break the way we break that up.

Um we have five work stations throughout the city.

Now there are actually four locations.

Um Brookside is the West Side location, which is at John Neggy by the uh the zoo.

Uh we have East 65th Street, which is uh between Central and Quincy.

We have uh Humphrey Station, which is on Grovewood, Grovewood, correct?

It's on Grove, and Dobbins and Dobbins is broken into two areas east and west.

So that's how we have five stations, if you will, but for actual physical locations, but uh St.

Clair.

Um it's close to the Lakeshore, like between Lakeshore and uh Waterloo.

Um as I mentioned before, the first thing we have to do get is the notification from uh it comes from the um I believe the assessments and licenses actually publishes it, but it comes on behalf of the commissioner of health.

So as I mentioned before, the first thing we have to do get is the notification from uh it comes from the um I believe the assessments and licenses actually publishes it, but it comes on behalf of the commissioner of health.

Um that has to go out, and typically that goes out sometime in March or April, somewhere around that time.

I believe it went out.

Um anybody know when it actually went out this year?

The notification through to the public.

Nobody knows what's that?

So you hit them to make it green.

Okay, I'm new at this.

It's typically posted in January.

Okay.

So it's posted in January.

But that gives us the right to be able to go on people's private property.

Uh without this notification, we don't have the due process, if you will.

Uh so this is what gives us the ability to be able to go out.

So director, that's posted in January.

So how does that so the health department goes out or the building and housing goes out and they violate and they they declare the property a nuisance and then they go out and post on the property?

No.

What happens is this, I believe it's um I think I don't know if it's a web post.

It used to be in the the way we used to do it, we used to put it through the newspaper.

So it was a public notice to the entire city.

So how they do that now, it might be through the website, it might be, but it's a public notice to the entire city.

It's a one and done kind of notice.

This is why it's important for us to do our inspections.

Uh, because that one notice goes out, we have to once we go out, we have to make sure that there was a violation that occurred.

Okay, so but the note the the notification I mentioned here is that first general one and done kind of the entire city.

We're putting everybody on notice that we'll be out there to if you don't cut your grass or if you don't take care of your vacant property, we will and we'll charge you for it.

Okay.

So that's first.

Once that happens, then we do inspections, and we are inspecting every day.

Uh we have to we inspect the entire city.

And in fact, I don't know, Jose, if you want to talk a little bit about our inspection process, how we get out, how we ride, how we inspect the entire city.

Good morning, um, council members.

Um so yeah, um so our our inspectors go out, have begun going out to inspect all of the wards.

Um wards are broken down into what we consider subsections.

So in every ward, um, each uh there's five inspectors that go out throughout the entire city of Cleveland inspecting all of the wards.

There are over 27,000 vacant lots.

That's a lot of property, lottery lot of territory to cover for five of these inspectors to go out.

And they go out on a daily basis, they usually leave the stations before between 7 a 7 30 a.m.

to 8 a.m.

and they're out and about throughout the entire day um inspecting a lot of lots, a lot of vacant structures as well.

Um and that's done daily um between April, all the way through the end of the cutting cycles.

And so again, that before we can actually go on to a property, we have to do that inspection just to you know that to know that it was actually eight inches or there was refuge on the property.

So that is again that happens every time we do a cycle, those folks are out doing inspections before we do that cycle.

Okay.

Um we all that work goes into a system that we call is CityWorks, that's a work a system, a work management system that is shared across the city.

But we pull all the inspections and all the work goes into that system.

So we uh when we ask you to do the 311, uh that 311, we we take that and we collect we connect that to whatever work that we're doing.

So if a person calls in and says, hey, I need there's high grass here.

What we'll typically try to do is try to put it into our systematic approach.

So if they're calling and we know we're gonna be there in two weeks, we try to put them together.

Unless it's something that's really really egregious, we'll get out there and do it beforehand.

But if not, we try to put all that work into our cycle so we're not doing double work.

Okay.

Um again, that's where the three one complaints are incorporated into our seven-week cycle.

Again, it takes us seven weeks to get through the entire city.

And when I talk when I say seven weeks, I mean we use uh, and we'll talk a little bit later about how we break up the work, but to be able to inspect and to cut and to remove all the debris and get put put a bow on it for the entire city, it takes us about seven weeks given the staff that we have.

Sometimes we can do it a little faster, but if the weather doesn't work with us and equipment doesn't work with us, we might do it slower.

Uh our goal, we've done about three and a half, maybe four cycles a year.

So it's anywhere between three and four cycles, so that means uh that so we've gotten through the entire city four times as at when we're doing good going into October, right?

If you got good weather and we can get into October, that's usually what happens.

Um, director, so when did you start?

Did you start the cycle first cycle already?

How how long has been the first cycle?

Um through to the chair.

Um we started today, today's the 20.

Today's our official first day of our cutting program, and it's a 28 week pre uh 20 28 week program broken down into four cycles of seven weeks.

Okay, all right.

So we're just getting underway.

Yeah, so you may have seen some of us out cleaning.

So we we did we've doing we've been doing polite cleaning, I think, since beginning of April or something like that.

I apologize.

Yes, we started our soft clean program on the 13th of April.

We began our soft uh clean program throughout the entire city of Cleveland.

Um systematic approach.

So the the way we do it, and I'm gonna let Mike talk a little bit about this.

Mike, you gotta get your mic here, but we break up the work into about three separate crews or three separate functions.

I should say the first function is we send out these tractors to work on the they can do a lot of rough cuts.

They can take cover a lot of ground and a lot in a quick period of time.

Um so we send out the tractors as a function if we're a set of crews, if you will.

After them, we have detail crews or what we call we call them hand crews, but they actually work on the details.

So after the tractors have gone, they work along the fence line and those kind of things.

And they also address the vacant structures.

So you can't typically can't have tractors going in backyards and those things, so the tractors can do what they can, but you'll have these crews right following doing the detail work and doing the vacant structure work.

And then finally, we have another set of people that come up and pick up.

If we have trash bags and waste along the way, we have a set of folks that do that.

So, Mike, I want you to kind of get into how that how we break that out throughout the city.

Make sure you turn your microphone.

Morning.

Um, yes, initially we have the tractors grow through and they'll make all your tractor cuts in your vacant lots.

After the tractor crews come through, we'll have a trim crew come through.

The trim crew are responsible for collecting debris, trimming us um around the trees, the poles, and the back of the lots and on the sides of the lots as well.

Um, we also have more crews that just specifically focus on our bacon structures.

They go behind the structures, they bring out debris that they can take in, um, as long as it's not illegal dumping so huge things they can't bring out.

They bring it out, they bring it to the front of the um apron and they leave those things there.

And um, our last process is the packer crew.

The packer crew is um a large packer truck, we pick collects the debris, large things like couches, mattresses, those things they collect as well as the bags that are left there as well.

Okay, uh chair, I have one question.

Okay, go ahead.

Go ahead, Councilman Gregory.

Yes.

Um your name again?

Mike Ingram.

I'm sorry.

What's your name?

Mike.

Mike, okay.

I met the whole team a couple a month ago.

I just wanted to say it a little louder.

Great team, great team.

Um, they really uh um really um kind of spoiled me a little bit because I stayed over an hour.

But anyway, I just have a question to what you're saying.

That one of the chair to Mike, one of your teams that come behind the tractor.

How many days do that first team come behind the tractor to pick up the debris?

Chair two, Mike.

Uh in a perfect world, we would say uh four to five days, like while we're starting today, they're directly behind the tractor.

We have to keep in mind that a tractor may be in a lot for maybe two to three minutes.

If we're picking up debris and we're um trimming out, it'll take a little longer.

So we're traditionally behind them.

I want to give it a week as as possible, but it's there's so much debris this first cycle, is it'll be hard to keep up and maintain.

And the the second team come behind the first team, how many days apart?

Because you have you have two teams behind the tractor, then first team and second team.

So tell me how many days each team come behind each other, chair tonight.

There's gonna be one team behind a tractor.

Okay.

There's one team following behind a tractor, and they are like if we start today, they're directly behind the tractor.

But there's there's almost just almost impossible to keep up with that tractor if they're in a lot for five minutes.

Right.

And a team is there for 12, 15 minutes.

So typically they should be right behind them within a week's time.

As the season goes on, I couldn't promise that.

Right.

Okay, I understand that.

It's just that since some of the residents uh are aware there that a team come behind the tracker to pick up the degree, you know, um, you know, pick up the debris, those questions come to council all the time because they see that debris sitting after the tractor leave.

Now we don't have a you know um an answer just like you, but we get questions immediately after that tractor leave, and we can't say how many how much time that's what I'm asking.

If it's a week time, at least I can tell the residents give it a week before that team come and pick up the um you know, pick up the debris and chair.

My second question to Mike is this, and I already uh asked the director this question last year.

We have vacant lots.

You have the city have the vacant lots, but now when the when the vacant lots are cut, you have weeds and stems that grow in the vacant lots or uh attached to homeowners' wooden fence or wire fence.

They feel that it's not their responsibility to trim and cut those weeds and and and and limbs off their fence if it's from the vacant lot.

And I was questioned and I had a conversation with I had a conversation with the director because that's constant.

Like right now, the lots are empty that you know um there's no grass growing, there's no weeds wrapped around someone's personal fence.

Could someone go out there now in the vacant lot and cut all those weeds and stems and stems that have not wrapped around someone's wooden fence or they wire fence, and if not, how can one of the teams come and take care of that because homeowners pay a lot of money for their fence, but they feel that they feel it's not their responsibility to pay someone else to come and take those weeds and stems that wrapped around their wooden fence or their wire fence, which is not attractive, and they don't want to come out their pocket for that, and they blame the vacant lot, which is owned by the city, that the city uh is responsible to trim that off their uh fence, whether it's wood or the um or the uh you know the the wire fence, your chains fence, yes.

So because someone answer that question, because it is coming.

Through the chair to the yeah, we did talk through the chair to the council when we remember we did talk about this.

And in the case where this is a city owned property, we'll come out.

And now, but again, with that, it when we actually come out, it's gonna that will take us some time to be able to, we can come out, but it may take us some time.

But if it's but the the other part of this is if it's not, if it's a privately owned lot, and that's where um that's where we have a challenge.

Um, where we we believe that whoever owns that lot, even though we came out and cut the grass, those kind of things that person should take care of.

Now, and in the case of in these cases, we have we try to do it on a case-by-case scenario because we try to figure out who owns the property, when can we actually get out there?

What it will what is the size of what we're talking about?

Because in some cases, you've got massive vines, in other cases it may not be that big of a deal.

So we we try to do this on the case by case, but if it's sitting on property, we'll work with that uh to try to figure out how we can take care of that.

Okay, thank you for the answer.

And I'm hope a lot of the uh residents are listening because that is a major concern uh with them, but also by you not owning a lot and it's a private lot chair to the team.

Sometimes those private owners have deceased, and there's no next akin finding them at all.

And if you do locate them, they are not coming out there to take care of that lot because it's because they don't want the responsibility of it at all.

So, how do you uh manage that chair to the team?

Uh so through the chair to the council member, honestly, we have to do it on a case by case because again, depending on the size, um there are sometimes we do projects where we may have to take a couple of days and we try to do that towards the end of the season.

Okay, you know, if we have a drier season and things start to slow down, we can address those better.

But if it's a wet season and we have to keep cutting, it's it's a lot more difficult to get to those larger projects.

Okay, all right, okay.

One more question.

Uh this just came up just the other day.

I had uh um someone own a uh uh a uh hoop house, but they also have a couple of lots next to the hoop house that is own.

And then that might be uh this is this is real, this is a real story.

So and then they own a couple of lots next to the hoop house, but the third lot is owned by the city.

Now I just had the call last week and I gave them your number to call you.

I don't know if he has done that or uh not.

But the third lot is owned by the city.

He got charged the city cut by you having this newsome.

Now I understand what you're saying about if the lots are overgrown, you send out a letter, they should be aware of it, and then you cut their lots.

Now the city lot was cut, but his two lots was cut too next to his hoop house.

He has uh he he's non-exempt, but since this loss was cut, he has his property taxes are now um was now built for the cutting of the city.

He's uh elder, but that's his hoop house.

So however he said he doesn't recall uh getting a notice in the mail prior to the city cutting his two lots.

I don't know.

We just had a full conversation.

He was very patient, understanding because he did not know the process, how that worked.

So I asked him, I told him to call you, call your office because um he wants to um start taking care of his hoop house, and he got two lots next to the hoop house.

Since he was a non-exempt of not paying taxes at all, now he got taxes on both his lots.

And the city land bank said that he cannot proceed with working on his lots because now he owed taxes, and now they also want to buy the third lot as well.

So now he's sitting there, so I I asked I told him to call you, but uh you know, pertaining to that, and but the county he got charged and the taxes is on, he got charged on his property taxes.

So I gave him the county number two, and he just needs to make phone calls to deal with that with you with public works and the county on how he's gonna manage your property tax, and he was not exempt prior to that.

So he should be calling you to have that conversation.

Okay.

Uh through the chair to the councilman, look for his call.

All right, councilwoman.

Uh councilman Casey.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Mr.

Chairman to the director, I just have one request, and that is when when our tractors are out there cutting lawns and they're cutting tree lawns.

If at some time they can turn the tractor around to throw the grass toward the lot, not into the street.

We're seeing that quite a bit.

That if we could just make sure that unless you want to clean the street up afterwards, and I don't think you want to do that.

But if you could just blow the grass the other way and not into the street, it'd be appreciated.

We are trying to coordinate with streets as well to do some street sweeping when that happens, but it's well taken.

We'll we'll try to figure this out.

All right, thank you.

All right, thank you, Councilman Casey.

Councilman Jones.

Okay, all right.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

There's a couple of things I I want to I came here to the table to talk about today.

And um one of them was um after listening to the presentation, I I do uh agree with my colleague.

Um since we've had Mike Ingram in our neighborhood, uh I really appreciate the fact that I can reach out to someone and get stuff to take care of.

Um and I appreciate you, director.

Um, but we still have so much need in the neighborhood.

Uh one of the concerns that I have, and I hope, and I don't know if anyone here can answer that, um, is how do we increase the frequency of grass cuts?

Because again, we're still in the same cycle that we've been for the last 15 years at least.

Well, I'll just say for the last eight, nine going on nine years now.

Um, how do we get more cuts in?

And I know part of that was to hire on contractors to help with that load.

How can you talk about that and how it's working?

Yep.

That was actually we're getting to that, but um so through the charity councilman.

Um the the load keeps increasing.

Um the amount of work that we have.

If we if it stayed where it was, we would we could probably do a lot more cuts, but every year we seem to get more properties.

But to that point, we added um uh contractor that subcontracts other crews.

So I think that contractor has about eight or so crews, addition in addition to what we have to be able to help us with that.

Um, but really um to get more frequency to get more cuts, it is going to take more money.

My hope is that working with this contractor, they can figure some things out that they can get through the city faster.

But if they do, that means we're gonna have to pay them more, right?

There to for every work uh cut that they do.

I think last year our contract was about 70 dollars on average for every uh lot that they do.

So if we want them to if so if we want them to double what they do, we're gonna have to double the amount of resources that we or amount of money that we pay out.

What could I do?

Because I don't know how many vacant lots and structures I have in my neighborhood.

So I would like to do something.

I don't know if if if I you know add on to that contractor for our area, uh, one of the the things that we have and again when I was when I served years ago, I've never had this issue.

So uh this is is a um appalling situation for us in war one.

Um and the reason why is because these grass uh uh get so tall that you know it makes our entire neighborhood looks bad.

Um the other issue, Mr.

Chairman, is uh, and then maybe we could sit down off the side and see what can be done specifically for my neighborhood, because I can't take on the entire city of Cleveland.

I know I've been beating the table here uh how we improve the program.

And um one of the issues that I have is when your people come and do cut the grass, they leave a mess.

It's a horrible mess.

It's like these people who have who are homeowners who have bought their homes, and some of them at a time when our in our neighborhood there was there was in their uh deed agreement, you know, don't don't uh sell to blacks.

And so they they are still there.

That generation is still there, they take care of their property.

There are a lot of elderly people who do a wonderful job keeping their property up, and unfortunately, the house next door to them was torn down, and now they got this vacant lot they have to deal with is trash and debris everywhere, and the and it kind of feels disrespected.

And so when they get on the phone and they and they're calling me, they're hammering me uh to try to do something about these lots year in and year out.

Uh, it has uh been stressful for me and and the people who work under me to deal with this year in and year out.

Um, the uh how do we deal with with with trying to to deal with this issue when you do cut.

All right, through the chair to the council, I can I can address part of that, and then we'll we'll let uh someone else address the other part.

But part of what we're doing to address that the fact that you know things are are there, the grass is growing, people are worried about it, is that we've gotten those uh those additional uh contractors to come do the work.

So we're trying to address it that way to have extra crews on top of the ones that we do have.

We're looking at the equipment that we have, other ways that we can get more efficient equipment, use it better.

There's more training for tractor drivers to make sure that we don't do some of those things that leave the place in a condition that does upset people.

And and also one thing that I want to make note of is that in 2025, we uh we serviced uh 27 more than 27,000 uh uh parcels, and of that, uh 14 more than 14,000 of those were land banks, so city owned, but 13,000, 13,000 plus were actually privately owned.

So that's gonna affect how quickly we can get to it.

So using those contractors, thinking about how we do our equipment, changing up how we deploy our trim crews, you know, how often in what way, how do they follow those tractors?

That's also gonna help us to get some efficiencies.

So I believe that if we look at 2025 compared to 2024, we did get a little bit better, the cycle got slightly shorter.

We're gonna work on ways to make that even better for this year.

And then I'll see if Jose or Mike have anything they could add to that.

So uh while while while Jose is that uh to be um I've heard just probably every council person say the same thing, even the mayor has had the same thing about the detail work about the tractors are out there, but it's messy.

So we're making every effort to try to, you know.

So we in our mind we fix one thing by getting the tractors out there better.

But you know, in doing that, we've we now we have another issue that we got to get to.

So that is what our focus for this year to really try to get to make this the quality of it better.

But Jose, I'll let you so to the chair to the councilman, both the director and Mr.

Brumfield have said it correctly, everything was spot on.

That's something that we are uh this year, more specifically this year, we have been working really diligently with our tractor operators and with our crews, specifically the way we're training our crews to be a little bit more detail-oriented, to be able to pay attention to those things.

It's more specifically with the contractors that were um helping us last year to address these vacant lots.

Um last year, myself and Mike, we were out in the field doing oversight, managing oversight, making going after contractors to make sure that they're not just cutting and and shredding and and making confetti out in these fields.

We have been proactively um addressing issues that you have, uh councilmember, um, that you have expressed this uh today, and that's important.

This year we continue to do the same.

Uh the way we uh addressed our our tractor operators this year is a little different, a little significantly different than what we did last year.

Um that's good.

And the way we are um currently working with our our Snyder Blake folks who are buying into our program and our full-time crew and addressing those uh specific areas of of concerns.

And Mr.

Chairman, how much uh, Mr.

Chairman, to direct do we we spend on um uh the people who are uh seasonal, and we I presume we have our own equipment, our overhead costs that we we how much would all that be that you know what they do, and could all of that be converted over into just contracting it all out?

Because it seems like the major issue that I see consistently is we just have not been able to get the Snyder group really together to really fundamentally do anything.

So through the chair to the council, then that is exactly the plan that we have to move more of that.

But just my experience in city and working in government this period, you you can't uh I used to hear old folks say these you can't cook a frog in a hot pot.

You can't cook a frog in a hot pot.

Yeah, you can't cook a frog in a hot pot because it jumps right out.

I don't know, you know.

Some people say that's not put a lid on it.

Yeah, he can't go nowhere.

But the point is uh if you shock the system like that, um you put too much trust on the contractors, and now if you put too much judgment in the contractors, they'll start falling back just like the others.

So I'm really trying to find that sweet spot where slowly we're gonna the point where we feel like I I do I agree with you.

I don't get the most bang out of my buck out of the all of the Snyder Blade crews.

We are we're putting gas and trucks and all that kind of stuff out there to make this work.

We have to rent trucks to actually float these crews.

So I agree with you, but I don't want to just shock the system and do it bam, right out the out the gate.

We're doing it slowly.

We actually this year, if you looked at our budget, we took some of that Snyder Blake money and we put it into our own seasonal people.

So we are moving towards that way.

We took some of that, also some of that money when it was in the Snyder Bay contract, putting it towards these other contractors that'll be working.

So we've been slowly getting there.

My hope is eventually we can get there, but I I really still have to test the orders with the contractors because people are people, right?

Once you've once they feel like they got an advantage, they may slip back a little.

So I want to keep everybody honest.

So we're but we are moving that way, and I totally agree with you on that.

Well, I think it's uh Mr.

Chairman, it's uh it's a good direction.

I have a different approach, you know, than you.

Sometimes you have to clean the whole shop out, and and you don't play around with it because the reason being is because you have a handful that messes up for everybody else.

And I've seen that in these type of systems.

And so when I suggested that to you, there's a number of strategies, Mr.

Chairman, to the director.

Uh you know, I will follow your lead.

I appreciate your leadership that that we could go in to uh fix the issue just like that.

Um and for me, it's like um we can talk about it offline.

I can make some some other suggestions because what you want to do is create um a system where you have smaller contractors, of course, and then we call them our um acorns, and then we have our oaks.

Those are the ones that are bigger contracts that can handle 2,500 cuts or 5,000 cuts each.

So if you got two good, you know um uh systems in place that would handle the buck of your stuff, and then you have the smaller ones as you're growing those up.

And then of course you have, Mr.

Chairman, in your contractual agreement, certain stipulations where the onuses and the liabilities are all upon the contractors, you don't have to worry about overhead costs, you don't have to worry about labor costs, you don't have to worry about contracts with Snyder and Blake.

You have a system that's in place that you've managed it, you put it in a contract, you perfected it, and then you have two or three oak trees in that contract, and maybe about 15, 20 other smaller contractors, and then you have a system manager that manages all of that.

You get something like that together, a team of about at least good 25 people that's administrating all this photos and everything like that, because you don't pay them until you can verify that they've fundamentally done the work.

And so uh, Mr.

Chairman, one of the things that you know I've seen in years past is you have those before shots, those after shots.

So when it comes to situations like council members uh dealing with um debris and everything all over the sidewalk and all over the streets, you guys have already resolved it because you had your people check the photos.

If the contractor hasn't done the work, then you not you don't pay them.

And it's a part of the contract.

If you don't do the work, you don't get paid.

If you don't do the work by a certain space and time, you don't get paid.

If you don't show us that you're doing the work, you don't get paid.

If the photos don't come in, you don't get paid.

And so the contractor, then if that contractor is bad, like you say they're slacking, they're not performing, then you have in your contract that you can remove that grass cut from them and charge them back for not cutting the grass and give that to the next contractor.

So there are systems, Mr.

Chairman, that you can put in place in terms of accountability that will hold these contractors accountable.

And we, if you put the program in place, we'll actually fundamentally start saving the city.

And then with that, you'll have a professional cut done, it's taken care of, and though you're at the $70 mark, when you put the bidding price out there, you might even be able to bring those prices down to like $50 a vacant lot.

Because vacant lots, believe it or not, are easy to cut uh in the city of Cleveland, with the exception of those that are um has debris on it.

But your contractors can cut around that debris, and then your other crew can come in and take care of that debris.

So so Mr.

Chairman, that would be my quick fast suggestion, and I have more suggestions.

Okay, Council Jones.

I thought you were gonna talk about that offline.

Uh I am, I am.

And thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

I just wanted to bring it because sometimes I don't get a chance to talk directly.

I understand, Council Jones.

And then I have some more, some uh another property I'm gonna give to you, Mr.

Ingram.

I think I've sent it over to you already.

Um there's two properties on the street that we have some issues with, and so hopefully we can get them taken care of.

Thank you, sorry, director.

Uh, you got any closing comments?

Uh just really quickly, allow a couple of last things, and I know we got we're pressing.

Just wanted you to kind of see that's we have for each war, we break out the work by these what we call subsections.

Okay.

So this is war two.

We'll figure that out use word two.

You can see all award two, we have was there seven, eighteen subsections of the war two, and that's how we break out the work.

Okay.

Um last thing I did, I wanted to make sure you guys are aware, trees and vacant lots.

I know that's a big deal for a lot of them.

It is a big deal.

So we are out of the tree business, urban forestry.

Anything with trees is urban forestry.

So that you know if you can pass, we'll pass it along.

We'll make sure that everybody knows now that we have a commissioner of urban forestry.

We feel we've been meeting with him a lot.

We feel very comfortable about what he's gonna do.

So we're handing over, we've handed over all that work to him.

So anything with a tree in a vacant lot, you'll be reaching out to Phil Jubert, who's the commissioner of before you're gonna do it.

So what about the brush?

The brush, that's for the next piece.

So brush again on city owned property, we will address brush and um bushes on privately owned property.

Again, that we have to handle a little differently.

But we will if it if but if it is a threat to the right-of-way or the public safety, we have the ability to address it.

Okay, okay.

All right, director, so I'm gonna tell you this.

We have like especially like vacant houses on the corners, the brush grows over the sidewalk.

And can't people can't walk on the sidewalk, they gotta walk in the street.

So a lot of corners, not just in my wards and everybody's yeah.

So you're saying you'll handle that.

Yeah, so what I will what I will say is the last piece, alleys.

Uh Jose, I don't want to speak out of term, but it could we have actually created an alley crew.

So we may be able to use that alley crew to do that kind of work.

I don't want to speak on a turn, but we have one crew now.

We're trying to add this and a second crew to deal with those kind of special unique issues.

Specifically alleys, though, because that's been a big problem for us.

Okay.

All right.

All right, thank uh thank you, director.

Uh I want to thank your entire team, Mike, Temnesha, Mr.

Rodriguez, Mr.

Rumsfeld, and you you're the new guy.

What's your name?

Assistant director Hayden.

Okay, assistant director.

All right, um other closing comments?

All right.

Question.

Uh pertaining to cutting the lots.

When the tractor comes and cut the lot, and it's and it's not um pleasing, attractive, as councilman Joe Jones stated.

Well, we tell we tell the uh that we tell the homeowner or the order resident, call 311 and ask the tractor to come back.

How long would that take?

Because if it's unattractive and they feel it's regularly and it's half cut, because we see them cutting, they cut and they move on, yes.

But however, when they say, Oh my goodness, it's unattractive, this has cut.

So when they call for them to come back for that second cut, not in that seven-week cycle, how soon do they come back to cut that lot immediately with a second cut because it was left tacky as we get called such as so through the chairs and council member the kind of kind of with all the things we talked about, the detail work.

So if it's a if it's a detail issue, uh you can always call that in.

Because if it's detail work, it's going to take us about that long to get to it.

But you can always feel free to call in any if you feel this is too egregious, and if we can try to get to it, we will.