Well, thank you for your patience.

I know we're about an hour behind on this particular hearing, but uh Director Brown, you're used to that.

You know how these hearings go.

I've been on both sides of the seat.

Thank you for having me.

I uh Gary Brown, director of the Detroit Water and Sewer Department.

I've been through at least four of these uh budget hearings sitting where you sit.

So uh however I I don't remember being here at 6 o'clock in the evening, but I've got about I've got about a half billion dollars worth of line items to go through, and I'm gonna try to go through them as quickly as possible.

Um can I start out by maybe having my fantastic staff introduce themselves in their the title of their position Scott?

Good afternoon, uh City Council.

My name is Scott McGriff.

I'm the General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer at the Detroit Water and Sewage Department.

Good afternoon, honorable council.

My name is Lashonda Davis, and I am the director of finance at DWSD.

Good afternoon.

Uh my name is Mr.

Garalman, I'm the Chief Financial Officer at DWSD.

All right, I'm I'm hoping we're going to be able to pull up the uh the presentation.

I've got somebody here to run it, so she's so now they're loading it up.

So I'll I'll get started and they'll they'll catch up with it.

Okay.

Floor is yours.

In alignment with the uh honorable Madam Mayor Sheffield's vision, the DWS the executive team considers these factors in developing this budget.

Affordability.

Keep rates increases below four percent and support water conservation initiatives.

Uh I think the uh the mayor said to me you were very good for the last 10 years at keeping the rates below 4 percent when the lease required it, and I expect you to continue to do the great job that you did.

So you'll see that we stayed under 4 percent, even though the lease agreement does not require that anymore.

Compassionate and responsive customer service expanded through providing service in neighborhood-based hubs and working with the administration uh to model holistic services on a wide citywide basis.

So I see um I I can envision uh working with the administration.

Maybe we'll try to find a church in every one of your district seven churches, and we'll put our customer service representatives along with other city representatives that provide services so that we can have a hub rather than having people come downtown uh at an inconvenient location.

We'll have hubs all over the city in order to be able to deliver uh services.

All DWSD needs is an internet, uh customer service rep with a headset and a computer, and we can do anything uh from that site that we can do uh from the office.

Operations that support and preserve public health, meet or exceed all federal, state, and local regulations.

We do that uh as a course of business.

Employee and asset safety.

I've I've I've been to enough funerals uh in my time with the city, especially in the police department, that I don't want any of my employees to be seriously hurt or die in one of these holes that they're trying to repair an asset.

So safety is a big concern.

Water and sewer upgrades, including lead service line replacement, flood mitigation, and increasing regional projects in the city by advocating on the Great Lakes Water Authority Board of Directors for Detroit residents.

And then finally, employee focus, training, retention, and recruitment.

Here's the highlights of the budget that I'm gonna address.

The proposed FY 2027 operating budget was developed with the goal to keep the rates affordable, and at the same time, not compromise on service level initiatives.

The budget incorporates expenditures required to operate DWSD, both the water and sewer uh portions of the operation.

These expenditures become the basis for determining determining the revenues required to operate and in terms and is termed as revenue requirement.

Departmental or direct expenses increased by $1.4% or $6.1 million, and non-departmental or indirect expenses increased by 3.3% or $13.4 million over 2026.

Revenue finance capital is projected at $5.3 million, an increase of $3 million.

The increase in revenue requirement of the $22.5 million for 2027 is primarily due to increases in the Great Lakes Water Authority wholesale charges, $13 million or $57.8%.

Also personnel expenses, $4.8 million or $21.3%.

Personnel cost increase due to the addition of a net 15 new positions.

These new additions are primarily for the operations and are critical to improving DWSD service level and backlog reduction.

The total system wide revenue requirement of $543 million $543.8 million is offset by non-rate revenue of $24.1 million, resulting in a rate revenue requirement of $520 million.

This represents a 4.9% initial rate revenue increase over FY 2026 on a system wide basis.

The 4.9% increase in rate revenue is offset by increase in volume and meter counts, averaging in the range of 1% to 2.4% over 2026.

This offset resulted in a rate increase of 3.5% on a system wide basis.

In the city of Detroit, volumes are up.

We're growing.

We're adding meters.

We're adding new people into homes in the city of Detroit, and when the volume goes up, everybody pays less.

When the volumes go down, everybody pays more.

The budget proposal proposes a 3.5 increase in rates across the system, except private fire lines, to recover the revenues required to operate the system and meet the budget considerations on slide two.

Revenue requirements system wide.

Three components make up the revenue requirement and reflect the projected annual expense budget required to operate the system as a whole.

Revenue requirement increased by $22.5 million or $4.3%.

Revenue requirement is financed by two sources, retail and non-retail revenues.

Water fund revenue requirements increase by 5.1%, while sewer fund revenue requirements increased by 4.0%, with an overall system-wide average of 4.3%.

The slide summarizes the projected share of each of the three components of revenue required.

Let me just give you an example of how we're able how we were able to flex that 22%.

We had that 54-inch break in Southwest Detroit, and we had to pay for water heaters and hot water tanks and cleaning houses and putting people in hotels and food.

My CFO came to me and said we have to put a hiring freeze on for the next four to five months in order to recoup the dollars to pay for that expense.

But there is very little wiggle room for me as the director in this budget, because most of the cost is fixed, 77 percent of it.

Non-departmental or indirect expenses, expenses over which DWSD has no or very little control of the 420 million, make up 77 percent of the total revenue required.

Department expenses, also known as direct expenses, consist of natural classes of expenses such as salary and wages, benefits, contractual services, departmental expenses increased by 5.4 percent or 6.1 million over 2026.

Majority of this increase, 4.8 million, is in personnel cost, salary wages, employee benefits due to the additional 15 full-time equivalents, the implementation of the new compensation study results, and increase in fringe benefit rates.

We have very few employees that did not make uh do not make the living wage at $22, $22 an hour.

We only had maybe $15 to 19 employees in that category, and so they'll they'll be raised in the mayor's new uh initiative.

The next chart is just uh a pie chart summarizing what I just expressed.

This slide summarizes the share of various department expenses in revenue requirement structure.

Personnel costs consist of salary and wages and benefits, make up 54 percent of the total department expense budget.

Professional and contractual services and other operating expenses make up 40 percent of the total departmental expenses budget.

Head count is projected to increase again by 15 employees, non-department expenses system-wide, non-department expenses, also known as indirect expenses, consists of expenses such as wholesale charges, debt service, pension, bad debt, non-departmental expenses increased by 13.4 million, majority of the increase again was the wholesale charge due to the increase by the Great Lakes Water Authority revenue requirement.

Increase in pension cost is based on required contributions per the actuary report.

And I'm I'm sure somebody on City Council is is on the pension board and knows more about that than I do.

The non-department expenses.

This slide is just another pie chart explaining what I just said.

The slide summarizes the share of each non-departmental or indirect expense in the revenue requirement structure.

These expenses represent cost over which DWSD has no or little control.

Wholesale charges are based on GLIWAS revenue requirement and make up 62 percent of the total non-department or indirect cost.

Pre- and post-bifurcation debt are fixed commitments for DWSD and account for 18 percent of the total.

Bad debt is the third largest cost category and accounts for 16 percent of the total non-department or indirect costs.

Director Brown, for those who are not familiar with bad debt who are watching, just describe that, please.

Yeah.

Um in this country, in any utility, um, the average uh collection rate of what you bill is 95 percent.

Um we're only collecting down in the mid-80s, and we're accounting for not collecting 10 percent, but then we don't collect another 10 percent, so we're not collecting 20 percent of what we build, that's revenue that DWSD doesn't have to invest in the infrastructure.

So it's critical that we get our collection rate up to at least 92 percent, while the national average is 95.

We had the collection rate at 93 percent right before the pandemic, and then after the pandemic, it went as low as 77, and that's revenue that we do not have, and most importantly, to your point, Mr.

President, we have to pass that debt into next year's rate.

And so not only do we not have it to operate with, but you're passing it on to the customers that are paid.

Thank you.

The next slide, revenue requirement is funded by retail revenue, rate revenue, and non-revenue, the non-revenue rate, shared services revenue, and the Great Lakes Water Authority share of the legacy cost.

I won't go through each line of that for the sake of time.

The next slide.

This slide breaks down the rate revenue requirement by revenue category.

Rate revenue requirement of $520 million is arrived by deducting non-rate revenues from total revenue requirement.

It's simple math.

Water and sewer fund rate revenue requirements are projected to increase by 5.9% and 4.5% respectively, with a system-wide increase of 4.9%.

This increase in rate revenue requirement is then offset by the projected increase in volume.

The next chart is just another pie chart that explains the previous chart.

This slide represents the share of each rate revenue source that is required to fund the revenue requirement.

Commodity charges make up 50% of the total rate revenue requirement.

Service charges make up 9% of the total revenue requirement, and the drainage charges make up 41% of the total rate revenue requirement.

The next slide, Sonali, if you can uh it's just a summary of the water fund line by line.

If we we're not going to go through that for the sake of time, then the slide after that is the same thing.

It's the sewer fund line by line, uh the dollar amounts that I just described.

And then we get the summary of volume and rate data for the water system.

The water volume is expected to go up by 2.4 percent based on historical actual usage data.

Equivalent units are expected to go up by 2.5 percent cumulatively for customers' meters, service lines, and connections based on a 5 eighth-inch meter.

When you look at this chart and you look at uh up near the top, tier 1 volume, tier 1 are 90 percent of our residential customers.

They're using uh less than six C CFs of water.

So we use them as the average.

Again, the next slide is simply the same thing except it's for the sewer fund.

And the sewer volume had a 1 percent increase with a similar increase in meters.

The BIA is projected to increase by 1 percent.

And the Sonali, if you could skip the uh combined water and sewer, it's it's the FTEs, it shows where all of our employees are.

The the thing to note there is the 15 employees are going into operations.

They're not going into staffing positions in finance or HR, they're going directly into operations to get the backlog of work orders down.

And then there's a summary of the rates, both the water and the sewer fund.

DWSD is proposing a 3.5 percent rate increase over the FY 2026 rate for water, sewer, and drainage charges.

The 3.5 percent increase translates to 96 cents increase per MCF or 7,480 gallons.

For that residential customer at Tier 1, that's a dollar 71 increase per MCF.

However, when most of us uh look at these in terms of gallons, with regards to a gallon of our res for our residential customers, the increase is less than one cents per gallon for both tiers, tier one and two.

The 3.5 percent for sewer volumetric rate increase translates to $2.12 per MCF, or that's $7,480 gallons, and also equates to less than one cent per gallon.

Service rates increase by 30 cents and 24 cents per equivalent unit per month for water and sewer.

The 3.5 percent drainage charge increase translates to an increase of $25.87 per acre per acre per month.

Fire line rate is projected to increase by $1.50 per unit per month.

And Sonali, if you could skip through the fees, I'll I'll try to wrap this up.

Customers impacted by the 2027 budget.

These value-added benefits will occur through the proposed budget.

We're going to clean 600 miles of sewers to provide capacity to the current design standards, clean entire system over five years.

Inslean 8,000 catch basins to reduce street flooding.

Replace at least 3,500 lead service lines, 8,000 lines if additional state and/or federal funding is received, with a goal to remove all the lines within 10 years.

Nearly 16,000 have been replaced since 2018.

We're going to paint 5,000 higher fire hydrants, which reduces corrosion, and we're going to continue to provide and procure resources to support water affordability through the Lifeline Plan and an effective payment plan through EasyPay to the benefit of our customers to keeping water service on while improving the collection rate.

The customer impact in alignment with Mayor Sheffield's vision, DWSD will utilize 184 million dollars in CDBGR funding to launch the Alley Sewer repair program.

Throughout the next three years, DWSD will reconnect more than 10,000 private sewer lateral connections to the city's sewer main that are either offset or have completely collapsed, providing an enhanced level of customer service for significant number of customers, many of whom cannot afford to fund these private responsibility repairs.

These repairs will reduce basement backups, alley cave-ins, and the amount of unwater debris entering the combined sewer system.

This grant-funded program allows DWSD to focus FY27 sewer funds toward maintaining the wastewater system, including sewer cleaning and repairs and catch basin cleaning.

Next steps.

Excuse me, to address basement flooding.

How will the neighbors be prioritized and how will residents of their homes know if they qualify?

Yeah, there uh there is no income qualifications.

Uh we're in the process now of uh drawing up maps in every district.

We're gonna evenly divide the money up in all seven uh districts.

Um we have sent out what we call fix it letters to customers.

When we put a camera in the sewer, we can see the lines that have been have fallen off and are not connected to our system.

So we're gonna start with that list.

We believe one-third of all the city homes in the city of Detroit have a problem with their lateral sewer line.

And so we will equally divide up the money by district.

We will come to each uh city council person with a list and let them uh amend it, add to it, and uh run it back through HRD, and we're in the process of putting that together now.

We just open up the bids uh for the program just a couple days ago, and so we're hoping to have contracts in place in the next 30 days or so, and then uh as construction season opens up, we'll be ready to go.

But you can be assured that each council person will have an opportunity to review the list and uh have input.

I'm sure your offices are are getting complaints of water and basement.

Uh that's a result of needing this work.

Okay.

Um so uh note noting that you know all the districts don't have the same amount of alleyways if you would collect if we can please keep the chips while we haven't while we're having a hearing, so we can if you've got to open up the chips, do them underneath the table, please.

Thank you.

Um so the uh knowing that no, I'm not picky, it's just we're just having a meeting.

Um so we are every district doesn't have the same amount of of alleyways.

So how does that that dollar amount get split evenly uh within seven districts?

This is a good this is gonna do between nine and ten thousand lines, and so there's going to be if you divide that by the seven districts, there's gonna be enough uh work to do in each district that we're not gonna have a problem finding it.

Um there are three times as many lines that need to be fixed as this that this money you know won't cover.

So again, how how you prioritize based on we're gonna look we're gonna look at where uh kids are uh the large numbers of kids in your particular district, and we're gonna look at the areas where we already know lines are separated.

We've already sent letters to homeowners.

Less than one percent is ever able to foot the 15 to 20,000 cost to make the repair.

And so we'll start with the list of homes in your districts that we absolutely know uh have a separated line.

We have a picture of it uh from when we camera at the sewer.

Okay.

The next question and a final question before I pass on the colleagues.

Uh last year we uh it was mentioned uh you mentioned uh director Brown that American Water Resources Service Line Protection Program contract will be expiring uh May of this year.

Uh can you provide us with an update on whether the city plans to renew, rebid, or discontinue the program once the contract expires.

Additionally, before any decision is made, uh does DWSD plan to conduct an evaluation of the program's performance, such as participation rate, claim utilization, and overall value to Detroit residents.

And depending on who you talk to, some say it's been great, but a lot of folks have said not so much.

Yeah.

Through the chair.

Um we are currently evaluating um all of the results in regards to the AWR contract as we speak, as that um approached the termination of that contract or the end date of that expiration of that contract is approaching rapidly.

Um AWR has provided us with some additional services that could be possibly provided to our residents, and we are evaluating if we want to consider um going back and looking at those uh additional services and the costs that are associated with them, as well as taking in consideration if we need to uh put out our RFP to consider another vendor as opposed to AWR, but all of that is in talks as we speak right now, as and that contract actually expires at the end of September.

September, not May.

Gotcha.

Okay, I was getting concerned because we haven't started the steps yet.

Yes, our process is a little slow.

That's okay.

You you know I was not a big supporter of the program.

It was actually a couple of city council members that really pushed me into this program.

But the data that I've seen so far says that it's a benefit, and so we're still evaluating it, but we have the data.

How much money, uh, how many millions of dollars that this company has spent in repairing uh lateral sewer lines that have fallen off the line and and other things.

And yes, there have been some misses with with customers.

Um as we look at the data, your district probably has the most uh people that are in the program.

District two is is a close one behind you.

Um but the the benefits that that we're looking at in the data, and we we're more than happy to share with you so you can evaluate it with us.

And we'll see what happens.

But we still got time.

We got until September.

When do you think we through the um through the chair?

We are actually expecting information by close of business today from AWR.

We had a meeting with them earlier this week.

And so with that, we're going to evaluate that.

So if you can give us seven days or so just to evaluate it, and then we can provide something to you.

Okay.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Now go to a member of Santiago Romero.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Good afternoon, good to see you all.

I did receive the responses to our questions that we sent over, so thank you.

So I know that we are going to invest millions of dollars annually to improve that.

Thank you.

My question is around preventative maintenance.

And I see the water department picking up the leaves.

So I'm just wondering, are leaves a huge issue going into our basins?

Can we work together to educate the public on the importance of maintaining our neighborhoods and cleaning?

Because if I'm told if I pick up my leaves, it prevents flooding, I might do it a little bit more, right?

And if we do it together as a community, we talked about this in my office.

What if we collected the leaves and put them into compost?

The city's composting now, right?

So just wondering how do we work with our environment prevents any of our leaves and things going into our infrastructure that I see causing a lot of the flooding.

No, I I thank you for the question.

I mean, I uh I live on a corner and uh I I have to clean four different catch basins in order to so that the street doesn't flood.

And so I can have our PR team led by Sonali in the back, put together uh a packet of information that you can pass out and help us distribute, and then quarterly we change um uh what we want to get out to the public, certainly uh as Ron Brundric and DPW get those sweepers going in the next few weeks.

Uh it's a good time to start getting this information out to people.

So thank you for the the offer to helping us get the word out.

Through the chair, are leaves the only what else causes it's just debris, it's twigs, it's paper, it's it's it's everything that and we had a very tough winter.

Everything that's and so folks have not yet got out and start cleaning up the yards, and and so all would you get this much rain and wind, it's gonna blow it into the street, and then when it rains, it collects at the catch basins, and it's twigs, it's about everything that you can think of trash, but leaves are the big the big obstacle.

It just seems like the leaves stay on the trees longer and longer every year.

It's like December before uh they stop picking them up.

Uh Ron Brunders' team, the garbage folks stop picking them up.

So it leaves us uh is the biggest contributor.

Okay, do the chair, understood.

Thank you.

I would like to work with Sonali on just okay, better public education.

Um, what if we made it fun and one day you know we actually all together as a city came out and cleaned the leaves once they were down, and and I also believe in keeping the leaves, but how do we do that, right?

Is it working with sustainability, use it for compost?

Who knows?

But I do believe that we can be smarter about this.

And I also think that we don't know.

Um, you know, being a uh a new homeowner, you don't know about preventative maintenance and how much money you save, and and if you just plan for things beforehand, you can actually prevent heartaches from happening.

So I would just like us to work with our residents more to do this together.

Let's let's take care of our of our city and and our home together.

So we can work on that, and I'm still gonna be stuck on on this preventative conversation and just ask.

You mentioned when DPW goes and does this with the sweeper.

The sweeper, quite frankly, I have not seen be very good.

Um it's just not, and I have seen vacuums in other places.

I think this is a question for DPW, but would that help the water departments if we vacuumed leaves, if we then took those leaves to compost somewhere, would that be a something that can help?

Absolutely.

And uh, you know, we're working with urban farmers.

Uh they may have some just suggestions on how they can um use the leaves as compost and and be able to maybe they may want that.

We certainly can look at that also.

Okay, thank you.

So I I put this conversation already into executive session.

Um I just I I really appreciate you you investing into the infrastructure, um, maintaining it.

Um just trying to trying to see how how we can help um save some money, save um some some heartache.

Um just wanna also note um in this conversation.

We know that a lot of our parks used to have leave fences or things like that, and those seem to also no no longer be around.

So just to the administration as we're talking about preventative measures, it looks like we need a vacuum, some fences, capture leaves, um, find a different way to to live with them.

Um but that is it for me, Mr.

President.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh we'll now go to Member Callaway.

Thank you so much, Mr.

Chair, and good afternoon, everyone.

Um looking forward to the 8,000 catch basins that will be cleaned.

Is there a list of those that you can share with each council person so we can kind of look out for those basins to be cleaned?

Because that's a huge problem in in our district.

Yes, we can absolutely put the maps together that of the areas we're gonna be working in.

Uh, you know, be be mindful there are like 90,000 catch basins.

There are a lot.

Um, but certainly we can put a list together.

Again, we we try to uh as evenly as possible, divide up the work in every district so that um the city's 139 square miles, it's a big city, but we uh we we try to be equitable about where we work.

Yeah, okay we do have uh you know C click fix as well as work orders of catch basins that are in disrepair and need to be repaired.

Okay, well you gave us some hope.

So I'm looking forward to um the catch basins um being clean, and then also um I'm just I don't want to use this as one of my questions, but you did mention that um you are looking to have a hub at different churches throughout each district.

Do you want those church recommendations to come from the council or you've already selected them?

Uh you know, I'm gonna work with the administration.

I I I would suggest that you send it to Pastor White.

Oh, okay.

Um from Deathster.

Yeah.

That's who I'm working with, uh Brian Peck and Paul and Pastor White.

Um and so we hope to be able to make an announcement next week at some point.

Okay, and then um during public comment before city council, some individuals claim that commercial customers who have outstanding bills, water bills, um never received the threat of shutoff as frequently as customers are residential customers.

Is there any truth to that?

Because I we hear that quite a bit that commercial um um building owners, they're allowed to have outstanding water bills uh much longer than residential and it's it's a myth that's not true.

Okay.

Uh very few of the commercial accounts uh are behind, but when they are, uh my general counsel files a lawsuit.

Uh we don't sue residential customers, but we certainly sue uh commercial, industrial, and larger uh other customers uh if we have to.

So we uh I don't know this uh Istaker, I've uh do you have the percentage of uh commercial industrial accounts that are in not in good standing?

Um we can get it.

Yeah, my knowledge is commercial and industrial have uh very healthy collection rate, um averaging over 90 percent over the last several several months.

So the number of such requests for those customers would be much less because compared to because of the collection rate.

Scott.

I don't think we distinguish between residential and non-commercial in terms of who to shut and who not to shut.

And Scott, how many lawsuits have we got filed now?

We have quite a number of collection lawsuits against commercial customers.

I think there's I think I've got 25 of them pending right now.

A lot of those um to be frank, once we file a suit against a commercial customer, um they typically come to the table pretty quickly to pay off.

And and quite frankly, most of the outstanding bills, if not the majority of the outstanding bill, is paid fairly quickly because that's followed with that threat of shut-off.

Uh and so nobody wants to be out of business.

Okay, yeah, I was just always concerned.

Thank you for that, because you know, we get um some of our residents who get their water shut off, and I don't know if they have an opportunity.

I mean, I wouldn't want to receive a lawsuit or threat of a lawsuit because I haven't paid my water bill, but I'm just want to make sure that the process is fair, and um I appreciate your response.

And my last question is um are flooded basements caused by a water main break treated differently than a flooded basement caused by heavy rain.

And these most of our um questions for my office are generated by residents.

We we reach out to the community, you know that.

Um, and we get all of most of our questions from folks who actually live in um in my community in district two.

So this is one of those questions.

Yeah, no, I uh uh I had a meeting with with my team and my operations folks today.

The first question I asked is how many water and basement complaints do we have right now?

And it's uh north of 200 based on the rain that we got.

Now we know we have to investigate each and every one of them.

So they're gonna be working 12 hours a day, seven days a week until we've investigated them.

And what we're gonna find out is 90 percent of the water and basement complaints a private sewer lateral issue that their laterals have disconnected from the main and they're backing up in the basement.

Ninety percent of those 200 are gonna be a private issue.

That's why we're so excited to get this hundred and eighty-four million dollars to have.

I can't spend rate dollars on private property, and so when we get money from the federal government to be able to take care of this problem, we're excited about it, and we'll be able to help a lot of people.

Okay, thank you so much, and I've already forwarded my questions.

Thank you, Mr.

Brown, and to your team.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you.

Uh Pro Tum Young.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Good to see you, sir.

Appreciate you always a pleasure.

Um I wanted to ask you because of the flooding that took place uh over in South Wasitor with the water main breaks, um, has there been any discussion about using technology at all to deal with this?

Um there is a I if not trying to tell you what to do, but uh if if I can make a request, I think that 4D printing, which is using smart materials that change shape over time, response to environmental conditions like heat, water, or pressure, so pipes that expand when it's freezing, or pipes that self-heal small cracks or infrastructure that adapts to pressure changes.

Has that had been discussion taking place at all?

It it is yeah, yes, it has.

Okay.

And so let me just give you an example.

That first of all, that 54-inch pipe was a Great Lakes Water Authority pipe.

Oh, okay.

That to this day has never been put back in service.

And so they're inspecting the complete pipe while they're doing, they've been doing it for more than a year.

Okay.

While they're doing that, they've had two 42-inch pipe breaks in Novi and Farmington, and people have been out of work, out of water for a couple of weeks now.

And you know what that does to businesses, restaurants to be out of water for that long.

Two 42-inch pipes.

Now they believe, after they've they they've inspected the line that the whole line has to be replaced.

And it's because of the material that it was made out of.

The pipe was installed in 1970.

They expected it to be around for a hundred years.

It didn't make it 50 years, and what they're inspecting is even worse than what's broke.

So they have to replace it.

Now, Detroit, we have a 42-inch main break on Jefferson right now.

That pipe was put in the ground in 1875, 1875.

And so the pipe 42 inch in Nova in Farmington, 1970, 50 years old.

Our pipes more than a hundred plus years.

And with our pipe, the part the parts are coming in from Texas and Alabama.

They'll be here if not today, tomorrow.

No one is out of water because we have six other pipes.

There's there's one customer with Shoreline East, but before I go home tonight, they're gonna be back up.

That was the only customer that's on that 42-inch line.

There's no other customers on it.

And so we'll get that fixed in a couple of days.

But it's the material of the pipe, and the year that it was built, they were using this corrugated steel with that that they're finding out 50 years later, won't last 100 years.

And that is going to be a hundred million dollar fix for Farmington in Nova.

So that I that was a lot.

I appreciate that.

But I I just want so I just wanted to ask.

So are you basically telling me that the reason why you would be hesitant to be able to put sensors or other things in the pipes is because the infrastructure is so old you have to replace most of it anyway.

And do you know how much you would have to replace based on its age at all?

Or would you still be open to using those sort of technology in pipes that are older?

Yeah.

Because that's kind of what I'm hearing you say.

It's like you you you read this.

You look at the bigger.

So if it's a sewer pipe, yeah, we can put a robot in it.

Right.

And go right down, clean it, inspect it, a sensor, and then prevent a break.

If it's a water line, the water is under pressure.

And so now there are some sensor technology that can run along the outside of the pipe and try to do an X-ray of it, but it's much more difficult because the water system is an enclosed pressurized system.

It's not easy to inspect.

And if you do inspect it, you have to shut it down, and now you're putting people out of water for lar long periods of time.

So water is not as easy to inspect as sewer, and that's why in my notes, which we try to clean 600 miles of sewer every year.

We have 2700 miles in five years.

We've completed the system.

When I say clean it, I mean we're not we're not only gonna clean it, but we're gonna inspect it, and if it needs to be replaced, sections of it, we want to replace it before it breaks, not during some emergency.

No, I appreciate that, and that means a lot.

I was and I was wondering about the whole, because I wanted to ask you about the whole artificial intelligence piece in terms of what you're doing with the department.

But I won't, but I'm very sensitive because we just had that recent incident.

And I think that if you were to be able to implement artificial intelligence in this, you'd be able to respond quicker before these programs break down.

But the reason why I'm not I'm not asking you like I asked normal people is because you're telling me that a lot is infrastructure you're replacing anyway.

That's what it seems like.

And so it's like before you put something like that in there, it kind of is it kind of defeats the purpose if you gotta replace most of the infrastructure.

Do you know hypothetically?

This would be my final question.

Do you know hypothetically how much it would cost?

How much how much infrastructure you have that was like you know, invent that that was I I don't know pre pre the airplane.

That you have in you know, pre-Wright brothers in the city, and how much that would cost to replace.

Yeah, billions.

Uh the the pipe on Jefferson.

You have a specific number?

We're gonna we're gonna make the repair, and then within the next year, year and a half, we're gonna decommission that 42 inch, we're gonna put two 12-inch pipes on each side of the street.

Because in the 1900s, when that those pipes were put in, they were servicing an industrial waterfront with unit roll and big, and you needed large diameter pipes to be able to feed the industry.

We don't have that anymore.

So we can replace the 42-inch with the 12-inch on each side of the street and have the same type redundancy.

So the pipe is this is the second time Jefferson is broken in the last three years.

So we'll decommission it, and we're engineering and design new pipes to go down Jefferson on each side of the street.

Do you have a number uh uh of what that is?

Is it is it one billion?

Is it two?

I I could get I could get a number, but I I could get you the number of miles that are past their lifespan.

And a projection of how many years it would take to have that to do that.

I would I would like to see that I appreciate that.

And I'll submit the rest of my questions and recommendations because I have a lot of them in writing.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Member Johnson.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Good afternoon.

Um so I know we started the conversation during BFA about the $50 million, the the $50 million that comes from the Great Lakes Water Authority.

Um, and I wanted to have this discussion here with more council members present.

Um can you just kind of share with us how that $50 million number came about and whether or not there's an ability to renegotiate because with it being a flat rate as the years progress, as costs increase, that $50 million is not the same.

It's it's probably more like $20 million now, it feels like, right?

Um so can you um just share with us what you're aware of, how it came about, um, and our ability to renegotiate it.

Yeah, uh, and I'm gonna let General Counsel uh because I I I bought him because I anticipated that question.

Let me just say it it came out of the bankruptcy.

The Great Lakes Water Authority was created out of the bankruptcy.

It was negotiated between the four counties, the City of Detroit and the state, uh, the terms of the agreement.

I I think the $50 million is somewhat deceiving because uh astiker knows when we put our uh when we put when we got our rate from the Great Lakes Water Authority, they also have to give us $22 million uh what's called an owner's premium because we own the system, they have to reduce our uh revenue requirement by $22 million.

So you're getting the $50 million plus the $22 million, and then they also uh in a shared service agreement, they have to give us another $13 million.

Um let me say absolutely we, you know, it was negotiated.

I was I was uh uh involved in in the negotiations, and we would have loved to be able to get a cost of living factor attached to it.

But in the negotiations there were give and take.

One of the things that we did get is you got two board members that can override anything that the Great Lakes Water Authority wants to do that's not in Detroit's best interest.

That was very difficult to negotiate and get.

So there was a lot of give and take in the negotiations.

I'll let uh I'll let the lawyers speak to can it be done?

Anything can be done, but I'll I'll let him speak to the probability of it being done.

Uh through the chair.

Um the lease agreement is just one agreement.

So Gary's explanation is very thorough, and it's pretty much answers the question, but I'll tell you that the lease agreement is part of a complex series of agreements that were entered into at that time.

And it's not just one lease agreement, there are interrelated agreements that go along with it, number one, and then number two, there are financial obligations that are contained within those agreements and bonds that were issued and um some of the bonding uh covenants and requirements that allowed the city to finance its bonds at that time that then got passed on to Great Lakes, are still in place.

Um while the technical answer is yes, anything can be renegotiated.

The practical answer is that it would be very difficult, number one, and number two, speaking quite frankly, we have you we have to be careful what we ask for, because we do we can't just open if we open up the lease for agreements, there could be other things that other partners would like to see changed in that lease agreement that would not be in our favor, uh, and that we reopen that negotiation.

And and lastly, I'll say we we would likely have to go back to Federal Court to do that.

So the answer to the question is yes.

The the real answer to the question is it would be very difficult.

So um within the uh question and the response, the identify the length of the lease agreement with the Great Lakes Water Authority.

So the lease agreement was entered into in 2015.

It's a 40-year lease agreement that goes until 2055.

Within the lease agreement, however, that's that's the initial termination date.

There is um what's called an extended uh automatic lease termination date that to the extent that there are outstanding bonds, the lease agreement will go until the end, until the time that those bonds are paid off.

So it will automatically extend until the time till the bonds are paid off.

So if we get to 2055 and there are um terms for bonds that are in existing that go beyond 2055, the lease agreement will automatically extend until that happens to those are paid off.

Or till they're satisfied in some other way.

Can I and can I just add to the chair that in the agreement, Great Lakes Water Authority had to pay the pension note for the city for 10 years, and they did.

They made those payments, they front loaded the payments.

That still doesn't get your cost of living adjustment.

And then finally, they have renegotiated all of DWSD's bad debt, and they have saved one billion dollars in refinancing bad debt because they have a double A bond rating, and the city coming out of bankruptcy is so much better than it was, but over the last 10 years never would have been able to refinance at that cost savings.

And so we're 40 percent of Great Lakes.

Any the any savings that occurred, we we benefit from that.

So it's more than just the $50 million.

There are a lot of nuances that have big dollars attached to it that are to our benefit.

So this is all these are all follow-up questions.

Okay.

So currently, do we know we said that the lease agreement is for 40 years dependent upon the um when the bonds are paid off?

Do we know what year that is today based on the bonds that have been issued?

We could get you that information.

Okay.

I don't know that off the top of my head.

Real realistically, you you're going to be borrowing money almost every year.

I mean, the Great Lakes Water Authority.

I mean, that that's how we finance, you know, the question about how much will it cost to fix it?

This question was asked in front of the Nobile City Council a couple nights ago.

Why don't you just go out and borrow a billion dollars and fix the doggone pipes?

Well, the ratepayers would have to absorb that billion dollars.

You drive the rates up so high it water would not be affordable, and then you'd also affect Gleewood's debt ratio with the bond market.

So and do you even have the capacity, the contractor's capacity to be able to spend the billion dollars at at one time?

No, you don't.

And so it's not as simple as just, but they will always be borrowing money unless in order to run the operation.

If I may, Gary.

Yes.

Um, every time we borrow money, the the time gets extended.

So for example, we're gonna borrow money probably towards the uh early part of 2027.

Um that'll extend uh the payments schedule will extend by another 30 or 40 years.

So depending on that, it'll be just added on to the existing time frame.

Uh and then we have scheduled that we borrow money every other year or every year, as soon as we borrow money, then the bond payment uh schedule will extend the term of the lease automatically.

Yeah, the the the $13 million that we talked about Glee were passing on to us in the rate requirement.

I, as a board member, they want to build a $75 million pot of money to fix the linear assets.

They know they have bigger problems than they suspected with these pipes, so they want to build over the next 10 years.

And so there's two ways to build that pot.

I thought that it would be better for our ratepayers if you just go bond the money.

Just go bond it over 30 or 40 years, and then you'll be passing on to DWSD a much smaller.

Gleewood wanted to um build it through rates.

So that's where the the $13 million is a part of the $13 million that they're passing on to us.

So there's you you know, there's this cost analysis that you have to do.

It's always becomes an affordability issue.

All right, you know, bond the money, let the you know, pay it off over the next 40 years, as opposed to charging all the communities and rates.

We have to we have to raise the rates to raise the money to give them.

So it's always a balancing act between affordability and having enough dollars to invest in the system so that you don't have these emergencies.

And a point of clarification.

So when Isaker talked about um issuing bonds, is that for DWSD?

Okay.

All right, thank you.

And so Director Brown, you said that the Great Lakes Water Authority paid off the pension debt.

Um I said they made the pension payment for 10 years.

Was is that for their employees and DWSD employees?

Who so uh when Great Lakes Water Authority was created, I kept half the employees at DWSD, the other half went to the Great Lakes Water Authority.

So now they're responsible for pension liability of those employees, whether they actually are active or they're retired.

So the employees left DWSD, collected a pension in a lot of cases, started a new job with the Great Lakes Water Authority and got a beautiful benefit package because they have a three-year vested at Great Lakes Water Authority.

We have a 10-year, they have a 401 match.

We have a city pension.

So the employees uh did very well in that bifurcation for the most part.

All right, thank you.

Um I'm sure we'll we'll have some additional questions relative to this that we'll send over to you.

I know we've already sent our questions to you, but that that was one of them.

The other uh question I really want to talk about is the Wabash system.

So a sizable urban farm uh in District 4 approached me.

Uh they have the Wabash system.

Um they are advocating for other urban farmers to be able to access to um implement the system, although they feel as though there's not the uh staffing within DWSD that prioritizes working with urban farmers.

I I and and when I think about this, and perhaps I'm just not really sure um if it works this way, but when I think about it, it it seems like anyone who um purchases a property that may be on the demolition list that or purchased it from the land bank, and there were questions about whether or not the water line was uh cut, would could potentially have to go through the same process to tap the city's water line.

Um can you talk about like um it just working to ensure that there is staff with DWSD within D DWSD to provide that support to urban farmers and if you know of any challenges that have um faced the urban farmers?

But realistically, they should get a permit and they should put in a new line, put in a meter and service the lot.

Now, not many of them have the resources to do that, so we are working with them as much as we can.

I I'm not saying that they're the priority because I just said we had 200 water water and basement complaints that are kind of the priority now.

Hiring the 15 additional staff is is the reason the reason we're doing it is to be able to live to deliver a higher level service.

So we we should be able to um I know Sam Smalley, my deputy director, is working with the urban farmers, and we'll we're looking for ways to accommodate them and raise their level of priority up to a higher level, although they're not gonna be as high as a what somebody's got water in the basement.

All right, yeah, certainly understand that I'm gonna work closely with them as well, um, just to make sure that we have that connection with DWSD and getting um feedback and responses from the department within a reasonable amount of time.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you.

Member Miller.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Good afternoon.

Thank you, Mr.

Mr.

President.

I have uh several uh quite quite a few collapsed alleys in D5.

And I promised DW, DPW that I would not call them out again until I have your department come out.

They are tired of coming out and just to find out that the sewer is busted.

So I was wondering if I could you could point me in the right direction to have someone come do a tour of all the spots, or could I provide you the addresses where the alleys have literally collapsed where you can't even get down the alley at all?

Didn't didn't I do that with you?

Yeah, I mean the collapses are the sewers that were either attached to a demolition, a house that's no longer there or that is there that has fallen off of the main.

And so when it falls off, flow goes into the ground, pulls dirt down and creates residential areas.

I understand, but I just want to tell you.

That's what I'm talking about.

Residential houses, one third of them, their sewers have separated.

And that was the issue we had.

But we'll be more than happy to come out and and take a look now that we have these dollars available, and that's why we want to make sure that each councilperson is able to say, hey, I got these in my district.

I'd like you to give them a priority with the amount of money that that we'll have.

Okay, um most of my questions were centered around coming uh at large uh councilmember young answer to majority.

I just want to caution you though that when we come out and fix that sinkhole, we're gonna fix like a three-foot area around the sinkhole.

But those alleys, when they were closed, they were closed because the city didn't have the money to fix them.

You still are gonna need the alley to be the alleys I'm referring to are clean.

Yeah, they're pristine as a matter of fact.

They just have a sinkhole in the alley of a sinkhole.

And I've been told that they have to be sought by you first.

We'll have a conversation about historical bricks.

I know I wouldn't know we even have our they even had their own bricks that they have split to the side because we knew they would throw them away.

So, but I did promise Mr.

Brennish that I would have you come out first and sign off before they attempt to close up anything.

So I just wanted to.

So you mentioned I know we had the 38 million dollar Great Lakes Authority project going on Jefferson.

And um it's not a the Jefferson project is not a it's not a uh it's a DWSD project.

Okay, so that's talking about the water the broken water main that we're working on now.

No, the actual project that is set to what is it called the trend water transfer?

Approved pump station.

No, this is down by Burns area and Iroquois.

So we're in that area there's a big development.

I know they replaced that 42-inch pipe yesterday.

And but since then I've been getting calls yesterday and today about brown water, and there's not been a mandate to buoy or anything in that area.

I was wondering, is this cause for concern is a hundred year old infrastructure?

Um as the pipes continue to burst in that area.

Is you think is it because of the repairs being done?

It's because I got my latest car was on the river.

Um the senior housing with the uh brown water that was yesterday, and they continue to call this morning.

First of all, the repair hasn't been made.

The pipe hasn't even got to Michigan yet.

It's coming from Texas.

The clamps are coming from Alabama.

But they're but they're there working on it.

This okay, they're not finished.

I got we got crews there, yeah, sure.

But we're waiting on on the pipe.

Then once we get it put back together, we will open up the fire hydrants all along Jefferson and flush that system out and get all of the dirt out of the system, all the brown water out of the system before we open it back up to residential.

But the water is brown now.

Okay, we'll we'll be out there tomorrow morning and we will start to flush hydrants.

Okay, I appreciate that.

Um that's in that area right there at um Burns, Iroquois, I'm gonna say seminal area south side of the street.

Pardon me?

You you said you're well aware.

Well, okay.

Well, with the brown water, can you put out a mandate for them to boil?

No.

So you can't do that either.

So it's not necessary.

Uh boil water alert is only necessary if you have a bacteria issue if you've lost pressure and you have a bacteria issue.

We have a turbidity issue, dirt is in the line, it needs to be flushed out.

It's unsightly, uh, but there's no need to issue a boil water level.

So is that something that's a dump use period then?

That's something that comes from the state of Michigan, not from but if it's brown water right now, what should they do?

What should you do?

We should we should flush the fire hydrants in that area so that we're clearing out all of the lines and hopefully clear up the brown water.

Can I can I just jump because I I think I heard something different.

What should the resident do?

Because that is the email that I sent you as well.

And we had someone who had brown water, uh, and the only way that they got it flush is when we sound the alarm about it.

So, what should residents do when they get that brown water?

Because there have not been nothing and get it cleaned up tonight or tomorrow morning.

We will deliver bottled water.

Uh in your case, we before I left the office crews were on the way out to those four houses that were affected.

Fortunately, it's kind of been an odd spot, so it's only a few houses there to deal with.

But on Jefferson, this is the we've been monitoring Jefferson quite a bit.

It's the first time hearing about the brown water, other than um shoreline east, which was connected to the 42-inch main, and we had to reconnect them to another line.

But we will it this is this is a common problem, it's not hard to fix.

We need to flush the system, and we open up the fire hydrants on both sides of the street to flush all of the dirt out of the system and then turn it back on, and they should.

And then the resident will have to run their water until they get it out of their home or their apartment or off the building, and uh it should be fine.

Okay, I was just asking because as costs come in, it's a lot for us to say they're gonna flush it when you could just send out an email or send out something saying in this area.

That's that's your responsibility.

That's your department, that's your water.

I'm just asking.

You can think you think I have the uh an email address for every customer.

No, you how are they send them out?

They I'm sure you use you send those bills out.

I'm sure you got something that you can send something out with the email address or something.

I just I'm just trying to figure out how do we communicate as our phones are being flooded.

That's all I want to know.

Make sure you have the emergency number.

I mean, that's that's the first thing.

Call call the emergency hotline and report it and uh call our office and we'll make sure it gets reported.

This is not a difficult fix.

We have people working 24 hours a day.

We will start flushing the lines if in fact we find that it's a bigger problem than okay.

Thank you.

And just one building.

Thank you.

Uh member McCampbell.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Uh I as Member Johnson uh indicated we did have quite uh uh lengthy conversation last week in BFNA, but I wanted to continue down um the questions around affordability around the water.

Uh understanding that um the efforts to keep their water rate increase around three to three and a half percent uh we also know that widely there's an affordability crisis in this country.

Um and as as we look at um things becoming more unaffordable, and as you talked about the bad debt type of calculation that you all keep track on that um was that 70 percent before and now is in the high 80s, do you all do an analysis of how rate increases will impact ratepayers on the ability to pay?

Um and what where is that breaking point, right?

Because as we're as we're talking about the um, and as you talk about the lack of funds in an afford in the affordability program, that we're about um I forget the percentage, but it's a low percentage of the folks that are in need of that um help that we're able or that we're unable to get to.

So where's that breaking point?

Have we reached it already?

And and what what do we need to do to make sure that folks have um access to affordable water in the city?

Yeah, so um shortly we're gonna have just under 5,000 households in lifeline.

And as I said in in your committee, I believe that um in order to work make water truly affordable for low-income customers, you should be charging them no more than 1.8 percent of their household income for water.

And if you're charging them more than that, then they're not able to buy food or rent or do other things.

1.8 percent is what I believe, and we have studies out of the University of Pennsylvania that will support that.

There are a lot of other studies that say that should be 2% of household income.

The legislation that's in Lansing right now says 3%.

But I'm going with the lower number 1.8 percent.

When our bills were 88 dollars on average, and they're gonna go up by $3 with this raise, but when they were 88, um $18 was an affordable amount of money for customers uh to be able to pay their bill.

And when we had $50 million available for the lifeline program, we had more than 30,000 households in row.

And today I only have four four million five hundred approximately to work with.

And so we can only put four thousand five hundred residents in the program.

And so we truly have an affordability program that's a model around the country.

It just is not funded.

And I can't fund it with rate dollars.

It has to come from either the state or the federal government.

So then you got easy pay for that's for anyone.

And so we have 45, is it 4500 uh customers in that program?

And so it's no, it's we have 42,000.

It's 42,000 in lifelines.

And easy pay.

In easy pay.

So between easy pay and lifeline, you have about 50,000 households that are receiving some form of assistance on their water bill.

Now, if there's 650,000 people in the city of Detroit, 150,000 of them, in three people on average in those in those houses, are receiving some form of assistance.

Is it enough?

No.

But if we don't get some state or federal assistance similar to the energy sector energy sector, uh to assist with the program, we we just have to move them into easy pay as opposed to the lifeline program.

Thank you for that.

And and definitely understanding the need around more resources in that affordability program and such, uh, I guess my worry is that even as we're seeing in the energy sector, right?

That that support is there, and we are also seeing rates increase on folks, and it's becoming more for unaffordable for folks, even with that support.

So I am worried about as we continue to, and I know you all have a need as a system to increase to have upgrades and such, and this is a conundrum that we're in.

So I if we're consistently doing three and a half percent increases, right?

And now we have more and more folks into the need of having um being on lifeline or even being on easy pay.

Uh my concern is that that uh bad debt will increase, and then we will be here in a few years saying that oh, that number is in the 70s now.

So I'm just wondering where do we go, or has there been a conversation about as the rates continue to get unaffordable for folks, or we're in a situation where just the pay that folks have is not catching up, where does that leave our water system?

Um so I don't know if you have more to add to that can follow up and questions, but we we can put something in writing, but uh yeah, again, that that's the issue.

Affordability versus uh the need for infrastructure improvement of the system.

We had decades of disinvestment into this system, and over the last 10 years, we're just getting caught up.

When I sat on city council for 10 years prior, for 10 years, you had double digit rate increases, some as high as 18 percent, 17 percent in one year.

Now, in the last 10 years, you've averaged around three.

So we're we're we're doing everything at DWSD to be as efficient as we can to keep the rates down as low as we can.

But 3.5 percent when you see the rest of the communities all around the city of Detroit, uh all in the suburbs, when you see what their rates come in at, many of them double double digits this year.

We're gonna be at the very low bottom with the 3.5.

And so I know that's not helpful when people can't afford to pay anything because of their financial situation, but 3.5 percent increase in this economy with inflation and tariffs putting pressure on supplies, um, is a really good Herculine feat.

Got it.

Thank you.

And my second question on this, um, switching gears to the contractors within that you all have with the system.

Um it's been oftentimes that uh the work that you all are carrying out that is needed, and we uh definitely have to have it.

Um there's been some times that we have had to call uh you all that you have been very um prompt on of work not being completed in a way that it should have been.

Um and I'm just wondering do you all conduct all this of your contractors on that work?

And if you do see deficiencies or the work not done, what's that what are the consequences of follow-up there with contractors?

Yeah, that you know, to be honest, the deficiency is on our side with regards to inspectors that are on site monitoring the contractor's work.

That that's where we we've we've grown so fast and moved so fast that we've moved workers, FTEs, up into positions that may not have gotten the proper training.

So that's where the deficiency is.

It's right on site with an inspector that's there, making sure that the work is being done properly, that the restoration is being taken care of, and we're working uh every day to provide that training and corrective action with our inspectors to make sure they understand you have to do a better job.

Secondly, we just hired an internal auditor that is beginning to audit these uh contractor accounts to make sure that they're within the guidelines of the contract, that they're not taking shortcuts and doing shoddy work.

So those two things will uh give us some time correct that problem.

And um on that, once you see like if the internal audit came back that this contractor was doing shoddy work or not, um what protocols do you have in place to you continue to work for them or work with them more?

I'll let Scott speak to that.

I mean, we we've dealt with contractors that through the chair, um Mr.

Councilmember, uh when we find a contractor that has done shoddy work, we make them go out and fix it.

That's the first thing.

We don't leave it in place, we don't allow them to get away with it.

Uh secondly, we're revamping some of our procurement policies to take into account work history performance on past contracts, so that if they have a record of consistently underperforming on contracts or a record of consistently not performing the work that they the way it should have been, that can be taken to account when the new contracts come around and can affect their score.

We're in the process of putting that kind of that that in place.

But it's a two-pronged approach.

It's holding them accountable while the work's going on.

Gary talked about that.

And the second thing is holding them accountable after the work is done and looking at a history of either conformance or non-conforce with the with the specifications and the requirements.

So the chair, can I add to that?

Um, Councilmember McCampbell, we have also had additional conversations in regards to withholding or delaying payment to ensure that the work has been done accurately and completed.

Um so we're having some process changes that are now happening in our accounts payables office in regards to after those inspections have been completed, if they're not up to standard, not providing payment until the work has been done to satisfaction.

Thank you.

And I appreciate y'all taking the steps and doing the work to address that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you, uh McCallum.

And yeah, absolutely appreciate that.

I mean, the fact that you know openly say training is a problem.

That's something very rare we hear from departments.

They always stand on the fact we got our employees are doing the best that they can do, and they've got the training.

But appreciate the fact that you're willing to admit that, but then also work on it as well.

Certainly want to see the outcomes.

All right.

Uh, last question we have, uh last member for questioning we have is member waters.

And before we go to member waters, we're gonna open up for public comment.

If there's anyone from the public who would like to speak, please raise your hand now.

I see two in the committee of the whole, but we'll be doing that in a few minutes.

Member Waters.

Well, thank you, Mr.

President.

Last but not least.

Oh, it's just so wonderful around here.

So it's so good to see you, Director Brown.

Thank you.

Um, I can't think of a single person here that's more responsive than you are.

And I just want you to know that I do appreciate it.

The fact that you you always look good and you get the job done.

I wish I could, I wish I could take credit for it, but it truly is the team that I have working for me because I do very little.

I I delegate a lot.

So yeah, I have a great team.

Oh, well, that well, that is wonderful.

So I let me just say thanks to the entire team.

Um, absolutely.

Um, I know that I've seen pipes everywhere, just all over the city, some of the largest pipes that I've ever seen in my life.

And um, so I appreciate the fact that you're trying to address our aging uh infrastructure.

Um I I do want to say too that I'm one of those people who I I mean I've used AWR and and they've gotten the job done, so I really appreciate that.

I don't know if anybody else can say that, but I can certainly say that.

Um I think people misunderstood is when the flood happened in Southwest Detroit, they they likened it to what happened, say on the east side, which was a natural disaster, as opposed to in Southwest Detroit, which was our fault.

So they couldn't understand why you were taking care of Southwest Detroit and not necessarily there.

I I believe that that most people understand at this time.

I hope so.

Anyway, um the grants.

Have you applied for any grants recently?

Through the chair, um, council member waters, we are in process of applying for multiple draft grants, even though um through our reports we show a major decrease in grants, but we have recently received uh a new EPA grant, a win grant that we are doing in conjunction with the Detroit Public Consolidated School District to do less service lines for our schools as well as some additional locations of five million dollars.

We have additional eagle grants that we are in or the process of applying for as well due to the decrease of ARPA funds that have been received that we have received previous from Eagle, but we are in the process of also uh applying for BRIC federal grants that are in play, and so there are multiple grant funds that are on the table and that we hope to receive some notices for soon.

Well, that's good because we certainly need all of the help that we can get from the state and federal level uh to assist us with our agent infrastructure.

Um what can we do as local legislators to assist you in encouraging our partners at the state and federal level um to help us uh you know when you apply for these grants?

I mean, what can we do?

Yeah, that the two things that you can do that would be just a tremendous help.

The biggest um thing we can do for low-income customers is to get them to stop drinking bottled water.

Less than five percent of those bottles are ever gonna get um recycled.

They're all gonna end up somewhere we don't want them to be.

And most importantly, they're paying three dollars for 10 ounce bottle of water, and we're selling them gallons for pennies.

And so they can't afford to be at a gas station or Costco where they got these pallets of water when you can drink tap water that is safe, clean, affordable, and so we got it.

You know, I'm asking, I'm asking the administration to take this on that we we're we're all going to be singing from the same page.

Stop drinking that.

Well, you you know we have to convince them that it's safe and we talked about that.

We have to that that's a big part of it.

It's on me to do that.

Um, but then secondly, you know, we we had this thing, we we worked on this legislation.

My office, quite frankly, wrote 90 percent of it uh for Senator Chang.

We we had it, we had some bipartisan support.

We thought don't know if we had enough or not, because it never got up for a vote.

So the more the the whatever you can do to press the legislators to uh allocate dollars, and uh, you know, I I want to be cautiously optimistic.

We we you know, LaShonda and I think we found several million dollars more for lifeline, but we we don't want to put it out there yet until we we got it in hand.

We also I see uh council member uh Johnson stepped away, but she's always uh beating my door down for basement backup.

We think we found um several million dollars for that that's gonna get spread out equally.

I that's that's why she's not here.

I don't want you you you're not getting it all.

But if we're gonna spread it out equally, that's that's huge.

But yeah, pressing our legislators, there are several bills, you know, there now.

I'm not sure where the votes are, but we need a permanent funding source for lifeline.

We have the best program in America in any utility, gas, light, or water, that's unfunded.

And we've proven it.

When people are given an affordable amount to pay, guess what?

We collect more.

They actually pay.

They actually pay.

So we got to fund that program.

You have the bill numbers.

I I will get them to you.

Okay.

I will email them tonight.

Okay.

All right then.

Well, well, thank you so much.

I think you would like to now cut off the collection of public comments.

Any uh burning motions that folks need to make at the table before we go into public comment, pro Tim Young.

I got a burning statement.

Burning statement.

So if you so chose to implement artificial intelligence within DWSD, I'm not telling you what to do, but I would highly suggest that you do that.

Um the predictive maintenance, the leak detection, water loss reduction, the energy optimization, the reduced emergency repairs, the automated operations over a 10-year period would save you 431 million dollars.

The total tax money that you receive for over 10 years or tax revenue will be 180 million dollars over 10 years.

The estimated revenue water loss recovery that you receive over 10 years be 251, 250 million dollars.

That's 861 million dollars over 10 years with a 200 million dollar cost.

That's a four to five time return on investment, also creating 2,000 jobs.

I will send that to you.

I highly suggest that you invest in artificial intelligence, and I'm still on the fence of whether or not I won't give up my Perrier water, sir.

I don't know if I'm gonna do that, but other than that, that is all I have to say.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Thank you.

Always good to see you, appreciate your hard work.

Thank you.

Um, I'm currently working with the this is your opportunity for a closing statement as well.

Okay.

I just to respond to Councilmember Young.

Um, I'm currently working with our IT department who is who are working on two separate I uh AI projects.

We're working on an AI project that's internal to DWSD.

So with that, we will vet the information that you just provided.

And then we're also working with the City of Detroit's um ultimate IT team for working with I don't know why I'm going so blank right now, uh Redwood AI, which is for the uh information for our Oracle.

So, in regards to the Oracle system.

So we are working on two current AI projects at this time, and so we will circle back to you with response if that data is accurate and how productive our AR projects are at DWSD.

Thank you.

If I want to know that ahead of time would take a whole different tack.

Thank you for that.

I appreciate that.

Thank you.

Yeah.

And I'll I'll be quick in closing.

I know it it's getting late.

Um, so you know, I I've I've been here, I've worked for every mayor since Coleman Young.

He was the first mayor I was allowed to vote for, and I started to work here shortly thereafter.

So you you do the math on on how long ago that was.

I've never seen an ad administration that's pushing so hard uh to get into the neighborhoods and make lives better for um just everyday uh Detroit residents.

So I'm I'm just excited to be uh a part of that.

And and that's not to say anything negative about uh any other administration.

Uh there was a lot of other blocking and tackling things that needed to be done in the Duggan administration, but uh once that got done, it's time now to uh you know be a be an anchor institution in these communities and help solve problems.

So I'm I'm happy to do that.

I want to thank all my staff uh that works tirelessly.

I mean, my we we talked about it today.

We've got a lot of burnout uh in our operations, folks.

They went through this tremendously long period of cold weather, sub-zero weather with an unprecedented number of water main breaks, and then they uh come out of that, the weather warms up, and we have flooding uh that they're working with.

So there's a lot of burnout going on, um, and we're trying to find ways to get our folks some relief.

So we want to always uh thank them there.

I mean, they are truly as much first responders as police and fire, and you know, I I have an affinity for police, so but the men and women at DWSD are out there in the middle of the night.

We were out at four o'clock in the morning on Jefferson with that water main break in raining temperatures, and so I want to thank them for what they do.

And then I uh I want to thank uh all of the city council for their support in the things that we bring to you uh with help that we need.

So I think if we're all working uh for the same goal, we're gonna be successful.

And I'll leave it at that.

Thanks for the opportunity.

And thank you all for the work that you do as well.

Thank you.

Be safe be well, have a great weekend.

All right, Mr.

Mayor closes McConnell.

I have a motion not related to DWSD, but related to uh public library.

If we if I I'm making a motion to put their capital budget into the executive session.

There's a motion, colleagues on the floor.

Any objections?

Seeing none, that action shall be taken.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any further, colleagues?

All right, we shall now go to public comment.

As I've been mentioning, uh, for the duration of our budget hearings, we will have abbreviated public comment in the a.m.

hour and the p.m.

hours uh for uh again for the duration, noting that there will be a full uh opportunity for folks to talk about the full budget uh during the public comment section on March 30th.

I do see two hands, uh two individuals in the committee of the whole.

We'll start off first with first with uh Miss Wanda Low Anderson, followed by Brother Cunningham.

And again, we have one minute on the clock.

Good afternoon, honorable council body and all those under the sound of my voice.

My name is Wanda Lowe Anderson.

I am a community advocate in 48217, a resident, a board member of Down River Delta uh community development corporation.

The purpose of my presence today is to bring attention to a designated library site in 48217 along Fort Street.

Um it is uh 14 contiguous parcels along Fort Street corridor, originally designated in 1974 for Detroit Public Library Branch.

It remains vacant and unused in one of Detroit's most underserved neighborhoods.

These parcels total 1.56 acres and represent one of the few large continuous redevelopment opportunities in the 4217 community.

Residents must currently leave the neighborhood for library services.

Despite the lands, sorry, the time's up.

Oh, sorry.

Yes, ma'am.

But but the good news is you have council members who are here who who'd certainly hear you.

And if you would like, you can certainly provide that information any further uh to the colleagues' offices.

We'll hear you as well.

Okay.

So I'm for a 217.

Yes.

Um so just I can leave and okay.

Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I know it goes pretty quickly.

Um just want to thank everybody uh for their prayers.

We went up to Lansing yesterday.

Uh there's a lot of us up there.

And it was productive in regards to the LBO increasing uh local bus operating uh funding.

Uh it's probably a hard way to go this budget season, but uh um I advise everyone if they're passionate about something to continue to do it.

No matter over a decade.

I can't can't believe that.

I've that's been a long time, but it's been productive.

Things have gotten better and then worse, but I I believe the best is yet to come.

Um 313-444-9114 is the number.

Uh I do not get paid for anything that I do.

Um, I do it from the passion.

So the Holland number is 313-444-9114.

You can find my Facebook articles, things like that.

You can Google that number.

And also um Patreon, Brother Cunningham.

There's people that pay every month just to keep me going and take time off to do things like this.

Thank you, Brother Cunningham.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I will now transition to our online callers.

Uh how many callers do we have and who do we have first?

Somebody, anybody.

Somebody, anybody?

President, there are there are five callers online.

Our first caller is Betty A.

Warner.

All right, Ms.

Betty A.

Verner.

The floor is yours.

You have a minute.

General public comment.

Uh good afternoon.

This is Betty A.

Byrne, the president of DeSoda Else for Black Association.

And I just want to give kudos to uh Brother Cunningham for the work that he does.

And uh everyone always thanks him, and I'm quite sure he appreciates it.

But don't thank him, banking.

Find some money to give uh um brother Cunningham uh to help him with his gas, to help him with just his daily living, to have buy him a lunch or something, so that uh, you know, just uh we love and we appreciate him, but what brother Cunningham does cost money.

So uh that's just my opinion and uh not trying to step on anybody's toes.

And I'm asking that the council will please uh uh advocate some money for the land use hearing uh for black clubs to help them pay that fifteen hundred dollar fee and uh allocate some money for our quarters.

Thank you for this time and God bless you all.

Thank you.

Next caller, please.

Our next caller is iPhone.

All right, iPhone, the floor is yours.

You have one minute general public comment.

Yeah, uh there you go.

I won't have time to uh make all my comments, so I'll send you some emails and and see.

I wanted you to post your uh transcript that you could get free from Zoom up on your website so people can read it at night and we get more people knowing what's going on because they don't have time to listen to you know eight hours of meetings.

But uh I I guess they had an excuse that they couldn't do that, but you look into that a little further.

Media service could do that if they would try and you need to work coordinate when you've got different problems, like uh you've got a problem with communication with the community.

So you need to take these problems that you've got and try and integrate them together so you can try and reach out to people.

But the water department, I went down there to make an appointment, and then I was in the wrong, it was too late.

So they said come back early in the morning.

Well, I called.

I I made an appointment.

I tried to, but they wouldn't even tell me who they were in email.

Thank you, Mr.

Next caller, please.

Our next caller is owner Papa.

All right, caller, the floor is yours.

You have one minute, general public comment.

Uh good afternoon, to the chair may I be heard.

Yes, ma'am.

Thank you.

In terms of a library, you you spoke up uh district seven, but uh definitely we need a library.

I went to the Edison Library when I was in elementary school, and that's a shame.

Um the media.

I think we need a new contract.

We uh we need to have all of our um our our uh listings put into the Detroit News or the Chronicle, but not the D not the legal news.

We don't read the legal news, and it was kind of interesting that 80 to 90 percent of their uh money goes to staffing.

That's kind of interesting.

And and then district seven on Outman Boulevard.

Uh there is a something going on where he's putting um reservoirs in, but he's cutting down all the trees, which is a detriment to the people who live over there.

And I would like to know uh Mr.

Councilman who authorized him to cut down our trees and put reservoirs in on the islands.

No one wants that.

It looks ugly.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next caller, please.

Our next caller is William M.

Davis.

William M.

Davis, the floor is yours.

You have one minute general public comment.

Mr.

William M.

Davis, are you there?

He'll probably pop back up.

Let's go to the uh put him at the end of the queue and go to the next caller, please.

Our next caller is Norrell Hemphill.

All right, caller.

The floor is yours.

We have one minute general public comment.

Yes, people like an agree to Detroit City Council.

Um a few things.

My name is Raoul Hamfield.

I'm the legal and public policy manager at We the People of Detroit.

Number one, I want to encourage the council to look at our Detroit water and sewage system as one contiguous system, not broken up by uh district.

Uh number two, um, I'll send some information about the lease agreement.

We're getting 50 million dollars, paying 17 million back to ourselves.

There's a hot study that says we should be getting about 218 million dollars a year.

Um number two, there's uh excuse me, number three.

As far as uh water affordability, we definitely need water affordability in a city.

Um, and you can use rate payer rate for a water program.

We have a study that has developed the Hadley agreement, and we're asking for city council to support house fields 455 and 5170 thank you.

Next caller, please.

Council President, we are now going back to William M.

Davis.

All right, Mr.

William M.

Davis.

The floor is yours.

You have one minute general public comment.

Mr.

William M.

Davis, are you there?

Going once.

Going twice.

Going three times, William M.

Davis.

Are you there?

Unfortunately, we're gonna have to move on.

If you would like to provide your comments to the clerk's office, they will be placed on to public record.

Next caller, please.

Council president, that takes us to our last caller, noting that two callers raise their hand after the cutoff.

All right, thank you so much.

That takes us to the end of our public comments before we wrap up.

Mr.

Corley, we got our first week under our belt.

Got any comments you want to provide to us?

Very well, um, the president.

Uh appreciate all the energy.

And um, I'm gonna be spending this weekend going through the budget.

I notice that to help pay for many of the programs that Mayor Sheffield Shiffer has on the table.

There's reductions in subsidies.

Like, for instance, in the side in the general fund subsidy to the side of waste fund, you know, for the weekly conference pickup.

It's gone from 17 million in the current year down to like nine million.

I'm noticing there's a 17, um, maybe 14 million dollar reduction in D not.

Talk to Mr.

Johnson about that.

Um, so what they're doing, they taking money from through DPW from from the roll bill that occurred, you know, from Governor Um Whitmer's budget back in October.

So it sounds like either we're getting more money from other sources to allow her to do some of the things that she's doing, or we're reducing you know, monies in other areas.

So I'm gonna take time this weekend, go through every page, make sure I understand that more, you know, more.

Um and um another thing I want to bring to you all's attention, black grant has been switched from HRD to the OCFO's office, and so that's something that you we will need to explore why they're doing that.

Um, and so it's just things like that.

I'm gonna be looking at just to bring to your attention the periodically to give me a better understanding and you and a better understanding as to how Mary Sheffield and her administration is funding a lot of the thing, a lot of the good things, you know, that she's doing in her budget.

So I just want to bring that to your attention.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um, pro Tim Young.

Thank you, Mr.

President for your leadership patience.

I just want to ask you, Mr.

Corley.

When you're talking about the state budget, are you referring to revenue sharing aspect of it in terms of us getting more money from that?

Or are you referring to the roads aspect in terms of the neighborhood fund that they recently created?

Yeah, that's what that's what I figured.

I just want to make sure to clarify.

Thank you.

All right, thank you all.

Uh, just want to note that we will begin our uh second week of budget hearings on Monday at 10 a.m.

Colleagues, is there a motion to adjourn?

See no objections that action shall be taken.

Be safe, be well.