Property Management and Environmental Service Committee Meeting - March 10, 2026
Property Management and Environmental Service Committee Meeting - March 10, 2026
The Property Management and Environmental Service Committee met on March 10, 2026, at 8:05 PM. Presentations covered illegal dumping hotspot updates, blight enforcement tools, a proposal to sell renewable energy credits, and upcoming environmental events. No formal votes were taken, but committee members provided direction to proceed with the credit sale and requested a future discussion on street maintenance.
Discussion Items
- Illegal Dumping Hotspots Update (Wendy Turpin, Environmental Services Assistant Director): Three hotspots on the east side were discussed:
- 2200 Bomar (city-owned, water department): In 2024, four illegal camp cleanups occurred; in 2025, six cleanups on the property and 13 camps in the surrounding area. In January 2026, vegetation was cleared, and a pan-tilt-zoom camera with license plate reader and an STS360 camera (motion-activated, monitored by water department, alerts police) were installed. Since then, no illegal camps have occurred. The cameras led to one felony and four citations.
- 3200 Greenbelt: Previously used passive game cameras; after installing a live-view camera with two-way speaker and lights (January 2026), no issues reported.
- 4700 Baxi/6000 High Creek: Dual property; live-view camera on one side, passive cameras on the other. Cameras are transferable. In response to a question about Encore expansion, Dr. Cody Wittenberg (Environmental Services Director) confirmed cameras could be moved if security improves.
- Blight Enforcement Tools (Wendy Turpin and Benjamin Samprack, City Attorney's Office):
- Commercial compliance team (3 staff) handles non-residential violations. Examples of timelines: a property maintenance violation (nuisance abatement order, repeat violator) took 14 days; a zoning violation (improper dumpster screening) took 57 days; an illegal dumping violation on city property was abated in 3 days.
- Tools: notices of violation, citations ($500-$2,000), liens for city cleanup costs, building standards commission (can order repair/demolition/civil penalties), lawsuits under Chapter 54 (code violations) and Chapter 21 (zoning violations) with injunctive relief and up to $1,000 per day penalties.
- Environmental Investigation Unit works with police; felony prosecutions are handled by the DA's office. Year-to-date felony citations are below last year, but staff reported no issues with DA support.
- A pilot project for illegal donation bins is underway.
- Renewable Energy Credits (Marilyn Marvin, Property Management Director): Since 2021, Reliant Energy provides renewable energy credits equivalent to ~50% of city consumption (~173,000 credits/year). Current contract retires credits annually. Proposal: amend contract to allow sale of credits from 2026-2031 (total ~934,000 credits). Estimated sale price ~$2/credit, gross ~$1.9M, net ~$1.6M after 15% third-party fee. Proceeds would go to capital project shortfalls (e.g., Fire Station Community Center gap). No risk to city; committee supported advancing to work session on March 31, 2026, with council action to follow.
- Upcoming Events (Dr. Cody Wittenberg):
- Lights Out campaign for bird migration (turn off lights 11 PM-6 AM).
- Consumer Health permitting office moving to 5th floor (temporary annex, then City Hall 18th floor) on March 12, 2026.
- Cowtown Cleanup and Earth Party on March 28, 2026 (8-11 AM cleanup, afternoon event with trash fashion show).
- Scrap tire collection at City Hall on March 28, 2026 (8 AM-12 PM).
- Salt Road reconstruction (Southeast Landfill access): one lane closure, exit via Dick Price Road; construction expected end of March.
- Brownfields workshop (EPA grant for $1M for convention center asbestos abatement) – date TBD; committee requested outreach to realtor associations.
- Future Topics: A councilmember requested a discussion on street maintenance (citing Gendi Street cost escalation), suggesting it may need budget consideration.
Key Outcomes
- No formal votes were taken. Committee members expressed support for the renewable energy credit sale and directed staff to bring an IR to the March 31, 2026 work session.
- The illegal dumping camera program and blight enforcement strategies were acknowledged as effective. No additional direction given.
- Staff will follow up on the donation bin pilot and coordinate outreach for the brownfields workshop.
Meeting Transcript
Okay, we're gonna go ahead and get started. Uh it is 2005, and I call the property management and environmental service committee to order. Okay, um right before we go into the briefings, uh Val has some introductions to make. Yeah, I'm excited to have Wendy Turpin here to provide an update on illegal dumping hotspots. Um this is something that we promised the committee that we would come back and provide updates on as the team collaborated with other departments to um really hone in on some of the areas that needed to be um needed some extra upkeep. Again, Wendy Turpin, Environmental Services Assistant Director, and I'm gonna talk about three different hot spots today. All of them are on the east side of the city, but they are in three different council member districts. And the first one I'm gonna talk about is actually a city-owned property, 2200 Bomar. So this is a property that is owned by the water department, and it is currently vacant, and we have historically had a lot of illegal dumping and illegal camping hot spots here. On that yellow circled property alone in 24, we cleaned up four illegal camp cleanups and in 25 six in the surrounding area along the river and there to the right side of the area. We actually had about 13 camps in 2025, just outside the 2200 Beaumar area. So it was a very difficult area to keep clean. But in January, we worked with police and PAR to clear the vegetation area out, um, cleaned up all what was left and installed a pan tilt zoom camera and a license plate reader. And what this does is it allows us to catch the license plates of the people that are dumping, and because of that, we've gotten a felony and four citations there. But the really cool thing is we worked with IT department and installed an STS 360 camera, and it is motion activated, it's monitored by the water department. And when the water department sees anybody, they call the police, and then the police are able to prevent the illegal camps and the dumping from being on that property. And since then there have been no illegal camps. So that camera has been a fabulous win for us. The next property I want to talk about is 3200 greenbelt. And this one we had passive cameras on, so basically, like think like a game camera, and we had those installed, and we caught all kinds of people conducting felonies and dumping all kinds of inappropriate things on that on that property. We installed the camp, cleaned it up, installed a live view technology camera. This camera actually will uh you can yell at them through it basically and tell them to leave. Um you can speak uh both ways and tell them to get off the property, and it has lights, et cetera, et cetera. And since then we have had no issues. And this one was installed in January of 2026. So this one will be there for a while. A lot of residents uh dumped here uh over time. So the cameras, I've mentioned two separate cameras, and I think it's really important to share the the minor difference. There is a difference in cost, of course. The one that doesn't do as much is cheaper. Uh the live view technology one does have the two-way speaker and it is monitored and it'll call police, which is uh very cool, but you know you're paying for it. So you get what you pay for when it comes to cameras. Last but not least, we have uh a dual property. This is 4700 Baxi 6,000. So it's a very large property. So on one side of the property, we have installed a camera, uh, one of these uh live view cameras, and then on the other side of the property we have our passive uh game cameras, and uh and and so we're able to for the most part keep everybody off the northern side that 4700 maxi, but we do have a little bit of problem where we don't have that live view camera on the other side because it is such a large property, but we have gained uh a lot of value from having these. These are shots from our pan tilt zoom cameras where we see people dump. We're able to hold them accountable after they've committed the crime, but good news is we're able to hold them accountable because we can we can get their license plates and and hunt them down, and we have I understand a really great relationship with U-Hall. Um so they uh it's used quite frequently for dumping, unfortunately. So we are going to continue to use this fabulous technology, the pan-tilt zoom cameras, the live view technology, and the STS360, and a lot of other departments have asked about these and are starting to install them where they struggle also. Um, and with that, we are working on increasing information uh out to individuals to prevent illegal dumping and uh to use the drop-off stations uh rather than our at back alleyways. So with that, do you have any questions? I do. I have one question. The cameras are they also plugged into our real-time crime center as well with uh forward PD. Yes, we actually work very closely with PD and we can actually access all of their cameras for illegal dumping and they can access all of ours. That was my next question. So thank you. I appreciate that. Wendy, um, the cameras at 4700 maxi and 6,000 High Creek.
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