June the 24th, and the time is 2 p.m.

I'm council member Tarsha Jackson, Chair of the Service Delivery Committee, and I call this meeting to order.

Um, today we will be today.

We are joined by fight vice chair Sam Ramirez.

Councilmember and chambers, and then we also have Councilmember Peck, did you?

Oh, Mayor Pro Vice Mayor Pro Tem Miss Peck that just came in.

Um, we have um staff from Councilmember Castillo's office.

Um we just recently been joined by Councilmember Sally Alcorn.

We have staff by Councilmember Castactatum, um Thomas, and that's it.

So thank you all for joining us.

And online, we have Councilmember Joe Penthella.

Okay, so this meeting has been held in hybrid mode in person and virtually, and it is open to the public.

The chair as the presiding officer of the committee is physically present in chambers in accordance with the provisions of section 551-127 of the Texas Government Code applicable to the governmental body that extends into three or more counties.

All of the council members or committee members have the option to participate in person or virtually via Microsoft Teams.

And today we will be hearing presentations from Mr.

Chris Butler and Mr.

Fabio Capilla.

Did I say that right?

Okay.

From the public works department, and we will be discussing a hot topic, ditch re-establishment program.

So really excited about this conversation.

Um, so council members and staff, please hold your questions until the end of the presentation.

If you would like to act, if you would like to speak or ask a question, if you're in chambers, click respond request to speak.

If you're adjourning joining virtually, type request to speak in the chat pod, and you will be recognized in order.

And when you are recognized, please unmute your microphone and ensure your camera is on.

You will be advised when you have when your 10 minutes two minutes have um expired.

And council members attend virtually, use the chat pod if you experience any type of problems.

Um, when we go to public comment, if you didn't get on the list before the deadline, you can you would like to speak, please go to the sign in sheet at the front table over there and add your name to speak.

And so with that being said, before we turn it over to you, I want to recognize we have um staff from Councilmember Huffman's office just joined us.

And so you can take it away.

Thank you.

Thank you, madam chair.

Good afternoon.

My name is Chris Butler.

I'm the Chief Operating Officer for Houston Public Works.

I'm joined today with the Deputy Director for Transportation Drainage Operations, Mr.

Fabio Capillo, and we're here today to present on the ditch reestablishment program.

Thank you.

Next slide.

So roadside ditches, if you live in a community that has roadside ditches, you already know what these are.

These are a cost-effective, environmentally friendly way of conveying water from the street and from private property into the right-of-way into a ditch to convey that to a uh either a storm sewer, a reservoir, a creek or a bayou.

So these are ways to get water from private property onto a different system to get out eventually to a bayou creek or reservoir.

Next slide.

So the ditches are maintained, and here's a huge misconception with majority of constituents who live in open ditch neighborhoods.

The open ditches are really the property and the maintenance is for the adjacent property owner, whether it's commercial or residential.

And so when we say maintenance, that is cutting grass and light debris removal.

If there is illegal dumping, then yes, you can call us and we can make sure that we come pick up pick that up.

We have better coordination now now that solid waste has joined Houston Foley Works, so we can make sure that we get out and address those issues with the legal dumping.

But it is the adjacent property owners' property, and they are required to maintain it by completing regularly scheduled debris removal, light debris removal, and also maintaining grass and shrub.

Also, we notice in some cases is where individuals maybe downstream will install their own covert, maybe some decorative rocks, landscaping, any of those things in the ditches because it makes it may make their property look nice, but it impedes the flow of water, so which is kind of disruptive to the ditch.

So we ask the homeowners maintain the ditches, keeping them clear of any debris and any type of landscaping.

Next slide.

So the ditch re-established program.

This program, we do regrading ditches, clearing vegetation and debris, re-establishing the flow lines, flushing and repairing culverts, and removing heavy debris and obstructions.

And once again, the majority of the time where we see standing water in the cover or in a ditch is because either a cover was set at the wrong height downstream somewhere, there's trash that's not allowing the water to flow properly.

So during this ditch re-established program, we're gonna go out, we'll assess all of the ditches.

We will clean light debris or heavy debris, depending on what the case is, regrade, and in some cases maybe reset culverts.

Next slide.

So we do this through a roadside ditch condition assessment, and we rate these from one being good to moderate to three poor, and we're looking at capacity and conveyance.

Does the ditch flow freely?

We're looking at structural components, uh, no debris book build-up at the inlet or outlet.

We're looking at vegetation.

Is there trees or there's heavy grass and weeds in the culvert or in the ditch itself, and looking at the integrity.

So based on those three courses, we set an example.

This particular ditch gives a grade, and then that's how we prioritize which actually ditches we're going to do and where we're going to do it based on the condition assessment.

Uh next slide.

Now I'm gonna hand the presentation over to Mr.

Capillo.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair, Councilman and Staff.

Um Transportation Generation Operation, we we in the uh business to manage stormwater in Houston, which is a very critical uh task for the community, and we do that to several projects.

We have programs, we have like the ditch establishment, you're familiar with SWAT, we have LDP, we do uh road rehabilitation, which many times you know also improve the flow of water because in Houston, the the roads are a way to convey water back to the bayou uh when he overflows our system.

And and also we have the bigger capital project.

So today year we we give you an update on the ditch reestablishment program uh that is being uh implemented a couple years ago, so we year three of a five-year program cycle uh maintenance program.

Um I love this slide.

This is a lot of great things.

I'm excited to see what the other years I had is gonna say.

Uh, as you can see, we started fiscal 24, you all remember that uh great movement to to you know uh identify some funding for this you know critical infrastructure.

Uh many parts of town are uh heavily um depending on open ditch system to keep water away from private property, and uh so we had a great goal.

Uh if you pay attention to fiscal 24, there was a goal to uh inspect uh 1500 miles of open ditches.

They go was definitely, you know, uh we we always outperformed all these three years in a row.

And uh we have done do we've done this greatly great work thanks to um both in house and contracting work.

We have some folks here uh that we men and women that dedicate their time to put this program to ensure that this is successful.

Uh the goal for 27 and 28 again is 500 miles, uh both of respect and the reestablishment.

Um we have um again uh the the is a program, so it's a cycle program.

Uh all ditches are gonna be readdressed every five years.

Uh, needless to say, uh, if there is anything that happens between uh an inspection cycle or a re-establishment cycle, uh we have other ways to address this.

So we have the 311 system.

Uh you you guys are um taking feedback from the homeowners and the property owners, so you have some better eyes on on the condition.

Um, on the next slide, please.

Something that we like to remind folks, um, ditches are meant to carry water.

So ditches are meant to uh move water, and sometimes that is standing water.

Not every time that is standing water on a ditch that means it needs to be established.

There are reasons why.

First of all, it's good to have the water there instead of property.

That's a great thing.

The water sometimes moves slow because it depends on what type of weather pattern we have.

This water from the ditch need to move into a creek, need to move into a bayou.

If that is full, the water can move as fast as it will be, you know, as we desire.

Needless to say, if there is water there for more than you know, 48 hours, if because the water either goes toward the creek or need to be absorbed by uh the the different layers of you know underground.

Um but we have a process.

If in case the water stays there for longer than 48 hours, you know, the 311 system is able to uh take that intake and and our maintenance folks will investigate and determine if there is a bigger issue there.

Uh storms do a lot of stuff when when storms come, water comes, and so is the breeze.

So we might have a blockage of some culverts.

So sometimes the folks have to go there and remove some of those things.

Um, but so standing water can occur.

Uh it's not necessarily a trigger for establishment.

On the next slide, um, I know that it's been a topic of interest for you know for a while, and that is the way to how to communicate this to our constituents.

How do we how do we make them aware of what has been done or you know, or the efforts, right?

Um we have worked on creating a dashboard that was facing uh public facing, is it accessible?

So that dashboard exists.

There is a web page on the Houston Public Works website uh where there are really a lot of good informations.

Um, it is a work in progress.

It's taking us longer than we really wish it could take.

Uh what I can tell you here, uh, we are working on that on make sure that all information are there.

Right now, our partial information, but we're working actively to to put all this together, all the inspection, the in-house, and contracting efforts.

Um, but that is gonna be that is the tool that is gonna help everybody to have an understanding of uh the assessment, so the condition of the the ditch, when it's been, you know, uh inspected and when the work has been done and uh and so on.

So now uh the next slide shows a little bit of some challenges that we have, right?

So ditches, open ditches are a system.

So when we look at those, uh, even if you have the inspection report coming back, and there are three categories.

So you saw the green, the orange and the red.

That is the good, that is the moderate, and that is the poor condition.

Uh, we can just address the one important condition.

Sometimes when we do a ditch reestablishment, we address even some that are moderate, uh, because it has to work as a flow, right?

So we have to ensure that we don't just spot improvement and then we just move the problem somewhere else.

We have to look at it as a system.

Uh this is just a reminder of uh why this is everybody's interest.

I know public works is in charge to maintain this for structure, but as homeowners, we we are you know need to pay attention to some things.

Uh illegal dumping, it shows a picture there, how devastating uh the results of can be for moving water.

Clearly, it's almost it's created a dam pretty much.

And you know what what can happen if if water keeps flowing.

Uh we have unfortunately some um instances where there is a lot of decorative work done in the ditch.

So we I have witnessed personally, something looks like a swim pool or a coi pond.

Uh what that does is the it it works as a blockage for the entire system.

Uh and sometimes during development, we you know, there are you can see on the pictures on the right, uh, there is a desire to create on-street parking.

So they cover the ditch.

What that does is you just limit greatly the capacity of that system to move water.

And what that causes is the water to back somewhere, you know, upstream or downstream.

Um, next, that is the final uh slide.

I really thank you for the opportunity to be near.

Um, Madam Chair Mayor.

So back on the the previous slide with the legal dumping, that really is an issue, and it's really in some of our lower income minority communities, our third ward, set of gas, Trinity Houston Garden, Fifth Ward.

Uh, you know, people do remodeling jobs elsewhere, and then they come into these particular neighborhoods and dump.

So we always encourage constituents.

If you see something, say something.

Uh call 311.

If you can get a license plate number.

I actually have one a couple of months ago where somebody took a picture of the license plate and sent it to me.

And so we're we're going to aggressively target or go after that perpetrator.

But we have to also understand every time we take staff off of a routine ditch re-establishment to go do some legal dumping, do some emergency stuff, that delays other projects.

So we always encourage you if you see something, say something.

And then the second thing, I wanted to acknowledge uh some of the hard working men and women of transportation drainage operation that's sitting behind us.

Um we brought our own crowd here, but these are our subject matter experts.

So we were just prepared that if there were any specific questions that we could go to write to the men and women who are actually out there every day, and we can get the right answers.

So with that, that concludes our presentation.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for the present presentation, and thank you for bringing the team, the experts that's out doing that work.

Um as you know, the Dix Ditch reestablishment program for District B has been a major priority since we launched it.

Um there's been a lot of questions about you know the status, you know, the assessment as you're talking about the assessment, um, the actual ditch, the ditch re-establishment work, um, what the schedule will look like.

I know we have the dashboard, really trying to understand, you know, how is it updated, is it updated regularly?

Is it updated right now, or is it just um it's just starting off and you will add information to it?

Um, that's one person I have in another question.

Is in regards to 311.

We know that the ditches is supposed to hold water.

That's what a lot of people don't realize.

That ditches, that's what they're for, to hold water.

But when you have standing water, you mentioned 40 hours.

Um, so how many, how long should that water be standing there before we're concerned?

We should, you know, raise concerns or have the constituents call 311, just to be clear on that.

Um, yeah, so those are the few questions that I have.

Madam Cheryl, I'll try to answer your questions right away.

So uh let's start with the last one that you said.

So best in true in best industry standards about 48 hours before, you know, uh we need to give some time of the water to recede.

I don't know, last week, uh 10 days ago.

We all we held the big rain event, you saw the bayou here, you know, really full.

It didn't rain downtown at all.

All the water was conveyed from the north side of the state coming down and try to spill in the Gulf.

Um, so again, uh 48 hours usually the time after the storm passes, right?

So if you have uh few days of rain, of course, we don't expect the water to dissipate.

But once that a system, a weather system comes and then it clears up, 48 hours.

We are, you know, I think it's a good trigger for us to check.

Why?

Because there is other things.

It could be, we have I again, once again, personally in the field, investigated another location, and we found out there's a water leak.

So it was not associated to rainfall at all.

It was just a water leak somewhere, and it was just going all over the neighborhood in and uh and and you know, feeling these these things.

Or again, we found there was the again the biggest problem of illegal dumb people, other things that again would have caused bigger problems later on.

So 48 hours is okay.

Um I think is it's the best practice for that.

Um, again, 311 is you know 24-7.

We always in operation, we always monitor that.

We have folks that uh on dispatch 24-7.

So we, you know, in case of emergency, don't wait for eight hours, right?

It also depends on what what you see out there.

Um second uh the first question that you had, which was about the dashboard.

Um the dashboard, it is it is not uh automatic, right?

It's a manual effort.

So we issue work orders to uh contractor or in house crew.

So we identify the location to work on.

We assign work order once it is completed, then the dashboard is being, you know, is being updated.

Currently, right now, there is only partial information.

So it it is live, it's existing.

So if you have a laptop, you can go on the website right now on the web page.

The dashboard shows numbers of uh uh open ditches that have been inspected.

What are the conditions?

Um, shows what uh work cards have been issued.

We're missing information about the house, so we're working to make sure it, you know, we don't want to take it down.

Uh generally speaking, I like to push things forward once they're complete.

Uh, our information never really helped anybody.

Um, in this case, we we keep it up because we still have to work on some uh uh uh technology type of uh s uh tasks that we try to uh really learn how to make it happen, but again, is is is a manual effort.

Now uh make it automatic, it can be a second step.

Uh for the in-house cruise, it can be done because we have a work with the system.

We could look at a way to integrate that.

When it comes to issue to contractors, I I foresee that still being a manual um update.

We will not try to update every six months after we got a work order.

So I know that was the next question.

So uh um that answer your questions.

Yes, thank you.

Yes, thank you.

And we have a few um council members in queue.

We're gonna go to um virtually.

Um council member Panzarella.

You can unmute.

Okay, fantastic.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Uh and thank you for the presentation, folks.

I just um posted my questions in the chat, but I'll go ahead and read them.

Um again, thank you for the presentation and all your hard work on this issue.

Just real quick on on what we just discussed after the 48 hour review.

If the ditch is not up to standard, how is quality control being done for inspections and and completion of projects after, you know, after it's been identified as kind of still not up to standard?

Thank you, Councilmember, for the question.

Uh uh it all depends.

It really all depends.

Again, not all investigation.

So even if there is water after 48 hours, that don't mean that it's a re-establishment to be done.

Uh it really that we will investigate and find out the cause of that.

Again, it could be an obstruction due to a different level of covers.

So it might be just readjusting some covers along the line.

The the water could be standing there because there is something that is blocking the water completely, there's tires, uh big uh uh tree limbs or other type of object that's not supposed to be in the drain.

Uh if there is a bigger issue then we'll address depending on you know what it is.

Again, we have uh the inspection list, so we're working on the priority list based on uh you know uh words come first.

Uh, but again, because we look at it as a system, sometimes we find opportunities uh thanks to also your feedback that you have eyes to identify if there is uh a need to prioritize other areas.

Again, open ditches is a system, so it's do a spot improvement is not might not help at all.

Um thank you, council member.

Thank you, council member.

Um, and then I guess he got another one.

Go ahead.

Oh, yeah, sorry, just one more.

Um how often are ditches inspected and assessed for maintenance?

And then once a ditch is re-established, will it be another five, four years on the cycle until the ditch is is reassessed?

Yes, council members.

Thank you so much.

As currently uh funded and prepared, this is a five-year cycle.

Um, uh five year cycle is for both inspection, so it's 500 miles inspection and 500 miles of reestablishment.

Um why I want to go back and and uh and and and uh ask again in the involvement, the ability to share information with us.

Not every ditch in the city of Houston has the same uh suffer the same level of pressure from the system.

So there are instances where there are reasons why we might have to come back before the five-year cycle.

Again, there are a lot of things that could happen.

Could be a new development coming coming in.

Uh there could be uh the the outfall that is being uh impacted.

So it might not be a ditch reestablishment that we have to do there, but we might have to look at a bigger project like a LDP, we might have to look at uh a SWOT.

Uh so um the goal is always to bring it back to staff.

Uh our engineers will investigate uh and they will determine what plan of action is depending on what we find.

We find all sorts of you know of things that could uh obstruct water.

Okay, thank you for that, council member.

Um next we have uh Vicemare Proxyor Pro Tim Peck.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you both for the presentation.

Um when we're looking at the number of roadside ditches um through this program.

Are any of those city-owned ditches, or are we only talking about um ditches where there's an adjacent property owner?

They're all ditches.

So they they they're not just, you know, they're that there are channels that are by use that are different things.

Those are the roadside ditches next, you know, next to property lines.

So we are still responsive, still right away.

So, you know, that's what I say that the the goal for the community is to keep make sure, again, and you know, our CO, uh, we go in the field quite often, and many times we see folks cutting grass and start blowing things in the ditch.

It's not gonna do a favor to the homeowner, right?

So I know that a lot of times, you know, that is the probably way to hide the clean the the the clipping of the grass, but there are some things again that is very important for our community to be to be understanding.

Uh we are going to um, you know, you see the view public works, we manage the adopt the drain program.

Uh, that is a great program to educate the community on what not to do with a drain.

Uh we have now uh sensitive material to education on how to treat the open ditch as well.

So that's what the web page for the ditch restablishment will serve both ways.

One as an information on the efforts being done from the city and also a way to educate uh you know on the community and make it sensitive to understand what is out there in front of the house, how to treat these these right away, and why it's important to do some things or not to do some other things.

So through this program, it's only um the roadside ditches, any of the city ditches um that are supposed to be maintained 100% by the city getting reestablished.

That's the other program.

Okay, yeah, this this program is primarily focused on open ditches that are adjacent to private property.

Okay, um, when you do the evaluation, and you find that um it doesn't need a full rehabilitation program, but maybe there's illegal dumping or um debris that's just causing it to get clogged.

Um, what is the process there?

Because it seems like something has changed recently where um, you know, they do that evaluation and find that there's something clogging it, maybe it's a tire, and then solid waste won't go get it because there is water in the ditch, and then public works won't address it because it's a solid waste issue, and we've gotten in that loop on some of these ditches where no one's handling it now.

Well, and thanks to to council for approving the budget and consolidating solid waste into public work, so we no longer will have that issue.

Okay, so we can make sure that and what we want to do is work smarter, not harder.

So uh if we're going out to assess some illegal dumping, we want to make sure that Fabio's team is right behind them so we can do the the ditch reestablishment.

We don't want to clean it because we've seen this before.

We clean up something and we wait too long, and then somebody says, Oh, I can go dump again because I know the city would pick it up.

So we want to get out there and work smarter, not harder with solid waste and clean the ditch and reestablish it within a short span of time.

Okay, and my final question um for some of these projects that are not going to be addressed for a while, especially in district day, because I know we're focused on some other areas right now, um, we've offered to use council district service funds for some of these ditches that really do need to be addressed sooner rather than later.

And we used to be able to use service funds for drainage improvements, and now all of a sudden we're being told that CDSF does not perform drainage improvements, which is news to us.

Um, and so has something changed that now all of a sudden we can't use it for uh rehabilitation program like this?

Not to our knowledge.

Was that a ruling from legal?

Is that it was from public works.

I mean, just I think this week or last, I mean, this was very recent.

So and we realized that resources and funding that could all be issues, but when we're offering to, you know, let's get some of these ditches in district A going too, it would be nice if we could use service funds to address some of these um issues where there's actual structural flooding due to the ditches.

Uh councilman, we're glad to know uh exactly what example you're using.

I would like to dig a little deeper.

Um sometimes it just uh maybe we understand the question wrong and sometimes we provide the wrong answer, but I would be glad to look particularly into the instance and then provide an answered at uh all encompassing.

We'll send it over to you, yeah.

And I I concur with uh with Fabio.

Uh we do have a limited amount of funding.

We have a lot of ditches to establish.

So if uh the council district would like to use your CDSF to assist us, we'd be more than happy to work with you on that.

Great.

We'll send that over to you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um staff from Councilmember Huffman's office.

Thank you, Chair.

Just one quick question.

Does the city like actively do education on obstructions in the ditches because um there's a neighborhood in district g and public works went out there because I guess one of the neighbors might you know had reported it to 311 public works went out and issued them all sorts of citations for obstructions and uh you know it would be nice to know if public works was actively doing the education before we just jump straight to issuing violations for these folks because a lot of times in our district it's mostly uh you know encroachments are like rocks in the ditch or something like that and these folks just don't know I mean it seems like common sense but they don't know um and so just curious if y'all are engaging in that we are to date I'm aware of when we do town halls if a certain council member has a town hall or if the super neighborhood meeting we've gone to national night out and when we're out in the community we do mention these things you know uh don't put uh grease in your drains no don't put things in the storm sewer uh you need a building permit for any vertical construction so we do go out and we try to explain to residents how to make their community safer and more resilient um we could probably do a better job putting more information online sending out news blasts e-letters so we definitely be looking to that yeah and I was thinking more in terms of like if somebody's driving around the city and you know they see a ditch with an obstruction and just hanging something on the door saying hey you have an obstruction up you know obstruction you probably should get this taken care of not right so so we don't have that type of active enforcement most of our enforcement is complaint driven it's a 311 or it's you know an inspector is out doing another inspection up the street and as he's driving by he's like oh there's something obstructing the ditch so let me look into it uh but we don't have a dedicated team that drives the city looking for debris in the ditches sure thank you much no and thank you for um that question because I think it's important that we educate the constituents on what their responsibilities are when it comes down to ditches because a lot of folks don't know and some folks feel that it's the city's responsibility to come in and just take care of everything to cut and uh you know cleaning it up but the residents have still have a responsibility when it comes down to ditches and so um creating a way uh uh educational um process to where folks can get that information because everybody don't go to the civic club meetings everybody don't go on social media you know so how are we putting things in our do a water bill you know just the do and then the do's and do not what you do not do um with the um in regards to the ditches so I just I'm glad you brought that up education is important to make sure that people are doing what they're supposed to do.

Next council member um vice chair Ramirez.

Thank you madam chair thanks for the presentation appreciate it um what does the city do about uh unpermitted work that has been done that obstructs some of these ditches in your presentation you had a photograph of some unpermitted work so when you find out that a homeowner has had some work done no permit was obtained what what do you do about that?

So right now we currently give notice asking the resident to remove their private property from the city's right of way which is the ditch uh we ask them first to remove it if they don't remove it in certain amount of time it's usually two weeks uh if they say look I need a little bit longer to remove it we'll say okay we'll be back in another two weeks if it's still not removed then we can start issuing citations and that's through our code enforcement group in the Houston permitting center.

Uh after so many citations then we turn those over uh to the court and then it's really out of our control but we cannot go into private property and remove someone's thing.

So only thing we can do is issue citations first give notification of a violation then start with the citations.

All right are the situations where it gets so serious or it's not addressed and it goes over to legal for them to do any do something about it.

To date, I'm not aware of any obstructions in the ditches that have caused us to go directly to legal.

If in a case we have repetitive flooding and it's the cause of an upstream or downstream thing that we've already tried to address, then we can seek legal advice on how do we best uh mediate or remediate the issue.

But to date, I'm not aware of any cases where we had to go to legal.

And can you give us an idea how much of the work in clearing the ditches is contracted out and how much is done by the city?

Uh roughly um 75% is done by contracting and 25% in house.

Okay.

Should be the right number thing or uh right on.

Thank you.

Okay.

And and when a ditch is uh is cleaned out and um it's um you know the the channel is now lower than the culvert, right?

So water is gonna collect there.

Uh whose responsibility is what happens in that situation where it's it's not done quite right.

So the maintaining a positive flow line is actually imperative, right?

To move the water from point A to point B, uh uninterrupted and flow.

It happens that the ditch is being recreated where the the bottom of the ditch is lower than that, is because some water gets dissipated through the the ground itself, so right.

So it's supposed to be absorbed some.

So you don't want to move everything to the to the bayou.

You don't want to overload the bayous for every little water.

You want to let the underground to take care of some of the water.

So it's it is actually done by the science.

So is there is a level of flexibility there that you want the underground uh to absorb it to dissipate the water back to the water tables?

And is there a general rule on who's responsible for the ditches along hike and bike trails that we have in the city?

Most of the hiking bike trails are under park um or some park board, you know, uh jurisdiction.

So we you know, public quarters, we only have the the Columbia Top Trail.

So generally speaking, those things are you know through sometimes even with the inter interdepartmental coordination, but uh if you have any specific, then again, we can look exactly that.

But mostly most of the trails I can bike, they are fall within uh the the overview of you know direct to Allen.

Okay, and let me just add my voice to the education piece.

I mean, when I was growing up, I was a ditch maintenance crew, right?

Because I had to mow the lawn and we we had long ditches that that I took care of, so uh it's it uh residents need to know that it's it's their responsibility first and foremost to take care of the ditch and um anything we can do like putting inserts in with the water bills.

I get mine via email, so I don't get it uh get it in the mail, but uh things like that uh would be would be helpful.

So and uh, I share uh education is is really important.

Actually, show a lot of results.

That's why we had a very successful uh adopt the drain program.

We want to expand to that, and uh that it that is also maybe the ability to leverage social media platforms so you know, besides the insert, we we have you know, public works social media outlets that we can work on, push some of those, you know, uh this information out.

But we want to make sure that we have a good solid education, you know, uh framework uh about this.

We don't want to overwhelm folks with the a lot of information at once, strategize what to tell them first and uh second.

All right, thank you.

And we definitely view this as a partnership with the local community.

We're not here to blame anyone.

We we want you to make sure you maintain your ditch, or if somebody has illegally dumped something in your ditch, let us know so we can address that.

But we what we don't want to do is results of somebody's actions or inaction negatively impact your property.

So help us help you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um, next we have council member Alcorn.

Thank you, Chair and Chris and Fabio, get to see you.

And I'm so glad we're doing this proactively.

I mean, forever we were just reactive on the ditches and just had that five year cycle and we were never getting to them.

So this is a great investment.

I I wanted to ask you, um, Councilmember Ramirez asked you about how much was contracted out.

Do we have dedicated staff, or do we have staff that do other things that also do this?

And if if it's dedicated, how many FTEs accomplished this?

So we have to thank you for the question.

So we we have the we have dedicated staff for that.

So it was part of the fiscal reporting for year one, it was to uh identify finding to uh find some full-time employees and all that equipment that was brought up.

So we have folks that do that as their full-time job uh throughout the year.

Uh how many FDs right now?

I don't have the uh the the biggest report of the 405 report.

I can follow up with it and see how many positions right now they are uh dedicated to that.

Okay, remember if it was supposed to be some of our presentation using roll by John, it was something like 89 positions.

Uh FDEs assigned.

Okay, do you do we know what the delta is on on the kind of costs um for uh you know doing it in-house and doing and contracting it out?

Obviously, we're getting a lot more done with the contractors, but it's probably more expensive.

Actually, no, so the great, thank you for putting that for the question because I actually want to celebrate the abilities of some of the staff members behind me.

Um the what was expected to be a very expensive contract.

So, you know, uh business with you know with the private uh private contractor.

Uh it's not to not to be as expensive.

Um, I gotta give props to Lagnesh.

Um we estimate, of course, we forecast what costs will be a lot of cost we don't control, right?

The market is driven by other factors.

Our desire is to keep the price very low.

Uh incredibly given to the the ability of our engineers and project managers, and uh the work was done without a lot of using multipliers, so it didn't come up uh as expensive as you thought it would be.

Uh all those goals that we exceeded was way uh less than the you know uh that we expected.

So we we're very grateful for that.

Now, would it be more expensive next year?

I don't know.

We'll be on the lookout for that.

We always will do some good work, Lagnash getting that that contract cost down, and and um what is our investment annual?

I think in this last budget, what it was 20 something million.

We put in 45, what's the total investment that we've had in this program?

So for FY 2024, 25, and 26.

Uh, was 25 million per year?

Twenty-five million per year.

Yes, okay, and then it it's about the same in this.

I think it's was it 20 this year?

I think I I read like 27, maybe, and this year.

That is 25, there's a little bit of rollover.

This role about some of the role.

So we budget 25 to to meet the goal.

Okay.

Uh again, we have to have a budget and estimate of what it will cost.

Hopefully, still cost less.

Uh, but that that money that 25 million is is the budgeted amount to meet the goal, right?

And and thanks for bringing up the adopted drain program.

We haven't talked about that in a long time.

I helped start that with council member Costello back in 2018.

Um, probably trying to do another education, um, the other big pitch for everybody to that's a drain, not a ditch.

May I mean you've adopted your ditch if you own the property, it's it's yours.

It's uh, but on the drain, um, yeah, how many do you know how many drains are adopted still or people still it's time to do another big push on that?

We we are going to uh behind me, uh we have another great managed engineer, uh certified floodplain manager, uh Manny.

Many keys uh is leading now the efforts of uh uh the adopt the dream program.

Great is uh likely now in the process to hire some people.

So we are looking forward to bringing these new folks on board and and give a very big push.

So that is good.

Every little bit helps.

We we we spend so much money clearing out those storm drains, so it's really helpful.

So thanks for bringing that up.

Thank you.

Thank and council member this past um budget, it was 51 million that we from our understanding that was um budgeted for the ditch reestablishment program.

Okay, if it started off where if the numbers 51 million for this year, yes.

It's all stormwater fund too, right?

When I look at the stormwater fund budget, it's like 76 million to be divided between regular stuff and ditch maintenance, and I don't know what the breakdown is, but you're saying 51 was the end of the rollover from last year to this year and then we have rollovers, right?

So we have some rollovers.

We're waiting for the after budget was approved a couple weeks ago.

We're waiting for all the figures to be uh consolidated and communicated.

But yeah, it was nine million dollars.

But it's not a paper from last year.

It's not additional funding besides stormwater, right?

It's all funded through stormwater.

Correct?

The the I think and we need to I need to go follow up with that.

I remember during the budget discussion there were some um there was some discussion over the district establishment um well I'll follow up with that okay that's fine thank you and and then also on one of the slides I think it's we have like fifth the goals where you have the miles inspected and then you have the actual and then you have the miles reestablished and each the goal is 500 miles.

Is that based upon is that just like a standard you guys is going to be doing 500 miles every year.

So this was when did the the all discussion happened I think in 23 uh there was a lot of engineers involved to say what was the best practice to do that uh it was a very fine line to do too much but it's not needed or do too little when they instead it was needed so um a lot of stuff some of present yeah today they work on what would it be uh uh a program that can work address without causing a lot of delays or again misuse funding do something where these you know really don't need it so uh now again we at year three that this is gonna be a program that's gonna pass my career right so uh the the commitment for public course department is always to review the efficiency of this program any program that has some guidelines or so p is always a leading program uh if there are adjustments if there are lesson learned all of those get incorporated in the program and if there is a six year cycle set at five we'll adopt if it's a forty set of five we'll adjust as well uh things are tied to budget too so there is a lot of things happen today okay well thank you um council member cafe of office thank you chair we do have a uh parking pad uh on top of the ditch unpermitted red tagged been told notified multiple times that it's there's nothing they can do other than receive consistent citation so that is one that actually did get brought up to legal but it has gone nowhere so I just wanted to bring that to your attention and I'll share with you uh later the other issue we had was uh me and Councilmember Castillo this past Saturday went on a site visit to a property um behind the properties flatland everything was torn down over there when it rains it seems as if the runoff goes towards the backyards of the properties uh the neighboring property of the complaint's uh had a tube go from their backyard where the flatland is at and run it all the way through their front yard and have a little spout into their front ditch um wanting to know where is if if that's a permitted work if that's something you guys work with or how you guys deal with removing that coming into the ditch.

Yeah so um after the meeting if you can share with me that location I'll have some of our code enforcement group go out and inspect and evaluate and then they can also meet with the Office of City Engineer to see if there's any permanent work for that activity.

Okay.

Then the last thing I had here um we have had some houses be demolished and close to dead ends but near some in near neighborhoods and in neighborhoods um and now some of the constituents nearby are saying that they're gonna put a parking lot mind you the parking lot's going to be there but now they're asking since it's a dead end there's no ditches and there's a parking lot which means there's no water to there's no uh I guess soil to absorb the water there would be no ditches and therefore their dead end area where their homes are at would flood where where would we kind of make sure that ditches are established there.

So if there is and once again after the meeting giving the address but I will just tell you high level if there is proposed development that development is their job to uh detain their own water on their site for limited time or to convey it to the drainage system so uh new development can't just flood existing development so if you give me the address after the meeting I'll have our guys look at it and we can get back to your office and let you know exactly what's proposed for that site.

Okay.

That's all right thank you.

Thank you, thank you.

Um we have another question online, Council member Panzerella.

Thank you so much.

Just real quick, the the uh teams call kind of dropped off for a second when we were talking about FTPs versus contractors.

Could you just confirm again kind of the breakdown as it stands of you know the full-time employees and contractors doing the work?

Yes, we we can provide the council member.

So roughly it's about uh 75 to 25 percent uh yeah, that's what this point is.

So roughly about 75 to 25 percent versus uh contractor in-house.

And the seventy-five percent is contractors, okay.

Okay, thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I have one more question.

In regards to um, I know we talked of ditch re-establishment.

Does the ditch reestablishment program include the orphan orphan ditches?

Or is that handled by another department of the public works department?

We have we have few of those are for ditches.

I think I help your your your council of the district with uh we some of those.

Um we literally work with other, you know, even with the flood control to find out who wants it.

Some are um can be a natural ravine, uh, not necessarily a ditch.

So if he's a ravine, it might not be in our best, you know, uh scope to address that by somebody else.

So where we did, we analyzed.

I think one of the latest one I can go look at my records, if we ended up bringing some improvements, uh it was beyond a park.

I think you were involving a walk with some community members, it was a clean up, remember?

Over Alpha and Fifth War, uh Ingram Gully.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But there's also our orphan ditch in um Lakewood, um, right behind Lakewood Park.

It's in the forest when Director Haddock was you know, over the department, we looked at that orphan ditch and it's several other orphan ditches that we were trying to get like literally taken care of.

Because if those again, if they're not up regraded and cleaned out, then of course that's our neighborhoods flood.

And in my opinion, that's how the Lakewood area flooded because that of that particular ditch.

And those that those that water flows to the Greens bio.

And so it's just one of those ditches.

Whoever owns it, someone has to go and um check it out and get it cleaned out for us, and and we will definitely look into that.

Uh we don't want to be in a position where we're pointing fingers, it's just flood control to somebody else.

Uh, if we need to to alleviate or prevent flooding, we'll go out and address it, and then we can worry about who actually owns it later on.

But we want to make sure that we get it drained so it doesn't negatively impact the situants.

Yeah, it's it's actually no one is owning it.

So the city is not owning it, flood control is not owning it, but it's in the middle of our neighborhood.

So we'd love to have further conversation with you guys about about that.

So do we have any more questions?

No, no, we'll thank you, Mr.

Butler and Capillo, for um taking the time to present.

Um, and before we go to questions, I want to thank the director, MACA, for his partnership.

Um, everything he's doing to um address the issues that you know the the district reps raise as well as the community and just like really understanding what the need the needs are and doing what he can to um creatively come up with solutions.

So I want to give him a shout out.

And then also want to give a shout out to your team.

Thank y'all for coming.

Y'all want to stand up and so we can give y'all applause.

Y'all do a lot of great work.

Um, without you guys, our neighborhoods would be flooded.

So thank you for continuing to do what you do to make sure our neighborhoods don't flood um every time it rains.

So we really appreciate you.

Um we do have a couple of um folks that have this want to speak on this topic.

Um if y'all want to send around, she might have um have some questions for you.

We're gonna start out with Miss Vicky Martin.

Ms.

Vicky Martin, you're gonna have two minutes to speak.

Thank you for um coming.

Miss Vicky Martin represent the beautiful district.

District D.

Any mic.

I have one more.

Yep.

Okay, thank you.

Can I turn it like on this committee?

Um, I'm in an East Houston Setagas area of city, and the ditch reestablishes is working in our community.

We actually have active uh Houston Public Work employees in the area now.

We just have a few concerns.

If they can tweak, we wanted to know that why they're out doing the reestablishment or the degrading uh uh the uh shooting the grade of the ditches.

If they're armed with doing any citations or notifications to let people know that their ditches are not being maintained or there's some type of structure, not just dig the ditch and continue down the street, but address this because in our city gas area, we have issues where we have proper property owners that are maintaining their property, but they're located next to an empty lot and that lot is not being maintained.

So the water leaves their property, hits that empty lot, and it does not go anywhere.

Right.

And we know flooding is caused when water is enabled from moving to where it has to go.

Also, friends of uh little York Homestead, uh Van Zant and Hirsch Road, looks like a little river, they are putting covers down, and there are some odd shaped covers.

I've never seen them before.

They're not circular, they're just flat at the bottom, looks like a burrito.

And so those are and did someone say that those are better, and to your point of orphan ditches uh in our community, 9105 and 9106 Denton.

We have we are on the task force with Harris County Flood Control District, and that is an orphan ditch, it's not owned by it's privately owned, but not by the city, and it's we can't even get on the sidewalk.

And we would like to see some notifications and information given in the water bill with your dues and downs.

Have a picture, people are visual.

Have a due picture and a down because people that own properties on the street side, like Denton and Tremont, they believe that they're only responsible up to their fence line.

They don't think they need to come outside of their property and take care of the ditch outside.

They say, Oh, that's below that belongs to the city.

And illegal dumping is an issue.

Thank you all for bringing that up.

But let's not forget it's cohort, which is littering, because the litter begins the illegal dumping for ditches and inlets because they clog the ditches in the inlet, they impede the flow of water, and we are in tune with what's happening in our community, but and some homeowners do not want their ditches to be disturbed because they do not have an issue.

So I would like to see the city, and they and the city agrees with them.

I would like to see the city assess before they come out so that they'll know which properties to skip instead of doing all of them because they are damaging the shoulder of some people's properties because of the heavy weight of the trucks while they are waiting or staged, they are damaging the side shoulder of people's properties, and we have photos, and people are not happy with the ruts.

Thank you.

Thank you, and and and of course, those addresses just make sure that my office know about it, but then also um Mr.

Um Butler, like what do you do when you have absent residents?

That ditches are not being maintained.

Are we, you know, finding those folks?

I know we're tagging, but how are we handling those situations?

Yeah, currently right now, once again, it's through uh notification, then it's a citation, and then it has to follow that course of action.

Uh, we really want to do working with the community, be a partner and remind them of what they need to do versus having to go through legal and citations and all of those things.

But as an end result, if they are not in compliance, then we will start with the citations and go through that legal process.

So what she was mentioning the trucks?

Uh yeah, the trucks when they're we have open ditches in our community, and when they're shouldered on the road waiting for the next dump truck to come, they're staged there, and they're on it's the city's right away, but it's a bunt to the property owner.

So they're leaving and there's ruts in the ditch, which we have uh vortex of mosquitoes.

So when it rains and you have a rut, it's a place for water to hold.

And we would like to see some type of door knocker or something put on those properties that you know are not in compliance when you're out there.

So I'll tell you what, we can work with our offline and get some actual addresses and maybe even some uh via vehicle numbers or license plate numbers, and maybe we can do some enforcement that way.

But we'll talk offline.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you all for allowing the funds to be there for the ditch bill establishment.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

Martin.

Thank you.

Okay, next we have Miss Alyssa Weller.

Okay, sorry.

Hi, good afternoon.

Um I just have a few questions.

Uh I wanted to make sure I didn't misunderstand.

Uh it was $25 million spent on just the ditch reestablishment program in 24, 25, and 26, and 51 million budgeted just for the ditch reestablishment program in 20 F your FY27?

Yeah.

Is that right?

Madam Chase, if I'm allowed to answer the question.

Uh so no, it was not.

Um, the goal is that the lay miles addressed the cost are less than 25.

So 25 million dollars was the budget amount to address the goal.

Okay.

So this year is how much how much is budgeted for just the ditch reestablishment program in FY?

For what year?

In FY27.

Uh, we'll get back with the number.

We'll we'll try to compare some information that we had.

Okay.

I'll make it available to the district.

It is 50 million.

50 million.

Okay.

Okay, cool.

Thank you.

Um, and then uh how exactly does Houston Public Works staff monitor and perform quality control for ditch reestablishment projects completed by contractors, and how do they make sure that those are up to standard?

And then lastly, my uh other question was is Houston Public Works able to commit to a timeline for the updated dashboard?

And that's what I had.

Okay, thank you.

This is your uh, Mr.

Capillon.

Can you thanks?

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Uh the inspection is done by now's inspection inspectors, full-time employees.

So all quality control by the spec the contractor is been done through our inspection services.

Uh the dashboard is something that we work in in process.

So we recognize during the presentation that what we have available is partial information, but all answer that try to make a all comprehensive dashboard that is public facing, and it's information that the public requests and needs.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um, so do we have anyone else um want to speak?

If not, we will adjourn.

And so, okay, let me hold up, hold up.

We will adjourn, but I want to remind you that our next service delivery committee meeting is July the 22nd.

Um, our next meeting, we will also have public works that will talk about neighborhood inspections.

Um, public works took over neighborhood inspections about a year ago and the next month.

Um, we will get the progress report on how the transition is going.

And so, with that being said, if you're interested in interested in receiving information about the service delivery committee, please contact our district B office at district B at Houston TX.gov.

And right now the time is 2 57 p.m.

This meeting is adjourned.

Have a great day.

Thank you all for coming out.

Appreciate you.