My name is Kathy Burton and I am the current president for that for McCannna.

Before we start, I want to tell you I will get a sign-up sheet out here in just a minute.

I do want to delay getting in any longer.

So be on your way out, if you would like to uh sign in on the sign-up sheet, you can do that.

Um, our regular monthly meeting is held on this on the first Saturday as every month, except in December.

So our next meeting will be on November 15th, and Mary County Prosecutor Ryan Mears will be our guest speaker at that meeting.

For those of you who may not have been to McCannna before, um, and for those who are watching on channel 16 or 28 for the first time, I want to tell you a little bit about McCannna.

We were founded in 1990 as in 501 C3, and we invite neighborhoods from all over Marion County, and we have attracted some from just outside of Marion County as well, to come together to support each other, to share issues, um, to try and lend our strength to each other, and that's going to be a topic that we're going to tackle later in the agenda about what we can start doing to support each other.

But we want to share knowledge about information and issues that are going on in Marion County that impact um the neighborhoods and help lend a collective voice to those neighborhoods to identify the issues that we believe are important to our neighborhoods, not just generally across the county, but right down to what is the place across the alley that is still not behaving itself the way it should.

Um, and we believe that sharing knowledge about our successes and our challenges will help build each other up so that we will know what has worked for other people, what has not worked for other people, um, and get that information out there.

And anybody this um our meetings are always open to the public.

You do not have to be a member to attend, um, although we do invite you to attend McCannna, and our dues are $20 every year.

Um we meet at North United Methodist Church, as I said, on the third Saturday of every month from 9 to 11 a.m.

unless the um chair happens to be late mental after night.

Um, and at those meetings, we have a speaker or speakers that are going to address topics that are of interest to neighborhoods.

And our speaker this morning um is uh it's very timely, Sam Carpenter, who is the director of the Hoosier Environmental Council.

As we know, um we are facing a lot of environmental challenges locally, you know, statewide, globally, um, and governmental regulations and funding and how those are handled are shifting constantly.

Um and it's certainly become a necessity for neighborhoods right now on the grassroots level to step up and help protect our environmental resources, which are finite.

Um, and like many people may believe, they're not always renewable and replaceable.

Um, but there are many other issues that we try to address to that.

And so, if there is ever a topic where you would like to have a speaker come in, please let us know.

Um, we are working to get someone from the coalition for homeless intervention prevention in to talk about the homeless situation in Marion County and how that is being addressed.

Um, we do want to thank North United Methodist Church who has been very generous with their meeting space for many years, um allowing us to meet in a central location in the county, but it's also accessible by the bus line.

So hopefully everybody can get to us easily.

And we also want to check thank channel 16 for coming in to I don't know what the current proper term is tape, stream, record, but our messages are aired on channel 16 throughout the month so that people who are not able to be here in person can still watch what's going on in the neighborhoods here from other people and learn how to connect with each other.

Um we are very fortunate in Marion County to have that channel with us because everybody's schedules are very busy, um, and it is difficult sometimes to get to meetings in person, and so that provides us a platform to try and get that information out.

Before our speaker comes up this morning, um, I would like to ask if there's anybody that has an event coming up in their community that they would like to make known to the public to get people to come out and participate.

Um, if not, I'd like to have one.

I hail from Franklin Township, and we have Christmas in Wanamaker coming up, which is December the 6th.

Um, it is from, I believe it's from 10 to 3.

Um, it is on the main, it is on located along Southeastern Avenue, which is the main street through Franklin Township.

Um, we have a Christmas parade.

There are opportunities for picture with Santa Pictures with Santa.

Businesses up and down that the uh in Franklin Township come out, open their doors to people.

We have craft vendors that are there for people to support to participate in.

It's a really nice community event, especially if it snows a little bit, that's always nice, although we don't want to be too cold.

Um so we invite everybody out to Franklin Township, which is way far out in the southeast corner of the town of the county.

If you throw a rock, you'll be in Shelby County.

So we invite you to come out for that.

Do we have a mayor's name advocate with us this morning?

Yes, sir.

I don't believe we have met before.

Charles also there.

Hi, how are you, Charles?

I'm good.

How are you?

I'm good.

This is your opportunity to stand up and tell us what's going on in Indianapolis.

Gotcha.

You can either sit stand or come up here with a microphone if you do what's comfortable for you.

Good morning, everyone.

I would say one of the biggest things that we have going on in Indianapolis is our new trash vendor.

And so there's been a lot of commotion with that.

We started on October 6th, going out and delivering trash cans.

They are your standard DPW trash cans, and our new provider is LRS.

I also would like to make sure that we do have some friends from DW.

Todd and Mark and the team.

But LRS is our new trash vendor.

And so if you're already in a DPW district, you won't be getting a new trash can.

You'll keep your same grade trash can.

But if you're in a solid waste or a public district, you will then be getting a new trash can.

And then they'll deliver one and they'll take one.

And that should be going on for the next couple of weeks.

And with that, they are leaving a little door hanger in the cart to kind of just tell you the next steps for your new trash can.

And that's really been the biggest commotion that we've been getting throughout the city so far.

Does anyone have any specific questions for me?

I do have a question about the trash carts.

This is something that people have asked me.

Do they because I know that the information that is going out has been going out primarily through media and social platforms?

But apparently a lot of people have missed that.

And so they don't know that their trash carts are going to be changed out.

So there was kind of a well, what can the city do to try and reach out to those people that don't use social media or electronic news media to find out what's going on?

And a lot of people are going, well, I didn't get a mailer.

So that's just some feedback that I've gotten about notification for that.

But then the notice that did camp said that you should just take your trash car and leave it by the street.

People were asking, well, do I leave it there the entire week?

Just leave it out sitting out there perpetually, or do I just put it on regular trash day and bring it back in?

Are the pickets going to be on their regular trash pickup days?

When is the exchange going to take place?

So yes.

I can take that one.

Hey everyone, uh, my name is Natalie Van Dogen.

I'm the director of community outreach for the city, but previously I actually was with the Department of Public Works and helped with the solid waste transition conversation.

So first and foremost, so the reason we opted to do to not do mailers was because we instead wanted to put them on the cart itself so that when the cart arrived, we made sure that people had the information they needed right then and there available to them.

We were worried that with mailers, sometimes people toss them if they if they don't know where it's coming from, they might not see it in their mailbox, or it might not arrive at the same time as the new cart, so folks might forget about it.

Um, or it could arrive after the new cart, and that also presents challenges.

So that's why we opted to put them on the carts themselves, so that when folks see their new cart, it has a step-by-step instruction of what to do next.

I would say put it out at the street on your next pickup day and leave it out until it gets picked up.

The reason I say that is the vendors that are picking them up will hopefully try to do so on the pickup day, but in case that schedule gets messed up, it's just easier if they just stay out.

I know that that's a temporary kind of ISOR, and I totally understand that some neighbors might be upset about having to do that, but hopefully it'll be a quick turnaround and quicker so if we're able to um collect as many of those on the first run as possible.

So if you have a WM or Republic cart and you've gotten your new cart, the next pickup day, use your new cart for trash collection and set out your old cart at the street for them to collect.

If you have an additional cart, if you paid for your own personal additional cart either through the mayor's action center or you have one that you've been utilizing, that is yours.

That is not getting taken.

We are leaving one cart, we are taking one cart.

Also, if you are a subscription recycling subscriber, that cart will not change.

When LRS takes over that service, they are going to still utilize that cart.

Um, so if that's a republic cart, for example, you'll be keeping your recycling cart.

In December, if you are a subscription recycling subscriber, you will get an invoice from LRS letting you know that you can switch over to their service.

Any other questions?

Invoice and violence and cost.

There'll be a monthly cost of things.

Yes, for subscription recycling, not for trap service, just subscription recycling.

And then in 2028, the city will be moving to a curbside recycling model, so that will no longer be an invoice.

Is that going to become available citywide or okay?

Yep.

Anyone who currently has a uh trash cart provided by the city, be it through in one of the vendor districts or in any of the DPW districts, will then receive that curbside recycling program.

Okay.

When does that start?

Do people are people supposed to use paper bags, plastic bags?

How do we do that?

No, sorry, we we just recently did a poll score.

Oh, sorry, Charles.

Um I'm with the public information office of the Department of Public Works.

Um, our leaf recycling is gonna start November.

So I'll come from November the 10th.

We're gonna send out a press release.

And we encourage people to use plastic bags to bag their leads, not paper, because if you set them out there in and it rains like it's supposed to tomorrow, it'll deteriorate.

Um we'll take up to 40 uh 40 of those bags, and you put about the day of your of your trash removal.

Um, so there'll be a window, it's thank you.

Thank you.

So yeah, it starts November 10th and like December 5th ish or something like that.

So, yeah.

So your question about the bags, yeah.

Okay, so okay.

Well, since GPW is here.

Um I also have a question about the snowplogging.

I realize we haven't had snow yet.

Um, that people were asking questions about the new snowplong policy, and when can they expect neighborhood streets to fall?

What's the benchmark for the total amount?

Good morning.

Um Todd Wilson, UPW director.

Hi, I don't guys.

I didn't realize that you were gonna be with us this morning.

Yes, ma'am.

Uh appreciate your uh email in August requesting uh DPW present.

It looked like we might have uh cross lines here.

We are prepared to to uh address the group today, but okay, if we want to push it to another day, because I know you have an agenda, we could well.

Since you are here today, if time allows, we're gonna have Mr.

Carpenter come up first, and then we'd love to talk with you because there's lots of issues with DPW.

And then we'd be happy to talk about uh anything you need to talk about.

Um, as far as the snow uh response plan, uh we will be delivering a new snow response plan to the Department of Public Works Board of Board of Public Works and the Public Works uh Committee for the City County Council in November, outlining uh the policy changes that happened earlier this year.

Um, when we talk about thresholds, uh the department or the ordinance calls out for the three tiers of snow removal.

Uh the first tier is our our uh the regular routes we have for our our arteries are around of our um churches and our uh the hospitals schools and that nature, our second call out would be for the collector streets um the and that threshold is at four inches.

Okay, and then um after that is at the discretion of the record myself and my department on when we call out for residential uh um plowing and throughout the county.

So um happy uh we'll have another presentation, like I said, with the Board of Public Works in November and with the city county council, so stay tuned on Channel 16 for that as well.

Okay, well, Mr.

Wilson, if you don't mind, we're gonna kind of shift gears and ask Mr.

Carter to come up and then we're gonna come back to you.

Like I said, apologize the waters got crossed there.

Um but but certainly the crossover between environmental issues and DPW is is a real thing, so this may be a very good confluence of information here.

Um so I would like to invite Sam Carpenter, who is the executive director for the Closure Environmental Council.

Many of us have had interactions with with AGC for many, many years.

Um, and I know that there is a lot of um watching about what's going on with environmental regulations, preservation of green space and wooded areas, not just in Marion County, but across the entire state.

So, Sam, with that, the mic is all yours.

I'm gonna join you here, Kathy.

I wish you would.

Thank you for the invitation to be here today.

And I'm happy to split my time with DPW, so we'll have plenty of time here.

So I'm Sam Carpenter.

I'm executive director with Hoosier Environmental Council.

I've been with the organization for almost three years now.

Hoosier Environmental Council is India's largest state-based nonprofit organization focusing on environmental issues.

We've been going for 43 years in the state.

And a little bit about my background, I ran Global Gifts Organization for 17 years.

So I come to it with also a nonprofit, but more of an entrepreneurial approach.

And so I kind of bring that into my background just a little bit.

Today I want this to be a conversation as much as a presentation.

So if people have questions or things that they'd like to raise with me, I hope you will do that.

Okay, so we got a handball good.

And in your communities, what are the issues, the environmental issues that you're watching that you're concerned about that are important to you?

I guess I've got a question for you about that.

Well, I can speak first.

I can tell you out where I am.

We are have for many years, of course, we're a rural agricultural corner of the county, and we are fast transitioning to that.

I don't think we can any longer be called emerging suburban area.

We are a suburban area, but we are seeing with that as development comes our way a significant loss of great space, wooded areas, invasion in the wetlands.

And often feel that the protections that may be in place by Marion County ordinance don't really provide for preservation.

What can we do as a community when development comes along to make sure that you know we don't take the woods down that we don't fill in the wetlands with the intent of mitigating them somewhere else because somewhere else is not where we need them.

Right, right.

So that's a great question.

This is how uh Kathy and I initially got connected was the Franklin Township uh wetlands kind of preservation drive to protect a wetland area that was threatened by development of a new warehouse.

Um Indiana has already a lot of vacant warehouses and we have lost about 90% of our original wetlands in the state.

Now wetlands are critical uh infrastructure natural infrastructure.

So different things that wetlands do is one is they um they protect communities from flooding, they act as giant sponges and can hold large amounts of water to prevent storm runoff and that sort of thing.

The other thing that they do is they uh allow that water over time to seep into the ground and they act as a natural purifier.

So they actually clean our water as well, they take out excess nutrients, they take out sediment, um, and they uh allow the aquifers recharge.

So a lot of the water that we get that we rely on is our drinking water and water for our communities and our businesses are being pumped from uh underground storage or natural underground storage of aquifers.

Uh and uh uh wetlands are critical for that recharge, and when I say recharge, I mean essentially just refilling those aquifers.

So wetlands play a critical role uh in our state, um, as do forests.

Um also they uh provide about you know habitat for about 50 percent of uh Indians kind of rare and endangered species.

Uh so they provide a critical role.

So, what can communities do?

Um, development is happening everywhere.

So, one thing the Hoosier Environmental Council is trying to do is encourage best practices and how you can implement nature-based solutions to deal with stormwater runoff and and management and different things like that.

So, a nature-based solution might be preserving that wetland area and developing you know, with that in mind, and some developers have done that.

Um ditches lined with uh you know natural that plants that are or native plants that absorb a lot of water and that can reduce stormwater runoff.

Um, but there's different things that can be implemented to uh preserve natural areas and green spaces at the same time.

Um so this is something that the other thing that communities can do is identify those areas that they and that's happening in Franklin uh township now and other areas as well, and when you know that that's the area that you want to preserve, then you're gonna be more tuned in if there's a permit for uh a wetland disruption or if there's a permit for new stormwater construction and being kind of aware of those things.

So uh identify those areas that you want to preserve and organize some around those.

And I saw another question, yeah.

Um, leaving the Martin Dale Brightwood area and the data centers trying to come in.

Not familiar with data centers, what is some of the environmental challenges that they will bring?

Yeah, thank you for that question.

Um so Martindale Brightwood is one community that's um being exposed to data center development right now, and actually Indiana has policies that encourage new data center development uh in the state uh through uh some tax abatements.

So data centers are wanting to come.

Um so a data center is essentially a giant uh warehouse of computers that process information in the cloud, they store information in the cloud.

So you say the cloud, I mean like if you're watching Eplex or doing something like that, that is all coming from a data center.

Um there's kind of exponential growth that's happening in data centers now that's driven by artificial intelligence.

Um there is a race for artificial intelligence.

Um, and when I say you know, race, I mean the large companies, the the Meta's Facebook, um, Amazon, Microsoft, Googles, um these companies are in a race to be first and best with artificial intelligence.

So what they're doing is they're building out as much uh data centers as they can quickly to uh get the competitive advantage.

Now the concern about that is when you're in a race, you're not always being like thoughtful, you're most thoughtful and most careful.

Um, not only are we in a race, not only are they in a race, but the US is in a race with China to uh see who can be most competitive and impactful and get the competitive advantage with artificial intelligence.

So these data centers all support this.

Now, what are the environmental and community implications of a data center?

Um, there are some initial job benefits in that construction phase, but data centers don't employ a lot of people.

So if you think about the amount of energy and resources and things like that that they use compared to the amount of people that they employ, uh that's that's very low.

Um data centers require a lot of electricity.

So I think uh Indiana has a uh total electricity uh usage of around 30 uh gigawatts.

Up in northwest Indiana, there's a data center being built and expanding to two gigawatts, so approaching 10% of the state's uh electricity use in a single data center.

Um now, why is that important?

I don't know if anybody noticed their electric bills this summer.

So there's a few things that's contributing to those high electric bills.

Um it's hot, right?

So if you're running your air conditioner longer and uh and more frequent, then it's gonna cause your electricity uh bills to be higher, and we need those because it's getting hotter with climate change and uh more severe weather.

Um the other thing is because of these severe storms that are happening, we need our grid to be called hardened.

Um we need it to be resilient in the face of those.

So there's lots of investment that's going in to the hardening of our grid to make sure that our electric is going to be available when we need it.

Um the other thing is that we have a system that is a hundred years old and hasn't changed that much during that time.

Uh so we have an outdated electricity system based on new technology that is available.

So the um so we need to do upgrades, and that's costly as well.

Um that's irrespective of the data centers that are trying to come in.

Is that correct?

Yes, you need to update the grid.

Uh yes and no.

So some of that um updates.

So if you have large new consumption of electricity that comes from data centers, then you need additional generation.

You need additional transmission, which is the big power lines going across that take your electrons from one place to another.

And then there's also you need it in that last mile or five miles, uh, getting it out to the communities where it's needed.

So there's a lot of additional expenses.

And so uh last year in the state legislature, there was a law that was passed that they call a large load.

Load is like the draw of electricity.

Um large load uh customers have to pay 80% of that new generation.

Now that's good, we want them to pay, and the thing that you want to make sure is that rather than your community paying for that data center, that the data center is paying for that data center.

Um so 80% is good, but there's still 20% that would that would go to the community.

The other thing is that 80% is for that new generation, but there's also the transmission, there's like new interconnection, there's a lot of other expenses involved.

So I'm gonna share a uh couple of resource guides, one for communities and one for policymakers to think about what questions to ask.

There's also a lot of water that can be used.

Um data centers are very water hungry for their cooling, some data centers uh have backup generation in the form of diesel generators.

Um, you don't want a lot of diesel generators running in your community.

They're dirty, they're they're they're noisy um and they're smelly.

Um as a community, you're in a position to say what you want, and in a position to uh if you want a data center to negotiate because again, they're in a race, they want those built quickly and now and so our utilities, our communities uh need to make sure they're getting the best deal they possibly can and protecting uh community folks from that.

So I'll share some of these resources with you too on my way out.

But um, other questions.

I was just curious, there's tax abatements that you referenced earlier that allows these data centers to come in.

Here was that passed by the state legislature, was it part of a budget package or it can happen both ways?

It can there's one, there's uh sales tax exemptions with for the data centers, um, but also at the local level, sometimes uh property tax abatements are put in place.

So you need to know clearly what is going to be the financial benefit to the community and the tax revenue.

Um and a lot of times what they'll do is they'll do a you know, you know, and help invest in schools or invest in other things, but what we need is transparency around that so we know uh what those benefits are going to be and and how the how does the math add up, right?

Um, in terms of the cost.

What we do know is where data centers uh develop, there's uh whether called nodes but start these uh places where the uh wholesale price of energy is set, where there are data centers, the costs are higher, right?

Even if the data centers are saying they're gonna pay uh things where that price of energy is set on these nodes where there's data centers, that cost is higher.

But since since the um sales tax exemption came up, I understand that sales tax exemptions are somewhat rare for development tax abatements, they are not a rare thing, right?

But but I am curious about um the fact that the state budget is so tight, and there have been cuts at the state level.

Sales tax is an ongoing source of revenue, and you would expect the sales tax from uh uh place to full of computers and hardware to be relatively high, and so how do you balance the fact that the state needs new revenue streams, but they're exempting a potential very impactful revenue stream and saying, but you don't have to pay this.

Yeah, so what they're doing is they want to attract the investment in the state.

Um they want to attract those construction jobs, um, but uh you have to understand the payoff, uh the trade-off, and what are the um the tax um what what I would what I would say is that right now we don't need any tax incentives to attract data centers.

Already we have more data centers in the queue than could possibly be developed, and there's a lot of things there's a lot of talk about are we in the bubble with artificial intelligence and data centers?

So we uh so we don't need the incentives to attract the data centers.

They want to come regardless.

Um that's what I would suggest from a from a policy standpoint.

Um we want to make sure that if they come, we're getting full benefits to our you know, to our state and our communities in terms of the revenue that they would bring in.

Uh but there's a lot of questions that communities should be asking, and there should be transparency in that process to know what that's gonna be.

Uh and is it reasonable to expect that transparency prior to rezoning?

A lot of what Frank McHems have heard was you'll know that after we get rezoned.

And for our community, their biggest leverage is at the rezoning point because once it's rezoned, then all of those financial and uh uh financial incentives and environmental impacts are kind of negotiated after the fact.

Right.

And so what is your leverage point during that zoning area, right?

Right.

Yes.

So that's why you need to know that before you zone.

Um because before you rezone, because uh that is your point as a community where you can say this is what we need, this is what we expect, um, and and make that uh argument clear.

Let me tell you, the uh the data center operators know this information, they know what their uh anticipated electricity uses, they anticipated water uses, um, whether or not they can be flexible, whether or not they want to use the uh diesel generators, um they know this going in.

So that is a reasonable expectation for community during that zoning process to have that information.

Um they are very aware of what the return on investment of their data center is and all the factors that lead to that.

So I would say absolutely you want to know that during that rezoning process.

I will say the the proposed data center in Martin Del Bright look would um is is kind of a unique situation because it could be considered an infill site where I think people assume that any development is better than having a vacant lot, and I think that neighborhood um needs support from across the county to get their questions answered.

Yeah, um and the the residents there have been real active um in that and um and I think also the transparency is if if you're coming from an operator, a developer standpoint, um what you're finding is if you're not being transparent and building that support early on, and you're hitting a lot of opposition.

So there's a real need for transparency in this process so that people understand what what are the cost-benefit analysis?

Um any other questions?

Well, yes, yeah, last question to the chairman.

I think a lot of times the preservation of environmental resources, green space, wetlands, woodlands, etc.

open space is assumed to have been an issue that is coming on for urban neighborhoods, and a lot of our our the people who participate in the Canada are in an urban area where there's you know, the maybe the trees have already been cut down or the wetlands have already been filled in, but there are still opportunities out there to try and create those or preserve those environmental resources in the inner core of the city.

So what challenges do you see that face more urban developed areas as opposed to the suburban areas where there may or may still be open space that can be preserved?

You know, you've already got sidewalks, you've already got buildings, you've already got streams that have been compromised.

What can the one of the challenges that face urban neighborhoods as opposed to suburban?

Well, I mean, one of the things that has been a big push is more tree canopy, more urban tree canopy, um, and that plays an important role in you know cooling and just you know creating areas that can be a little cooler, having parks, and I think part of that is just really making sure that you invest or you identify those areas that you want to protect.

Are there areas that can be restored as well in urban areas?

One of the things that we need to think about, and this is something that um Carmel has done a nice job of is concentrating uh their development so that it increases the concentration of your tax base and more uh with you know more services available to residents because as you spread out further, you're spreading out your your tax base as well as your um the need for services.

As well as your need for services.

So as you can think uh about more concentrated development, then I think you know, housing restoring some of those you know, deserted shopping malls into housing.

Um there's been some neat things happening over in the Lafayette Square area around that.

Um we can do more things around that um, then I think you can be in a better position to protect your natural areas.

Our natural areas are really important and they are finite, right?

So as they are destroyed, um, it's very difficult to bring those back.

Um so that's that's how I would um describe that.

And I think also thinking about um you know housing and how we can do more concentrated housing and that sort of thing, I think is important.

The one thing I want to say is you know, so Hoosier Environmental Council has a vision for Indiana where we have all residents have abundant access to to natural lands to uh clean water, pure air, and affordable clean energy.

Um so what we work to do is work in coalition and collaborate with a number of different groups to bring about these benefits for our environment, but for our communities also, and we say it's a false choice to think uh a false choice between economic development and environmental protection.

We think those two things can go hand in hand and actually need to go in hand in hand or have sustainable um long-term benefits for communities.

The natural infrastructure uh benefits of things like wetlands, uh, floodplains, um, forests are really critical.

And there are a lot of solutions, whether or not you're thinking about uh energy or you know, using more nature-based solutions in your development and management of storm water.

Um we just we just had our big uh stormwater investment completed after I think 15 years, and that's the big dig the big dig and costing I don't know, billions.

Um that's good because it's gonna reduce the amount of waste going into the white river, um, and there are nature-based solutions that can happen at a community level and be spread that can be very effective and cost uh very less, very much less and be more adaptable.

Um as we have larger rain events, um hopefully you know that will that new water system will be able to manage what is anticipated is more um increased uh severe rains that happen happen because of climate change.

Um, some of these nature-based solutions I would say are more adaptable and can be expanded, and they don't cost that much money.

But if they you do have to be thoughtful in how you develop, so have you seen, I mean, I know that they just announced the completion of the of the big gig went down in those settlements once that's enough.

But um have you have there all have you already seen some improvement in the quality of the White River from that project, or is it too soon to really know?

Well, I'm not aware, I don't know if the city has seen that.

Um we'll ask you that question, but I don't I don't know at what point that has happened and what the rating is.

Um but we do need to be like our our white rover in our waterways and our streams and our lakes are real asset and resource for the community, and we're part of a coalition that's really um a vision for the White River that is really wants to enhance that, and part of that is making it clean and attractive for people to be in the river and fish from the river and things like that and have recreation as well as you know uh responsible development that kind of captures the beauty of it.

So um we do think you know we do need to be very mindful of that and and that protection.

So, but we're there's a lot of things around our agricultural practices, around you know, even native planting of people's uh lawns and gardens and reducing the amount of fertilizer we put out in our lawns, things like that can improve the water quality, um, but a lot of things through agriculture in particular because that's such a big uh way that um excess nutrients, E.

coli um sediment uh runs off of these farm fields and goes into our waterways.

Yeah, do you have a question?

Well, I was just gonna speak to your question about the water quality improvements.

So the Mary County Public Health Department, uh we've been monitoring ambient water for for years in Fall Creek, White River, Poges Run, Pleasant Run.

So I don't know if the numbers at my fingertips, but I do know there have been some spots where we have seen some reductions in E.

coli levels, and we certainly hope to see more as especially the Fall Creek tunnel has gone online.

So we've got years of data to compare it to, so yeah, we are anticipating you know anxiously anticipating seeing some reductions in those contaminant ones.

Yeah.

Let's talk about air quality for a minute.

Um in Marion County has um kind of come under the gun recently about air quality and it doesn't rain all that great.

And I know that there's been um recent efforts to kind of reintroduce a coal-fired electrical plants.

How do you how do you see the current quality of air in Marion County?

Where I think there's been kind of a rise of respiratory conditions that have risen that can be attributed to air quality, and there's always a lot of confusion about who's monitoring that and how heavily are they monitoring that.

Can you address air quality?

Well, so I mean, we have these no zone election action alerts, we have air quality alerts, um we have you know a lot of that triggers things like asthma and health uh issues on kids and others.

Um yeah, the the things that um so certainly our coal-fired power plants are one thing that contribute to poor air quality as well as water.

Um, recently AES made the decision to close one of their coal-fired power plants.

Um, the reason we're shifting away from coal is because our coal-fired power fleet is old and it's costly.

Um these are decisions that are being made based on market dynamics.

Um there is more affordable sources of energy.

Um, and I always like to talk about affordable clean energy because the um because those two things are synonymous in a lot of ways.

Um affordable and clean uh very often go together.

Um the the cost of uh solar power has increased um you know 99.9 percent over the past like 30 years or so.

Uh whereas coal-fire uh plants, uh, the cost has not gone down, the cost is going up because they're so costly to maintain natural gas prices that also compute contribute uh to our air quality uh pollution, uh natural gas um fire and power plants, um also the cost of those are increasing, um, and the cost of the fuel is volatile.

Um when we have the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, natural gas prices spiked.

Um and so there are things like that that are uh out of that are out of our control um and but impact our lives very much.

Whereas if you have you know solar, if you have uh wind, and these things paired with batteries can be reliable energy sources, um, they also contribute they they they are not uh polluting our air, they're not polluting our water.

Um, and so they are a much cleaner source.

The other thing that you know causes a lot of air pollution is our our transportation.

Um, more people shift to electric uh transportation uh vehicles, public transportation, then you also see reduction in our air quality.

So it is there are things that are going in that direction, and a lot of those are market-driven forces based on um you know cost competitiveness.

Um if you drive a if you drive an EV or a plug-in hybrid, like the experience is pretty nice.

Um, and the cost of those are going down as well.

So there's a lot of that uh change is happening just because they're better solutions that happen to be uh much better for our environment as well.

What else can you tell us about the environmental who's your who's your environmental council?

What are you up to and how can neighborhoods engage and partner with collaborate and make use of the resources that AGC offers?

Yeah, well, we do try to support communities when they're faced with an issue when they reach out to us.

If you're wanting to, if you have a development issue, we can try to be a resource.

There are lots of things going through all over the state.

So we can't necessarily be there, but we can provide resources for you.

One is environmental justice, making sure that benefits and are spread around all communities.

Just isn't focused on those more vulnerable communities.

Also minimizing the impacts of climate change and reducing that, making us more resilient in the face of climate change.

So what can we do to minimize what are the future impacts of climate change?

We we're facing those things right now, but we actually those things will get worse.

And so we need to do everything we can to minimize that.

And then also we have a part of our program that's focused on environmental health.

We work on reducing exposure to lead for children by uh restoring houses that have uh lead exposure.

We worked on programs uh addressing indoor air quality to lower the impact of children for asthma.

Um so we do our work in a number of ways.

We we're focused on education, uh having you know sessions like this where we're sharing information.

Uh we focus on uh advocacy and advocating for issues that we think are important.

Um we focus on uh policy and how we can push forward uh policy that's gonna protect Hoosers and our environment.

Um, and then we also hold uh uh you know those that are not following currently policy accountable through legal challenges.

Um currently we have a legal challenge uh in Martinsville with water that is being discharged into the White River that's contaminated by coal action.

Um so if we see something like that happen, um then we'll take uh legal action as well.

So that's the main kind of focus of our work in different ways that we work.

We have a staff of 18 uh people.

Um we rely on support from contributions from individuals.

We are a 501c nonprofit, uh we have grant funders, um, and then we do have some state contracts with the are some of our environmental uh health work on addressing uh lead and asthma and that sort of thing for kids.

Um I especially encourage them a lot of times when neighborhoods are faced with an uh kind of a grassroots environmental issue.

They don't have the resources to know how to gather data, um, who to talk to, are there statistics available that can that can address the environmental issues and Hoosier Environmental Council?

That has been one of the most valuable resources we have done does have a lot of that data that they can help provide to you about you know water quality, air quality in your area, have the woodlands diminish those kinds of things.

So if you're looking for supportive data, environmental data or an issue that you're facing, um, who's your environmental council is a great resource to go to that can help connect you to to get that information that can help support the case.

You know in your gut that you're right, but when you go to argue that case, you've got to have all that data and information, and it is difficult for neighborhoods to gather that information.

So you know, you who's your environmental council may already have it at hand or help you know how to connect to places where you can get that current data.

Yeah, and we do have a lot of expertise among our staff and focusing on these different areas, and that's what we try to do is help provide uh folks with that type of information and resources as well.

Um yeah, you can find us online uh very easily, just search Hoosier Environmental Council.

Um but uh yeah, there's we we love to hear from people and um and we try to be as resourced as much as we can.

Um we're statewide organizations that we're spread around a little bit, but uh we do as our best on kind of responding and being a resource.

18 people is not a lot to cover the whole state.

Yeah, yeah.

How can people get a hold of you?

Um, well, uh my email address is Scarpenter at uh HEC Web WEB.org, uh Scarpenter at HeckWeb.org.

You can email me, you can go to our website and you'll see a complete listing of our staff and kind of what their specialty is and all their contact information is on there as well.

Okay, there are phone numbers that people can use if they're not electronically oriented.

Um let me see because I have a phone number, but I don't know it.

Um you don't call yourself very often.

Well, yeah, my work number.

I'm gonna say 317 981.

Uh no, hold on that.

Let me go back.

317 685 880.

That's my uh work number.

Repeat that, please.

317 685 880.

Thank you.

Anything else you want to tell us about Visher Environmental Council before you go to your next obligation?

Um just that I the other thing that we do is we do uh closely follow policy at the State House.

Um we're a resource for that if you're interested in what's going on.

Um, I encourage you to sign up for our um email list.

Um we send out weekly um emails kind of we started out following around 80 different um pieces of legislation, and then that narrows down throughout the session.

Um, but these are things that impact our water, uh you know, things like lead it impacts uh energy, um, agriculture, right now, a lot of different things.

So that's a resource in our and that's uh we encourage people to check that out.

Visit our website, sign up for uh newsletter and that sort of thing.

Okay.

Deal with radon also radon.

We have not had, I mean, that has been something that um we haven't dealt with as much.

I have seen a little bit of legislation around that, but don't have the expertise on it.

Okay, well, repeat your email address scarpenter at heckweb h ecw.org.

Um, as I'm going out, who would like one of these uh resource guides about data centers?

Okay, um we've got three, good.

Um yeah, and so I really appreciate it.

Sam, thank you so much for coming.

Yeah, thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Sam, yeah, I just want to say if you if you don't have enough, I'll get in touch with you and see if we can maybe get that electronically and I can share it with our with our email list.

Okay, I think I got that here.

With that again, I so apologize for the crossing wires here, but um Tom Wilson, um, and apparently there are more than one of you in city government is the the director for the department of public works um next to D.

I would guess DPW probably competes with the most wanting the most attention, the neighborhoods wanting the most attention from.

Um, he's with us today, so um, if you would like to come on up, are you gonna talk from there, talk from here?

I'm gonna come up.

We actually have a PowerPoint presentation that we could plug in.

All right, and uh minutes to do that.

Uh just a moment, yeah.

All right.

Um, as all of you know, the city recently taxed its 2026 budget, which impacts departments all across the city where they are being asked to do more with less.

Um, and the issue of the condition of our roads, that stormwater drainage that we talked about, um, all those same, and just does the tree maintenance currently and parks maintenance currently fall under VPW's purview.

Okay, well, then it looks like we've got a lot that we can be talking about here.

So I'm gonna want to introduce Todd Wilson, who's the current director of the Department of Public Works.

He has a presentation, and then we can open it up for questions and answers.

Um while he is, while they're getting ready to go, and we've been talking for some minutes about launching an initiatives where neighborhoods across Mary County can support each other in specific issues that are going on in their neighborhood, you know, right down to the alley that will get cleaned up, or the pothole that never seems to get filled, or flooding issue that has been created.

Um, and there are forms out on the table outside the door.

Um, we did come up with finally the name, it's neighborhood SOS, the sharing our strength.

Um, that is the information about what you can do.

We're gonna pick two days a month for each township where a specific issue can be highlighted, highlighted in neighborhoods from across Green County will all be asked to get contact with the government agencies and elected officials that have the resources to help address that problem.

And that's a way that even in this busy age and the communication by electronics that go on, we can really help each other regardless of whether you live in Pike Township or Wayne Township or Prankland Township or Decatur Township.

What goes on in everybody's neighborhood can potentially impact you, and this is a way that we can help support each other.

So we'll talk about that more a little bit before the end of the meeting, but there is a form out there on the um sign-up table for you to take.

If there is an issue in your neighborhood where you would like to have support from other neighbors across Marion County to help get that issue addressed.

Okay, Mr.

Wilson.

Very good.

I think we've set up.

All right, let's go.

Again, um, Kathy, thank you for the invitation.

Um that I got in August.

Um happy to be here.

I would have to uh uh uh acknowledge we got the uh Office of Neighborhood Engagement and Outreach with our mayor of neighborhood advocates and uh Natalie Van Dogan as a director.

We also have uh Andy Pinkstaff with um uh our PIO and our chief engineer Mark uh St.

John.

So uh thank you for having us today.

I'd like to uh quickly introduce myself as a director of the Department of Public Works.

Um I'm in my first year, uh almost nine months now.

Um I am not new to the city of Indianapolis.

Uh I worked for the engineering department under DPW for 10 years between 2021 or 2011 and 2021.

Um after that I went to DNR as a director of engineering for DNR, and then went to private sector uh with VS Engineering running construction projects uh all across the state of Indiana.

Um I was happy to get a call for the mayor's office uh uh last year, and they were interested in having me take the role of DPW director, and I enthusiastically uh said yes.

Uh so I'm happy to be here through my career at uh DBW uh formally uh I've worked on many roadway projects, many park projects throughout the years.

Uh just behind us here in this building of Tarkington Park uh project we did years ago with the splash pad, the the um the new playground and all that is one of the coolest projects I've done.

Um so and some of the two-way conversion projects around the county with the two-way conversions at the IUPY campus and New York Street, Michigan Street, Central Uh Avenue, two-way conversions.

So uh, you know, uh big projects around the city, uh, very familiar with with what DPW's uh got going on.

Um I like to say, you know, what is DPW does for the folks that are that are uh on TV and the audience here.

You know, we have uh five different divisions that are uh housed under DPW.

I'm gonna start with uh engineering um engineering.

We're the stewards of the public infrastructure, if you will.

Um we so responsible for the construction, the maintenance, uh developing the standards in which uh the infrastructure is built.

Um we also work on the stormwater and and drainage uh throughout the uh the county, um, regulatory compliance uh with with uh stormwater and and pollution mitigation as well.

Um we also have our operations um which is uh mostly our union Ask me local 725 staff.

Um our operations folks not only do they do the snow response um but right after they do the snow response, they're they're filling potholes.

And then once pothole seasons wind down, they're they're cutting grass, uh roadside mowing, parks.

Um, and you know, we also you know use event supports because you know um city of Minneapolis is a very, very good whole city.

Um so our uh operations folks are very very in tune with that.

Trails maintenance is another part of what uh DPW is responsible for and operations.

Um we also uh uh take care of the Tox drop program as well.

Um fleet is another division within uh the Department of Public Works.

Uh our fleet uh department uh takes care of over 500 vehicles for for the city county.

We have two garages.

So and that's all union technician workforce as well.

We're happy to for the operations and fleet union collective bargaining agreements were negotiated, and we won't have to worry about the renegotiation for I think until 2030, but don't quote me on that.

LRS.

We are, you know, you know, solid waste were responsible for class uh trash collection and management.

You know, we have uh in house uh collection staff and the uh contracted LRS uh or a republic or a waste management type services.

Um happy to say that uh solid waste we're building a new facility for the house of all of our uh our uh refuge collection trucks and staff with uh training center uh in it, locker rooms, very state of our uh uh facility for our solid waste.

We even have a truck wash bay inside that uh solid waste facility, so excited about that as well.

Umte also handles the uh curve rock side recycling program and the recycling drop-off uh locations around the county as well.

And our last uh division underneath uh DPW would be policy and planning.

Um policy and planning uh is an umbrella over administration, finance, technology, uh public information office, uh, office of sustainability, and uh the home of our new Vision Zero administrator.

Um Kathy axe if I could come and talk about you know budget goals for DPW going forward.

So just to quickly kind of set that, you know.

Uh we'd love to see a successful short-term successful uh roll out of the new solid waste vendors and carts and all that, and a move into the new facility.

Can't wait for that to come to fruition.

Um delivering a successful uh capital program is probably number one in this in this uh role.

And we'll talk a little bit more about the capital program in the presentation.

Uh we want to make sure we invest more in our facilities, uh, particularly uh our operations uh facilities that uh you know uh house our uh union staff around the county.

We have several facilities, they are aging.

Um we have a lot of deferred maintenance that we need to catch up on.

So uh investing in our facilities is very important, and then a little more long-term goal is a successful rollout of the uh universal curbicide recycling program here in a couple years.

Now what we have here is um we put together uh a couple slides, and these reflect uh some of the slides that we used are in our most recent uh budget uh explanation to our city county council.

And so uh this is kind of explanations of what kind of roadway treatments uh we do at the city of Indianapolis.

Uh this table reflects the road maintenance and preservation treatments that the department currently uses.

Um we tried to list these in a comparative manner to provide clarity for uh how these programs are deployed.

Uh it remains important that uh everybody that you uh constituents please uh continue to use the mayor's action center uh whenever you see potholes or issues within the right-of-way.

Um that's only really the only way we get the uh information that we need to address uh the problems that we have.

Um and you know, when we have requests, we validate all these requests and determine uh what the proper treatment is for for our neighborhood roads and uh and and drainage.

So we're gonna start with pothole filling.

That that uh service is mainly done by our union uh operations staff.

Um basically it's just you know, um, we fill potholes all year long in between the snow fights and mowing lawns and uh helping out with events.

We're we're we're filling potholes all year long.

Um strip patching is an emergency response that the city has been uh doing for about the last six or seven years.

Um it happens uh typically right after winter after we see uh what the uh winter conditions do to our roadways.

Um so this very emergency response.

Uh it tackles some of our uh thoroughfares throughout the county in order to make sure that we can get people safely to and from where they need to go.

Um we have also an in-house paving crew, we call it D4.

Um, this crew help out with smaller resurfacing uh uh jobs around the county, mainly in our residential areas.

Uh so um they'll do about 20 to 30 roadway segments per year with that program, and again, all that work is uh done through our uh ASME Local 725 workforce.

Um we have our residential resurfacing program.

We spend about 16 million dollars a year on neighborhood resurfacing, um, which includes a lot of times uh ADA considerations and sidewalks uh and drainage, and then uh finally the larger projects that we embark on are our thoroughfare resurfacing jobs, uh more of the complete streets type uh projects that we do uh uh do uh making sure we are taking care of safety, accessibility, traffic signals, um and we're gonna start to use more of a data-driven approach to how we deliver our program as well.

Um so we got a slide here uh in a bit to talk more about that.

Now, just a quick breakdown of some kind of the outputs that we're gonna have in 2026.

Uh the council has appropriated uh over 16 million dollars for Department of Public Works to do strip patching uh first thing in 2026.

Um that could uh be close to 200 lane miles of roadways around the county that would be affected by a strip patching program.

Um there's another 3.6 million dollars for our in-house pavement crew, the district four repaving crew, uh, which equates to about 15 lane miles of uh resurfacing in our neighborhoods through through that.

Of course, uh, you know, we estimate about 40,000 potholes filled this year, and uh and hopefully that number will go down with more uh uh road construction, but uh we will be anticipating to uh make sure that um we get that taken care of as well, and then finally another 16 million dollars uh next year for residential resurfacing, which will equate to about 20 to 30 miles of uh lane miles of roadway in our our neighborhoods that are going to get done in 2026.

Are alleys included in any of these?

No, sir.

Uh alleys are not included in the capital program.

Um we do not get gas tax money for alleys, we get them for for the roadway, so it's hard to weigh, you know, um deliver uh put money into alleys when you don't get money for it, and we got such a big need on our roadway network.

What about where uh alley egress from a post office is your only option?

Is that considered an alley or removed?

Well, there are a lot of different scenarios uh that we could look at.

Now, if you have anything specific, um we can we can talk uh after this on the side, but uh also again I'll I'll encourage you know um the listeners as well to if we have issues like that contact the mayor's action center.

We will do some investigation to figure out what we can do with it.

There is a specific location that neighborhoods and mechanics have been trying to get addressed for many years.

Okay, it is as Jim said the only ingress and egress to post office.

Yeah, egress, excuse me.

Yeah, yeah, uh alleys are are a big challenge for for us.

Excuse me, yes, sir.

One quick question.

Yes, uh, about the contractual work done.

Uh how is that review?

Because I know some of the contract work was done going through the uh max center.

Uh some of those um answers or uh reviews, the work done, uh usually I'm not carried out.

I'm I'm not sure what you're referring to.

I'm referring to uh I'm the president of the highway of the Sandy Neighborhood Association.

We have uh work that was done at 29th and Capitol, and uh the contractor work that was done uh had not been properly uh uh done.

Okay, and uh we've been working on that for years through the mayor's action and uh DPW uh we invited on several occasions to come to the meeting to discuss some of the problems that we have, and I guess uh for the second Tuesday of November, we finally got a uh answer from DPW to come to our neighborhood meeting to try to address some of the problems, but the main one is at 29th Street uh capital.

Okay, accidents occur, street uh deviations there, uh causing cars to go airborne and cars going sideways to try to get in the right lane.

Okay, okay.

Yeah, um absolutely.

Uh we we're I'm glad we're gonna be at uh at your neighborhood meeting uh in November.

We'll be able to talk more about uh that specific.

I want to uh share also we have a project on 29th Street and 30th Street that uh was bid out this year for the conversion of 29th and 30th from one-way conditions to two-way conditions.

Yeah, so that's a serious issue there.

Yes, sir.

Yes, sir.

So um uh happy to talk about what that specific issue is, and maybe we can address that in this current contract that we have coming up.

Thank you.

Yep.

Um other questions.

Thank you.

Um, so you know uh moving forward.

Um we want to make sure that we make the uh the best choices that we can for uh the capital program.

And um we are embarking on setting up what we are calling the infrastructure infrastructure asset management plan or I am.

Um this is a data-driven approach to how we select and and our our capital plan, where we're gonna be going.

Um this IAMP is a um is created by taking data from PCA PCI data, which is payment uh condition index.

We take uh mayor's action center service requests, we take pothole data, and we take crash data, and we uh use that information to create a matrix that gives us the uh you know the worst to the to the not or to the to the best roadway network, and we take the worst and we work on those and go down.

So we're using more of a data-driven approach for uh selecting our roadways on our capital program now.

Uh this slide just is a slide that we used during our our um our budget uh presentation with the city and county council.

Now I didn't put this up here for uh the group to be able to consume it all, but I just wanted to make sure that you know we share this with you.

Um we do have a uh uh quarter of a billion dollar annual budget with DPW.

Um this one uh reflects our transportation program.

Uh it's important to note that um you know with the recent legislation and the struggles with the um house bill for property taxes, um, it did not affect DPW as it has other um departments within the city government.

Um particularly because of our funding sources do not come primarily from uh property taxes.

We uh we get funding from gas tax from bonds from grants and partnerships, um economic development, uh federal aid and uh TIP districts, and also I wanted to note too that with uh recent state legislation led by uh the mayor's office and Chief Parker, um, you know, the the state has agreed to match uh 50 million dollars of new money that the city can uh provide for roadway infrastructure starting in 2027.

Um this is going to be uh transformational for the ability for the city of Minneapolis to uh increase the the uh health of our roadway network, and in addition to that, starting in 2027, um there's another additional four million dollars for uh an adjustment to the lane mile distribution in the state's uh formula.

So we're excited about that.

Um we have we have a really really robust uh capital program for the next four years and uh excited about uh getting all that work done.

Can I ask some questions?

Yes, ma'am.

All right, no, the end set up for people who are watching.

If someone wants to know when is a roundabout going to be built or a road repaid or something, can they go to DPW's site and find out when the capital improvements are taking where they're taking place and when road repairs are taking place and when.

Yeah.

Um yeah, uh Natalie, would you be able to help with that?

Yeah, totally.

So um everyone, Natalie.

Yeah, building the director of community outreach.

So on the Indie.gov website, there is a uh capital improvements, major transportation and infrastructure page.

That will have anything that is currently ongoing within this immediate construction season.

Um, and in some cases, depending on the nature of the project, there might even be an offshoot page with more information.

Um, I know that, for example, the Henry Street Bridge project is an instance of that because it is much larger than just that uh, you know, what infrastructure project.

So I would say always go to nd.gov first and foremost, see what's available there.

If it is not listed on that web page, feel free to reach out to your mayor's neighborhood advocate.

Um, and you can find whether that individual is on indie.gov as well.

That is taking in Mayor's neighborhood advocate.

Thank you, now kind of more of a high level of what we are doing as far as our expenditures of that that money.

Um some of the big uh bucket items uh within the next four or five years are you know our federal aid program, which is uh close to uh 300 million dollars.

Um next biggest pot or the biggest pot in there is our um local streets program, which is um close to 600 million dollars over the next five years, and then the next biggest one would be our economic development uh where we support uh economic development around the county.

Um of the examples would be the new Alanco uh project um downtown uh at the old uh GM stamping plant location.

And any idea when 30th Street at the Riverside, the Coast Remote will that ever open up again?

It will open up again, yes now.

And um, yeah, uh so we should have at least one lane open by the end of the year or January 2026.

Um, and then the full bridge will be open by May of 2026.

So we still have another six or seven months of construction in that area, uh along with the new project to the 29th and 30th Street to Wake Convergence.

So we'll still see uh orange barrels uh in the area, uh, but uh we'll get through as fast as we can.

Um again, you know, uh this is kind of breaking down uh at a high level uh where the dollars are going for uh transportation program question, yes, ma'am.

With some of the um actions at the federal level where federal funding has been withdrawn when it's been promised for all kinds of projects.

Do you anticipate that happening if you've got 300 million dollars in federal aid?

Um, is there a backup plan for if that doesn't come in?

Oh backup.

We already have it in the bank.

We do not already have it in the bank, and we are checking uh periodically to make sure that you know uh we're doing everything that the federal government requires us to do to uh get those funds and making sure that um we are communicating all uh daily.

And um, yeah, we we we we do have uh raise grant for um a two-way conversion of several of our one-way pairs that go north and south through through um this the city.

So we're we're really counting on that from the Fed.

So um we'll keep it posted.

Okay, um just like the uh transportation program, uh, this kind of outlines the revenue sources that we have for uh our stormwater program.

Um they typically uh are you know our stormwater program is a user fee-based program that started, I believe in 2016 or 2017, and um, so it's based off the impervious area of each parcel.

That's what comes out on your your uh taxes.

Um other ways that the stormwater program uh gets money is through flood control improvement districts, bonds, grants, or uh other fiscal appropriations from the city county council.

And then uh on a on a on a high level of the expenditures uh you know, these are type of things that we spend our money on in a stormwater program, the culverts, levees and dams, surface drainage, um strategic land purchases, uh, and then other you know uh water quality uh initiatives that we have.

And then finally, we discussed this this earlier.

Um thanks, Charles, but um new trash car transition.

I've seen them uh in this neighborhood.

Uh so uh we I think we are over 60,000 cars delivered so far.

Um, so that that's very impressive as of you know October 6.

How many trash cars we've gotten delivered?

Um again, uh leave your old cars out as was explained uh before, and it will get picked up.

So that is the conclusion of my presentation, and not to answer any questions if you have any.

Well, I have a bunch of questions, but I'm gonna yield the floor to the people who are attending.

So are there questions you have for Director Wilson or issues that you would like to call because somehow I knew you can't put a look out here, Jim?

All right, I'm president of Brightwood Conservative Citizen.

I live in the town of Brightwood.

You put all the carts on the streets and there's hills, residents who refuse to pull their carts up a flight of stairs, so they block the sidewalks.

What are you going to do about that?

Do we have to file suit against DPW for uh violating the safety rules by blocking sidewalks because it's your property, and you move them from the alley?

And why would a parson want to take a trash can up flight 20 stairs to get it out of the way that side?

So they used to pick up on the alley and now they're out on the sidewalk on the street.

Right.

Okay.

So your pickup location will not be changing.

Okay, so what if we filed suit against you because uh I usually have to provide some clarity?

So you're being asked to put your old cart out at the street so that it can be collected.

Your pickup location is not changing.

If you pick up at the alley, you're still gonna put your cart out at the alley.

The only thing we're asking you to do is take your old cart out to the street because that is where they need to collect those old carts.

Why can they not collect them in the alleys?

Yeah, so they use pick up and delivery happens.

So they use a flatbed trailer.

The the way that they are doing these collections, so the city does not currently own Republic or WM's carts.

Well, we're in Marion County, the old city limits.

Okay, so we're in DPW's uh yeah, I have to do that.

They claim that the truck that they replaced is too big to go down the alley.

So why would you buy a truck that's not capable of going down the alley that you don't maintain?

So I'm sorry, are we talking about the solid waste transition instructions?

Or is that the same thing?

No, we're talking about existing trash cans that were put on the sidewalk over two years ago.

Okay, that is something else.

I thought we were talking about solid way transition.

Uh and try to figure out what the issue is, sir.

So basically so, how long have you been in in your position?

I've been in this position almost nine months, sir.

Nine months, yes, sir.

Previous person has already left.

How many people have been in that decision since the last time that the uh cocaine guy was here?

I'm sorry?

I'm missing her.

You took you from to Brandon for Agent Hurgett.

I think that was the previous version, is that right?

Correct.

There's been three directories.

Okay, so the issue is they the carts used to be on the alley, and now they're down on the sidewalk, or people have to get them, take them up and down the alley.

Right.

Are you walking the street to get around?

So is the is these new cars that have been done, or is this where they're trashing?

They've got to take their trash down that hill.

Right.

This is Brightwood.

Right.

Okay.

We can relay that over to the solid waste team and get an answer for you.

Okay.

Okay.

All right.

Maybe you guys can exchange direct information.

Um, you know, because especially people, you know, who can't who physically can't go up and down that hill.

That's right.

You know, that's the issue.

We do also have ADA trash collection service.

So if that is an issue, folks are welcome to call into the mayor's action center and we'll get them set up with ADA trash collection.

So that goes for anyone who's not able to bring their cart down.

That service allows our uh solid waste drivers to go collect that from whatever location works best for the resident.

But then there's also the issue of the public sidewalk being blocked, regardless of whose trash can it is sitting down there.

So can you make sure that you exchange get his information so they can get that addressed, especially if they've been dealing with it for two years?

And I can't imagine how that works when they're plowing the streets because you know, then the snow gets up on the sidewalk too, making it even more difficult point.

Okay, Jim.

Traffic light at uh college and Washington Street.

You have uh control intersection on the south side because of college uh regulating traffic on through Washington Street.

Could you please disconnect the two east facing heads on Washington Street during the construction so that traffic does not have to stop there now because there's only two options.

There's a straight through and the right turn on the college.

Get rid of that red light cycle so that you can go north on college without having to stop at Washington Street at that intersection there because you're backing the traffic up all the way to the I 70 I 65 lane.

Just turn it off.

Don't disconnect the signalization because you need that for college.

North Bam.

Okay, we'll have our traffic engineers uh look at that.

Yeah, see what our signal engineers already reached out to the Indigo and the blue line construction team.

I don't know what the answer was, but we have already inquired about that.

Well, don't inquire, just turn the heads off.

Now I don't know if your manual and uniform traffic control demands if you have a flash in yellow there or not, but do whatever it takes to change that because that's that's going to affect traffic for what three months, six months, however long that Washington Street center section is out of service.

Yeah, we'll we'll definitely please take a look at that.

Yes, sir.

You're bagging traffic up on Washington Street.

Yes, sir.

Okay.

Um I have a question.

Yes, sir.

Has to do with traffic analysis that are done for a new development.

Um, as I said, I come from Franklin Township, so I'm putting my track township up.

Um, when a new developer comes in and a traffic analysis is requested, or traffic study is requested, it almost invariably comes back with that's okay, y'all can handle the additional traffic from 400, 500 new houses, no problem.

We all have a lot of narrow two-lane streets with no shoulders.

Um, a lot of intersections that don't have proper traffic control now, and we're looking at it, trying to think what's gonna what is it going to take to prevent accidents?

And the report we often get back is the accident data doesn't support putting a four-way stop in until a roundabout can be out of lock roundabouts.

But that's I understand that's that's the current traffic control method.

We're trying to look forward to make sure that traffic problems can be prevented instead of saying, well, it hasn't reached the failure level yet.

What can what can residents do to say we know from the traffic that we see every day that we need to have better traffic control in this area?

Or this road is degrading rapidly because of the very rapid increase in development.

What can we do to try and make our point?

That's a good question.

Um, you know, I got our trap our uh chief engineer Mark St.

John here.

He's done uh a lot of traffic studies in the past and worked with uh new developments.

Mark, did you uh help answer that question on how uh we go about uh traffic studies supporting developments?

Um Kathy, I think you worked with Jill Palmer at the end of the day.

Yes, and she's very good.

But I understand when she's constrained by current regulations.

You know, there are standards that you have to meet.

What can we do to get those standards changed?

Uh well, those are like international national engineering standards on level of service, it's the percent of delay that occurs at an intersection.

Uh, the more traffic you have at the intersection, the more delay there would be an intersection.

And so that's what we're calculating, that's what we're looking at, or the developers looking at through their traffic impact study.

Um, how much delay are we creating or adding to an intersection?

Um, and you are correct.

Uh, the way it is structured currently is basically the last one there that causes the delay to reach to a point that's a failure point, will be the one that's responsible for it.

Um I would say we would hope or we would try to be proactive on a lot of things, um, and knowing where some of those concerns are from folks like you or other people, other neighborhood people that can give us that information is very useful as we work on our long-range planning pavement conditions, something like the IAMP, I think it helped go ahead of that.

Um, we have 10, 15 years of pavement data, and so it's using that data and how roads have deteriorated in Marion County over time, projecting that data out into the future to know where they might deteriorate in the future and to try and plan our our uh capital plan around that if that makes sense.

I know in the past, Mary County has eschewed efforts to institute impact fees.

But we have been somewhat successful in getting some developers to agree to contribute to infrastructure improvements.

And we understand that the city has recently established a fiscal vehicle where if uh development comes in that's going to impact a particular area and they agree to contribute X number of dollars to putting in sidewalks or improving an intersection that that that those funds can be held specifically for that project as opposed to just going into a general pool of none.

Is that correct?

Well, that was more of a function of the Department of Metropolitan Development when they work with uh developers and commitments.

So I don't know if DPW can be gone down.

I think we can so we'll work with uh DMD on the zoning process.

The traffic impact study says there's going to be impacts to an intersection or impacts to a roadway.

We will work with DMD to get commitments written into the rezone process that have the developer reconstruct the roadway or add sidewalk or build capacity improvements at an intersection, like a turn lane or signal improvements, that sort of thing.

Um restricted donations are something we've had more success with recently.

Um and that's where we've said we've said okay, there's an intersection, it doesn't operate sufficiently today, and we know that, and you want to add more traffic to it, which means it's going to continue to it'll operate works with more traffic to it.

Um the developer doesn't want to build a roundabout, to be frank.

I don't want a developer building a roundabout because they won't build it right.

Um we just wanted to help pay for it.

We correct, we want them to help pay for it, and so we calculate what their share is, what their share of the delay, what their share of the capacity of the intersection is, and we make them pay an appropriate amount, and that's typically written into the zoning commitments is the best for that.

Okay, yeah.

Uh question on the I know the uh this meeting that we're coming up with for high uh about the two-way street conversion.

Um I know uh I'm not sure what you guys have met with uh the children's museum as of yet.

Uh I was understanding that you were at some point.

Okay.

Um I think it's coming up soon.

Well, we've had routine meetings of the children's museum through project development, um, and we've scheduled a new meeting with them as construction kicks off experience.

We we reached back out to them and want to get them in the loop again on construction.

Okay.

Well it's gonna be a uh you know, I know you guys are gonna have a challenge with the uh the two-way conversion there at 29th and 3rd Street onto the one-way streets, uh Capitol and Illinois.

Uh those are going to be a challenge right there.

And um just thinking about it just gives you a headache to think about how you're going to handle it because uh uh the one now I'm I'm getting a little heated because I understand there's going to be a two-way conversion on Capitol and uh Illinois.

Now that's going to be a major transition there, yes.

So I I'm just wondering how you're gonna handle that.

I guess could you explain more what you what your concerns are?

Is it when a one-way pair means a two-way roadway?

Yeah.

Um or is it the transition from that's gonna be the transition and the one-way uh the another project of the future?

I mean that because uh we've been talking about the two-way conversion on uh those one-way streets, Illinois and Capital.

And then all of a sudden we get and we get questions uh that go out from the neighbors that say, okay, was this going to happen and uh how is it going to affect the residents about the two-way conversion on these one-way streets?

And also parking.

And parking as well, yes.

Yeah.

So I could say 20th and 30th, there's minimal to no impact to on-street parking with two-way conversion projects.

The roads are a sufficient width in the way the current parking exists.

We're we're minimally impacting parking.

The only place we're impacting parking is at major intersections, uh, where we've added a left turn lane, and so we we're removing 50 to 100 feet of parking within within the intersection, if that makes sense.

Um that's that's a concern, you know, because yeah, I understand.

You know, we have neighbors on each side, and you don't have that much uh footage for parking for residents.

So that was on 20th and 30th on Capital and Illinois is a future project.

I off the top of my head, I want to say construction is in 27, but there's several one-way pairs in that in that program, so I'm not 100% sure if that went to 27.

We are working on putting together a parking study for all those uh one-way downtown fairs, which include Capitol Illinois to understand how parking is currently utilized and to make sure we're in a minute impact parking as minimally as possible.

What we often find and I I won't say specific to your block or your neighborhood, but we often find design street parking is underutilized, it might only be used 50% or even 60 or 70%, which means we can take away parking in certain places because there's spots in other places, if that makes sense.

But it doesn't make sense to a residential, okay, because uh if you're looking at that, and I'm sure you being now capo, uh, that's a major issue because I think they're not face uh our boundaries are from 30th Street to South Side of 30th Street to Fall Creek, and then west side of Moringa Street to the interstate that is high level the cities uh boundary line.

But from those areas, uh that's the reason why this neighborhood meeting is very important because you hear the concerns of neighbors that really on those streets that it will impact their parking.

Yeah, I just want to say that you know, um, converting our roadways from one-way to two-way is a very positive uh thing for the stuff to the reported community.

It creates uh slower uh driving patterns for residents, it creates different options for our residents to get around.

Um it eliminates that kind of that internal in-city highway that gets people through the community.

So it's uh in my experience, two-way conversions have been very, very positive uh for the city of Indianapolis when we do them.

This ages me that I remember when some of these streets were two-way and then they were converted to one way, and now we're going back.

Well, we understand that time because it was less automobiles.

Yeah, okay, but now we have many, you know, our average uh resident has two automobiles, uh possibly more at some essence.

So that's the problem, you know.

I can say for uh capital on the turning lane, that is a major issue right there because you're talking about turning then converting the the one-way streets, and then you have residents that are right there on the corners.

So uh, and that's I'm talking about uh 28th and 29th in Capo.

Right.

Okay, those are those are major areas where residents have automobiles.

So well, um, you know, traffic patterns have been looked at and studied, and you know, that's part of the two-way conversion process is making sure the signals are correct, the pavement markings are put down correctly.

Um it is intuitive that when uh uh a row gets converted from a one-way condition to a two-way condition, as soon as you put that double yellow line down the center, you know where to be down a road most of the time.

Well, you don't have very much room to operate.

I mean, you can we would not do the project if we didn't have enough room to operate.

That leads to another thing here because uh we have not had any uh uh conversation in the community.

So that's a major that's a major problem because a lot of the neighbors are concerned about being a part of the conversation before it's a decision made.

Sure.

Yeah.

Right, sure.

The Capitol and Illinois are earlier on the development phase.

I think we just completed 10% plans.

We're working towards 30% plans.

So as we have those 30% plans, um, we will be engaging with the neighborhoods.

But please do.

Oh, I have to get a neighbor's complaint.

No.

We don't either.

He said November 2nd is is open meeting that was second, second Tuesday of November.

Tuesday and November.

Yeah, I believe Councilman uh O'Cealie asked us to have that meeting to talk about 29th and 30th.

So I think you've probably been working with Al Floyd and our communication council as well.

You know, that's the reason why the real pressure was on you guys to get something done because we have no, we've been asking for two years, and you guys have had a high turnover uh with the project people.

Sure.

Yeah.

And also the removal of the signal device at on New York and Bevel is created a drag strip between state and rural.

Yes, ma'am.

Um the traffic calming now done on some streets on like 10th street, and they put the big flower pots in the center.

Are there gonna be other designs come up, or that's just it?

We can talk about that.

So that is a tactical urbanism project.

So that's part of community-powered infrastructure, which is a cost share program with neighborhoods and the department of public works to do these temporary installations.

Um the idea is you're testing a hypothesis.

So for this one, it's if we place uh you know some sort of physical uh buffer in the roadway, then that will lower speeds.

So the idea with these projects is you have that hypothesis, you put you get data, so you get speed data in this case, you then install the project after a little bit, a predetermined amount of time, you get more data.

It hopefully confirms the hypothesis that putting this infrastructure in the right of way did lower speeds.

Um, and if that is the outcome, then it becomes a matter of the city taking that information and being able to incorporate it into a permanent infrastructure project.

So those are all temporary installations, but with the goal that they will confirm that hypothesis and will be able to install them permanently.

Yeah, but the the question concern is they can only be down in the spring and summer because I want to get my freeze drivers.

So then they have to come out the end.

Um but I mean, are there other design thought processes that could be used?

I guess is our concern.

Yeah, so it's kind of separate from community-powered infrastructure, but it can be informed by it, and maybe Mark will have more to say about it.

But the department also has been utilizing some kind of like mid-tier, um, still temporary in nature infrastructure, but can stay out through uh the seasons through various conditions.

So, Mark, I don't know if you have anything you would like to add about.

Yeah, you have like quick build infrastructure.

Um, yeah, so up and down college, there's a couple good examples that uh 34th and 32nd where there was issues with cars crossing the roadway and causing left turn accidents, and so we restrict the left turns, we put down it's called quick curve.

Uh, it's like a rubber curve with bowlers on it, and that's bolted into the into the asphalt.

It's something our operations teams can install, and it's something they can install uh fairly quickly if we have the material, and that is something we're exploring uh in expanding that program and doing more of as for 10th Street specifically.

Uh that tactile urbanism project was successful, it did show a reduction in speeds, and we do have a project programmed um in construction in 28 uh on 10th Street between um Emerson and Arlington.

So, what happens in the three years between now and 28?

The conditions currently as is exist.

Yeah, so the battle packs go down in the center in the spring and summer, they come up in the wintertime.

I don't the tactile urbanized project will not come back.

No, so you're just testing it for that temporary period of time.

So projects can be um, let me think it's up to 60 days or 60 days and beyond, depending on the type of project.

Um, and after that amount of time has elapsed, the project gets removed and then it can be incorporated if that hypothesis is confirmed through the capital plan.

Um capital projects take a long time.

That's just kind of the fact of construction.

So while it would be great if we would be able to, you know, take those projects out and immediately come through with that infrastructure change.

Um, when we're talking about especially programming a new project that just takes multiple years due to the need to design it, bid it, construct it, sign off on it, etc.

So as of right now, that is kind of the situation we're working with.

We are exploring some of these quick build materials to potentially be able to serve in that intermediate uh space before we're able to incorporate into a permanent infrastructure process, but uh or project, but um, as of right now, those are just solely temporary installations.

So okay, so I'll I'm sorry.

So for traffic commons, yeah.

The pods went down, the hypothesis worked.

But what?

Um I'm still not I'm not understanding for Amber, three years down the project, they take a long time.

Flower pods are gonna go down permanently.

Um that's where I don't know the exact it's not necessarily a one-to-one in terms of what was used for the temporary installation and then what the permanent feature looks like.

So, Mark, I don't know if you have that information.

That's part of the project development process that takes time is to understand what that cross-section will look like, but um the goal there is to reduce on 10th street.

There's a very long continuous left turn lane, people use the pass in, people use the drive fast in.

The goal is to break that left turn lane up, which is kind of what the flower pots did.

We're not quite sure what that'll look like yet.

Um we don't want to pull a long continuous median down the middle because there are driveways and homes and people who who want to turn left onto side streets and that sort of thing as well, too.

Um I know the neighborhood was also interested in adding missing pieces of sidewalk, which will be included in that project, and also I believe buffering that bike lane more to provide more protection.

So those are all things that um will be worked through in the project development process.

I don't I don't have an exact answer of what that project will look like.

But for traffic calming, other street projects, this was done to test something.

Yes, they now want to do traffic calming on a different street.

It could be this same thing, or it could be something different.

It could be those ballards, although they don't technically on the traffic, they keep the traffic from coming over.

So it could be anything, although we were told it would be light street, that may not be true.

That may not be what it okay.

Is there another specific location you're talking about?

Yeah, Andrew J.

Brown.

Um tree.

Yeah, the mall on you, and they wanted to do another bike line, but no, we're not having bike lines 10 feet apart from each other.

No, so traffic calming understanding.

So it sounds like this is maybe an existing project where there are traffic coming elements.

Is that the same?

And it's from 16th Street now.

The next slide is 22nd street.

Okay.

Um, understand the reasoning didn't understand why.

And so you know, just trying to.

Well, and the reason I'm talking about it is my last my former capacity.

This was I was uh overseeing the community powered infrastructure program.

So I'm not fully up to speed on all of the current projects.

But um, if you have any questions about anything involving a community card infrastructure project, reimagine row at indie.gov is a resource account you can reach out to.

That's reimagine ROW at Indie.gov, and they would be more than happy to answer any questions about current projects.

I have a question about a specific issue.

The the low meeting cement median, it was placed down radium street.

Um as you're going north on Rain Street and approaching Fall Creek so that cars can't turn left without going across that little medium.

Um, now it's just I mean it's a narrow median.

It it is I I don't know, I can't remember where it starts, but south from Fall Creek on the radium.

So it's dividing that's dividing the lanes.

It's you're not supposed to turn left, you're supposed to down and do a U-turn and come back.

Oh, that's the fall creek or Marine.

Yeah, correct.

Yeah, can it be repaid as painted so it's more obvious on the I can't drive down there coming in?

I watched two cars today.

Turn left, they were southbound on the rain, turn left into I think it's a taco bell in Kentucky Ride Chicken thing.

Yeah, turn left, because you can't really see that medium very well.

It's I don't know if it needs to be painted or that's a very hard it's a very hard turn there so because of the uh uh the bridge there, yeah, construction uh sidewalk there should be a cut back uh if there's possible.

Uh look at the pattern there.

You know, I believe it's intended for no left turn.

It is intended for no turn, which is fine.

That's not what I'm concerned about.

It's that people who are not familiar with the area, she can't see that that median is there.

It's very low, it's not wide, it's fairly narrow.

I watched this one lady's face she was driving over this median and she couldn't stop.

So just to look at to go back to general, I think for even for as long as citizens has taken over the water in the sewer, people are still confused about sewage sewers and stormwater drainage, and when do they call DPW and when do they call citizens?

Who's responsible for what?

So I oversee the mayor's action center as well, uh, within my current capacity.

So this is a question we get all the time.

The rule of thumb is if it deals with water, call citizens first.

It might be a stormwater asset, which would come to the city, but we're always supposed to start with citizens energy group and they refer it back to us.

If you do call into the mayor's action center, we can still case take the case as a CEG referral.

It just kind of adds another step to the process.

So if you see water and you have a question about water in the right-of-way, start with Citizens Energy Group.

If it needs to come to the department, citizens is able to relay that information to us.

So you guys get the call that the sewer.

That would be citizens energy group, which is why we say it's really complicated, and we don't expect residents to know the difference, especially when it's dealing with standing water, what that's coming from.

So that's why we say if it has anything to do with water or sewer, start with Citizens Energy Group.

It'll come back to us if it needs to.

I have one final question.

The mayor of the councilman has a uh a little budget that they threw out there for important streets to be good, correct?

Okay.

Uh one of uh councilman also used uh uh projects of the phone in there with the Sraubber and Highland uh streets from Fall Creek to 26 or 27th Street.

Do you know exactly when that project is been okay with when yeah we're we're finally finalizing the project development on that?

Um most of those uh counselor uh projects will be done in 2026, 2026 yesterday.

Okay.

Okay, real quickly because I know we're running, we're running close to the wire here.

Illegal dumping.

Who is DPW responsible for that if it's something that's dumped in the right-of-way?

Yeah, ultimately uh DPW is responsible for uh cleaning up that illegal dumping in the right of way as well.

Well, I I know recently I've had a couple people comment that they they called about illegal dumping tires and mattresses that were dumped beside the road, and they got told that the they the property owner, you know, the person who's guard comes needs to clean that up.

Um, you know, our DPW operations are not allowed to go on private property.

I'm not gonna talk about what's done in the road right of way.

Well, then we should be picking that up.

And why are they being told that they need to go out and clean it up?

I don't know that.

Apparently.

I can clarify, or I'll I'll work with the team to make sure we have correct guidance on that.

I think what folks are thinking of is if it is um, you know, right of way or easement that is right next to private property, there is an ordinance a rule that private property owners are responsible for mitigation of that illegal dumping.

Um, that was specifically created at a time where I believe it was one of the national dollar chains was having a significant amount of illegal dumping at their properties, so that ordinance was put into place so that if their dumpster was overflowing, if if people were getting into it and spreading um litter everywhere, that there was a responsibility on the property owner's end to abate that problem.

But when it comes to traditional legal dumping where it's you know off of a roadway, a trail, that is something that BPW is able to address.

And then if it is on private property, BNS that says the neighborhood services has their processes for addressing that as well.

Okay.

The I'm sorry, go ahead.

You say road raise and trail, but what about alleys?

So much dumping is done in alley, so it's responsible.

Yeah, so that is those ones can be tricky because a lot of times alleys are right of way, sometimes it can be easement, sometimes it is private.

So those are assessed by a field investigator if they're submitted, and they'll assign it to the correct entity.

And then the recycling bins, um, a lot of them, the community recycling bins have been removed from locations recently, and unfortunately it's real.

I mean, it's the people who are using them where they're just dumping all kinds of stuff outside the bins that isn't recyclable, creating a mess.

Um, what are the alternatives that communities have?

Because driving you know across the county to a recycling location isn't going to encourage recycling, and I realize we're going to further side, but we've got this gap in between where people have hardboard boxes and plastic containers, and are there any options for that?

Yeah.

So that's been a significant struggle.

Part of that is due to a lot of our locations where at Kroger sites, a combination of Kroger stores shutting down and changing their corporate guidelines for what cleanliness how they're sport on cleanliness meant that we had to remove a lot of those sites that were in Kroger locations, um, which is very unfortunate.

I would say we are always looking for viable locations for those recycling sites.

So if you have an area in mind that you think would be a good host site, please loop in your mayor's neighborhood advocate, call into the mayor's action center, shoot me an email, I'm good with that.

Talk to your counselor.

They all know about this need, so they'll be able to get it to the to the Department of Public Works to hopefully be able to work on that relationship.

We are looking at potential other community assets that I I don't think I um are far long enough for me to say are uh resources at this moment, but um it is something we're constantly thinking about, even to you know that that point of 2028 where we are able to roll out curb site services.

The other thing I'll say is for residents that um you know can do so subscription curbside recycling is available.

That is a the rate that you are charged with negotiated through the city.

So while we do not maintain, you know, it's not you're calling into the city and getting that service from the city, you're calling into the city.

We negotiated a rate with um as of 2026 LRS that they will charge you on a quarterly basis.

So that is an option for folks that are wanting curbside recycling currently.

Um it is an additional fee, so that is paid by the residents directly to LRS or the vendor, but that is that is currently available as well.

But that community that community recycling location program is still available if I can find a host, and people I I used to get very aggravated when people would blame the city because the recycling location was used as a dumping site, and it's not the city's responsibility, and you know, some of it has to be citizens' education, and I realize a lot of that takes place at night when people think nobody's watching.

They'll come and put out the old big screen TV beside the recycling bin.

So I guess to neighborhoods, I would say if you want a community recycling location close to you, the residents have to take responsibility, you know, to make sure that to try and monitor it and make sure that that dumping doesn't take place, or you lose the recycling bins.

Mr.

Wilson, one bank, Claire.

30 street two-way conversion from Meridian out how far, and maybe 29 speed could be from where to where so I believe the project limits for a two-way conversion is from basically Ball Creek to the White River.

Now it's already two-way there at Ball Creek of refreshing the pavement there and adjusting the pavement markings in that area as well.

And then 2019 the setting areas.

Yes.

Okay.

I do have one last question if you've got the time.

I know we're over on time limit.

Has to do with maintenance of roadside ditches, which, as I understand, by current current ordinance, it is the property owners that are responsible for keeping those ditches clear and flowing so that roadside drainage is working, storm on drainage.

But what if somebody doesn't have the resources to do that?

The ditch is too deep or the you know, the growth is too high.

What do they what do they do if they don't have the financial resources or the physical ability to do that?

Do are there any is there any recourse?

I mean, there's not a lot of people at back host to redefined the roadside ditch that's gotten filled in with silt and stuff.

Yeah, I think that's a case-by-case basis.

Um, you know, the city couldn't help out in many ways.

But um, you know, I a specific case, the property owners are responsible for it, just like the properties are responsible for mowing the grass uh and the utility strip next to the roadway.

Um, so it's hard to discern, you know, uh those issues from people that can and cannot uh take care of that.

Or there are people that you know have the DIY, my yard is flooding when it rains, so I'm gonna do this to my ditch, but then that puts the water on somebody else or blocks the water from flowing.

Then when that happens, how is that addressed?

Well, then that that can be a mayor's action center uh complaint, and we'd have our field investigators or um and or department of business neighborhood services go out and see if they have been any uh work that altered the public right-of-way to create that condition, and then we'd be able to address that with that property owner.

Okay, okay.

Are there any including comments that you or any of your staff would like to make?

No, I really appreciate this.

We're very good questions today, and um, you know, uh can't wait to sit down with this group again and uh give the next address uh uh next year or whatever uh saying how about if we set up a time next year and I'll make sure that we get everything confirmed and get the proper notification up for everybody because clearly there's a lot of questions that maybe doesn't.

Okay, well, thank you very much.

It was very nice to meet you.

Okay, well I have the right email address.

Yes, ma'am.

Alrighty, well, thank you very much.

Okay.

Um to finish the meeting up today, as I said, um, we will put this form up on our website.

Um, there is a form out on the table for this new initiative that we're going to try.

This is a new effort.

We'll see how we do.

Um, if you've got a specific issue in your neighborhood, like trash carts that are in the middle of the sidewalk that you can't get addressed, or the alley behind the post office that we can't seem to get repaid.

We want to start asking neighborhoods as kind of like a call to arms.

Let's work to support each other in getting those and make sure that we get collective voices to the right officials that say this is a problem, we need to get it fixed.

What will you do?

There are forms out there to do that, uh, to fill out for that, and then we'll also put it up on the Facebook page so that you can provide information.

We'll need to have contact information who's reporting the problem, whether you're an individual resident or part of a neighborhood or doing it as an as a representative of a neighborhood organization.

Um, pictures are always helpful.

Um, but specific information how long has the problem existed, where does it exist, who had and what actions have been taken to try and address it before.

And then what we'll do is to take that information and we're gonna do two days for each township a month and see how it works, put that information out and say on this date in Pike Township.

We want to have this issue addressed.

Please add your voice and contact these officials to say we need to get this problem addressed.

Let's like I said, let's build our voices to get our strength to work collectively to get some of these done so that you don't feel like you're out there on your own trying to figure out how to get this problem resolved.

With that, I want to remind you that our next meeting is on November the 7th or November the 15th.

Um the Marie County prosecutor Ryan Mears will be with us, and we will be in touch shortly.

Just go ahead and see if we can do the date set up for you to come guys to come back.

Um you know, I know snow season's busy for you, but then after snow season is road repair season.

There you go.

Which season you want to pick?

But we do definitely want to get you back and make sure that that we get notice out to all of our members and stuff to let them know so that they can bring their issues.

Okay, thank you very much.

Everybody enjoy your day, and I don't know whether to hope it doesn't rain or pray that it does rain because boy, we need that water.

All righty, thank you very much.

Have a good day.

Thank you.