I want to say welcome to everybody for the first meeting of the Marion County Alliance of Neighborhood Associations for 2026.

I had to practice out on the way here, so I wouldn't say the wrong year.

We I want to for those of you that are joining us for the first time, either in person or on channel 16 and 28.

I want to give a brief statement about what McKenna is and what we what our mission is.

My name is currently, my name is currently my name is Cappy Burton, and I am the current president of the Marion County Alliance of Neighborhood Associations.

We were formed in 1990 as a 501 C3 group of neighborhood organizations and homeowners' associations from across Marion County to give an opportunity for neighborhoods to connect with each other, share experiences, stories, recommendations, ask for help and support in the efforts that they are making in their neighborhoods.

Even though we each have our own unique set of challenges and issues and opportunities in our neighborhoods like that, we share votes, we share challenges across the county and believe that if neighborhoods can work together, it will give us a stronger voice in affecting the issues that impact our neighborhoods, our daily lives, and our quality of living.

We do meet on the third Saturday of every month, except December.

We meet from 9 to 11 a.m.

at North United Methodist Church.

And those meetings are open not just to our members but also to the general public.

If you have an issue in your neighborhood that you would like address or are seeking assistance in how to navigate government opportunities in Marion County, you are welcome to join us, voice your concerns.

Of course, we would like you to join McCannna if you would.

The dues are $20 a year per organization.

Those are due in January of each year.

And we are again we welcome you to come to those meetings, either to listen and learn or to share your experiences, ask questions, seek support for your neighborhood issues.

We do want to thank North United Methodist Church, which is located at 38th and Meridian for allowing us to meet in their church.

It's centrally located, it's on the Indigo bus line, so it should be easily accessible and have ample parking for those of you who drive, but for those of you who want to get public transportation, it is on the bus line.

And we also want to thank Channel 16 and 28 for airing our meetings every month so that we have an opportunity to reach people who are interested in neighborhood and city county issues, even if they are not able to attend the meetings in person.

If you would like to contact McCana, you are welcome to do so.

You can either contact me.

My number is 317-847-9959.

Or my email address is CB7801 at AOL.com.

You are also welcome to contact us through our Facebook page, which if I, although I'm not a Czech person, if I look at the statistics, seems to be very active.

At our general membership meetings, we attempt to have speaker or speakers that will come and address issues that are of interest to neighborhoods, and we always welcome suggestions from our neighborhoods about what kinds of topics you would like to see addressed at McCana so that we can attempt to arrange speakers that can that can handle those issues.

Understanding that there is a delay, there this is not, as I understand, this is not a live recording, but Channel 16 does play this meeting several times through the month.

So if you've got an amendment that's going on this afternoon, we certainly welcome you to share it with the people who are in the room.

But for the general public, if you have an opportunity to get those dates in mind and announce them enough ahead of time so that people will know what's going on, and there are lots of great things that the neighborhoods are doing.

From block parties to town halls to celebrations and investigations of a whole variety of things.

So for people who have chosen to join McCana, we invite you to share your $20, which we will put to good use.

Some of you may remember from last year.

There was just kind of a kerfuffle with Todd Wilson, who's the current director with BPW attending our meeting.

There was just a miscommunication about when he was going to come, and he came a month when we had somebody else that was scheduled, and he was gracious enough to be understanding and share the agenda.

And we had spoken to him about coming back in January, so that DPW had the entire portion of the speaker program.

While Mr.

Wilson was unable to join us, and several members of the DPW staff are here with us this morning.

Certainly the conditions of the roadways as we move from winter into spring and the chuckles begin to open up as probably one of the issues that is most prominent from neighborhoods, as well as the transition to the new trash service.

But they've got they do lots of other things besides chuckles and snow removal.

And we will ask them to come up in a few minutes.

But in the meantime, I want to ask if there's anyone that wants to announce any upcoming meetings in their or events in their neighborhoods.

Pat.

Okay.

Decatur Township is facing a data center petition.

And this will be the fourth date change for the hearing.

So patience, everyone.

The new hearing date is January 26th.

Oh, sorry, Jamie.

I'm living in the past.

February 26th is the new hearing date.

So that's the hearing downtown.

Yeah, before the hearing examiner.

And please tell your neighbors.

I know it's frustrating, but that it's not terribly uncommon for dates to change in these things.

That's one thing.

What time was that up, Pat?

Oh, it's always at 1 o'clock, sorry.

Yeah, always at 1 o'clock at the City County Building, second floor of the public assembly night.

But we'll be uh the civic council will be voting on this and taking a formal position on January 26th.

Um so please attend that meeting.

The location just determined, but it will be 7 p.m.

We're working with the school system to locate the best facility for that meeting.

So I have two other things.

Okay, just to be clear.

The meeting on January the 26th is at 7 o'clock.

That is the dictator township civic council.

We'll be uh considering this petition, and we'll take a vote for our formal position downtown.

And we're not a board.

We are um unusual in that respect.

We our members actually vote by paper ballot to determine our position.

And and if people want to find out the location of that, how do they do that?

Uh we'll be pushing it out on Facebook, and uh we have a blast list.

Okay.

Yeah.

But it's always good to have that communication with uh people you know or or you know you run into that, hey, this is going on.

Um but yeah, so the legal hearing is February the 26th at 1 o'clock at the city county building.

Yes.

And for those who are not who don't attend to zoning hearings on an usual basis, when that agenda starts at 1 o'clock, that doesn't mean that this is the petition that will happen at 1 o'clock.

The hearing examiner will have several petitions from across the city, and you don't know the order of them.

So when you go down town at 1 o'clock, that doesn't mean it's going to your petition is going to be heard at 1 o'clock, but you do need to be prepared to be there for a while.

So I just want to make sure people understand that.

And you need to be prepared that all of the petitions who um are on the agenda before yours will get continued or expedited, and you will be the first one up.

So yeah, that whole agenda is not time sensitive.

But that you know, when you're used to it, you're used to it.

But um when it's your first time, it's hard.

Okay.

Um there's also um for those of you who've been into the billboard stuff for a long time.

The uh state house is back at it.

Um there's a bill that's gone uh partially through the Senate process called the Senate Bill 167.

Um it would allow uh billboard companies to relocate their billboards as they wish, and uh would eliminate the uh distance that a billboard has to be from a protected district.

So um you if you do not care for those changes, uh there's several people you should be contacting.

One is Aaron Freeman, who can be reached at Senator dot Freeman, F-R-E-E-M-A-N at IGA.in dot G-O-V.

And that Ig A.in.g-O-V is going to be for every single one of these people.

So that part stays the same.

You can contact Andrea Hunley, who's at Senator.hunley, H-U-N-L-E-Y at I-G-A.in dot-O-V.

Greg Taylor is at S, as in Sam, S33 at I-G A I N dot G O E.

And J D Ford, who is can be reached at S29 at Ig A.in.gov.

And the speaker of the House is Todd Houston, who can be reached at H37 at IGA.in dot G-O-V.

So and as we get further, there's they will transfer to the House, and we can put post that on our Facebook page to get it out.

The other thing I just dropped on the floor.

And am I correct that what is being proposed in Senate bill 167 supersedes Marion County ordinances?

The legislature has a um a habit of considering removing pieces and parts of home rule from Indianapolis, and it's a shipping process.

So this is yet another thing where they want to reach into because the billboard industry is unhappy in their lobbyists contact the legislature.

So they get they start moving these things through.

So we've been successful so far, but it does take us all to reach out.

But when it does hit the house for sure, I don't know that there'll be another hearing in the Senate because they just kind of pop them right through.

They had two hearings fast.

Are these four senators all the authors of it?

I don't believe so.

No, Freeman definitely is.

Okay.

Yeah, these might be folks on the committee or typical votes.

So is that good?

Okay, and last but not least.

There are still two open house opportunities, and there are maps all around the county, so you don't have to go to one closest to you.

You can you know take a short vacation and go to another part of the county.

But there are two uh open houses still left.

One is January 20th at the West Perry Library from 6.30 to 8 p.m.

And the address there is 6650 South Harding Street.

There is one also on February 2nd up in Pike at Pike Branch Library, 6 30 to 8 p.m.

And that address is 6525 Zionsville Road.

For those of you who have already seen the maps and want to uh make comment, um there are two ways you can find this information.

So you can either write this down, you can uh go online to Indy dot Conveyo, it's K-O-N-B-E-I-O.com, and you can get access to the map, which is the color coding for all of the different land use recommendations, um, and to the pattern book because they've made changes to the pattern book.

So those of you who are in who know about these things, you're gonna have to look at both.

Um so you can access it that way.

For those of you in the room, I brought the printed out a couple of these flyers.

Um you can also just go to uh on Facebook, find the Department of Metropolitan Development's Facebook page, and they have links and uh to this stuff.

Now, in order to leave a comment, which is highly recommended if there are things that you would uh not prefer to see on the map or things you would like added to the map, you are going to have to register and create an account on that website.

If that's not something that you're comfortable with or want to do, um you can contact Logan Lane, who is spearheading this for the city.

It's Logan L O G A N Logan.gov.

So Logan.lane at Indie.gov, and he's happy to take your comments that way as well.

So and that the comment period is now open and closes on February 4th.

So we have a short window here.

So there's a lot of homework to get done in order to make uh cogent uh comments.

Um but but do that and circulate that to uh all your member organizations and folks.

So that's enough.

Okay.

But that's all.

Okay.

Um I will say for people who have been through the comprehensive plan process before, unlike previous processes, um, once the maps were um configured after they had the first set of public meetings, there are not public meetings in every township.

Um, and so that has drawn some um commentary about lack of accessibility for people that you know don't want to drive across town or don't use the online method.

Um, but that is the set of parameters that we have.

So if you want to see those maps and have conversation make comment and purpose in on purpose, you're gonna have to for some townships, you're gonna have to go outside your comfort boundaries to be able to do that.

Um also the pattern book that Pat referred to was something that was developed in the last round of comprehensive plan meetings, um, and it is a narrative that talks about other conditions that are that would be preferred for different kinds of development and different kinds of locations, but as the comprehensive plan is not set in stone, nor is the pattern book.

Um, and so if there are changes to the pattern book, those are simply changes to the suggestions, not those that pattern book is not the law.

Um, and so and that has been confusing to people about how much weight the comp plan and the pattern book have in the rezoning process.

Um I just want to make sure we do yes.

Can I one there is one more?

Oh, okay.

Okay, so the city council is considering um issues revolving around data centers.

One of the problems for the city right now is that uh data centers aren't contemplated at all in our zoning ordinance.

So that's a vacuum.

There are no standards for them.

There's no uh there's a lot of um information that the council needs to collect on its own.

There's a big learn curve, so they're gonna have to get up that too.

But as I understand it, there is going to be um uh a start to them looking into the data center issue at the uh at a uh is the environmental and sustainability committee.

It's uh John Barth's committee.

Um and they are supposedly taking starting to take up the issue, just a generalized issue.

Um there are things that I mean, even to define what a data center is and then to begin to regulate or consider regulations for it, like setbacks and uh all sorts of things that are coming up.

Um, this the council is going to take that up.

So if you are interested in data centers, you think you're gonna be affected by data centers or the rates of your electric bill because of data centers, um then you might want to start plugging into what the council is doing and start voicing your opinions to them as well.

Um the ordinance is being uh a draft change to the ordinance for data centers is being pursued at the moment.

And uh Shannon Norman is in charge of that, of course, and she's very well aware of a good public process.

So the public should have some good input with how that actually gets written up.

Shannon Norman.

She she I'm not sure what her title is.

Uh she uh does the ordinance uh rewrites and shepherds all that through a noisy uh neighborhood uh public input.

So that meeting is on January 28th at 5 30.

Oh, thank you.

The sustainability, they just came out with that yesterday.

But um day is that a Wednesday.

Will there can we comment at the committee or do we just usually they have the two-minute drill where you can uh get in line and um uh you know make comment?

Um I don't know who's going they are inviting for the first round.

I expect it would take several meetings and possibly several committees.

The ordinance rewrite will carry will run in a different um uh process that goes out for public hearing or for public comment, then it goes through the MDC, um, and then it goes the MDC should it approve of it without changes, it goes to the city county council for enactment.

If the council makes any changes to that, what was approved by the MDC goes back to the MDC for their approval again of the changes.

So there's two different processes going on.

But do contact if you have um like if you have feelings or you have things you want your counselor to know about data centers and what needs to be regulated.

Um and I will I'll personally I'll say that I think that the first question should be do we have data?

Should we have data centers?

And um the council appears to be jumping over that question.

I think they should pause for a second and say what benefits are those data centers to our community.

So that's my personal view.

Okay, any other upcoming events in your neighborhoods.

Um I will, yes, ma'am.

Oh, okay.

I was gonna have a few for the um far east side brief introduction.

My name is Sydney Starks, I'm the mayor's neighborhood advocate for the Far East Side.

I do have some handouts for like general city resource resources on the table out there.

Okay, but the upcoming events I want to highlight, so this upcoming Monday for Martin Luther King Junior Day, there is um sharing the dream open house, so that's through Indie Parks.

Um January 19th from 10 to 11:30 a.m.

at 1313 South Post Road.

So that's the um Indianapolis World Sports Park.

Um so Citizens Energy Group have a group of volunteers and partners for this annual event.

Um it's a nice open house.

I'll be there, so if you're interested in going, um, that'll be this Monday.

And then I also wanted to share um attention for the Far East Side Quality of Life Initiative.

So there's an upcoming event um Saturday, January 31st from noon to 2 p.m.

Um, so there is a registration, so you can register at the Far East Side Community Council website.

Um, I also do have some information that I could send if anyone's interested in that.

Um, but it's um an event to go over the community report um from far east outsiders and what they're seeing and um different conditions that they want to improve.

So kind of like um a meeting for open comment, um, ask questions, things of that nature.

I will also be there as well.

But I do have these handouts on the table for everyone with general um city resources.

I do have the land use meetings on here in print, so if you didn't get a chance to write down the dates and times, I have those as well.

Okay, well, Sydney, normally we would segue within to announcement for the mayor's neighborhood advocate.

So are there any other things citywide that you'd like to bring up?

I know you've got your printout.

Sure.

The Far East Side, do you know what the definition is of that area?

So for the quality of life initiative, they have a specific area map.

It's not on a website, I can't see it.

So I I have a copy of it on my I can I can get it to you after I present, but I do have an actual map of it.

Um, and then uh I do have general city resistance.

Should I come up?

Sure.

Okay, awesome.

Yeah, I wanted to shed light on those because I know that uh the indie parks one, that one is Monday, so I probably won't be aired.

But so I do have these handouts for everyone out there if they're interested.

So different things.

I know we have DPW here, but I do have some QR codes as far as like talk strop sites, heavy trash pickup, and indie snow force, different information pertaining to that, and then I do have the uh cart transition FAQs for the LRS transition.

I know there have been a lot of questions pertaining to that, but I know DPW is here, so I won't go too far into that.

Um I do have information pertaining to the Indy Snow Buddies program, so that is something that's been super cool.

Um, it matches volunteers uh with neighbors who are able to shovel their snow.

Um, so I have information here as well as the um Indie.gov winter weather preparedness uh portal is where there's a lot of information on that also, as well as like Christmas tree removal, different things like that.

Land use meetings.

I have all the information here.

Something I do want to make sure I speak verbally on is the INRC has um an upcoming um leadership training series, so it's a free session uh that will build strengths based on practices like access-based community development and different things in your neighborhood.

So that is January 28th at 5:30 p.m.

It is a virtual session, um, and I do have the QR code to sign up and register there as well.

And then um I wanted to shed light on the community-powered infrastructure application, so those are open.

So those are open.

I do have a QR code to apply for that, but what that is is a program about helping neighbors bring their ideas to life.

So whether it's a small street improvement or just an art project, different ways to be creative in your neighborhood.

So I also have those applications linked here.

And then I have information pertaining to IMPD and IFD resources.

So I do represent Area 2, which is the Far East Side and parts of Warren Township.

So I have information pertaining to my TAS first meetings.

But for the other districts, I know they are active on their Facebook pages as far as wanting to get information about those.

I just attended the recent IAPDE's Task First meeting.

Went very well.

We had the CLCR there, super informational.

If you have any questions about that, you can always get with me as well.

And then I do have the new Indie Go fixed route fares and access accessibility fares, different things of that nature as well.

I have information about the blue line, but that also pertains specifically to my area.

I just wanted to make sure I had time to go over this.

Winter contingency shelters, information about Indiana 211, the Mayor's Action Center, things of that nature.

I didn't want to speed too far much into this, but if anyone has specific questions, I'm here throughout the entirety of the meeting.

I did want to say that I do represent the Far East side.

So if you're ever interested in knowing different things of that, I do have my email here if you want to subscribe to my newsletter.

But there are 10 areas that the mayor's neighborhood advocates are spread across across.

So if you go to indie.gov and type in Mayor's Neighborhood Advocate, you can type in your address and see who represents you, and then you can ask specific questions pertaining to your area to your advocate.

Explain CLCR.

That's what it means.

Yeah, so the clinically led.

So I had they came and spoke with us a representative, and what they are is so when you call 911 or you need emergency assistance, there will be a queue where they can ask you a questions, and it's basically like a tree of information.

So if you are someone who's experiencing or know someone's experiencing like a mental health crisis, when they call 911, it's a prompt and they can dispatch the team of individuals that could come and help you.

Now there is questions pertaining to how that is would go about.

You can jump in if you'd like.

Community response.

Oh, yeah, sorry.

Yes, sorry, sorry.

My apologies.

And so an officer may be dispatched, but if they feel like the clinically led team is a better response, they can dispatch them or vice versa.

So far, it sounds like it's been super helpful.

They wear a nice uniform with their acronym on it, and then they also have a van as well.

So different things.

I still have a few questions pertaining to how they go about things, but I will say it was very informational.

Um I do have some information on my newsletter pertaining to that.

So to round back, if you do want to subscribe to my newsletter, you can send me a quick email as well.

Um there any other questions about anything that I went over?

I know there's a lot of information.

I kind of just can you get your email address.

Yes, so my email address is my name, so it's Sydney S Y D N E Y dot Starks, S-T-A-R-K-S at Indie.gov.

Alrighty, thank you.

A couple of other things.

Um, I want you everybody to be aware, keep your eye out for announcements about the great and eat cleanup and that should be coming out from keeping the apples beautiful soon to schedule um dumpsters and packing trucks for community cleanups.

Now that the snow what we had is melted, the trash along the street sides and down the alleys is very obvious.

Um so just keep an eye out for announcements about when those um applications for those jumpsters will open up in case you want to get people out in your community to get things cleaned up.

Um, also it's kind of a side note, and Cindy, I've Sydney, I certainly don't mean to put you on the spot, but a lot of times when neighbors are attending our meetings or watching us on television, it may be the first time that they've really entered into the greater community of neighborhood-based organizations, and we all, myself included, get into the habit of using acronyms, and we've had our audience going, what does that stand for?

What are they talking about?

So that's just kind of a thought when you are talking about events or issues in your neighborhood, and you may be talking to a group of neighbors who are new to the system, um, make sure that you tell them what are those acronyms so that they can come into the loop as quickly as possible.

Um, and that's a request that we've had in the canna several times like I said, I fall into that habit.

You know, I'll just go zip it along and I'll talk about D and D or DPW, and these may be people who are really new to city government and community involvement, and they don't know what we're talking about.

So just kind of a thought to use.

Um that I want to make you aware of that should both fall on February the 12th at the hearing examiner.

Um these are legal rezoning hearings that are held downtown in the city county building.

They are both on February the 12th at this point, um, that are for the proposed data center in the Martindale Brightwood neighborhood and the proposed data center in Pike Township.

Um again, those hearing dates are always somewhat of a moving target, so you can't assume that it's going to happen.

But those two data centers are currently scheduled for that date.

Um that's actually the piece of information I was going to share from Martin Del Brightwood as well.

Do you want to expand on it any?

Or actually that was perfect.

February 12th is the next uh zoning hearing for Martin Dovewood.

Um so definitely come out support.

Um, and thank you for sharing that.

Okay.

Um after our, excuse me, after our general membership meeting day, we will be having a land use meeting where we'll be talking about the proposed data centers in Decatur and Martindale Brightwood.

Um, but with that, I'm going to Hi Jackie, how are you?

Um I'm going to move on to our um speakers for this morning.

We have, oh yes, ma'am, I'm sorry.

I'm so sorry.

I just had a question about the mayor's neighborhood advocate.

Would it be appropriate to reach out to the applicant in our area about the data center?

Like I know that there's the DMD, but sorry, nope.

I'm doing it, but um I I also think it would be cool, it would be good to connect with the mayor, considering the HELEX over over half of the um at the Metropolitan Development Commission.

So it's it'd be appropriate to answer your quick.

I'm gonna say to answer your question.

So uh, for instance, like the Martinsdale uh Brightwood neighborhood.

So uh our advocate, his name is Karen Dean Sanders.

So he's been um going to those meetings and connecting with neighbors, so I definitely would recommend reaching out to your advocate in those areas that the data centers or any projects or any questions you have going on in a specific neighborhood, once you look up who that advocate is, they more and likely are a little bit more in tune on what's going on since that's their area that they covered.

Okay.

Mm-hmm.

So, yeah, we don't have one.

Oh, at the cater, yeah.

Okay.

Okay, I want to go I'm sorry, but you're done.

No, I just said I didn't realize that.

Thank you, Pat.

Who do we reach out to then?

Because when we reach up to the mayor, we just kind of get an automatic reroute to for Area 4.

If you're talking about, uh we do have our director, uh Natalie Van Doggen, who's um you could reach out to as we fill that area and she's here as well.

Oh, yeah.

Um, and I'm the director of community outreach for the city of Indianapolis.

So, yes, you can absolutely reach out to me if you are in Area 4.

Um, my email is Natalie N-A-T-A-L-I-E, period Van Donggan, V-A-N-D-O-N, and G E N at N D.gov.

Um, you are more than welcome to send those my way.

I will say anytime you're working with a mayor's neighborhood advocate on any kind of land use or zoning case, you might hear them say that the mayor's office does not take a position.

So that is because of the appointments to MDC.

So the mayor's neighborhood advocates themselves won't be able to share a position, but they're able to ensure that your voices are being heard through the staff recommendations from DMD, the Department of Metropolitan Development.

So all of that information is being circulated and shared internally and it's being put into action, but I just wanted to give that preface in case you're working with them and you hear uh mayor's neighborhood advocate say that.

Um the office itself does not take a position, but obviously through those appointments and through the Department of Metropolitan Development Development, we ensure that all of that community input is taken in and uh worked into our processes.

Um and then I know that there was a question about Shannon Norman's title earlier.

She is a principal planner for the Department of Metropolitan Development.

And I did look it up, and there is public comment for the Environmental and Sustainability Committee.

Um I know that was a question as well.

Well, thank you.

Yes, of course.

Can I ask her a follow-up question to her or is it?

You can.

I do want to be careful.

We want to get to our main speaker, and we'll be talking about data centers afterwards, but I don't want to also shut off opportunities to make connections.

So we're not going to go too far down the path of the data centers, but please we want to make sure that it gets the information that they need.

Uh sure.

Yeah, uh so speaking of the input to the main to the um to your department.

Um is there like a scorecard of how much weight the neighborhood community members have in terms of the NDC's staff determinations?

Um is there like a scorecard of how much weight the neighborhood community members have in terms of the NDC's staff determinations because they're they have a bucket of decisions there, I mean to make and one only our voice is only one of the things that's impacting the decision, I would imagine.

So how how do they I don't I'm asking you to tell me how we can fix things.

I'm saying what is the process that they would use to absorb our comments.

Yeah, that's a great question.

That is within uh the Department of Metropolitan's development development internal kind of processes, and I'm not super privy to how they weigh those, so I would be more than happy to make that connection and see if um maybe someone from DFD would be willing to come to make the can I sort of work through how that works, what's their receiving that information?

Right.

Yeah, I think it would be useful for us to know is like is it like two percent, or is it heavily weighted, or it's not really you know how how because how much consideration is the information your team is collecting from our from the community members.

So I would be more than happy to pass along that question and see if we might be able to have them come in and make some comments to McAnna.

I do think one important component to contacting the city planners themselves is that sometimes community members can make them aware of issues that might not because each land use petition has its own set of unique factors and challenges, and the planners are looking at them the broad, I mean they're looking, they're trying to look at specific neighborhood issues and weigh that with the broad-based zoning issues.

And I think the way the state law um reads or is intended is they talk about the area that's affected, but they're talking they are often that's often referencing the entire county.

Right, and it is useful to make the planners aware of challenges that are specific to that site to ensure that when they are weighing all of the factors into their recommendation, you know, they know that people run this stop sign all all the time, or this site has been a problem because of.

Instead of just saying, here's a piece of ground that doesn't have anything developed on it, and they're looking at it as kind of a blank slate, and it isn't always a blank slender.

Thank you.

With that, um I'm with we appreciate all of the people who are here from DPW.

Um, as I said, DPW performs a variety of functions that are really critical to neighborhoods.

Some of them are very obvious if your trash doesn't get picked up, or you hit a pothole and you break the axle on your truck your car, those are very obvious.

Um, but they also have a lot of other functions that they are performing that are both um immediate short-term fixes and long-range trying to plan for the future.

And with us today, we have a variety of representatives from DPW.

We have with us, um, and if I mispronounce anyone's name, I apologize.

Um Mark St.

John.

That's me.

Leandre Level.

Yeah, that's me.

Um Kyle Boyd, who's the chief communications officer, and he's gonna check it over a minute, and then I'm Natalie Van Dongan, who we've seen with us um in different capacities over the years.

Um, apparently is gonna hang around in the back of the room.

So I am no longer aware of the DPW, but I do greatly appreciate the DPW team.

Um with that, Kyle, I am going to, if you're ready to go.

Well, we'll make sure I still have battery power on this.

So uh in the meantime, I guess we can do some uh quick bios, talk about uh where we're from and how we uh got to DPW.

Uh again, my name is Kyle Bloyd.

I am the Chief Communications Officer with ND DPW.

Uh yeah, I do.

Okay, cool.

And anyway, I am the chief communication software with ND DPW.

I'm from Brownsburg, uh, Indiana.

Uh originally, I spent about a decade up in uh West Lafayette.

I returned to Indianapolis in uh 2015.

I used to live right around the corner, uh, around 36 in Pennsylvania, and my wife and I, we also lived up in the Castleton area for a couple years, and now we've been down in Franklin Township for the uh the last uh few years.

Okay.

Okay, there we go.

Oh, I suppose about yourself for a minute.

Okay.

Hi.

Hi, my name is Leandre Lovell.

Um, I've been with DPW.

Well, my title is the Vision Zero Administrator.

I've been with DPW for nine months now.

I joined in May of last year.

Um my background is a little bit unique.

I'm not uh um engineer, I'm not a city planner.

Uh mostly a policy kind of person.

Previously before I joined this role, and this was a newly created role earlier this year because of the Vision Zero ordinance.

I'm going to talk more about that later.

But previously I worked at another local government.

Me and my wife live in Lawrence, and so I worked in the city of Lawrence.

And before that, I had a short stint stint, excuse me, in the Mary County Prosecutor's Office, and then another short stint when I worked at the Indian General Centpus.

So before that, I think looking back even further, I was actually a mayor's intern.

Actually, me and Natalie was never doing the same time.

So come full circle how we're both within the administration and try to progress public policy forwards.

So I can talk a little bit more about Vision Zero as we kind of move forward to the presentation.

I get to work with smart guys like Mark here, who teaches me a lot.

And I'll pass it off to him.

Yeah, I'm Mark St.

John.

I'm the chief engineer for the department.

I've been with DPW for just over a year now.

I've been the chief engineer since August.

I've lived in Indiana for 12 years now.

I guess longer than that if you count when I went to college here.

I originally grew up in Michigan.

I've worked in a variety of local government and consultant roles during my career.

Most recently I was a city engineer for the city of Greenwood before coming to Indianapolis VPW.

So as my role as chief engineer, I oversee our capital program, which we'll talk about today.

That involves roadways, it involves bridges, greenways, trails, traffic, and all things infrastructure.

So there are uh five divisions inside of uh NDDPW, the engineering division, uh Mark's team they're responsible for the implementation and oversight of the city's $1 billion plus uh capital improvement plan, and so that is uh constructing um uh new streets or doing major uh repairs or rebuilding of streets, stormwater system, bridges, multi-use pass, and trails, as well as um traffic uh signaling.

Uh the operations division, um you're all familiar with one way or another through uh the filling of potholes, the removal of snow on our city streets.

Um they also do upkeep uh all over town, parks grounds, they are effectively you know, the handyman uh of the city.

Uh solid waste department um uh with uh trash and um uh recycling pickup uh as well.

Uh fleet services, uh the mechanics uh for um ASME Local 3131 uh help keep the entire fleet for the city of Indianapolis uh moving, including our uh trash trucks and um the uh fire trucks for the Indianapolis Fire Department as well, and the policy and planning division, um, the executive team uh on uh uh with us uh here today through um uh with Leandre and then uh Natalie's former uh position uh as well.

Uh NDDBW is a uh about an 800 uh person uh operation.

Now much of that is the operations uh division um with uh pothole maintenance and um uh many other things, policy and planning division, engineering and uh fleet also have um uh good numbers and solid waste uh as well.

We do have uh plenty of uh vacant positions um at the moment.

We're always hiring as you will be in an 800 um person division, and that's from entry-level roles up to the high-level engineering roles.

And so if uh you happen to have people in your neighborhoods uh looking for work, there are always opportunities with NDDPW.

Especially if they're an engineer.

As we talk about uh staffing, there was a new CBA collective bargaining uh agreement that went into uh effect uh very tail end of uh 2024, and that has allowed our our uh numbers to go up.

Um the operations division and uh fleet services are our union positions, and so this uh really helped with their uh cost of living.

Uh I'm sure you've seen in many different fields since 2020.

Uh there have been um explosions in terms of salaries, and it's become really competitive, and one of those was mechanics.

Not just anybody can work on an IFD fire truck, not just anyone can fix a snow plow.

I can uh change the oil in my car, but I'm not doing anything on those kinds of vehicles.

So you gotta find specialized people with specialized talents to do those kinds of things, and uh we're very happy that we have our increased our numbers uh in the last uh year, year and a half now.

Bowels.

Um these numbers kind of really show the difference between the effect a mild winter and the effect a harsh winter has on our uh roadways.

Uh 2024, um Indy DPW closed out 21,000 mayor's action center tickets for pothole complaints, and that was 35,000 in uh 2025.

Now we're still in the you probably call it the first quarter uh of winter of a four-quarter game, it is still very early uh for this winter, so uh it is it has been a uh a tough winter so far.

Um our snow crews have been putting in uh quite a few 12-hour shifts when we have severe snow coming into our area.

The entire operations division splits into two halves, one working from 11 a.m.

to 11 p.m.

and the other one 11 p.m.

to 11 a.m.

And they're going to continue with those shifts until the snow is uh is cleared.

And so right around Thanksgiving this year, they ended up on a marathon stretch of days, you know.

And so um we're thankful for the work that they uh they put in, you know, when uh many of us were you know spending time with uh loved ones around the holidays.

They are strapped into one of the heaviest vehicles that you can drive a fully loaded snow plow, um trying to keep the the city streets safe.

I think I'll let Mark uh take over here, talk a little bit about our uh capital plan uh funding history and kind of break down how uh the transportation budget and the um stormwater budgets uh work.

Um yeah, sure.

So this slide just shows um a history of our of our capital funding plan, funding history.

Uh you can see significant increases in it since 2017, which reflects the investment and some of the efforts made to increase funding on infrastructure in the city in the last um 20 years.

Um the next slide, it shows a more specific breakdown of our uh capital funding program over the next six years.

Um it's probably too small to see for most of you, and if you don't like acronyms that we talked about earlier, there's a lot of acronyms on this.

It's not that we don't like them, we just don't know what they are need to be explained.

We love acronyms at DPW.

So the top half of this sheet above this gray line shows our our revenue, it's the money that comes in that we have to spend on capital planning, and then the bottom half shows the money that goes out that we spend on capital funding.

Um I think this is actually a little bit old that was prepared for the August budget hearings.

Um so this is something that's always changing, it's always being updated.

Projects change, there's increases in cost, there's decreases in cost, projects fall out, projects get added in.

Um so it's always uh it's a living document, it's a living table that always changes.

I think there's actually a slide further on that has a slightly different number because of that.

Um as you can see across uh the next five years, we're gonna spend over uh a billion dollars in um just transportation funding.

So that's roads, bridges, greenways, trails, and traffic.

Uh this focuses more in on stormwater.

Uh we actually have a different division that covers stormwater in DVW engineering.

Uh, they're not here today, so I can speak to it at a high level.

Uh but in addition to the billion dollars in roadway funding, we'll have another um a hundred and almost 180 million dollars in stormwater funding.

Um they do things down to residential neighborhood drainage projects, so they're in neighborhoods, replacing ditches, replacing stormwater, uh, curve inlets, cleaning pipes, all the way up to maintaining uh dams and levees and working with DNR and the U.S.

Army Corps of Engineers to make sure those facilities are in um acceptable shape.

Um of you may be aware in the last legislative session in 2025, there was a lot of discussion on roadway funding.

Um historically, the city of Indianapolis has I would say been underfunded in the way the city distributes um not the city, the state distributes uh gas tax and roadway funding back down to local municipalities.

Um there was a lot of discussion, a lot of effort put in on the city side and the mayor's office side on this, and we actually were able to work on a historic funding bill uh with the state legislature, House Bill 1461.

Uh it essentially rewrites the funding formula for a program the state uses called community crossings.

Uh in the past, it's been if you put in a million dollars, you get a million dollars in funding from the state.

And that was the same for the city of Indianapolis as it was for the city of Greenland where I previously worked, and even really small towns and and counties in in rural Indianapolis.

Um this bill rewrote it for the city of Indianapolis.

If we provide $50 million in new revenue starting in 2027, this state will match that $50 million in new revenue.

So starting in 2027, we'll have an extra hundred million dollars in revenue to spend on infrastructure investment.

Um distributed by many miles.

Is that a change?

That's a big change, right?

It is not it does not contemplate lane line the lay mile distribution versus center line miles.

Did it?

Yeah.

We go back.

I'm sorry.

The very bottom bullet.

Do you know?

Trying to remember that from the budget presentation.

It's not like a complete rewrite of the overall gas tax uh distribution, but this is essentially, you know, if anyone puts in 50 in the pot, then we get another 50 in the pot.

Yes.

And also, too, I think the current state formula for road uh distribution is you know, the state defines at least for meeting now this particular, uh, uh a six six-lane wide road.

We we only get funding for basically a two-lane a mile.

So that's what that discrepancy is.

Um that formula has not overall change.

I think just caveat for Indianapolis made that just a little bit better.

Yeah, and so I was talking about the community crossings matching grant program with that $50 million.

That's probably what the lane miles is focused on.

We get other funding from the state uh from gas tax distribution, it's called LRS, local roads and streets, and MVH motor vehicle highway fund.

Uh, that's typically spent on, I think, operations efforts and salaries for the department, as it is in most municipalities across the state.

That formula is super complicated if you look through state law.

Um, I couldn't even begin to pretend like I could explain it.

Lane miles versus roadway miles is part of that formula, and I don't believe that formula has changed.

Yeah.

Um, this talks about specifically residential street investments that DBW has made in the in the past several years as well as that we're going to continue to make.

So since 2022, DPW has invested invested 103 million specifically into residential streets.

Uh residential streets are separate from uh like thoroughfares.

So, like 38th Street or Meridian Street, we would call that a thoroughfare.

Your local neighborhood road is what we would call a residential street.

Um we've also partnered with CEGE.

Um many of you have probably heard of CEG's led service replacement line program, so they're under a federal mandate to replace lead service lines across the city.

Uh in places where they replace those lead service lines, they're often cutting into the pavement, cutting into the roadway to do that.

Per our standards, B and F standards, they have to restore the roadway to its former condition.

Uh that often results in a quilt work of patches.

Uh at times they may only pave half the street if they don't cross the street because of how our standard standards are written.

Um what we're doing by partnering with them is we're saying, hey, you're already here, you're already doing restoration work.

Let's basically double up on the city's investment on residential streets, and we'll do everything else while you're here.

So you pay for your portion, we're used to up the street to replace lead service lines, and we'll do the rest of the street at the same time.

Uh so it helps them, it provides a better finished product for the neighborhoods, and it essentially lets us double our investment in residential street paving.

I think you doubled up on this slide.

Yeah, I did.

Probably this slide just touches at a high level on some of how we've done some of our capital planning, and as in my role as chief engineer in the last couple months, how I envision capital planning going moving forward.

Um, so some of this is technology that we have available to us.

The top is uh actually a software division decision optimization technology, it's called DOT.

Um, it basically lets us look at the life cycle of a roadway.

So we can say if we invest this amount of money in 2026, what is the condition of our roads going to be in five years and ten years and twenty years, and it lets us help make more informed decisions on how to spend our funding.

Um with the significant investment from House Bill 1461, I would say we're probably still don't have enough money to meet all our needs.

Um, and so we have to prioritize where we spend that money.

And one way we're looking to do that is through this pavement prioritization prioritizational logarithm, which takes into all these things into effect that's listed there.

Uh the top one would be heaviest weighted is the payment condition.

Um we on a regular cycle go out and we rate our roads so we know what shape the road is in.

We also know what shape that road was in 15 years ago.

Um we can see how roadways deteriorate over time, and that helps us pick which roads need replacement.

Um we can weight that with things like roadway volumes, so that helps us distribute money uh to the roads that are used the most, the thoroughfares that are used the most.

Um and then we've also put in mayor's action center request.

Um, if you make a mayor's action center request, it does matter to us.

We do listen to that.

It is part of our decision-making tool, as well as crash value, which LeAndre will talk about vision zero in a little bit, but we are committed to vision zero, and there's opportunities when we pave a road or reconstruct a roadway to make minor change.

Sometimes they're minor changes, sometimes they're major changes, but even on like neighborhood roads where we're repaving new pavement markings, new signs, those can all have an increase uh in safety.

Um, and then that all folds into a larger pavement asset management plan, which we've been working on for the last six months.

Uh the plan will identify needs, set goals, and prioritize pavement preservation treatments to improve roadway conditions and increase the service life of our existing roadways through a data-driven approach, um, which is kind of a really nice way of saying here's where our roads are today in 2026.

We know how much money we have to spend in the next five years, here's what condition those roadways will be in at the end of those five years, and how can we optimize that investment?

Okay, Mark, I hang on just a second, Jack, if you mind Pat had a question.

Oh, I'm sorry, I see.

Your rules of for engagement on uh spending limited dollars essentially for road um upgrades or repairs.

Um if you have a well traveled road, one would expect your model to show it to deteriorate faster than a lesser travel road, but the lesser travel road um will need um some kind of upgrade over time too.

Do you have any um bonus points say for in your ratings for the local road to uh compete with the fact that that um that daily traffic number is gonna be much higher for the the you know the four-lane going down road is street is gonna always need something, but so doesn't the neighborhood access roads.

Yeah.

Um so right now the way our capital plan is set up, we separate our funding, our investment into thoroughfare roads and local residential roads, and so we have a bucket of money that is specifically for local residential roads, and we'll actually use that scoring, we'll separate out the scoring for residential roads and select the residential roads that have the highest need.

The roadway volume is something we've talked about on that scoring because um residential roads, when you some roads have you know 20 cars a day or 50 cars a day on them, and so I think we weigh the traffic volume on the residential scoring less than a higher weighting to the pavement condition index if that makes sense.

Any consideration for alleys um so alleys are not in anything I've talked about today.

We have had ongoing conversations on how to treat alleys.

Currently, and I'm sure some of you have heard this line from the city before.

We don't receive gas tax funding for alleys, and because that is the majority of our roadway funding, we prioritize it along roadways versus alleys.

What if it's the sole egress for our post office?

Uh I think I know exactly the location you're talking about.

I've actually had conversations with DMD about that location, and most recently provided them with cost estimates, and they're looking at ways to fix that alley.

So I'm I'm sure let me know which one you talk about.

Uh it's on the 30th and Sherman, I believe that's fine.

Yeah, yeah.

Thank you.

It that has been a very high priority for several years for that immediate neighborhood and for McCann to get that alley fixed, considering the fact that it's not really used like an alley, it's used like a road.

It is.

Yeah.

So something that goes along with this pavement asset management plan.

Um, again, this slide was prepared for the August budget hearings.

We've actually changed the name of this to an infrastructure asset management plan, and it's going to cover all pieces of infrastructure the city of Indianapolis maintains.

So that's roadways, that's traffic signals, it's sidewalks, it's alleys, it's MSE walls, signs, um, greenways and trails.

Some of those things we don't even have a baseline inventory for.

So, like guardrail.

We don't even know where all the guardrail in the city is.

And that's one of the first steps we need to do is get out there and inventory our all our guardrail conditions, understand what the baseline is, what shape it's in, and then we can create a plan to remove guardrail that's not necessary, replace guardrail that is necessary, and get on a routine maintenance schedule for those types of things.

And alleys would be included in that plan.

Street signs, street signs.

Yes.

Uh, does your software enable you to provide public more of a real-time understanding of the road, the quality of the roads in your neighborhood, and is that something you're contemplating, making it available?

It is, yeah.

So, again, as far as this pavement asset management plan or infrastructure asset management plan, it will be a public-facing document and not just a PDF document.

Uh, I have a goal to make a public website, a public portal with um story maps, GIS maps, and so you can zoom in on your specific street and see what that pavement condition index is.

You can see what that IAMP score is, and my hope is that gives you better understanding on to you that's the highest need in the city.

That's not necessarily the highest need for the department, and it might be able to give a wider picture of the choices we make and the decisions we make, if that makes sense.

In the that scoring process you described, we would have access to see how our roads are scoring, or would you would just say, yeah, this road is going to be replaced next year.

We would show the roadway, we call it a pavement condition index, which is the score, the score for the roadway.

It's the shape the roadway is in.

And then that scoring the logarithm that I talked to on an earlier slide would have a separate score because it factors in those other things.

It's a weighted score that's on a score of zero to 100, and I would want to make that a public facing score as well.

Is that coming soon or something?

It's something that's actively being worked on.

I told Public Works Committee and Board of Works out there for information on the asset management plan in quarter one of this year.

So the draft document has um it's currently being internally reviewed by the department.

Um and then we'll have a public presentation on it at a public hearing.

Okay, um, if if we could let Mr.

St.

John go ahead and go.

This is my last slide, and then there's a Leandre slide, right?

Uh yeah, yeah, we'll talk about the 2026 construction.

Just so we have an opportunity for them to get through the information that they brought.

If we could hold the questions until they're done with the initial presentation.

And I realize that means we're gonna circle back a little bit.

We want to make sure we get some of your questions could potentially be answered in their presentation.

Um, this is my last slide.

Just a brief look at our 2026 construction season.

Um right now we're showing nearly 280 million dollars in construction work.

Oh, I know why it was different than that other slide, it's because it shows stormwater and transportation combined.

Uh so 218 million dollars of transportation, 62 million dollars in stormwater.

Uh the city council last fall, city county council last fall provided uh an additional 18.5 million dollars for strip patching work.

Um that contract goes to Board of Works on the 28th.

We hope to be out there as soon as the weather breaks in March or April, starting our strip patching operations.

Um you've probably seen our strip patch.

It's areas that are heavily potholed areas that operations has to come back to again and again to replace pothole.

It gives uh a more permanent solution and a smoother ride to those pothole locations.

Um some major projects in 2026 are going to include the Fountain Square drainage improvement projects, which is currently underway.

Um 29th and 30th street conversion, um, which uh we have a contract for, and I expect to start as soon as the weather breaks.

Um, and then the Henry Street Bridge um will be concluded in 2026.

This is actually a pretty cool picture from just a weekend or two ago.

Um they were forming up and pouring the the rings that are gonna go along that bridge.

Um, it's a pretty impressive operation if you have a chance to get down by the river and watch it.

Um I think that's all I have on on my slides.

I think we have one more slide for LeAndre on Vision Zero.

Yeah, those uh just try to jump in real quick.

Those three projects uh we mentioned, you know, they're not just fixing the pavement, they're not just fixing the stormwater, they're not just creating um new connections uh across the city.

All three of those um are uh very serious investments in um safety for cyclists and pedestrians.

Um Henry Street Bridge includes a new uh extension of the uh the cultural trail, uh Found Square Drainage Improvement Project includes protected bike lanes, and uh there are um uh uh essentially called a multi-use path on 29 and 30.

Yes, effectively an extra wide sidewalk um for um moving people around on 29th and 30th.

And so uh with that we'll uh hand it over to uh Leander to talk about vision zero.

Uh just a quick question how many of you are familiar with vision zero or know what it is?

Okay, that's a that's a decent amount.

Anyone want to give a stab of defining what it is and kind of just no, we'd like you to do that.

Okay, I'm just curious how everyone, because part of my my job is to help educate uh the public on what vision zero is, but at the same time, I I don't want people to have a misinterpretation of what that is.

But sure, yes, ma'am.

Um it's to uh stop uh so many um traffic accidents, including um harm to human beings.

Yes, that's that's pretty good.

Uh key word we want to we kind of want to use is crashes, crashes.

So that that is a really uh important part how we the city define uh those types of uh crashes that take place.

So the city's policy at Vision Zero is the goal to eliminate all fatal crashes and serious injuries by 2035.

This is model similar after other major cities and throughout the um really throughout the world, it started in Europe and has been migrated over to the United States.

Uh the reason why we uh the city is making that commitment is because uh you know, every life on our roadway is valuable, right?

And so uh we view um those traffic fatalities as something that could be preventable, and we can prevent those through how we have an inner working system of overlaying of redundancies through policy, uh, whether that's through uh redesign of roads, whether that's effective enforcement through traffic enforcement, uh, our land use policy, also our post-crash care, and I'll talk more about that, and how we make sure uh we prevent those from happening.

Uh so my my role in in DPW, while I'm housing DPW is I also report to a task force.

The task force is made up of about 15 different agencies and organizations throughout the city.

Uh these are um different heads of uh departments, but also two nonprofits like AARP, uh Health by Design, Indigo, and essentially uh we come together a couple times a year.

Uh we recently developed our action plan, it's a hundred and two-page action plan to outline a series of strategies that we believe that can address some of the most serious uh fatalities and serious injuries on our roadway.

And so I get to work with Mark and others to help really carry out that action plan and talk about um developing and deploying materials and redesign our roads to make them safer.

Uh Mark mentioned the two-way conversion, which I kind of mentioned here as well.

Uh, you know, those are really effective roadway designs where traditionally, if it's a one-way, people in our minds treat them like uh uh a highway and then uh in a um you typically go fast and you simply just go straight and not think about because you don't have to deal with uh incoming traffic and uh sometimes you don't have to worry about people crossing the road, but when you make it a two-way conversion, people are a lot more attentive, especially with more features of adding protective bike lanes and uh bus lanes uh that's gonna be on the roadway, uh, and it significantly improves the safety there.

And also too, it uh calms traffic.

It does trigger a psychological effect in which when you um have a more narrow and uh your uh visual queues a lot more narrow, you tend to slow down more.

But when you're on a highway or or uh one-way street, you tend to go faster, right?

And so it's to make sure we um uh keep in mind how we can reduce the speed and drive it more manageable safe speed so individuals won't be driving real fast because one of the biggest factors of a crash from having becoming a serious injury or a fatal one is speed, it's the number one indicator how fast you're going.

Um and so, particularly with vehicles, with pedestrians, cyclists, uh if you're driving real fast, you know, and you're crossing the street, unfortunately, you're gonna lose that ballot every single time.

Right?

So we want individuals to slow down uh when they're driving and make sure you know they're paying attention, being attentive, uh yielding to the appropriate traffic.

So I just want to talk about a few things particularly.

So in DPW, vision zero is our policy.

It is it's not a program, it's a policy framework that we try to support through our complete streets policy within DPW, and that is looking at projects in which uh if we if we're doing a project and we're making safety improvements, what type of safety improvements fit the context of that particular project?

Maybe it's bike lines, maybe it's appropriate this one, maybe it's not.

I I do I personally we always use uh shaving street because I live on the east side.

I don't really think we're gonna put protective bike lines on shape because it's so big, it's so massive, and a lot of cards go there.

So maybe that context may not be appropriate for protected bike lines, but maybe in the residential era in a neighborway or connected to a green trail, maybe that is appropriate.

And so we try to look at what's the context of appropriate safety infrastructure that we can improve the walkability, the network connection, green wheel trails, uh, you name it to um try to reduce that type of vulnerable road user stress and improve the mobility and safety for everyone.

Um then you know we talk about two-way conversion, we have we're implementing more roundabouts throughout the city.

Uh pretty well known in Carmel Fisher, they have roundabouts in nearly every intersection.

Uh, it is a known proven method of reducing those type of uh crashes that happen at intersections, you know.

Um the INPD is particularly very supportive of technology for red light cameras because when people run red lights and people are going through traffic, those types of T-bone crashes tend to become more fatal.

So we don't have that conflicting area at an intersection, you reduce the likelihood of those types of crashes and fatalities.

So we've been programming more thanks to a lot of our federal and NPO grant money to do roundabouts.

Uh I could be wrong, I think that the most we have programmed in recent years, and I think that's been a growing trend on top of the two-way conversions that we're doing.

I think there's eight more two-way conversions planned over the next several years, and that's thanks to uh a federal rise grant, which is what 23 million dollars will match it with another 23, 24 million dollars.

Uh and that's going to take over the next several years.

Uh College Avenue is one of them, and um the RAISE project has six one-way pairs, six pairs of one way roads.

Six pairs of one-way roads.

Six roads total.

Yes, eight total.

Capital in Illinois, New Jersey and Alabama, College and East, and I'm one is not the last one.

Yeah, Delaware and the Parallel Street on Delaware, which would be Pennsylvania.

Yes.

Yes.

Thank you.

So yeah, so all those works with those roads and convergence is going to improve safety.

And when we do those, there's going to be ample opportunity for us to look at those roles to see if we how we want to incorporate more safety future multimodal options for people to get kind of get out and use those ruleways effectively.

Also, too, you know, I do want to talk about some additional support Vision Zero has had.

I don't know if you're aware of that.

The city of Indianapolis has a fatal crash review team in which we look post after the fatal crash happened, uh, provide analysis of like what preventable action we could have done to prevent that type of crash, mainly from an engineering perspective.

So we include individuals from INPD, DMD, uh health uh individual from one of the hospitals, and then also to a uh civilian owner, which they do, they look at all the police reports uh and they kind of put analysis together, like hey, at this intersection we recognize this person, primary factor was they were speeding, or there was a missing garel, or you know, all those indicators see how we can uh prevent that crash from happening, and then they provide recommendations to um oftentimes DPGs like, hey, we need more signages here because maybe there wasn't a sign here, it wasn't postmark, or um, you know, like I said before, wasn't garbroad there.

And then sometimes what we recognize is sometimes it comes down to behavior.

Sometimes, you know, after two o'clock in the morning, a lot of bad things happen.

Sometimes people are drinking.

We don't have all the details.

We don't, you know, some of that's HIPAA and prevent it, we don't have toxicology report, things like that, because that takes months.

But in that time frame, when we do uh review those fatal crashes, we try to see what practical things that we can do as a city to prevent that type of crash from happening.

Um and then on top of that, we do um road autos, which we go out to that specific site and see if there's any other additional from the point of view of the driver, the point of view of the pedestrian that could have been mitigated or prevented.

And so a half a million dollars was dedicated to the federal crash review based off the recommendations and try to help uh rectify those and get more additional funding.

Uh so whatever recommendation they they had, um they was able to make those improvements.

Uh and then one million dollars is part of the um uh fall fiscal, which is passed with the budget that DPW is currently developing now, is to see how we can get either materials or we can rapidly deploy um some of our contracts to actually implement known stress areas and known crash um prone errors to try to mitigate those and prevent those.

And it is a small step forward, but uh part of our overall goal is to make sure we're we're being attentive and rapidly respond to some of those most critical areas.

Yeah, a capital plan capital project, especially reconstruction project can take three to five years to design and implement and actually put forward.

That quick build program and that rapid response is hopefully gonna be able to cover that intervening time period, right?

There are things we can go out and do immediately now to make the intersection safer until we can put in permanent full-time infrastructure solutions there.

Yes, yes.

Um, and then um also in the in the pack, uh, we talk about community-powered infrastructure.

You know, those are the well art in the right way, uh, tactical urban, tactical urbanism, uh, INIP, uh, you know, all those programs help you as the community to take kind of those first steps if you want to do some safety improvement project in your community, um, whether you're not proper agency or whether you're just a neighborhood association is like, hey, we recognize there's a lot of speeding in this neighborhood.

Can we think about our in the right way project?

Uh utilize our lending library to do testing and that's speed testing and be able to deploy uh some um flex ballers or uh uh delinear way to delineators maybe to be out there uh in your community.

So we have a whole program around that.

And if you want to check that out, I think it's a QR code in the pack, and uh appreciate you put that together because I did not go prepare for that.

But you know, all these ways the first step for you as the community say, hey, this street is a lot of people are speeding here.

Usually we can calm traffic, reduce the the speeds in this area, and be able to deploy those types of materials.

And uh, and then Mark mentioned the you know, we're developing a quick build program, how it could be a little bit more uh lightning and react and responding to the community because some of these projects can take three to four years to really put a permanent solution in, but through the quick build, but also through through tactical urbanism, we can put some things out there temporarily so the public and the traffic can kind of get used to that.

And the quick build is not just reactive, and hopefully the intent is to also be um identify, proactive identify emerging crash trend locations by looking at crash data and get out there before there is a fatal or serious incapacitating crash with a quick build delivery option.

Yes.

Probably zero, yes.

One of the strategy is that uh we're working on see how the best way to do that.

What we have learned from other cities is that when you do like a public awareness campaign, right?

A lot of times people see it like, oh, okay, that's and then they move on, right?

Because you you what you're trying to do is change culture, and I alone and no billboard or Facebook ad or anything can ultimately change entire culture uh in one bill swoop.

So it is about being strategic, how do we be more effective at educate the public about what vision zero is their role in it?

You know, we're gonna do everything we can do as a city to to improve safety, but ultimately the biggest success of vision zero comes out to you all.

How you get out on the roadway, how you cross the um crosswalks instead of crossing through mediums, um wear your seatboat, wearing your helmet, so and so forth.

It is a shared responsibility based off the choice that we make every single day.

And as much we can we can build a road as safe as humanly possible, but if you're still driving 60 miles per hour in the road designed for it to go 40 miles per hour and you get in a crash, there that that is dependent on that individual's choice.

There's only so much we can do as a city, so that's why vision zero, yes, that's our commitment, but it's a shared responsibility for all of us.

When you get on the road, it is a team sport.

Because I have to trust you to know what you're doing, uh, and not crash into me or vice versa.

You're following the rules of the rules and the laws of the road, and um there's only so much we as a city can do, but a lot of that success is gonna be down to everyone.

I think that is a that is a good point.

I often see comments on Facebook from people about some experience they've had on the road where they're gonna put my foot in this, assume that they're the only ones on the road and they have the right to drive however they want to.

That's a problem.

My one comment would be about public awareness programs, and I'm showing my age.

Don't assume that everybody has a smartphone.

Every time, you know, here click on this link, use this QR code.

Um, I personally don't carry a smartphone.

Um, but you know, there are other people who, regardless of age, have chosen not to step into a totally electronic world or are of a generation where that doesn't come naturally, and we see that happen more and more often is if you don't have immediate access to electronic technology, your concerns are it you they're you're unable to communicate them.

So that's just my two cents work.

Okay, are we ready for questions or okay?

Ruth okay.

Unfortunately, today's culture is such that um people unless they realize that there are consequences for their decisions, and that comes down to enforcement back in the way, way, way back days when I first started driving.

Um you didn't want to see a motorcycle policeman coming up behind you.

You knew that you had done something wrong.

We don't have that kind of enforcement.

I see these cars just going, the light has been red even for a while, and they still go right through.

It's all about me and where I'm going and what's important, and so they have to have some idea of consequences.

Well, I believe in the privacy of the need for privacy of all of us.

I still think if we don't have the person, the police personnel to be out there to get those people, then the camera is gonna have to do it for us.

Yes.

All right, that's about that.

Now, I have a policy question.

Years ago, there was an engineer in DPW.

His name was Hobby Yemen, and his big thing was an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

And he felt that it was more important that you get out and handle the cracks in the in the roadway.

Because from those cracks is where we get the potholes.

So we're always playing after the fact on the potholes.

Pennsylvania Street, where I live, up north, has been recently.

I mean, if you judge recently by years, was rebuilt because we had a sanitary sewer.

In front of my house now, it's beginning to break up.

Can I call the mayor's action center and say, I think we're going to have a problem here because it's beginning, there's just cracks.

Would DBW come and handle those cracks, or do we let it go until it becomes a pothole?

The intent would be we would come and handle those cracks as soon as we can.

Of course, we're dealing with limited resources and limited funding.

I understand that.

We do run what you're talking about, is typically called crack sealing where they put like the tar uh the sealant down on the cracks, so it's called crack sealing.

We do run a crack seal program.

Um part of that pavement asset management plan again is to show us we have we can show roadway conditions and we can show the roads that are in good condition, and one way you get out of the head of failing infrastructure is to keep your good roads in good condition.

So roadways don't just fall off and deteriorate, they kind of did they're good for a while, and then they're okay for a while, and then they're really bad.

And it looks like an S curve when you graph it based off of road rating and and time.

And so what the goal or the intent is by doing preventative maintenance work by crack sealing is to stretch that S curve out as long as you can so that they stay in good condition for as long as you can, because things like crack ceiling, um uh HMA sealing, fog ceiling, cake sealing, there's different treatments you can take, different types of vendor treatments you can take, they cost 10% of what it costs to rebuild a roadway or repave a roadway.

They are significantly cheaper investments to keep that road in good shape, and that is one of my goals of the pavement access management plan is to identify what those needs are and to expand on those programs that we currently have to keep good roads in good condition.

And then so you're saying that that will be a priority?

It'll be a priority for me, yes.

Yep.

Hotting became so frustrated he left so I will say because people did not buy into that concept.

Because crack ceiling's not pretty, right?

Everyone wants a brand new roadway, they want smooth, fresh, black pavement.

Um it's a harder sell.

It is it because it we're maintaining the roadway, we're keeping it in good shape or okay shape instead of it being a brand new roadway.

And so everybody pushes at all levels for resurfacing, and it is a challenge.

It is a fight that we have to have to advocate for that, and that pavement asset management plan.

I keep going back to it, but it is a very big thing for me.

Um can help us have those conversations and drive those conversations because we can say by investing this amount of money in crack sealing, here's what our roadway conditions can be in five years or in ten years, and we can compare it to if we dump all of our money into giant capital reconstruction projects, um, and we can drive those conversations with um with the what we get money from.

Uh I I wish Director Wilson um were here today.

Uh I believe he's he's all in on this.

Yeah, he has made it clear that he really wants us to be investigating different options for preventative maintenance.

Um he was formerly uh construction administrator um with DPW, and so he's been out there and he's seen a million road projects from uh the day they start to the the day that they end, and he's made it clear that he wants um the team investigating the latest options, the latest technology, uh finding out what makes sense for Indianapolis.

Um, so when it comes time for him to go make the case to the people uh who write the checks that we can say this is what is uh going to be the best option for the city of Indianapolis.

Oh, about people running the road lines, yes.

Is there a possibility?

I mean, this is way out to have rumble strips at corn at intersections where we identify that they're flipping through if there's a bumble strip, they have to slow down.

So let me let me answer two parts of that.

So, in terms of enforcement as a whole, you know, for a city of 850,000 people, that's you know, just include the county, but obviously people from the surrounding county come in out, so a little over a million.

We only have 1,300 police officers, mayor police officers.

There's over 20,000 intersections in the city of Indianapolis.

It's not physically possible, unfortunately, for every police officer to be there.

We do have a specific traffic divisions of motorcyclists who do just traffic enforcement alone, and that's only about 25.

So I get the challenge of that enforcement matters.

And I agree with you, the culture has totally changed about how we view traffic safety.

In America, we view our car as our personal motor, as our extension of our freedom.

I can go anywhere, you know, we I want to go to the movie, I want to go up here, travel across the country, how however you name it.

And yes, oftentimes when we get in our car, we think about the safety of ourselves inside our car.

When you go buy a car, what's the salesman say, oh, this is the safest car ever, so on and so forth, and it's unprotecting your family.

Cars are getting bigger, cars are getting heavier.

These these uh electric vehicles, you know, Ravi and Tesla trucks, these basically are like mini semi-trucks on the roadway.

So they degrade the road a significant condition, uh significant break, but also two, just culturally, people are not stopping at the stop sign or stop bar and and and stop light.

So that is a cultural thing that is very difficult.

But in enforcement, I can tell you that IMPD is out there enforced in the law.

Okay.

You have major thoroughway.

Okay.

86th Street, 38th Street.

I'm talking about intersections on those main streets.

Because another thing we have to try to teach people is when the light turns green.

Don't start into the intersection because somebody's coming from the other way.

But I just thought that maybe on those major intersect major streets, intersections.

If we do we had rumble strips that slowed these people down, yeah.

So it's not as easy to run a software.

Sure.

Um I don't know about rumble strips specifically as a solution, but what you're talking about is building infrastructure that is appropriate and reflective of the driving conditions we want to see.

And that's part of DBW's job and something we take into all of our projects, if that makes sense.

We talk about rumble strips.

Do you mean like like the ones on the highway when you're when you kind of go off your lane and it makes the loud noise is what you mean by rumble strips?

Okay.

Um does that interfere with people who are wanting to fly through the interception.

I don't know that those slow you down as much as they alert you to a change condition, is typically how we use them.

Um signage is signage does the same thing, right?

Warning signage alert alerts you to a change condition.

A traffic light should do the same thing and alert you to the change condition.

What we see is when you drive the same road every single day, those signs, those traffic lights, they kind of fade into the background.

They become part of your routine, they become part of your everyday.

And so if you drive over that rumble strip every single day, I would venture at a certain point, you'll just ignore it.

It's the same thing for the traffic feedback sign.

You can slow it down and say, Oh, your need is.

Yeah, after a certain period of time, you disregard that.

Um I think to your point, it would be better for us to look at those roadways and investigate ways we can build infrastructure to slow traffic down before it gets to the intersection.

We can look at things like signal timings, and we often do part of single timing is something called a yellow clearance interval on a red clearance interval.

So that yellow light has a certain amount of time on it.

There's actually, if you watch traffic cycle at an intersection, there's a period where all directions have a red light.

And usually that's one or two seconds.

Um, but at locations where we know red light running is a problem, we actually extend that upwards of five seconds.

Well, the yellow light has no meaning to a lot of these people.

It's like, well, I'll think about it.

Yep, yes.

Yeah, and that goes back.

I mean, you've hit on it, Leandre's hit on it, that goes back to the education, it goes back to the enforcement, it goes back to being part of a community and a society as a whole, um, which is the larger bigger picture of the challenge in some aspects of Vision Zero.

Um, I'm sure many of you know red light cameras currently are illegal within the state of Indiana, so state law specifically prohibits uh traffic enforcement cameras.

There was a narrow carve-out for it in state law two or three years ago that allowed inoc to run a trial program on interstates and work zones.

So you've probably seen those traffic cameras on ClearPath or North Split 465 around the loop here.

Um there's a whole white paper out on it that Leandre probably has if anyone's interested in it.

Um a bill was introduced in this legislative session to extend um speed cameras, I think universally school zones.

Okay, so that would be the next step.

So to make it a permanent solution for for work zone enforcement and to extend it into school zones.

Now I think that's been the approach the state DOT in document has really taken is um small incremental steps to show that yes, this works, yes, it's effective, no, we're not just out here collecting revenue or trying to um you know cause problems for people.

Um and I'm excited to see that legislation is introduced.

I know there's a lot of thoughts and opinions on red light cameras, which I'm sure speed cameras, but I'm sure we we could talk about at length all day.

Um but I do think that is one of the solutions to red light running as well.

And hopefully that could be extended here to Indianapolis.

Um I'm gonna check we've got some more questions, so we're gonna kind of move along so we don't run out of time.

Pat and then Jackie.

Yeah, we have two separate neighborhoods that are uh for years now have been trying to have addressed uh speeding um and I can go into details I won't go into um, but um they are concerned about not just speeding and there have been some um injuries, uh but also uh I don't know what the right term is, but when um guys decide they're gonna take and spin their cars, you know.

Um you talk about the two o'clock in the morning.

I'm assuming there's a uh correlation.

But um, so these activities um that disturb uh the neighborhood for real in in harmful ways.

One actually is near a school, it's near it's certainly the access roads to the school, even though it's not declared the school zone.

Who do we contact?

Because they just get the run around basically.

Um it's been going on for years.

So who did it who do we contact to uh do the petition to get um the speed bumps?

Uh in some cases it's just the idea of first step might be to reduce the speed limit.

Um and so but there's nothing is working to get hold of the right person to okay some improvement that will help that neighborhood.

So who do we contact to get changes made to those particular roads?

I think your mayor's neighborhood neighborhood advocate is a good point of contact.

Kyle and his team, but there's public information officers too.

On online, there is a uh street change policy, uh street change um policy petition that can be uh printed out.

It kind of outlines uh the steps that are taken, uh, and then would um uh uh help point you in terms of if you need to collect the signatures for it, and then that would be mailed back to the Indianapolis Department of Uh Public Works.

I believe the address is on uh that form that goes to the uh the traffic team.

It goes into their queue for review, so if it's something like uh like a speed bump, um that you do need to requ have a certain yeah, you need like a percentage of people that are yeah, with that, and so the the it's not this yeah, I it's so um we'll try that.

Um and hopefully there's one person that can be responsible for yes, no, or updating where anything is in the system.

It is a problem that's been going on for years, trying to get something fixed.

But if it's one of those street takeovers and people are doing burnouts and in circles up to that part, yes, call call the police.

Well, no, the police have been very good about it, but they have to catch them at the right moment on that sort of thing.

Um, but the traffic common can still be accomplished through uh changes to the street.

Yeah, you know, um the speed bum bumps that uh they have in uh parking lots, they just grew into the road, so some of the um distaste for speed bumps by DPW of the old days was that you'd have to scrape that back off when the the neighborhood didn't like it anymore.

But if you can unscrew it, you know, it seems less um labor intensive.

So anyway, um, but I'm I'll go searching for that.

That's in the DPW section.

Um it's on there, but uh anytime someone asks me about it, I I Google it.

This is the quickest way to get to it because it's uh you know uh a PDF document within a within a page.

Yep.

Okay, Jackie?

Okay.

My question is we just recently had some work done over in the Martin Del Brightwood uh with the hope tip money, um having streets put in, sidewalks put in, and so forth and so long.

Is it possible that we can have some type of uh truck restrict truck limit restrictions to try to hold on to our newly paved streets and not have the trucks come right in and destroy what has been done?

So are you seeing a large amount of like my vehicle traffic through neighborhood streets or through or they like through like Keystone or rural or like names?

They're coming in, they'll come in on the back side, like there's a on hill side and come around because there's a there's a huge factory back there.

I don't know if it's a factors, it's where big trucks come in.

Okay, so they'll come in, the trucks that come in and then come down to uh 25th, come around to 25th, come out, turn around, and then go back.

And in a lot of cases, I'm thinking they're lost, or they miss their turn.

But here again, they're using our street, our newly paid street as a turnaround opportunity, which in my in my mind can only be deteriorating the street.

I think we've seen that a couple times when there's been um construction or new development projects, and then people say now the the trucks are going uh a certain way and they're acting like they're confused or whatever.

But do the heavy limits does that start with council?

Uh, it needs an ordinance change.

Yeah.

So it's amending city ordinance to include that street in our heavy street vehicle restrictions.

Um it can start via your counselor or um via the department of public works, we can initiate the process as well, too.

But eventually it would need to be introduced at public works council and then go to council, and there's a whole process for that on the ordinance side.

Um my suggestion would be to reach out to your counselor, your mayor's neighborhood advocate, or someone on Kyle's team too to get you in in touch with the right folks.

Okay.

Well, the first two I've already entertained uh my neighborhood advocate, uh, my counselor.

Okay, and then he's also talked to your director.

Okay.

And so I just need to know where do we go from here?

Do we need to do something from a community point of view of view?

And it might be that it's already in process, so there's actually an entire um there's a large list and spreadsheets that the traffic team works through by traffic ordinances.

Um, and so it might be on that list already that they're working to get the ordinance prepared and introduced.

So you have to prepare the document to it.

Some of the ordinance require like traffic studies behind them to support it, and then it has to be introduced at a city council meeting, it goes to public works committee where it gets a positive vote or a negative vote, and then from there it goes back to city council, at which point it would become part of the ordinance before it becomes part of the ordinance.

I think there's a whole advertisement period before it's actually formally adopted.

So there is a somewhat it's it really is like a three-plus month process once the ordinance gets introduced for the first time at council, and there can even be groundwork ahead of that to get that to show that there's engineering data that supports that that ordinance change.

Isn't there any public tracking of that information?

It's all published on agendas and stuff like that.

There's no um as far as I'm aware, there's no process that like tracks individual ordinances um from move to move, if that makes sense.

I think that could be some of the frustration when the public makes a request that there be a change.

It may be in the process, but they can't see where it is.

And so to them it feels like they've made the request and it's not being addressed, it's being ignored.

And I I don't know how difficult that would be, but you know, if Jackie put in a request to have speed bumps put on or whatever, our speed are uh weight limits on this street for her to be able to say the request has been received, it's it has to go through these steps, and here is where it is at.

Otherwise, it just feels like nothing is.

So for all the city departments use the in-case program, do you guys use that?

No, and you contemplated using something like that, the scrap communication.

Um not that I'm aware of, but I we can have those conversations with in for is what we use on the operation side.

Um if there's like a home request or someone wants to just sign it once that's how we check the work being done via operations as the endorsement.

Gotcha.

I have a specific question on behalf of somebody who's not here.

I live out in the part of the county where the roads don't have don't have any shoulder or anything.

When brush tree limbs, whatever grow into the roadway to the point where people are having to swerve out out of the lane in order to get around it, or it's blocking visibility.

What is the does is the city responsible for clearing that?

Is it the residents?

Is it the property owners responsible?

It's a particular problem at the intersections where the tree limbs and the brush have grown out far enough that you can't you don't really have a good clear line of sight, but it's also where the lanes are already narrow, there is no shoulder, so everything's going right up to the roadway.

You're driving down the road, you don't want a tree limb to you know take the paint off your car.

So people are swerving.

Whose responsibility is it to keep that brush and the tree limbs out of the roadway and out of the clear line of sight?

I got a call about uh once a year.

There's an undeveloped um uh property at the corner of Southport and Shelbyville.

Yep.

Are we talking about the same one?

Well, no, but I hear about that one a lot.

No, and so like uh I just like anyone else, I file a mayor's action uh center ticket within a DP a few days.

DPW is out there with uh a chainsaw or cut or whatever it is they do to um get out there and do it, but at the same time, you know, if that was um you know uh uh an active property and it was someone's um you know, like their their their main residence or whatever, you'd like to probably see that person be a good neighbor and uh maybe you need um uh uh business and neighborhood services to have a conversation with them about their their growth going out into the the roadway.

Okay, yeah.

No, I hear about I hear about that when I hear about Franklin and Southeastern, and I hear about Tri Avenue and hear back with Gregor Wood.

Oh Franklin and South, yeah, I know the Frank, I know exactly what you're talking about with Franklin and South East.

Sometimes it's not clear who's responsible for keeping that cut back.

Uh it I would call the mayor's action center, and they'll either probably either send um DPW with a with a chainsaw or they'll uh send someone to uh talk with them through business and neighborhood service and say we need you to take care of your yard.

Well, what the here bet the feedback I get from telling people to call the mayor's action center is nothing ever happened.

So whether it's an accurate perception or not, I don't know.

The problem is action center is you have to have an address.

Yes, and you're out someplace, and there's no way to know what that address is.

That is true.

Okay, Pat, and then we'll go on the the um there's a transparency um through the XLA program to what BNS is doing when you put in a complaint either through the Max Center or request ND.

Um so you can follow uh through Excel of what progress is being made by the inspector on their issues.

The issues that get transferred straight from uh request Indy to DPW are not transparent at all.

And um there are responsibilities like this.

I'm thinking of specific uh two areas right next, right near uh man and southport road where there was construction uh debris left, and the other where the park was not being mowed to the point where traffic signs were um blocked by and it is DPW's responsibility to mow the parks.

So uh they get called in and then they go into this black hole, and you have no idea if the if anybody uh in the right position um received them, if it's in the works and planning, or if it's just like ah, I'm not going out there.

You know, so um it would be really good in spirit of public transparency that somehow the XL uh the progress through the system was reported on Axela, even though it's a DPW function and not a BNS function.

Natalie, would you like to speak to Mayor's Action Center processes and how the Salesforce interacts with other systems?

So within my role I do oversee the Mayor's Action Center.

Um I think we've done a really good job of kind of walking through how information goes from the mayor's action center to the departments, but I always like to remind folks that the mayor's action center does data intake.

So we're taking those cases, we're putting them into our system, and then they are crossing over into the respective systems that DPW or BNS utilize.

Um in this case, BNS does utilize business neighborhood services, does utilize Acela for their case management.

DPW utilizes INFOR.

So we are working on the technical side with the departments constantly, but especially on this issue to ensure that we can get as much information from Infor to show in our public facing portal.

This is a technical process, and there are constraints that people that are much more tech savvy than I can would be able to speak through more thoroughly.

But we are actively working on for some case types where it is technologically possible for the comments that are left by say solid waste drivers to show up when folks go to look at their cases that they've entered through Request Indy, or if they call back the Mayor's Action Center, the Mayor's Action Center customer service representatives can then get them those updates.

In regard to the way that the systems work, DPW, I am not trying to speak for real, but they wouldn't be able to have their case types show up on Acella because they're two different systems that are getting information in different ways.

Why?

So we are working because BNS utilizes a seller for case management, DPW utilizes in for, those are different softwares, and they it's because they have different requirements as departments on what information they need to be able to take in and how they're sharing that with the uh teams out in the field.

It would be really good though if there was a priority made to um being able to know if you have to uh bring something up to a higher level because sometimes even with BNS, something falls through the cracks, um, and you have to deal with it, but it's like I said, you just can't, it's it's totally opaque as to what might be happening on the other side of that wall, even though you know you can call it one case number, and it's not gonna tell you, you just can't find the information.

So it would be really good if there was a priority in um allowing the citizens to know that their complaints are not being uh left unheard, and that there is in fact something that's going to be done in some schedule.

Embed a clickable link in request indie to infore and request indie to Acela.

That's simple.

We are working on it on that on the Acela side.

Again, like it sounds very simple from the tech perspective, it is not.

Um I I understand what you're hearing what you're saying, but um, we are actively working on it.

We're continuing to improve the tech side of uh Request Indy and of the Mayor's Action Center.

I hear what you're saying, there's a lot of complications when it comes to we are uh collecting service requests on behalf of city departments across the board that all use different systems and have to feed into ours.

So we we are actively working on it.

That is one uh in particular that we have tickets in with ISA we're working on with our vendor.

Um, but in regard to that same connection with Infor, I think we're a little further out on that front.

But it is a conversation that we're having with the department because we are uh working to be as transparent as possible when it comes to those requests.

I will say I want to get to Allah's question, and we're running out of time here, but from a citizen standpoint, you know, I can barely spell logarithm, much less understand what it means.

But from a citizen's standpoint, it doesn't make sense to have a system that has components that don't communicate well with each other.

That's right.

Um I said, I'm not a tech person, I don't know what it takes to fix it, but it is a big problem.

That Acela program in and of itself is very difficult to navigate.

So we have about five minutes left, and I want to have time for DPW to make any concluding comments, but so Alma, you get the last question.

Great.

I just wanted to say that just because you have an address with uh violators, it'll be nice if we know who's responsible.

I have a property that's really close to me that it's a stop sign, you know, and people have accidents right there because they can't see the cars that's going north and south.

They have to get into the road in order to see because of the overgrowth of tree vine that have grown into what vines that have grown into trees.

And every year I have to either do one or two things, either go cut it myself, which I usually do, or call the health department, Mary County Health Department, and they come out and trim that up because you cannot see, and the woman on the corner of my street, her property has been ran into so many times as active right there because people can't see.

They cannot see the traffic that's coming.

East West traffic should stop, and north-south traffic has it through.

But they always run that.

You know, they run that, they run that, and so we don't know who's responsible.

There's someone that's been in that house for years, but they never cut the bushes.

Never.

So it would be nice if we knew who was responsible.

Because maybe the neighborhood organization could actually call or email or send a letter to the owner of the property that said this needs to be taken care of.

Last year I spent most of the year cutting someone else's bushes.

You know, and it's getting harder and harder every year for me to do that.

And you know, we just need to know who's responsible.

Property maintenance issues would be business and neighborhood services.

I'm sorry.

Property maintenance issues would be the Department of Business and Neighborhood Services, BNS.

Okay.

Well, do you have you guys have any concluding comments, questions you want to ask of the community?

I would say for um Vision Zero particularly, and I kind of expanded to GPW.

Um there will be more progress and updates about Vision Zero.

Uh per ordinance, we have to do an annual report and yearly update uh in May.

We even though we just passed the action plan in December.

I encourage you guys to go online uh to Indie Vision Zeros, read the action plan, look at the strategies, look at the dashboards that we have.

Uh we're developing our dashboards now as we speak and hopefully have that by May uh to kind of outline our our um you know kind of the progress we're gonna be tracking and moving forward.

Actually, uh we'll probably be releasing this probably in the in probably the next week or so.

But uh essentially when it comes to the fatal crashes, we're kind of back to pre-pandemic levels.

Uh at the height, 2019 was kind of like the the baseline, and then 2020 went up and then it peaked in 21.

Similar numbers in 22 and then progressively and precipitously come down until 25.

So that kind of that mountain, we're kind of back to that base level, and it's now with Vision Zero is how do we uh accelerate that and and capture that uh progress and continue to move those numbers down.

And then um, you know, as I mentioned before, I know being the privilege of working inside D3W, be able to work with Mark and Kyle and everyone to kind of let the public know like we are committed to Vision Zero, we are moving forward, a lot of safety projects.

These are tens of millions of dollars of projects, some some big and small, but uh we do want to let the public know we are committed to Vision Zero, we're gonna do everything we can to include the traffic uh safety and infrastructure as a whole for the entire city.

I just want to say Mr.

Lovell, I'm having you're still with the city in some kind of capacity.

He was with the Marin County Prosecutor's Office, and he serviced us as the neighborhood organization, and he come out to uh meetings and provide us with vital information and answer all the questions that the neighbors had to present to him.

So thank you for that, and congratulations on your promotion.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Um I would make one concluding comment about the vision zero.

Um, I don't they're not, I bet there's only one road out I know about Franklin Township.

There's only one road that has a bike lane on it, um, where they took part of the width of the road and turned it into a bike lane along Southeastern Avenue.

When you are converting a street that has not had a bike lane, so you're taking part of the pavement that cars have traditionally driven on, it might be helpful to have signs that to tell people this is not a turn lane.

It is not okay if there's a car that you want to go around to use that lane.

Um and that's and it isn't just there.

I know, like I think it's along 16th Street.

There's a bike lane as you approach Pennsylvania where you have to turn across the bike lane.

But I've seen cars kind of try to use that also as a drive lane.

And I think that's the psychology thing.

It's difficult if cars are used to saying the pavement is for the cars.

Yeah.

And now we've had a thing that said, and but this part of it's for the bike plane.

And I see people do that all the time where they're still trying to drive down that lane.

When it's protected, it makes that a lot better, especially if you have either boards or uh kind of a raised concrete to make that so that doesn't happen.

Um there's been a lot of change in design standards in the way we approach bike lanes and and construct bike lanes, the old ones that last year.

Yeah.

Those those could be a lot more difficult.

But you and I see it here on 38th Street with the red line, purple line, people just jump in the BRT lands like, well, that's not really what's designed for, but unfortunately, like we mentioned before about culture, it it's upon us to make sure you know we're doing everything we can uh to follow the rules and guides of the road.

It is upon us to make sure you know we're doing everything we can uh to follow the rules and guides of the road.

Well, I want to thank all of you for coming out.

Um we appreciate, you know, city employees have lives too.

And I know when you enter into the public service arena, um, you know that you take on sometimes those evening meetings or those weekend meetings when you'd rather be with your family or you know, out enjoying yourself, and we appreciate the extra time that you take out of non-traditional work hours to come to these meetings.

Thank you for having us.

We appreciate it.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Um we are gonna write this as the end of our general membership meeting.

Our next meeting is scheduled for February the 21st.

Um I'm still working on the speakers to get lined up for this year, so I can't tell you who it's gonna come, who it's gonna be.

But come on the 21st and enjoy the surprise.

Um we do try and post our agenda on the Facebook page, but I have to confess when I was doing the notices to the email blast list.

I forgot to post it on Facebook um today's meeting, and I apologize for that.

So I hope to see everybody on the 21st of February.

We're gonna take about a 10 minute break here and reset.

We do have a land use meeting to discuss the proposed data centers in Martindale Brightwood and Decatur Township and Martinale Brightwood will go first.

Thank you.